I still like Horizons!

[Globusdiablo]

It seems like the right time to be going through the accounts, pruning excess carriers and culling fleets down from enthusiast level collection to smaller more meaningful collections.

Been wanting to get back into just one space ship again as well, instead of carrier logout life. Turns out the trusty and long abandoned cutter is the one after all. Its the only multipurpose that can do trading. For sustained pve class 6 biweave and a fighter is totally fine. In 2022, i've also been lowering the priority of fuel scoops.. it was a long running mistake from configuring all ships for exploration first That one higher class slot used for utility and only having a 3-5 class scoop is a very satisfying swap on many ships.

Yeah i love horizons. Its beautiful. Ditching the carrier and having one multipurpose ship that does trading, combat and exploration is great as well. Will keep the type 10 for salvage/exploration, and the corvette for mining. Its perfect for mining.

I acknowledge odd was just a shame for the game, but definitely looking forward to a slow burn of quiet, single player space time, just as it was for the first hundred hours.

Try the Asp Explorer again and remember the feeling of fragile.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Try the Asp Explorer again and remember the feeling of fragile.

Yeah i remember before engineers the asp was a valid combat ship.

It never recovered after they made the running away hardpoint required for most of your fleet.

I remember getting my first one though, and thinking the helicopter boost sound was amazing. And 30 ly jump made the bubble practically be so big.

I still have one around though for my jumping taxi. Don't like the dbx, never liked the dbx, and an anaconda is "cheesing" the whole game.

Yeah im still loving finding the cutter again though. Another different choice is im using just 7d unengineered thrustrers. It feels like a hulking ship again, and in combat i've slowed it down to type-10 like performance. Large ship flight you can feel has always been enjoyable imo.

 

[Faded Glory]

Odyssey vs. Horizons... Hmmm

Well, I'll admit that when Odyssey was introduced I was not particularly enthusiastic, as I'm not really one for FPS games and I play in VR. I did try it during the beta, just to get an idea of what it would be like to walk around (in the letterbox) and get a feel for the UI, which I wasn't keen on either. Once the beta ended, I went back to Horizons, with a reduced desire to play the game I'm sorry to say.

Then one day, I decided that since Odyssey was the current game, I really should try to get it to work for me. I went exploring, and as part of that got out of my ship and made a few first footfalls on tenuously atmosphered planets. Even took a few pictures. Anyway, gave me a chance to get my bindings sorted, and while performance wasn't too bad (I have quite a beefy PC, one that runs MSFS 2020 quite nicely in VR), I was disappointed by the stutters that seemed to happen most hyperspace jumps and opening maps, other places too probably, but not when just flying, driving or walking around.

Anyway, I stuck with Odyssey when I returned. I rarely disembark, although I did decide to buy a fleet carrier, just because it was something new and I have walked around that, and actually, the jump from the owners seat is pretty good in VR! Because it's a loading screen the letterbox goes away. Getting the FC has given me a bit of a new lease of life with the game, I'm getting it tritiumed up to go exploring and I don't enjoy mining, so I'm trying to fill it up, and doing some missions to finance that. It's taking some time...

I still get lots of stutters, particularly opening maps and station / carrier services, otherwise performance in VR is fine. Not keen on the new lighting, but I can live with it. Sometimes have to use night vision when killing pirates in RES. I've got used the new UI (including in the maps), and now it's not something that I spend any time fretting about.

The game's not going where I would have hoped it would go, but that's Ok, I've had many, many years of fun with it and I'm kind of looking forward to taking my carrier with my 30 odd ships out into the black for a while. Just really hope I will have enough tritium... I really have never managed to see the fun in mining!

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I don't know if its my imagination but when in Odyssey VR close a planet surface in either the ship or SRV the terrain quite visibly warps in front of my eyes like its loading in or doing a 2nd pass... I don't like it because visual appearances aside when you see what should be a static object in VR move, warp or swim around it feels uncomfortable.

Does this also happen as much in Horizons? I'm not sure I'll try it out later...

The lighting in Odyssey feels more realistic and personally I do prefer I think the Odyssey menus with my Hotas controls.

Another oddity is the cockpit radar when close to planet surfaces, in Odyssey it seems to render the joins between the tiles so I see often a grid in the radar which feels wrong.

I think the main thing for me though is compromise between quality and performance just isn't there in VR, even with my 3080 and Zen3 CPU I feel a need to maintain 90fps otherwise the motion blurrs the scenery but of course with lower quality settings the detail in particular the text gets quickly distorted unless you lean in closer to it. Elite needs good quality and 90fps imho and in fairness its not unique in this regard other VR titles suffer this issue too it somehow feels more noticeable in Odyssey maybe because of the lighting.

What both versions get wrong imho is the HUD display in the cockpit appears to render at a good distance away from the pilots head position which is a really bad implementation for VR because of the clarity loss.

