nats
Banned
Dogfighting in Elite Dangerous
I just wanted to open a thread to discuss dogfighting in Elite Dangerous - how it could be made to be a wonderful gameplay experience. We already know that David is well up on his ideas including heat generation increasing a ship's radar image, cooling plates, various weapons and various states of damage. I wanted to discuss here other ways the dogfighting could be enhanced.
Firstly the weapons:
David has mentioned that this game will feature a lot more weapon types, and he shows some sort of plasma weapon in the video. I think that if we could see both downsides and strengths to the various weapons types it would make the choice of system more open. In Frontier it was obvious that the more powerful beam lasers were better because they were easier to find a target with than using the pulse lasers.
My view is that in this game, to open the field a bit, pulse lasers should be made a lot more powerful that beam lasers. And when you think about it a short pulse would probably be able to have more firepower in a short single burst than a continually streamed laser. This might make choosing beam good if you are not very accurate, but the sharpshooters amongst us might prefer the pulse laser for its superior hitting power when it finds its target.
I love the idea of plasma weapons, most games have them. They could possibly be used to fire a burst of several plasmas at once like a shotgun - great for close up work. Maybe for those players who like to get close on a ships tail and kill quickly - remember Jango Fett's plasma weapons in Attack of the Clones? Something like that maybe. The one in the video fired a bit slow to make it really effective. Perhaps that could be the cheapest version - maybe the starting weapon for most people!
Regarding the ships:
The ships could also be made variable to make the choice a bit more interesting. In Frontier the ships were all pretty much the same other than of varying hull strength - they could tun far too quickly which made combat a continual jousting match where luck had a big part to play. This game should enhance the ship choice by perhaps making ships different.
So for example you might have a fighter that might be really nimble but very weak. It might be able to turn around an opponent easily but a few shots will finish it off.
What about a ship with a very high speed but one that cannot turn quite so well - this might be the choice for boom and zoom attacks as opposed to turning battles.
Maybe have one that doesn't roll so well but climbs better - might be used in a different way entirely to a ship that can roll very fast and change direction quickly.
Then there are the lumbering beasts. These I think should be easily able to defend themselves from pirates using automated turrets - but that you can take control of if desired - one of the most fun bits of Privateer was running way from a pirate and blasting it from a rear turret. The problem with Frontier is that whilst you were in one turret the others were useless and you couldn't move the ship easily. Perhaps (tied in with my thread on software on this forum) you could buy software to provide evasion movements automatically that run whilst you are in a turret, thereby preventing the ship from being too easy a target. Perhaps it would also move the ship to defend shields that are weakening automatically.
Anyway I am sure there are many other ideas for enhancing combat and dogfighting, so over to you lot.
I just wanted to open a thread to discuss dogfighting in Elite Dangerous - how it could be made to be a wonderful gameplay experience. We already know that David is well up on his ideas including heat generation increasing a ship's radar image, cooling plates, various weapons and various states of damage. I wanted to discuss here other ways the dogfighting could be enhanced.
Firstly the weapons:
David has mentioned that this game will feature a lot more weapon types, and he shows some sort of plasma weapon in the video. I think that if we could see both downsides and strengths to the various weapons types it would make the choice of system more open. In Frontier it was obvious that the more powerful beam lasers were better because they were easier to find a target with than using the pulse lasers.
My view is that in this game, to open the field a bit, pulse lasers should be made a lot more powerful that beam lasers. And when you think about it a short pulse would probably be able to have more firepower in a short single burst than a continually streamed laser. This might make choosing beam good if you are not very accurate, but the sharpshooters amongst us might prefer the pulse laser for its superior hitting power when it finds its target.
I love the idea of plasma weapons, most games have them. They could possibly be used to fire a burst of several plasmas at once like a shotgun - great for close up work. Maybe for those players who like to get close on a ships tail and kill quickly - remember Jango Fett's plasma weapons in Attack of the Clones? Something like that maybe. The one in the video fired a bit slow to make it really effective. Perhaps that could be the cheapest version - maybe the starting weapon for most people!
Regarding the ships:
The ships could also be made variable to make the choice a bit more interesting. In Frontier the ships were all pretty much the same other than of varying hull strength - they could tun far too quickly which made combat a continual jousting match where luck had a big part to play. This game should enhance the ship choice by perhaps making ships different.
So for example you might have a fighter that might be really nimble but very weak. It might be able to turn around an opponent easily but a few shots will finish it off.
What about a ship with a very high speed but one that cannot turn quite so well - this might be the choice for boom and zoom attacks as opposed to turning battles.
Maybe have one that doesn't roll so well but climbs better - might be used in a different way entirely to a ship that can roll very fast and change direction quickly.
Then there are the lumbering beasts. These I think should be easily able to defend themselves from pirates using automated turrets - but that you can take control of if desired - one of the most fun bits of Privateer was running way from a pirate and blasting it from a rear turret. The problem with Frontier is that whilst you were in one turret the others were useless and you couldn't move the ship easily. Perhaps (tied in with my thread on software on this forum) you could buy software to provide evasion movements automatically that run whilst you are in a turret, thereby preventing the ship from being too easy a target. Perhaps it would also move the ship to defend shields that are weakening automatically.
Anyway I am sure there are many other ideas for enhancing combat and dogfighting, so over to you lot.
Last edited: