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Elite Dangerous: Horizons |OT| Just scratching the surface

Warning for distant explorers!

Weird bug has been reported - sometimes after logging back into the game being in SRV on the surface, SRV spawns several kilometeres above ground, falls to the ground and crashes.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=187372&page=593&p=3467883&viewfull=1#post3467883

Be careful out there! It would be so annoying to accidentally lose your last SRV because of the bug in the middle of nowhere.

Well, I logged out on the surface in an SRV last night...

My next login is going to be tense.
 

Reckheim

Member
Well, I logged out on the surface in an SRV last night...

My next login is going to be tense.

I've had the SRV actually fall benieth the ground through the planet. It kept falling cause obviously the planet was huge and I have no idea what would have happen if I let it fall all the way to the end. I self destructed.

Definitely be careful with that.
 

Burny

Member
alright I think I'm officially sucked into this game. After following the advice and getting enough cash, I now have a Viper and I gotta say that completely turned me around, having an immensly better time now that I have a ship thats significantly upgraded. I purchased a HOTAs now just for this game, I might get Horizons soon.

+1

Getting out of the Sidewinder into a Viper was the turning point for me as well. Suddenly you have a ship that can jump a bit, has actual armament, doesn't explode when a NPC pirat looks at you and is very fast in normal flight.
 

Thanati

Member
Don't use missiles.

Especially not, if you're working towards something expensive. You'll have more fun the more you can cut the grind. ;) Meaning: Use those weapons that allow you to stay in combat the longest without having to return to refill while doing the most damage.

Last time I used the Viper (Mk3 though, Mk4 wasn't in the game then), that was pretty much two CL.2 MCs and two Cl.1 Beam lasers. Gimbaled or not depends on your preference - more time on the target and more laid back playing, but less damage, vs. more damage and more aiming work for the kill. ;)

What's the viper Mk4 like? I use a vulture and love it. How does it compare?
 
What's the viper Mk4 like? I use a vulture and love it. How does it compare?

The Vulture is more maneuverable, more survivable and has much more fire power than the Viper Mk4, which is more of a new multi-purpose ship. Vulture is a different class of combat ship completely.
 

Burny

Member
What's the viper Mk4 like? I use a vulture and love it. How does it compare?

It's a half step between the MkIII version and the Vulture.

Same hardpoints, less power issues, more survivability, higher cost, slower and less manoeverable compared to the Mk.III.
 

patchday

Member
I dont suppose anyone knows that this might be:
I sometimes play with my xbox 360 controller. I could hold down a button (like B button) and I'd get a prompt with all the dpad options that were possible with B button held down

Now that feature is gone :(
 

patchday

Member
I switched it back to "Advanced Control Pad". Yeah now when I hold down a gamepad button, there is no prompt but now I've at least worked towards memorizing everything


Aw man, found a high resource site. Popped a ship and got 126k bounty. Turned it in (but left the system to find a station). When I returned all the RES sites were gone. Sadness
 

Jedi2016

Member
Aw man, found a high resource site. Popped a ship and got 126k bounty. Turned it in (but left the system to find a station). When I returned all the RES sites were gone. Sadness
No, no, no... There's no time limit on bounties, you don't have to turn them in right away, or only one at a time. If you find a good RES, you stay there and keep hunting until you're either too tired or too bored to continue, or your ship is shot to pieces and you have to leave for repairs. Couple million for a single session, easy.

Also, you shouldn't have to leave the system... in fact, you'll want to make a point to turn in bounties in the system they were collected for the most part. Many bounties are local to that system and can't be turned in elsewhere.
 

Burny

Member
lFXsH03.jpg
IdgAFku.jpg

Did two mockups. I think such an implementation of missiles would make so much sense...
 
yeah I"m always paranoid I'll get blown up and I lose the bounty. next time I'll stay longer tho
adding up several million is the better way. Was playing again yesterday and got 8 mill again.

I did directly put them into my new military bulkheads and damn, the Federal Assault Ship is a beast :D Shields down? So what!

