I am really struggling...

[Lucky Shaw]

Hello Commanders.

Are any of you suffering the hell that I am going through regarding just coming to terms with ED. I can't find too much in the manual to help me (and I am not especially thick). My main problems are simply understanding the systems, navigating through the menus and even understanding them, allocation f buttons to keyboard and understanding what the differences are between frameshift, super cruise an hyperspace jump. Oh for the keyboard overlay of my 48K spectrum and a simple torus drive for getting somewhere fast and hyperspace for jumping systems!

I have no idea what LS and C and all the measurements mean.

I did a trip the other day from one system to another with a contract to deliver leather. Managed to do the hyperspace jump and get to the station, land and all that but I couldn't figure out how to 'hand over' the goods and claim my wage for doing the job. Ended up getting fined 600+ credits!

I also need to sort facetrackNOIR out as I can't get it to work with ED.

The key allocation menu is the worst I have ever seen in a game bar none. A button in one menu has to be abandoned when using another. Nothing seems to make sense.

I know I'll get there and once I get my X52 (I am using a Cyborg Fly 5 atm) I will be able to allocate buttons in a more intuitive layout.

And of course in Gamma all that has happened to me is interdictions.

Am I really as thick as this game is making me feel or is anyone else here having similar issues?

In the meantime all I seem to see is Commanders zooming around, having fun, pewpewing, exploring, visiting their parents in Sol and making gazzillions of credits.

I know its a steep learning curve but by golly its grinding me down a bit. Seems a million light years to my 'Dangerous' rating I had way back in the spectrum Elite days.

I know it just sounds like a whinge but I just needed to voice my frustrations a little. I know with perseverance I will get there...

 

[Belisarius]

Every journey has a beginning

For you it begins just now ... for most of us it began already months ago, with the start of Alpha, Premium Beta or normal Beta.

So don´t worry ... soon you will be zooming around, having fun, pewpewing, exploring, visiting your parents in Sol and making gazzillions of credits like the rest of us

 

[Pille]

Since Gamma is the release candidate, no more features coming, only polish and bugfixes - you don't need to worry that you are thick. You certainly should not apologize to elitist fanboys who have played the alpha and beta for months. Let's get this straight: the game should explain its features and gameplay mechanics with in-game tool tips and tutorials. It doesn't. That is not your fault or any new player's fault. The game and Frontier is at fault.
If new players and reviewers have to alt-tab out of the game in December to check forum posts and youtube guides, Frontier screwed up. Not the new players.

 

[gazzareth]

There is a bit of a learning curve, but you do get there in the end.

In case you haven't worked it out, the "Frameshift Drive" can operate in two modes "Supercruise" for local system travel, and "Frameshift" or aka "Hyperspace" for jumping systems. As for the units:

LY LightYears, the distance that light travels in a year
LS LightSeconds, the distance that light travels in a second
Mm MegaMetres, a million metres
c the speed of light
Mm/s MegaMetres per second

You do get used to the keys, and believe me once you do, the change of function for different uses makes it a lot easier, unless you want to have to map the whole keyboard.

Oh and finally, to turn the mission in, it should be at the top of the Bulletin Board once you have docked.

Enjoy.

G

Edit: Forgot to add, interdictions can be a great source of income. Although you do need to work out what you can handle and run from things you can't, in the starter ship you can take out much better ships, although those Eagles are pretty hard to beat as they can easily outmanouver you and can have sharp teeth....

 

[Questionable Ethics]

Not 100% up-to-date now, but this really helped me get up and running:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=34437

I assume an official manual is planned for launch...

QE

 

[Granty]

Not sure if this will help or not, I have only been playing for a month or so and felt like you sound when I first started.

I've still not fully understood the navigation but basically pressing 1 and using WASD allows you to scroll between the systems and choose one, max exceed (in red) and the jump distance is too far from where you are.

