Elite Dangerous plans for 2024

[Flimley]

The central issue for many of us isn’t the multi-crew addition. It’s canonizing a bad explanation for what is essentially a gameplay compromise.

If Sandro (IIRC) had left the explanation for “How does multi-crew work?” a non-committal shrug as the early teams did, there wouldn’t have been such an outcry. There are tons of explanations on how multi-crew could work, without breaking the established lore that information moves at the speed of ships.

Canonizing “telepresence” as how it works established that there exists long-range, high-bandwidth, low-latency FTL communications that should have a radical impact on society in the Elite Universe… but doesn’t “because reasons.”

Hello @Darkfyre99, I always admire and respect your carefully thought-out replies. Your comments are always worth reading! Unfortunately, I cost you valuable time as I quoted the wrong reply from @Navigare Necesse Est... which was aimed as a response to telepresence derp. Ugh, never mind. Apologies.

I'm not emotionally attached to this game any longer to really care.
Over the years, Frontier (for me) have released too many duff updates over good ones, some as which as follows:

1. My first baffled state of mind was the release of Powerplay back in the day. I couldn't for the life of me understand why this occurred; no one asked, wanted, or even could have conceived of this as a release? Not to mention the absolutely repetitive, soul-destroying, boring gameplay it offers. .....I tried; it's utter tedium of the highest order.
2. Then came CQC, honestly, what a load of complete mindless crap. It really felt aimed at kids, a quick battle arcade game. Again, absolutely no one asked for or wanted this. It wasn't even connected to the main game; it could have been included in a much cleverer way.
3. Telepresence kind of broke that exclusive immersion for me. It also completely breaks the laws of known physics, badly. As Elite Dangerous is known for being largely based on "a pillar of science", meh. The words of Adam woods.
4. Update 2.3 was so bad it made the game almost unplayable for me due to bugs. This is something I've never voiced an opinion about until now. That update also coincided with a long drought of updates for some time. I think Frontier was too busy empire-building and knocking out as many games as possible around this time.
5. One great update was made to mining, which introduced other ways to extract goodies from asteroids. So one had to think about which type of mining and what kind of setup was appropriate. If I recall correctly, this was a time when Elite Dangerous was seeing a considerable uptick in player numbers. Until mining was adjusted by Frontier to be only averagely profitable, and hot spots were also adjusted, crushing the two very things that drive player numbers.
6. Exploration... not even going to mention the time wasting twiddling replacement for the ADS. But rather focus on the planets. Horizons release was amazing. The new tenuous atmosphere, extremely nice. But since Dr Ross's departure and Frontier stating nothing will be added to planet terrain. I view this arena dead. But for the love of all that is holy please give us some more biology to discover.
7. Every single time Frontier states how exciting the next update will be or how "this has never been done, seen" in-game. But... no, they have cried wolf too many times for me.

Anyway I could continue. But feel frontier have ultimately tailored this game unsuccessfully towards chasing a more teen market, which includes the now defunked mass icon interface for consoles. (I still find this deeply unintuitive as western society is trained to read over identity icons). Which is completely fine, except, the game is now only fully playable on PC with the demographic placed around 25-50+.
all said it's still an incredible space game with supremely enormous potential. I'm not a person who looks negatively upon things, it's simply not in my nature. But whatever I just can't be bothered anymore frankly.

I am Flimley

 

[Darkfyre99]

Hello @Darkfyre99, I always admire and respect your carefully thought-out replies. Your comments are always worth reading! Unfortunately, I cost you valuable time as I quoted the wrong reply from @Navigare Necesse Est... which was aimed as a response to telepresence derp. Ugh, never mind. Apologies.

Don't worry about it. I'm stuck tending to laundry right now, so I have time to pontificate.

I'm not emotionally attached to this game any longer to really care.
Over the years, Frontier (for me) have released too many duff updates over good ones, some as which as follows:

• My first baffled state of mind was the release of Powerplay back in the day. I couldn't for the life of me understand why this occurred; no one asked, wanted, or even could have conceived of this as a release? Not to mention the absolutely repetitive, soul-destroying, boring gameplay it offers. .....I tried; it's utter tedium of the highest order.