Oh and I am becoming a lot better with FA off. Too bad the mass of the ship now is so high, I'm mostly drifting through space.
 

Pegasus Actual

Gold Member
Got my sea legs back, made a couple of million at the RES in my Vulture, need a bit more to really outfit it properly though. I wanted to take a break though, so I hit the bulletin board. I grabbed two "hostage rescue" missions. I go find the guy listed on one in supercruise, interdict him (dammit, fine, oh well), then he's not wanted or anything so I shoot his cargo hatch, get the assault bounty, oh well, seems like a necessary part of the mission. He does drop two hostages though so I'm reasonably happy, I jump out of the system, let my bounty expire. Jump back in. Dock. I have the two hostages in my hull. Mission still says 0/2 and won't let me turn in my cargo.

So... did I do it wrong? Is it glitched? Why are bulletin board missions still so... poorly worded and buggy? I really don't get it. So it's looking like I won't finish either mission, because why bother going through the whole thing again just to not get credit? The money for the time put in isn't all that good either even if it did pay out, so I'll just take the loss. Of course I'm sure it hurts some faction standing but what can you do? Maybe I should look into the Power Play stuff.
 

Hylian7

Member
Got my sea legs back, made a couple of million at the RES in my Vulture, need a bit more to really outfit it properly though. I wanted to take a break though, so I hit the bulletin board. I grabbed two "hostage rescue" missions. I go find the guy listed on one in supercruise, interdict him (dammit, fine, oh well), then he's not wanted or anything so I shoot his cargo hatch, get the assault bounty, oh well, seems like a necessary part of the mission. He does drop two hostages though so I'm reasonably happy, I jump out of the system, let my bounty expire. Jump back in. Dock. I have the two hostages in my hull. Mission still says 0/2 and won't let me turn in my cargo.

So... did I do it wrong? Is it glitched? Why are bulletin board missions still so... poorly worded and buggy? I really don't get it. So it's looking like I won't finish either mission, because why bother going through the whole thing again just to not get credit? The money for the time put in isn't all that good either even if it did pay out, so I'll just take the loss. Of course I'm sure it hurts some faction standing but what can you do? Maybe I should look into the Power Play stuff.
If you like bounty hunting, look into Arissa Lavigny-Duval in Power Play. Just keep in mind you have to maintain rating 5 every week to get the best deal out of it. However that isn't hard to do if you have a ship that can hold a large amount of cargo.

I think it is still the case, but bounty hunting with rating 5 with her has one of the best, if not the best, payout of anything in the game. It was the best for a long time at least.

Smuggling missions are highly profitable too, if you can find them. And unfortunately they are hard to come by.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
So it's like the exact opposite of the bug from beta where you spawned inside the planet with your ship and if you tried to fly out, you would either lose shields and take a ton of damage or just die instantly.

Both bugs still happen actually. Logging out on a planet surface is rolling the dice as of now, the best practice is to always log off in orbit or deep space. If you do log in to an airborne (or sub surface) SRV though you can quickly immediately log out and then log back in and 9 times out of 10 it fixes it for you. But not always. :(

Plus there is the sudden and inexplicable SRV hull damage that can destroy your buggy without cause or warning if you are below 97% hull health. Whenever I fall below 97% I always fix the SRV immediately, it's saved me twice already from losing my buggy.
 

Hylian7

Member
ERpbCz5.png


I rant about this all the time, but this is EXACTLY what I am talking about regarding the problem with Power Play and merit farming. Guathiti (the system this was taken in), is about 17 LY from Kamadhenu, the headquarters (where you get the garrison supplies). You see how it's ridiculously far ahead of it's goal? It's because everyone that uses this to farm merits every week (including myself) goes here because it's always one jump away and always being fortified. These people don't care what Lavigny-Duval's current power standing is, and why should they? If they get their rating 5 for the week, they get 200% bounties. Getting Lavigny-Duval in the top 3 gets 230%/240%/250% bounties, but 200% is still plenty.

If I buy the Horizon's expansion for 45 on Steam, does it come with the stuff that buying off Frontier comes with?

