Elite: Dangerous

[J_C]

Will the game ever have a story? I'm a storyfag. I loved IWar2.

There are tons of background lore and you can always read the hapennings in the galaxy on the Galnet News Feed, but there no story which have an arch from start to finish.

 

[NotAGolfer]

I have to say as boring as mining is they somehow added enough stuff to do to make it tolerable. Finding a time-efficient way to mine enough of the valuable metals/minerals and to ignore the rest, finding a suitable place to mine, and also very important, the right ship and components, a lot of decisions and only if you make the right ones the time invested in mining will actually pay off.
At least it did for me, just earned 550000 bucks in one tour from a resource starved space station to the outer rings of the gas giant it orbitted and back. Took about 2 hours and included 2 missions worth together 200K to find Osmium which I luckily did. That and lots of gold, praseodyn... whatever and similar nice and shiny things.
The most important thing I learned is that the advice to first mine a sample and only fire a prospector drone if I like what I'm seeing is complete bullshit. These drones cost about 100 bucks each and having to fly near each asteroid myself only to see what's what is such a waste of time.

Mining is still extremely boring of course, will continue to do it in Harma for a while though.
Still need a little more money before I can buy a Vulture.

edit: Okay, made 1.6 millions on my latest mining run. 600K from another osmium supply mission, 280K from 4 units painite and the rest from gold, palladium and platinum. All that in about one and a half hour. Holy shit. :D

edit 2: Aaaand 1.9 millions on one mining run. This time without any missions involved. Found an asteroid with 43% painite.

Spoiler

Now I have to buy some fancy pirate ship, then it's time to go murder and plunder, har har.
Type 6 transporter with 2 mining lasers and 2 limpet controllers, class 3A collector limpet and 1A prospector limpet, as well as a class 2A refinery, is a fantastic mining ship (80t cargo space with 2 class 5 cargo racks and one class 4). Can only recommend, even though the parts are a bit expensive. But then again the ship is cheap as fuck.

 

[NotAGolfer]

And now I lost everything (couldn't pay the 390k insurance for my Vulture).
Combat missions are as fucked up as in FFE, lol. Either the mission objective doesn't even show up (assassinations) or it's some bullshit scavenger hunt or whatever these retarded salvage missions (that nearly always feature an ambush) are supposed to be or 3 Anacondas with escort wings appear right in front of you or something else goes wrong.
And I must say that I don't have fun with planetside missions at all.
Why the fuck can't you target base defenses or sentry skimmers?
That's just stupid. I have a fucking flying fortress (Vulture) and get shredded by some weak sauce missile launcher turrets and lasers because I can't target these fucking things.
... Or can I? There are too many buttons on that XBox360 controller, I might have confused hostile targetting with something else. But I really think that nothing showed up under contacts and that I couldn't target anything on the ground, including skimmers.
So if that's really the case then I just wanna know why on earth can't I target ground defenses? To force me to use the SRV?
Would figure, a lot of design decisions reek of disciplinary measures or compromises for multiplayer:
- no Newtonian flight physics because dogfights don't really work with those
- ridiculous scanner and weapon ranges because dogfights ftw
- Powerplay factions being too much in the background without actual system factions or facilities associated with them and no direct way to influence which systems an enemy faction loses in the next cycle, also it's grindy as fuck

I also hate that the game constantly has to ask the server for informations btw (apparently even for random missions at any station), the connection to the servers isn't good enough for that shit.

Anyway, planetside missions are crap atm. Hope that changes in 2.2
And I hope they find a way to better tie the Powerplay stuff to the major and minor factions. Archon Delaine is a huge disappointment. I expected a pirate king sitting in a huge and heavily fortified asteroid base in Harma. He wasn't there. Nobody was there. Kumo Crew ships just show up as system defense I think and that's about it. Underwhelming. Clandestine my ass, these Powerplay factions need to show presence or it kills the suspension of disbelief and you are constantly reminded that this is just another gamey mechanic added to keep you busy.
And make the lore/background story more prominent. One way to do that would be by reducing all the unnecessary noise, meaning deleting some of these useless bullshit newspapers that only translate the minor faction dynamics into prewritten sentences. Nobody reads that shit.

 

[J_C]

Funny how Elite can go from great to shit in a day. :D

 

[NotAGolfer]

Funny? Do I sound like I had fun?!


Now would you shut up so I can let off some steam please?
Afterwards I can go back to loving this magnificient game again, this time playing without mining as a way to get filthy rich in no time, slowly working my way up in the imperial ranks, doing everything in my power to protect and help fair Aisling Duval.



