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Elite Dangerous: Horizons |OT| Just scratching the surface

Burny

Member
Sometimes I see something on reddit that makes me think of an alternate timeline where exploration mechanics and basics like commodity storage weren't just distant things on a nebulous list.

Re commodity storage: Tell me about it...

This sad little story of personal idiocy paired with absolutely convoluted, underdeveloped game design (missing commodity storage) would'nt have been half as bad, if there was such a thing as commodity storage. My mining ship would've just kept its limpets in the cargo hold and things would've went a lot smoother.

The story went on btw.. I managed to mine 11 of the required 12 units of Osmium without limpets that evening. When I logged back in to farm the last remaining unit of Osmium - one isn't that bad if you've done 11 before that - an AI pirate ship spawned, scanned me and blew me up in about 15 to 20 seconds. Running was impossible because the drives had been shot out as soon as they opened fire.

God f**** dammit! >.<


Piracy is another completely underdeveloped aspect of the game, both in terms of PvP and PvE. The means of interaction are essentially destroying the other ship or trying to get it to open its cargo hold. The latter relies almost as much on PvP role play as on the pirate player's actual ability to shoot the cargo hatch or break it open with hatch breaker limpets, which is pretty damn hard on a running target. AI pirates don't do role play in the first place, they just shoot. Don't know if dropping any cargo would help, but there's hardly the time if you get blown up within 20 seconds on an unshielded ship in my case. What I think might improve the situation a lot, could be more versatile interactions between ships paired with a more developed crime and punishment system. For example, more means of temporarily "disabling" the victim's ship for pirates to give them time to get to parts of the cargo, but also pretty hard penalties for destroying a disabled ship or one that doesn't fight back.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
 

Widge

Member
Part of me is absolutely DYING to play this in VR. Although I can't justify the cost of whacking out on a Vive. I reckon I'd be absorbed way past the grind if I was actually ... there. I keep searching around to see if anyone has had any joy using OSVR, but I don't see many use cases for it anywhere.
 
Part of me is absolutely DYING to play this in VR. Although I can't justify the cost of whacking out on a Vive. I reckon I'd be absorbed way past the grind if I was actually ... there. I keep searching around to see if anyone has had any joy using OSVR, but I don't see many use cases for it anywhere.

For slightly cheaper pick up TrackIR. Gives you the head tracking and honestly is a game changer. Being able to just look at panels to bring up menus is amazing.
 

Reckheim

Member
Part of me is absolutely DYING to play this in VR. Although I can't justify the cost of whacking out on a Vive. I reckon I'd be absorbed way past the grind if I was actually ... there. I keep searching around to see if anyone has had any joy using OSVR, but I don't see many use cases for it anywhere.

I really wouldn't mind knowing this too, I really don't care to play any of the other VR games so I would solely be buying this for Elite. Wouldn't really need any of the room scale stuff Vive comes with.
 

Burny

Member
Part of me is absolutely DYING to play this in VR. Although I can't justify the cost of whacking out on a Vive. I reckon I'd be absorbed way past the grind if I was actually ... there. I keep searching around to see if anyone has had any joy using OSVR, but I don't see many use cases for it anywhere.

The game seems to be reasonably healthy in terms of players and the dev support is actually quiet consistent. It's probably still going to be here when the second or third generation of consumer VR headsets rolls out, so you shouldn't be in a hurry. ;)

The poor man's alternative with a monitor is headtracking btw.. Lacks the depth perception, but also enables you to naturally look around. Wouldn't want to miss it anymore.

Edit: beaten:

For slightly cheaper pick up TrackIR. Gives you the head tracking and honestly is a game changer. Being able to just look at panels to bring up menus is amazing.

For a still cheaper alternative that works just as well look at the EDTracker Pro.
 

Effect

Member
So were the reduction in hauling/delivery mission payout across the board a mistake or on purpose?

Right now they're simply not worthwhile doing at all no matter where you go or how high your rank is. Only passenger missions are paying any decent amount of money. I was hoping I'd be able to jump between them but so far that hasn't been possible. You need to make decent money if you're going to afford the insurance on ships in general. I think I finally have enough to buy an Anaconda and slowly upgrade it or go back to the Federal Assault Ship or try out a Gunship but no way I'd be able to afford the rebuy on those ships given how big they'll be or how often I might need to in the case of the federal ships since they're combat focused.

