Elite Dangerous

[Sendraks]

[quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2450074"]Interesting to see how No Man's Sky compares.[/quote]

I'll let you know. NMS is in a lot of ways, the game I wanted ED to be and may yet still become, once they get landing on planets and other content in.

When I have a better PC, I might revisit ED but, right now, the performance of the game on my PC just makes for an unsatisfactory experience.

[electricwhiteboy]

Be interested in what your experience is. I'm buying NMS late in August when I come back from holiday, so probably after you.

Have you played Elite since the last patch? I got a huge performance boost. I'll be poking my nose in when the updates launch. The season pass for next year, absolutely going to hold off on that unless the first release puts it back on par with NMS.

[DarthHelmet86]

NMS still feels a lot like vague promises and "No really so much stuff to do we really promise" but I haven't been looking into it that much so perhaps they have firmed up the ground so to speak. If it is what it says it is that will be amazing and I will buy it up. Even if it isn't but still pulls of a great job like Elite Dangerous did I will most likely grab it as well.

[Sendraks]

[quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2450094"]
Have you played Elite since the last patch? I got a huge performance boost..[/quote]

Has there been a patch since the engineers patch? I tried playing the game but found the engineers menu screen to be horribly, unplayable, slow and performance landing on planets or at stations, to not be significantly improved. The whole thing was very frustrating and not something I wanted to sink time into.

Out in space, combat was still ok and I could appreciate how they'd tweaked the performance of NPCs. Combat is still a lacklustre route to go down compared to trading for making money. The risk vs reward is well off.

[electricwhiteboy]

[quote="Sendraks";p="2450105"][quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2450094"]
Have you played Elite since the last patch? I got a huge performance boost..[/quote]

Has there been a patch since the engineers patch? I tried playing the game but found the engineers menu screen to be horribly, unplayable, slow and performance landing on planets or at stations, to not be significantly improved. The whole thing was very frustrating and not something I wanted to sink time into.[/quote]

Yup. It considerably improved performance for me. It slightly tweaked the Engineers to give better indications of where you might find materials, and considerably upped the amount of materials and data you can carry.

I really didn't like the Cruel God of Random Numbers to Engineers and upgrading, nor the fact that to get the materials you really need to ask the internet or take days tracking down elements or parts. I've not sunk a lot of time into it, but found that it can squeeze enough performance to fix a niggle about a ship. E.g make a Python comparable to mid tier Cobra in terms of jump distance range.

[CdesignProponentsist]

[quote="DarthHelmet86";p="2450095"]NMS still feels a lot like vague promises and "No really so much stuff to do we really promise" but I haven't been looking into it that much so perhaps they have firmed up the ground so to speak. If it is what it says it is that will be amazing and I will buy it up. Even if it isn't but still pulls of a great job like Elite Dangerous did I will most likely grab it as well.[/quote]

I love exploring procedural environments so even if the game play gets old or repetitive, I'm pretty certain I will get more than my money's worth out if it.

[electricwhiteboy]

[quote="CdesignProponentsist";p="2450331"][quote="DarthHelmet86";p="2450095"]NMS still feels a lot like vague promises and "No really so much stuff to do we really promise" but I haven't been looking into it that much so perhaps they have firmed up the ground so to speak. If it is what it says it is that will be amazing and I will buy it up. Even if it isn't but still pulls of a great job like Elite Dangerous did I will most likely grab it as well.[/quote]

I love exploring procedural environments so even if the game play gets old or repetitive, I'm pretty certain I will get more than my money's worth out if it.[/quote]

My guess is that NMS will feel small compared to ED. I know that's sounds a weird thing to say, but looking at the videos they've gone for a much smaller scale. Even flying low to the surface planet I get the impression you will circumnavigate pretty quickly, travel within systems I'll bet will be faster too. ED captures the sheer size of space very well even if you can travel and 2001c.

[electricwhiteboy]

On my way out to Jacques Station and the centre of the Galaxy before I go on holiday. I'll post pictures of anything interesting I see. It'll take ages because I'm in a laden Python to deliver goods for the community goal.

[electricwhiteboy]

Ship launched fighters are quite fun, and the map improvements take some of the dicking around out of things. As it's Beta I'm in the fed corvette, and found launching in the condor in Res Zones is fun. Pirates attack the mothership and ignore your stupidly nimble glass cannon. Not a trick I would pull in a combat zone as I don't trust the AI enough, haven't tried putting the crew mate out in the fighter yet.

[electricwhiteboy]

White Dwarf stars are really pretty now. I tried super charging the FMS drive from one, it gives you the same boost as the top injection. Downside is that the route planner still doesn't automatically calculate, so you've got to plot the course manually. By the time you've done that you probably could have made the one jump you've saved any way.

[Animavore]

First contact has been made!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017- ... -dangerous

[electricwhiteboy]

I made the trip out to Colonia, from their flew out to Sag A* and met another player there. "So what now? Do we fight to see who becomes a God?" Then went out to the Great Annihilator. I partially mapped a Neutron Star highway on the way there and back.

