What takes you out of the game?

[Hellhawk666]

It's not so much any of the science *cough* or major design decisions that I find immersion-breaking. That can all be argued about endlessly on the basis of lore or expediency. What annoys me far more are the small occasional graphical glitchs that jar the flow of the game.

Stuttering & juddering in supercruise or hyperspace jumps, the way the interior of a starport suddenly pops into view as you approach the slot instead of gradually becoming visible, asteroids that suddenly change shape, etc. Things like that remind me that it's just a computer program that's not performing as smoothly as it could.

 

[Jaeger]

Well, someone was handling that, before she was moved to other tasks.

This is a good point... there was a tacit promise of decent ingame AI mechanics. All sorts of sophisticated spaceship stuff... instead we have been server a plate full of Luddite incompetence. (No nav comp, no trading comp, no AI wingmates .. )

The best thing in the game is the docking computer, but in terms of intelligent systems for use in ship or to be seen in the universe... its empty. What takes me away from the game is the betrayal of the dream... but there are still some other contenders, and Frontier while it was kickstarted as a game written by gamers for gamers, is now firmly in the "Public company beholden to profits for shareholdes" zone. Look to Chris Roberts, he has an actual vision of a game to be played.

- - - Updated - - -

So why are you still here? I guess you get more enjoyment out of trolling those of us who enjoy the game?

Frawd

Nothing ever improved without critique.

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

Nothing ever improved without critique.

I agree and I am happy to read (and often agree with) people's constructive critiques of the game. However, when somebody says that they "hate the game, it is boring"...that is not criticism, that is trolling...why are they even in the forums?

Frawd

 

[Jason S]

My main bug bear is not being able to play the game such that I can pause it, not even in solo mode where there are only npc's.

Perhaps they should have a 'solo no switch' mode which does allow you to pause the game but you cannot then switch to open.

As far as realism goes, I would say hyperspacing only allowed to the sun and no trading tools seems unrealistic.
Also no people in the towers on the stations, that is very unrealistic.

 

[OnePercent]

1. This is just a game with a P2P multiplayer and sever data base environment, time dialation would be another layer of complexity that is not feasible in a P2P game like elite. As well as the many database and physics calculations that go haywire.

1.a. the very concept of FTL travel is still inpossible to create in real life, thus a science fiction concent in a game doesn't have to abide by real life physical limitations. Such as gamma ray death going using warp drives ( theoretical )
2. It is painfully obvious that NPC's aren't a strong point in elite, things like NPC's spamming messages is only getting looked at recently.

3. Many NPC's are named after kickstarter backer choices.

4. If we can't do anything like land or fly there (supercruise body exclusion zone) is there any point to implement this? Also, neutron stars are about the size of a city, body exclusion zone is several hundred to several thousand kilometers across, i don't know the default, but even if these disks were present, you won't be able to see them without in game rules preventing you.

4. a. The only sort of animated graphics in supercruise are star surface animation and star prominence's, stellar jets like those in pulsars and neutron stars aren't implemented yet and would also take some trick to be able to implement them in supercruise volumetrically whilst being able to maintain an acceptable frame rate. Also adding more rules lile gamma ray emissions killing you too.

5. Not sure what you mean here? Are you talking about procedural densities in the galaxy map as displayed in elite dangerous? Be advised that these are all approximations outside of around 20 lightyears where our telescopes can't see any better. However if you have better understanding of white dwarf density, perhaps you can contact FD And give some advice for their procedural generation engine to do a better job?

6. Your proposal of realism would further nerf mining in asteroid belts and they can't be represented in any other way otherwise you will clutter the solar system UI with lots of asteroid bodies.

Another solution would be to display " asteroid belt orbit" and droppi g any where in this orbit would yeild a single large asteroid, however again, mining from this asteroid would only yeild 15 scoopable rocks max, which is nothing time spent/profit wise.

7. Yes this is pretty cool but very annoying when trying to go back to a station, but i bet thats part of the rush to get back and repair your ship or you will self destruct after you ran out of oxygen.

So far nothing in a realistic sense ruins the game for me because it is still a game, this game is more of a civilisation in the year 3300 simulation game rather than realistic space flight simulation game.

 

[SpeakerToAliens]

"Slow Down" - this really annoys me. It pops up when its already too late to slow down. Can nobody in 3301 produce FSD control/monitor software that can detect that you're going too fast *before* it's too late to slow down?

Useless missiles.

Kinetic weapons all but useless against shields.

We need much more capable NPCs. Let Sarah Jane complete the upgrade of her "minions" then let her minions off the leash - especially when the Thargoids are finally introduced. Sarah Jane has to be allowed to program these!

Docking computers that are slow and clunky and worthless. It's 3301 and the computer is in charge (remember it's enormous, taking up a space in your hold. It has to be very very capable and isn't going to get it wrong) so your ship should come screaming into the station at max throttle and then decelerate hard at the last second for a perfect touch down on your assigned pad in minimum possible time (imagine the view from the cockpit...). It should also launch your ship and get you out into space the same way.

And if you want to talk about scientific inaccuracies lets consider lasers beams you can see in space with maximum ranges of a several kilometres instead of several light seconds. Note: This doesn't break the game for me at all. It wouldn't be anything like as much fun to play if they made the weapons "realistic".

P.S. Read Earthlight by Arthur C Clarke. Now there's a beam weapon you can see in space!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So, I'm an American

So sorry to hear that. Hope you get well soon

- Flying at 500 times the speed of light and not experiencing time dilation (I know this would be impossible to implement, but it still bothers me when I think about it)

That's because you don't exactly travel that fast. FSD means Frame Shift Drive. Time dialation would only occur because you are using a fixed frame of reference. Its closer to what was in Dune, traveling without moving. There is just an illusion of movement.

- Pirates repeating the same dialogue over and over again

They have improved it already and i believe they will keep adding new dialog as time goes on.

- Pirate names that sound like forum handles

Someone else already mentioned that its not unusual. Didn't you ever watch Top Gun? Additionally, Naming NPCs were a kickstarter perk. This is what happens when you allow random people on the internet to name NPCs

- The lack of dynamic neutron stars with circumstellar disks and polar jets (although I just found out about randomly generated planetary nebula which is cool)

Some of the graphics are simply placeholders, which will remain until FD gets around to improving the effects.... which may or may not happen depending on priorities. However, Neutron stars are tiny... by the time you got close enough to see such, wouldn't your ship already be fried?

- The drop off in white dwarf density outside of the "bubble". Makes no sense.

Yeah. Due to placed special systems in the bubble and the Stellar Forge giving "true" distribution based on what we know. Just live with it.

- How close together asteroids are in belts. In a belt like the one around Sol you'd be lucky to see two asteroids close enough together to see one from the other.

The asteroid belts you can drop into are just clumps of rocks. As you rightly point out, what people often think of with asteroid belts is like in Star Wars, something closer to what we have with planetary rings, but in reality, rocks are very sparse. This is why we don't see the whole ring, just a few markers in our contact list. These are just especially dense pocks of the belts. Very rare considering the overall size of the belt, where there are perhaps 5-10 pockets around the whole system. Not to unrealistic i think.

- I was going to say the HUD with all the different colored triangles, but my canopy partially blew out the other day and you could only see the ship targeting triangles on the parts that weren't blown out. Pretty cool.

Yeah, and scary as hell when it happens.

So I'd really like to hear what ruins the "reality" of the game for you when you're playing it. I like hearing about how the sim doesn't match up with the science, but it doesn't have to be about science.

To be honest, i don't tend to get hung up by such things. Its just a game with a sim like quality. Or a sim where certain things have been sacrificed for gameplay reasons. Surprised you didn't mention the semi-newtonian flight model we have with the speed limits.

 

[aws357]

What takes me out of the game? What really gets my gut and makes me not play the old ED right now ?!

IKEA.

And their awesome superpower of "we-make-a-simple-delivery-a-logisitic-clüstersmeg".

No desk. No PC on desk. No ED.

The thing in ED I would like to be more realistic? Black holes.

You are not supposed to get in these stuff and get out. Not in one piece...

"or around or skip real close, or anywhere nearby"

 

[Hellhawk666]

...
As far as realism goes, I would say hyperspacing only allowed to the sun and no trading tools seems unrealistic.

The lore is that hyperspace jumps can only work by locking on to a significant mass/gravity point, so they always default to the main star of a system. The real reason is more to do with history - in the older games jumps landed you on the outskirts of a system then you made your way inwards to the station, encountering things along the way. That overall concept has been kept so that players are forced to "run the gauntlet" for gameplay reasons, which is fair enough, but now it happens from the star outwards. Personally I'm neither here nor there, but there is an argument that having visited a system once a pilot should then be able to jump in to any star in that system in the future. Being able to just jump directly to any known object would get pretty dull, I think.

Lack of trading tools is not so much to do with realism as just plain inconvenient. I don't see why at the very least they couldn't have provided a simple in-game journal/log book where I could record notes and commodity prices for ports where I've actually been. I don't think FD considered how much this sort of simple character history contributes to a feeling of immersion.

Also no people in the towers on the stations, that is very unrealistic.

Yeah, a few NPCs - static or moving - in the towers wouldn't hurt.

 

[streki]

You can fly from one end of the bubble to the other, and the stations interiors look exactly the same. Empire or Federation...the same. High tech or agricultural....the same. Stations need much more visual variety to maintain the illusion that you've travelled great distances.

