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[Burny]

I think I might be done in the bubble for a while. Finally managed to do a good succesful Robigo run yesterday evening. Didn't stack missions in my Asp Explorer for all it was worth, but the result was a comfortable 20 mio. credits for two hours of frame shift jumping and evading interdictions. It'd be interesting to know what people do differently when they get substantially more credits than that / time.

Robigo runs, as so much else in this game, are not good for playing within limited time frames. You practically commit to a two hour session. If you have bad luck and get scanned early, you have to start from scratch. I must admit, when I was heading for an outpost in normal flight and a ship dropped right next to me, I simply went back to the main menu. At that distance, avoiding a scan seems almost impossible.

Outfitted the Asp for exploration again and will be heading for the void for a while. It's a much more laid back activity that you can almost arbitrarily interrupt for a CQC session or something else entirely.

 

[Hylian7]

I really wish they would implement some kind of system to somewhat scale what AI interdict you based on your ship/rank/time playing/something. No matter what ship I am in, 90% of the time anything that interdicts me is usually a shitty Sidewinder, Cobra, or Viper, and all of the ships I have can get away from them without breaking a sweat. I mainly use my FDL and trade Anaconda, but also have an Asp I occasionally use, and a Clipper I haven't really found a purpose for since I got my Anaconda. Rarely does it ever feel like any kind of threat when I get interdicted. I run tons of Power Commodity every week with my Anaconda. I have a class 5 (I think, I forget which class) C grade Bi-Weave Shield on it, and the number of ships that have interdicted me and taken my weak shields down are in the single digits. There is only one time I was actually nervous about an AI interdiction, and it was when it was a high rank Python, or some decent grade ship in that price range, and all they managed to do was get my hull down to 90%. Most AI interdictions don't make things interesting, they are usually a waste of time. I would be fine with interdictions that actually cause tense moments.

As much as I like to criticize power play, one thing I like about it is undermining. It gives players an actual reason to interdict other players other than for piracy, bounties, and stuff like that. When I did my initial grind for PP, I interdicted a few players for undermining and killed them. I like that this causes more people to break the law too. I think part of the reason Archon Delaine is so consistently low is simply because being wanted really makes landing at a station, a basic function of the game, extremely risky every time. I think they need to add some other safety net for his systems, like maybe stations won't fire at you as long as you don't do anything illegal at them. Security halved is good, but all it takes is one scan to have the whole hive swarm you.

 

[Burny]

I really wish they would implement some kind of system to somewhat scale what AI interdict you based on your ship/rank/time playing/something. No matter what ship I am in, 90% of the time anything that interdicts me is usually a shitty Sidewinder, Cobra, or Viper, and all of the ships I have can get away from them without breaking a sweat. I mainly use my FDL and trade Anaconda, but also have an Asp I occasionally use, and a Clipper I haven't really found a purpose for since I got my Anaconda. Rarely does it ever feel like any kind of threat when I get interdicted. I run tons of Power Commodity every week with my Anaconda. I have a class 5 (I think, I forget which class) C grade Bi-Weave Shield on it, and the number of ships that have interdicted me and taken my weak shields down are in the single digits. There is only one time I was actually nervous about an AI interdiction, and it was when it was a high rank Python, or some decent grade ship in that price range, and all they managed to do was get my hull down to 90%. Most AI interdictions don't make things interesting, they are usually a waste of time. I would be fine with interdictions that actually cause tense moments.

Interdictions are the equivalent of random combat encounters in JRPGs. Still, when running shadow deliveries a Sidewinder may inflict incredible damage in a meta sense. When it scans you, a lot of time may be wasted. This hurts far more than any amount of hull damage they might inflict - unless the repair costs implicate again a lot of time spend on obtaining the credits.

 

[danthefan]

Just to confirm, if I buy Horizons I get all released content for this game to date?

Listening to a podcast at the moment and they're talking about it, sounds amazing.

 

[oipic]

Just to confirm, if I buy Horizons I get all released content for this game to date?

Yep, that's correct - everything released to date. Horizons (or 'season 2') includes the base game and all of its updates (referred to as season 1 in Frontier speak), and you'll obviously get all the updates and added features to come for the rest of the year, too.

 

[danthefan]

Yep, that's correct - everything released to date. Horizons (or 'season 2') includes the base game and all of its updates (referred to as season 1 in Frontier speak), and you'll obviously get all the updates and added features to come for the rest of the year, too.

