Answers from the Devs #3

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
I'm waiting for planetary landing to go exploring just cause that to me is being a true explorer. Landing on alien worlds excites me like no other game has.
Simply honking at them to map them to me is boring.
When exploring become more exciting then I will wonder out into the black. Until then I have plenty of other things to entertain myself with.

Yeah, landing on planets and seeing what FD and PG bring to exploration is for me what it's all about.
 
My question is:

Have you considered the possibility of a stock market - a method of investing? Once one reaches a certain point in the game money doesn't have much of a purpose - investments seem to be the next logical step. I've expressed before that I have no interest (HA! Interest! Get it?) in Powerplay, but it makes sense that the powers would be driven by corporations. The performance of stocks could be tied to the performance of powers, somewhat forcing me to give a quark about the whole powers thing.
 
I've come back to this thread and it occurs to me - is anyone else baffled by how little FD seem to care about exploring?

It's baffling simply because the Galaxy is what makes Elite...Elite (and it is elite at being Elite!). I admit that the background simulator is pretty unique too, but still, not quite as innovative, groundbreaking, or "wow" as the galaxy. I mean, the combat? How many MANY games do space combat? The fetch quests? The missions? Again, nothing unique AT ALL.

The galaxy is the innovation. The galaxy is what makes it it a True Wonder of the Gaming World.

Like someone said, the galaxy is what I think will make or break the game in the long run. It's the only part of the game that guarantees sales. Other stuff, people will choose other games over Elite some of the time. But when they want a replica of the Milky Way and a true replica of astrophysics, they will only ONLY buy Elite. There are no other choices, end of.

So again I ask, why is exploration getting so little love? It's baffling

(not to say that it isn't AWESOME! This isn't a criticism. As I've said before, it's more a question of the glaring holes that are glaring simply because holes stand out so much more when the object itself is otherwise perfect)

I've said this myself a few times in various posts in the past. They have this amazing galaxy simulation that is 1-1 scale, full of fantastic looking planets, I mean just WOW, it is stunning! It is ED's best unique selling point, and yet they are seemingly doing nothing to make it a central core part of the game. Due to the way the core of the game is structured, most people will hardly even notice all the amazing sights, as for the most part it just has them shuttling from one station to another or fighting in deep space. For most players the vast bulk of these amazing looking planets will remain nothing more than shiny little dots in the sky, unless FD start to make more of a feature of this stunning galaxy they've created.

I'm pretty sure FD fully intend to do this and I'm hoping the Gamescom announcement will be about improving exploration and making more of a feature of the galaxy. Finger crossed.
 
I've said this myself a few times in various posts in the past. They have this amazing galaxy simulation that is 1-1 scale, full of fantastic looking planets, I mean just WOW, it is stunning! It is ED's best unique selling point, and yet they are seemingly doing nothing to make it a central core part of the game. Due to the way the core of the game is structured, most people will hardly even notice all the amazing sights, as for the most part it just has them shuttling from one station to another or fighting in deep space. For most players the vast bulk of these amazing looking planets will remain nothing more than shiny little dots in the sky, unless FD start to make more of a feature of this stunning galaxy they've created.

I'm pretty sure FD fully intend to do this and I'm hoping the Gamescom announcement will be about improving exploration and making more of a feature of the galaxy. Finger crossed.

That's a really good angle/take on the issue, wholly agree. I share your optimism (and trust) in FD. Even if it isn't 1.4 or 1.5, I'm sure a lot of good exploration love is headed our way eventually.

I'm accepting this game is extremely young. And just like the more complex the animal the longer the "child" phase and slower the maturity, so too with Elite. Let's give it time, it's barely out of the toddler phase in gaming years ^^
 
Question for the devs (again)

Are the modules for each faction going to be looked at, improved and or changed?

Thanks for reminding me.

Sandro, you addressed me personally that you're collecting data to balance the modules, can we get an update on that?
 
Last edited:
I would like to know one more detail about ranking. Is the ship size is taken into consideration? So, for example one can expect faster ranking by flying smaller ships and attacking larger craft (killing Anaconda in a Sidewinder), or not? Thanks in advance!
 
Any plans to add better group/guild communication and organization tools into the game? I feel like were forced to use social media sites to organize with each other. and even then, our in game friends list is just a friends list. no guild or group list. in game tools is what I want the most atm. if give $50 for that more happily than I would for planetary landing. :[
 
can we get another review of RES?

I don't think a High RES in a Low security system should have two Anacondas (Elite and Master) as well as half a dozen of smaller police ships in it.
 
So watching your twitch stream from gamescom yesterday, during incursion your "Ambassador" stated that better shield generators recharge shields faster.

As that is obviously incorrect right now, can we conclude from his statement that this is up for change soon?
 
So watching your twitch stream from gamescom yesterday, during incursion your "Ambassador" stated that better shield generators recharge shields faster.

As that is obviously incorrect right now, can we conclude from his statement that this is up for change soon?
Would help if we could get full stats for all the ships and modules, possibly some things are still bugged that not Players nor FD are aware because players don't know how things are supposed to be.
 
Answers from the Devs

I love Elite, but some hard questions need to be asked, whether answered or not.

Will FD consider making an Annual chapter to add to the digital art book (still MIA), so at the end of each Season we get a nice bonus for providing FD development money without really knowing what they plan to provide us?

Will we ever get a straight answer to this> what did DB mean when he said "some things had to be left on the cutting room floor", at the launch of Season 1?" Was it just things that would be done later but not for V1.0 or that some things from the DDA are permanently gone?

Curiously, FD intends selling works in progress expansions like Horizons without telling customers what they are getting beyond a headline feature. Can FD explain the logic of keeping targeted features a secret from customers buying their product? Isn't this backwards to the normal way games are sold?
 
Would help if we could get full stats for all the ships and modules, possibly some things are still bugged that not Players nor FD are aware because players don't know how things are supposed to be.
They actually confirmed 1mj per second is the intended recharge rate all the way from 2E to 7A
 
Seriously? I have a brick sitting in the garden that's very solid. It's not particularly interesting to play with though. There is so much more that could be done to develop the exploration mechanics. It's very disappointing to hear that "more things to encounter" is all we're going to get.
Do you have any ideas? It's pretty silly to make a comment like that when you have zero useful suggestions. I'm not sure what more they can do at this time other than add structures in space to explore. Maybe go inside them?

- - - Updated - - -

Important question for the next session: Will we ever see Lynx Bulk Carriers?
They must NOT make them so tiny that they fit through the station mailslot. Please gawd do not let that happen! There should be a new mooring mechanic for those giants!
 
Do you have any ideas? It's pretty silly to make a comment like that when you have zero useful suggestions. I'm not sure what more they can do at this time other than add structures in space to explore. Maybe go inside them?

You lack of imagination is fortunately not a problem here. This is because we have in the DDA (link in my SIG, but be prepared to get very disappointed about how little has been done). That design is one that lots of explorers have bought into. Unfortunately, because FD implemented a simplistic placeholder, to get to their original design, FD would have to pretty much throw away all exploration data and start again: lots of explorers have said they would be happy for that to happen to get 'proper exploration'.
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom