If you don’t want a HOTAS, I’ve heard high praise for the Thrustmaster T-16000M. I believe it’s the cheapest joystick that uses Hall sensors, which are more robust and reliable than potentiometers. But you have to use the rinky-dink throttle slider instead the big lever you get in a HOTAS.
geewhiz
3482
Old games used to have great manuals didn’t they? :)
I think the game it is a mix of old school but new school in not having a great manual. I suppose YouTube has changed things like in game tutorials.
There is a 2d version map rendering tool on a website ( I think there is a link to it somewhere in this thread). The problem is that it makes everything too small on the screen for me to see even when I zoom in.
I rather have a flat version of the map so I can gauge distances in a region. Harder to do on the 3d map at least for me.
geewhiz
3483
Anyone have this happen?
I went to the Bulletin Board and there was a mission for 8000 or so credits for obtaining Hydrogen Fuel. I look and see the station is selling it for 95 per unit. I buy it and turn it in. It was like Christmas. Then I go to another station got the same mission again. Not complaining about some easy cash but wondering if that happens often?
I’ve never experienced the “same station” stuff but sometimes the “go get us commodity X” thing is a sucker’s game. When you count the fact that you’ve got to front the cash for certain things, you’re hardly making anything on some items, particularly the more expensive ones (or you may be losing money).
I don’t think Tom is saying he doesn’t enjoy the game, only that those points are worth calling out about it. I think a lot of people are aware of all that, so it’s not like people have given it a free pass. But like you say, it still easily succeeds in being captivating.
To be honest, what appeals to be about the game is part of what Tom finds annoying about it. I put that down to a difference in taste and expectation. The game in some ways is like buying a new car at a dealership. You’re expected to know how to drive (if you can’t, go find a driving instructor), they show you where the basics are in the vehicle, they spin some stuff about what you can do with a car, but once you’ve bought it you’re on your own. I’d rather not have the sales guy phoning every 5 minutes with a new task (“Now that you’ve successfully driven home, go to the store and buy groceries!”, “Let’s try a longer drive to London, you might even get into a fight!”, “I’ll demonstrate how windows work now, so drive to Scotland and take a scenic tour, make sure you create an accurate map using your GPS scanner!”). Just imagine driving north for the first time and discovering Scotland, without being told it’s there! That’s what I love about going in cold.
I can’t get onboard about the galaxy map being poor either. It’s like a fantastic toy, you can explore for hours. It’s really not that hard to use, is it?
Limited social and online only are probably the main ones we can all mostly agree on. I don’t want it to turn into an MMO with a global chat window and all that crap, but having better tools to play with others would be welcome.
Yes, I’ve had this happen a few times at Anarchy platforms that sell slaves. Very profitable! I tend to take those missions as part of a group of other missions, they’re a little extra on top.
I’m not really understanding the galaxy map complaints either, other than I suppose the limitation on/speed of route plotting. It conveys an awful lot of information* about a massive galaxy and it’s quite customisable. It could certainly be improved, but it’s a net plus rather than a net minus if you ask me.
*Admittedly some of that information is not as useful as it might be, eg listed trade routes not translating into trading profits.
I’ve had good success with those missions. Most recently (a few days back now as I have not had a chance to play lately), I was contracted to pick up 3 tonnes of Palladium for a reward of 80k. I used the galaxy map to find a source three hops away, procured it for I think 12k/tonne and netted a 45k profit for 15 minutes work. In fact I made more than that as I used the extra cargo space to ferry other goods for a profit in both directions.
The galaxy map is largely fine, as you say. Once you’ve learned how to read and navigate it, it’s quite elegant considering the sheer number of stars in it. I do think it badly needs a favourites/bookmarks tab though.
The system map seems cheap and nasty to me - a bit too placeholder. They were showing off really nice orrery concepts during development, but obviously that didn’t work out or they didn’t have time, but I’d definitely like to see the system map reworked.
I do think it badly needs a favourites/bookmarks tab though.
Agreed. It would be nice to be able to save a two way planned route as well. But I think the only really major omission from the map* is an inability to pin notes, but that’s true of 99% of game maps, many of which need that ability even more.
*Not including stuff like prices, which aren’t there by design.
Well i had thought Elite was getting mentioned in that other list (most under-appreciated?) as it had a tagline of Elite and lead with a screenshot from the game, but yeah not in the list of ten. I agree with Tom’s points, if i come at it from the angle that this game was rushed for xmas. Knowing that Frontier are planning on improving the base game for free and you have the expansions coming, i am much less critical of the game, except for the online as DRM thing, this is the only game with DRM that i currently play, and i’m pretty bummed about the online, especially as an Explorer in elite games (often) much of the galaxy will already be explored before i even start the game, but i refuse to play an unfinished game that still has game breaking flaws.
