Elite:Dangerous

[nowhere.elysium]

I did do a rudimentary search to see if there was anything on here about it, but to my dismay, I found nothing.

So, is anyone playing it yet? I've just gone and bought a cheap HOTAS setup, and I'm trying (and more often than not, failing) to get the hang of it.

So far, it seems to be pretty damn good; doubly so, given it's still in beta. I find myself wondering if this is a return to the old-school programming regimen of "Final release means final release", as opposed to the current habit of final releases being akin to early beta versions of old.

I've only spent about half an hour on it, but I'm impressed; the physics model seems decent, the graphics are fantastic and the controls are every bit as bastard hard as I remember the first one being. Oh, and there's native Oculus Rift support, too.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[CaNsA]

The trailers look good, the write up makes it sound like a simplified Eve.

Is it?

[nowhere.elysium]

Not even remotely. A good comparison would be the difference between Halo and Halo Wars - they're nominally the same sort of thing (people run around shooting at each other), but the execution of it is very different: specifically, the level of player interaction.

EVE are doing a first-person flight sim, but that's largely going to be centred on dogfighting within an extant battle, whereas Elite gives you the option to partake in dogfights, but also allows you to just bugger off and explore, too. I appreciate that EVE allows you to do this in the main version of the game, but it would appear that they nicked the interface off SAGE50, and the camera angles from Civilization. Elite's has got a hideously complex control system, but at least you can fly the ship around yourself, as opposed to putting the right values in the spreadsheet then watching your frigate lag itself into a firefight, despite your best instructions.

Regarding the trade and exploration mechanics, I don't think that comparing it to EVE is entirely fair - EVE has got far more social fleeting going on, and has (IIRC) diplomacy thrown in for good measure. Elite is more about going out and doing your own thing, with the option of social interaction. With EVE, you're paying specifically for social interaction (one of the major turn-offs for me).
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[CaNsA]

After reading that I was about to hit the "BUY" button, but £50

It deffo seems like something i can waste hours of my life on.

[nowhere.elysium]

It'll be £35 when it's released. I'm happy to chuck an extra £15 at the development of a title that I've wanted to see for years.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[lihp]

What?

Extra £15 for an unfinished game?

Games industry has gone mad

[CaNsA]

Behave Phil, you know you'll buy it anyway.

[lihp]

Even I won't pay £50 for a game.

[Hetzer]

The extra £15 gets you all future upgrades/add-ons for no more cost.

No it doesn't actually, that came with the £100 package.
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"There's the horizon! Ride hard, ride fast and cut down all who stand in your way!"

[lihp]

[nowhere.elysium]

I reserve the right to make over-the-odds purchases
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[lihp]

[nowhere.elysium]

I only paid £50. Wasn't willing to part with a ton for it, although had I known that things like planetary landings were going to be DLC earlier, I might've done.

I'm not in the habit of just lobbing cash at things, but this is something I've been really excited about for a long while, so I am quite entirely having a massive fit of 'Shut up and take my money!'.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[Rogerborg]

£50 to playtest it for them? Jog on. I'll get it on Steam for £20 with all the optimisations, bug fixes, and DLC, same as everyone else.
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GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[smegballs]

I'd like a massively multiplayer (planetside 2 numbers of players) space game where you pilot a capital ship, with all the players taking the job of the bridge officers. Everyone has to talk over voip to make it work as you obviously can't run a capital ship solo.

Something that has a pilot player manoeuvring the ship, a player manning the "radar" that scans for enemy craft, various weapons battery operators who actually get to fire the lances/plasma cannons/rawkets at the targets handed to them by the threat detection officer, comms officer who liases with any other ships in the fleet, plus of course a captain to co-ordinate everyone. It would be scalable with ship size so whilst a small escort might have a bridge crew of 3 with say 5 weapons stations, a battleship could have 10+ bridge crew and 30+ weapons stations.

Almost impossible to pull off but cool would be for some functionality for larger ships to release playable fighters for close-in defence or sorties against enemy craft and some kind of fps boarding mechanic whereby boarders can fight to disable critical infrastructure and cripple ships. I doubt loads of players are gonna sit around waiting to play as fighter pilots/boarders/repelllers until the ships come within fighter/boarding range.

It also would rely on people having to take on the 'boring' role of comms officer, or radar operator. There's enough fighting over who gets to fly the helis in battlefield ffs.

If it was actually made into a playable game, and if there were players who actually played it "properly' (odds tending to zero), it would actually be something approaching a 40k space battle.

[Rogerborg]

[nowhere.elysium]

Having chucked a couple of hours at it thus far, I'll put it out there now that the training missions are harder than actual in-play combat.

The control system really does need to be made a bit clearer, as well as some kind of meaningful tutorial process being made available: the training missions as they currently stand are just a set of combat scenarios which invariably set you up with a weapons loadout that you wouldn't have chosen for the job.

I decided to go and have a blat in single-player mode, and found it to be remarkably immersive. I'm not playing with the Oculus Rift yet, purely because I want to get used to the UI and control scheme first. On a whim, I decided to start exploring the system I started out in, and had an utterly fruitless but rather enjoyable exploration session. There are enough 'Unidentified Signal Source' tags floating about to make things interesting, along with interdictions happening midway through cruising between planets (which can get bloody irritating) to give that sense that there are people out there, many of whom are out and about purely to screw everyone else over.

Landing in a space station is distinctly more of a challenge that you'd think, too. In the original (which is the only other Elite I've played at length), you only had the pain of lining your ship's rotation up with the station's docking port. In Elite:Dangerous, you've got the added fun of landing on a predesignated docking pad. After you've asked permission first, of course; if you don't, you tend to get shot to buggery within a few seconds of crossing the threshold.

The 'get out and walk around the ship' bit of the game hasn't been added yet, so there's nothing to report on that. Trading and ship outfitting looks good, and has a pretty intuitive system. Flight behaviour is sound, once you've got your preferred control config in place. The sound and graphics are really, really good for a game at this stage of development.

All in, I'm happy so far, and looking forward to the impending updates.

On a side note; regarding the capital ship thing - there's a larger ship (I think it's a demilitarised corvette or similar) that you will be able to get later in the game, assuming you side with the correct faction. At the moment though, the largest combat ship available is still the Anaconda, and the Lakon Type 9 is the biggest trading ship thus far. I'm still farting about in a Sidewinder, of course.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[slowlydoesit]

[nowhere.elysium]

[metalangel]

[dydey90]

[Shinigami]

having a laugh, an extra pay then an extra £15 to do their work for them? should be cheaper not more expensive pre release, even minecraft got that bit right
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"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

[Orennayar]

[nowhere.elysium]

Yeah, the power management system is a very nice touch, isn't it?

Now that I've got my HOTAS set up properly, it's much easier to keep a handle on what's going on in-flight.

Trading is insanely slow, if you're still using the starting ship (as I am). A cargo hold that can only accommodate 4 units of trade-able items is ridiculously limiting. I'm about one third of the way to being able to afford a proper cargo ship, which I'm expecting will improve my financial trajectory.

I'll get round to having a go with the Oculus Rift in a bit. Just enjoying the high-resolution details before I go and cripple the graphics with VR madness.
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[Itchy]

Can you still approach a ship, scan it to see if it has an escape pod.

Shoot it to bits then watch him use the escape pod, scoop him up and sell him as a slave/animal meat (if you don't have cargo bay life support).

Or go where the trading is dodgy like Frontier Cemisis system where they paid you to take away precious metals and gem stones?

Turn around and shoot at a station and see 100 viper defence craft stream out and kill you?
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