Ha! I do love me some racing games though. Back when I played Space Sims, I hadn’t discovered my love for racing games yet, I used to ignore them. Maybe I should have expected this tendency considering I spent more time in the simulator in Xwing Alliance going through rings in the timed race than all the time I spent doing missions in the Xwing series combined. I just loved that ring race so much. You couldn’t divert all power to the engines because the other side of each ring had guns that would shoot at you. So you needed to disable them by shooting the ring. So to get the best time, you had to divert all power to the engines, and then as accurately as possible, shoot each ring without missing so that you could disable all the guns before your laser energy drained to zero. Gosh, what a run that was. A racing game and a Space Sim!
Kelan
2002
It took me quite a bit of effort, but I finally finished my first mission!
I had one to go to another system two jumps away and find some random scrap loot Black Box. I kept picking up these Unidentified Signal Sources while buzzing around the system in Super Cruise and had a real hard time timing stopping at the right time to find whatever was supposed to be there. After trying for an hour or so, though, I finally started to find what I was picking up on. One time it was something I needed an extra module to do something with; I believe it was a reactor. The next one had the Black Box I needed. It was quite an adventure trying to use the ship scoop to pick it up; I really like the little blue grid that helps you line up scooping objects up.
Cargo in hand, I was really hoping I didn’t botch the return trip home. The jumps back were uneventful, but once I dropped back in my home starter system, I was like 120,000 distance away, ugh. I wasn’t sure if I could Hyperspace over, but it was still within the same system I believe so I didn’t think so. Fortunately, I kept the thrust to max and my speed kept creeping up and it didn’t take too long to get back, but I did almost run out of fuel about half way there. I cut back on the thrusters and mostly just coasted in as I had my speed up pretty high by then. I had trouble finishing the dock again, but thanks a ton for the tip on orienting direction, Aceris, as I kept turning and finally it worked! I only made 5,400 for the mission, but I was so proud of myself, lol.
It is definitely a different experience compared to most modern games and doesn’t hold your hand. I believe it will be a breath of fresh air and I am really looking forward to digging into it more. I got my headset ready to go, but wasn’t sure how to test it out. I saw that I could enable voice chat with a friend that was online, papageno I believe it was, but didn’t want to spam you with voice requests :). Apparently you don’t automatically join voice chat with the jpinard group just by going in game. I kept freaking out that maybe all my voice was going through to everyone while I was banging my head off everything most of the day. I assigned the mute mic button to an extra joystick button at least so that should work once I get it figured out.
Looking forward to trying more combat, mining, and all sorts of stuff and especially some group content someday. It will probably take me all of that time before it is released to be at least somewhat competent to join up with others :).
I heard somewhere (on a Twitch stream or something, maybe even Brian’s) that it’s best most of the time to reduce the ETA left to 6 seconds when in Supercruise, and if you do that and leave it there, it pretty much slows you down enough on its own. It’s like 6 seconds is the most efficient estimated ETA or something. I’ve used that guideline in game and it seems to work pretty well.
Totally news to me, but I can’t wait to try it.
Hey, that’s where I started too! We should meet up for a pan-galactic gargle blaster or something. When I chatted to jpinard the other day, he may as well have been in a separate dimension he was so far away. Well, maybe one day I’ll finally meet him, with a few upgrades!
There is a blue area marked on the speed indicator, just like the one when not in supercruise (that indicates the ideal turning performance speed).
Keeping your throttle set in that area, so that the horizontal throttle mark lights up blue, is the way to ensure you are at the correct exit speed.
I found that the blue throttle area has lost reliability as of several patches ago, but this six second thing seems on the money so far.
Man, this Adder is a nice ship. Not really much slower than the Sidewinder with the default kit, and it’s more flexible and has more character than the Hauler. I also love the sound effects — it’s got a sort of putt-putt-growl thing going on that makes me smile. Totally worth saving the extra 30k instead of just buying the hauler as the step up from the Sidewinder.
I’ve been taking screenshot like crazy. Everything is so darn pretty.
Which leads me to a question … is there an easy way to see where you’ve been on the map?
I got home and installed the tutorial. Plugged in my Sidewinder Precision Pro. Adjusted the controls for a bit. I love the customizability of the controls.
I’m in love already. The audio is just so good. As are the visuals. The advanced combat tutorial, which has me flying against two much more maneuverable ships is at once infuriating (because they fly circles around you) and satisfying (because eventually you destroy them). Great stuff. I can’t wait to dive further into this game tomorrow.
Now I have to disconnect and hide the joystick again.
Yaaaaaaaay!
I was using the Adder for a bit my own self, but switched back to a Hauler with nearly everything taken out and replaced with cargo bays. No shields, even. ;) Fun times!
KevinC
2011
Nice! I’m glad we didn’t lead you astray with the purchase. :)
@Rock8man
Why do you have to hide the joystick again?
A new soundtrack for that launch video, that i think fits in much better with the sci-fi feel of Elite, it’s not official, one of those fan remix things, but worth a gander:
schurem
2014
Because his SO, a huge burly gay man with a leather cap and the IQ of a stack of logs thinks its something other than what it is and he dont want what happens if he gets is mitts on it :P
These FDEV guys are going at it hard rolling out a patch even on sunday! The word on the forum is that today they should roll out a fix to trade, pricing and availability. So that should be viable again.
I took a trip down to the nearest empire system from my regular lave stomping grounds just to cash in the bounties I had accumulated. 80k! w00t \o/
I have currently set as my goal to raise my combat rating (novice) and my alliance stading. Neither is going well, because I failed a bunch of missions for them earlier when they were bugged all to hell and back. alliance currently have me as ‘unfriendly’. assholes. i will make you fuckers like me.
As for the combat rating. I keep puttering around in my pimped up viper. Two big pulse lasers and two small autocannons put out plenty o’ hurt and it’s rocking A class power nodes thrusters and shields so few things get away or scare me. Feel like a little fish in a big ocean yea, but one mean predatory little bastard at that :D
tomchick
2015
So what if a n00bie wanted a mining career? Is there a primer to mining somewhere? Because it’s certainly not in the game, where it belongs. :(
-Tom
Papageno
2016
Yeah, it’s barely mentioned on the right side news panel of station services. Basically you need to equip a mining laser and a refinery module (I gather–I have no personal experience mining yet), find some asteroids and shoot at them, then pick up the rocks that fly off.
sharaleo
2017
Or alternatively, find some asteroids, shoot at the other ships shooting the asteroids, then pick up the rocks that fly off. Don’t need a mining laser or refinery module for that.
schurem
2018
I really don understand why anyone would want to mine space rocks in their space ship but afaik it goes exactly as Papageno described: equip a refinery and a mining laser. fly to an extraction zone or asteroid belt. blast a rock. pick up the chunks. look at your right hand panel in the cargo tab to see what you got. dump unwanted trash. fly back to station for profit.
I ususally visit the extraction zones not for the rocks but for the pirates. they are far more fun to blast, and you do not need to do tedious scooping to get at the profits.
So you’re saying mining is pointless? I’d be better off just equipping better weapons and fighting pirates? If that’s the case, I’m disappointed. I was hoping the game would have some sense of balance among the different types of gameplay (i.e. mining, trading, bounty hunting, exploring).
-Tom
Razgon
2020
That’s a bit sad if true - I want to mine in this as well instead of combat.
Since it doesn’t seem like Exploration has any kind of payoff yet, either, I wanted to take up the life of a miner.