I like the idea of Powerplay: allowing Commanders to participate in politics at a higher level than at system level, and to declare your alliegance to a particular faction. The execution... not so much. My choices to earn merits are to fly ABA cargo routes, spend my time combat farming... neither of which are activities I enjoy. OTOH, it added an extra dimension to selecting targets for BGS manipulation, so it was a net positive... at least before Frontier removed most of the depth of gameplay in BGS manipulation.

Proper integration of Powerplay into the BGS/mission system would make this game much more attractive than it is right now, since it would add considerable depth to deciding what missions I should take. Right now, with BGS manipulation a flat out influence grind, those decisions are on the order of "What do I want for breakfast," which isn't very interesting IMO.

• Then came CQC, honestly, what a load of complete mindless crap. It really felt aimed at kids, a quick battle arcade game. Again, absolutely no one asked for or wanted this. It wasn't even connected to the main game; it could have been included in a much cleverer way.

If it wasn't for the fact that the CQC rating is listed on my Commander tab, I could ignore it completely. I've stated on more than one occasion that CQC should be repurposed as an ELO-like ranking system when it comes PvP. A Commander's combat ranking isn't a real indication of how good they are at combat, only a measure of how much time they've spent farming NPCs.

• Telepresence kind of broke that exclusive immersion for me. It also breaks the laws of physics, badly. As Elite Dangerous is known for being largely based on science, meh.

Same here. There was a genre shift between the original Elite, and Frontier: Elite 2... at least as far as the fiction was concerned. The former was space opera. The latter and its sequal was much harder science fiction, with one big lie (Witchspace). Star Wars vs the Expanse.

Elite Dangerous was stated to be a continuation of the latter, not the former. Frontier canonizing in game a certain author's preference for the former over the latter left a sour taste in my mouth. Thankfully, I can pretty much ignore it while playing since I have no interest in multi-crew.

• Update 2.3 was so bad it made the game almost unplayable for me due to bugs. This is something I've never voiced an opinion about until now. That update also coincided with a long drought of updates for some time. I think Frontier was too busy empire-building and knocking out as many games as possible around this time.

Nothing really to add to this.

• One great update was made to mining, which introduced other ways to extract goodies from asteroids. So one had to think about which type of mining and what kind of setup was appropriate. If I recall correctly, this was a time when Elite Dangerous was seeing a considerable uptick in player numbers. Until mining was adjusted by Frontier to be only averagely profitable, and hot spots were also adjusted, crushing the two very things that drive player numbers.

Mining is one activity I've never had much interest in this game. Even the update of mining didn't hold my attention for long, primarily because of how outrageous the rewards of core mining were. Given how much that update facilitiated Fleet Carrier spam, I consider that a net negative. All it did was incentivize players who had quit to come back, spend some time mining, park their own personal monument to Ozymandias in shared player space at little personal cost, and then leave again.

• Every single time Frontier states how exciting the next update will be or how "this has never been done, seen" in-game. But... no, they have cried wolf too many times for me.

If I was a combat oriented player, I'd probably be a lot more excited over the Thargoid "story." I'm still hoping the obviously missing Odyssey-related content for Thargoid and Guardian ruins will be eventually be added. I had plans for doing some alien archeology, gorram it!!!

Anyway I could continue. But feel frontier have ultimately tailored this game towards a more teen market Which is completely fine, except, the actual demographic is around 25-50+. But what ever I just can't be bothered anymore frankly.

I am Flimley

I wouldn't say the teen market. They've catered this game to the Veruca Salt market. There may be some overlap, but most VSs I've seen justify their demands due to having a job and family. I do too, but I don't care how long stuff takes, as long as the process in getting there is interesting. Catering this game to the VSs is the opposite of interesting IMO.

