Elite: Dangerous

  • Thread starter marky5244
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What I don't understand is that I bought Elite: Dangerous, which seemed rather empty, on the premise they were going to add content to it. Now there's Elite Dangerous: Horizons, which is $45, and as far as I can tell more or less the same game that's been polished up a little bit. I had originally paid $25 for Elite: Dangerous and it seems like they're trying to pull a fast one on consumers by offering another game that they may or may not deliver on.

I really want to like this game too, the idea of such a massive universe is something I like and it really felt like Eve without having to dedicate your life to it in order to play.
 
At the moment I don't think horizon is worth the money its being sold as a season pass sort of thing so the $45 will get you more in the future. I don't see the value as the planetary landings have no point, you go to a planet land, drive around, find a station and then leave.
 
Yeah, the way they're selling Horizons is... Weird. It's basically a combination of the old school expansion pack model and the super iffy DLC season pass model, but instead of making the expansion cheaper than the full game they've... Made it standalone, so you don't need the original game, and made the original game cheap instead - basically making it comparable to a paid demo of Horizons, except of course you can get hundreds of hours of play out of it so that's kind of a good deal for new players.

But yeah, season passes seem really unethical to me since you're selling promises to people that you're under little obligation to properly deliver on, like the Borderlands 2 season pass that was 75% outsourced to a team that totally phoned it in. Yes, they delivered four campaign DLCs, but three of them were awful and only the fourth was what people actually expected from it. There are other examples, too, and while I'm sure Frontier will deliver it's still a leap of faith when a) the original game didn't quite live up to expectations and b) it's not only a full price expansion for existing players, it's an expensive full price for a PC game (£40, when other AAA games often sit between £30 and £35).
 
neema_t
Yeah, the way they're selling Horizons is... Weird. It's basically a combination of the old school expansion pack model and the super iffy DLC season pass model, but instead of making the expansion cheaper than the full game they've... Made it standalone, so you don't need the original game, and made the original game cheap instead - basically making it comparable to a paid demo of Horizons, except of course you can get hundreds of hours of play out of it so that's kind of a good deal for new players.

But yeah, season passes seem really unethical to me since you're selling promises to people that you're under little obligation to properly deliver on, like the Borderlands 2 season pass that was 75% outsourced to a team that totally phoned it in. Yes, they delivered four campaign DLCs, but three of them were awful and only the fourth was what people actually expected from it. There are other examples, too, and while I'm sure Frontier will deliver it's still a leap of faith when a) the original game didn't quite live up to expectations and b) it's not only a full price expansion for existing players, it's an expensive full price for a PC game (£40, when other AAA games often sit between £30 and £35).
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It's hacked off a lot of us players as owning the game only reduced it by 10 pounds even though it cost every one else 35 or more if you brought before horizons. i would wait till more gets added as right now it's a ripoff.
 
Just tried it.

I am currently at the stage of trying, and failing to fly well. Had my first death out of trying to land. :lol: Any help would be appreciated.

I am using a pad btw.
 
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I discovered this game pretty recently. Picked it up for 10 pounds and I couldn't be more pleased witht it. Just the fact that the game has 4 billion star systems to explore is all the reason I need, but the game is engaging and beautiful (to me anyway). After playing through several MMOs recently where it was "open" but was really just following a cookie-cutter quest sequence, finding a game where once you finish the training it gives you no further instruction whatsoever and just leaves you to your own devices is a huge breath of fresh air.

But really, all that pales in comparison to this sci-fi nerd's absolute favorite thing about this game:

The SCALE.

As far as I can tell, it is not just 4 billion dots on a map where the speeds you're going and the distances you're covering are hugely inaccurate in an effort to make the game seem as big as an actual galaxy. Even that would be impressive, but it actually is as big as it says it is, and in the game world you are actually going however many multiples of c your ship indicates (excepting the jump drive, obviously). If you have doubts, just try setting your destination to one system away, which is likely less than seven light years. Make sure you're in frame shift, but not in the jump mode. Max throttle right towards the destination, and come back in 20 minutes as your ship is reading 2,000 c and saying you'll get there in 17 hours. I did that accidentally during the travel training and it single-handedly made the game worth its weight in gold for me. See also: decelerating in frame shift to dock at a station and overestimating just a little bit, thinking you'll be fine and then suddenly the location is far behind you. Oops. That indicated speed? Not a facade.

For me that is enough to make the game wonderful, but it follows it up with so much more. First of all, the first time I zoomed out all the way in the galaxy map showed me just how many systems 4 billion is. At the core of the galaxy? It's nuts. Scrolling and scrolling (either direction) and your screen is almost completely covered with tiny dots that are all systems. And with the amount of players that are on, I don't imagine anything more than one hundredth of that has been explored. Apart from that, I find the ship controls very good, the combat is good, the soundtrack gives the absolute perfect atmosphere for the game (especially in supercruise...dear Lord, the supercruise tracks couldn't be more perfect), the graphics look phenomenal right down to each individual HUD screen on your ship, the ship customization is good, the ship options are pretty good, and the sound effects are on point.

Criticisms?

Well, I wish there were a lot more ships, but this is coming from a Gran Turismo player who's used to quadruple-digit vehicle lists. It just seems like the biggest ship in the game isn't really that big, and your choices for upgrading from your starting ship can be easily counted on one hand.

Also...yes, there are several things you can do in the game. Bounty hunting, piracy, trade, shipping, mining, and exploring are the ones that come to mind. All of these are great, but as far as I can tell a significant majority of players are pirates or bounty hunters, and the rest are split between doing a mix of what's left or exclusively exploring. That's fine and each discipline is fun, but it doesn't seem like enough variety to me.

Apart from these things, I can't think of too much. Would I like to be able to wage interplanetary war on a grand scale and build civilizations on planets? Sure, but that's not what the game is.

Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. Suffice it to say that I love the game, and if any of you are still playing, let's play.
 
Tempted to buy this but I will probably wait until No Man's Sky comes out to see the reviews or at least wait until the Horizons DLC hits Xbox One for this game then decide from there. I love the concept of both games but from what I've heard the actual piloting and combat are better in Dangerous which is swaying towards it more at the moment.
 
I spent an hour of the trial in utter bewilderment, but I do intend to purchase it at some point.
 
I watched some youtube videos of the Horizons expansion, it looked alright but they need to add more life to planets that would potentially support it, pretty underwhelming so far.

I do love the look and concept of Elite's core game, seems like it could be very fun. I watch a good hour of it on twitch last night, and really enjoyed what I saw. Graphically I think Dangerous is way better than NMS, which looks too cell-shaded imo.
 
DDastardly00
I watched some youtube videos of the Horizons expansion, it looked alright but they need to add more life to planets that would potentially support it, pretty underwhelming so far.
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At the moment you can only land on planets without an atmosphere. It is planned, for a future expansion, to be able to land on planets with an atmosphere - at which point I would expect to see life.
 
marky5244
At the moment you can only land on planets without an atmosphere. It is planned, for a future expansion, to be able to land on planets with an atmosphere - at which point I would expect to see life.
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That sounds really great, I think that might be the tipping point for me. I think I'm going to buy this now. If NMS ever makes it to Xbox One then I will probably buy it too, but there's no guarantees there.
 
The question is, do you want to play with friends and how? As it stands now, NMS is not supposed to have a way to connect with friends. You will likely start millions of galaxies from anyone you would play with anyway. Elite Dangerous on the other hand currently has large portions of its universe restricted, and the main areas open to you are close enough together to allow you to find plenty of other players. I've not had any experience or seen much of Star Citizen, I do know they have recently released few new patches that have made big changes though.
As I mentioned, it just depends on whatcha want. NMS is all about exploration from galaxy on down to the surface across quadrillions of galaxies. Elite Dangerous is more focused currently on PvE aspects As well as government and economy factors. Jobs, missions, so on. There is exploration aspects as well. But as you point out Dastardly, the world's are pretty bare, and the exploration bug just hasn't gripped me in this game. It's good fun doing pirating, bounty hunting and military missions though. Another thing to note about Elite Dangerous, it has a sort of stand alone arena style PvP aspect that is pretty good.
I am interested to see if RSI can fulfill all of their hopes and dreams though. Chris Roberts has got himself one ambitious project.
 
Thanks Rallywagon , the lack of multiplayer in NMS factored heavily into my decision. I just bought Elite Today, will Download it when I get home tonight.

I love Exploration in sandbox games which is why a game like that would potentially appeal to me, I just wish it had plans for multiplayer. I think Elite will satisfy that itch just fine though, I enjoy PvE challenges and I think Exploration will still be fun and even more so when more of the Horizons DLC drops later this year.

Unfortunately I am not a PC gamer so over the years I have missed out on great space games like Wing Commander. This is my first foray into the Space game genre. Really the closest I have come to this is the Mass Effect series. I am an avid fan of Ace Combat 1 through 4, so I think I will really enjoy the Dog Fighting elements and landing ships. I just enjoy piloting vehicles in general, can't wait to get started.
 
Ohh, idk, I think Colony Wars was among the best of the genre. The only series I can think of that I've put more time into would be Gran Turismo.
As for NMS. It is going to be a fully online game I believe. So you could, maybe, run into someone. And there are surely going to be NPC style interactions, which makes up a bulk of you interactions in ED, unless you are a pirate or miner.
That said, NMS may end up implementing some way to connect to friends, I just don't get that vibe fron any of the interviews I have seen.
 
^ @Rallywagon small correction. NMS has one galaxy, not millions. :) Still millions of starsystems, maybe you meant to say starsystems instead of galaxies though.
 
Ahh, I see my error. I assumed they were using universe as their top measure. Sorry about that. I seems that maybe they are confused though? I do not believe a galaxy is infinite. I mean, even universes are thought to have an edge.
 
Yeah, a galaxy is not supposed to be infinite in size, if it is in NMS, then it's a bit worrying tbh in terms of any kind of player interaction. If they mean basically infinite amounts of planet, creature etc variations then it would make a bit more sense to me.
 
I'm not sure. I know they said something about 14 quadrillion, either stars or Star systems. But, really, this is all pedantics. This game is HUGE.
 
JvM
From their website front page:
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They also say

A TRULY OPEN UNIVERSE

Whether a distant mountain or a planet hanging low on the horizon, you can go there. You can fly seamlessly from the surface of a planet to another, and every star in the sky is a sun that you can visit.

Where you’ll go and how fast you’ll make your way through this universe is up to you. It’s yours for the taking.
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and

EXPLORATION IS SEEING THINGS NO ONE HAS EVER SEEN BEFORE

Explore uncharted solar systems and catalogue unique new forms of life. Every planet’s landscape is different from the next, and populated by species never before encountered.

Find ancient artefacts that could reveal the secrets behind the universe.

Choose whether to share your discoveries with other players. They’re exploring the same vast universe in parallel; perhaps you’ll make your mark on their worlds as well as your own.
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In the meantime I'm wondering when the PS4 version of Elite Dangerous will be announced.
 
I think Elite has something like 800 million solar systems to visit, to all intents and purposes that might as well be infinite because they won't all get visited. NMS's universe will likely have a size limit even if only because that's how data works - even a 64-bit integer has to roll over eventually... Even if it happens at 1,844,674,410,000,000,000 or something similarly large.
 
neema_t
I think Elite has something like 800 million solar systems to visit, to all intents and purposes that might as well be infinite because they won't all get visited. NMS's universe will likely have a size limit even if only because that's how data works - even a 64-bit integer has to roll over eventually... Even if it happens at 1,844,674,410,000,000,000 or something similarly large.
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They severely limit where you can go. There is also a rumor, with some proof, that they may try to work in an alien race from a couple of the older elite titles. I find some merit to this, and would explain why such large areas are currently visible on the map, but are restricted.
 
I have a few hours in to this game now, the game does have a steep learning curve as I anticipated. I watched about half of the Video tutorials and completed more than half of the training missions before I started a game. The main obstacles I had was learning the difference in travel speeds and how not to overshoot a target in Super Cruise, I think I have the basics down anyway.

My first payout was a 10K bounty before I really even knew what I was doing. I went into a Low-conflict area and a NPC started shooting at me, luckily I had just completed the Dog-fighting training tutorial, I took it down without taking any damage which was nice. Since then I have completed a few courier type missions and I am now sitting at 30k in credits after buying a Fuel scoop for my sidewinder.

I got blown to pieces by a NPC while trying to scoop up a canister of gold, the attack came out of nowhere. Ever since then I have been avoiding any of the Weak or strong Signal source icons on my scanner until I upgrade the weapons on my sidewinder. Looking forward to more time with this game.
 
I find to start, the best option is to get a warrant scanner, and head to a planet with a ring. Much like the conflict zones, they are typically rated as being a low and high hazard, go to the high hazard area, hang out for a minute and you will start to see battles breaking out. Head towards one that has a bunch of ships attacking something like an Anaconda. Target the ship and allow your scanner to do its job real quick. If it's a wanted ship, hang back until the ship is nearly dead, then start popping shots. Once it's dead, you get the bounty. Anacondas typically pay out between 50 and 120k credits, or whatever passes for currency. The warrant scanner is important. If you can't afford it at first, get it as your first upgrade. It will greatly increase the pay out of any bounty. There is still a scanner on your ship, that autoscans all near by ships to get the basic info, sobyou can still do this, and make some loot off a bounty, but the scanner can add as much as 30k+ to the price of the bounty. Knock out a few of these bounties and you will have the money you need to really start doing whatever "occupation" you would like. Be it freighter, fighter or otherwise.
 
Thanks Rallywagon, I'll have to give that a try.

I did buy a few more upgrades, a better power supply and I upgraded my FSD, I had 52K and spent about 20K, I'll have to get the warrant scanner next. Shortly after I decide to scoop some salvage and scored 4 tons of prototype tech then promptly learned the hard way that you don't go into to Federally controlled station with it, got scanned and now I have a 24k fine to pay off in 6 days or I get a bounty placed on my head. I think I got the fine somewhere near the Ross system. Lot's to learn still.
 
Yep, got to be careful of that. Lots of little things that make the game fun. Now you know something to remember if you want to become smuggler. Definitely pays to watch some youtube videos.
 
I bought cheap warrant scanner, upgraded the Sidey's weapons to gimbaled Lazers and headed out to a nav beacon, thanks Rallywagon. At first I made pretty low level bounties, 3k to 9k but I stacked them up over the course of a few hours, mixed in some cargo runs, which got me up to 162K credits, enough to purchase a new ship that I am eyeing, the Viper MKIII. Then I remembered that I am going to need extra $$ for insurance, so I decided to go another round before purchasing it. I found a nearby system with a nav beacon and promptly hit the jackpot, I scored about 155K in maybe 10-15 minutes! Now I am sitting at 317K. I think I am just going to exclusively bounty hunt with maybe a few cargo runs mixed in for now, someday I may try some mining and trading after awhile too.
 
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Mining can be interesting. Trying to mine while at the same time keeping an eye out for NPC and player pirates can get the adrenaline going. Especially as you are headed home and you get intercepted before reaching port.
 

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