Elite: Dangerous looks better already!

[kurush]

That's rubbish.

Should be on the front page of Frontier Development I got my docking comp in some minor system near the founders world. It just appeared there randomly after 10 or 20 trade runs between the same 2 systems.

[Nyax]

OK so we're agreed equipment availability is... Rubbish and in dire need of work (come on Frontier! The stuff should be hard to get because it's expensive, not because it's impossible to find) Sure enough when I got to earth, Nada. Terrible selection of equipment AND ships. I hoped to leave futile hunts for equipment behind me when I stopped playing the X-games.

However I DID discover something deeply cool on my visit to earth.

The constellations are correct. Not only that but they update as you jump around to neighbouring systems. I mean I'd heard they were wanting to make the backdrop 'real', but it really is. The star fields aren't 'pre-rendered' the game really is working out star positions and brightnesses based on their real world 3d locations.

That's VERY nifty.

[muppetts]

The little compass to the left of the radar has a blue dot on it, this is your current target. If the blue dot is full then the target is in front of you, of it is an empty blue circle, it is behind you. All you have to do is manoeuvre to line up the blue dot. Also when docking, it shows you where your docking station is.

THX! + theeclownbroze Too!

[Nyax]

The compass is a very nice touch, because it and the scanner both come from the original elite. Nice nostalgic touch to the interface

[pjknibbs]

They need to do some work on the launcher application. I've just got access to the gamma and wanted to check what the fuss is about, so I installed the launcher last night and told it to start downloading the game, then went to bed--with my somewhat slow connection that's usually the best way to do this. Get up this morning and find that, due to a validation error on a file a third of the way through, it just gave up at that point--rather than, you know, ignoring the problem and downloading the rest of the files before going back to that one. At least if had done that I'd have had almost all the files present and the download wouldn't have been chugging along for another three hours this morning!

[Oldman]

I must admit I'm loving the game at the moment.
It's been a long time since I've had this 'feeling' of excitement and expectation in a space sim. game.
I tend to not pay enough attention to the finer detail of game instructions, so booting up ED was guaranteed to be a rocky start for me, and considering there's still some development work to be done before this game is finally released I'm pleasantly surprised at the progress I've made so far.
Without a hard copy of the various game functions beside me to refer to it's been fairly difficult to get an overall grasp of what's going on at times. Some of the menu's are at first glance leaving me bewildered, the good thing though is that once it finally dawns on me what's happening or needs to be done to achieve my aim, the game just gets more interesting.

The only gripe I have at the moment is finding a comfortable setting on the Roll axis of my joystick. At the moment the stick movement in the Roll is a bit 'twitchy', in the sense it's too quick a movement translated to the ship.
The Pitch movement is just about right, it seems smoother somehow, and more controllable. If I could find a setting that tones down the sensitivity or actual movement of the ship in relation to the movement of the joystick travel in the Roll axis I'd be a lot happier. ...At the moment I can't find/think of a solution. (Thrustmaster 16000m btw.)
I don't think it's anything to do with the joystick as such, because when I play XTC the Roll is a lot smoother...if you get my drift.

The real excitement and draw this game has though for me is the background universe and discovery part....for me personally it's living up to my expectations and more. I like the map, it's confusing at first, but the more I work with it the more interesting and less confusing it gets.

Playing the game in low detail at the moment, I've noticed the fans on my Radeon 4870's are pretty much working on the high rev. side!...but even at this low detail the game graphics are good. I've had no freezes or lock ups in the game at the moment, an occasional stutter now and then, but that's to be expected given the minimum GPU specs I'm using to play the game, to be fair.

They need to do some work on the launcher application. I've just got access to the gamma and wanted to check what the fuss is about, so I installed the launcher last night and told it to start downloading the game, then went to bed--with my somewhat slow connection that's usually the best way to do this. Get up this morning and find that, due to a validation error on a file a third of the way through, it just gave up at that point--rather than, you know, ignoring the problem and downloading the rest of the files before going back to that one. At least if had done that I'd have had almost all the files present and the download wouldn't have been chugging along for another three hours this morning!

