Is this playable with a controller? Keyboard/mouse? I haven’t really gotten into a space sim since Tie Fighter, or maybe Freespace (I managed to miss Freespace 2 despite having it from a reliable resource that I should play it) and I don’t really want to spend money on a decent joystick for a single game, but the footage I watched this weekend makes it clear I WOULD enjoy this one and should pick it up at some point.
Brian, have you done any work on your blog for this game in terms of previews, impressions, and etc. you could link me to?
It’s playable with all of those. HOTUS (or HOTOS?) seems very popular, and is also very expensive. Keyboard and mouse is hardest (due to the nerfed yaw), regular Joystick can be fine if the stick is good. David himself plays with a controller, so that seems to work fine too. The hardest part is setting everything up to work just how you like it :)
I’m debating about trying to install the game tomorrow (i could have done it before now it seems), but i might wait a bit for the crazy to die down and maybe a few quick patches to come out? I’ll see what free gaming time i have.
I’ll give the 360 controller a try tonight with the default controls, and report back. I just love the joystick controls, so I’ll be going back to that whenever I can, but I do find myself very curious as to how this plays using a controller.
KevinC
2044
Zak, I’d recommend getting it downloaded so you can at least play around in the single player training missions. As you say, setting up the controls to your liking takes a fair amount of time. IMO, it’d be nice to have that out of the way so that when you do feel like diving in you can get straight to it instead of fiddling with controls.
Bateau
2045
HOTAS is not expensive because it’s not a product, it just refers to the controll configuration (hands on throttle and stick). Thrustmaster T Flight Hotas X can be purchased for ~40-50 euros/dollars and is probably the #1 recommendation for entry level HOTAS setup, at least according to ED reddit, forums, SC forums, SC reddit, etc…
Gaming wise i’m in no rush. I have no problem with the MMO part/scripted events running of without me, i’m not an Elite player for that stuff :) But do i have time to play/learn it in general over xmas? It seems it can be pretty grindy as was the original, so that is the main issue really.
I also recommend trying a HOTAS setup before you buy. Somehow. I had yearned for years during the golden age of space Sims to try a HOTAS setup because I assumed I would love it. When I finally got my hands on one, I hated it and discovered I much preferred the Hands on Keyboard and Stick method I’d been using since 1991. (HOKAS?). It surprised me.
Been using controller and it’s definitely very flyable using that system. I have left stick set up as per default (yaw into roll though) and right stick is thrust y-axis and yaw x-axis (with a switch to thrust x-axis for docking). This suits me very nicely, adding some much needed precision to movement. I can get to all the major functions with combos of the d-pad and other buttons, works well I think. Mouse is ok once you get used to it, although I’m having trouble getting used to it! Just seems far less intuitive than the controller.
KevinC
2049
Good to know, thanks krayzkrok. I have a friend who was wondering how playable it is on a Xbox controller.
Someone help Tom out before he gives this game 1 star and the front page is flooded with whiny Elite fanboys and snickering Star Citizen fanboys!!
The T-Flight is cheap enough that you might as well pick it up simply to have a decent throttle, even if you use the keyboard. I hate the dinky throttles on my FFB2 and Saitek Cyborg. I suppose space becomes an issue though.
Toggling flight assist in fights is a basic maneuver. For less maneuverable ships (Sidey, Adder) it’s VITAL for max perf turns.
It’s a button on my HOTAS, as well… right next to AB.
I’ve been doing a lot of mining too. A ton of gold or palladium (I think?) is pretty profitable, other materials less so. I haven’t found a better way to get information on what is where than to just start blasting asteroids and looking at what comes out. If there’s any kind of info integrated into the system maps etc., I don’t know about it but would love to.
The actual act of mining is weird. It doesn’t have “fun” game mechanics in the way that dogfighting does, but it is weirdly absorbing, perhaps because it feels so solid and real. It feels more like doing a job than playing a game, which paradoxically may be a strength because the guiding principles of Elite Dangerous seem to be a) avoid overtly gamey mechanics and b) maintain the persistent illusion that you are always in the cockpit of your spaceship all the time in total continuity.