It's the same thing, yes.
 

Burny

Member
It's because everyone that uses this to farm merits every week (including myself) goes here because it's always one jump away and always being fortified. These people don't care what Lavigny-Duval's current power standing is, and why should they? If they get their rating 5 for the week, they get 200% bounties. Getting Lavigny-Duval in the top 3 gets 230%/240%/250% bounties, but 200% is still plenty.

Small wonder That players don't care. They have no real stake in "power playing" for one of the available portraits. Those powers are not formed by groups of players with an agency, so getting yours to the top has little ideogical value. They are little more than colors in the map, injected by the devs. Influencing them means playing a grind heavy game of Risk, but not being able to coordinate a single actor, because everyone and their dog can participate and the game somehow neglected to provide group communication features. Es well as giving those powers tangible influence on the game world other than some bonuses.

Which will of course be played for maximum gain. :p
 

Reckheim

Member
When opting in to power play, can you opt out again and be independent?

yes, they say that you will be chased around by the powers security forces for a few days but its really not noticeable.

I believe you also cant join a different power for a bit as well.
 

hepburn3d

Member
8'000ly from start, 97% hull. About 60'000ly to go. So hard to keep the hull in tact without the odd mistake :( wish we could repair them
 

Jedi2016

Member
8'000ly from start, 97% hull. About 60'000ly to go. So hard to keep the hull in tact without the odd mistake :( wish we could repair them
Always zero your throttle as soon as the frame shift countdown begins, that will keep you from flying into the star on the other end. Don't get cuddly with black holes and neutron stars (as tempting as it is). And always have your shields up when you land on a planet. I think I'm about 15-20k ly out and I'm still at 100%. Hopefully I can keep it there. I have two AFMs for everything else.
 

Burny

Member
Did anybody notice the recent Galnet hint that micro jumps or some other changes to "inter-planetary" travel could be finally coming to the game?

That got me thinking. If they're not opposed to make the travel within systems more convenient, where it would otherwise succumb to just staring at the screen for 20 minutes, what about situations during travel between systems?

More often than not, when I want to play with friends in the humanly inhabited bubble, doing some bounty hunting or CZ, we start out at quiet distant locations and have to meet up at a point 15-20 jumps away. In the extreme cases, this can mean either of us has travel to the meeting place for 20-30 minutes, especially when in combat ships.

As I usually only have one session of 2 hours per week, that's 1/6 to 1/4 of the whole play session spend on just meeting up within the human bubble! I don't want to call this time "playing the game" because there is little what I would call playing during 20 minutes spend hitting the "J" key repeatedly and adjusting the ship's orientation a little bit in between.


I'd really like to see a limited jumpgate network throughout the human bubble. Pairs of gates connecting each other, sitting at the suns of the most important systems and forming a long range fast travel network. They'd have to be navigated to just like stations and would allow to cross the majority of the bubble quickly, only having to do a handful of additional jumps from the gate to the target, rather than having to sit through some 20 uneventful jumps to get where you want to be.


I've created a poll in the official forums, but similarily to suggestions of actually represented player groups, some form of player station control mechanic, more powerful chat functions within a system etc. it seems to be getting shot down by the ussual crowd of people who enjoy the game's design being stuck somewhere between the 80s and today. The Elite community is sometimes really depressing. :p My favorit advise was to set aside special play time for such location management. Yes, spending more free time on the game - specifically on just travelling the human bubble, which I don't nearly enjoy as much as exploring or bounty hunting - is really helpful advise. *rollseyes*
 

~Cross~

Member
Im guessing jump gates or a very long range jump system would be the logical step up but more for fringe exploring to create more pockets of human space.

Most ships max jump range is good enough to get between human space without much issues. There are certain ships that have junk fsd drives so travelling in them is a pain, like the corvette and even the fas. But they seem to be exceptions and not the rule
 

Bobnob

Member
I don't watch this thread so forgive my ignorence but when is all this coming to consoles , i have the main game on X1.
 

