Are my hopes too high?

Elite is a bit of a love hate for me, im loving the grounded in reality galaxy modelled on our own and the visuals are beautiful. I love how each ship has a distinct sound and feel. There are some elements that are perfectly immersive.


However there are two big let downs for me, the game is about as deep as the plot for a porno and there are places where immersion is shattered completely and often these two go
hand in hand.


There are examples of shattered immersion and lack of depth littered all over but here are a few:

Local factions have gone to war…ooh cool but confined to conflict sites which are just a shooting gallery as ships endlessly spawn for you to blow away…yawn.

Trading activity seems to have no effect on product levels.

Factions that meet at a nav point don’t seem to be aware they are at war.

When you enter a system it is empty until ships start to spawn.


When I preordered the launch there were a number of words floating around like sandbox, procedural generation and background simulation and the discussions David Braben had sounded interesting but there seems to be little to none of this. I was hoping for a living breathing galaxy something akin to an online version of the X series with a functioning economy but while larger the elite universe is more of a series of disconnected bubbles. The galaxy map will show trade routes of station X imports from station Y but there is no correlation of this in the game as ships don’t physically transport between X and Y and the commodity prices/stock does not fluctuate in response to our actions.


And this is where my main problem lies, there is no background simulation/sandbox and the universe does not exist or change beyond your small visual bubble, our actions do not ripple through the universe.


Now we all seem to acknowledge the launch was rushed and the game is in a sort of unfinished state, just look at the Orca which is supposed to be a sort of passenger transportation vehicle but this feature is not yet ingame and so the Orca serves as a sort of useless placeholder at the moment.


So is the living universe Braben discussed what they are working towards or are we going to be stuck with the same shallow universe? If so wouldn’t this be more important than features like Wings as well as harder to implement changes to the core foundations with more and more Wing like updates ontop? I have asked questions like this before without much success but I have recently seen a ray of hope in the latest newsletter


‘Lastly, Mike talked about another one of the small but significant details in the mission overhaul you'll experience as part of the Powerplay update. Right now, mission-related targets are always found at Unidentified Signal Sources, but after Powerplay you may find them roaming the galaxy and on the run.

Interstellar (very) high-speed chases are just one of the new things to do in Powerplay, and you haven't seen anything yet.’


But are my hopes too high or is this going to be just more instanced spawns that will only occur within your field of view and have no repercussions or effect on the universe. Should i give up and just reinstall X3?


I long for the immersion to destroy a transport knowing that its destruction has a ripple effect with a station suffering the loss of its ship and profits.
 
Last edited:
While I do share your viewpoint for the most part the thing I keep telling myself is that the game was released early and is unfinished.
i sure hope one day hopefully soon that the background simulation has depth. Our actions matter, commanders can make an impact on the universe, and our anacondas have paint jobs..
soon TM
 
Local factions have gone to war…ooh cool but confined to conflict sites which are just a shooting gallery as ships endlessly spawn for you to blow away…yawn.

Factions that meet at a nav point don’t seem to be aware they are at war.

I somewhat agree on the 'endless' resources of factions at war - but wars are of limited duration, so you might argue that there are enough ships in the system to support this. What would you proposed, each side starts with 100 ships and the winner is the last man standing? Seems just as artificial to me (and grounds for Phyrric victories to boot).

As to the second point - what point are you making? That when you are at war you should automatically attack anyone you see from the other side, regardless? That seems silly.

When you enter a system it is empty until ships start to spawn.

Why not just think of it as sensor lag? They are there all the time, but it takes a while for your sensors to detect them.

Trading activity seems to have no effect on product levels.

It is perfectly possible to reduce trading efficiency by over trading a route - not sure you can do it by yourself though.
 
Elite is a bit of a love hate for me, im loving the grounded in reality galaxy modelled on our own and the visuals are beautiful. I love how each ship has a distinct sound and feel. There are some elements that are perfectly immersive.


However there are two big let downs for me, the game is about as deep as the plot for a porno and there are places where immersion is shattered completely and often these two go
hand in hand.


There are examples of shattered immersion and lack of depth littered all over but here are a few:

Local factions have gone to war…ooh cool but confined to conflict sites which are just a shooting gallery as ships endlessly spawn for you to blow away…yawn.

Trading activity seems to have no effect on product levels.

Factions that meet at a nav point don’t seem to be aware they are at war.

When you enter a system it is empty until ships start to spawn.