The contracts had me for a couple of fines but when you dock at the destination, click on Starport services, then on bulletin board and at the top right will be the mission you took, click that and then you can click 'Claim' (or words to that effect)

 

[knowles2]

I did a trip the other day from one system to another with a contract to deliver leather. Managed to do the hyperspace jump and get to the station, land and all that but I couldn't figure out how to 'hand over' the goods and claim my wage for doing the job. Ended up getting fined 600+ credits!#

You need to select the Bulletin board at the station. Not sure why it there though, I keep on expecting it to be in contact menu as you are contacting someone to come and collect their cargo and pay you, a odd design decision that needs looking at again. I have lost money as well because of this.

Am I really as thick as this game is making me feel or is anyone else here having similar issues?

Nope, there is a deep learning curve in this game, probably not help by lack of any in depth instructions or detail tutorials. Something I hope we see fixed before the 16th.

 

[Wulfrune]

So don´t worry ... soon you will be zooming around, having fun, pewpewing, exploring, visiting your parents in Sol and making gazzillions of credits like the rest of us

That's probably true until you run into some angry griefer who's got nothing better to do than make your life a misery.

Yeah yeah "solo mode"

 

[gazzareth]

That's probably true until you run into some angry griefer who's got nothing better to do than make your life a misery.

Yeah yeah "solo mode"

Yeah, I remember them, not seen any for a while, but only being playing PvE mode since gamma. Most you get is a cheery Hello!

G

 

[Kramster]

I know it's not ideal but there are many helpful guides on youtube...I learned a lot

 

[foxpur]

Just so you know, most of us hate interdiction.

 

[Tradesman]

Since Gamma is the release candidate, no more features coming, only polish and bugfixes - you don't need to worry that you are thick. You certainly should not apologize to elitist fanboys who have played the alpha and beta for months. Let's get this straight: the game should explain its features and gameplay mechanics with in-game tool tips and tutorials. It doesn't. That is not your fault or any new player's fault. The game and Frontier is at fault.
If new players and reviewers have to alt-tab out of the game in December to check forum posts and youtube guides, Frontier screwed up. Not the new players.

Not sure that just because we are in gamma to final stages, that it means there are no more updates. We are still to see planetary landings etc. It's like saying Eve-online is constantly in gamma.
I think there will be new features added as we go along maybe just a tad slower. I'm hoping that a lot of the outstanding ideas for the game expressed in the forums in the initial stages of development will be revisited and implemented in time and if that means some kind of subscription to get them done with some discussion I'm game. Hopefully

 

[Noogillim]

I would recommend you watch a lot of youtube clips where people have patiently gone through trading and missions etc

 

[English Voodoo]

Hello Commanders.

Are any of you suffering the hell that I am going through regarding just coming to terms with ED. I can't find too much in the manual to help me (and I am not especially thick). My main problems are simply understanding the systems, navigating through the menus and even understanding them, allocation f buttons to keyboard and understanding what the differences are between frameshift, super cruise an hyperspace jump. Oh for the keyboard overlay of my 48K spectrum and a simple torus drive for getting somewhere fast and hyperspace for jumping systems!

I have no idea what LS and C and all the measurements mean.

I did a trip the other day from one system to another with a contract to deliver leather. Managed to do the hyperspace jump and get to the station, land and all that but I couldn't figure out how to 'hand over' the goods and claim my wage for doing the job. Ended up getting fined 600+ credits!

I also need to sort facetrackNOIR out as I can't get it to work with ED.

The key allocation menu is the worst I have ever seen in a game bar none. A button in one menu has to be abandoned when using another. Nothing seems to make sense.

I know I'll get there and once I get my X52 (I am using a Cyborg Fly 5 atm) I will be able to allocate buttons in a more intuitive layout.

And of course in Gamma all that has happened to me is interdictions.

Am I really as thick as this game is making me feel or is anyone else here having similar issues?

In the meantime all I seem to see is Commanders zooming around, having fun, pewpewing, exploring, visiting their parents in Sol and making gazzillions of credits.

I know its a steep learning curve but by golly its grinding me down a bit. Seems a million light years to my 'Dangerous' rating I had way back in the spectrum Elite days.

I know it just sounds like a whinge but I just needed to voice my frustrations a little. I know with perseverance I will get there...

LOL I am right there with ya!

