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Elite Dangerous: Horizons |OT| Just scratching the surface

Person

Member
Doesn't standalone "Arena" warrant a new thread?

ehh, I don't think so, it would be a bother if people who owned the full game wanted to talk about cqc and had to go to another thread, and people who just open arena might ask questions that some people here night have the answer to, it just seems redundant to me, since arena is the same content
 

Burny

Member
ehh, I don't think so, it would be a bother if people who owned the full game wanted to talk about cqc and had to go to another thread, and people who just open arena might ask questions that some people here night have the answer to, it just seems redundant to me, since arena is the same content

No, I mean new news - new thread! Not an OT of course. :) Don't expect the thread to make it far beond second page anyway. ;)
 

Hylian7

Member
No, I mean new news - new thread! Not an OT of course. :)
Yeah, that's totally fair then.

Since Arena/CQC has the option of being a standalone thing now, I'd like to bring back out my suggestion of having more "classes" of ships, like have a mode for Pythons, FDLs, etc. Have one for Vultures, Vipers, Cobras, Couriers, etc. Big ships probably isn't as good, but I might enjoy CQC more if we got something with more firepower.
 

Reishiki

Banned
What's your current ship, and which of the 3 categories are you looking to do: combat, trade, or exploration?

It's not about the goal, it is about the road to get there.

You won't have more fun in bigger ships. Actually the smaller ships are for me much more enjoyable.

Don't play to get a ship. Play to fly any ship. Buying a ship needs to be an afterthought. Otherwise you will struggle to enjoy this game.

I have a Viper MkIV right now. I'm interested in exploring & combat, so I currently feel a bit strangled by low jump ranges.
 
I have a Viper MkIV right now. I'm interested in exploring & combat, so I currently feel a bit strangled by low jump ranges.

A Viper MKIV can get an ok jump range. Cobra Mk III is in the same price range and can do a little better there. Honestly, those 2 ships are very similar. Viper MkIV is slower, but is a bit more survivable and has better hard point positions. Cobra Mk III is much faster but your hard points are terrible for fixed weapons. They are 2 really good multipurpose ships with very similar internals.
 
I've played quite a bit of CQC yesterday and today and I'm really liking it. I've also been doing pretty well but I'm sure that has a lot to do with playing the main game for so long and the influx of new players I'm up against. I'm now very comfortable with my new hotas setup and the pedals, which makes me very happy. I was worried that I'd never get back to where I was. Also my x55 RMA went through so I'll have a new X55 that I will need to decide what I'm going to do with.
 

Wreav

Banned
2/18/16 dev update:

From the desk of Executive Producer, Michael Brookes

Hi everyone,

This week’s dev update is the penultimate update on the changes to missions coming in the (2.1) release - The Engineers. The topic I’ll cover is the variety goal and next week I’ll cover the final goals of consequences and rewards.

Variety at its most simplistic is making sure that more missions (and variants) are available, but beyond that tweaking them to make them more accessible and having a better sense of predictability, so if you’re looking for a particular type of mission then you can determine the best places to find them.

We’re tackling variety with a host of changes – the first is ensuring that more missions are available at the neutral reputation stage. Developing your reputation will reveal more missions, but more importantly – more valuable missions. We’re also removing the rank requirement for missions. The rank will now be an indication of difficulty (and by association, rewards) and generally will generated around your relevant Pilots Federation rank. You can take on more difficult missions to try and grasp some big rewards, but there is a risk in doing so.

Missions will be generated by stricter criteria so that the majority of missions offered will make sense in the location that are offered. A three stage hierarchy will govern how the missions are created.

First by the state of the minor faction, so if they are in famine, or at war, or any other state missions to address that state are generated.

Secondly, the type of market for the port, so that they match the economic activity for that market. An obvious example is creating mining missions from extraction economies.

The third stage is determined by the government type and this reflects the character of the minor factions and the types of operation that they indulge in. For example dictatorships are more likely to indulge in overt assassinations and so send a visible message, while democracies will conduct their wet work through covert operations.

Within the offered mission there will be a description for why that mission has been generated and what effect it will have for the minor faction. This clearer communication of the interaction with the galactic simulation will make it easier for you to pick the relevant missions for your goals.

We’re also looking to reduce the barrier of inconvenience for some of the mission elements – my favourite here is not having to drop out of supercruise to listen to alternate offers. The time limits for missions as well as which elements make them easier, or more difficult are being reviewed and addressed.

Another exciting change is how missions and USSs interact with each other. USSs for missions will now generally be located at specific bodies within a system which have can be located using a discovery scanner, although the usual ranges apply. If the system has a nav beacon then these can now be scanned and the scan will reveal these mission locations as well as providing any exploration data for that system.

