schurem
4821
Cqc is about twelve point five times as much fun as i expected it to be.
Modest chaps, those Frontier fellows. From their annual report:
Looking ahead I see a multi-franchise game developer / publisher with its games
being distributed on the most modern and best hardware platforms, achieving sustainable returns for our shareholders.
Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. are good exemplars as to where we are heading.
TurinTur
4824
Lol. From a single game which still haven’t sold 1 million units to “We are going to be the next EA!”.
instant0
4825
Does that mean they plan to buy up other successful studios and then destroy them?
draxen
4826
This is currently 40% on their online store:
https://www.frontierstore.net/games/elite-dangerous-cat/elite-dangerous.html/
I’m tempted to pull the trigger, is it worth the price of admission? :)
The graphics look gorgeous.
KevinC
4827
Depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. If you’re interested in the sim aspect of space sim (i.e. feeling like a pilot of a spaceship), it’s great. The galaxy doesn’t feel very interactive at all and the gameplay can get repetitive, but it’s absolutely phenomenal if you want to fly around in a spaceship and blow up other spaceships.
That being said, their Horizons expansion comes out this December and will include the base game.
Papageno
4828
In your shoes I’d wait for the Horizons expansion, which will include the base game anyway (for more money of course).
EDIT: just to clarify, for more money than that 40% off.
Um, yes? I mean, you’re in a 160 page thread about the game. What do you expect us to say?
Rock8man
4830
Like KevinC and Papageno say, wait for the Horizons expansion. That way you get the base game and the expansion. It’s a great game. I already own it twice, once on PC, once on Xbox One. It plays great with both joystick+keyboard on PC, and on a controller on XBO.
conVurt
4832
So this CQC stress test thing… I’ve been avoiding the CQC portion of it for now, but not generally having beta access, I figured I’d take a peek at some of the changes coming by dropping into the beta solo game which the stress test has opened to everyone. So a couple of things of things I’ve noticed:
Hazardous Resource Extraction Sites. Gone are the days of jumping into and out of a Hi RES hoping for a steady steam of big ships. Hop into a Hazardous RES and done. We got your clippers, your drop ships and gun ships and assault ships, you wanted pythons?–here, have some. Maybe you’d like a wing of anacondas? Hell yes!
Power Plant sniping has been changed, in that it no longer blows up the ship. Actually, there’s a small chance that it might, and it may even happen before the power plant’s status reaches 0%, but now generally when it reaches 0% the ship just stops. In PvP, presumably this allows the player to potentially use the reboot mechanics to get back up and running after dropping some cargo for a pirate wing, but against NPCs it’s no longer necessarily the default thing to aim for.
This being the first time I’ve been in the beta, I was surprised to find it had grabbed a save of my game from presumably when the beta first started, so I didn’t have to start from scratch. Since what you do doesn’t get rolled back into the main game somehow afterward, this is actually a pretty good opportunity for me to buy and try out a bunch of ships I’ve never flown, or experiment with weapon configurations I might not have otherwise. For example, a pair of turrets on the python’s medium hardpoints is a great way to deal with those turning battles that small ships often force you into, at least until a friendly ship blocks a shot and you end up with a 10-minute bounty. Also an FDL with a fixed beam in the huge hardpoint and four multicannon in the medium is a hella lot of fun!
MrCoffee
4833
If it stops the ship then i will surely keep hitting the power plant! I have been wanting to get back to the game so maybe the patch is going to be it.
What’s the ETA for it?
conVurt
4834
The ETA for 1.4 is October 6, IIRC. But you should be able to jump in and try things out now if you want by installing the CQC Stress Test from the launcher thingie.
schurem
4835
I am going to pewpew my way to level 5 on powerplay this weekend. The last month i spent about two hours a week staying on level 4, earning five million a week. Nice but… Well getting that python fitted is gonna take forever that way.
Level five pays fifty a week! Serious moneys! But 10,000 points?! Here how I’ll be doing it: blowing up power-alligned ships in one of the control systems of a rival power. Bit like privateering really.
The system i picked for it is independent so the bounty i accrue should stay confined to that place only. Every faction ship is game except the ones belonging to my own faction.
I am slowly getting good at the frameshift interdiction game. Its more fun than combat zone grinding becaise the greayer variety in prey. Its also more efficient at 30 points a pop instead of the 10 points a faction combat zone gives. And lastly its far safer. No swarm of pythons melting your shields while you chew up your mark.
Paydirt!
MrCoffee
4836
Isn’t it slower tho? In a combat zone you have your targets close by, the way you are doing it you have to find them.
It is a but slower, but it’s a much more methodical hunt, so it can be more exciting.
schurem
4838
Yes it is slower per kill, but you get three times as many points per kill, so theres a huge net point/hour gain.
Its indeed more of a hunt and you get to blow up a far greater variety of ships. On the other hand it is like clubbing seals. Really. My vulture does hardly break a sweat from a wing of 3 pythons. On the gripping hand; wing of three? gimmeh dem pointz babeh!
Live stream right now from EGX with the team talking about the “past, present, and future of Elite Dangerous.”
Actual quote(*) from FD on the stream: “We didn’t realize the demand for grind in our game. There’s evidently not enough grind in Elite: Dangerous. The dev team was all ready to add exciting new features and content, such as unique space stations, dynamic events, persistent NPCs, and far-system discoverables, but the community has made it clear to us that they prefer to perform the same content over and over in order to watch a progress bar increase on their UI.”
(*)Not really an actual quote
