Been away for 2 years, now back. Looking for suggestions of new interesting features.

[ArrrmyTraininSir]

Hey @ArrrmyTraininSir - one more thing I just managed to track down for you - a complete list of all the changes across all the various releases and patches. Find the date of the last time you played and then scroll down to find everything that's new.

Elite: Dangerous – Patch Notes

Updated: 26th September 2023 Below you can find patch notes containing a list of the main features and changes available in Elite: Dangerous along with links to the much more detailed release notes…

elitedangerous2016.wordpress.com

Thank you, much appreciated.

 

[Drelthar]

There is already small Guardian weapons, but there is neither Human AX nor Guardian weapons in huge size. Therefore the need for huge AX weapons is greater.

No you.

 

[Ian Skippy]

As the title states, it's been on a rather long hiatus for a number of reasons but in that time i have literally not kept up with the games development, news, youtube vids, etc. I jumped back on yesterday for first to see what's changed in the interface, took my unshielded Cutter out for a spin (that was scary not knowing my control bindings got whacked!).

Anyways, should I continue where i left off which was working on fed rank currently post captain so 1 rank away from Corvette, methodically banging out the engineers 1 by 1, or something else?

In looking at the interface changes, the biggest thing that looked different to me was Squadrons. Any new gameplay there or did this make it easier to form wings if you don't know anybody in game? Or a slightly different question, what is the single greatest improvement that hit the game over the 2 years? I know that last question is very subjective.

Thanks.

I recommend you ask on Reddit. Helpful comments will be upvoted and brought to your attention and unhelpful comments will be downvotes into oblivion. The 'community' here is mostly a support group for the permanently disgruntled and miserable.

To give you a small headstart: engineers have been overhauled, mining and exploration mechanics are quite different and enhanced. A bunch of new thargoids exist, new ships (check the Krait!), visuals have been improved, also dont forget to check the codex. Plus, as you mentioned, squadrons.

 

[TrailBlazer 143]

As the title states, it's been on a rather long hiatus for a number of reasons but in that time i have literally not kept up with the games development, news, youtube vids, etc. I jumped back on yesterday for first to see what's changed in the interface, took my unshielded Cutter out for a spin (that was scary not knowing my control bindings got whacked!).

Anyways, should I continue where i left off which was working on fed rank currently post captain so 1 rank away from Corvette, methodically banging out the engineers 1 by 1, or something else?

In looking at the interface changes, the biggest thing that looked different to me was Squadrons. Any new gameplay there or did this make it easier to form wings if you don't know anybody in game? Or a slightly different question, what is the single greatest improvement that hit the game over the 2 years? I know that last question is very subjective.

Thanks.

The single greatest thing to hit the game in the past two years... There are microtransactions taking the place of the Player-owned Mega-ships. but you meant Great, not pointless... Sorry, buddy. It's been really dry.

 

[Alec Turner]

Another question when looking over the new right hand panel. What happened to all the financial statistics? Did that get removed? I poked around quite a bit and could find things like total asset value etc...

They've been moved into the Codex. Pick the Codex option from the right-hand side. Lots to explore there (including a whole pile of spoken lore) but to answer your immediate question go into the Commander area and the stat's are in there somewhere (sorry, not at the game right now but I'm sure you'll find it). Still looking for option to turn off salt but I'm afraid I haven't found that yet!

 

[Rock Hunter]

They've been moved into the Codex. Pick the Codex option from the right-hand side. Lots to explore there (including a whole pile of spoken lore) but to answer your immediate question go into the Commander area and the stat's are in there somewhere (sorry, not at the game right now but I'm sure you'll find it). Still looking for option to turn off salt but I'm afraid I haven't found that yet!

That's buried deep within the Codex and produces a soft lock every time you try to turn it off

OP - those grade five dirty drives you're putting off really help when whizzing around the VO 'roids. Don't overlook the exploration tools to get Palin unlocked.....so yeah, after two years away there's plenty to do. Then there's salt spreading as we head towards a cold winter without Fleet Carriers, much to keep busy with

 

[Fr33k]

welcome back to the game @ArrrmyTraininSir .
I see some have mentioned it, I have just done the Thargoid Base (unknown structure) activation, and it is really impressive, worth a go. But getting a thargoid probe can be... time consuming. But I still have one if you want it, just give nudge if you do.

Also, Coloinia is now a actual colony out near Sagittarius A at the centre of galaxy. If you want to do some exploring, and there is some cool stuff to see, like le grande colouds and surface 'biologicals', using that as base for while is really handy and nice a change. Neutron jumping also makes things quicker and long range travel interesting.