In conjunction with these changes the general distribution and generation of USSs is also being updated. There are now concepts of different parts of space within a system, like traffic lanes and hubs and different contents can be generated at each. They are also created spatially rather than by time range so you can no longer just sit and wait for one to appear, you will need to look for it.

One other significant change for USSs is that they can be scanned to reveal more information about them without having to drop out of supercruise.

There’s still a ton of details for changes of other aspects of the game coming after next week’s look at mission consequences and rewards.

Thanks,

Michael.
 

DrBo42

Member
Not sure I like the complication of the discovery scanner finding USS if the system doesn't have a navigation beacon but at least they're trying something else.
 

Reckheim

Member
Not sure I like the complication of the discovery scanner finding USS if the system doesn't have a navigation beacon but at least they're trying something else.

Well the nice thing now is that you can scan the USS to see what it actually is without having to drop out of supercruise.

The nav beacons now have a purpose too.

I'm still about 18k ly out of the bubble but heading back now, hopefully I get back before the update comes out. I'm actually more excited about this update then any of the other promised updates this season.
 

DrBo42

Member
Well the nice thing now is that you can scan the USS to see what it actually is without having to drop out of supercruise.

The nav beacons now have a purpose too.

I'm still about 18k ly out of the bubble but heading back now, hopefully I get back before the update comes out. I'm actually more excited about this update then any of the other promised updates this season.

Yeah anything they can do to reduce the amount of time you waste is great. That's a big help.
 
The new USS generation mechanic sounds great. I absolutely hated the old one. One major concept that the game drives home is the sheer unfathomable size of space and then sitting around aimlessly, you are sure to find points of interest virtually everywhere. It made no sense.

There are other aspects similar to that I would like them to come up with a solution for. RESes for one are weird places. Pirates out number miners 20+:1 apparently. Though fixing that will require a revamp of the whole Bounty Hunter profession.
 
Not sure I like the complication of the discovery scanner finding USS if the system doesn't have a navigation beacon but at least they're trying something else.

I worry about not having enough internal slots on small ships to accommodate a discovery scanner. Feels like a pretty big sacrifice for ships smaller than a FDS.
 

mnannola

Member
So what is in 2.1 specific to Horizons? I keep looking for a reason to buy Horizons but the gameplay in there currently just doesn't seem like enough to keep me interested. Are they adding new enemy types, or new SRV's?
 
So what is in 2.1 specific to Horizons? I keep looking for a reason to buy Horizons but the gameplay in there currently just doesn't seem like enough to keep me interested. Are they adding new enemy types, or new SRV's?

AFAIK, the only thing they've specifically mentioned is that Engineers will be found on planet surfaces. That doesn't mean there *won't* be any other Horizons specific additions, but I think the focus here is filling up the planets with more and/or better stuff to do.

I'm more excited for the mission revamp than anything else, though. Really hope it lives up to its promise/hype.
 

mnannola

Member
AFAIK, the only thing they've specifically mentioned is that Engineers will be found on planet surfaces. That doesn't mean there *won't* be any other Horizons specific additions, but I think the focus here is filling up the planets with more and/or better stuff to do.

I'm more excited for the mission revamp than anything else, though. Really hope it lives up to its promise/hype.

Ya those mission improvements sound amazing and is probably the most important thing that Elite could do to address some major concerns people have about it. I was just hoping there would be some really cool Horizons stuff to push me over the edge to buy it in 2.1.
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Guys, wanna see something incredible? We had a huge meetup at Sagittarius A tonight where we had no less than 52 Commanders in one instance!!!! That's more than are supposed to be possible but 52 seems to be the hard limit on the number of players in an instance. Watch this short video, I'm the white pharoah Asp out there. :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I9Bl2bsObA


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Here is a video showing how the fleet left all at once!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG5rmfq9uZ4
 

onken

Member
So what's the recommended best stick for this game? I'm in the market and looking for suggestions from ED players, thanks!
 

Burny

Member
So what's the recommended best stick for this game? I'm in the market and looking for suggestions from ED players, thanks!

CH Products Fighterstick + Pro Throttle would be my recommendation. Add a good set of pedals (CH Products or better ;) )

As a general rule of thumb I would say, either stick to a really cheap but sufficient option - The T-Flight HOTAS X from Thrustmaster. Or if you're looking for enthusiast gear go all in. It's not worth settling for something in the 150-200$/€range (Saitek) to get your enthusiast fix imo. If it is the enthusiast fix you crave but still buy "cheap", you'll be looking for better gear sooner than you'd like.


There's no haste though. Arguably, mouse+keyboard may be the best combo for dogfighting. It's at the very least comparable to a good HOTAS for everything but pure flight assist off.
 

