What is fun to *you* in ED?

[Zyr1987]

Combat, trading, exploration, in that order. (coincidentally, the inverse order of my rank progress in each area)

I especially love combat while neck deep in an RES, surrounded by asteroids, adds a new element of fun and skill to it (Now if I could just remember not to go from fight to fight without letting my shields recharge when they're low).

I hate mining, though, and actively avoid PVP as well as planetary landings. Not fun for me.

 

[MrFailfactory]

I was going to list some things, but I changed my mind, and I'm just going to say this instead:

This game takes on a whole new life when you engage in something that is bigger than yourself, or your own personal goals.

Examples; joining the Fuel Rats, working with (or joining) Cannon, joining a player group that has a Modus Operandi that fits, joining an Expedition, and trying to discover new things that could benefit the entire community. Just to name a few.

Riôt

 

[DaveB]

A lot of what makes something fun in ED is not so much what you're doing but HOW you're doing it. I have fun trading, but I pretty much never do A-B, back and forth. I find multi-stop loops that the trading tools can't, places off the beaten tracks It's NOT easy. Finding them takes time and effort. But the satisfaction (ok, I admit it, a certain smugness too) of flying one like that that I've prospected the hard way is worth more than the credits. I have fun toasting wanted NPCs at RES and navpoints, but it would cease to be fun if I did too much of it. I have fun taking the risk of trading in open - because even if I do get jumped by a player pirate, it's fun to successfully evade them before they manage to get an interdiction lock on me, it's a slightly more tense kind of fun to negotiate a "better deal" with them if I can, should they actually catch me. I have fun "fixing" a faction that for some reason I've taken a dislike to - usually for RP reasons. If I read an interesting astronomy article I'll see if I can find the interesting objects it mentions on the galmap and maybe go there. I'm basically finding my ED fun by playing AS the kind of character FD envisioned a member of the pilots federation to be, not a "gamer trying to beat the game". There's a lot more "content" in ED for that way of playing than trying to play it like any other game.

 

[CMDR CODY]

I'm thinking of branching out now to other systems, perhaps picking a galactic power to align with and see where that takes me.

As such, I'm curious what you all consider fun in ED.

Wow this is a loaded question. The end game will be deep space exploration. That is months away, maybe even a year.

Right now Im in the wading pool, in pristine ring mining. Made 2.2 mil in 56 min last night. I think Im getting the hand of mining.
After I have a pile of creds & fully outfitted ship, Ill be visiting the engineers to soup up every item in my boat.

Then Im off to fly about. To boldly go where no NPC has gone before.

Fun: Going, returning, all in one piece. Live to fly another day.

 

[sb413197]

Wow this is a loaded question. The end game will be deep space exploration. That is months away, maybe even a year.


Then Im off to fly about. To boldly go where no NPC has gone before.

Fun: Going, returning, all in one piece. Live to fly another day.

Buy a DBX and get a top notch frame shift and head out into the deep black when 2.3 hits!! You'll make a fair amount of money from it with the new exploration payouts

 

[Marc_Hicks]

To add to my fun, I am planning the future purchase of some TrackIR or Tobyii technology, as well as one of the Voice Packs that HCS has out there.

 

[mp4x]

If you want a cheap(free) alternative to TrackIR, FaceTrackNOIR works well and just uses a webcam to track. I used it for a while with no problems It'll let you try the idea before buying an IR tracker.

To add to my fun, I am planning the future purchase of some TrackIR or Tobyii technology, as well as one of the Voice Packs that HCS has out there.

I have the W.Shatner HCS voive pack, the extra interaction with the ship is great and every time he asks me if I'd like him to lower the landing gear or put power to shield, that type of thing, I get a kick out of it

 

[Vasea Azure]

Lately I started engineering my fleet and to be honest it was really fun messing around with all the upgrades combinations.

 

[Phosphora]

Working on my own in solo, knowing no one else can affect me.

Cheers, Phos.

 

[Marra Morgan]

I like to help my faction, support my player-group, herd cats and do all the naughty things.

 

[Craith]

I like most things in Elite. Pure A-B-A trading I find rather boring, and PP I don't take part in. I still haven't tried passenger missions, flown to Beagle Point or explored the Formidine Rift.

