• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Elite Dangerous: Horizons |OT| Just scratching the surface

DrBo42

Member
Oh, you know it won't be significant. ;)
The fact that special effect is still in the same roll as primary/secondary means I'll always be disappointed with the system, yes. They might change it enough where I don't say "Fuck this." and actually finish outfitting in the live build. That's all I can realistically hope for at this point. I just want to get to multi-crew already. Engineers hasn't even gone live and I'm over it.
 

Hylian7

Member
Oh, you know it won't be significant. ;)

Along with this, we’ll also be removing some of the lower ranked materials, allowing the remaining ones to be used in more recipes, so that across the board you’ll need to collect fewer types to start crafting upgrades.

This part sounds pretty significant, especially since probably the lower ranked materials, you will have to land on planets to search for.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
The fact that special effect is still in the same roll as primary/secondary means I'll always be disappointed with the system, yes. They might change it enough where I don't say "Fuck this." and actually finish outfitting in the live build. That's all I can realistically hope for at this point. I just want to get to multi-crew already. Engineers hasn't even gone live and I'm over it.

a03c0b4dcf46f9275823353842ad0803.jpg
 

Hylian7

Member
As long as Horizons has been out, they STILL have yet to fix the bug where if you log back in with your SRV on the surface, sometimes you spawn inside the planet and are falling endlessly.
 

Jedi2016

Member
Wait a tic:

Newsletter said:
Turrets are improved: we’ve increased their damage and rate of fire a little so that they now fit more appropriately with damage progression between gimbal and fixed weapons...

That's not right, is it? Why would anyone ever use gimballed weapons if turrets did more damage?
 

Pomerlaw

Member
The engineer mechanics make it possible to let your ship(s) grow over the years to something very special and unique but not necessarily "the best of the best", but certainly YOURS. And it's basically the only way to accomplish this in a multiplayer game that also has a solo aspect. Also the only way to simulate the imponderabilities of life in a digital environment that doesn't want to be an arena like game with homogenized ships and weapons, that kind of "balance" that only would make sense in a PVP only environment at most which Elite never wanted to be. I know some of us would like exactly that, but that's not going to happen. For this they got CQC.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=250458&page=3
 

jond76

Banned
Glad I finally picked this up while on sale on the Xbox. Once I got the hang of things I really feel in love with it. Its a miserable time sink but its really neat and super easy to lose yourself in.

Horizons will be exciting. My life is over.
 

Hylian7

Member
That's what I figured the rationale was behind the RNG stuff. It definitely needs to be toned down in terms of getting stuff that is straight up worse than before, but there is nothing wrong with modules being unique. Something that always bothered me about Elite was that many player ships in combat often rolled with similar loadouts. FDLs usually have something like Plasma Accelerator and 4 railguns or multicannons.

I don't know if anyone has tested yet, but what are the odds that the engineers can make the weapons that were by and large considered useless (missiles, mines, etc) actually viable?
 

DrBo42

Member

That's what I figured the rationale was behind the RNG stuff. It definitely needs to be toned down in terms of getting stuff that is straight up worse than before, but there is nothing wrong with modules being unique. Something that always bothered me about Elite was that many player ships in combat often rolled with similar loadouts. FDLs usually have something like Plasma Accelerator and 4 railguns or multicannons.

I don't know if anyone has tested yet, but what are the odds that the engineers can make the weapons that were by and large considered useless (missiles, mines, etc) actually viable?

Wholeheartedly disagree with that quote. Nothing about the Engineers ability makes my ship or modules feel unique, just varying degrees of optimization/special effects. This isn't the Millennium Falcon repurposed and transformed into a smuggling ship. We're flying ships with 25% better FSD drives and guns that fire red rounds because they do thermal damage. I mean come on, let's not pretend like it's anything more.

I'm out of the thread for a while and everyone gets delusions of grandeur.
 
I do think the Engineer upgrades do help make you feel like your ship is your own with some extra build variety but I don't think the randomness of the stats really helps that, though.
 

DrBo42

Member
I do think the Engineer upgrades do help make you feel like your ship is your own with some extra build variety but I don't think the randomness of the stats really helps that, though.

For me, until we can fundamentally change the role of a ship and all the internal specs (trading high internal compartment grades for more of a lower class etc) it will never feel like actual customization.

My FDL is the same as your FDL, just with some varying weapon builds.
 

LeBart

Member
For me, until we can fundamentally change the role of a ship and all the internal specs (trading high internal compartment grades for more of a lower class etc) it will never feel like actual customization.