But I will try to play as a bounty hunter next. So maybe better pledge allegiance to Aisling's aunt. Better fit for a combat pilot.

 

[J_C]

 

[NotAGolfer]

So I thought 27k for destroying 2 faction ships, sounds easy, can't be too hard for such measly payoff.
Just go to the conflict zone and pick some novice pilot in a Sidewinder or something. And then kill him quick while the warring factions are distracted. And then get the hell out before anyone notices you.
Think again. First there were no warring factions. Just the system controlling one plus the target faction for that bounty mission.
Federal corvettes, dropships, Vultures, Viper MKIV and so on, and everyone at least experienced....
Tried my luck on an Eagle.
Suffice to say that I didn't even have time to say wt...

27k and you need at least a capital ship to survive more than a few second.

I think I'll wait before I try this game again, this needs some serious rebalancing work, at least when it comes to mission rewards.

2 more screenshots before I put this away for a while:

Spoiler

fancy space station with earth-like planet and milky way

pirate base (dunno what causes this to show up, either Archon Delaine controlled systems or station owned by Anarchist faction, the only difference to the standard one is the red skull anyway)

Both screenshots taken from the seat of that Vulture I lost because the game hates me

 

[J_C]

27k and you need at least a capital ship to survive more than a few second.

Spoiler

fancy space station with earth-like planet and milky way

pirate base (dunno what causes this to show up, either Archon Delaine controlled systems or station owned by Anarchist faction, the only difference to the standard one is the red skull anyway)

Both screenshots taken from the seat of that Vulture I lost because the game hates me

Wasn't your target rated dangerous or elite? For 27K, I wouldn't have picked that as a target. I would have wated until a less dangerous pops up.

 

[Burning Bridges]

So you spent 8 million on a fighter and could not afford the insurance? Talk about the game being dumb

I still only fly the Cobra for trading and Diamondback Scout for fighting, anything above that is only for people swimming in cash.

P.S. The game has some serious balance problems, but it's our task to find ways around that.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Wasn't your target rated dangerous or elite? For 27K, I wouldn't have picked that as a target. I would have wated until a less dangerous pops up.

It didn't though. Tried every "conflict zone" in that sector and there was no conflict anywhere, also no targets that were less than I think experienced or competent or something like that.

Burning Bridges
I died 3 times in a row before I lost the Vulture. Had 1 million credit line.
There are times when I just can't admit defeat and abort a mission. This was one of them because everything about attacking settlements stinks.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I still dont get why one wouldn't quit after the second attempt, sell that goddamn Vulture and trade it for a much cheaper ship like the Diamondback. You sound like a guy who wants to win a destruction derby and insists that he must do it with a Ferrari. It's ok to make irrational decisions in computer games but then the consequences are of your own doing. It does have nothing to do with the game being unbalanced (which it still is of course).

And btw your sudden switch from "this gaem is great" to "Elite Dangerous sucks" had something of a truly Makkab'esque dumbfuckery about it, so yeah I have zero sympathy for your plight and find it very amusing.

 

[Suchy]

And now I lost everything (couldn't pay the 390k insurance for my Vulture).
Combat missions are as fucked up as in FFE, lol. Either the mission objective doesn't even show up (assassinations) or it's some bullshit scavenger hunt or whatever these retarded salvage missions (that nearly always feature an ambush) are supposed to be or 3 Anacondas with escort wings appear right in front of you or something else goes wrong.
And I must say that I don't have fun with planetside missions at all.
Why the fuck can't you target base defenses or sentry skimmers?
That's just stupid. I have a fucking flying fortress (Vulture) and get shredded by some weak sauce missile launcher turrets and lasers because I can't target these fucking things.
... Or can I? There are too many buttons on that XBox360 controller, I might have confused hostile targetting with something else. But I really think that nothing showed up under contacts and that I couldn't target anything on the ground, including skimmers.
So if that's really the case then I just wanna know why on earth can't I target ground defenses? To force me to use the SRV?
Would figure, a lot of design decisions reek of disciplinary measures or compromises for multiplayer:
- no Newtonian flight physics because dogfights don't really work with those
- ridiculous scanner and weapon ranges because dogfights ftw
- Powerplay factions being too much in the background without actual system factions or facilities associated with them and no direct way to influence which systems an enemy faction loses in the next cycle, also it's grindy as fuck

I also hate that the game constantly has to ask the server for informations btw (apparently even for random missions at any station), the connection to the servers isn't good enough for that shit.

