Multi Elite - Dangerous by David Braben

I knocked a few hours out on it after Christmas and found it really fun, then really difficult, then really boring. I didn't really know anything about the game, or its history or development. Reading on here that it's essentially still a work in progress explains a lot.

The gameplay is very sparse and one-dimensional. You fly about exploring, get killed, fly about mining stuff to sell, get killed, fly about looking for bounties, get killed, get the drop on someone, get lucky and kill them, fly to claim the bounty, get killed, repeat.

The sheer wall of difficulty created by the randomness and realism of the encounters is kinda ridiculous. It upsets me how since Rogue seeped into the genre, every space sim has to be 'brutal' and 'unforgiving'. I mean, why? They don't all have to be. It isn't written in law.

You know how in most games, there's a difficuly curve, and you gradually encounter more difficult and complex situations as your skills and familiarity develop? That's a good thing. That's generally considered good game design. Space sims need some more of that going on.

This situation in (to my knowledge, all) space sims, where enemies of all levels and difficulties are scattered randomly about, preying on each other every second like so many carnivorous fish in a washing machine, is always credited as 'realism' or 'grit' but is, in fact, little more than developer laziness. It's much easier to throw all your game design elements together in a blender and let the players figure it out than it is to craft a smooth, involving difficulty curve.

Also, I know I just got here and it's the accepted way that this whole ED thing is going down, but making people pay for every new little feature that gets developed, bit by bit, until one day they've paid like £100 for one complete working playable game, seems a bit tacky.

All that said, I really love the game, and I hope it improves with future additions.

 

Hm. Thanks all. I think I'll hold off for now.

 

In my perspective, it's a lot. Especially if you have Horizon.

However, if you're not big on flying aimless for sometimes minutes on end, or landing in some empty new planet millions of lightyears away.....

...the game can be a bit... sparse.

So if you saw the trailer and expect jumping into a space full of action and explosions with things to-do showered to you within the first few hours, you WILL be disappointed. (look at the PvP standalone DLC purchase for $5 instead)

If you like to jump into a virtual plane, simulate docking or lifting off, and enjoy the great vastness of unknown space, then you'll enjoy it greatly. Plus, you'll even get the occasional pirate jumping on you for a bit of action.

Bottom line, don't underestimate how much of a simulator this game is, instead of more arcade-like.


Oh, the same can be said for the learning curve too. Eve Online's may be ridiculously steep and complex, but this game literally left you stranded, alone, confused and poor in a terminal in the middle of nowhere once you've done the basic training.

 

Oh. PS: there are 2 modes in the game. Solo and Open Play. I recommend going Solo (single-player online mode) for the first few hours, unless you're a bit masochistic in terms of playing a space sim with real life *******s trying to destroy you as soon as you left the stations for various reasons.

 

I recommend solo if you're an absolute wetty.

 

Well I'm playing Open exclusively now.

22'000LY from Sol, heading away from populated space, catch me if you can Mr Pirate

 

Im exclusive Open from day one. If I want to play solo, I won't buy E: D.

But... when ur that far away, do u even get missions still? whats on the bulletin boards? heck, are there even any stations? can u land? or just fuel scooping away?

 

I am about 6000ly away from SOL, and there are no stations, no missions etc it is all just about exploring and fuel scooping.

 

Populated space is a bubble about 2000LY across.

After that there are no stations, no NPCs, no missions and nowhere to refuel. What there are are billions of stars to explore and map, plus some of the more interesting things like the alien artifacts lurk in deep space. If you have Horizons you can at least park.

Of course in really deep space there's nothing at all, just the next point on the map to aim at.

 

Populated space is quiet small compared to the game universe size. Once you get outside that block your very much alone. People have gone 30-40k light years even on this forum from the nearest space station.

 

I posted something similar a few pages back. The game is just a huge sandbox with a light smattering of content. There's no progression, there's no real story except the emails they send which I received a few of and have now stopped arriving.

If you don't already play Eve Online you should try it. No first person, but the new player experience is among the best I've ever had in any other game.

 

Elite once it's finished will be a very good game, I have not brought frontier as I refuse to pay £40 to land on a planet. I'll pick it up in 2 years as some complete pack for less than £40 total instead. Got my orginal as part of Kickstarter.

It's fun for 20-30 hours after that point you get bored, bounty hunting is one shot territory in the best ships, trading is basically set routes that are pre determined for you by a website if you want the best trade route.

Exploration is where the fun is, as you can just go where you please. Played it on dk2 VR and was happy exploring in VR, which is about all Elite is good for in its current form.

I really think people in VR picking it up today will be best served buying the orginal game for cheap on some cd key website. Then picking up the expansions later for much cheaper money.

 

got an email from frontier for some new game they are doing called, Planet Coaster.


Just a guess but this has to tie in with Elite and ground planet based walking around, so this game is a test bed for in house expertise in doing ground base planets? cross pollination?

Looks pretty,







Welcome to Planet Coaster!


In case you missed it before, on March 11th we sent you an exclusive one-time use gift code for our upcoming release: Planet Coaster. We’re following up to let you know that the code is available until April 3rd at midnight GMT!

This code can only be used once, but it will grant you 10% off the Early Bird Edition of the game – which not only gives you access to the complete game on release but also grants access to the Planet Coaster Alpha that released on March 22nd.

To redeem the code simply apply it at the checkout when purchasing the Early Bird Edition of the game from the Frontier Store and get involved with the Alpha for the future of Coaster Park Simulation games!


In our third Diary the team look take you through how Planet Coaster lets you Build, Create and Share your amazing creations.





With the current alpha you have access to the modular building tools, which has been used to great effect by the Planet Coaster community so far to create beautiful and unique settings like this incredible park by Silvarret.







You can find our livestreams and Dev Diaries on the official Planet Coaster News page.

Once again, thank you for your continued support.

The Planet Coaster Community Team.

 

Well I have decided that I am going to put some real effort in to taking a LONG trip, decided I am going to fly around the outer edge or close, to it of the space we can currently fly in but staying within the cluster of stars, as I don't fancy not being able to make some jumps.

This shows all the systems I have been in and this shows it as a map of the current space we can fly in.

I reckon it's probably going to be anything from 1 month to 4 months to do what I have in mind and this image should help.



I am currently heading away from the Monkey Head Nebula to the Jellyfish Nebula, and then will head back out to the edge, do the Red Circle up to the point, of the red line roughly, and head to Sag A, then back out, on the Dark Blue line to complete the green circle, then back out on the dark blue line again, to complete the red circle then in on the light blue line, to complete the light blue circle and then from there, I will head back to populated space.

It's going to be a long one

 

That's going to take you at least the rest of the year, good luck and don't let the Thargoids bite.

In a bit of a ED rut myself. My Conda is roughly 18kLY from Sol and I was shooting for the opposite outer rim, but haven't been bothered to log in for at least a month.

 

Well I can roughly do 5000LY to 10,000LY a day so it shouldn't take to long, but either way I am determined to hit Elite Exploration.

Screenshots can be found here as well.

 

bet there are explorers out there doing that kind of journey for real, some times as a matter of their species survival aspects, other times straight up curiosity

 

5'000 a day is impressive, where the heck do you get the time?

 

Depends on how in depth you go with scanning the systems, if you just do the old honk the horn bit, in another words you just scan using a advanced discovery scanner whilst scooping and lining up the next jump then you can do roughly a 1000LY in around 30 to 45 minutes.

 

Last night I flew 228,000ish LY from the A star in a system for the first time, just to see what was there. It was another sun.

The first time I travelled out to an unexplored brown dwarf I was impressed, but I have seen a few now and the money doesn't make it worth it.