 

[Flimley]

Don't worry about it. I'm stuck tending to laundry right now, so I have time to pontificate.



I like the idea of Powerplay: allowing Commanders to participate in politics at a higher level than at system level, and to declare your alliegance to a particular faction. The execution... not so much. My choices to earn merits are to fly ABA cargo routes, spend my time combat farming... neither of which are activities I enjoy. OTOH, it added an extra dimension to selecting targets for BGS manipulation, so it was a net positive... at least before Frontier removed most of the depth of gameplay in BGS manipulation.

Proper integration of Powerplay into the BGS/mission system would make this game much more attractive than it is right now, since it would add considerable depth to deciding what missions I should take. Right now, with BGS manipulation a flat out influence grind, those decisions are on the order of "What do I want for breakfast," which isn't very interesting IMO.



If it wasn't for the fact that the CQC rating is listed on my Commander tab, I could ignore it completely. I've stated on more than one occasion that CQC should be repurposed as an ELO-like ranking system when it comes PvP. A Commander's combat ranking isn't a real indication of how good they are at combat, only a measure of how much time they've spent farming NPCs.



Same here. There was a genre shift between the original Elite, and Frontier: Elite 2... at least as far as the fiction was concerned. The former was space opera. The latter and its sequal was much harder science fiction, with one big lie (Witchspace). Star Wars vs the Expanse.

Elite Dangerous was stated to be a continuation of the latter, not the former. Frontier canonizing in game a certain author's preference for the former over the latter left a sour taste in my mouth. Thankfully, I can pretty much ignore it while playing since I have no interest in multi-crew.



Nothing really to add to this.



Mining is one activity I've never had much interest in this game. Even the update of mining didn't hold my attention for long, primarily because of how outrageous the rewards of core mining were. Given how much that update facilitiated Fleet Carrier spam, I consider that a net negative. All it did was incentivize players who had quit to come back, spend some time mining, park their own personal monument to Ozymandias in shared player space at little personal cost, and then leave again.



If I was a combat oriented player, I'd probably be a lot more excited over the Thargoid "story." I'm still hoping the obviously missing Odyssey-related content for Thargoid and Guardian ruins will be eventually be added. I had plans for doing some alien archeology, gorram it!!!



I wouldn't say the teen market. They've catered this game to the Veruca Salt market. There may be some overlap, but most VSs I've seen justify their demands due to having a job and family. I do too, but I don't care how long stuff takes, as long as the process in getting there is interesting. Catering this game to the VSs is the opposite of interesting IMO.

Thank you for your reply. I have since added even more babbling to my former post, as once one starts, it's difficult to restrain the rant.

Being fully aware that it's almost impossible in a game such as this to please everyone. I'm just going to say finally, It is what it is I guess...,
Back in 2014 and prior to release I was so looking forward to this game. Even designing and building my own sim-pit and PC for it (pictured below).
But over time the greater majority of releases have been disappointing to me personally. And enthusiasm has died for any future developments.
I had a sad.

pics..
1 design

2, build V1

 

[Darkfyre99]

Thank you for your reply. I have since added even more babbling to my former post, as once one starts, it's difficult to restrain the rant.

Ah... since my last load of laundry is in, I have time to respond before my day becomes much busier. Let's see...

• Exploration... not even going to mention the time wasting twiddling replacement for the ADS. But rather focus on the planets. Horizons release was amazing. The new tenuous atmosphere, extremely nice. But since Dr Ross's departure and Frontier stating nothing will be added to planet terrain. I view this arena dead. But for the love of all that is holy please give us some more biology to discover.

My main problem with the change to the FSS is that Frontier knowingly killed certain types of exploration, which I feel was unnecessary. I like the FSS, because it's a very versitle tool that I can use in a variety of ways to find worlds worthy of exploring, without the, as you say, "time wasting twiddling." The ADS pretty much skipped over my favorite phase of exploration, and the pre-FSS alternatives didn't provide enough information to make parallax discovery a viable alternative. Frontier could've kept the ADS for players as an alternative. Adding meaningful choices are always an improvement over removing choices altogether, at least in my book.