Burny

Member
There are certain ships that have junk fsd drives so travelling in them is a pain, like the corvette and even the fas. But they seem to be exceptions and not the rule

You can generalize "certain ships" to "combat ships". They all suffer from poor jump ranges and make just getting around in the bubble an absolute pain. To the point that it's hard to call the jump range of other ships over them an "advantage" imo, and more fitting to call the jump range of combat fitted ships a "punishment".

I actually think the jump ranges in itself are fine. Weapon touting behemoths need some disadvantage. But driving home the "you've got limited jump range" point could be done equally effective by requiring 5-10 jumps to most points in the bubble, rathern than the current 10-20+.

I don't watch this thread so forgive my ignorence but when is all this coming to consoles , i have the main game on X1.
No official time frame given by the devs I'm afraid. I wouldn't expect to hear much before summer though. Not that you're missing out on much before more of the major Horizons updates come along. ;)
 
Did anybody notice the recent Galnet hint that micro jumps or some other changes to "inter-planetary" travel could be finally coming to the game?

That got me thinking. If they're not opposed to make the travel within systems more convenient, where it would otherwise succumb to just staring at the screen for 20 minutes, what about situations during travel between systems?

More often than not, when I want to play with friends in the humanly inhabited bubble, doing some bounty hunting or CZ, we start out at quiet distant locations and have to meet up at a point 15-20 jumps away. In the extreme cases, this can mean either of us has travel to the meeting place for 20-30 minutes, especially when in combat ships.

As I usually only have one session of 2 hours per week, that's 1/6 to 1/4 of the whole play session spend on just meeting up within the human bubble! I don't want to call this time "playing the game" because there is little what I would call playing during 20 minutes spend hitting the "J" key repeatedly and adjusting the ship's orientation a little bit in between.
That's exactly my problem with the game as well. I don't want to go far away from where I usually am due to the fact that my girlfriend wanting to join playing. If this happens and we are over 30min apart (besides the instancing, which does not work everytime as well) we don't even start :(

I'd really like to see a limited jumpgate network throughout the human bubble. Pairs of gates connecting each other, sitting at the suns of the most important systems and forming a long range fast travel network. They'd have to be navigated to just like stations and would allow to cross the majority of the bubble quickly, only having to do a handful of additional jumps from the gate to the target, rather than having to sit through some 20 uneventful jumps to get where you want to be.
I'd like to see something like the lanes in Freelancer to be implemented. This could even be within the whole bubble as some kind of high speed travel highway. In each system that's crossed by this highway there is a gate like in Freelancer which can be destroyed/defended and ships using the highway will be kicked out of the highway there.

see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJtbmK_zkDM
I've created a poll in the official forums, but similarily to suggestions of actually represented player groups, some form of player station control mechanic, more powerful chat functions within a system etc. it seems to be getting shot down by the ussual crowd of people who enjoy the game's design being stuck somewhere between the 80s and today. The Elite community is sometimes really depressing. :p My favorit advise was to set aside special play time for such location management. Yes, spending more free time on the game - specifically on just travelling the human bubble, which I don't nearly enjoy as much as exploring or bounty hunting - is really helpful advise. *rollseyes*
... really sad :(
 

Person

Member
You can generalize "certain ships" to "combat ships". They all suffer from poor jump ranges and make just getting around in the bubble an absolute pain. To the point that it's hard to call the jump range of other ships over them an "advantage" imo, and more fitting to call the jump range of combat fitted ships a "punishment".

I actually think the jump ranges in itself are fine. Weapon touting behemoths need some disadvantage. But driving home the "you've got limited jump range" point could be done equally effective by requiring 5-10 jumps to most points in the bubble, rathern than the current 10-20+.


No official time frame given by the devs I'm afraid. I wouldn't expect to hear much before summer though. Not that you're missing out on much before more of the major Horizons updates come along. ;)

I think it's a bit ridiculous for a ship like the Corvette to be 10-15 on a decent combat fit, I mean yes it's big and heavy, but still, it's supposed to be a large combat vessel on-call able to fight at a moment's notice, even making the usual range from 13-17 would be amazing.
 

