Elite: Dangerous looks better already!

[Tracker001]

You can Toggle the > flight assist < off, helps to turn ship around onto target . Then back on . There's a U-T vid .

[kaistern]

Is this game basically eve meets WOW? With severe limitations due to newness?

Have to say though, the launch trailer looks very appealing. Does it play anything like it looks?

[Lord Dakier]

So how is it forkeyboard and mouse? I would get a joystick for it but I don't have one at this time. I don't mind using a pad either but I'm guessing the controls make it redundant

Their base flight control is AWFUL for keyboard/mouse, though; I quickly changed the scheme to match that of the X games, which I find to be much more intuitive. Change Mouse X-Axis to yaw (as opposed to roll), Y to pitch. W/A/S/D to thrust up/left/down/right respectively. Q and E to roll left and right respectively. X to up thrust and Z to down thrust.

That control scheme has made the gameplay MUCH better for me, coming from X2/X3/Rebirth to E:D.

My current ship still turns much slower than I am happy with, though. My little starter ship feels like I'm flying an M5 with the turn speed of an M2.

Otherwise, if you swap the controls like that, you should feel much more at home with keyboard/mouse.

I'm so glad it wasn't just me having trouble with these controls!

Will definitely change them around when I get back from work tonight.

My problem other than that is I'm stuck with what to do once I first get into the game. I'm not too far from Sol, but don't have a clue what I'm doing lol.

[Nyax]

Have to say though, the launch trailer looks very appealing. Does it play anything like it looks?

No.

Here's a typical flight

1) Start docked at a space station.
2) Check the BBS for missions
3) Research the star map and commodity exchange for potential trade deals.
4) pick either a trade run or a mission (typically either find or deliver goods to station X in system y, or find and kill subject z)
5) undock
6) jump to your target system
7) (optional)- scan any unmapped worlds
Head to a space station in the system. ON the way a pirate may attempt to intercept you. You can either try to evade or fight it out. (in deep space)
9) You may also detect an unidentified signal. Investigating may reveal
A) the site of a battle, which may be plundered
B) a skirmish in progress
C) a small group of pirates lying in ambush
D) some harmless trader
10) Arrive at the target space station. Complete the mission or sell your wares.
11) repeat ad infinitum.

Obviously there's a bit more to it then that, but that's a fairly typical experience. Remember the trailer is massively stylized, and designed to be cinematic. It doesn't actually lie. combat can and does take place in asteroid fields, and to a lesser extent space stations, but it doesn't really feel much like the trailer.

[silenced]

Have to say though, the launch trailer looks very appealing. Does it play anything like it looks?

No.

Here's a typical flight

1) Start docked at a space station.
2) Check the BBS for missions
3) Research the star map and commodity exchange for potential trade deals.
4) pick either a trade run or a mission (typically either find or deliver goods to station X in system y, or find and kill subject z)
5) undock
6) jump to your target system
7) (optional)- scan any unmapped worlds
Head to a space station in the system. ON the way a pirate may attempt to intercept you. You can either try to evade or fight it out. (in deep space)
9) You may also detect an unidentified signal. Investigating may reveal
A) the site of a battle, which may be plundered
B) a skirmish in progress
C) a small group of pirates lying in ambush
D) some harmless trader
10) Arrive at the target space station. Complete the mission or sell your wares.
11) repeat ad infinitum.

Obviously there's a bit more to it then that, but that's a fairly typical experience. Remember the trailer is massively stylized, and designed to be cinematic. It doesn't actually lie. combat can and does take place in asteroid fields, and to a lesser extent space stations, but it doesn't really feel much like the trailer.

This hits it quite exact. Some love this kind of gameplay, just sink deep into the 'world' and get yourself immersed. That's something the game does quite good. You can jump into the role you want, be a trader or lawbringer or pirate or whatever and have it that way, with all it's pros and cons. It's nothing for everyone, but there's enough people out there that get immersed in and love it for that.

It's a bit like X, just without factory building and big fleets + there's multiplayer. You can sink quite some time in, check your clock and realize: "OH, I need to be at work in half an hour ..."