You are correct on the game not having any documentation until after it’s release. We luckily did have that unofficial manual that is still (imho) better that the official documentation and i’m 100% with you on the ‘hunting down important info that should be front and center’ gets very boring quickly. But that is indicative of the whole game in general, it is a slightly incoherent mess with missing things and stuff not fully optimized because it was released before it was ready (as in a polished finished product).
Having said that it is also the second most popular game in my playing schedule, and i’m loving it for what it is, a non-typical AAA industry made for console brain-dead product. We don’t have enough of those kind of games (that look this good) imho.
Can you elaborate on that? Are you telling me the lack of a mechanism to record prices of places you have at least been to is by design?
Yes. There’s not much to elaborate on really. The point being it’s not so much a failing of the galactic map per se as a design choice about the game as a whole that you may or may not agree with.
I guess my hopes of some kind of trade computer module are out the window.
But boy is that a terrible design decision that completely bemuses me. Even ignoring the pain the in the ass it means for players, it does not even make any sense from a canon perspective. Are we supposed to believe we are flying around in these advanced spaceships all over the galaxy, yet don’t have on-board computers that can save a few bytes of data? Ridiculous. I know the idea is that price data stales over time and becomes less useful, but I don’t see that as a valid excuse. Having players rely on pen and pencil, spreadsheet or other websites - basically anything that takes you out game immersion - is a tremendously poor design decision. Not to mention that if I am going to spend the time writing data down and coming up with trade routes manually, only for that work to be in vain as the data stales - well screw you Frontier, you should at least be doing some of the heavy lifting for me.
I don’t think is a deal breaker for me, as others have said there are plenty of ways to earn in the game, but I think it has the potential to turn away a lot of players, particularly as it is one thing that might make them just bounce off their first several hours in the game.
deanco
3495
Along the same lines - say like you find some military plans or rare artwork that fell off the back of a truck. Before you cash them in, check the bulletin board. Sometimes there is a ‘Bring me 1 of the stuff you already have in your hold’ mission just sitting there. They pay much better than selling it.
I had an awesome experience yesterday. Saw a python with a 36K bounty on it. It was master. Decided to attack it in my B/C grade adder. In the first pass is tore through my shields in no time and damaged my windshield and an oxy timer began counting down. It took me 2mins to understand that this problem isn’t going to fix itself and decided to try to leg it to the nearest station, which was in a different star system. When I was down to 2mins and only 2LS away from the station a pirate pulls me out of supercruise. I escape him. With only 0:50 left I arrive 7km away from the station. and with 0:24 left I enter the hangar. whew. That was tense!
Otherwise it would be 50K rebuy cost plus 100K collected bounties lost.
It took me 2mins to understand that this problem isn’t going to fix itself and decided to try to leg it to the nearest station, which was in a different star system. When I was down to 2mins and only 2LS away from the station a pirate pulls me out of supercruise. I escape him. With only 0:50 left I arrive 7km away from the station. and with 0:24 left I enter the hangar. whew. That was tense!
I am curious about the fiction which allows a spaceship with a broken canopy travel through hyperspace. It seems to me that if that’s possible, presumably so is hyperspace base-jumping in a space suit. The extreme sport of the future!
You create some kind of bubble i think, like you do when in SuperCruise.
Someone told me upthread quite a few pages ago that in the commodities screen, that part where it says “Galactic Average” can be clicked on to change to any system you’ve already been to, or any system that you purchased commodity prices for in the Galaxy map. I haven’t tried it yet myself, since I’m leaving trading until I have a hauler or some other ship with more room. Is that the type of information you’re looking for, or something else?
My problem with the galaxy map is not about the functionality, but that it doesn’t give me a sense of my place. Yes, I know it shows my current location. But (for example) I started out in one area and over the last month since release have gradually made my way to another general area. But I have no sense of where I am hanging out now in relation to where I was, other than recognizing a few names. Nor do I have a sense of if I’ve traveled very far, or very little (most likely the latter). I guess I’m looking for a regional sense of things, but the map is so specific I’m losing that bigger picture. When I zoom out, its all just a jumble.
Probably not expressing that very well. But by contrast, Starpoint Gemini 2’s in-game map, albeit 2D, provides a clear regional view of things:
Agree 100%. By contrast, getting prices on trade items in Space Rangers 2 in-game is fully integrated and a lot of fun. And IIRC, the prices may be stale by the time your arrive at the buying/selling location. Its part of the risk of trading; there are no certainties you’re going to make your profit. But it is immersive and seems quite real.
But in E:D, I alt-tab out to Thrudd’s site and get prices, go back into game and when I arrive at new location, the prices are precisely what I’d expected. Immersion breaking on two counts.