Anyway, planetside missions are crap atm. Hope that changes in 2.2
And I hope they find a way to better tie the Powerplay stuff to the major and minor factions. Archon Delaine is a huge disappointment. I expected a pirate king sitting in a huge and heavily fortified asteroid base in Harma. He wasn't there. Nobody was there. Kumo Crew ships just show up as system defense I think and that's about it. Underwhelming. Clandestine my ass, these Powerplay factions need to show presence or it kills the suspension of disbelief and you are constantly reminded that this is just another gamey mechanic added to keep you busy.
And make the lore/background story more prominent. One way to do that would be by reducing all the unnecessary noise, meaning deleting some of these useless bullshit newspapers that only translate the minor faction dynamics into prewritten sentences. Nobody reads that shit.

1. ALWAYS have money for the insurance. If you can't afford it, don't take combat missions.
2. 390k insurance for a Vulture means that it was a shit Vulture, not a flying fortress. I'm flying a Vultre with a proper head hunter setup, insurance costs 1.3mln (and you need to remember about prioritizing the power output properly, so you don't lose life support or thruster when deploying hardpoints). I can easily take on anything up to expert level Python without losing shields. Had some tough times with a master Fer-De-Lance, survived with 20% hull (military grade) and broken canopy, so it was a race with time to a nearest station. The bounty wasn't worth repair costs.
3. Never had propblems with assassination missions, note that the target is supposed to appear at a specific time, not whenever you get to the system. Salvage missions are boring and not paid enough for the risk, surface missions defy logic. If you want quick cash, find a system with a lot of missions against pirate factions, take as many as possible against the same faction, so pretty much you get paid multiple times for the same job. You'll pretty quickly get allied status with mission givers and raise your pay grade. In the last two evenings I made ~25 mln. And you don't really ned a Vulture for that, fully upgraded DiamondBack Scout is good enough. Way cheaper than a Vulture, and even if it doesn't have the same fire power, you can still take on most of the targets in such missions (though it takes more time to kill them). And since it's a pretty fast ship, you can outrun almost everything and escape when it gets too hot.
Check out LHS 378 system and its surface port Tuan Survey (or something like that, the only surface port in this system). There are 4 factions giving missions against pirates in neighbouring LHS 392, so you'll get your cash fast. And there another neighboring system AO with high tech upgrades to spend your cash on. LHS 378 also features different levels of resource extraction sites for some quick grind. One your ship is good enough, you can join community events for bounty hunting, last time I made 20mln for being in top 10% of contributors and another 10mln from the bounties. There's one going on now, so I'll join it while it lasts, then go back to LHS 378. I need another 30-40mln to buy and fully upgrade a Python, then I'll try to join in the plot with alien artifacts. IF you're gonna do the LHS 378 missions, chances are we'll meet - my name in game is Tony Vegas.
4. 360 controller? Not precise enough, I got a HOTAS setup and would never switch back (using Saitek X52, behold my mancave http://i.imgur.com/8GkugEo.jpg ). Too many buttons too remember? I can totally recommend VoiceAttack, does an amazing job at speech recognition and you don't need to remember the keyboards setup. Really helpful for Rift, when you don't even see the keyboard. I have mapped flight and combat controls on the sticks so I don't need to take my hands off, using voice commands for supercruise, hyperspace, landing gear, cargo scoop, maps, and so on.
5. Learn maneuvers with flight assist on and off, switching it off occasionally is really helfpul when you need fast turns and get some edge during dogfight. That's where Newtonian physics come in handy.
6. Agreed on scanner ranges, even the most expensive ones have shit distance and eat way too much power.
7. Powerplay - doesn't really bring anything cool into the game and is grindy as fuck indeed. Also it's totally broken. I pledged to Winters for a while, and so I was constantly being attacked by an opposing faction in the Imperial space (or was it Alliance?). Try defending yourself, and you're instantly turned criminal, having the law after you as well.
Hopefully taking on sume exploration with the alien probes and stuff will be more interesting.

 

[Suchy]

Will the game ever have a story? I'm a storyfag. I loved IWar2.

It doesn't have the story line like IWar2 or Privateer, but apart from the lore, there are some interesting things going on. The whole alien probes/artifacts story arc that's ongoing looks cool. It's definitely not a pre-defined story line, but something that's being introduced into the game continuously by the ED team, and it's definitely a story. I want to join in the discoveries, after I switch to a higher tier multirole ship. I'm totally into dealing with the unknown.