When I downloaded the game initially It was fairly quick and without any hiccups, I think the installation only took about 10 - 15 minutes IIRC. and that was early in the morning (about 5am).
I tried to download the game onto my other computer a day or two later at 4pm in the afternoon, halfway through the installation the download was so slow I finally gave up! ...I'll try finishing/completing that install at a 'quieter' time I think.

I played the game for about 4 hrs last night without any game breaking bugs or server issues, so I'm pleasantly surprised about that....we'll see if that luck continues to hold out today!.

Oldman

[SteveMill]

I didn't have a problem with roll on the t16 - i had it set to the twist. There's a roll into turn option you can toggle - it might be that causing it to be odd.

[Rug]

[quote="Oldman"At the moment the stick movement in the Roll is a bit 'twitchy', in the sense it's too quick a movement translated to the ship.[/quote]

There is a graphical effect applied to roll, to simulate your head having inertia, and lagging behind a little. This gives the roll a bit of a visual jerk. Is that what you are seeing, or is it just the roll-rate is too snappy ? You do have it set to be proportional to the stick movement, rather than the stick acting as a switch ? ** I (like SteveMill) use the twist axis for the roll, but that in itself shouldn't affect the roll rate.

Rug

** In the c:/<user>/App Data/Local/Frontier Developments/Elite Dangerous/Options/Bindings/Custom.binds file there should be a section like :

Code: Select all

	<RollAxis>
		<Binding Device="SideWinderForceFeedback2" Key="Joy_RZAxis" />
		<Inverted Value="0" />
		<Deadzone Value="0.00000000" />
	</RollAxis>

Except you may be using Joy_XAxis instead of the Joy_RZAxis that I use.

[pjknibbs]

When I downloaded the game initially It was fairly quick and without any hiccups, I think the installation only took about 10 - 15 minutes IIRC. and that was early in the morning (about 5am).

Well, you clearly have a much faster Internet connection than I do--the only way I can download a game in 10 minutes is if it's about 100Mb in size. This is why I tend to leave things to download overnight if I can, because otherwise the act of downloading the game will get in the way of other stuff I want to do on the Internet.

[Nyax]

Yea - I'm afraid ED is a chore-driven game, you just have to go with the flow or it'll frustrate you.

I'm going to make a optimistic supposition: It's Frontiers intent to be regularly injecting events and suchlike to keep the online world interesting. They're not doing that yet, so the Beta/ gamma we're currently playing is a lot like what the fully offline game might have been.
They did say part of the reason they dropped it was because they felt it would be a dull and static world, and here you are complaining about just that.

Presumably they plan to make the released game more dynamic and interesting then that.

We'll see if they succeed.


To be honest I'm fairly happy with it as it is. Provided they do something about the equipment availability...

[pjknibbs]

I had about half an hour to give it a quick try out earlier, and I already know I need to spend about a week remapping the controls to something bearable before I'm going to be comfortable with it. First order of business: swap the joystick axes around so that twist rotates my spacecraft and left and right turn in those directions!

[felter]

swap the joystick axes around so that twist rotates my spacecraft and left and right turn in those directions!

I was going to do that but I left it, and now I think it's better left that way for when you get in a fight, but I must admit at first it just didn't feel right and it takes some getting used to.

[Avis]

swap the joystick axes around so that twist rotates my spacecraft and left and right turn in those directions!

I was going to do that but I left it, and now I think it's better left that way for when you get in a fight, but I must admit at first it just didn't feel right and it takes some getting used to.

Same here.
It's just how Elite was, tho to be honest WW2 flight sims are the same twist is rudder i.e. yaw.

[Oldman]

swap the joystick axes around so that twist rotates my spacecraft and left and right turn in those directions!

I was going to do that but I left it, and now I think it's better left that way for when you get in a fight, but I must admit at first it just didn't feel right and it takes some getting used to.

