Newcomer / Intro no tutorial?

davygravy

D
I played the original Elite on an amiga so thought this would be good but after entering a training mission I have no idea what's going on. Now I understand there are often a lot of guys who want to act macho and say "I don't want my hand held in games" but in a game that is complex, I like being told in the beginning.. press this or that key to do this etc.

Before anyone thinks I'm just an old guy and not cut out for modern games, I'm a ubisoft star player I love trading/ exploration games but I'm also a fan of 1st/ 3rd player games with thousands and thousands of hours in games like COD, GTA, Deus Ex, Far Cry all Tom Clancy games and Assassins Creed etc...
I tried the first combat training mission, I appeared in an asteroid belt (I think) with objects on my radar floating near me. I quickly assumed W and S were accelerate and stop and the mouse steers (quickly when aiming and slowly when turning but other than that I had no idea what to do. It was a bit like going to sleep in my bed and waking up free falling from a plane without a parachute :) nobody to ask what's happening or what to do.... does the game have a tutorial at all?
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
I recommend You start with the docking, undocking, basic ship operations and travel training missions. Not combat.
There are also instructional videos, there.

If everything fails, wait two weeks. 2.2 update is coming up with completely reworked training.
 

Net-FX

Net-FX
It is also fair to say that the range of customization for controls, viewing etc is [if you pardon the pun] astronomical. So if a certain setup doesn't work for you, then tweak, tweak and tweak some more. :)

Have fun CMDR. :)
 

EISENHORN01

EISENHORN01
E.D is definitely from the "ok that's a sword your up next" school of gladiatorial training luckily there are literally hundreds of player posted videos on you tube (sorry I don't have the links) or u can post questions on here, there's a few smart Alex's but 99% of forum users are happy to help.
the learning curve is a sharp one just remember there's no need to rush the games huge, if u don't like one thing (like trading or mining) then try something else, there's no shame in dying most of us did it quite often at the start.
 

MickyG1982

M
davygravy said:
I played the original Elite on an amiga so thought this would be good but after entering a training mission I have no idea what's going on. Now I understand there are often a lot of guys who want to act macho and say "I don't want my hand held in games" but in a game that is complex, I like being told in the beginning.. press this or that key to do this etc.

Before anyone thinks I'm just an old guy and not cut out for modern games, I'm a ubisoft star player I love trading/ exploration games but I'm also a fan of 1st/ 3rd player games with thousands and thousands of hours in games like COD, GTA, Deus Ex, Far Cry all Tom Clancy games and Assassins Creed etc...
I tried the first combat training mission, I appeared in an asteroid belt (I think) with objects on my radar floating near me. I quickly assumed W and S were accelerate and stop and the mouse steers (quickly when aiming and slowly when turning but other than that I had no idea what to do. It was a bit like going to sleep in my bed and waking up free falling from a plane without a parachute :) nobody to ask what's happening or what to do.... does the game have a tutorial at all?
Click to expand...

As Chris Simon has said, there definitely are tutorials, you simply have to go to them from the main menu rather than the main game itself. And videos for each in clear, concise English. They won't tell you keybinds (everyone can in theory have a different setup) but these are easily figured out from the take off checklist.
 
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BigBANGtheory [VR]

BigBANGtheory [VR]
The game and the controls are very complex its true, but don't feel like you have to know it all build up your knowledge and controls little by little. I've been playing for months and only the other I setup the SRV controls and only yesterday I finally got around to mapping the hugely useful 'Target Next System on Route' [noob]

The most important lesson is to make sure you can take off - navigate - supercruise - jump - dock. With practice and decent control mappings you'll do it without thinking after a while.
 

SeaFireliv

SeaFireliv
Chris Simon said:
I recommend You start with the docking, undocking, basic ship operations and travel training missions. Not combat.
There are also instructional videos, there.

If everything fails, wait two weeks. 2.2 update is coming up with completely reworked training.
Click to expand...

`Two weeks` haha, i`ve heard that somewhere before (in joke).

To the OP:
It`s not that hard to get going. I did the flight, docking, navigating by map and finally the fighting one on one tutorial and then went out. There`s still a lot more to learn than the tutorial says, but I got by. Just take your time and don`t panic.

Oh yea, and whenever you dock you MUST be facing the right way (usually towards the Tower-Building with windows). That one had me flummoxed for ages.
 

aRJay

aRJay
The problem with producing a manual for Elite telling you what to press to do which is that if you go into Options Controls you can change everything. That said going there and tweaking a few controls and making notes is a great way to learn what is where.

