Well hello everyone,
my name is Komemiute and I love the Elite series of games. Also I can’t quit them, but that’s beside the point.
As of now Elite: Dangerous has reached its second year of life after launch, and while it’s far from a finished product it’s also far from its end of development.
It all began in Christmas 2014.
Elite: Dangerous released with minimal embellishment (is that a word, yes?) but, simply put, the biggest map a game ever had (so far, No Man’s sky is rearing it’s procedurally Generated face anytime soon- but I digress).
The map is a 1:1 Galaxy.
Our galaxy.
That said, and since human knowledge only can answer some questions, most of this representation of our galaxy is de-facto just a preocedural generation based on a very complex Stellar Forge program.
This magnificent software judged by many (including, but not limited to, me) a real game changer, can create a Galaxy based on the knowledge we have- and while not every single stellar body is represented ( Kuiper’s Belt and others are missing, black holes are just represented by gravitational lensing and no accretion disk, etc. etc.- so far) it’s still impressively full/empty.
Now, without writing an entire essay I can say space is really big and stuff in it is really far in between.
Luckily there’s the so called Bubble which is an imaginary sphere, several hundred light years wide, centered more or less around Sol (our own solar system where we reside) which contains 100% of human carbon-based life.
There are three main factions, Federation (some sort of Space USA), Empire (Space Imperial England) and Alliance (uhh, Space… ehrm… Italy?).
All of those have facets and philosophies that drive their actions.
None of the players (henceforth rightfully called Commanders, often shortened in CMDR) must bow the one of these Political factions even though there’s some plus/cons in doing so.
Basically the bubble is dotted with human-made structures (space borne or planet-side) which work as harbors/drydocks/cities/factories/industries/etc. you name it, there’s probably at least one.
Again, leaving aside for a short moment the relative low variety of structural designs, we’re still just in the second year worth of development A.L. (After Launch).
Every year, in fact, Frontier (the developers) has plans to release new content- for a price.
Now, the base game will always be updated and can be played forever on- except some parts that are only available with the expansion pass.
Enter Christmas 2015, the epxansion Horizon began its release- it allowed for the first time in this Elite game to land on airless planetoids. Not planets- only those without an atmosphere.
The Planetary suite for our ships in game (bought, as for the rest on in-game content with in game money only) allows Commanders to trace a landing pattern to the surface, and provided our ship is fitted with an Hangar, and the Hangar populated with a Space Buggy, to roam around.
Lucky sods like me have the Lifetime pass (available for a price only during the Kickstarter and shortly afterwards but strictly before launch) that grants free expansions for the whole life of the game.
I’m writing too much.
I stop here in case someone wants more details.
But maybe it’s better I start a new thread for that.
Next post will be actual info about the news
Komemiute,
out.