Finally, there are some new ships. I guess it depends on your play style, but pretty sure there may be something that will tempt you.

Have fun out there CMDR o7

 

[ArrrmyTraininSir]

OP - those grade five dirty drives you're putting off really help when whizzing around the VO 'roids. Don't overlook the exploration tools to get Palin unlocked.....so yeah, after two years away there's plenty to do. Then there's salt spreading as we head towards a cold winter without Fleet Carriers, much to keep busy with

Thanks for the reminder on the new exploration tools as that definitely would add a bit more gameplay for me as i complete my 5000ly requirement for Palin.

Wrt to the salt, I understand it but fortunately for me being out of the loop as I was, i had no expectations upon returning therefore any evolution of the game is only seen as a positive from my perspective. From catching up on the reading... seems like the Fleet carrier delay cut deeply with some in the community.

 

[photomankc]

Definitely check out Colonia. I went out and never came back . I've got to plan a return soon for Guardian stuff and maybe the federal corvette, but I have decided to stick it out on the frontier and see if any more develops out here as my 'home'.

Exploration and mining are great out here, you can make that as demanding or easy as you like. For instance, I have a 'conda that I take out for days. 1000LY out. Explore, mine, sight-see unexplored white dwarfs, mine more, and then 1000LY back. Or you can mine 10LY from Colonia in pristine rings too. Up to how you like to do it.

I think many are ticked about Carriers, as many of us were saving up our beans to buy and now that's a 1/2 year away at best. Still seems like FDev decided to do what many claimed they wanted: address the problems in the code, and now people are ticked that they got what they asked for (in the general sense).

Others covered the new stuff better... I only started this summer so it's all new to me. Credits come easy now, compared to my first try about 4 years back but I'm still far from ideal on several ships as far as engineering goes so I still have a good bit of game play ahead to unlock engineers, guardian stuff and superpower rank. I'm taking it slow and just enjoying a game that lets me pretend to fly in space!

 

[Stigbob]

Finally, someone who ISN'T trying to turn players off the game - seriously can't work out why people hang around a forum of a game they obviously loathe.

OP, as Shiro Akai stated, there is quite a lot that is new, you have ships to buy and test out, new exploration, mining, even trade has been improved from what you would remember it. There is also a new Docking Computer, and a Super Cruise Assistant - kind of like a cruise control for your ship when you are in SC. Don't laugh it is actually a lot handier than most think.

Just have fun, you may find you like what has been added, and if you don't, well you haven't lost anything either.

Misery loves company, its not enough that they are incredibly sad people everyone else has to be too.

 

[VR Golgot]

Just some bonus little things:

- CQC got a matchmaking tweak to make games more likely. It is still ace . (YMMV )

- Installations and megaships are more common and can have 'capture / defend' engagements around them, depending on system state. (Occasionally they also fly off at orbital speed, but we don't talk about this )

- Combat Zones can have mini objectives & stages at the higher tiers. Top tiers are now pretty tough.

- Thargoids can whup you up. (Capture one of their hearts and you'll get a free cockpit ornament though. +1 for civilisation...)

- Don't forget to pin a favoured Engi recipe when visiting to access it remotely later. You can also trade materials at a loss at handy Materials Brokers. (Caveat: They are not super handy. Get thee to Inara etc to find em).

- Krait MK2 is good. Some say it's krait. A lot

- You can earn cosmetic stuff as you play now, via the ARX currency that builds up with activities. If you want to outright buy stuff you do have to buy cumbersome bundles of ARX though. (To end on a positive, they did split up the silly bundles of skins )

- And yep, much salt stems from the last two years being increasingly thin on content as the DLC work has ramped up. Pushbacks for roadmapped stuff have made this worse. Many say this is all very annoying. And they are right . Some say the 2 years+ of DLC dev will be of little note. They are probably wrong )

 

[ArrrmyTraininSir]

Some quick observations after 2 days back in the saddle.

1. My Cutter is squirly as all hell. I guess that means flight dynamics changed at some point and I can no longer blast thru mailslot at 300+m/s unshielded .
2. Given the above, I've had a hell of time figuring out why my cutter is not jumping sometimes... I am guessing drift, but boosting a couple time is not correcting this... should i be following some new formula of steps ie only b in blue throttle before aligning to target, then throttle up?
3. I could swear I am cing mission board bugs where i've completed mission, at station, and mission is not showing up to turn in? Logging out of the instance seems to let me hand it in and I am not sure if I am doing something wrong tbh since this part has dramatically changed since i last saw, ie u can take a partial load of quantity to accept mission.
4. Planet visuals look a lot better but only scratched the surface so far since i've just picked up finishing my rear admiral progression... 40% to go.