Hylian7

Member
CH Products Fighterstick + Pro Throttle would be my recommendation. Add a good set of pedals (CH Products or better ;) )

As a general rule of thumb I would say, either stick to a really cheap but sufficient option - The T-Flight HOTAS X from Thrustmaster. Or if you're looking for enthusiast gear go all in. It's not worth settling for something in the 150-200$/€range (Saitek) to get your enthusiast fix imo. If it is the enthusiast fix you crave but still buy "cheap", you'll be looking for better gear sooner than you'd like.


There's no haste though. Arguably, mouse+keyboard may be the best combo for dogfighting. It's at the very least comparable to a good HOTAS for everything but pure flight assist off.
Adding to this, just don't buy Saitek if you value your sanity. Hardware is decent, but drivers are the absolute worst.
 

Person

Member
Drivers are perfectly fine on W10 at this point, but Saitek is kinda plasticy.

it's an alright plastic, as far as feel goes

my concern would be the build quality, 2 of my buttons after about 5-6 months of use have lost their "clicky" feel, and the centring spring is such that my deadzone on the x axis is adjusted upto 50/1000 to avoid the stick registering input when I'm not touching it

this is on the x-55 by the way, I still like the stick but it is annoying when you notice these problems
 
I was good with Saitek until I had to RMA my stick twice in 6 months. I loved the shape and all the buttons I had access too but the build quality is just so unfortunate. X55 here as well. At least the RMA process has been painless aside from the shipping cost.
 
Guys, wanna see something incredible? We had a huge meetup at Sagittarius A tonight where we had no less than 52 Commanders in one instance!!!! That's more than are supposed to be possible but 52 seems to be the hard limit on the number of players in an instance. Watch this short video, I'm the white pharoah Asp out there. :)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I9Bl2bsObA





Here is a video showing how the fleet left all at once!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG5rmfq9uZ4

That is goddamn beautiful.
 
My x52 is a hand me down of unknown origin, but after a few hundred hours it's definitely getting squeaky. And yeah I hate the drivers. The number of buttons are good, the throttle is pretty good. I could have preferred a different arrangement, and maybe a button or two at the thumb rest but overall not horrible, and I don't really feel the need to upgrade. I don't see any of the other twist sticks being much of an upgrade, and while some of the straight up flight sticks that make you buy pedals look good, I just don't know if pedals work that well for space sims. I will probably reconsider an upgrade once I get into Star Citizen and start figuring out what the best control scheme is going to be.

I got an accidental murder bounty in my home system while doing some bounty hunting, so rather than stick around I decided to sell off my stored ship (my beloved Clipper) and figured why not sell my FDL at the same time and outfit a battle Python. I hated it last time but it was under equipped, this time I had 200mil plus to outfit it. It's almost comedic how easy it is to take stuff out with gimbaled pulse plus multicannons after doing all fixed weapons on my FDL. I made 12 million at a haz res in around 30 minutes. So long as the anacondas keep spawning I could probably keep that pace up. But I am thinking merit upkeep is a bit of a pain, so after milking the bounty bonus this week and collecting my 50m paycheck next week I might just go to Robigo for variety and to grind out massive credits without having to put in up-front merit maintenance. I really don't like feeling like I'm stuck with a work schedule in the game.
 

Hylian7

Member
So now they consolidated everything into one launcher? I only had the option to launch Elite: Dangerous, and got the blue launcher with Horizons, E:D 32-bit, E:D 64-bit, and Arena 64-bit, and of course the training thing.
 

Jedi2016

Member
So now they consolidated everything into one launcher? I only had the option to launch Elite: Dangerous, and got the blue launcher with Horizons, E:D 32-bit, E:D 64-bit, and Arena 64-bit, and of course the training thing.
It's always been that way... how have you been launching it lately?

In regards to the launcher, why do I have to re-authenticate my computer every time they update the launcher? It's the same computer, I'm not "signing in from a new location" or anything. And they really need to get that thing to self-update... such a thing is possible, they should take notes on what other devs are doing.
 
So now they consolidated everything into one launcher? I only had the option to launch Elite: Dangerous, and got the blue launcher with Horizons, E:D 32-bit, E:D 64-bit, and Arena 64-bit, and of course the training thing.

So they've finally done what they should have done in the first place.

Good.
 

Hylian7

Member
It's always been that way... how have you been launching it lately?

In regards to the launcher, why do I have to re-authenticate my computer every time they update the launcher? It's the same computer, I'm not "signing in from a new location" or anything. And they really need to get that thing to self-update... such a thing is possible, they should take notes on what other devs are doing.

Not for me. When Horizons came out, I was launching it through the Horizons entry on Steam. Then Arena became it's own thing, and the Horizons entry was useless, and now the original, Horizons, and Arena are all there.
 

emptyroom

Neo Member
Greetings, finally decided to get started on PC, I played a crap tonne on my Xbox but built a PC in December. It sucked getting back in the sidey but got a viper last night and should be bounty hunting soon.

Does gaf have a 'home system' or are you all pretty scattered?
 
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