Update 15, the Upcoming Feature Rework and More

There will be Frameshift Live on the 20th and U15 in May.
Yeah, I knew but nothing? I have read that sally was telling, that they will change the discovery scanner but complete get one or cancellation of this wasnt planned or had I miss something ? Therefore till this moment no weekly streaming guide. Perhaps later this day 🤔
 
Without engineering, my trip to Beagle Point would have taken more than twice as long as it did. I am extremely grateful for its existence.
If I had it my way, a trip to Beagle Point would take 70 years. Okay, I'll make a concession since this is a video game - 7 years.

People keep telling me how big space is, and yet we can cross the galaxy in a weekend thanks to all the fast travel that has been added over the years. Where's the fun and mystery in that?
 
The record time to Sag A* is currently 1 hour 24 minutes.

When I did the Buckyball run in 2015 it took me 17 hours, I was a new player though.
That just makes me sad. Imagine if it took at well over a year, top speed, to make it to Sag A. Then it would feel like an accomplishment. Same goes for reaching the other side of the galaxy. If it took a dedicated explorer years to make it, by the time they finally did, it would truly be news-worthy. I know people say we've only explored 1% or something of the galaxy, but like saying we've only explored 1% of a beach because that's all the grains of sand we've counted, despite having visited every interesting point on that beach ages ago.
 
If I had it my way, a trip to Beagle Point would take 70 years. Okay, I'll make a concession since this is a video game - 7 years.

People keep telling me how big space is, and yet we can cross the galaxy in a weekend thanks to all the fast travel that has been added over the years. Where's the fun and mystery in that?

If I had my way, travelling beyond the Bubble to an unexplored system would’ve required it’s own dedicated module to even plot a jump, multiple observations from at least three star systems before plotting the jump (with its own dedicated module), and sending a probe ahead of you for maximum precision when making the jump…

… wait, isn’t this what Frontier proposed on the Design Discussion Forum? 🤔
 
My first trip to beagle took me 6 months ... In a 44lyr dolphin( max engineering ( old )) ... And the class 5 was locked for passenger ... Ahhh the good old days
 
And people complain about grind and inaccessibility now ...
Haha had this guys and girls plays the old way elite in its early years? Ohh man, that was a hell of grind and not to forget, the engineering stuff, which you must sort out what do you need and what not 😂😂 therefore how long it has taken to gain an anaconda. Man was i proud! It feels like a huge achievement and gives me a huge rush of positive feeling, because I was hauling and mining all day long. And now ? One day and you get an anaconda. It’s in my opinion wayyyyy to easy to get the money for the ships. At some point on elite money doesn’t count anymore or had a huge effect to the game. We have to much of it, and loosing a ship is no problem anymore
 
Travel doesn't necessarily have to be slow. But it could be a bit more challenging. Our ships pretty much face no challenge from the environment. Having hull degrade slowly due to radiation (especially for shield less builds), adding material requirements to repairs, and similar challenges, would mean more planning would be required for ensuring long distance exploration success.
The material needs shouldn't be nuts like they are in games like NMS. But right now the only things that make it feel like we are far away when we are, well, far away, are the limitations of the jump drives.

:D S
 
It's sad what has happened.
Years of lore to build on with profesional writers and talented amateurs paying to do so, huge amount of feedback given by players after something with a bit of depth, customers throwing money at the product before it's even made...
...and we get a 3D version of R-type and lore so redacted and messed with that it's got the depth of a Mr Man book.

Still, it's boron day today.
 
Travel doesn't necessarily have to be slow
This is one of those things where there's a conflict between galaxy-wide exploration and in-bubble gameplay.

Galaxy-wide exploration needs a reasonably fast pace of travel - the original ED 1.0 1000 LY/hour sort of pace would mean spending an entire week playing the game and nothing else (assuming reasonable breaks for sleep and food) to cross the galaxy, so several months for a player with more average time availability who maybe stops to scan systems along the way as well. (Distant Worlds 1 did take several months on that basis)

But that pace (and the range of individual jumps it implies) flattens out and makes impractical a whole lot of in-bubble gameplay. The bubble even in the early days was fairly flat and nowadays all systems are essentially adjacent; there's a bunch of unimplementable DDF ideas that really could only work with something like a 10LY fixed jump range (FSD grades and engineering might have big benefits but don't increase your range, no jumponium, jet cone boosts would be okay, FCs maybe get 20 LY range to make up for them being so slow) and Elite 1-style levels of fuel and refuel availability (as opposed to "you arrive in system right next to the fuel scoop point, and have enough fuel to travel several jumps without needing it anyway")

The record time to Sag A* is currently 1 hour 24 minutes.
Records definitely aren't the thing to balance around, though. Speedrunners pull off ridiculously fast completions in most games but they're not playing the game in the way a "normal" player would, and at that level are in the top 1% of the top 1% of players (if not rarer) in their particular area.

You don't want Elite Dangerous trade balanced around what I'm willing to build a giant multi-factor database analysis for before you can make any profit, either - fun as it was for me to get a one-off event last year where it was actually useful.
 
So the way to make the game more engaging is to make travelling take more time? I would much rather have more variety of things to discover and interact with, and some sort of actual gameplay consequence to discovering a terraformable world or one rich in resources, than simply making it take longer to do what we already do today.
 
So the way to make the game more engaging is to make travelling take more time? I would much rather have more variety of things to discover and interact with, and some sort of actual gameplay consequence to discovering a terraformable world or one rich in resources, than simply making it take longer to do what we already do today.
Come on now, the suggestion to make things worse coming from someone who doesn't play the game must be correct.
 
The record time to Sag A* is currently 1 hour 24 minutes.

When I did the Buckyball run in 2015 it took me 17 hours, I was a new player though.
But that's because the only goal is to reach Sag A*, the problem of this game with exploration is that there is almost NOTHING to do in the way to your destination, and everybody now that is not the destination, the real experience is (should be in this case) in the journey itself and the things that happen in between.

That is what it lacks this game most, "in between's" things that happen while you do (goals) things.
 
But that's because the only goal is to reach Sag A*, the problem of this game with exploration is that there is almost NOTHING to do in the way to your destination, and everybody now that is not the destination, the real experience is (should be in this case) in the journey itself and the things that happen in between.

That is what it lacks this game most, "in between's" things that happen while you do (goals) things.
The Buckyball journey to Sag A* is of course nothing to do with exploration it is a long distance time trial.
With exploration there can be a lot to do on the way to the destination, you can explore survey and map everywhere between where you start and the destination itself.
 
Back
Top Bottom