Elite: Dangerous

[Harrison]

I probably don't have to ask whom here is looking forward to finally seeing a new game in the Elite series.

Elite: Dangerous

But has anyone tried the Beta yet?

http://www.elitedangerous.com/

I really wanted to give this a go, especially to see how the multiplayer is handled so far, but I am definitely not paying the current £50 being asked to do so. The game actually started off at $150 on Kickstarter for people to gain access to the Alpha and Beta builds, so it has been reduced now that the Beta's are out.. but that is still too much.. and I bet by the time it reaches retail it will be more like £29 or even £19.

So want to try this, but had to justify the current price, and you can't keep your game saves when the beta gets updated either.

Still, it does look good. Take a look at the screenshots on the site.

[Buleste]

One of the things you did get with the kickstarter is a lifetime update so you get all the expansion packs etc for free.

Jeff Minter is playing it and he's loving it and some of the videos going around on Youtube look brilliant. Unfortunately whilst I probably have the CPU that will handle it I certainly dont have the monitor or graphics card to play it. :-(

[Teho]

Actually you had to go even higher than that in the kickstarter to be part of the alpha process. Up in the £200 range. Yes, pounds. Even higher than that and you'd also get access to a special forum where you can suggest and discuss design decisions directly with the developers. Several ideas from there are being incorporated into the game, how they handle in-system travel now that there is multiplayer and you can't just speed up time anymore came out of there for instance. They say the reason for setting the bar so high for this is because firstly they wanted to limit the amount of people who had access to these things and secondly, that all the ones who did have access are the ones really dedicated to the game who would bug-report properly and be serious about design decisions and so on. I do get the line of thought, but.. eeh. Something smells.

Of course there were other incentives for going that high, both physical and in-game rewards. I went pretty high myself, but not as high as getting alpha access. Not really interested in trying something that early into development. I have had access to all the betas though, but haven't looked at them much for the same reason. The game still isn't feature-complete, and so far they've been really focused on developing multiplayer and combat to get that right. It's been really popular among the ones who are playing, they're really vocal about how well it's working. Which is good, but that's not really what I'm looking for in an Elite game. Frontier Developments have been assuring all the way that the game will still be as open as before. Exploring, trading, mining all these things will be there and will be viable ways to get ahead in the game. You don't have to learn to be good in combat to get ahead here. Also you will be able to turn the multiplayer off and play solo, they are developing a decent AI as even in the multiplayer most of the ships you'll see will be AI controlled.

I did try the an earlier beta than the current one out a little. And it does look interesting. There are tons of controls to map if you want, or if you prefer you can let the computer handle most of it like in the old games. Physics are still newtonian, and you can choose to turn flight-assist on which means your ship will always try to fly in the direction your nose is pointing. Or, you can turn that off and have complete control of all the thrusters yourself. I tried to map it all to a gamepad and have a go at docking at a space station, but there were still things that showed it was a beta. Trying to manouver over a landing pad I needed to make a small correction with the main thruster and though I just gave it a small nudge like I needed the ship floored it for some reason, resulting in disaster. I kept trying for a bit but the game kept crashing on me as well. After a few hours I gave it up and decided it was too early still.

The current beta has trading coming along nicely now and the game should be much more stable overall so I'd like to have another go at it soon. I've ordered a Saitek X52 Pro flight stick which comes with a throttle controller and a million buttons to map. A lot of current players are using it and it's supposed to be brilliant for this game. But mine won't arrive before sometime in september, and part of me wants to wait. But another part.. well. We'll see.

Some features won't be available at all for the initial launch of the game, like planetary landings. They want to do it right, get a proper variety of procedurally generated landscapes which are correct for the type of planet and which always look right. This will take a lot of development time and Frontier Developments just doesn't have the resources to do that on top of developing the rest of the game. So it will come later as DLC. Another thing that comes later is the ability to get out of your seat and walk around on your ship, and on space stations. All ships and stations are being designed with that in mind. But that's also for later, in order to make it good and also to figure out how to make that interesting as well.

Some or all of this DLC will need to be bought as well of course. I won't have to, I backed high enough to get everything they will ever release for nothing extra. But I wonder how well that will go over with those who didn't. Depends on the pricing they decide upon I guess.

[Harrison]

Thanks for all that information Teho. Definitely sounds like it isn't quite worth me buying into the beta yet, but it is definitely coming along nicely. It is still tempting, just to be able to play a new version of Elite, but I will hold off and wait a bit.

