DeepT
3981
Is this game finished? By finished, I mean all the gameplay elements are in and the only thing left are bug fixes and perhaps some content updates.
Janster
3982
I agree fully, however new models can happily break established patterns, exept the FerDeLance…don’t fuck with it.
This game will probably go very far, but as it stands right now, it’s awesome and humbling in nature, you like space, here it is.
Not really, but it’s one of those endless development games / software as a service, so it’s hard to tell.
It felt finished to me. The combat is pretty polished with all the different types of weapons I’ve tried so far. The space flight model is done well, it’s satisfying, and it’s done. Those are the two base, absolute core elements that everything else is built upon.
The next layer of gameplay is not as complete maybe, but it’s close to it, I think. Exploration of star systems is pretty interesting when you learn how. Trading is one element I haven’t tried yet, so I can’t comment on it. Mining is repetitive but has some random elements, and I enjoyed getting my first rush of money through mining. Bounty hunting is a lot of fun, with both enemies weaker than you as well as the “holy shit” element of running away from bounty characters too powerful for you.
So that later layer of gameplay is pretty finished too. The next gameplay layer on top of that, the interplay between Federation, Alliance, Imperials, the conflict zones, improving your faction standings, the story elements that show up in the news feeds, the whole feeling and idea of a larger world that you’re in, I think that’s the layer that probably needs the most work where content is being added. But I haven’t spent enough time in the game to be able to get to that layer yet. I’m hoping by the time I do get to it, there will be more there.
DeepT
3985
Can this game be played effectively with a mouse and keyboard or do you need a joystick?
conVurt
3986
If you get tired hauling metals to Yembo for the community goal thing, there are a couple of conflict zones in the nearby anarchy system Frendian, namely a high intensity zone at Frendian A 3 and a low intensity zone at Frendian A 4, as well as a couple of outposts to cash in your bonds.
EDIT: There are also 2 more high and 1 more low intensity conflict zones at Frendian B 5, but it’s a bit of a hike to get there, as the secondary is about 245k ls from the primary.
There are a few streamers I’ve seen who use a mouse and keyboard, so it can certainly be done. Whether you want to, however, I dunno. :)
Controller works great, imho. I was using a 360 controller, bought a joystick, and preferred the controller. :)
Absolutely, I prefer M&K over controller frankly. I am sure it’s not as effective as a full HOTAS, but after a brief learning curve it’s a pretty good control system.
To give the other answer, no it’s not ok to say/think they are ‘boring’. They come from a tradition (possibly older than you or I?), they come from specific manufacturers in the Elite backstory and they are known for certain aesthetic styles. They are also elegant in their simplicity and functional for their usage (no spindly sticky-out-bits to get broken off in combat etc), so get back your game newbie and leave tradition alone. ;)
Has anyone here played I-War? (Independence War in the U.S. release?) In it you pilot a dreadnaught, a ship in between fighters and corvettes. It’s a big ship, but not too big. The dreadnaught also has a “nose”, where the bridge is. That nose section is modular and attaches to the body of the main ship, or you can eject and separate from the main ship if you’re in desperate trouble, or if you want to switch “bodies”.
Well, that “nose” section, which contains the bridge, that’s what the Sidewinder looks like in Elite Dangerous. :) I’ve been wanting to comment on that since Day 1, but kept forgetting. And the Cobra has the same shape but bigger. For the first month or so that I was playing Elite, I thought that was pretty funny.
But now that I’ve gotten used to it, I keep thinking, why wouldn’t a ship be designed just to be a simple shape like that? Sure, it means that you’ve got very little space for Yaw thrusters, which means yaw won’t be as strong as pitch and roll, which is true in the game. And it makes sense. And after flying around this way for a few months, now I’m thinking maybe spaceships will be designed this way, with weak yaw. If you can get the same trajectories with a combination of pitch and roll, why do you need strong yaw thrusters?
But short answer gurugeorge, I guess I like the simplicity of the spaceship designs, even though I’ve never played an earlier Elite game. It gives the game a pretty unique identity, especially when combined with the weak yaw that comes with those designs.
I suppose the reason (apart from Elite tradition) is that they’re theoretically supposed to be atmosphere-capable as well as spaceships (are they? or am I just imagining that from some forum chat?) - otherwise there’d be no reason for the “aerodynamic” design.
Meh, I guess I just like my spaceships to be whacky, sometimes assymetric, etc. Even Star Citizen’s ships are a bit “safe” looking to me, design wise (like extras from a James Cameron s-f movie). These things take place quite a way in the future, so I’d expect the art design to project itself into some imagined future aesthetic, and I’d expect different companies ships to have characteristic thematic designs that are quite different from each other (like the 4 overall styles of ship design in EVE), especially if aerodynamicness isn’t a functional requirement (though I grant it may be for the Elite ships, as I said).
schurem
3993
Some day we will be making planetfall in our cobra’s, adders, haulers and asps. The fins and tails and lifting body designs will be more than useful for that. Might be that non-aerodynamic designs such as the lakon’s don’t even get to make planetfall!
I hadn’t heard about that. That seems like a LOT of work. Being able to enter planet atmosphere will require a lot of work. I’m pretty sure I’d rather that they flesh out a story and some personalities in Alliance, Imperial, Federation space rather than add planetfall. Space is where the core game is right now, why not build on that, instead of adding something completely new and different?
schurem
3995
Well the previous Elite game featured planetary spaceports and it is confirmed as an expansion goal for this game. Yea it’s gonna be a lot of work but definately worth it.
Question. My Federation ranking is Cadet. How do I know how close I am to reaching the next rank? Is there an “XP bar” somewhere or anything like that?
My understanding is that I need to be a Midshipman to get a permit to enter Sol.
I think you can enter at Cadet, actually. I have a Sol permit and that’s all I am. Check under your permits?
Love the I-War games (I+II), and i hadn’t made that connection before re the sidewinder and the front of Dreadnaught. It seemed like a good escape capsule option in I-War, like the USS Enterprise and it’s circle saucer thing?
The Yaw thing in Elite Dangerous is mostly a gameplay thing in relation to the common criticism from the previous two games about space combat being like ‘jousting in space’, which was because of the near true Newtonian flight model they used (and players not understanding about switching main engines off to engage in combat). ‘Turrets in space’ was another thing they wanted to avoid and also ED is very much a re-imaging of the original Elite, that was more ‘planes in space’. I’m a fan of the last two games Newtonian model, but i’m grown to enjoy ED’s flight feeling and with FAO it is really nice.
Well in the original Elite, there was no landing on planets and most of ED’s design comes from those original shapes. Tech at the time and a limit of 19kb(or less!) for graphics was probably a big factor in the look of Elites ships! They have rounded and smoothed out, added curves etc, to those original designs and it just so happens that like in the previous two Elite games where you could land on planets, we should get that with ED as an expansion, and those ‘simple’ geometric shapes translate well for that function. Probably coincidence as i don’t think i ever read David Braben saying that was part of the design thinking for the ships in Elite.
We will need the re-introduction of the ‘Atmospheric Shields’ for the ships in ED at some point.
Are you a backer? I think backers got permits while us non-backers have to work for it. I currently have no permits.
Only Alpha and Beta backers got the Sol permit, all other backers got a permit to the Founders World. You have to complete the Federation military missions to get the permits, which you’ll see by completing missions for Fed-aligned interests. I think the Sol permit is the first one you get.