[kaistern]

so kind of like freelancer mulitplayer except no story line?


added: $60 is a lot of money for what I am seeing so far. I might have bought it back when I was loaded with no wife or kids, but now that I'm halfway broke and have a wife and kids I really want to make sure it is worth the money before I invest.

[vukica]

is there a demo for it?

i'm not sure if i'll like it

[RegisterMe]

There's a bazillion gameplay videos on youtube.

[vukica]

There's a bazillion gameplay videos on youtube.

that's not the same

[RegisterMe]

That's true. I don't think there's a freely available demo at the moment (but could be wrong on this), but I can see how they might make the combat tutorials available as a demo....

[Antilogic]

Demos are a thing anymore?

[kurush]

so kind of like freelancer mulitplayer except no story line?

No, not freelancer at all More like Frontier First Encounters with multiplayer. Also, trailer has nothing to do with the gameplay. It is 90% artistic license and 10% the models from the game that do mostly things you can't do there. There is really no reason to buy it unless you are feeling nostalgic for that game or its predecessors.

[SteveMill]

Well, it's either ED or X3TC if you want a decent space sim at the moment. I would wait for ED to get fatter. It's fun enough to play. Just needs more content and fixes. Gameplay really is about 1989 in Elite terms. Nice range of ships, great range of upgrades for customising. Good combat.

Just think there's a lot of good, more complete games out there to play at the moment.

But if it's a space sim or nothing and you've played X3 then it might be worth a punt.

[ThommoHawk]

Elite is looking good and backers should be able to get it after 1st beta hopefully. But right now anything looks better than Rebirth.

^ well, I'm not playing much of Rebirth myself atm. But I'm still right up there with X3AP. Your comment would be accurate to a degree if it was not for one thing; imo Rebirth is far superior to E.D. for one massive reason - it is a single player offline game. Egosoft still holds the top dog developer crown for offline single-player space games. imo

[Redvers Ganderpoke]

I had a quick play last night after installing it, I found the UI a little hard to get the hang of (with the keyboard anyway).

[SteveMill]

That's nowhere near enough to make it superior.

The appeal of space sims for me is scope in terms of exploration and lots and lots of ship options. Leaving aside all the other issues XR is too small, cramped and claustrophobic for me. There's no wide open feel, just a series of small and incredibly full playing areas which you don't fly between but inject yourself in silly green tubes. A basic ship with a tiny upgrade tree.

I guess some people like that sort of thing but to me it doesn't feel like a space sim.

But conversely - ED's huge galaxy can feel empty. They just haven't got some under the hood stuff that needed to work properly out the box, working to add more dynamism.

But the big range of incredibly customisable ships is there. There's plenty of action to seek out or come across although they still haven't got the 'action coming to you' bit properly balanced yet.

It depends what you like but for me a space sim's appeal is the whole one man in a big, uncaring galaxy thing.

At the moment X3 Total War Conversion mod is the apogee but I've burned out on that.

Elite at the moment is entertaining and works fine. It just needed to have been more than a 1989 Elite with 2014 graphics at launch.

The single player thing doesn't bother me. I can play solo online if I like, although i've been playing in the open world more recently. I can't tell the difference. The galaxy is so big I rarely even see another human player ship, although it does add a little frisson of excitement when I do.

[SteveMill]

I had a quick play last night after installing it, I found the UI a little hard to get the hang of (with the keyboard anyway).

I can imagine. A decent stick along with Voice Attack really helps.

[vukica]

Demos are a thing anymore?

well, not a demo demo, but a free trial period of a few hours would do.

[SteveMill]

Demos are a thing anymore?

well, not a demo demo, but a free trial period of a few hours would do.

Sadly not. There's not even a manual yet. Frontier seem to be behind the curve dealing with what looks to be an accountant driven release date. There are a lot of good videos out there - Tim Wheatley for instance and you can get a good idea what the game's about.

Not the 'how it feels to play' part of course but for me it plays very well. Flight has just the right balance of simplicity and complexity and the whole game is full of little 'being there' details.

I like the fact that docking is an involved process of asking permission, going to the right pad, lowering landing gear etc.

[eladan]

That's nowhere near enough to make it superior.

It kinda is, where single player offline is an important aspect of the game to you. Now, obviously:

The single player thing doesn't bother me

shows that it isn't important to you. It happens to be important to quite a number of other people though.