I fondly remember playing my old Elite Plus game years ago. Back then, it was pretty much me versus the AI ONLY, and I very much liked it that way. I dislike an arena that permits high-level players to have the opportunity to prey upon new arrivals. And given that I have yet to even begin to get a grasp of the Tutorial combat, I would certainly qualify as "easy pickin's" for even Beginner pilots. So, from what I've seen thus far, It appears like I made the mistake of buying on nostalgia and wandered into that multiplayer-only venue. In which case, for me, a total waste of $60 (but no one to blame but myself for making the error).
Is this a multiplayer-ONLY game?
- Thread starter CaptainPatch
- Start date
You can play to begin with in solo if you are worried about players picking on you. But to be honest I've yet to come across any trouble with players. Most people seem pretty nice in the game. But its so vast that you can easily find trade/mission routes away from the busy areas.
Yep Solo mode will give you more or less the same experience as the original so you won't need to worry about fighting other players. The only reason you need an internet connection is because some of the game mechanics are done on the Frontier servers rather than on the PC.
You will still be interdicted by NPCs in Solo mode, just like the Th*rg**ds back in the day. If you jump away from the starter areas and avoid known black-spots such as Lave, you should be fine in Open mode.
You have not made a mistake buying E|D!
You have not made a mistake buying E|D!
This is what caused me to think it was MP-only. I would think that 1) inputting into my PC, 2) transferring that input to the Frontier servers, 3) manipulating the input and calculations to determine results, and 4) sending those results back to my PC would cause an unavoidable lag time between cause and effect. Especially for anyone with slower Internet access (DSL for example). I couldn't see the point of doing that unless it was expressly for the purpose of coordinating multiple players that were interacting with each other.
I play this game on 30 k/b 3G cellphone connection on Open with zero issues at work. I interdict and destroy (as well as get destroyed by) other players all the time. You'll be fine.
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OK lets all call ED an egg sandwich as that is just as full of sense as your suggestion. I know they say "don't feed the trolls" but... "Here, have an egg sandwich!"
i have a very iffy wifi internet connection, and got bitten really badly by Diablo 3 and its 'player makes a move, the server interprets it and echoes it back to the player's client' form of remote control which SUCKED HUGELY
after reading about how ED was ditching a true-offline mode, i almost crossed it off my list, thinking it would be a similar sort of setup to diablo 3. then i read how ED would work with 'spotty' internet connections and the writer reported playing without trouble on a moving train, so i took the plunge and bought into ED.
bottom line - the Solo mode works beautifully. the constant connection is only to update the universe at frequent intervals; it won't affect your controls in a bad way and if there are lag spikes, they don't seem to impact the game in any way. (who cares if the market prices update 3 seconds late?)
tldr; good game for singleplayers with crap internet connections. having a lot of fun in Solo.
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It's true that regular lag spikes make very little difference in performance. From what I've seen from a very fun few days of the comms pits in my street being full of water and having extremely unreliable internet, it appears that ED uses an arbitration system where specific activities trigger sync events with the server. Local instances appear to run entirely on your machine in solo mode, so you notice no lag during regular flight. However, once you perform an action that requires a sync event, that action may be cancelled or severely delayed based on what's going on with your link.
One of the synchronization events is picking up fragments and allocating them to bins in a refinery. I know this one for a fact, because I've lost a dozen fragments of 40% gold a few times from sudden disconnects as soon as I picked up the first fragment. Other sync events appear to be opening the galaxy map, system map, reviewing reputations, shooting fragments off asteroids (the point where the frag jettisons), and requesting docking permission.
Anyway. Yes, you do require a 100% always-available Internet connection. However, it can be laggy and inconsistent and solo will still work. But it needs to be always available, packet loss and disconnects will essentially destroy the instance you are in immediately. Not so great for mining.
Thank you everyone for the feedback. Now that I know that Solo is there and available, I'll _try_ to get at least so-so in the Tutorial combat, then start my own game. (I'm primarily interested in trading and exploration; if it's possible to avoid combat entirely, I would.)
Welcome, CaptainPatch! 
I've been playing in the Open mode for a while now and I have had fewer than a handful of combat encounters. So, it is entirely possible to avoid them. You will encounter human players around the most popular areas (around the centres of each faction), but I've never had a dogfight with any of them. If you absolutely want to avoid fights, but are open to seeing human players around, you can always play in Group mode in one of the "players vs environment" groups (such as Mobius).
The reason the game needs an internet connection is not so much the fighting, but the simulation of the galaxy and trading systems. The human factions expand to new systems, political situations change, prices fluctuate etc. etc.
I've been playing in the Open mode for a while now and I have had fewer than a handful of combat encounters. So, it is entirely possible to avoid them. You will encounter human players around the most popular areas (around the centres of each faction), but I've never had a dogfight with any of them. If you absolutely want to avoid fights, but are open to seeing human players around, you can always play in Group mode in one of the "players vs environment" groups (such as Mobius).
The reason the game needs an internet connection is not so much the fighting, but the simulation of the galaxy and trading systems. The human factions expand to new systems, political situations change, prices fluctuate etc. etc.
I thought 'Solo' stood for 'Han Solo Simulator'.