The new training missions mentioned up thread do actually display your bound key when asking/showing you (how) to do something.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
First, let me welcome you to the Elite: Dangerous Galaxy. My rule 2 is; Have Fun (it is just a game, but WHAT a GAME!).

The learning curve is so steep that the mountain goats go around in teams, roped together (and even then they may fall off, but that means the Vultures get to eat!). However, when you master something, and do it well, the buzz is worth the effort.

Now, Rule 1, which is; Never Fly if you cannot cover the REBUY. REBUY is the insurance excess on your ship, and is 5% of the value of your ship (including all upgrades, but not the cargo). If you get killed, and you can cover the REBUY, you will get a replacement ship identical to the one you lost. However, if you cannot cover the REBUY you may well end up back in a basic Sidewinder. Please do not let this happen to you, as the forum is littered with tales of woe when other Players have ignored Rule 1, and then got killed. This links to the latest I have seen;

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...a-year-of-work

When you decide to buy a new ship, try to have 200% of the purchase price first. That way you have enough for the ship, some basic outfitting, a couple of loads of cargo, and a couple of REBUYs (just in case). If you are trading in a ship, take it back to factory spec first. When you sell any ship you will always take a 10% hit on the value of the ship at the time of selling. However, if you take it back to factory spec first you get back the full amount that you paid for the upgrades (at this time, at least). Then, when you sell the ship, your losses will be reduced. For example, I have an A Rated Cobra MkIII worth 10Mcr. If I were to sell her now I would take a loss of 1Mcr. However, if I take her back to factory spec and then sell her my loss will be about 35Kcr.

Have fun, fly safely, and see you out amongst the stars. Feel free to ask any questions, we all had to learn somewhere, and those that care will answer all they can.
 

TE5LA

TE5LA
Chris Simon said:
I recommend You start with the docking, undocking, basic ship operations and travel training missions. Not combat.
There are also instructional videos, there.

If everything fails, wait two weeks. 2.2 update is coming up with completely reworked training.
Click to expand...

The tutorials are great if you're already an experienced player. See the problem with that?

Aside from the fact the tutorials don't really help much (you have to figure things out by pressing every key), the docking procedure is needlessly over-complicated. I have yet to complete a docking sequence so I'll probably never get to play the game.

By eventually figuring out the menus and how to "request docking", I've spent tedious time trying to dock. Landing gear is down, I line up the dot perfectly in the center of the landing pad, grid turns blue, I try to descend and ship just slides off pad. Controls are ridiculously over-sensitive. I have sensitivity all the way down in game and as low as possible on my mouse, yet the slightest movement causes ship to tilt, making these maneuvers very difficult. I am almost at the point of giving up. A game should never be so difficult where just getting through a tutorial is this hard.
 

TE5LA

TE5LA
SeaFireliv said:
Oh yea, and whenever you dock you MUST be facing the right way (usually towards the Tower-Building with windows). That one had me flummoxed for ages.
Click to expand...

So I saw this and was able to dock pretty quickly. Thanks for the tip.

Would it have been so difficult for the tutorial to tell us this?
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
TE5LA said:
The tutorials are great if you're already an experienced player. See the problem with that?

Aside from the fact the tutorials don't really help much (you have to figure things out by pressing every key), the docking procedure is needlessly over-complicated. I have yet to complete a docking sequence so I'll probably never get to play the game.

By eventually figuring out the menus and how to "request docking", I've spent tedious time trying to dock. Landing gear is down, I line up the dot perfectly in the center of the landing pad, grid turns blue, I try to descend and ship just slides off pad. Controls are ridiculously over-sensitive. I have sensitivity all the way down in game and as low as possible on my mouse, yet the slightest movement causes ship to tilt, making these maneuvers very difficult. I am almost at the point of giving up. A game should never be so difficult where just getting through a tutorial is this hard.
Click to expand...

You probably never played FSX, then. Elite, when compared to other simulators, is almost arcadishly easy.
I agree that the training missions don't really work, sometimes, and there's much better tutorial on the way, like I said. But in any case, you will have to spend an hour in controls menu, thinking, making notes and tweaking and re-tweaking. There's no way around it. Keys can be made more ergonomic, oversensitive axes can be tweaked. But you will have to do this yourself. Even if I gave you my bindings and told you what's what, it wouldn't do you any good.
 