Great, thanks a lot.

 

[Person]

Great, thanks a lot.

I would still recommend you wait, none of season 2's content updates are out yet (which I expect to change soon) but I doubt the next one going to change the game much

landing on planets is cool and all but there's not much to do on the actual planets, base assaults are alright but nowhere near worth the asking price.

Until the next 2 or 3 content patches, I don't see Horizons being a worthy investment, and it will only get cheaper close to the eve of the next season of content.

I only have it because I have the lifetime pass, while I still believe in a year or two's time that the game will really come into it's own, once you run out of new things to learn in the game, it gets pretty uninteresting. I still play sometimes because I just like to fly ships.I haven't landed on any planets in ages though.

 

[Hylian7]

Interdictions are the equivalent of random combat encounters in JRPGs. Still, when running shadow deliveries a Sidewinder may inflict incredible damage in a meta sense. When it scans you, a lot of time may be wasted. This hurts far more than any amount of hull damage they might inflict - unless the repair costs implicate again a lot of time spend on obtaining the credits.

The thing is that they are a much different thing than JRPG random battles.

In JRPGs, the "run" option exists as either a way to get out of a fight you can't handle, or if you just want to go quickly and don't care about fighting at the moment. In Elite, the time it takes to deploy your hard points, aim, and fire enough at your attacker (if they are a weak ship) is longer than just throttling down and submitting, then boosting and jumping again. On top of that, trying to play the escape minigame is EVEN SLOWER and almost never worth it, even if you are down to less than 5 minutes of oxygen or sleeping.

It's just frustrating that Frontier keeps confusing "challenge" with wasting the player's time. Going back to the JRPG example, if you were to go back through an area where all the enemies are low level, and you are near the end of the game, you can one shot them or run guaranteed. In some games (like Earthbound) they just die automatically if you are too high level for them. Elite needs some kind of scaling based on what ship you are in. If I am just traveling in my outfitted FDL, these stupid Sidewinders shouldn't be wasting my time. A human in those ships would see an FDL and be like "nope", why can't the AI do that?

Same thing goes for my trading Anaconda. There is no way a Sidewinder can destroy me before I get away, so why does it waste my time and it's time? If a human was a pirate with a Sidewinder, they know that first of all, they have no chance of being able to kill an Anaconda before it runs away, and even if they could somehow pull it off, they would barely have room for any of it's cargo, so what's the point?

I get the idea of time being money for stuff like smuggling missions, but for a lot of other things, it isn't, just an unnecessary frustration.

 

[Burny]

<inconvenient game design>

Psst! Don't mention these things on the official forums. Among some people agreeing will always be those, who treat all this as intended and absolutely necessary game design (think of the immersion *rollseyes*) and will openly tell you that you're playing the wrong game when you expect it to treat your time a bit more respectfully!

 

[HelloMeow]

I'm getting sick of those interdictions. They're super annoying, especially when you're trying to help someone out when they're being interdicted themselves.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I got some good financial news and then I did something stupidly impulsive. I ordered a full set of CH Products gear. Fightstick, throttle and pedals. I hope I don't regret it. I guess the good thing about no twist rudder is that I'll be less likely to get a case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

[Burny]

I got some good financial news and then I did something stupidly impulsive. I ordered a full set of CH Products gear. Fightstick, throttle and pedals. I hope I don't regret it. I guess the good thing about no twist rudder is that I'll be less likely to get a case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Crossing my fingers that you have more luck than me with the throttle. I have the second one where the hat switches don't register as reliably as I would like.

Extremely robust gear otherwise and terrific for playing, even though the axis resolution in paper doesn't match that of the more flashy gear. Keep in mind you'll have to calibrate the hardware in the CH control manager.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Dev update is out with some more details on the improved mission/NPC system:

For this week’s dev update I will talk about some of the planned changes for missions coming with 2.1 The Engineers release. There are a lot of details to cover so I’ll go through the high level goals and the details for the first of the goals and cover the remaining details over the coming weeks. I’ll also provide more details on the other features over that time as well.

Missions are a key component of the game and we reviewed how we can make them more meaningful for gameplay, in particular how the player interacts with them and their effects on the galactic simulation. With our review we identified five key goals that we’re tackling for 2.1 The Engineers:

- Personalisation

- Progression

- Variety

- Consequences

- Rewards

Personalisation is about reflecting the player’s presence in the world and providing persistence for their activities. We’ve already mention that mission givers will be getting faces for 2.1 The Engineers update and this forms a part of the core of this personalisation. The mission contacts will become the faces of the minor factions you deal with for mission and this will be accompanied by a new layout for the mission board to group things more effectively for dealing with the minor faction.

The new mission presentation puts these NPC characters to the forefront of missions. They are unique and have their own faces, names and status within their organisations. The type of organisation will be reflected in the tone of their communications. Their dealings with you are also influenced by your reputation with the minor faction, but also the relative differences in status between you and the character. So if you’re Elite ranked and they’re a minor flunky then they will show you the proper deference – assuming their governing organisation allows it!

Repeated dealings with a minor faction will see your own status within the minor faction improve or fall – depending on your activities. At certain points you will deal with more important members of the organisation or even sterner types if your reputation is lacking. This will also be reinforced by a new greetings message when docking to reflect your status with the station.

The mission contacts will also remember if they’ve dealt with you before. As well as providing consistency the contacts are the conduit for gaining missions and seeing the effects they have. So they will inform you if the minor faction has entered a particular state, or a state is incoming. There will also be much smarter selection of missions that tie in with the current state of affairs, there will be more details on this as part of the progression and variety goals.

As well as what is happening in local space the contacts will let you know what impact your efforts are having and so helping to communicate the galactic simulation states and trends more effectively.

As is customary with our major updates there is a swathe of fixes, tweaks and other changes. For those of you who won naming of planets and a station these will be in the 2.1 The Engineers update. We have a revised format for the options screen coming with collapsible sections for easier navigation. More huge weapons are coming and as well as the asteroid graphical fidelity improvements the star light has been fixed so that it retains its colour over distance.

I will be back next week with more details of what we have coming.

2.1 is sounding pretty great so far!

 

[Pomerlaw]

oh yeah, I'm really happy missions gets some love!

 

[Anton Sugar]

I bring word from reddit!

Via PCG: Elite Dangerous: Horizons' next expansion is called The Engineers, focuses on loot and crafting

Not much new other than knowing the title of it now.

Also, Horizons is being added as standalone DLC to the store:

Since its launch we have heard some players say they feel confused by Elite Dangerous Horizons and how the purchasing and upgrading of the game works. Thanks to this feedback we are going to changing the way that it appears in the store and on steam.

To reduce confusion, Horizons will be added as a season pass DLC for Elite Dangerous, rather than an individual product. It’s a relatively small change but it means that on steam and on our store there will now be three options


Elite Dangerous
Elite Dangerous: Horizons Season Pass
Elite Dangerous: Deluxe Edition


The deluxe bundle will include the base game, Horizons season pass DLC and some digital goods.

This will be beneficial in a few ways. First of all it will unite the steam community. This means that we will only have 1 community hub. This is something players have asked for and we’re happy to listen. It also means that the products are clearer for people to understand, reducing confusion, which can only be a good thing!

However, this does mean that Steam Horizons players will have the Horizons portion of their steam game time counter wiped as it moves back to 1 hub (the in-game counter will still work). Nothing will be effected in game but we wanted players to understand the changes and impact fully.

In addition to these there are a couple of other changes we will be making at the same time. The base price of the Horizons season pass DLC will be £25 (or equivalent in other currencies) and will not include access to Elite Dangerous, this must be purchased separately. It will still include the entire season of content coming in Horizons. This means that the current loyalty discount to Elite Dangerous: Horizons will no longer exist as all existing players will be able to upgrade directly to the Horizons season pass.

Finally, by way of a special thank you to everyone who has already bought Horizons before these changes are made, we are giving you an unreleased Asp Explorer gold paint job. And don’t forget, you still have access to the Cobra Mk IV, and this will apply to all players that buy Horizons (and already own Elite Dangerous) before the changes go live tomorrow – new players that get the new deal will not get it.

 

[Pomerlaw]

Repost from CMDR Bliss, don't know the real credits.

 

[RadioactiveLobster]

Also, Horizons is being added as standalone DLC to the store:

Glad to hear this because I've long said it made no f'ing sense how they did it and their justification didn't cut it.

