Does the concept of exploring a realistically sized galaxy appeal to you? How about long haul space trucking? What about blasting some pirates out of the sky because, dammit, I don’t have a cargo hold now stop pulling me over?
If you answered yes to at least one of these questions then you probably already play Elite: Dangerous. In which case you should talk about it here!
Some suggestions on stuff to discuss:
Rare trade routes
Good bounty hunting spots
Cool screenshots of planets with your AspEx front and center
I haven’t played in a while because Frontier pissed me off a couple months ago by declaring that the actually worthwhile payouts for Passenger missions were really a bug.
But yeah I will probably come back around next time there’s a major feature update. It’s a very good “relax and make numbers go up” sort of game. I just wish that there were more interesting ways to interact with the underlying economic simulation.
Is there something cool and fun to do in this game yet. I wanna build a big base and/or build a big ship and run a little economic base that anchors an exploration or combat outfit. Is that something I can do mostly solo?
Not even remotely. Ships are pretty much not customizable besides subsystems and hardpoints, but they’re fun to fly. There’s no base building or actual player economic powers. There are larger blocs of players who organize outside of the game to manipulate the economic simulation, but it’s all very indirect like “shoot space cops to destabilize the local ruling power over several weeks”
Yeah, this game is a little more hands off with regards to player bases and stuff. I find this game is a lot more like Wing Commander: Privateer than something like X3: Terran Conflict/Albion Prelude. It’s very focused on you just being a space trucker trying to make a buck however you can.
That said, I kinda do wish we could build outposts collectively. The game already lets you create shards for just you and your buddies if you don’t want to play in open play, it’d be really cool to let players make use of all that space.
Note that “making a buck however you can” often translates to latching onto the latest community exploit and making a few hundred million credits in a couple hours. Gotta pay for that Python or Fer-de-Lance somehow!
Me and my wing have been using a few sites anytime we jump in. Roguey is a good place to find where to buy ships and equipment. EDDB and Thrudds Elite Trading Tool are good for traders and miners, being sites to catalog stations with tools to plot routes. Saves tons of time figuring out a good truckin’ route.
I mostly just go out and kite bounty in RES with the cops. You can even do it in a stock Sidewinder, just wait for their hull to hit around 20 and start plinking at them with lasers until they blow up. Only problem is it takes a long time because fights don’t break out often and I only visit ones that aren’t high intensity/hazardous.
Plus you gotta wait a while for credits to roll in. I want to get one of the cooler big ships but it’s gonna take hours.
I saved up and bought myself a cargo ship and just go space trucking around Epsilon Eridani every now and then. Really good fun time to just relax and listen to some podcasts or something. I really want to start landing on moons and planetoids and stuff but I haven’t got the Horizon’s expansion yet.
It’s been a little while, but I’ve finally fallen back into this game! I backed it back during its original kickstarter run, and I’m still incredibly glad I did, this is one of those kinds of games I just love playing in general, haha. Getting back into flying around and delivering stuff in my trusty wireframe-painted Cobra Mk III, in this case I’m delivering legislative documents for Edmund Mahon. I should probably be careful since I’m in open play. I’ve also never really touched the Horizons content yet so I’m looking forward to that.
Speaking of, should we make an LP Zone Elite Dangerous group where all LP Zone pilots can just sorta get together and fly around and stuff?
EDIT: Also, have a picture of my ship’s dashboard, because Frontier gave me too much power:
I’ve been playing again, haha. I bought that entry level Thrustmaster HOTAS and it really helps a surprising amount with maneuverability once you get used to the new control scheme, compared to using a gamepad.
I’ve been taking advantage of the situation in Quince for the last couple of days. It’s basically an exploit, but whatever. If Frontier really wanted to fix their mission system, I’d be happy to do a consultation gig.
Basically, it’s a system that’s so distant from other stars, that all of the missions it gives out take place in that system. Most of them take place on the surface of the single landable planet, but there’s a civil war currently so there’s also a mess of stackable massacre missions, too. Also, all the passengers that don’t want to go on 20,000 Lightyear deep space journeys just want to visit one of the two tourism beacons also in Quince. It’s tedious work, but it’s easy to make like 5-10 million credits per 15 minutes or so. Mostly I just want to get the money to A-rank my Python, and then I’ll go back to my usual digs down near Cubeo.
Oh man yes, the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS setup? That was my first HOTAS, I ended up splashing out on a Saitek X52 HOTAS when I found out the Elite Dangerous store was selling them, and that’s what I use nowadays, as it’s a lot of fun and there’s lots of buttons to cover various functions, but the Thrustmaster T-Flight is pretty sturdy, works fantastic and is good value for cash, so much so that I’m holding onto mine as a backup in case anything happens to my X52!
As for Quince, I’ll have to check that out, I could be done with the cash! I’ve been hanging out in Lave and the surrounding Alliance-controlled areas (As a kickstarter backer I got to start out in Lave with a Cobra Mk III and a handful of credits much like the classic 1984 start), although making money has been kind of slow.
Pro tip if you go to Lave: Do -not- take any Horizons missions that have Lave 2 as their destination. They’re not supposed to be in the game because you can’t currently access Lave 2’s surface. I had to file a support ticket to recover lost rep and cash from the fine for that debacle, ahaha.
And yeah, we should totally make a group! I could maybe see about getting something put together sometime soon.
One more thing - If anyone encounters an NPC named Chaz GELF, take a screenshot if you can! That’s my little name-in-game cameo, again from the Kickstarter, haha.