When I preordered the launch there were a number of words floating around like sandbox, procedural generation and background simulation and the discussions David Braben had sounded interesting but there seems to be little to none of this. I was hoping for a living breathing galaxy something akin to an online version of the X series with a functioning economy but while larger the elite universe is more of a series of disconnected bubbles. The galaxy map will show trade routes of station X imports from station Y but there is no correlation of this in the game as ships don’t physically transport between X and Y and the commodity prices/stock does not fluctuate in response to our actions.


And this is where my main problem lies, there is no background simulation/sandbox and the universe does not exist or change beyond your small visual bubble, our actions do not ripple through the universe.


Now we all seem to acknowledge the launch was rushed and the game is in a sort of unfinished state, just look at the Orca which is supposed to be a sort of passenger transportation vehicle but this feature is not yet ingame and so the Orca serves as a sort of useless placeholder at the moment.


So is the living universe Braben discussed what they are working towards or are we going to be stuck with the same shallow universe? If so wouldn’t this be more important than features like Wings as well as harder to implement changes to the core foundations with more and more Wing like updates ontop? I have asked questions like this before without much success but I have recently seen a ray of hope in the latest newsletter


‘Lastly, Mike talked about another one of the small but significant details in the mission overhaul you'll experience as part of the Powerplay update. Right now, mission-related targets are always found at Unidentified Signal Sources, but after Powerplay you may find them roaming the galaxy and on the run.

Interstellar (very) high-speed chases are just one of the new things to do in Powerplay, and you haven't seen anything yet.’


But are my hopes too high or is this going to be just more instanced spawns that will only occur within your field of view and have no repercussions or effect on the universe. Should i give up and just reinstall X3?


I long for the immersion to destroy a transport knowing that its destruction has a ripple effect with a station suffering the loss of its ship and profits.

I agree. It feels like several arcade games rolled up into one. Once you figure them all out you start to really see it for what it is and wish there was a lot more to it.
 
Last edited:
I recall one time going into a RES in a system with a civil war going on. It looked like the conflict zone had spilled over into the RES as everyone was shooting everyone if they were of the opposing factions. Or maybe it was a bug. I dunno, but I think NPC's actually do recognize another NPC's faction if they scan each other.

Then again, I only saw this happen once.
 
While I do share your viewpoint for the most part the thing I keep telling myself is that the game was released early and is unfinished.
i sure hope one day hopefully soon that the background simulation has depth. Our actions matter, commanders can make an impact on the universe, and our anacondas have paint jobs..
soon TM

Dont give up, and never ever reinstal X3. We will get to where we want to be, but it will take time.

So much this! Rep for you two.
I also need to remember myself everytime I get the same feeling that it is "work in progress".
 
Local factions have gone to war…ooh cool but confined to conflict sites which are just a shooting gallery as ships endlessly spawn for you to blow away…yawn.
It is a problem indeed. War seems a bit too much static for me currently. Maybe at some point it would be nice to have CZs poping up and fading out in a system instead of staying at the same location. Anyway remember that systems at war falls into anarchy so you can interdict enemy ships a destroy them with no risk of bounty :)

Trading activity seems to have no effect on product levels.

Not sure about that. Some people have reported price fluctuations after heavy trading. I guess you effect the market but need a sufficient aggregate to notice it.

And this is where my main problem lies, there is no background simulation/sandbox and the universe does not exist or change beyond your small visual bubble, our actions do not ripple through the universe.

Here again I am not sure about that. You talked about X3, which is an awesome game and where players indeed see their actions directly and sometimes significantly affecting the Universe. That does not mean that your actions does not count in ED. It simply means that their effect must be mitigated based on other player actions. You are not going to save a station just by delivering 100 tons of food there, the universe will probably evolve after 100 000 tons are brought. So you might actually have an impact, it's just not significant enough to be noticeable. Again, think about the aggregate!
Similarly, it is very possible that our actions have consequences further than in our own bubble. Look at the war in Lugh. The Feds lost there, and now there is even more pressure on President Harsley partly due to this loss. But this is a slowly unfolding story in a multiplayer and complicated universe. X3 makes it more obvious but it is a single player game, and it actually sometimes feels like the background sim is always "waiting for you" and relying on player actions too heavily. ED is a living universe: it evolves whether or not you decide to be a part of it, and sometimes what you do is not enough because other people have been acting differently.