Colonia was interesting and I stayed there for a while, it's like a village. I flew in open most of the time, no gankers, friendly people and a lot of chat in Jacques Station. I met the same players quite frequently, and there is a lot of player activity out there. I can see why people might want to get a second account and fly out there.

I suicidewindered to get back in the bubble and explored the Alien Ruins. Not hugely profitable, but I solved the "first" bit of the puzzle on my own, then checked the forums when I hit a brick wall. It might be bugged. Certain monoliths don't light up in Solo, this might be a way of forcing players to work together. There are players watching the sky in Open, but gankers are attacking ships in SRVs in "sniping" positions. Haven't met a Thargoid yet, from the data you get out the monoliths it's pretty certain the ruins don't belong to them.

[electricwhiteboy]

Had a Close Encounter with a Thargoid Ship tonight. Went alien hunting with a mate, and got kicked out of hyperspace within about 10 minutes of looking. The damn things are huge, almost the width of a station across.

[TopCat]

[quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2534765"]Had a Close Encounter with a Thargoid Ship tonight. Went alien hunting with a mate, and got kicked out of hyperspace within about 10 minutes of looking. The damn things are huge, almost the width of a station across.[/quote]
Ooh, where were you?

[electricwhiteboy]

[quote="TopCat";p="2534879"][quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2534765"]Had a Close Encounter with a Thargoid Ship tonight. Went alien hunting with a mate, and got kicked out of hyperspace within about 10 minutes of looking. The damn things are huge, almost the width of a station across.[/quote]
Ooh, where were you?[/quote]

Pleiades Sector near Maia is the best I can do off the top of my head. We both had separate encounters with them. Me first on the way out there before we were actively looking, then my wingmate after we re-fuelled and checked out systems with confirmed reports of activity.

We had Unknown Artefacts on board, and we were en route to Maia at the time it occurred, though it is unclear if these things actually influence anything. The amount of time we spent actively looking was about 30 minutes.

[electricwhiteboy]

Had a good session last night with the new multi-crew, it takes a lot of the pain out of multiplayer, travel and instancing etc.
There are quite a few lacking features though. For example crew can't honk the discovery scanner, but they can operate the other utility scanners. Crew can access the galaxy and system maps, but can't lock destinations or plot courses, or request docking permission. They have their own radar screen, but can't lock on to ships or see info about them (bounties, modules, cargo etc), or select sub targets. They can see what modules you have, but can't interact with them, or roll consumables from synthesis. Some of these omissions will be to prevent trolling or arguments, but as I don’t plan to ever fly with randoms I would like the option to choose what permissions to hand over.

[Sendraks]

I have a new PC but am still struggling to find the verve necessary to engage with ED again, largely because WoW has me happily occupied but mainly because it looks like I have a looooooong grind in front of me to get the necessary engineer modifications to make my FDL combat ready.

[electricwhiteboy]

Enjoy WoW, ED is a game I come back to periodically. I've been playing a lot as a mate got into it recently. Much as multi-crew has been a mixed bag, being able to instantly jump into another player's session has opened up the game. Even if it's for five minutes to "Hey, have a look at THIS!" Travelling in the co-pilot seat of the Asp is weird because you're close to the belly of the ship with only canopy below you and you're not in control!

Unless you're PvPing in ED I wouldn't have thought you need Engineer mods to be combat ready, especially not in a FDL. All the mods come with disadvantages, it's more jerry rigging than overclocking.

[Sendraks]

[quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2543817"]Unless you're PvPing in ED I wouldn't have thought you need Engineer mods to be combat ready, especially not in a FDL. All the mods come with disadvantages, it's more jerry rigging than overclocking.[/quote]

I think it is a more a case of optimal performance, rather than being able to do anything at all. To be able to go after the bigger bounties, one needs a better optimised ship. I'm probably overthinking how much I really need to do this to enjoy ED.

[TopCat]

[quote="Sendraks";p="2543823"][quote="electricwhiteboy";p="2543817"]Unless you're PvPing in ED I wouldn't have thought you need Engineer mods to be combat ready, especially not in a FDL. All the mods come with disadvantages, it's more jerry rigging than overclocking.[/quote]

I think it is a more a case of optimal performance, rather than being able to do anything at all. To be able to go after the bigger bounties, one needs a better optimised ship. I'm probably overthinking how much I really need to do this to enjoy ED.[/quote]
I'd agree with this, and I don't think you're overthinking it.

After months of grinding away, I now have an Anaconda which despite having top-of-the-range nearly everything (still need the 8A power plant and distributor, but the Bs are just about ok) handled like crap before I got an engineer to mod the thrusters and FSD.

The almost 30% increase to jump range makes getting about a lot less tedious, but even more so the increase in speed and manoeuvrability that came with the thruster mod made a colossal difference to just about everything. Admittedly it still doesn't have the pitch rate of a Vulture but it made all aspects of flying much more enjoyable.