The constant appeal to extra-game sources to get more information is frustrating. I’ve had to watch a lot of youtubes etc. just to get the basics that would normally be in a tutorial. Very good fundamentals, hole-pocked metagame. Maybe we are all just lazy and spoiled and are supposed to bust out the notebook and keep track of everything ourselves, system by system, asteroid belt by asteroid belt. I could see this approach being enchanting for some, maddening for others.
schurem
2053
I would think Tom would rediscover the joy of fiddling with intricate systems to see what this button does and that one… But he seems very much caught up in the modern zeitgeist of hour long tutorial levels that take you by the hand through each and every verb the game has and after that mark out every possible thing to do with bright gaudy icons.
On the other hand, his review might very well contain some terribly awesome advice to making millions of spacebux in ways we hadn’t figured out just yet. And tell the tale of discovering them. We’ll see. no pressure at all tom :P
Pre-Adder, metallic mining was lucrative enough in my Winder to graduate me into Cobra after 2-3 hours of only pulling Gold/Palladium/Platinum, the only thing that wears on me after an hour or so is chasing down the chunks. I really feel they should have included a tractor beam module either as a hard point, utility point, or C1 compartment. Leave the current scoop mechanic in place, just give us the option of giving up a point for a tractor beam - it would be nice to close within 50-100m of any space can/chunk, fire your tractor beam which pulls it into the scoop. Hoping that will be on the list of future features/modules.
I remember finding this really large 'roid with Platinum in it… damn thing was spinning so fast that the chunks didn’t fly outward rather along the orbital line. Scooping up chunks in a shieldless Sidewinder that close to an oblong asteroid was pretty intense.
I think there’s a legitimate debate to be had about whether ‘fiddling … to see what this button does and that one’ is a function of good game design or poor documentation (I’m using the term ‘documentation’ broadly in a way that also incorporates tutorials). I think it’s possible to object to that approach without it meaning that you’re cosseted and need your hand held all the time.
schurem
2056
Perhaps you are right. I think of the janes’ flight sims of yesteryear. They came with big ring-bound books that described in detail the name and function of every bit of your crafts’ cockpit. They had very little information on what to do with those systems. Much like the manual of a powerdrill will describe what its buttons do and how to assemble it, but not where to drill in order to put up the curtains.
I like finding out (either via forae and youtube or experimentation) where and how to use the buttons. Its part of the game? no it is the game. Learning how and when, and getting good at it.
TimJames
2057
No need to troll Tom. You don’t have to be caught up in hand-holding tutorials to not-quite-be-caught-up in the post-modern zeitgeist of community-driven documentation for early access games.
I think there’s probably quite a wide gulf in fiddling accessibility, so to speak, between OG Elite players and newbies. I jumped into the beta with nothing but my knowledge of Elite and Frontier and had a blast learning how things worked (admittedly there were fewer mechanics then) by trial and error, and with really not much error. But if you’re coming at this having to learn both controls and how Elite as a universe and a game concept works, then I can understand being daunted and frustrated by the lack of in-game documentation/handholding. If you don’t know you should be trying to dock, load up on cargo, fly to another system, sell that cargo etc, then you’re not going to know what controls/info to look for.
I actually am an OG Elite player (played it a bunch when I was a kid) and I still had little patience for this game’s learning curve. If I weren’t reviewing it I probably wouldn’t have stuck around. That said, I’m enjoying it now.
I tried out the tutorial over the weekend, and well, the default controls are awful. I don’t remember my old Cobra III taking 20 mins to turn around, it handled worse than my Mini Metro.
A bit of fiddling has seen it vaguely controllable, albeit not to my taste, so my first goal is to configure my controls and keys or even try it using the pad. I don’t have joystick (that works) nor the space to put one so I’m reliant on mouse, kb and pad. I’d like a sandbox solo player mode (i.e a pile of free creds) anything been mentioned about this?
Gotta agree with Tom on the learning curve. Elite had a nice big manual, a keyboard layout card, poster and a novel, which incidentally, had a misprinted final 20 pages them being a repeat of the previous 20 pages. Did that guy ever find the ship that killed his dad?