Check out the alien probe discovery video:



Apparently somebody did spectrum analysis of the sound it produced, and turns out it's an actual message with something resembling a map encoded in it.



Here's a huge thread about it all and the summary of everything that happened so far.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...acles-and-other-mysteries-Thread-8-The-Canonn

 

[MapMan]

That's pretty cool. I'm at a point where I got the basics but kinda don't know what to do next. I'm in a system LTT 15547 (or something like that), sporting a Cobra MKIII. I'm not very far from the system that I started the game in. Not really sure how to progress and what's the best way to do it. The system I'm in doesn't have much missions, especially combat missions that I am (at this moment) most interested in. How should I pick a system to go to? What ship should I aim to get? Upgrades? Where do I even get those. Are planetary combat missions worth doing? The ground vehicle controls are so fucking shitty.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Aulis very near the default starting point is a good market for upgrades. Another that's even larger is Wolf 562. That's if you started at Asellus Primus (Horizons).

 

[NotAGolfer]

And btw your sudden switch from "this gaem is great" to "Elite Dangerous sucks" had something of a truly Makkab'esque dumbfuckery about it, so yeah I have zero sympathy for your plight and find it very amusing.

Great, I'm glad that you're having fun reading my posts.

But where did I write that the game sucks?
There are things that should have been done differently imo (no multiplayer universe, real Newtonian flight physics so dogfights are off the table and it's back to flight vectors and a good sense for speed/acceleration plus mastering the flight assist systems) but imo the game as it is now is already more fun and better than Frontier: First Encounters no matter if the simulation is bullshit.

I threw a fit up there. But even then I don't think i wrote that I hate it or regret having played it til now.
However I will still hold off on playing this for a while. Some other nice little game popped up on my radar all of the sudden and I want to wait at least for 2.2 before I come back to this. And then I will probably refrain from doing powerplay or binge playing as I did last week. I'll only see what's new and if things go in the right direction and stop again. They have to balance a lot of shit and make planetside content a lot more fun before I will try to work my way up the ranks again.

3. Never had propblems with assassination missions, note that the target is supposed to appear at a specific time, not whenever you get to the system.

Obviously. And I knew that. Tried that mission type 2 times I think. The first time I barely made it to the target planet in time (I like to chain missions so it got a bit close, maybe 3 minutes left on the clock) but couldn't find the target before the timer ran out. After it ran out the client sent me a message that I would have to find the target soon or the mission would fail. I didn't have an FSD wake scanner so I thought maybe that's where he escaped to.
In the second mission I arrived too late and got the same message. This time I had the scanner but still couldn't find the target or any trace of it. So ... why the message "that I had to find him soon" if there's no chance to do that late? Why not just give me the fail message immediately? Content not yet implemented? Or do you just have to be very lucky and I wasn't?

 

[Suchy]

Bad luck I guess. In my case the target usually spawned within 5-10 minutes of me flying around the system during given time slot.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This is some really impressive autism.

 

[NotAGolfer]

I wanted to punch him in the face til he shuts the fuck up. Badly.
Didn't even know I had that in me.

 

[DraQ]

So, ED has finally got it's own wormhole bug?

 

[Burning Bridges]

Allegedly 2.2 goes online tomorrow, I guess its time to rack up some credits then.

 

[J_C]

Allegedly 2.2 goes online tomorrow, I guess its time to rack up some credits then.

By the time I get some time playing with it during Christmas, they iron out the last bugs.

 

[Urthor]

They've had a 6 week beta for 2.2 because lol repeating the fuckup that was 2.1 material grind. It's close to perfect, tourism actually pays out a decent amount as well. More CR/hour than bulk trading, less than the Sothis grind.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Just so you now, I am heading for a mining operation in Harma again, this time with a well equiped Cobra.

If you're in the vicinity of Anlave, you can join me. Group is BURNING_BRIDGES

 

[Burning Bridges]

1/2 million with the first mining run, and I wasnt even attacked. This may be a good source of income after all, I am just annoyed by my limited cargo, even in a mining Cobra III I can get no more than 20 tons if I have fuel scoop, limpet controller, shield etc, and half of that is needed for the limpets. So I need to throw away most of the junk that I mine, and only the high paying stuff. I go for the contracts, and they pay me 185,000 for 3 tons of Praseodymum that's over 60,000 a ton, and the other stuff like Silver is only a little extra pocket money. I also need to carry the stuff over 180 light years but with a fuel scoop and class A frameshift drive its bearable