Picture a typical german town...you get a mental image of what the buildings look like. Now think of a malaysian village...its completely different of course. Stations need to convey the same.....they should "feel" Imperial in the Empire, and high tech systems should look much more blade-runner-neon-futuristic than stations in agricultural systems.

You should be able to accurately guess where you are simply by the look of the station around you.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

When I got the game I was looking forward to the exploration side of things but as I have found out the galaxy we are in bears little to no resemblance to the actual Milky Way, Major stars missing, blandness of planet textures, very ordered layout of solar systems compared to what has been observed and in short just a bit disappointed that there is not at least one person who's job it is to keep the game filled with current discoveries.

 

[AsukaZ]

Stuttering when I fly up close to a planet.
I can live with it for now, but I don't know how this will affect planetary landings. I don't want to have to jerk my way down to the surface!

 

[Miklos Atreides]

Actualy there a lore reason behind that.

all members of the pilots federation have a hollow marker on the HUD.
everyone else gets the regular one

I do not need to know this. I only need the information that there is a ship.
Can we make all tags hollow? Or filled? Don't care about it.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[newman1702]

I'm not sure if or how time dilation would apply when going over the speed of light. Especially with a drive that doesn't really make you travel that fast, but rather contracts / expands spacetime to simulate the effect. With a regular drive that didn't use Alcubierre mechanics, you couldn't go over 1C, and sure, time dilation would apply, as would other effects (some optical, as the Doppler effect at those velocities can do some real interesting things to the light spectrum). But I honestly couldn't even speculate on time dilation using a "warp" drive and going well over 1C. It's make believe technology, so I'm fine with it.

 

[777Driver]

"Slow Down" - this really annoys me. It pops up when its already too late to slow down. Can nobody in 3301 produce FSD control/monitor software that can detect that you're going too fast *before* it's too late to slow down?

Useless missiles.

Kinetic weapons all but useless against shields.

We need much more capable NPCs. Let Sarah Jane complete the upgrade of her "minions" then let her minions off the leash - especially when the Thargoids are finally introduced. Sarah Jane has to be allowed to program these!

Docking computers that are slow and clunky and worthless. It's 3301 and the computer is in charge (remember it's enormous, taking up a space in your hold. It has to be very very capable and isn't going to get it wrong) so your ship should come screaming into the station at max throttle and then decelerate hard at the last second for a perfect touch down on your assigned pad in minimum possible time (imagine the view from the cockpit...). It should also launch your ship and get you out into space the same way.

And if you want to talk about scientific inaccuracies lets consider lasers beams you can see in space with maximum ranges of a several kilometres instead of several light seconds. Note: This doesn't break the game for me at all. It wouldn't be anything like as much fun to play if they made the weapons "realistic".

P.S. Read Earthlight by Arthur C Clarke. Now there's a beam weapon you can see in space!

1. If you are getting the SLOW DOWN message it means you are not managing speed correctly or misunderstand how the throttle works, best option is to leave it in Auto throttle mode (Exactly 75%)

2. Missiles work fine, just strip the shields first. Even in my old T9, beams to strip shields, missiles to finish the job, works on every NPC (Far too easily)

3. Correct about NPC's, waaay too easy...

4. DC (and automation in general) should be about accuracy and safety - Pretty much how the DC works now, I recently installed one on my T9 & Conda, works smoothly and flawlessly, I still hand fly through the slot, then throttle about back and let it fly the final approach.

5. Beam lasers.. Well yeah it's obviously for gameplay reasons.

To answer the OP, generally removing the Oculus rift kills it for me.. science stuff - The insane maneuvers you can pull in a massive ship like the clipper & many other ships, it would be instant death in reality

 

[EUS]

Here's one; a neutron star will fry your Asp, but black holes come with invisible safety nets.

 

[Daffan]

Doing Powerplay in Open and realizing it's better to grind NPC's in solo. Oops you meant sciencey stuff.

 

[OamodSias]

"Slow Down" - this really annoys me. It pops up when its already too late to slow down. Can nobody in 3301 produce FSD control/monitor software that can detect that you're going too fast *before* it's too late to slow down?

Taxi computer: “You just had an accident.”
Korben: “Yes, I know I just had an accident, you daffy [redacted]!”

 

[DaggerSnake]

I was taken out a little the first time I got a permit to a closed systems.

I thought that at least the big three Capitol systems would have some special custom stations not seen anywhere else. Seems like a great place for that. I was really excited to see Achenar, but it looked just like Tanmark and Eravate, and Sol, and CH34532-XC12

 

[PanicButton]

What takes you out of the game?

The movie I'm watching on the second screen