Elite: Dangerous

[Khendraja'aro]

Another brilliant "feature": Reputation.

So, you're hanging around, hunting pirates. This will make the police mad. At some point they will shoot at you for shooting pirates. They will tell you: "You're wanted in this sector!" Then you warp to a station in the same system and the police will tell you: "You're clean and free to proceed."

Not to mention Assassination missions by the Federation where actually hitting the target will put a bounty on your head.

Oh, and if you accidentally shoot one single stray shot at any ship (for example, a moronic police cruiser almost ramming you when flying straight across your bow while you're firing at a target), you immediately get a 200 credits bounty. This massive amount of money means that everyone, their grandmother and the kitchen sink will angle for a shot at you. For comparison: Smuggling weapons yields a 10,000 credits fine (fines are not a death sentence, by the way).

[Khendraja'aro]

And one more item among the "features" they don't mention anywhere:

When upgrading your power distribution, the energy consumption when deployed will go up (because that makes sooo much sense). And there's a rounding error somewhere. Because if your energy consumption is displayed as 9.00 MW and your reactor provides 9.00 MW, don't think for a second that this will be okay.

Because your ship will go into shutdown as soon as you deploy your weapons.

[Wraith]

On your right panel, you can assign power priority to your modules. By default, they've all got the same priority, which leads to the top power consumers going off first, which is usually life support. Set other things to turn off instead. You can also just manually turn off certain modules. I run almost a full MW above my max capacity - some of my systems just turn off when my weapons are hot.

The "You're clean and free to proceed" results from a scan - the local cops don't find anything objectionable about you. If you hit police with stray fire they'll shoot at you until you run away, but that won't harm your reputation enough to make you kill on sight, so once you find different cops they'll let you go past.

Are you sure the assassination missions are from the Feds? There's a number of missions available that are locally illegal, either because of the cargo you have to carry or the target you're supposed to kill. Most systems have several local factions that don't give a shit about Federation law though, and they'll still offer to pay you to do these things. You need to pay attention to your target and who's offering you the mission if you care about these things.

[Khendraja'aro]

The "You're clean and free to proceed" results from a scan - the local cops don't find anything objectionable about you. If you hit police with stray fire they'll shoot at you until you run away, but that won't harm your reputation enough to make you kill on sight, so once you find different cops they'll let you go past.

I'm 100% certain that I did not hit the cops. If anything, it was the other way around - they hit me.

And if you hit someone with a stray shot you will get a 200 cred bounty and you will be subject to a KOS policy.


And, yes, the assassination mission was from the Feds. It was called a "Federal Advancment Opportunity".

[Wraith]

I was just guessing at how you got your wanted status. Your status also varies by control of the space. Was the mission in fed controlled space then? If a guy is wanted by the feds, he could still be law-abiding in the eyes of independents/other factions.

I've hit enough people with stray shots that I didn't think you got KOS from it. The local guys turned hostile, but once I hit supercruise I seemed to be in the clear while I docked and paid off the fine. I thought it was just bounty hunters who'd go after you until you did it enough that it damaged your faction rep. Maybe I just got lucky and none of those times I was seen by any cops. I started bounty hunting in anarchy systems after the early game where I'm free to unload on everyone without getting a wanted status.

[Khendraja'aro]

As I said, you don't even need to hit them for the cops to eventually turn on you. First they turn red and after a while they shoot at you.

[Wraith]

I'm not sure that's true. Are you sure you couldn't have accidentally hit them at some point with something? Or hit somebody who wasn't wanted in the system? Right now they have absolutely no forgiveness for stray shots on anyone (definitely less than ideal), but I've never seen or heard of them just turning on you for no reason.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yes, I am sure. I don't have any bounties, fines or whatever on me and yet they tell me stuff like "You're wanted in this sector" or "Commencing firing run."

[Steely Glint]

So, it seems they want £40 for a digital download. So that's saved me a decision.

[agamemnus]

The trailer is amazing. I need to take a break and play it!

[Steely Glint]

But at some point I probably will give it a try, but I'd like to know if it plays alright with keyboard and mouse or if you need a joystick to really get the most out of it?

[Khendraja'aro]

You won't be happy with keyboard and mouse. It'll suffice for standard maneuvres but combat is out of the question. I'd also suggest getting a HOTAS setup.

[Wraith]

Haven't really tried it with keyboard and mouse, but the game is really made for a HOTAS.

