Elite: Dangerous - updates!

Space
722

On one hand it is excessive and odd.
On the other hand, and I wonder if that happens purposefully or not, many aspects tied to the carriers are forgotten.
1- since it exists in every instance (solo, private, open) everyone can actually use it…
2- when everyone uses it, it generates a profit
3- it finally allows something a lot of players were asking for: direct player to player trading.
Which allows for not just earning but…
4- also for squadron participation in upkeeping costs.

So, are carriers what people were expecting?
It depends really. Yes they do have a heavy cost, but when deployed smartly they can generate a lot of cash, are an incredibly versatile platform, can help explorer jump literally anywhere, and a lot of players (the squadron) can help with the costs.

I’m myself not 100% happy. At all.
But I think it’s something still in motion.
I have been playing since 2014 and I remember initially the fuel cost in stations was draconian, missions payout was ridiculous and the game had many less in-game tools to help newbies.

I believe Frontier is trying to walk a fine line here between the pleasure of running a business and ease of play and starting with high costs and then lowering them is much better accepted than the opposite.

That said, I could also massively wrong. :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like
723

Heh. You still care. Amazing. Well it is an awesome game. But two (three?) years of stagnation left it cold for me. The last thing they added that got me riled up was the planetary landings. And that’s years ago. And only rocks and iceballs.

All their efforts to make the game come alive with the powerplay stuff, the aliens, the “events”, the squadrons, it all fell flat for me. It’s as if the devs either don’t care much or they are badly mistaken about what their games’ strong suits are.

724

Allow me, but I don’t see what so amazing about someone different from you liking a game.
How is this different from people still playing the same Command & Conquer (the first) or Red Alert in MP?
Or Falcon 4.0 with a mod?

I even play the earlier Elite games from time to time- there’s just something to them that speaks to me.

Like the F111 for Bogus, the Intruder for me ( :stuck_out_tongue: ), or Star Citizen for a bunch of other guys.

Beside that, my gaming time is so small by now that I didn’t even play that much (of anything) in the past year or two.

The Alien stuff was great for me, the Thargoid interdiction is made of pure digital nightmare, “events” are a cool way to explore parts of the bubble that I might ignore… I have a “home” system that means a lot to me, funny as it is to write it.
I keep track of the system politics and I try to help where I can, and I can observe that what I do has an effect.

A Gigaton of very specific happenings, oddities, and points of interests have been added.
Mechanics have been improved, refined, increased in scope, and - despite the occasional bug - I do find a lot of enjoyment in simply traveling the empty vastness of space.

Our Milky way, mapped 1 to 1. My dream since I was a kid.

Where you see stagnation, I see a sequence of very aimed efforts from Frontier, you mention only ice and rockball, and that’s true- but they make over 80% of the entire amount of planets or planetoids in the Galaxy.
Seems logical to me, from a development standpoint.

Would I want planets with Atmosphere? HELL YEAH!
Would I want to see them done right? Again, much yeah.

I’m not saying I know stuff, but the introduction of these Carriers brings with it a number of possible future development- and I agree, is not up for everyone to see in a single game what a long-time lover sees in it.

This goes for anything in our lives, from cars, to women, to jobs- but now I’m getting too philosophical for my own good.

5 Likes
725

Yes, and that’s why I admire your passion for a thing that no longer arouses mine.

I remember it burning brightly in me, and those are sweet memories.

1 Like
726

It reminds me of an old saying: “a boat is a hole in the water, into which money is poured.”

Annual upkeep for military warships are easily over 20% of their initial acquisition cost, and by the time a ship is scrapped, the only value left is the scrap material from her hull. So something about realism…?

Also not a fan of the whole “if you can’t afford it already, you’re not allowed to drive it” decision for this beta test. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s deliberate because of worries about a bunch of fleet carriers on the test server bogging down the whole thing?

1 Like
727

I am honest when I say that yes, some of Frontier choices are a bit odd, especially about the realism vs gameplay department.

So while it is realistic to have very expensive carriers, there’s maybe a point to be done about the gameplay too.

I can see how they can be concerned it would make passive earning too easy- so to hamper that they make operation expensive. So it might also be about balance rather than realism.

In other games extreme realism is sought after- think about DayZ and other survival games, think Serious flight simulations… maybe they simply tried the wrong thing at the wrong time but even accounting for that- these new carriers put a lot of power in the hands of a competent Squadron.

Which in hindsight might actually be their intention from the beginning…

728

God I wasted so much time in that game… I literally mean WASTED as well. It was fun for the first few months and then one day the reality of the gameplay loop smashed me in the head and I uninstalled it there and then and went back to Arma 3 exile, epoch and overpoch. Which are essentially the same game but better fun

2 Likes
729

Ok. Looks like the upcoming fleet carriers may be worth it after all …

4 Likes
730

If I was to think about it, I think they did it on purpose to start with awfully expensive stuff - knowing full well they’d have dropped the price.
So now the amount of people happy about costs is way higher than if the started with the new rebated prices. :hear_no_evil:

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731

And just like that…
Elite announces space legs.

Edit: and atmospheric planets, I infer.

9 Likes
732

This would be SOOOOOOOO awesome and I’d start playing again.

733

Well, damn guess I need to jump back in an make a butt load of money.

1 Like
734

Okay, now that I have a HOTAS that I picked up for flight simming, I think I’m going to have to try out ED for sure.

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735

It really is an amazing title at least initially.

736

Oh yeah, it’s an experience not to be missed. I have hundreds of hours in it.

737

Oh dear. I’ve just loaded up the new update and discovered that my account has rolled back to where it was on 30th April. I hope this is a mistake as I’m about 2 billion credits poorer! As far as I was aware this was only supposed to happen in the beta :rage:

EDIT: Nope, it’s all good. Logging on today I found my credit balance back to what it should be :smiley:

738

Brief interview with PC Gamer about Odyssey - when asked about what this will bring to the experience, his answer was devoid of any mention of new gameplay loops. Maybe he was just being tight-lipped, but I find this a little worrying.

739

One simple question…1st person or 3rd person?

The guy doing the interview…I think I bought a used car from him once… :open_mouth:

3 Likes
740

Better call Saul :wink:

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741
2 Likes