I love flying my Eagle(s), for bounty hunting, cz (a bit more challenging than in the 'vette), canyon racing, geyser search or good old Teabagging.

And yes, of course I love it whenever a chance for Teabagging shows itself. Elite style, not what some dirty pages on the internet try to tell you

 

[Fosdyke]

Greetings Commanders:

I've been slowly dipping my toes into ED the last month. So far, I've had a blast just learning to fly the dang ship.

I'm thinking of branching out now to other systems, perhaps picking a galactic power to align with and see where that takes me.

As such, I'm curious what you all consider fun in ED.

I feel like there are multiple layers of nuance to this game, and would love to hear what the "little things" are that make the big picture that is ED fun for you.

Thanks,

CMDR Adam

That's all about the whole experience in ED not some part or another. for me of course

 

[Marc_Hicks]

If you want a cheap(free) alternative to TrackIR, FaceTrackNOIR works well and just uses a webcam to track. I used it for a while with no problems It'll let you try the idea before buying an IR tracker.



I have the W.Shatner HCS voive pack, the extra interaction with the ship is great and every time he asks me if I'd like him to lower the landing gear or put power to shield, that type of thing, I get a kick out of it

Woah, that FaceTrackNOIR certainly takes a lot of getting used to. Do you have any preferred settings to help smooth out the movement of the camera & to keep things still when your head is at relative rest? Any tips would be very useful. If I can get it a bit less sensitive, then I probably will use it for the next month or two. Then move up to one of the more official head-track utilities.

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

Working on my own in solo, knowing no one else can affect me.

Cheers, Phos.

Unless of course someone comes to the forum to mine salt, then you get triggered into posting things like this

 

[CMDR Ahab]

Deep space exploration
BGS stuff to help factions
Mining (strange but true)
Smuggling
Bounty hunting the proper way by flying through systems and dropping in on signal sources and interdicting criminals
LTD diamond acquisition

 

[Blasphemous One]

*Helping out new players
*Pirating
*Wing PvP (rarely killing own wing members)
*Deliberately asking noob questions
*Pirating

 

[Chris Simon]

I wonder if anyone will believe me the most fun for me in last couple of months (farming HazRES in a Keelback+iFighter aside) is to choose and buy a random ship and engineer the living hell out of it.

 

[SeaFireliv]

Woah, that FaceTrackNOIR certainly takes a lot of getting used to. Do you have any preferred settings to help smooth out the movement of the camera & to keep things still when your head is at relative rest? Any tips would be very useful. If I can get it a bit less sensitive, then I probably will use it for the next month or two. Then move up to one of the more official head-track utilities.

The only positive for that thing is its cheap. I gave up with it and bought trackir5, seriously, it`s worth dishing out for. Just install and go pretty much straightaway compared to Noir.

 

[CMDR CODY]

Buy a DBX and get a top notch frame shift and head out into the deep black when 2.3 hits!! You'll make a fair amount of money from it with the new exploration payouts

Have a modded 5A sitting in my ASP, just waiting to be dropped into a DBX, as soon as 2.3 arrives

 

[DaveB]

Woah, that FaceTrackNOIR certainly takes a lot of getting used to. Do you have any preferred settings to help smooth out the movement of the camera & to keep things still when your head is at relative rest? Any tips would be very useful. If I can get it a bit less sensitive, then I probably will use it for the next month or two. Then move up to one of the more official head-track utilities.

The thing with FaceTrackNoIR that you need to remember is that you're dealing with TWO layers of sensitivity. First and crudest is the face-trackign range. I typically turn up the damping on that so that minor face movements don't register. However, you can't mess with its ABSOLUTE range too much or you'd be turning your face so far that you're staring out the corners of your eyes when you bring up either sides UI. The next layer in between that and ED is the virtual joystick. You CAN mess with the curves on this so that (if you've got the first layer sorted) slight but deliberate head movements do what you want.

If either layer is wrong or badly calibrated, you're better off turning it off.

ALL face-tracking or eye-tracking solutions where you are not dealing with either a HMD or a wraparound screen suffer from this problem. There is a very small sweet spot in its calibration and curves that works "naturally" for you. That's different for everyone and it's hard to hit. With almost every other setting it feels "off" and becomes hard to use since instead of your head moving naturally to the right point to give you the view you want you almost have to think of your head as an extra controller.