 

[Khilandros]

Can't wait for the AI changes and seeing this new dev update sounds great.

 

[Anton Sugar]

"Something big took out this ship."

 

[cyress8]

"Something big took out this ship."

Did that with my vulture. Sorry.

 

[kvk1]

So I've been away from the game for a while, is there any mention from the developers of easing up on the merit decay in Powerplay?

 

[Hylian7]

I bring word from reddit!

Via PCG: Elite Dangerous: Horizons' next expansion is called The Engineers, focuses on loot and crafting

Not much new other than knowing the title of it now.

Also, Horizons is being added as standalone DLC to the store:

BadAsp!

Psst! Don't mention these things on the official forums. Among some people agreeing will always be those, who treat all this as intended and absolutely necessary game design (think of the immersion *rollseyes*) and will openly tell you that you're playing the wrong game when you expect it to treat your time a bit more respectfully!

Oh good god. As much as I love this game, it has it's flaws, wasting the player's time being the biggest one.

 

[Burny]

Also, Horizons is being added as standalone DLC to the store:

Unless I'm misinterpreting their text blurb, you have to cut the "standalone" part. It was a standalone product. Now it becomes an actual season pass for owners of the base game.



Edit: Pretty happy to hear about the NPCs. I doubt that they will ever "solve" all the issues this game has. But it's slowly moving into the right direction.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Well NPC were already slowly moving in the right direction but then 1.3 happened and they took a huge step back. That's when the NPC death spin started to happen and NPC would constantly crash into asteroids. Then 1.5 came out and NPC added ramming while scanning to their new list of moves. I hope they are at least able to fix those strange behavior bugs and then move to the more advanced equipment usage.

 

[Burny]

Well NPC were already slowly moving in the right direction but then 1.3 happened and they took a huge step back. That's when the NPC death spin started to happen and NPC would constantly crash into asteroids. Then 1.5 came out and NPC added ramming while scanning to their new list of moves. I hope they are at least able to fix those strange behavior bugs and then move to the more advanced equipment usage.

I meant the mission contact NPCs or the lack thereof. The AI pilot changes are welcome as well of course. ^^

 

[SmartBase]

From the Frontier store page for Horizons:

2.0 – Planetary Landings

Available Now

A whole new angle on the galaxy. Journey from the stars to the surfaces of strange worlds, and hit the ground running in the new Scarab Surface Recon Vehicle.

2.1 – The Engineers

Coming Spring 2016

Everything changes. Introducing an expanded mission system and game-changing loot. Craft exotic weapons and modules for your spacecraft and build a ship unlike any other.

2.2 – Guardians

Coming Summer 2016

Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.

2.3 – The Commanders

Coming Fall 2016

Team up and stand together. Forge your own identity with the new Commander Creator, then share your bridge with Multi-Crew and fly with friends.

2.4 – ????

Coming Soon

A secret revealed in Elite Dangerous: Horizons’ final expansion.

I'm really hoping that customisation with crafting is as in-depth as it sounds.

 

[Pomerlaw]

I will keep my expectations in check, but I already love the game so...

 

[Burny]

Keeping expectations in check is probably a good plan. Next time I get to play, I'll start my first extended exploration trip. My hope is to come back to a finally more sensible and motivating mission system.

Where looting and crafting is concerned, I'm honestly fearing the worst. In theory, I believe the concept could be absolutely terrific. Endless ways to customize the ships, which are not all that personalized now. In practice, I fear this may be very limited for one thing and might turn out to require an absolutely horrific amount of grinding to reach the better options. But we'll see.

It's ironic that I would consider Elite probably my favourite game currently, possibly of all time, yet would rate it somewhere between 6 and 7 on a 0-10 scale. So many unfinished areas, so much unrealized potential, so many inconvenient/poor design choices...


Edit: The update names are grand. I realize these are actually massive feature patches/small scale expansions, so it's natural their traing to sell them more effectively than the generic patch 1.3.12_b. I just think they'll stick:

The Engineers
Guardians
The Commanders
...

Guardians is especially interesting:
...and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.

Finally passenger missions? And what are those threads? Just pirates or are we actually going to see alien ships?

 

[Mengy]

From the Frontier store page for Horizons:

I'm really hoping that customisation with crafting is as in-depth as it sounds.

I've got to be honest, from my point of view, that of primarily an explorer, there isn't much in this season on their roadmap that excites me:

2.1 - The crafting and loot system sounds underwhelming for explorers unless we can craft modules that effect exploration somehow, like a long range FSD drives or a combined scanner module to free up slots, but so far it seems to mostly be focused on combat like usual. And while an improved mission system is sorely needed, unless they finally introduce actual fucking exploration missions (which they aren't) it adds nothing to the game for explorers.

2.2 - Ship launched fighters are meaningless for exploration. More combat enhancements.

2.3 - Commander creator is a nice addition, but again it's not THAT big a deal, and multi-crew is again focused on combat enhancements and adds nothing for exploration whatsoever.

2.4 - A secret, it's probably finally Thargoids, but whatever it is will be of course combat focused.



I mean I love the game and Horizons added planetary landings which has been fantastic for explorers, but it seems like that's pretty much all we will be getting this year. I just wish they would at least now and then make an update focused on US, the explorers, rather than always catering to the pew pew crowd. It seems like the volcanic landings and enhanced planetary exploration improvements are being pushed out to next "season". Both traders and miners will benefit from the new mission system, but explorers are (like usual) the group left out in the cold of deep space.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I wonder if 2.4 is first contact. I hope not because that means a lot of mysterious Galnet reports leading to nothing for a very long time. I guess the one thing that would make me think that it may not be first contact is the fact that it couldn't be Horizon exclusive content if these encounters occur in space.

 

[Burny]

I wonder if 2.4 is first contact. I hope not because that means a lot of mysterious Galnet reports leading to nothing for a very long time. I guess the one thing that would make me think that it may not be first contact is the fact that it couldn't be Horizon exclusive content if these encounters occur in space.

I would hope that with NPCs, they might finally add other means of conveying the current ingame events. But it depends on the exact implementation. If all they'll do are bobbleheads talking about their missions and their faction using fixed templates, then that's all they're going to tell the players.

If they will however have the ability to inject dialogue trees, that could actually be interesting. I imagine asking NPCs about gossip and getting some of the more interesting Galnet news form the POV of those NPCs. It would be pretty could if such trees could be injected from the backend, without having to release an update every time. That might be asking a bit much.

 

[Reckheim]

I've got to be honest, from my point of view, that of primarily an explorer, there isn't much in this season on their roadmap that excites me:

2.1 - The crafting and loot system sounds underwhelming for explorers unless we can craft modules that effect exploration somehow, like a long range FSD drives or a combined scanner module to free up slots, but so far it seems to mostly be focused on combat like usual. And while an improved mission system is sorely needed, unless they finally introduce actual fucking exploration missions (which they aren't) it adds nothing to the game for explorers.

2.2 - Ship launched fighters are meaningless for exploration. More combat enhancements.

2.3 - Commander creator is a nice addition, but again it's not THAT big a deal, and multi-crew is again focused on combat enhancements and adds nothing for exploration whatsoever.

2.4 - A secret, it's probably finally Thargoids, but whatever it is will be of course combat focused.



I mean I love the game and Horizons added planetary landings which has been fantastic for explorers, but it seems like that's pretty much all we will be getting this year. I just wish they would at least now and then make an update focused on US, the explorers, rather than always catering to the pew pew crowd. It seems like the volcanic landings and enhanced planetary exploration improvements are being pushed out to next "season". Both traders and miners will benefit from the new mission system, but explorers are (like usual) the group left out in the cold of deep space.

I would actually like this for exploring, having an exploration conda and using the small ship to descend to planets just in case something goes wrong.

I do however feel like exploration is in need of the most work in the game.

 

[SmartBase]

I've got to be honest, from my point of view, that of primarily an explorer, there isn't much in this season on their roadmap that excites me:

2.1 - The crafting and loot system sounds underwhelming for explorers unless we can craft modules that effect exploration somehow, like a long range FSD drives or a combined scanner module to free up slots, but so far it seems to mostly be focused on combat like usual. And while an improved mission system is sorely needed, unless they finally introduce actual fucking exploration missions (which they aren't) it adds nothing to the game for explorers.

2.2 - Ship launched fighters are meaningless for exploration. More combat enhancements.

2.3 - Commander creator is a nice addition, but again it's not THAT big a deal, and multi-crew is again focused on combat enhancements and adds nothing for exploration whatsoever.