My FDL is the same as your FDL, just with some varying weapon builds.

You often make it sound like anything but the best thing ever is pretty much worthless. ;)
RNG aside, it feels cool to be able to work towards making your ship better and more unique. It would be nice if the game did more than that, but it doesn't really need to.

Although I do agree with you in the context of that quote. It's just another layer added to the game, I don't see it fundamentally changing the way the game is played.
 

DrBo42

Member
You often make it sound like anything but the best thing ever is pretty much worthless. ;)
RNG aside, it feels cool to be able to work towards making your ship better and more unique. It would be nice if the game did more than that, but it doesn't really need to.

Although I do agree with you in the context of that quote. It's just another layer added to the game, I don't see it fundamentally changing the way the game is played.

Eh, it's not intentional. It's just when I see someone quote and agree with Engineers making your ship feel "very special, unique and YOURS." I have no idea what they're talking about. After my time with it in the beta it doesn't feel special, unique or even necessary/vital. It feels like yet another time sink and grind layer. I'd be more optimistic if they said "Hey, this is just the first pass. We plan to do X with this system down the road." And hopefully X is a complete customization of the ship internals in that scenario.

I mean, it's cool to mod your multi cannons to murder shields or get more jump range or drive speed/maneuverability. But they just feel like % changes to me rather than significant customization.
 
Oh also, don't leave home without Point Defense anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKeHsHdyAw
From the same guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOGVF3zGwWA
Woah, Force Shells can be used to slingshot Wing mates :D
That's what I figured the rationale was behind the RNG stuff. It definitely needs to be toned down in terms of getting stuff that is straight up worse than before, but there is nothing wrong with modules being unique. Something that always bothered me about Elite was that many player ships in combat often rolled with similar loadouts. FDLs usually have something like Plasma Accelerator and 4 railguns or multicannons.
But why do it via Engineers and RNG? Just randomize the items and let them sell them at stations including variants (perhaps additional to the RNG crap). Limit it to a small amount per modification per station and you forced exploration and galaxy traversal.

Could be handled like booster packs on Steam - for every RNG'd weapon/module at an engineer this will spawn as buyable with a quantity of - say - five at a random station.


BTW what's the selling price of those modified weapons/modules? Does it change at all? Would be nice if those modified ones can be sold at a premium. Perhaps use this to counter the "made it worse" crap by adding monetary value to them.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
I'd be more optimistic if they said "Hey, this is just the first pass. We plan to do X with this system down the road." And hopefully X is a complete customization of the ship internals in that scenario.

I'd like to be able to customize/switch all ship internals too, but then, wouldn't the bigger ships always end up being better and most versatile? You could always have the "best at everything" with the ships with the highest class slots. Surely they could find a way to balance this so an ASP would still be better at exploring than a Corvette...

Oh and about mines...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvuZZQcj1w
 

DrBo42

Member
I'd like to be able to customize/switch all ship internals too, but then, wouldn't the bigger ships always end up being better and most versatile? You could always have the "best at everything" with the ships with the highest class slots. Surely they could find a way to balance this so an ASP would still be better at exploring than a Corvette...

Oh and about mines...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhvuZZQcj1w

Yeah it would take some balancing but I love the idea of making a Corvette an exploration ship if you wanted to. I mean really, why not? Not sure who that hurts.

The mines mixed with cargo is brilliant. Think open traders are going to love the engine/fsd mines.
 

Hylian7

Member
If they make the RNG more favorable, I don't think it's a terrible idea. I haven't really followed it, but are special abilities also tied to RNG?
 

jesu

Member
I bought this last night because of the Xbox sale.
I gonna get lost in space later and I don't know if I'm excited or scared.
 

DjRalford

Member
I keep umming and arring about buying this

I loved freelancer
I loved EVE
I watch the videos and think, I'd love that.

Is it possible to play in short bursts, like an hour, or is it a game that needs multiple free hours to enjoy?
 

DrBo42

Member
I keep umming and arring about buying this

I loved freelancer
I loved EVE
I watch the videos and think, I'd love that.

Is it possible to play in short bursts, like an hour, or is it a game that needs multiple free hours to enjoy?

I think so, yeah. Depending on what you're into. You can run a few missions, bounty hunt in a Resource Extraction Site, maybe even head into the black of space searching for an Earth-like world to slap your name on. I would wait until 2.1 though.
 