Same here.
It's just how Elite was, tho to be honest WW2 flight sims are the same twist is rudder i.e. yaw.

Good evenin'

Well it turns out I wasn't tellin' the truth I booted up XTC and checked the Joy Stick movement. It seems I HAVE set up the Joy Stick there with twist as Roll, and up/down left/right in the x/y axis...could have sworn it was otherwise. Anyway, swapped the Joy Stick control in ED with the stick twist as Roll. To be honest I don't really know which set up I prefer at the moment between the two, I'll keep it at the current one for now (Twist set as roll) and see how it goes.

I came across a load of wreckage near a star/sun in one of the systems, all I can say is...'very interesting'
Had quite a few run in's with some aggressive NPC's, collected a few good bounty's, but also had a few cracked cockpit screens too, and limped back into the nearest starport with my tail between my legs! (Elite Chicken).

Wiped the save game a couple of times as the cost of repair to the ship far outweighed what credits I had at the time.
I'm on my fourth attempt now though, and I'm managing to stay alive a bit longer, in the Solo game. It will be a while I think before I'll venture out into the Open game...I'm more 'dangerous' to myself than other players at the moment.
Some of the NPC's have comical names I noticed today..."Boogie Choogie" & "Uncle Gonzo" being just a couple I saw in the 'Chicoana' system.

Oldman

[Avis]

..
Wiped the save game a couple of times as the cost of repair to the ship far outweighed what credits I had at the time..

Were you in the sidewinder? if so simply fly off and self destruct, far cheaper than repairing that thing

If your Eagle then, not so good, I made around 5,000cr before taking my Freagle out for a spin, then scanned a few planets, suns, shot a few bad people and had over 30K before my pulse lasers were warm

[SteveMill]

don't forget to go to the store and claim your free cobra paint pack soon.

[pjknibbs]

Well, I'm impressed...not. Managed to get through the tutorials OK (but my old Saitek Cyborg Evo joystick is really, really stiff and hard to turn--think I may have to look for a replacement at some point). Started up a solo game and took a mission to take a couple of tons of waste to a nearby system--only 583 credits, but you have to start somewhere, right? Jumped to the system, came out of hyperspace--and suddenly none of the menus work anymore. I can't use the targeting control panel, I can't even use the Save and Exit option from the Escape menu. Wow. I know this game is in gamma, but we're less than a month from proper release and something as basic as this doesn't work properly?

I'm about to try again and see if I get any further. If I don't, I'm likely to shelve the game permanently and fondly wish I had my £20 back.

[Rug]

I'm about to try again and see if I get any further.

It's not a problem I heard of people running into. Certain never seen this myself. I hope that you get further this time.

I think it's worth running with the game for a while before deciding to walk away from it. You need to get past the 'I don't know what I'm doing' stage before it becomes enjoyable, I think.

Good luck.

Oh, and £20 ? I thought it was £35 ? More to play early ...

Rug

[Nyax]

I had various problems with controls seemingly stopping working. Turns out I was accidently activating the comms dialog (either by pressing enter or 2). It's not obvious at first glance and chances are you're too busy wondering why most of your controls have suddenly stopped working to notice the curser waiting for you to type.

[pjknibbs]

I thought of the comms thing, but that wasn't it...besides, that wouldn't stop the pause menu working as well, would it?

Anyway, not had a repeat of that problem and been playing for about an hour and a half. The always online thing is already causing me problems--there have been occasions where I've been sitting for upwards of 20 seconds after coming out of frameshift waiting for some mysterious communication with home base to finish before it will deign to load in the station, and I just came out of the game because it wasn't able to load the commodities board at the station I'd just docked in, again as far as I can tell due to communications issues. When the game isn't frustrating it's fun, I just wish the frustration happened a bit less!

@Rug: £20 for the digital download on Kickstarter, and all Kickstarter backers with a game access tier get access to the gamma.