2.4 - A secret, it's probably finally Thargoids, but whatever it is will be of course combat focused.



I mean I love the game and Horizons added planetary landings which has been fantastic for explorers, but it seems like that's pretty much all we will be getting this year. I just wish they would at least now and then make an update focused on US, the explorers, rather than always catering to the pew pew crowd. It seems like the volcanic landings and enhanced planetary exploration improvements are being pushed out to next "season". Both traders and miners will benefit from the new mission system, but explorers are (like usual) the group left out in the cold of deep space.

I've long given up hope that Frontier will add anything meaningful specifically to the exploration profession, we'll get more planet types to land on and meander around like we do now but that'll probably be it. Just point and scan ad nauseam.

 

[Anton Sugar]

I'm with y'all--not holding my breath on the content of this season, but curious to see where they're taking it. Brookes' revamp of missions sounds extremely promising, so maybe they're headed in the right direction and won't be too stubborn.

Unless I'm misinterpreting their text blurb, you have to cut the "standalone" part. It was a standalone product. Now it becomes an actual season pass for owners of the base game.

Standalone *DLC* that requires the base game

 

[Burny]

I've got to be honest, from my point of view, that of primarily an explorer, there isn't much in this season on their roadmap that excites me:

I do understand that there is really not much "game" around the exploration part of ED currently. It's more a collectathon than anything.

But I'm still having a hard time imagining how the actual task of exploration could be improved by adding things. For one, if they make the planet generation more sophisticated - e.g. adding rules for certain things to appear on distant planets, that would be very limited. It would be "old" once discovered and sufficiently broadcasted through Youtube etc.. Just like the barnacles. It would have to be hundreds or thousands of different things they ought to add, just so that some element of surprise could be maintained for a certain time span.

That's not to say they shouldn't add to the things out there, but I beliebve the mileage will always remain limited. And without things to interact like alien species out there or populated planets, exploration will have to live from the "collection" mechanic.


I belive that changing the underlying mechanic could add quiet a bit more. Atm you "honk" (advanced discovery scanner) and the whole system is revealed on the system map. IMO it would be a lot more challenging and fun if the honk always had limited range and otherwise worked more like hte SRV scanner. Displaying waves that lead to the planets of a system. That would make the process of finding a planet actually engaging. In return howver, I think the payout for planets ought to be increased across the board. There must be some motivation to scan even the last moon of that distant gas giant. These are currently ignored by the more efficient explorers. And why wouldn't they, if all they give in return are a few thousand pitiful credits?

Standalone *DLC* that requires the base game

Standalone usually means the exact opposite, doesn't it? The base game is not required. See Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

 

[E-flux]

I do understand that there is really not much "game" around the exploration part of ED currently. It's more a collectathon than anything.

But I'm still having a hard time imagining how the actual task of exploration could be improved by adding things. For one, if they make the planet generation more sophisticated - e.g. adding rules for certain things to appear on distant planets, that would be very limited. It would be "old" once discovered and sufficiently broadcasted through Youtube etc.. Just like the barnacles. It would have to be hundreds or thousands of different things they ought to add, just so that some element of surprised could be maintained for a certain time span.

That's not to say they shouldn't add to the things out there, but I beliebve the mileage will always remain limited. And without things to interact like alien species out there or populated planets, exploration will have to live from the "collection" mechanic.


I belive that changing the underlying mechanic could add quiet a bit more. Atm you "honk" (advanced discovery scanner) and the whole system is revealed on the system map. IMO it would be a lot more challenging and fun if the honk always had limited range and otherwise worked more like hte SRV scanner. Displaying waves that lead to the planets of a system. That would make the process of finding a planet actually engaging. In return howver, I think the payout for planets ought to be increased across the board. There must be some motivation to scan even the last moon of that distant gas giant. These are currently ignored by the more efficient explorers. And why wouldn't they, if all they give in return are a few thousand pitiful credits?

I think exploration in Eve was pretty cool, the way you sent out probes to scan the system to find planets and stuff, decreasing and increasing their scan range depending on the situation.

 

[Mengy]

I would actually like this for exploring, having an exploration conda and using the small ship to descend to planets just in case something goes wrong.