[Steely Glint]

Alright, thanks both that is useful information.

[Khendraja'aro]

So, I could've told the morons right from the start:

A peer-to-peer network achitecture in a competitive multiplayer setting is a bad idea.

What is the first rule in coding for anything connected to a network?

Don't trust anything the clients tell your server.

And here we don't even have a server to arbitrate disputes...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=108671

[Wraith]

Next update looks cool: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...b&e=36cc878cd0

[Steely Glint]

So, I got this £10 in the sale. Mouse and keyboard seem acceptable so far but haven't really tried combat beyond the tutorial missions. Perhaps I will invest in one of these HOTAS if the game proves compelling enough to keep my attention long term.

I heard about how they're going to add being able to walk around in space stations and explore planets in future updates - I think that's a pretty important edition, every time I look down in cockpit and see your guys legs I just can't help but think about the terrible cramps he must get from spending his entire life sat in a cockpit.

[Wraith]

Are you still alright with the mouse/keyboard setup having presumably seen real combat by now? My gaming group is looking to get into this, and most of them are poor peasants without a HOTAS.

[Steely Glint]

So this is my experience of combat in ED so far:

My first experience was getting jumped by a dude who hammered the shit out of me but I was able to get out from under him and start doing some damage. Then the fuzz showed up and kicked the crap out of him. I managed to get the kill and the bounty though. Then I took a couple of bounty hunting missions and flew around for a bit in the system trying to work out how to find the people you're after. Doing that, I got jumped by three (unrelated) guys in powerful ships near the rings of a gas giant. I tried to run away, but they exploded me before my FTL drive charged.

After that I decided I'd learned enough about the game to warrant a restart, so I wiped my save and I did some work as a courier, and in the course of this I got jumped by some asshole in an Asp and a ranking of master. This time I reacted quicker to being attacked and had brought some armour, so I was able to escape with 25% hull.

As for the viability of mouse and keyboard... well, the mouse is fine. I don't think it will ever not be an effective and precise controller for first person gaming. The problem is the keyboard. In order to effectively control your space ship, there's eight keys: accelerate, decelerate, yaw l/r, strafe l/r and going up and down. It's quite hard to operate all of those with just one hand. You'd need to experiment with the keyboard layout to get something that works for you.

I read a number of threads on the topic, and it seems a number of evidently experienced players swear by mouse and keyboard, considering it superior whereas others think HOTAS is preferable.

I supposed it depends on finding a way to use the keyboard effectively enough to be able to use the full range of the controls in a combat. I'm happy using strafing and up/down when docking but in combat I tend to just use the mouse and accelerate/decelerate. If you can find a layout or simply become proficient enough to use all the keys, then you'd be able to then fully leverage the lethal precision of a mouse and have quite an effective set up.

I think it might be bit of a problem finding combat scenarios to practice in which inexperienced pilots aren't instantly killed if they try and fight.

The other thing to remember is that I played a lot of the original elite, where combat was a fair bit more simplistic than in ED so a lot of my tendencies in combat relate to what works there; you just pull down or up until you can see the fuckers then shoot them into tiny pieces. People without these learned habits might have a different experience.

[Timbuk2]

Whaddya reckon about just an ordinary joystick?

Thinking about picking up ED and just have a regular Microsoft Joystick jobby, which I used to use perfectly happily for space combat in the X games.

[Wraith]

You won't have enough buttons to keep your hands off the keyboard, but you'll do just fine in normal flight and combat.

As a heads up, the first expansion thingy, Horizons, with planetary landings and another year of new content is coming out soon. Picking that up gets you the full version of Elite with it, so if you would've gotten the expansion anyways, you'll save money just getting that. It's currently in beta testing. I'm not sure whether preordering it gets you into that or not.

[Timbuk2]

Thanks.

Steam sale is now over and I missed it, so ED is back up to full price. Guess I'll wait to see if there's a deal with the expansion like you mention.

[Khendraja'aro]

I dare say that it's still a mile wide but only an inch deep, gameplay-wise.

[Steely Glint]

Yeah. I'd agree with that. Millions of systems, all basically the same. The original elite was the same way, though admittedly the original elite is nearly 30 years old.

Still, since I only played a tenner for it I think I got my monies worth. It it is basically a fun game, but there's only so much mileage to be had in the very limited range of activities you can do.