 

[Stigbob]

Some quick observations after 2 days back in the saddle.

1. My Cutter is squirly as all hell. I guess that means flight dynamics changed at some point and I can no longer blast thru mailslot at 300+m/s unshielded .
2. Given the above, I've had a hell of time figuring out why my cutter is not jumping sometimes... I am guessing drift, but boosting a couple time is not correcting this... should i be following some new formula of steps ie only b in blue throttle before aligning to target, then throttle up?
3. I could swear I am cing mission board bugs where i've completed mission, at station, and mission is not showing up to turn in? Logging out of the instance seems to let me hand it in and I am not sure if I am doing something wrong tbh since this part has dramatically changed since i last saw, ie u can take a partial load of quantity to accept mission.
4. Planet visuals look a lot better but only scratched the surface so far since i've just picked up finishing my rear admiral progression... 40% to go.

1&2. My cutters named the "stopping distance" as drift is a thing. Use manoeuvring thrusters to get your drift under control, you can tell when its OK because the 'space dust' comes straight towards you. Dirty drive will help, cargo will make it worse.

3. Open up the galaxy map and it'll show you an icon for the mission location, you can also open the gal-map from the mission in screen one. Partial loads have pickup locations where you need to collect the stuff (mission giver location), and a drop-off point, both marked in the gal-map with the mission icon.

4. Have a look at the geysers drive into a big one with your SRV and see if you can get into orbit.

 

[ArrrmyTraininSir]

1&2. My cutters named the "stopping distance" as drift is a thing. Use manoeuvring thrusters to get your drift under control, you can tell when its OK because the 'space dust' comes straight towards you. Dirty drive will help, cargo will make it worse.

Ha , my Cutter's name is "Swift Justice", but maybe it should be called "Justice will be served once I get this hulking beast with guns on target..." Is that too many letters?

 

[Stigbob]

Ha , my Cutter's name is "Swift Justice", but maybe it should be called "Justice will be served once I get this hulking beast with guns on target..." Is that too many letters?

I always boost coming out of supercruise by reflex, if you do that in a loaded dirty drive cutter you smack off the front of the station can get tangled in the toast rack and look bad in front of the noobs. So the name is a constant reminder to me not to do that.

It doesn't work though, every bloody time .

 

[pippo]

Hey @ArrrmyTraininSir - one more thing I just managed to track down for you - a complete list of all the changes across all the various releases and patches. Find the date of the last time you played and then scroll down to find everything that's new.

Elite: Dangerous – Patch Notes

Updated: 26th September 2023 Below you can find patch notes containing a list of the main features and changes available in Elite: Dangerous along with links to the much more detailed release notes…

elitedangerous2016.wordpress.com

Beautiful link mate, thanks.

 

[Lightspeed]

Some quick observations after 2 days back in the saddle.

1. My Cutter is squirly as all hell. I guess that means flight dynamics changed at some point and I can no longer blast thru mailslot at 300+m/s unshielded .
2. Given the above, I've had a hell of time figuring out why my cutter is not jumping sometimes... I am guessing drift, but boosting a couple time is not correcting this... should i be following some new formula of steps ie only b in blue throttle before aligning to target, then throttle up?
3. I could swear I am cing mission board bugs where i've completed mission, at station, and mission is not showing up to turn in? Logging out of the instance seems to let me hand it in and I am not sure if I am doing something wrong tbh since this part has dramatically changed since i last saw, ie u can take a partial load of quantity to accept mission.
4. Planet visuals look a lot better but only scratched the surface so far since i've just picked up finishing my rear admiral progression... 40% to go.

With regards to (2), the display (annoyingly) shows particles moving in the opposite direction of the ship, so you can see if you are drifting a lot before you jump. Usually a boost aims me at the target acceptably. It may depend on on the engineering level of the drives; I have grade 5 dirty drives.

 

[rp198419]

A few shiny addons in terms of QOL upgrades, a few odd things floating around in space, utterly pointless Thargoids, more grind - depending on what you want to do - but, in terms of core gameplay, not much new.

All a bit sad really.

Oh...and lots of delay to promised 'features', like revamped ice planets for example...which have still not arrived.

Still a good game but nothing new of any significance, imo.

 

[xaisis]

Try the new in-game store. its fantastic.

 

[Cervantes01]

Even the background story with the thargoids has ground to a halt, so in two years not much has changed - mining has had an update though, exploitation scan mechanics have been changed but I'm struggling to think of anything else.