Have I got my VR settings wrong? No I don't think so I've spent a good few hrs experimenting... happy to be proven wrong on that though. I am highly sceptical of anyone who claims to have a high-res HMD like the G2, VP2 and Aero being perfect I don't see how that is possible with the game as is and current hardware.

 

[Suitret]

Would be cool if they could make Odyssey with the performance and graphics of Horizons, so I'd bother playing. At least for now I can still enjoy Horizons.

Ding ding ding.
We have a winner.
Exactly as i feel.

 

[S0rkvild]

Yeah i love horizons. Its beautiful. Ditching the carrier and having one multipurpose ship that does trading, combat and exploration is great as well. Will keep the type 10 for salvage/exploration, and the corvette for mining. Its perfect for mining.

Try starting in California Nebula, this is a very special place, serene, isolated with some explorer traffic heading to the Rift. For me California is a great place to take a few days off from bubble affairs.
And yes I do like Horizons and I stay in Horizons. I'm a ship enthusiast and for me ED is a game about flying ships and doing everything from a space pilot perspective.
Before we knew anything about Odyssey I expected things like more ships, new flight mechnics, improved trading and economy, new investment opportunities, new weapons, new and more diverse space missions suited for ships from small to large, inviting and reworked powerplay, panther clipper as mini carrier (don't need a full scale mobile base), improved bgs, etc... I never asked for space legs, handheld pew pews and carrier interiors. Those extra planetary vistas and surface life - I can live without. And there are performence issues, borked lighting and that is a no no.

 

[Red Rocket]

Horizons still rocks for me, it’s still the game I fell I love with.

Game performance, works on almost everything, even Consoles
VR just works everywhere
The UI is simple and just works
Lighting, no dark areas, no need for night vision just to see
Planet Tech, love those huge mountains…Mount-Neverrest
Planet Tech, love those deep-deep valleys….. Small Ship Canyon Racing
Love going to the crystal forest
Love the Horizons Dav’s Hope vs Odyssey (dark) Dav’s Hope


I am GLAD I still have a choice, some day Odyssey may live up to Horizons, but I doubt it

 

[Old Duck]

The UI is simple and just works

I agree with everything but this. I much prefer it to the new UI, but it has some serious issues (especially the ugly, hard-to-use system map since carriers were introduced). My biggest sadness when it comes to Horizons being left as is, which BTW is what I want, is that things like this will never be improved on or fixed in Horizons.

On the other hand, having seen how Frontier "improved" these things in Odyssey, that's probably for the best.

 

[Red Rocket]

Just a thought, the perfect Elite Dangerous UPDATE !!!! ( to Horizons )

Just give us Atmospheric Planets Landing ( with Horizons planet tech ) with the new plant life without all the first shooter stuff.

Only available to Odyssey owners.

Seriously I think this would be a HIT…….

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Try starting in California Nebula, this is a very special place, serene, isolated with some explorer traffic heading to the Rift. For me California is a great place to take a few days off from bubble affairs.
And yes I do like Horizons and I stay in Horizons. I'm a ship enthusiast and for me ED is a game about flying ships and doing everything from a space pilot perspective.
Before we knew anything about Odyssey I expected things like more ships, new flight mechnics, improved trading and economy, new investment opportunities, new weapons, new and more diverse space missions suited for ships from small to large, inviting and reworked powerplay, panther clipper as mini carrier (don't need a full scale mobile base), improved bgs, etc... I never asked for space legs, handheld pew pews and carrier interiors. Those extra planetary vistas and surface life - I can live without. And there are performence issues, borked lighting and that is a no no.

Yeah i was thinking about that today. Been over at robigo, i've never used it for engineering mats so just filling up.. but with all the carriers there its a little janky, so was looking around the galaxy map and remembering california with fondness. Theres at least one asteroid base there? Definitely it was more peaceful when finding out about things you hadn't seen was the most interesting thing about elite

Yeah what i've been craving every time i play is getting out of the carrier. Really enjoying it, and with the cutter not having much urge to be in any other ship. I tried so hard to like the krait but without trading ability there was always something wrong with it. I havent set any limpet controllers though, so maybe the cutter, the type 10 (or anaconda) and the corvette are the only ships you need

I think i long ago stopped dreaming about forward wishes for elite. It never comes true anyway so its just a negative to do. Theorycrafting with the ease of hindsight, copying like for like subnautica exploration, base building on stations / bases and ship interiors combined with the current mission board would have been just about right. Its difficult to imagine they had a full team on odd for 3+ years and only came up with what they did. The ground views are okay, but what can live without is the change of the theme of the game, they went from aliens to mass effect andromeda, its such a clone if you watch any footage of it.. and the aliens theme was something i strongly enjoyed about prior elite.

Yeah i still like horizons. The current memory of my cutter in a has rez among all the asteroids is generating a good smile.

 

[Red Rocket]

OP made the statement “ I Still like Horizons “ What’s not to like, it’s still the game we fell in love with.