Ever since I played the original Elite, and especially all the months playing Frontier back in the Amiga days, I always wished for proper planetary realisation, so in a way it is good they are not just doing a quick planet generator and will be focusing on this properly later. If we can get out and do something on planets eventually that would be nice.. this has been done to some degree in other games the past, but never in a big way.

Being able to leave your ship on space stations will be good. It's a part of Earth and Beyond I always loved.. being able to walk around stations with other players, visiting shops and talking to NCPs to obtain missions.. and also in that game the atmosphere changed on the stations if you were in different territorial space, with different lighting, artwork, colour schemes and music playing from shops and bars. If they do this that would be great. And also a nice way to arrange meetings with other players for multiplayer gaming. I thing Phantasy Star Online was one of the first online games to get this right, utilising the station as a visual gamers lobby.

Also the wish to exit your seat and walk around your ship is a nice (if somewhat gimmicky) addition.. but if they utilised it as they have in Star Wars The Old Republic that would be really good. In that you use the inside of your ship to perform different tasks, such as going to be bridge to access the star map and plot destinations and to look at the bulletin boards to take missions. Then to engineering to repair and build items such as weapons and equipment, or to the main area to access the holo-projector to contact and speak to people for mission briefings and updates.

What would be the perfect utilisation of using the inside of your ship would be multiplayer. If multiple gamers could be within a single ship, with one piloting and other manning turrets that would be cool, but I think special dedicated missions for such a feature would be needed for this, otherwise those not piloting would get bored pretty quickly.

Again going back to Star Wars TOR, the space combat sections of that game are actually sort of mini games, where you take a combat space mission from your ship's bridge, then you use your star map to hyper jump to the mission location, then the game switches into a different gaming style where you are flying your ship through a combat zone (kind of on rails) completing mission objectives at each waypoint. A better combat system was always needed in Elite and I hope they get it right this time. The problem with Elite combat has always been realistic physics over enjoyable combat gameplay. They need to balance it so when you enter combat the control system alters slightly to allow enjoyable dogfighting on par with something like Wing Commander. I don't personally thing that will happen as the existing Elite fan base would probably be up in arms if the traditional combat system was altered too much, which is a shame.

That Saitek X52 Pro flight stick does look good. That is very tempting to get myself once the game is ready to play properly. Would the additional rudder foot controls also be of use in Elite?

I always stuggled along with most games using just a gamepay and keyboard, but recently I obtained a Logitech racing wheel and pedals and that really opened up racing games for more enjoyment, especially with the force feedback, so I expect proper flight control sticks to the same for flight sims and space games. Very tempting. Please let me know what you think if it once you have yours? :)

Do you know if specific flight sticks will be directly supported and configured out of the box? Or will all of them need configuring and setting up by the user by mapping functions? Although, saying that I think most higher end game controls have profile saves and the game profiles normally appear pretty quickly for games like Elite, so I doubt it will be a problem.

[Teho]

I don't think there will be that much to do on a planet, not in a big way as you say. There has been talks about some things to do though, like big game hunting for example. There hasn't been released much details about it at all yet.

There will indeed be different design aesthetics at least where ships are concerned. I'd be surprised if that didn't count for station interiors as well. As you're probably well aware there are three major factions in the Elite universe, the Empire and the Federation which are the two superpowers and the Alliance which is a loose alliance of independent systems. There is also the anarchic systems which doesn't belong to any of these. Anyway, you'll see ships from the Empire that emphasize form over function. Designed mostly for comfort and to look aesthetically pleasing. Not that they're bad performance-wise. Federation ships will be the direct opposite. Designed to perform a function as effectively as possible, their ships are plain tools and will look it. The alliance will mostly have ships from either of the other two powers but do produce some of their own as well. I'm not familiar with their design direction though, but it will probably be something apart from the other two. I'd be surprised if the space stations didn't follow the same general design principles.

It's supposed to be possible to have several human players aboard the same ship, yes. And it is mostly tied to missions if I recall correctly. I'm not sure if they can act as proper crew, can't remember if I heard anything about that. There's not a lot of information about it at all yet so what exactly you'll be able to do is speculation for now. I'm guessing you likely will need to hire crew for the bigger ships, like before. But I can't see how that would work if it was other players. What is certain is that they are conscious about not being another Eve, or X3 for that matter. They're determined that this is still going to be and feel like an Elite game. One backer suggested at an early stage being able to own stations and fleets of ships you could micro manage and Braben himself just shot that down right away. That's not what Elite is about at all. So I'm guessing there won't be Eve-like levels of interaction between players either. But with no definite announcements it's up in the air.