E-flux

Member
I have a question to people who have visited Sagittarius A, where do i start? I have my self an Diamondback explorer and would like to start heading there but i have no idea how. Every far away place i try to make route there it's unavailable, do i need to keep constantly checking the galaxy map to update my route when i'm heading there or am i missing some jump range modifications?
 

Burny

Member
I have a question to people who have visited Sagittarius A, where do i start? I have my self an Diamondback explorer and would like to start heading there but i have no idea how. Every far away place i try to make route there it's unavailable, do i need to keep constantly checking the galaxy map to update my route when i'm heading there or am i missing some jump range modifications?

Iirc there is a 1000ly limit for plotting your route. You'll have to piece together separate routes.
 
Dev Update--combat AI enhancements/fixes coming in 2.1:

We are continuing development on 2.1 and deliveries beyond that and in this week’s update I will talk about some changes coming to NPC behaviour in 2.1. The AI control of ships is an ongoing balance with the aim of providing a fun, but easier experience for combat for lower ranked NPCs and making the higher level opponents provide a decent challenge. For 2.1 we’re adding a host of changes and fixes to improve the AI of NPC ships in the game.

First is adjusting the overall balance of the skills for the AI pilots, this is a slightly flatter curve in ability for low to medium levels, but higher level opponents (like Elite ranked) will have a much higher improvement to their skills. One change is that they use missiles and torpedoes more effectively – especially at the higher ranks. They will wait until the target’s shields are down before using them. The range of tactics available to the AI pilots is now rated for the different skill levels, providing a wider range of tactics for the different ranks.

The higher ranked pilots will also try and avoid damage more to improve the chance of survival and make less deliberate mistakes than the lower ranked cannon fodder.

AI can no longer use energy weapons if they’re running hot to manage their heat better. They will also spam chaff less and only using them if they are taking damage and their opponent is using gimbals or turrets. High ranked ships will flee when their shields are down to enable them to recharge them. They’ll keep out of weapons range until their shields are back up, then turn to attack once more.

For commanders who rely on flying their ships in reverse the more skilled AI have learned a new response to counter it – you have been warned!

As well as the tweaks and enhancements there are fixes for some known AI issues including them not getting stuck rotating in space, stop them keep firing hatch breakers and address some issues with pip management. This includes some behaviour to improve their use of pips for situations like fleeing or pursuing. There’s also been an overhaul of the different states to make sure that AI has appropriate behaviours if there’s something going on.
 

E-flux

Member
Iirc there is a 1000ly limit for plotting your route. You'll have to piece together separate routes.

Ok, that makes it a lot easier to know the limit, i don't know about everyone else but to me the galaxy map is extremely sluggish to use in my mind which has been the biggest part why i haven't really looked into it.
 

Reckheim

Member
No official time frame given by the devs I'm afraid. I wouldn't expect to hear much before summer though. Not that you're missing out on much before more of the major Horizons updates come along. ;)

Honestly I would be amazed if they got horizons running on the xbone. My 970 gets sluggish when i am on the surface of planets (although I do believe that is an optimization issue)
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Anyone see this vid on the Tobii EyeX eye-tracker? Obsidian seems to really like it. $100 with discount count in the vid description...considering checking it out. He makes it sound like a step above head-tracking, but not quite at VR, of course.

That's really pretty awesome! I love my TrackIR5 but the one thing I like least about it is that I have to wear a hat with the tracking clip attached to it. This EyeX completely eliminates that.

It works with ETS2 as well.

That's damn tempting for $100.....
 

Hylian7

Member
So I'm not even a Petty Officer with the feds, I'm barely a recruit, and somehow I have a Sol and Achenar permit, what's up with that? I landed on Mercury earlier for the hell of it.
 

Jedi2016

Member
So I'm not even a Petty Officer with the feds, I'm barely a recruit, and somehow I have a Sol and Achenar permit, what's up with that? I landed on Mercury earlier for the hell of it.
Were you in the beta? They gave early donators the Sol permit, and I guess the Achenar permit as well, I don't remember ever earning that one.
 
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