In theory it sounds great, but they've already confirmed that the only ships that will FIT into the hangars are the small CQC fighter type ships, smaller than Sidewinders, ships that can't carry SRV's, so if you want to drive around that planet then you'll still need to land your big ship. In other words it's mainly combat focused and mostly worthless for explorers unless they change their minds.

I've long given up hope that Frontier will add anything meaningful specifically to the exploration profession, we'll get more planet types to land on and meander around like we do now but that'll probably be it. Just point and scan ad nauseam.

I still have hope. The alpha/beta feature wishlist they had for exploration had some really fantastic ideas, even if they only implemented like 1/4 of the list it would improve things greatly. They just went full tilt after the combat crowd instead.

 

[Anton Sugar]

Standalone usually means the exact opposite, doesn't it? The base game is not required. See Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I'm using standalone literally, as in, DLC that stands alone from the base game, as compared to previously, when it was packaged with E.

 

[Reckheim]

In theory it sounds great, but they've already confirmed that the only ships that will FIT into the hangars are the small CQC fighter type ships, smaller than Sidewinders, ships that can't carry SRV's, so if you want to drive around that planet then you'll still need to land your big ship. In other words it's mainly combat focused and mostly worthless for explorers unless they change their minds.

agh, that sucks, I was hoping it could hold at least a sidewinder or an eagle.

 

[Person]

The thing is that they are a much different thing than JRPG random battles.

In JRPGs, the "run" option exists as either a way to get out of a fight you can't handle, or if you just want to go quickly and don't care about fighting at the moment. In Elite, the time it takes to deploy your hard points, aim, and fire enough at your attacker (if they are a weak ship) is longer than just throttling down and submitting, then boosting and jumping again. On top of that, trying to play the escape minigame is EVEN SLOWER and almost never worth it, even if you are down to less than 5 minutes of oxygen or sleeping.

It's just frustrating that Frontier keeps confusing "challenge" with wasting the player's time. Going back to the JRPG example, if you were to go back through an area where all the enemies are low level, and you are near the end of the game, you can one shot them or run guaranteed. In some games (like Earthbound) they just die automatically if you are too high level for them. Elite needs some kind of scaling based on what ship you are in. If I am just traveling in my outfitted FDL, these stupid Sidewinders shouldn't be wasting my time. A human in those ships would see an FDL and be like "nope", why can't the AI do that?

Same thing goes for my trading Anaconda. There is no way a Sidewinder can destroy me before I get away, so why does it waste my time and it's time? If a human was a pirate with a Sidewinder, they know that first of all, they have no chance of being able to kill an Anaconda before it runs away, and even if they could somehow pull it off, they would barely have room for any of it's cargo, so what's the point?

I get the idea of time being money for stuff like smuggling missions, but for a lot of other things, it isn't, just an unnecessary frustration.

That said, I heard NPCs can now say things like "Oh shit I interdicted this huge thing" and leave you alone, I've seen screenshots of it and some people saying they've experienced it before, but I've still yet to experience it

it's still fun to play Elite's equivalent of pin the tail on the donkey though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPrgh2iK76w

 

[Felix Lighter]

I cannot believe how much it's like I'm learning how to fly all over again, basically just moving yaw to pedals is for me. Also, never, ever load your save after mapping new controls. I lost my FDL for the first time, 6+ mil rebuy because everything was screwed up for landing mode and a station blew me up. I don't use any landing mode overrides but somehow they were all entered with nonsense after I mapped everything. Once I got to my pad all hell broke loose, ending with my ship being destroyed by the station. I can't believe I did that. I have so much muscle memory to forget and regain. Ugh. But having equipment that won't wear out every few months is worth it.

 

[Hylian7]

That said, I heard NPCs can now say things like "Oh shit I interdicted this huge thing" and leave you alone, I've seen screenshots of it and some people saying they've experienced it before, but I've still yet to experience it

it's still fun to play Elite's equivalent of pin the tail on the donkey though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPrgh2iK76w

I haven't seen that on an interdiction yet, but I have seen it in RES when a ship that's clearly no match scans me and says something like "Sorry, excuse me, I'll leave you to your business then."

 

[Jedi2016]

I haven't seen that on an interdiction yet, but I have seen it in RES when a ship that's clearly no match scans me and says something like "Sorry, excuse me, I'll leave you to your business then."

I find a strange satisfaction in gunning them down anyway. They tend to be wanted anyway.