Just started and I played Elite on the BBC B I am sure in time it will come more natural but the tooltips and tutorials need allot of work as I am just like you, trying to figure out the rebinds and keymapping for functions I do not understand yet!
So your thread is nice as I am getting good advice too and refreshing to see people helping other forums kill you for asking!

 

[Tilen]

Oh man, whenever I land inside a major space station I hear people getting blown up all around me. It's absolutely hilarious!

The other day I was observing this guy trying to land at a snail's pace. I was cheering him on as he was doing it, but he didn't reply- I assume he didn't know how. Great fun!

 

[Belisarius]

That's probably true until you run into some angry griefer who's got nothing better to do than make your life a misery.

Yeah yeah "solo mode"

If we are talking bout griefing player pilots ... I don´t think this will be such a huge problem.
Space (especially now that the Beta pill is gone) is really really really insanely big.

It is rather easy to evade griefers.

If we talk about NPC pirates ... well, no matter whether against NPCs or PCs, if you learn how to succesfully evade interdictions pirates lose much of their fear potential.
It is possible to evade 90-95% of all interdictions if you have mastered your ships controls enough to follow the escape vector.
(at least if you want to evade them and don´t intend to get caught in their interdiction, to give those pesky pirates a very very bad surprise )

 

[Pille]

Not sure that just because we are in gamma to final stages, that it means there are no more updates. We are still to see planetary landings etc. It's like saying Eve-online is constantly in gamma.
I think there will be new features added as we go along maybe just a tad slower. I'm hoping that a lot of the outstanding ideas for the game expressed in the forums in the initial stages of development will be revisited and implemented in time and if that means some kind of subscription to get them done with some discussion I'm game. Hopefully

Planetary landings is going to be a major expansion that we will not see for a loooong time. Also, you'll have to pay for it. You can't put that in the same category as basic gameplay features that have been promised since the beginning or even basic tool tips that explain items.

Oh man, whenever I land inside a major space station I hear people getting blown up all around me. It's absolutely hilarious!

The other day I was observing this guy trying to land at a snail's pace. I was cheering him on as he was doing it, but he didn't reply- I assume he didn't know how. Great fun!

Yeah if that is your idea of great fun I never want to play with you, thank you very much. A game that doesn't explain its own gameplay features, lacks tutorials and item descriptions. A player base that tries to excuse every broken promise and missing feature. And laughs at players who have problems with broken features and attacks players on the forums who ask questions and dare to point out missing or broken features. As a new guy myself I have to say: a fine community Frontier has built here! No wonder so many people are going to play this Singleplayer and wish for completely offline. So they have nothing to do with this community.

 

[RobinsonUK]

The key allocation menu is the worst I have ever seen in a game bar none. A button in one menu has to be abandoned when using another. Nothing seems to make sense.

You are quite right. I mentioned this a few weeks ago, as a complete noob. The tutorials give you a space to practice and some objectives, but there's no fine control and they seem somewhat aimless with important detail missing. Then you head over to the controls to find out how to do something and WHAM, you're assaulted by what is by far the longest page of bindings I think I've ever seen in a game. Quite a lot of them are irrelevant to all but an expert.

Frontier need to put much more effort into the new player experience. It's critical to success and longevity, especially if the product is complex.

I remember the original Elite and its BBC keyboard overlay .

 

[Tilen]

Yeah if that is your idea of great fun I never want to play with you, thank you very much. A game that doesn't explain its own gameplay features, lacks tutorials and item descriptions. A player base that tries to excuse every broken promise and missing feature. And laughs at players who have problems with broken features and attacks players on the forums who ask questions and dare to point out missing or broken features. As a new guy myself I have to say: a fine community Frontier has built here! No wonder so many people are going to play this Singleplayer and wish for completely offline. So they have nothing to do with this community.

Relax, guy. I'm not the droid you are looking for! I'm here to help and I never grief or cheat. I intend to play lawfully, even enforce the law if possible. I was merely laughing at situations where I was landed and I was looking at this Sidewinder that was slowly, helplessly drifting right in front of me and getting shot to pieces- the scene was funny, not the fact that somebody is actually frustrated.

And as I said: I cheered this random guy on while he was struggling to land!

 

[McMatt]

Just so you know, most of us hate interdiction.

Indeed we do.