Even taking my Python or Asp Explorer out right now is a bit risky as a death is likely going to wipe out a good half hour or hour of passenger missions because they're mostly A rated now.
 

SmartBase

Member
Re commodity storage: Tell me about it...

This sad little story of personal idiocy paired with absolutely convoluted, underdeveloped game design (missing commodity storage) would'nt have been half as bad, if there was such a thing as commodity storage. My mining ship would've just kept its limpets in the cargo hold and things would've went a lot smoother.

The story went on btw.. I managed to mine 11 of the required 12 units of Osmium without limpets that evening. When I logged back in to farm the last remaining unit of Osmium - one isn't that bad if you've done 11 before that - an AI pirate ship spawned, scanned me and blew me up in about 15 to 20 seconds. Running was impossible because the drives had been shot out as soon as they opened fire.

God f**** dammit! >.<


Piracy is another completely underdeveloped aspect of the game, both in terms of PvP and PvE. The means of interaction are essentially destroying the other ship or trying to get it to open its cargo hold. The latter relies almost as much on PvP role play as on the pirate player's actual ability to shoot the cargo hatch or break it open with hatch breaker limpets, which is pretty damn hard on a running target. AI pirates don't do role play in the first place, they just shoot. Don't know if dropping any cargo would help, but there's hardly the time if you get blown up within 20 seconds on an unshielded ship in my case. What I think might improve the situation a lot, could be more versatile interactions between ships paired with a more developed crime and punishment system. For example, more means of temporarily "disabling" the victim's ship for pirates to give them time to get to parts of the cargo, but also pretty hard penalties for destroying a disabled ship or one that doesn't fight back.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

I tried dropping excess engineering cargo a few times after interdictions (because engineer commodities are so fucking valuable...) just to see if anything worked, only one out of five jettisons actually had the AI collect and not shoot me.

What's annoying is that Planet Coaster shows they can (potentially) make something with a bit more depth and creativity, just not when it comes to their neglected first child.
 

Burny

Member
What's annoying is that Planet Coaster shows they can (potentially) make something with a bit more depth and creativity, just not when it comes to their neglected first child.

I don't think we can take Planet Coaster and compare it ot ED, unfortunately. :-/ It's a different team and I'm not sure if there is any intersection between devs working on either project at all or how large it is. It's also seems like a cumulation of their experience in that genre. An experience most of their devs cannot possibly have in the quasi space MMO genre.

Most notably, the design leads of the projects, the people appearing in Streams and talking about the designs etc. seem to be different. I've already said that I don't have that much confidence in the design prowess of the people behind Elite. I'm sure they work their backsides off, but I'm often not that convinced of the results from a game design perspective. :( Which is pretty sad, because there is simply nothing else like Elite around at the moment.


And there is one actual objective reason why they can more easily add functionality to Planet Coaster than Elite: It's largely not a networked game. Even something as "trivial" as a storage becomes a lot more work to implement, once things need to be persisted on a server.


Still, that doesn't explain why we get such dashingly designed features as the original Engineer grind and the late donation grind. Add the formidable interdiction harassment. *rollseyes*
 

SmartBase

Member
I don't think we can take Planet Coaster and compare it ot ED, unfortunately. :-/ It's a different team and I'm not sure if there is any intersection between devs working on either project at all or how large it is. It's also seems like a cumulation of their experience in that genre. An experience most of their devs cannot possibly have in the quasi space MMO genre.

Most notably, the design leads of the projects, the people appearing in Streams and talking about the designs etc. seem to be different. I've already said that I don't have that much confidence in the design prowess of the people behind Elite. I'm sure they work their backsides off, but I'm often not that convinced of the results from a game design perspective. :( Which is pretty sad, because there is simply nothing else like Elite around at the moment.


And there is one actual objective reason why they can more easily add functionality to Planet Coaster than Elite: It's largely not a networked game. Even something as "trivial" as a storage becomes a lot more work to implement, once things need to be persisted on a server.


Still, that doesn't explain why we get such dashingly designed features as the original Engineer grind and the late donation grind. Add the formidable interdiction harassment. *rollseyes*

I'm no (armchair) developer however I am more than qualified to shit on their management's decision making, which is ultimately the reason for this ever-expanding sandbox being filled with precious little sand. The development talent is most definitely there, different teams or no, it's just not utilised on the Elite side of things as well as it could be.

On a better note, I found my first planet with mist on it. It was quite...atmospheric.

screenshot_013152s6h.jpg

 

Volimar

Member
I'm no (armchair) developer however I am more than qualified to shit on their management's decision making, which is ultimately the reason for this ever-expanding sandbox being filled with precious little sand. The development talent is most definitely there, different teams or no, it's just not utilised on the Elite side of things as well as it could be.

On a better note, I found my first planet with mist on it. It was quite...atmospheric.

screenshot_013152s6h.jpg

That's pretty, do you remember the coords?
 

SmartBase

Member
That's pretty, do you remember the coords?

It was a moon orbiting a gas giant in Wolf 406, I didn't take note of my position other than I was next to a settlement in that screenshot. Not that you'd have trouble finding mist, it was in every canyon there.
 

Faith

Member
Can't wait to play this game again. It's been over a year. Now I bought a GTX 1070 and the Oculus Rift.

So much new content :D
 

Burny

Member
Seems silly, but who am I to say what people should spend their money on.

It is. Just as much as pretend spaceship bobbleheads and spoilers. Nice as an option to support the devs though and harmless, because it hasn't got any balance implications. It's a rather non scummy form of micro transactions.
 

Volimar

Member
It is. Just as much as pretend spaceship bobbleheads and spoilers. Nice as an option to support the devs though and harmless, because it hasn't got any balance implications. It's a rather non scummy form of micro transactions.

Everyone knows that purple lasers are OP.
 

kennah

Member
2.2 is broken on my MacBook retina 13". Worked fine before the update and now I get frequent crashes. :( Guess I can't play for a month while on the road.
 

E-flux

Member
Did you guys notice that the training missions are now a mission with voice acting? A gal finds you stranded in an asteroid field and helps you get your bearings. I kinda wish that we would get a few missions like that into the main game.
 

Volimar

Member
Did you guys notice that the training missions are now a mission with voice acting? A gal finds you stranded in an asteroid field and helps you get your bearings. I kinda wish that we would get a few missions like that into the main game.

Yep. They're a lot better, but there are still a few gaps that new players will fall into.
 

Burny

Member
Did you guys notice that the training missions are now a mission with voice acting? A gal finds you stranded in an asteroid field and helps you get your bearings. I kinda wish that we would get a few missions like that into the main game.

Yeah, training missions ironically are the best missions the game has to offer right now. Voice acting isn't even half bad!

I'm not holding my breath, as voicing generated missions and NPCs convincingly seems an order of maginitude more complex than the station radio they introduced on 2.1, but it would add quiet a bit of believability.
 

E-flux

Member
Yeah, training missions ironically are the best missions the game has to offer right now. Voice acting isn't even half bad!

I'm not holding my breath, as voicing generated missions and NPCs convincingly seems an order of maginitude more complex than the station radio they introduced on 2.1, but it would add quiet a bit of believability.

Me neither, i was thinking more along the lines of them releasing sets of voice acted missions every now and then. Or something like accepting a mission to go to colonia hub which would start with voice acting and then when you get to the other bubble you would get some more or something like that. Some predefined combat scenarios would be awesome though if they were to start making scripted missions.

Yep. They're a lot better, but there are still a few gaps that new players will fall into.

Yeah, though i'm probably going to put my friends play the tutorial here now if i want to show them elite, it shows some nice sights and burny said the best missions in the game right now.
 

cyrok

Member
Hey guys just a question, is there an active GAF Community still playing elite dangerous? I've been playing in open for that last little bit but wanted to wing up with some other people.
 
Hey guys just a question, is there an active GAF Community still playing elite dangerous? I've been playing in open for that last little bit but wanted to wing up with some other people.

Define "active". I think everyone in this thread plays at least on a weekly basis. I've been playing on PC a lot more lately.

CMDR Anton Sugar

Add me! o7
 

cyrok

Member
Define "active". I think everyone in this thread plays at least on a weekly basis. I've been playing on PC a lot more lately.