Gator Country

Gator Country
TE5LA said:
The tutorials are great if you're already an experienced player. See the problem with that?

Aside from the fact the tutorials don't really help much (you have to figure things out by pressing every key), the docking procedure is needlessly over-complicated. I have yet to complete a docking sequence so I'll probably never get to play the game.

By eventually figuring out the menus and how to "request docking", I've spent tedious time trying to dock. Landing gear is down, I line up the dot perfectly in the center of the landing pad, grid turns blue, I try to descend and ship just slides off pad. Controls are ridiculously over-sensitive. I have sensitivity all the way down in game and as low as possible on my mouse, yet the slightest movement causes ship to tilt, making these maneuvers very difficult. I am almost at the point of giving up. A game should never be so difficult where just getting through a tutorial is this hard.
Click to expand...

Flying with keyboard/mouse is the most difficult way to control your ship, and it'll take a lot of practice to get it right. That being said, some of the best ED players use k/m exclusively, but they've worked at it, and tweaked their control settings, for a long time.

A suggestion - buy an inexpensive joystick, set it up in your controls, and try playing with that. If you like it and find you're really enjoying the game then, you can look for a better stick or even a HOTAS setup. I find the stick to be more "immersive" (God, how I hate using that word) as well.

Other folks have said that an XBox controller also works very well, though I haven't used one of those myself.
 

DLewth

DLewth
TE5LA said:
By eventually figuring out the menus and how to "request docking", I've spent tedious time trying to dock. Landing gear is down, I line up the dot perfectly in the center of the landing pad, grid turns blue, I try to descend and ship just slides off pad. Controls are ridiculously over-sensitive. I have sensitivity all the way down in game and as low as possible on my mouse, yet the slightest movement causes ship to tilt, making these maneuvers very difficult. I am almost at the point of giving up. A game should never be so difficult where just getting through a tutorial is this hard.
Click to expand...

Docking in Elite has always been notoriously hard: You could chart the history of computer graphics using nothing but clips of me smacking into a Coriolis. ("Oh, you've leaned how to hit the mail slot have you? Well now you have to hit the pad on on the far side as well. Trololol." - DB). So don't worry, we've all been there, but there's a couple of things that might help..

Firstly, spend a bit of time just flying around before starting to dock: Get the hang of pitching and rolling just just a few degrees, and likewise using the up/down/left/right thrusters to nudge your ship around. It's a lot easier to do when you don't have a clock ticking.

Secondly, don't worry about doing it all in one smooth go: Once you've got the landing grid up and roughly aligned, use to mouse to level off and leave it alone - go in with the keyboard. if you need to go down a bit, left a bit, right a bit 'cause you went too far, back a bit that's fine. Keep hitting x to stop, then do a bit more. you'll get better with practise (and don't forget the landing gear).

If this doesn't work, come back and ask for help - different people have different approaches, and one will work for you.

Oh, and try to enjoy watching your ship explode. It can get quite zen... :D

Good luck. o7
 
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fossil

F
davygravy said:
I played the original Elite on an amiga so thought this would be good but after entering a training mission I have no idea what's going on. Now I understand there are often a lot of guys who want to act macho and say "I don't want my hand held in games" but in a game that is complex, I like being told in the beginning.. press this or that key to do this etc.

Before anyone thinks I'm just an old guy and not cut out for modern games, I'm a ubisoft star player I love trading/ exploration games but I'm also a fan of 1st/ 3rd player games with thousands and thousands of hours in games like COD, GTA, Deus Ex, Far Cry all Tom Clancy games and Assassins Creed etc...
I tried the first combat training mission, I appeared in an asteroid belt (I think) with objects on my radar floating near me. I quickly assumed W and S were accelerate and stop and the mouse steers (quickly when aiming and slowly when turning but other than that I had no idea what to do. It was a bit like going to sleep in my bed and waking up free falling from a plane without a parachute :) nobody to ask what's happening or what to do.... does the game have a tutorial at all?
Click to expand...

Well you know what they say - "If all else fails read the manual". Have you tried reading the manual ? Probably a good place to start. I wouldn't advise you to start with combat - learn to fly first - earn a bit and upgrade your ship - and then maybe think about combat. Its a bit like learning to box before you can walk - your opponent will literally walk all over you....

If you want to meet up in-game drop me a PM.
Cheers
 
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