DjRalford

Member
I think so, yeah. Depending on what you're into. You can run a few missions, bounty hunt in a Resource Extraction Site, maybe even head into the black of space searching for an Earth-like world to slap your name on. I would wait until 2.1 though.

I just noticed its PEGI 7, means I'll be able to play whilst the kids are up, that expands my game time to a few hours in one stint.
 

jond76

Banned
I bought this last night because of the Xbox sale.
I gonna get lost in space later and I don't know if I'm excited or scared.

For me its both. Haha. Its super fun. Then with Horizons coming up? Hoooo boy. If it clicks with you its a time sink. Good luck!
 
I took the time to try Elite on the Vive (I've been playing with the Oculus for a few weeks). The difference is stark even with the improvements from the beta. With the Vive, aliasing is much worse and with settings that achieve 90 fps on the Oculus, tigger Vive to activate reprojection (45 fps) even with my GPU only hitting 30-40% utilization. The moments when Oculus activates Asynchronous Timewarp, it only dips the framerate to 60 fps, making the interpolation feel far less jarring.

The Vive support needs serious work. Another disappointing thing is that the Vive has noticeably darker blacks and better contrast so potentially it would look better if not for the current aliasing and performance issues.
 

la_briola

Member
I took the time to try Elite on the Vive (I've been playing with the Oculus for a few weeks). The difference is stark even with the improvements from the beta. With the Vive, aliasing is much worse and with settings that achieve 90 fps on the Oculus, tigger Vive to activate reprojection (45 fps) even with my GPU only hitting 30-40% utilization. The moments when Oculus activates Asynchronous Timewarp, it only dips the framerate to 60 fps, making the interpolation feel far less jarring.

The Vive support needs serious work. Another disappointing thing is that the Vive has noticeably darker blacks and better contrast so potentially it would look better if not for the current aliasing and performance issues.

Try the beta, I think (don't quote me on that) Vive support was improved a lot.
 
Yeah, I tried both. The current live build was worse. The Vive made the text virtually unreadable.

Edit:

Just read this from the bug forum for the beta:


• Using SLI may hinder the performance of the Vive’s FPS

That probably explains the Vive performance issue for me. I'm using SLI.
 
Every time I think about getting a FAS, I think about that hardpoint placement. I guess with 2.1 I can go with gimballed large multi-cannons top and bottom, with fixed medium beams for the bottom left/right? Or maybe fixed large beam on the top, 1 large and 2 gimballed medium multicannons for the bottom 3 hardpoints?
 
Every time I think about getting a FAS, I think about that hardpoint placement. I guess with 2.1 I can go with gimballed large multi-cannons top and bottom, with fixed medium beams for the bottom left/right? Or maybe fixed large beam on the top, 1 large and 2 gimballed medium multicannons for the bottom 3 hardpoints?
I use it with 4 Pulse Lasers and it's quite good that way. Sometimes only 3 are firing, but that's good actually since so it does not bleed weapon cap that much :) Sometimes I only use one of the big ones to reload weapon cap even.
 

DjRalford

Member
I picked this up yesterday, seems good, ran through the tutorials etc fine.

One bugbear though is multi point courier missions, you don't know where the last mission will take you so when it's revealed and completely out of your jump range it kinda sucks after completing the other parts.
 

illusionary

Member
So, GAF, I've always been tempted by the concept of Elite (by which I'm referring right back to the original), but never really found much opportunity to give any time to it. With Elite Dangerous being 50% off on Xbox One right now, any reason why I shouldn't pick it up?

Admittedly I could play it on PC (with my new laptop I should be able to handle it readily enough, I think? i7 6700HQ, GTX 965M), but frankly I'm more likely actually to put time into it on a console. That, or I might just end up double-dipping if it's on a good enough discount in the Steam summer sale.
 

frontieruk

Member
So, GAF, I've always been tempted by the concept of Elite (by which I'm referring right back to the original), but never really found much opportunity to give any time to it. With Elite Dangerous being 50% off on Xbox One right now, any reason why I shouldn't pick it up?

Admittedly I could play it on PC (with my new laptop I should be able to handle it readily enough, I think? i7 6700HQ, GTX 965M), but frankly I'm more likely actually to put time into it on a console. That, or I might just end up double-dipping if it's on a good enough discount in the Steam summer sale.

Everyone I've recommended to have lost themselves into the ti!e sink that is elite
 

Burny

Member
With Elite Dangerous being 50% off on Xbox One right now, any reason why I shouldn't pick it up?

Only you're waiting for a Horizons package? Or is that already included? Anyway, now is as good a time as any to pick it up. In a couple of weeks update 2.1 should drop, which bring a slew of improvements. It's a divisive game and an incomplete/sometimes poor one on top. So getting it on sale for testing whether it's your thing is probably the best you can do.
 
Every time I think about getting a FAS, I think about that hardpoint placement. I guess with 2.1 I can go with gimballed large multi-cannons top and bottom, with fixed medium beams for the bottom left/right? Or maybe fixed large beam on the top, 1 large and 2 gimballed medium multicannons for the bottom 3 hardpoints?

what's this now? The hard point placement on the FAS is amazing, only bested by the FdL.

Typical configurations:

a.) 2 mediums + bottom large = fixed on primary, top large on secondary, fixed or gimbaled.

b.) 2 mediums fixed on primary, 2 larges gimbaled

For A, you can set that as something like 3 fixed pulses and a large PA on the separate one. Or now 3 fixed multicannons (2x medium + 1x large) and a fixed beam or some such on top.

For B, you'll typically see 2x medium beams or rails there, flanked by 2 large frag cannons, PA's, bursts, pulses or soon multicannons.

The hard points feel great on that ship. You'll have no problems working with it. Hard point placement is generally better on all Fed ships, as they are seemingly designed for use with a good array of fixed weaponry which are essential for being able to deal effectively with chaffing targets.

They are clear combat vessels, right down to their ugly stylings but they are strong offensively where Imperial ships are clearly not. There isn't a single Imperial ship I'd rather take into battle over a similarly priced Federal ship if my goal is to deal damage. This is why with the occasional exception of the Clipper, you almost never see Imperial ships in PvP battles (though that may change in 2.1). Every Imperial ship is either somewhat or completely dependent on gimbals and/or turrets to deal damage in combat and are more or less designed to outlast opponents through superior shielding and thruster power, praying the shields and speed last longer than the enemy supply of chaff...at which time the advantage switches.

I took the time to try Elite on the Vive (I've been playing with the Oculus for a few weeks). The difference is stark even with the improvements from the beta. With the Vive, aliasing is much worse and with settings that achieve 90 fps on the Oculus, tigger Vive to activate reprojection (45 fps) even with my GPU only hitting 30-40% utilization. The moments when Oculus activates Asynchronous Timewarp, it only dips the framerate to 60 fps, making the interpolation feel far less jarring.

The Vive support needs serious work. Another disappointing thing is that the Vive has noticeably darker blacks and better contrast so potentially it would look better if not for the current aliasing and performance issues.

They're working on it. How high a priority it is to them and how difficult the improvements to aliasing and text scaling or whatever it is will impact when we'll see the necessary improvements. They're aiming for text readability fixes for or before 2.1. Aliasing issues...in progress. Last I read anyway.

Improvements to SteamVR's reprojection tech would be of great help here too.
 

illusionary

Member
Everyone I've recommended to have lost themselves into the ti!e sink that is elite
Hehe, that could almost be taken as a negative recommendation :p Cheers for the positive feedback!
Only you're waiting for a Horizons package? Or is that already included? Anyway, now is as good a time as any to pick it up. In a couple of weeks update 2.1 should drop, which bring a slew of improvements. It's a divisive game and an incomplete/sometimes poor one on top. So getting it on sale for testing whether it's your thing is probably the best you can do.
From what I've seen from a quick reading, I think that Horizons is coming to Xbox via a season pass rather than a package? I may well be wrong on that, though - if anyone can advise for certain that would be great.
 

frontieruk

Member
Hehe, that could almost be taken as a negative recommendation :p Cheers for the positive feedback!

From what I've seen from a quick reading, I think that Horizons is coming to Xbox via a season pass rather than a package? I may well be wrong on that, though - if anyone can advise for certain that would be great.

It's a season pass, though they may do a complete package later... But it won't be cheaper than base / 50% + season pass
 
Hehe, that could almost be taken as a negative recommendation :p
It should be. In no uncertain terms it is a time sink. A sandbox with limited direction and purpose given to the player. You very much do whatever you want, whenever you want. It's sort of like if there was no main quest in GTA or Borderlands or Witcher...just an endless supply of RNG side quests, wandering, fighting, exploration. That is how I'd describe what the E:D experience is. Find your own way to progress through the game, get money, have fun exploring or outfitting your ships or fighting PvP or whatever.

If that sounds like something you're down for, you'll find plenty to like in E:D. I'm around 1,100 hours in and I expect to put a great deal more in before I'm done.
 
Top Bottom