CMDR Anton Sugar

Add me! o7

Awesome will add you when I jump on later.

As for the active aspect, is there like a system that most gaffers are based around, any meet ups/group events or anything of the sort really.
 
Mission rewards got a balance pass this morning: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308000-Balancing-Mission-Rewards

Just a quick post to let you know that we've made a few balancing tweaks this morning with regards to missions in the game. Many mission rewards have been increased, while passenger mission rewards are slightly decreased to create a better overall balance across the board. This balance is part of an on-going process and we will continue to make changes as required.

Additionally, we've fixed an issue whereby passenger missions will now award points toward the correct Elite rank.

Wonder how bad the passenger mission nerf is :(

Awesome will add you when I jump on later.

As for the active aspect, is there like a system that most gaffers are based around, any meet ups/group events or anything of the sort really.

We don't really have a big enough playerbase on GAF for meetups, unfortunately. HOWEVER, we do have an in-game faction called the Neo Galactic Adventure Force. Our home system is Apam Napat. I've been spending a lot of time there in the past few weeks, increasing my rep/rank and trying to bolster our faction's influence.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Mission rewards got a balance pass this morning: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/308000-Balancing-Mission-Rewards



Wonder how bad the passenger mission nerf is :(

Passenger missions, especially long range, where just nerfed into oblivion this morining:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4774813&viewfull=1#post4774813


WTF Frontier, I don't think anyone who works on this game even plays Elite. No one, and I mean NO ONE, thought those long range passenger missions were paying too much before. This is bullshit. :(
 

cyrok

Member
We don't really have a big enough playerbase on GAF for meetups, unfortunately. HOWEVER, we do have an in-game faction called the Neo Galactic Adventure Force. Our home system is Apam Napat. I've been spending a lot of time there in the past few weeks, increasing my rep/rank and trying to bolster our faction's influence.

I'll check out how far I am from Apam Napat. I just reached the Maia system for the community goals and that was like 50 jumps. I only have a jump range of 14.63LY. Fuel Scoop Activated!
 

Burny

Member
WTF Frontier, I don't think anyone who works on this game even plays Elite. No one, and I mean NO ONE, thought those long range passenger missions were paying too much before. This is bullshit. :(

You may be more right than we would like. Remember the original Engineer grind only to get absolutely screwed over by RNG?

If they were playing their own game under actual real world conditions without some placeholder values to speed up progress during their office time, they would've either gotten the idea that it was absolutely horrible (and still is a ridiculous grind) by themselves, without the community outcry. And/Or the Engineers' 2.1 release would've been delayed a couple of weeks more than it was, because the devs would've been busy getting screwed over by their own RNG design in the meantime.

The Planet Coaster people have claimed multiple times they're playing the game all the time. I haven't heard the same thing from the Elite devs. And they probably aren't, at least not under real world conditions in their office time, as the game is so disrespectful to player time, that they'd get no work done whatsoever.
 

Burny

Member
I wonder if installing one or two mandatory 2 hours play sessions per week of the game during their work time with the goal or doing specific ingame tasks (mining, hauling passengers to the other end of the galaxy, grinding Engineer resources, getting to Elite Explorer rank etc.) and recording feedback of the experience would not make the fdevs hate their own game with a passion.


And subsequently would improve the game, as they'd otherwise rather quit than keep being forced to play it.
 

Volimar

Member
Bummer about the passenger missions. I saw how good the payout was but I was off trying to find ruins and stuff and then I decide to take a break to try out a long range passenger mission and they're not even worth doing anymore.

Bummer.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
EliteDangerous64%202016-11-14%2017-43-57_zpsy7ibpjhp.jpg



pmvemcM.gif



What a travesty, for awhile there deep space passenger missions were actually both fun and profitable, now they are just insulting. They better change it back. What is with Frontier destroying their own new gameplay features?
 

E-flux

Member
I'll check out how far I am from Apam Napat. I just reached the Maia system for the community goals and that was like 50 jumps. I only have a jump range of 14.63LY. Fuel Scoop Activated!

Apam Napat is in pretty good position in the bubble, i mostly play around that area but i'm currently on a journey towards Colonia and the core, but once i get back i'd be happy to wing up. Add E-flux if you want to wing up in the future.
 
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