Horizons hasn’t changed and we still have a choice.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Me neither.

I wouldn't go there in the first place.

 

[Willyum-71]

OP made the statement “ I Still like Horizons “ What’s not to like, it’s still the game we fell in love with.

Horizons hasn’t changed and we still have a choice.

Until the upcoming merger... They said they were getting rid of Horizons code (on PC) and only going with Odessey Code.... I wish we had the option to keep Horizons code like the console players... Unlike them, some of us won't have an 'Elite Dangerous' to play at all without the Horizons code.

 

[Red Rocket]

Until the upcoming merger... They said they were getting rid of Horizons code (on PC) and only going with Odessey Code.... I wish we had the option to keep Horizons code like the console players... Unlike them, some of us won't have an 'Elite Dangerous' to play at all without the Horizons code.

They need to keep Horizons running for the Console folks, let’s hope they keep it running on the PC also.

Enjoy Horizons on PC as long as it lasts, shutting down Horizons will be a huge loss for the history of Elite Dangerous.

I mean you can still play older versions of ED and Horizons offers gaming experience different than Odyssey.
Like planet tech of huge mountains and deep valleys.

Console players may be the lucky ones in a way with the only working Horizons version.

 

[Old Duck]

Enjoy Horizons on PC as long as it lasts, shutting down Horizons will be a huge loss for the history of Elite Dangerous.

Well, if they ever shut down Horizons, we'll always have that offline combat tutorial demo!

(I need to grab a copy of that)

 

[Mr T]

I only like Horizons because it doesn't have that bug with fleet carrier trading that Odyssey has. So Horizons is perfect for when I want to grind making obscene amounts of money. But for actually playing the game I just stick to Odyssey.

What's the bug Odyssey has with FC trading?

 

[Sysmon]

Odyssey also is pretty good.

The base game was awesome when it first came out!

S

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Until the upcoming merger... They said they were getting rid of Horizons code (on PC) and only going with Odessey Code.... I wish we had the option to keep Horizons code like the console players... Unlike them, some of us won't have an 'Elite Dangerous' to play at all without the Horizons code.

The more i think about it, this event will be quite difficult to accept.

With consoles, they only shut down hopium, they haven't committed any mechanical fault. Everyone is still whole to what was bought.

On pc, if they go ahead with this, they will be literally taking away from people the ability to play the game.. spent thousands of hours or hundreds of dollars with. Turning it off the game practically is certainly a fault.

I didn't register it at the time, but i think that's why it sounds indirectly offensive when people are just saying they're sad but waiting for all the goodbye posts when frontier disables the game for me.. just because they said something last year and since gave up on something else in the mean time.. its just bad luck in circumstance, no more elite dangerous for you?

I think its a little bit more interesting for effected people than a sad casual handwave.

Will pc players get free account transfers to console if you can't play it on pc anymore? Why not?

----------------

EDIT: Okay in hindsight that is a bit dramatic. But having to play elite with the odd graphical downgrades and engine that crashes in fps after the second station you dock at is... well how acceptable is that?

I turned stars up to 200kish at the moment and it horizons looks so good. Probably works for odd too.

 

[Northpin]

On pc, if they go ahead with this, they will be literally taking away from people the ability to play the game.. spent thousands of hours or hundreds of dollars with. Turning it off the game practically is certainly a fault.

I hope for the best of both worlds:

• keep the Horizons client as a legacy client (i still find it more atmospheric and artsy even tho Horizons has no atmospheric planets )
• but enable horizons limited experience in the EDO client so people playing Horizons (but using the EDO client) can play the Space game together with Odyssey enabled players, unifying the pc player base that is split for 11 months already.

However, i guess i will be disappointed...

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I hope for the best of both worlds:

• keep the Horizons client as a legacy client (i still find it more atmospheric and artsy even tho Horizons has no atmospheric planets )
• but enable horizons limited experience in the EDO client so people playing Horizons (but using the EDO client) can play the Space game together with Odyssey enabled players, unifying the pc player base that is split for 11 months already.

However, i guess i will be disappointed...

Well assuming frontier are still working elite more than a skeleton crew..

Given odd bases and content are on horizons planets, how could they prevent horizons players getting in the middle of new odd content? Maybe thats okay?

The other interesting thing was.. going forward.. is it assumed that all new content will only be on foot or for odd players? It just sounds strange the concept that frontier are going to be working on only odd when its crashed and burned, and yet horizons is still generating positive reviews and 4-5 the number of reviews every month (just using the only metric we have to identify success).

Is there some metaphor for going down with a sinking ship just to keep face? If they cared about elite they should reset and double down on what people like?

Its probably just me but post the great giveup the old assumptions don't make sense anymore.

Anyway, i think finding what works for you expecting no more changes is a healthy approach as a player. You don't lose then Not having possibly change for the worse in the future is actually a strong feature, as soon as they cancelled consoles i jumped back in knowing that was at least safe going forward.