It seems Bethesda took a close look to Elite and other space games, too. While I probably won't be playing Starfield before christmas (I badly need a new GPU, the old 4 GB RX570 just won't cut it anymore), I've watched some lore and game mechanics videos. What stuck out to me as very familiar:
- Lasers to take out shields, ballistics to take out hull. You need both types of guns on your ship.
- Jetpacks and 3-dimensional gunplay. Odyssey has it, but only for players; Starfield seems to have perfected it. NPC-s use jetpacks and there are different styles of jetpacks with different flight profiles. This sounds extremely good to me, I really enjoy jetpack gunplay in Odyssey!
- Holding down space bar while flying is somewhat equivalent to FA off in Elite.
- An elusive cult worshipping some cosmic serpent that is said to exist in hyperspace. And a second, more proactive sect of that cult.
That said, Elite: Dangerous itself seems to borrow mechanics from another gem of space sim, Independence War/Independence War 2 (though I'm sure some other game did before I-War):
- Travel mechanics is pretty much one-to-one. Normal Newtonian space; fast intrasystem travel (supercruise and Linear Displacement System (LDS drive)) and hyperspace jumps between star systems.
- The ability to turn flight assist computer off for direct control of the thrusters.
- Power and heat management.
- Stealth/detectability depending on how cold a ship runs.
In fact, the flight and combat mechanics of these two games are so similar that I felt right at home taking the Sidewinder out for the first flight in Elite. The learning curve was pretty shallow for me because I had done all the learning years ago in Independence War 2
yes, agreed that Bethsesda had looked at Elite + Odyssey. The boosting jumping pack at Starfield bases , "settlements" does remind me of ED's boosting jump during firefights at lower-g planets. There is also a segment in one of the Starfield trailers in zero-g, of floating about in some ship or station, trying to do a task or involved in a firefight which one of the ED kickstarter paintings had suggested but yet to get there someday. (although plenty other ks-production idea paintings had now been fulfilled in ED such as multiple cmdrs in a hangar space of a ship while in team mode, also fulfilling one of ED's first trailer scenes).
And in Odyssey one can already "fly" personally by continuing to boost above the ground of a low-g enough planet with the booster upgrades. which kind of reminded me of the description of Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" novel of troopers doing that staying in the air.
As for ED borrowing from IW. The Elite franchise also had free motion mechanics in Elite II and III/FFE. It was even more free motion, and at higher fraction of speed of light, of thruster capable, when you used the stardreamer time-speedup, where of course this was more possible since those dos or win98 games were only single player and not concerned with shared multiplayer or multiplayer assets instance gamespace. I remember a constant detractor mocking ED and the devs (and ignorant of the Elite franchise overall) also criticized ED of not being able to sim "The Expanse"'s first episodes of boosting through the solar system and then reversing the direction of the ship for the thrusters to slow down the ship for days. Well, you could absolutely do that completey in Elite II and III/FFE if you wanted to and in un-sped up time to simulate hours , days and weeks it would take to do that intrasystem.
One could also do a complete approach to a planet adjusting and estimating and calculating a descent to the planets surface and use your six directions of thrusters to eventually land at the starport surface manually. I remember leaving FFE/Elite III on for days as it approached a planet in simulated real time, similar to scenarios in hard sci-fi novels such as a story in Niven's "Man Kzin Wars" where the protagonist would wait for days approaching a planet and learn to be a better coder with his time waiting, or if he happened to have a hot female co-pilot with him and they got into a 'relationship'. And all the while the massive and beauty view of approaching the planet as the ship approached it in regular thruster speed slowing down from higher sub-light velocities.
It has been entertaining me for whatever it is for 5k+ hours and counting, while many other games have not. It is, as a leisure game, a time waste by definition, provided time is meaningful, and I believe it is. In the end, it is all in vain (at best).
In this context, whatever you may deem to be entertaining or not, makes absolutely no difference. It's a waste of time still, Tears in Rain.
O7,
I've read a number of posts here saying Elite Odyssey is a waste of time. If one enjoys something, it is not a waste of time. I thoroughly enjoy this game and have not wasted one second of my life playing it. Not wasted one penny either.
I wasted a number of life time minutes and money watching the film "Troy" once. I ejected the video cassette half way through the film as I couldn't stand it anymore. That is some life time I will never get back.
I would consider ED being able to be like an extended flightsim with a lot of extra gameplay features. It's even like a "swimming pool" type of relaxing entertainment to me. Like one could enjoy and get back to the swimming pool occasionally or more days during a season as a leisure activity one goes back to throughout the year and every year.
One thing about Odyssey I was amazed at. It could capture plenty of the "stealth" mission mode of sneaking up to get to the access panels, or staying out of awareness of the patrolling guards. Similar to the original "Deus Ex" game by Ion Storm. Also having particular upgrades to stay more silent, similar to getting nano-mod upgrades in Deus Ex to choose to be more stealthy or having more brute combat or defense enhancements.
I hope someday ED will be able to have more personal scripted missions somehow in that way. Sneaking into station apartments in an orbis station. Or some mission storyline. Although I don't how they can manage that with all the multiplayer and constant instance elements going on in the background, with all the shared assets and the stellar forge simulations still all working in the spacesim outside level backgrounds.
ED with Odyssey is now encapsulating all these multiple levels of simulations going on at once in an instance such as an Odyssey settlement combined arms situation. The planet and other planets are still rotating and working the real-time interplanetary sim, so still not a limited illusion starbox like most all other space-themed games. And the sky is still the stellar forge sim of the galaxy of ED in the background where it could be an ongoing sunset or sunrise during a skirmish battle. And so far no other spacesim or space-themed game has even approached or tried to do this achievement. So it's still a massive challenge of someday working out ship interiors of multiple ships going on all with their own specific frames of reference and internal interior assets, while everything else of ED real-time simulated is still working in the background.
I would hope FDev eventually at least starts out simpler with some lore planets and put specific cities with crowds from their PC and JWE mechanics. Then gradually some personal ship interiors of only parked or landed ships at first. And in those lines of consideration in my opinion, it would be a full DLC or a full new game development effort and investment on top of existing ED+Odyssey to get to that point.
Anyway, glad to see appreciative comments about ED and Odyssey's overall special and unique achievements lasting still today of this thread.
I've played Starfield's starting section and yes, it reminds of Fallout (NV and 4) and Morrowind/Oblvion/Skyrim's dungeon crawl in a base/ruin/dungeon, sifting through all the 'dungeon' items junk worth the game currency. Even the music reminds of "dungeon crawl" mode like it was still in a Fallout 'post-nuke apocalypse' devastated level. so yep, Fallout/Skyrim in a space theme pretty much. They should have changed the tone of the music in that particular mode, but I guess they're sticking to longtime Bethseda traditions. I did boost a bit outside and yep, the planet was lower-g and they copied a bit of "Odyssey's" feel of being able to boost to extend jumps in that regard. What was a super suprise was that my pc was able to suddenly grab on to a rail of an outside stairwell into a climb mode, stop the fall, and climb up and over to the stairwell. Something extra that ED: Odyssey could have.
O7
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