My chief complaints about exploration at this time are:

• The lack of critical exploration kit. Everything you need to explore can be fit onto a Hauler, with multiple slots left over for optional extras. Jump range, IMO, should be a secondary consideration for an exploration ship, not the first.
• I can't use the FSS while throttled up. Note that it is quite possible to use it while moving at multiples of c, I've done it many times before to resolve distant objects while gavity braking at gas giants. There can be problems while moving between spheres of influences, but I
• I still need to go into the system map to learn more information about worlds I discover outside the FSS.
• The SRV lost its function in discovering the chemical composition of a world, and IME Odyssey biologicals don't show up on its WAVE scanner.
• edit: and of course, no Odyssey dedicated Thargoid and Guardian ruins to explore.

Being fully aware that it's almost impossible in a game such as this to please everyone. I'm just going to say finally, It is what it is I guess...,
Back in 2014 and prior to release I was so looking forward to this game. Even designing and building my own sim-pit and PC for it (pictured below).
But over time the greater majority of releases have been disappointing to me personally. And enthusiasm has died for any future developments.
I had a sad.

pics..
1 designView attachment 381573

2, build V1
View attachment 381574

Very nice. I have VR, so I don't need anything that fancy. My old HOTAS setup used to take a lot longer to set up, because my VR space is used for several things. I spent quite a bit of money so I can more easily change everything from one use to another, but still time is a premium right now at this stage of my life.

 

[Rainbro]

I guess there's plenty of things in Elite that break the lore, but telepresence feels more significant because it screws with your perception of where you are. And travel time is a holy subject in this game, there must be travel time. But telepresence doesn't feel like some sort of VR uplink, it feels like you've moved just like the fade to black from your ship to your SRV.

Maybe literally all multicrew needed to mitigate this was a little UI overlay like the SRV turret has, to differentiate. Or we can imagine the connection bugs to be in-universe problems with FTL connectivity

 

[metatheurgist]

On CQC though, I don't think it's timing with the xbox release was a coincidence.

 

[Hellrider]

IIRC, @Navigare Necesse Est’s can’t actually ignore the Engineering power creep, because Frontier also made higher level NPCs more powerful to compensate.

Actually, it is pure expectations/skill issue.
Without single engineering I was able to handle everything outside AX/High CZs

 

[Jack Winter]

I have much the same experience, most ships are easily blown up without engineering. Heh I even did high res in my starter sidewinder, admittedly just following the system security ships to tag their kills. A nice way to build up some capital when starting out.

 

[COBA]

I reviewed/read all 23 pages and found this closest to my sentiments ^^
First, single seat ships are exempt from my comments (what we have now works for me)
tldr: The ships all have bridge or cockpit models. (look around you) Some are quite detailed and complex (type10, cutter, conda, etc.). Why model the bridge with seats if not to put crew in those seats.
For large ship interiors (as they exist today) adding crew to be with a Commander on the bridge/cockpit of a ship with two or more chairs is my fantasy for this game.

The bridge models are already finished, have been for years. The minimum should be the ship bridge as currently modeled with a transporter pod (the door at the back of the bridge) to access (dark screen) dune buggy/rover, fighters and egress from the ship; with options to put crew in the 2nd, 3rd, etc. seats.

Why did FDev put chairs on ship bridges ?
Why has many space games released the last 10 years have bridges with seats and crew present ?
Making the bridge a workable environment with crew options is an addition to immersion/Verisimilitude. (trying to use the proper terms here)
Have a nice day

We discussed an old developer video with friends. It talked about many plans for the future and that the ships were immediately planned with a view to the future interior. The volume of space inside is already designed for this right away. My friends and I came to the conclusion that an interest without related content would be a waste of energy. In a month, everyone will get tired of him. Perhaps the input delay is related to this. Here is a link to the video below, there is an interview insert on frame 1.15.

Spoiler

Source: https://youtu.be/qa9Upxunl0Y?si=SGXjYMt7M3xjnQH9

 

[marx]

The lack of critical exploration kit. Everything you need to explore can be fit onto a Hauler, with multiple slots left over for optional extras. Jump range, IMO, should be a secondary consideration for an exploration ship, not the first.

When it comes to planetary flight, meaning all of the Odyssey content, jump range is already a secondary consideration. Try comparing a 80 ly Anaconda to a small(er) ship with half that jump range, and you'll find that the latter is much more enjoyable(!) to fly and look for flora, and much more effective too.

As for your suggestion: if somebody enjoys exploring in a Hauler now, what good reason would there be to force them into another ship in order to carry everything required? I don't see any.
Besides, back in the early days, we had the times when only two, then three, ships were fully capable of exploring the entire galaxy. "Choose an Anaconda, an Asp Explorer, or a Diamondback Explorer - or you can't go through the lower star density areas with your sub-30 ly jump range." Personally, I don't think many people miss that, and if viable choices were narrowed down like that again, that would be an unpopular decision - justifiably so.

But since Dr Ross's departure and Frontier stating nothing will be added to planet terrain. I view this arena dead.

For the "nothing will be added to planet terrain" part: are you referring to when they said they can't fix the rare repeating planet tiles completely? Or did they say no new flora to surfaces, and I just missed that?

 

[Jack Winter]

Fun fact, there were actually 2 Dr Ross (Anthony and Kay) working on Elite (that I know of).

 

[zimms]

Fun fact, there were actually 2 Dr Ross (Anthony and Kay) working on Elite (that I know of).

Same person. But I think there was/is another non-Dr Anthony Ross working on Elite.

 

[Jack Winter]

Dr Anthony Ross

Source: https://youtu.be/Vz3nhCykZNw?t=360


Dr Kay Ross

Source: https://youtu.be/e2AJS_-bTg0?t=238


Yes I think there are probably a few more Ross working at Frontier.

 

[zimms]

Thanks for proving my point.

Nice contrast though. While CMs change, Dr. Ross has been with Elite for proverbial ages. I've always said that Dr. Ross was one of the most important/influential people to have worked on Elite. (Even though that may not be completely fair to a lot of other people - it's a team effort after all. But I stand with what I've said.)

 

[Markov Chaney]

Fun fact, there were actually 2 Dr Ross (Anthony and Kay) working on Elite (that I know of).

And Ross 154 ;-)

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Maybe giving players the opportunity to engineer their ships to immortality wasn't a good one.

speak for yourself. i have very strict rules about engineering such that all my ships are vulnerable to a point.... however what i dont do is play in open, so that removes a huge unknown... that said on my numbers............ i did forget about a stint i had of trying to take thargoid tissue samples from my stealth DBS ... that little experiment probably doubled my number of ship losses.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

No, I bet you haven't lost any (unless you were flying without a rebuy or deliberately chose the freewinder).

i disagree........ i wrote off my car one, it was insured and essentially replaced, but the car was still lost (actually it wasnt i bought it back and it went back on the road again, however that isnt the point, in rare instances some of my ships were destroyed but my playstyle is such that my commander really does not want to lose his ship, the moment ships (other than perhaps the really really cheap ones - or SLFs ) become throw away items is the point that the game loses any interest at all for me other than eye candy. i have better arcade shooters.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Most of Elite's (any version) depiction of society is paper-thin and will fall apart instantly if viewed critically, being as it's only there to let us be attractively scruffy independently profitable space pilots rather than minimum wage freighter crew in regimented uniform. For almost everything else we agree not to poke at it (except for a laugh) and yet telepresence suddenly blew up into this giant thing for no particularly clear reason.

imo some of the stuff in Elite that doesnt make sense is kind of understandable because needs must etc....... however (and this is my thoughts of scifi as a whole not just games or elite specifically)

scifi needs rules, and good scifi sticks to them....... Some have scoffed saying stuff like (maybe not in this thread) its a game about FTL travel in space ships and then you talk about realism? ..... however that is fine.

the elite universe was set up with certain rules FTL travel is on of those rules so it is fine. Telepresence was added in to fly our SLFs and that was ok because it had never afaik been specifically ruled out before, also it had very strict rules which WERE spelled out about range... and for me that always made perfect sense. but then ships crew just didnt fit with that imo............

sometimes rules do need to be bent for gameplay, but imo it was not needed for ships crew given that players already had the option of npc crew they should have expanded them for crew mates (and possibly lowered their wage a bit). if a player wanted to do some multicrew but could not be bothered meeting up, for that session they could control the host players crew mate. any money earned could still be added to all players accounts, just not referenced it.

this ship has sailed, it is what it is, but i dont think it is wrong to highlight that stuff which was very clearly spelt out at one point, then being ignored at another is poor writing and a major no no in scifi

(and dont get me started on magic gravity in orbital platforms )
Some people say the player base wanted space legs and we got space legs and are not happy.

i would counter that (some) players wanted space legs........... what we got were legs in space and i would say that is not the same thing... and i am not trying to be a pedant i really do think they are different.
(there was a game which ultimately failed - the devs were too small and aimed too high i think - did a really fine job of space legs where you could move around from different wrecked orbital platforms and what not and scavenge from them. you had to remember to equalise pressures and all that stuff.

unfortunately they went big on PVP and never implemented most of the PVE stuff before they ran out of money.

and after typing all that i realise i cant remember what it was called and it has been pulled now. damn shame imo.

 

[galahad2069]

i disagree........ i wrote off my car one, it was insured and essentially replaced, but the car was still lost (actually it wasnt i bought it back and it went back on the road again, however that isnt the point, in rare instances some of my ships were destroyed but my playstyle is such that my commander really does not want to lose his ship, the moment ships (other than perhaps the really really cheap ones - or SLFs ) become throw away items is the point that the game loses any interest at all for me other than eye candy. i have better arcade shooters.

You get back the exact same ship with the exact same engineering, name and number plate, paintjob and decals, after you've paid a small amount of meaningless credits at the rebuy screen. Which means you don't lose your virtual pixel spaceship. It's not an actual physical object like your car.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

(and dont get me started on magic gravity in orbital platforms )

As with the telepresence/FTL comms, one of those things that people are fine with until too much attention gets drawn to it.

Ship cockpits, the bits you can see through the windows on the outpost docking pad, etc. all set up for in-gravity operation in a way that "we use a lot of magnets and velcro" doesn't really cover unless you want to believe, while you can undergo sustained G-forces in combat which should turn a human into jelly - and at best make a "luxury passenger cabin" something like "your flight cocoon is hand-sewn with Arcturian Mega-Cotton". Everyone just ignores all that, of course.

The only time "no artifical gravity" is introduced is really as an explanation for the rotating components of stations and megaships (because presumably back in 1.0 they thought "it looks spacey and is traditional" wasn't enough). Release Odyssey and let people inspect those environments at close range and suddenly "nothing anyone would want to drink has that much surface tension" gets too much to push past. Conversely, people are generally not able to instinctively to do the sums about just how little pseudo-gravity [1] a Coriolis station will have in a bar attached to the inside of the docking bay, and so don't notice the artifical gravity generators keeping everyone firmly attached to the floor (and drinks in cups) there.



[1] About 0.1G, from memory. The bigger problem is that with the floor being flat rather than curved, it should be noticeably misaligned to the acceleration at the sides of the room.
(Edit: taking some more accurate measurements, yes, about 0.1G: ~200m radius, ~95 second rotation period. At that radius you'll get approximately a degree of skew for every 3.5m sideways you walk within the concourse; obvious at the edges which are ~25m off the centre line so ~7 degrees off "horizontal" but probably manageable as long as they don't polish the counter-tops too much)