Anyway it is possible that a big part of your concerns will be addressed in 1.3 and after. I agree that right now the background sim can be improved and I have no doubt it will. Stay with us a bit and let's see how it goes :)
 
Trading does have an effect on product levels. If you are in a community goal area, the stock of required items in the vicinity drops down that you'll have problems filling the hold (unless the goal allows a large variety of materials) with them.

During Lugh, you had to travel out far to get enough weapons to fill a Clipper, and even the stock in the Shinrarta permit system were being drained. The cost also goes up as the supply goes down, so your profitability from them takes a hit.
 
There is no doubt that trading affects the stock of stations.
But I think OP refers more to the...and so what?

Magically after some time the stock is just replenished.
There are no other traders needed to do that. Just time.
If I buy my 400t from the market, the stock number isn't even changing.
There is no real production chain and therefore no real demands.

I'm curious what would happen if they implemented that just in a beta version.
What happens when the whole market completely has to rely on PC and NPC traders.
 
There is no doubt that trading affects the stock of stations.
But I think OP refers more to the...and so what?

Magically after some time the stock is just replenished.
There are no other traders needed to do that. Just time.
If I buy my 400t from the market, the stock number isn't even changing.
There is no real production chain and therefore no real demands.

I'm curious what would happen if they implemented that just in a beta version.
What happens when the whole market completely has to rely on PC and NPC traders.
If the number doesn't change, it's either a bug or set on purpose for something (the demand numbers, but not the supply, seem to be frozen for community goals, for example).

Stock replenishes because the station/planet manufactures them. There are also NPC traders, which affect the nearby traffic generally, so if there are supply / demand stations nearby, you have lesser profits on them even without human CMDRs trading there. If left long enough, stock can reach high and you get better profits.
 
I don't think i could have worded the OP better, I also get urges to play both Eve and X3, and KSP, you just can't get it all in one game :(

the problem with X3 i think is its just dated, it looks tacky the combat isn't very deep with the 2 health bar nuke fest no subsystems, means the only depth you get is by piling in more and more ship varieties into a fight, not a very fun flight model, but i really wish the simulation was similar. the fact that the station commodities don't seem to do anything stops me from getting invested in trade, i dunno, its good at many things yes but it just feels like it hasn't really learned from what worked well in games over the last decade and what didn't.

as a multiplayer game the immersion is broken and the investment you feel toward the game world is barely there, it doesn't feel like a living galaxy with seperate instances, it just feels kinda meaningless when everyone is in their own little multiverse realm, yes everyone is technically in the same game but realistically they aren't. just no persistence which i think is paramount to an mmo experience..
 
Last edited:
Elite is a bit of a love hate for me, im loving the grounded in reality galaxy modelled on our own and the visuals are beautiful. I love how each ship has a distinct sound and feel. There are some elements that are perfectly immersive.
....
I long for the immersion to destroy a transport knowing that its destruction has a ripple effect with a station suffering the loss of its ship and profits.

Thats the nub of EDs weakness right now. Unfortunately I dont see any indication that FD see this as a problem that needs addressing so my current view is that the smoke-and-mirrors transient instancing and NPC mechanics are unfortunately here to stay.
 
Last edited:
Magically after some time the stock is just replenished.
There are no other traders needed to do that. Just time.

No offense, but how do you know other traders are not needed for that?
I mean maybe what you saw was actually the effect of an NPC or PC trader providing goods to the station. Possibly in another instance so you didn't see them doing it but the action still occurred.

Which leads to the underlying issue: instancing prevents players to have full control and/or understanding of what's going on. For example if you intend a full blockade of a station you will see it is merely impossible as other players can try to go to another instance or just switch to solo for a while. That being said your blockade would still have an impact - although not to the fullest - as you would destroy some NPC ships preventing them to deliver cargo or simply impacting their faction by destroying them.
 
ED, a 1" deep ocean.. :(
.
But I feel a change coming on, don't know why, but within the next couple of months (hopefully). :rolleyes:
ED is going to change and evolve, I'm counting on it. I backed a few games in this genre and I keep my hopes up for all of them. Just wait a while, I'm sure it will happen.
 
Not sure OP

Till you actually play the powerplay update and experience what it actually contains then I wouldn't put much stock in it.
Many things have been talked up and have turned out to be bare bones, missing, placeholder or just not working.

I hope that's not the case and the improvements turn a game that I expected to play for years and years but I cannot currently be bothered playing a couple of months after release into a game that I play for years and years.
 
Back
Top Bottom