Combat was certainly broken in the old games but I don't agree with you that it was because of the physics. In my opinion it was the AI. Because of the way it behaved it was impossible to dogfight it properly. It would always accelerate straight at you no matter what. No. Matter. What. Meaning he'd crash straight into you if you flew in a straight line. As long as you didn't he missed you as he never corrected for his own momentum. Still there was no way you could get behind him and tail him, he would just rotate and pummel into you. No turning radius even, he'd just swivel on the spot while firing the proper thrusters so he'd always be flying right at you no matter which way his nose was pointing. The kind of flying only a computer can do. There was no way to fly properly against that.

The very first beta I had access to was just a couple of small fight scenarios in a small portion of space. No free-flying yet. I barely went through them all once so I'm not sure what to say about the AI in those. Didn't notice anything terrible about them anyway. It was still very early though. But at least they didn't behave like in the old games. It was nothing like that at all.

As for player vs player, well, some guys out there have gotten incredibly skilled. Managing shields, engines and weapons while piloting perfectly around a space station, like in this video here. Just watch what this guy is doing when things go a little pear-shaped for him. He keeps a running text-commentary so it's easy to follow what's going on:


http://youtu.be/Ty04--bvSig

They've also introduced this new concept of silent running as you could see in that video. What this does is disable your heat output rendering you effectively invisible on radar. People can still see you with their eyes, but you're a lot harder to keep track of. You can't manouver much though or else their radar will lock on to your thrusters flaring. Also your shields are disabled in this mode. There are other videos demonstrating how this works great for sneaking up on someone, or ducking behind an asteroid to hide from a pursuer. You're further limited by the way this is supposed to work, your ship is storing heat in sinks instead of venting it while in this mode and the sinks can only store so much. Sooner or later your ship has to vent your heat regardless, announcing your presence to everyone around. Could create some interesting situations.

I'll definitely let you know what I think about that Saitek controller. No idea if those extra foot controls will work, I didn't order them anyway. I'm pretty sure that the game will support several flight sticks natively, that was announced somewhere. This Saitek is sure to be among them.

[Harrison]

I wish you hadn't posted that video link... now I want to get hold of the game ASAP! :lol:

I also just found another video which you will find really cool. It's using a joystick and throttle, combined with the Logitech steering wheel I have (only using the foot pedals for Yaw control) and to make it really cool an Oculus Rift VR headset. Looks quite amazing.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ljPs3MafC4

[Teho]

Yeah, the Oculus Rift is tempting. Especially as everyone says it works so well with this game. Frontier Developments decided very early on that they would support it, so they've had it in mind for most of the design process. I will definitely wait for the retail version though. Then there's Sony's Project Morpheus, which people say has both advantages and disadvantages when compared to Oculus Rift. Now Sony has said that they don't intend to support PC with it, but I expect someone will hack up a PC driver whithin a day of its release. ;) Really tempted to get one of them for Elite. :)

[J T]

The folk at Beex (http://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9067&sid=41ecf0a8fc5d2e7f2aa6ae288b10d76a&start=480) are enjoying it, one guy has tried with an Oculus dev kit and the posh joystick and was quite positive.

I have to admit, the thought of a space shooty fly game is even quite appealing to me but I simply don't have the time or the money to upgrade my PC to anywhere near the required standard. But still, I'm quite curious about E:D

[Harrison]

I understand in addition to the PC Windows release the game will also be coming out on Mac and later for Linux, so the system spec requirements might be lower and allow those with older hardware to enjoy the game. Would be good if that is true.

[Tiago]

...I don't think there will be that much to do on a planet ....

Well, you can have a space station, something like a planet station.. so, buildings, radars, cities, so many stuff...
And is fun to dive into a planet and go land in a base. That was one of main things elite did that all other games (most of them) never did.

[Teho]

Someone uploaded a video where they perform som cool smuggling stunts. Remember how you only needed to worry about getting caught while trying to sell smuggled goods, how there was little risk actually flying around and docking with the stuff? Well smuggling has become a somewhat more tense affair as you can see here. Obviously some places are more heavily guarded than others, but the fact that this can be realistically pulled off if you're skilled enough without resorting to exploits says something about the level of detail at work here. Speaking of which, this is the latest beta so there are more details and effects at work now than there was in those earlier videos.


http://youtu.be/KbaLJTGHkj8

[Kin Hell]

@ Teho

Great link m8 & don't it look great; ....Even though still Beta! :thumbs:

[Tiago]

....... :blink: ...... that looks good .... :yesyes:

[Demon Cleaner]

Looks really good!

[Harrison]

That does look good! Very tempting to get the beta..

[Teho]

Just thought I'd recommend subscribing to the newsletters. Lots of interesting information and high-res footage in them. The latest one details how exploration will work. It's not enough to just jump into a system and there you go anymore. There's several more layers of data to be mined from a system, you could then do a scan to determine the number of bodies in it for example. From there, you'll need to orbit each one individually to get detailed data about them. you'll then need to return to a civilized system with the proper facility to claim the discoveries and the rewards. There's risk involved, pirates can threaten the data from you as it is lost anyway if your ship is blown up. Doing detailed scans of bodies strains your ship so that your signature is visible to anyone else in the system. If others are exploring the same system as you.. well. Only the one who actually returns with the data reaps the rewards. So doing a full scan of everything in a system is actually very risky and time-consuming. So most people will probably do only a few deep scans of a couple of bodies and return, especially if one should stumble on a valuable find such as a habitable. This way there should always be something to explore without having to travel a huge distance to the outer frontier, as even just verifying that a worthless asteroid is in fact just a worthless asteroid has its value too. And sometimes it'll turn out to be full of resources and not so worthless after all.

See and subscribe to the newsletters here (http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/home/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=eb767c006f&utm_source=newsletter%2029&utm_medium=email&utm_content=previous%20newsletters&utm_campaign=Newsletter%202&utm_source=Elite%3A+Dangerous+Newsletter&utm_campaign=aa530da9ec-Elite_Dangerous_Newsletter_39&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_eb767c006f-aa530da9ec-302001377).

[Tiago]

Nice, i just did it.
Thanks

[Harrison]

I will once my broadband is connected this coming Saturday.

[Harrison]

@Teho. What's your verdict of the Saitek X52 Pro stick?

Some of the other makes of high end flight sticks are silly money, but the X52 isn't too bad, or is even better second hand (seen them go on eBay for under £50).

I ask because I will be getting Elite soon, and want a decent flight stick to enjoy it, but also I've just got hold of the newly re-released enhanced editions of Z-Wing and Tie-Fighter, so really want a decent flight stick for those too. ;)

[Teho]

I've had it for over a month, but haven't actually played around with it that much. I did try it out a little and I guess it takes a little getting used to a flight stick because I certainly wasn't flying better with it from the get go. A lot of the time I spent with it was tweaking the settings in Elite. Elite recognises it and has a basic setting for it but a lot of the buttons are unmapped so you'll definitely want to edit that a lot. That was in beta 1 though, beta 2 has rolled by and we're at beta 3 now. Could be a better standard setup now. I knew we were at the end of beta 1 when I started toying around with the stick and decided to wait till beta 2 to really get to grips with it. But then Wasteland 2 got its hooks into me before that, and I went on to Legend of Grimrock 2 after that which I'm still playing. So in the end I never even tried beta 2 at all. Will look at beta 3 after Grimrock, but I think I'll wait for the main release now before really getting into it. All progress will be reset then anyway.

I'm not disappointed with the flight stick in any way, I can say that much at least. The units themselves seem very sturdy. Doesn't feel like some cheap knockoff product. All the various analog inputs feel very precise, I didn't notice any lag or it going off calibration when recentering for example. There's a ton of inputs to map, more than you'd think by just looking at pictures. And if there aren't enough you can switch between three modes so you can have different setups for different situations. There's also a lot of settings to toy around with in the software, cosmetic as well as practical. There's anything from adjusting the deadzones and ranges of the various analog inputs to changing the colour of each little light individually.

I read a couple of reviews before I bought mine and all are praising it. Even though I haven't gotten that much experience with it myself I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's definitely the best stick in that price range. As you say you'd need to pay quite a bit more to get better ones, and they are only marginally so if the reviews are to be believed.

[Harrison]

I think the need to get used to dedicated controls is true for them all. When I decided to eventually purchase a force feedback racing wheel, instead of using a 360 controller, I got hold of a very good priced Logitech Driving Force GT and it is a great wheel/pedal setup but I am still getting used to it compared to a gamepad.. the force feedback alone takes some time to get to grips with, even being used to driving a real car.

I think I will definitely get one of these.. but I'm not in a big hurry as I'm waiting for the final cheaper production release of Elite, so will be keeping an eye on the second hand ones that appear to grab a bargain. It's what I did with the Logitech wheel and grabbed that for under £30.

[Teho]

Just announced, the official release will be on December 16th. :)

[Harrison]

Brilliant. I will finally order a copy before the release and save £15 over the beta cost. :)

[Harrison]

Online Only

What do you all think about this latest release detail?

The game will only be playable when connected online, even if you are playing the single player mode. You will not be able to play Elite offline.

I don't generally have an issue with this myself these days as I'm on a fast fibre connection, but when I used to be on ADSL which was sometimes quite slow or dropped out from time to time it was an issue for games requiring an online connection, and I expect many people are still in this situation. There was also the issue when I had to move a few times in the last couple of years, being left without any working internet for up to 2 weeks meaning I wouldn't have been able to play this game had it already been released.

Their reasoning is the size of the game universe and in game content.

[Teho]

Specifically, their reasoning was that an offline version would not feature the dynamically changing universe that the online game will because all of that happens server-side. It would be a static universe, just like in the old games.

But the old games worked. They were in fact really bloody successful. I don't see why they could not have released this. It's inferior to the online game, yes, but they did promise an offline option in their kickstarter after all. I don't see why they couldn't just have the option, maybe with a pop-up explaining what you're missing when you start an offline game?

It doesn't matter much for me either of course, but I don't agree with their reasoning.

[Harrison]

Exactly. Why not just include the default universe at the moment of launch for offline gameplay? One that doesn't evolve and dynamically change over time.

Any arguments of game file size would also be lame these days when you look at the ridiculous sizes some current game installs are becoming. Only recently the norm for a top PC game was somewhere between 8GB and 11GB for an install directory. Still pretty large, but nothing compared to new games. Looking at my recent currently installed games, Alien: Isolation is 23GB, Middle Earth is a very large 38GB, but I think the largest I currently have installed is Wolfenstein: The New Order, weighing in at 44.6GB! So they have no excuse for installed directory size at all.

[Demon Cleaner]

I don't agree either. I understand their point, but it's just like Teho said, give us an option to switch it on or off, a lot of game developers seem to forget that, and I don't mean only because of the off/online option, but other stuff too. Sometimes a certain thing in a game is annoying me so much, that I don't even wanna play it anymore, so give us an option to switch it off, when it's possible.

Lately there was a top down racing game, can't remember the name now, where in the beginning you had to pass several driving licenses before being able to start a race, which is bonkers, if I buy a racing game, I wanna race, and not pass driver's tests first, reminded me of any GT, most annoying thing ever.

Remember one of the first Driver games, where in the beginning you had to drive around pillars in an underground parking lot, and without succeeding, you couldn't start the game, WTF! :mad:

[Harrison]

The original Driver was definitely annoying with that underground area before you could even start the game. I remember it taking some time to master and succeed, but that was a good game so worth the hassle.

But I actually get the point of the driving licenses in Gran Turismo games as it attempts to teach you better driving within the game to be able to race around the tracks. That was sort of the reason for Driver's beginning too, but they just made it too hard. The harder licenses in GT4 actually teach you how to use the pressure sensitive buttons on the dual shock controller to feather the throttle around ever tighter concentric corners, a skill I would never have been able to do without the test. But at least with GT games you don't need to do much to get racing and are not really trapped from racing from the outset.

[Demon Cleaner]

Fine, but they shouldn't be mandatory.

[Harrison]

I suppose you could argue the Arcade mode exists in GT for those that don't want to spend a long time working their way through the simulation/career main game... but GT has always been billed as a Driving Simulator, so the licenses are meant to all be a part of that. In real life even F1 drivers have to earn a super license before they can race.

[Harrison]

I've finally been looking to buy the dedicated flight controls, now that the release of Elite is on Tuesday, and was set on getting the Saitek X52 Pro, but after reading some more reviews and comparisons between different controls I've now decided to try and get the newer Saitek X55 instead as they suddenly seem to be the same price in some stores, and the X55 is a better product, so I think it's worth it.

Something that struck me is that none of the controllers have force feedback, not even something like the expensive Warthog. For that money you might expect it, especially when you consider a £100 wheel has it. Anyone got any ideas what has happened to force feedback and flight controls? I remember years ago the Microsoft controllers having it.. was it the Sidewinder?

[Harrison]

I've been playing Elite a bit this evening now it's finally released and I'm really enjoying it.. however I've been having some issues with docking and thought I was doing something wrong, but I made sure I was docking at the correct numbered pad each time, I was straight and lowered the ship down slowly to the pad with the landing gear down... but it just wouldn't say I had landed/docked, it would touch down and just bounce against the ground until the time ran out and I had to quickly get out of the area and request docking again.

Turns out this is a really stupid thing at the moment, which could maybe be viewed as a bug? Your ship has to be facing the control tower on the pad. If it's the wrong way it won't let you dock, so you have to rotate your ship around until it decided you are the correct way and then it seems to work. Mad and so frustrating!

Until my flight controls arrive I've had to play the game using an Xbox 360 controller and keyboard/mouse combination. 360 controller works really nicely, but it doesn't have enough controls on it for everything, so you have to still control things like landing gear and hyperspace engage from the keyboard, and side thrusters have to be controlled using Q and E, so a bit annoying for docking. Can't wait to get the dedicated control stick and throttle. Should made the game 100 times more enjoyable. :)

[Demon Cleaner]

What's the name of the book again, wait... Ah yes, Elite Dangerous: Docking is Difficult :lol:

[Teho]

Annoyed me too in the beginning but you soon get used to it. In the larger stations you're always landing the way you came in anyway. On the smaller outposts look for the pad number, it's always at the front of the rectangle. ;)

:D I've read that book, Demon. Didn't like it much myself, but it reviews well. I've also read Wanted which I liked much better and can really recommend if you want to read Elite fiction. Haven't read the other books yet.

And the game is definitely much better with a proper stick, Harrison. I'm a bit envious that you got the better one for the same price as my X52 though. In the meantime, you can map landing override controls so you can get those sideways thrusters on the controller while landing at least. But they're handy at other times too so yeah. Definitely better with a stick. ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

I didn't read the book, I actually never read books.

[Harrison]

Never read books? Ever? :o

I'm always reading something, and often have 2 or 3 novels on the go at once. Still making my way through all the Star Wars novels at the moment (over 150 written to date).

Regarding docking, the developers could of made it so much easier just by sorting out that stupid direction you are pointing when you land issue.. simple solution could be some direction indications lit up on the landing pad, or even let you land whatever way you wish and the pad turns you around to the correct direction once you select to be taken into the station. Seems overly silly as you don't even get an reason or feedback when you can't work out why you can't dock and just keep hitting the ground and bouncing until the time runs out then the station destroys your ship with lasers! Surprised this wasn't discussed in alpha/beta stages.

[Demon Cleaner]

I think reading gives you eye cancer ;) Only reading magazines or documentations.

[Harrison]

I think you are mixing that up with going blind! ;)

[Tiago]

Hi,
i want to buy Elite, but it's a bit expensive but i don't want to wait for a price drop.
So, for what i see in youtube, it looks great.
But what is different from Elite frontier? Forget graphics/sound. You can go buy low send high, you can dock, get missions there... but that's the same. If it does not have a plot, what else can you do?
And sorry for my ignorance, but i never play online, i am not used to it. Total zero here. How do you play it?
Do you have all players in the same world? Or you have only a certain number in a certain server?
What about load/save game? In frontier, i could just load game if someting went wrong. If you are online, you can't do that i guess. So, how does it work? If you crash your ship? Do you have to start from beginning?

[Teho]

When you get destroyed there is an insurance cost to get the same ship and equipment back. It is generally a very low cost compared to the value you are getting, but for the biggest ships with the best equipment it will be many millions. You can always check in your status screens what your current insurance cost is. Best not to do anything risky should you not have enough. If you do die and cannot pay the insurance, you really are back to square one. But this is usually not a problem, you will normally be able to cover it easily. Your starter ship is always free to replace so you won't have much to lose in the beginning, but most missions will fail and any uncollected bounties you had will be gone on ship destruction.

This is still Elite and similar to previous ones in most ways. You have all the old ways to earn money, trading, mining, bounty hunting, pirating, exploring and all of that. Only it's all more complicated than it used to be. For example, in the old games you could find an easy trade run where you jumped back and forth between the same two systems and made a nice profit. No such thing here, you need to plan a longer route which involves a lot of preparation beforehand where you have to go around and check and write down prices to find what's profitable. There is no easy way to get this information, and that is how it's meant to be now. Also, prices fluctuate based on player actions. So if there is high demand and a good price for a certain commodity somewhere and a lot of players go there to sell, the demand will be met and the price will drop. I know some traders in large ships just fly somewhat randomly around and make note of what is a good price for something and buy it whenever they come across a good deal, and just keep it in their hold until they come across a good sell price.

Trading is still the fastest way to make money once you've set yourself up for it, but you do need one of the larger trading ships with a decent cargo hold. You'll never make much with your small starter ship or any fighter-type. The entry-level trading ship isn't that expensive so you can earn yourself one relatively quick.

Best way to make money in the beginning is by doing missions from the bulletin board, and by collecting bounties from your fights. Once you've gotten a bounty reward you need to collect it by going to a station belonging to the faction that issued it and contacting them via the station interface. Keep an eye on which faction you are accepting missions for. Keep doing missions for the same one and you will get a better reputation with them and get offered better jobs.

While the game requires an always online connection you can play it in solo-mode if you don't like to run into other players. That said, you won't see them very often unless you're in the few places where a lot of the players are like the starting systems. The vast majority of ships you encounter will be NPC vessels.

[Tiago]

Thanks for the info Teho.
"... you can play it in solo-mode if you don't like to run into other players ..."
Is that somehow a single player?? Can you change that during the game? If you start as solo-mode, can you changed it later? Or vice versa?

Buy the way you talked about prices, that looks a bit like X3 series. They have a big economic system. I am getting more and more curious about the game. I don't know if i can avoid it much more... :blink:

[Teho]

Yes, solo-mode is basically single player but still in the dynamic universe which is influenced by all the player's actions. You just won't ever see any of them. And yes, you can switch between solo and open play whenever you wish.

[Tiago]

That's good. I am almost convinced... but 50 euros... i never bought a game for that..

[Harrison]

£35 is fairly standard for a new game release, although I agree I never normally pay this and wait for steam sales, but I don't expect Elite to drop in price much as it is in constant development, and already had a lot of sales at this price point, so no need to drop the price to increase sales.

It is definitely worth it, rather than playing the older games in the series. The graphics and on screen effects produce the game we imagined in our heads playing the older games back in the day, and for me that is great.

The controls are also a lot more realistic. This means you will be a couple of hours fiddling around until you get the hang of everything. The biggest challenge to begin is docking. No docking computers in the game yet! Means you have to do it all manually. Very nerve racking to begin, but a big sense of achievement the first time you successfully do it.

Control wise using keyboard and mouse is not good in this game because it just doesn't give enough control. Using an Xbox 360 controller makes the game very payable, although you do still need to use the keyboard for things like lowering landing gear or using thrusters whilst landing. But to get the best experience a proper Hotas flight sim controller with joystick and throttle is the best control. You can spend hundreds on these but equally you can get a fairly good one by thrustmaster for about £30.

Regarding in-game activities. At the moment it's very similar to frontier, but future on going development will be adding the ability to get out of your chair and walk around your ship, and also leave your ship and walk around docked stations. They are also working on planets, allowing landing and exploration.

[Tiago]

Well... ok ok, i will buy it ! I need to end this torture :D
My paypal account needs funds, 2 more days and i will do it.

[Tiago]

Got it !!!!
I did some training missions.
docking..... is... i mean... first time went fine, i dock perfectly. But after, i took 7 minutes trying to approach the landing dock, without seing the target system... the blue dot system. strange... and some docking look automatic... ??
then i went for real. I did a delivery (bullitin board) of some goods to other station. But didn't had fuel, so i had to pass for 2 systems first and refuel on them.
Earned +/- 5500 in the first delivery. After that i didn't had the time for anything else. Just looked at the buy/sell board of the station.

Is there any way to know prices in a different station? Do i have to write in paper every price i see...?

[Harrison]

Unlike the fixed prices of the older Elite games, the demand for certain goods and their prices fluctuate all the time because even in the single player game they are linked to the multiplayer universe, so when players have provided enough goods in demand at one location the price falls and the profit vanishes. It is much harder to trade than it used to be, but more like real life. You can see when you look at a list of goods the systems demanding them, so you can write those down and then see if any of those systems can be profitable.

[Tiago]

Yesterday i made some money with buy/sell and improved the energy distribution.
Maybe i will try mining. But i didn't see yet any station selling the necessary items to do that.

What is that stuff that sometimes appears floating in space. My computer tells me that i discover something, i approach and looks like space ship parts, debris or something. I navigate near it, but don't now what to do. Should i buy any device to scan it?

[Teho]

Nah, you don't need any device. There will often be some cargo canisters floating around with the debris there. Some are actually pretty valuable. But if you scoop them they are considered stolen, so be careful. You'll get fined and could be shot at if you're scanned with them aboard.

Those unidentified signal sources can contain pirates and traders and a lot of other things as well. They are where you go to look for stuff for bulletin board missions. For example if you take a mission to shoot pirates or find certain items in a system, you go to that system and check the unidentified signal sources. Game mechanic wise it is random what they contain but when you're on a mission they have a higher chance of having what you need it to have. That's one of things they changed in the beta, it used to be that they were random all the time. You could stop at dozens of them without finding what you needed back then. It still may take a more than a few tries but it's not nearly as bad now.

Even if you have a mission to pick something up from one of them it will still be considered stolen goods. So you may need to smuggle it into the station if there are authority ships around scanning for criminals. The trick is to just get inside before a scan completes, once you're inside you're safe. How you go about that is up to you though. Some turn on silent running to avoid their radar, others just race in as fast as they can.

If you're not on a mission and are carrying stolen goods you need to find a black market to get rid of it. It will be under the Contacts item in the station menu if there is one there. It's one of the many things you need to find and keep track of yourself in this game.

Hopefully one day you'll be able to make notes right on the galaxy map in the game. I know a lot of players are asking for this. But for now you really need to have pen and paper next to you while playing this. :)

[Tiago]

Ok, thanks Teho, i still don't have any weapons upgrade. I only find one pirate yet, and i was able to kill it with any upgrade.
i am trying to earn some money not going to far and not risk to much so far.

[Tiago]

Hi,
just gave a bit more time to the game.
I bought the laser for mining and the refinery.

First time i went minning, spend 30 minutes to get the 100% of a mineral, and then it would not end in stock as a final finish mineral. I didn't had any cargo available.... i had to buy a 2 cargo slot.
Went again, and this time i was able to do it. I did some material and sell it for +/- 450.
Later i found Silver, but i couldn't find more then 40%, looks like the asteroid run out of silver, and the others around it, here dry....

My refinery can only process one mineral at a time. I guess there are better ones...

Question: i do see a lot of systems that don't show how many stations there are... some of them let you buy a "map". Is there any way to buy the info, but for a larger area?

Other question: i am only into buy/sell/mining so far. i see a lot of mini-missions were they ask to kill one or two pirates for about 15000cr are they difficult? Should i need better shields/weapons? I don't want to be killed and loose the few things i got...

[Harrison]

Systems get more dangerous the further out you go from the centrally occupied ones. The less habited planets and stations the more likely you will run into more trouble. If the missions are in the core systems you shouldn't have too much trouble.

[Tiago]

Well i didn't went to far away. Maybe 10 systems only. I will collect a bit more money to improve my weapons and then try some action!
I love the game, very good. My laptop can manage graphics but i have some Frame per second reduction when i jump drive, nothing serious.

[Teho]

My refinery can only process one mineral at a time. I guess there are better ones...
Yep. The more expensive ones are better. They process more minerals and need less ore to do it. That's the general rule of thumb, the cheapest equipment performs very poorly. The cheapest fuel scoop which costs virtually nothing for example, it works but take ages to refuel with. More expensive ones are much faster.


Question: i do see a lot of systems that don't show how many stations there are... some of them let you buy a "map". Is there any way to buy the info, but for a larger area?
No. Basically the ones you don't have the map for you need to discover yourself, or as you say you can sometimes buy the map for them. But the stations in a system will show up in your navigation screen once you've jumped there, even if you don't have the data for the system.


i see a lot of mini-missions were they ask to kill one or two pirates for about 15000cr are they difficult? Should i need better shields/weapons? I don't want to be killed and loose the few things i got...

You should be relatively fine if you've had some combat experience. Have you done the tutorial? Stay away from the ones that pay hundreds of thousands though, those are usually elite anacondas you really don't want to mess with! You needn't worry too much about getting killed, the insurance cost to get what you had back is very low. You can in fact see exactly how much it is on your reputation screen on the right. The starter sidewinder is always free so you will only need to cover the equipment you've bought. But it's like 10% or something, very little.

[Tiago]

Yesterday i went for mining, i was able to find Silver. Very nice price, after, i could only find metals that don't have nay value.