 

[Pomerlaw]

I've long given up hope that Frontier will add anything meaningful specifically to the exploration profession, we'll get more planet types to land on and meander around like we do now but that'll probably be it. Just point and scan ad nauseam.

So you think Frontier won't add some love to exploration later down the line!? lol They can't acutally do everything at once! I don't share your pessimism at all...

Also, we don't have the details of everything they are adding with each updates.

This game is a 5-10 year plan.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Seems like ships that can launch other ships and multi-crew could have interesting applications to exploration with some tweaks. I don't know, I don't find exploration all that exciting of what I've seen of it, so I hope it gets some love for when it becomes time to take up the profession.

So after grinding out a few space-bux I sold off my mothballed Python, and my decked out Vulture and got myself into an FDL. For some reason I thought the FDL required a certain Fed rank to buy. Probably because it started with an F. I probably would have targeted way earlier had I realized my mistake.

In the end my Python purchase 8+ months ago did nothing but damage to me in this game. I dropped the game for 8 months. I didn't get any money earned out of my Python, I lost 4.7 million or so on reselling it, I lost like 8 million rebuying it after those quick disasters upon my return.
The new FDL is a bit of a budget build, default alloys, 6B power plant... for weapons I tried a few different things, I'm settling on gimaballed C2 pulse on outer hardponts, fixed C2 burst on inner, and a fixed C3 pulse on inner. I might swap that out for burst laser. I don't know, people don't seem to like the burst lasers in the builds I look up, but I really enjoy them, especially for fixed weapons. They seem to do really good hull damage too compared to pulse. My current build here. That 4E hull reinforcement was just a mistake that I'll rectify next time I see 4D in a station I'm at.

I took quite a bit of time to improve my fixed weapon skills and it really pays off in this thing. It just shreds stuff. The top speed improvement over my Vulture makes me pretty happy, even if the turning isn't quite as good. I feel like I'm flying a fighter again instead of... kind of a turkey. I'd probably be in a Fed Corvette by now if I had just stayed in my Imperial Clipper and grinded up to the FDL but c'est la vie I guess. My next operation is to grind out 7,000 more merits with ALD to get the 50 mil salary and double-bounty bonus next week. A few weeks of maintaining that and I'll feel like I'm no longer a space-pauper.

 

[Silvard]

I've always been a fan of this genre. I played the original Elite and its clones a ton, and Freelancer was one of my favorite games of its time and I can honestly say that I was addicted to EVE Online for a good long while. How faithfully does Elite: Dangerous capture the spirit of these games? I've been looking into the game and it's seems amazing (also been looking into Star Citizen but this is actually available and a real thing so...), are there any big caveats I should take into account before deciding if the game is me?

One thing though, I don't have a beefy computer, I literally just have a MacBook Pro 13" with integrated GPU and a Surface Pro 4. I also don't have an Xbox One, only a PS4. Should I even bother picking this game up? Is there a PS4 version in the horizon?

 

[Burny]

One thing though, I don't have a beefy computer, I literally just have a MacBook Pro 13" with integrated GPU and a Surface Pro 4. I also don't have an Xbox One, only a PS4. Should I even bother picking this game up? Is there a PS4 version in the horizon?

Don't bother for now. The game runs well even on mid class PCs, but you probably won't have any fun on the MacBook and Surface.

There should a PS4 version on the horizon, but no info yet on when they're going to port it.

Your best bet to play it immediately, is new hardware.

 

[E-flux]

I'm on my way to the core, currently my journey has been fairly relaxed and i really like the way sky lights up closer i get. Just passed 8000 light year mark, this is going to take longer than i anticipated..

 

[Silvard]

Don't bother for now. The game runs well even on mid class PCs, but you probably won't have any fun on the MacBook and Surface.

There should a PS4 version in die horizon, but no info yet on when they're going to port it.

Your best bet to play it immediately, is new hardware.

I guess I'll have to pass on this one.

 

[Mengy]

So I'm having a blast on this Distant Worlds Expedition. We're about 20,000ly from Sol now, and the sky is starting to get very crowded with stars! We do meetups every couple of days, but many of us survey worlds and explore together too when we get the chance. Playing around in the SRV's with groups of people is fun. It can also be hazardous sometimes too, got to be careful with our buggies as we've got a long way to go yet to the Far Rim.

Some recent pics I've taken along the way: