So i've had the game a few days now and it's really nice. now i'm used to the UI and i can jump in and out of warp without getting stuck pressing 1 several times, i've been trading and doing resource runs of metals to stations, and i'm about 1/3 to my first ship buy.
it's really great so far, i often completely lose track of time when playing.
the best system i've come across so far is the Arcturus system. it has a large amount of stations (4, or 5 i think.) which often give you missions with high profit margins (IE take silver in-system, or take palladium back to the station.) This system is very large. it has it's giant main star in the center near a couple of stations, and 10kLS out there are three more. because of the large number of stations here it really is great for fast trading, especially since you can just warp out and back into the system to get to the stations closer to Arcturus it's self.
After my last trading run i decided to make my way down to Wolf 359 to see if i could get to mine some minerals from saturn or the asteroid belts, but sadly my drive malfuncitoned, (Sol not in beta yet, since it's one of the crafted systems) (one of the closest systems to Sol other than Alpha centuri) (didnt even see any borg)
the game it's self is very immsersive and is put together brilliantly. my dad walked in on me playing it and instantly recognised it as a 'snazzed up' eyecandy version of what he played in like, the 1980's. when i compare it to the other space sims i've played, IE X3:TC, elite seems like a whole step up, while still not charging $60-1000 just for ships (P2W citizen)
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Gas giants - colouring problems <in my opinion>
so i've come across many gas giants so far. while the rings on the ringed gas giants are very nice, i feel they're let down by the texture of the actual planet. if you look at Jupiter, for instance, while it's brown generally, there are specs of all sorts of colours, and bands of white, and the storm below can be seen to move.
the problem with the gas giants in Elite is, and i don't mean this harshly because the game really is sweet, the gas giants look very plain, bland or drab when compared to jupiter.
oh, i had a nice picture i made showing how they could be nicer but it won't let me post a link
most of the gas giants i've seen so far have been blue, and they seem to be very plain. maybe it's just the texture for blue gas giants i don't like, i don't know.
while i'm aware it's hard to imagine what a 'foreign' gas giant would actually look like, i won't say elite has it wrong, but they could look nicer.
Exploring gas giants:
while i don't have an explorer scanner yet, i heard one of the devs saying you have to scan a planet. i notice that you get composition analysis in system view of most bodies, but why not add another level of exploration where you take samples of the atmosphere, see ST:TNG S7E3, 'interface', where a ship is trapped inside a gas giant's atmosphere, after failing to collect such samples.
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ship design:
while i like the look of plenty of the ships in the game, and i'm sure i'll be burnt at a stake for saying this, but i'm getting a little tired of flying around in a pentagon, and to make matters worse, the ship i'm looking to buy is also a pentagon.
are there any plans for player designed ships? maybe something modular where you just buy a few pre-designed parts and put them together into a new design, so if you had enough parts you could make yourself a big triangle rather than a pentagon.
__________
Abort mission button
i accidentally aborted a mission as i was about to dock with the station to finish it. the abort button's right next to the back button. add a conformation window for cancelling?
___________
Dual systems where the largest body has no planets or moons
several times i've had missions that have taken me to systems where you jump in to one star, and have to spend ten minutes accelerating to like 600c to actually get there (350,000LS in this case)
is there any way we can 'microjump' when a system is this large, and two suns are orbiting eachother? this was the one point in the game that has actually felt tedious. i don't know, maybe it's fine and i just need to get a faster ship.
____________
system 'ring clusters' vs planet ring clusters
Riddle me this
V
on system view the system mining sites are massive, they look like a huge field
you warp in and there's like 5 asteroids
V
on system view the planet mining sites are way smaller, you warp in and suddenly the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3720:1
what's with that? shouldn't there be plenty of asteroids in system rings most of the time?
_____________
Asteroids are stationary, just rotating
shouldn't they be bumping into eachother and moving around? i want to feel like i'm in mortal danger in an asteroid field, not like i can saunter around poking every asteroid to see what minerals it has
i should be constantly watching my back waiting for a huge asteroid to swat me like a fly
____________
Douchebag interdiction
not really a game problem, more of a player problem. this one guy pulled me out of supercruise right next to a star, i ended up getting like 75% heat damaged because of how close my escape vector bought me to the sun. the ..... chased me across three systems.
____________
that's really all i've got to say, i probably wanted to say more about what i did ingame and how i liked it, but i got sidetracked a lot, so i'll just post this.
it's really great so far, i often completely lose track of time when playing.
the best system i've come across so far is the Arcturus system. it has a large amount of stations (4, or 5 i think.) which often give you missions with high profit margins (IE take silver in-system, or take palladium back to the station.) This system is very large. it has it's giant main star in the center near a couple of stations, and 10kLS out there are three more. because of the large number of stations here it really is great for fast trading, especially since you can just warp out and back into the system to get to the stations closer to Arcturus it's self.
After my last trading run i decided to make my way down to Wolf 359 to see if i could get to mine some minerals from saturn or the asteroid belts, but sadly my drive malfuncitoned, (Sol not in beta yet, since it's one of the crafted systems) (one of the closest systems to Sol other than Alpha centuri) (didnt even see any borg)
the game it's self is very immsersive and is put together brilliantly. my dad walked in on me playing it and instantly recognised it as a 'snazzed up' eyecandy version of what he played in like, the 1980's. when i compare it to the other space sims i've played, IE X3:TC, elite seems like a whole step up, while still not charging $60-1000 just for ships (P2W citizen)
______________________
Gas giants - colouring problems <in my opinion>
so i've come across many gas giants so far. while the rings on the ringed gas giants are very nice, i feel they're let down by the texture of the actual planet. if you look at Jupiter, for instance, while it's brown generally, there are specs of all sorts of colours, and bands of white, and the storm below can be seen to move.
the problem with the gas giants in Elite is, and i don't mean this harshly because the game really is sweet, the gas giants look very plain, bland or drab when compared to jupiter.
oh, i had a nice picture i made showing how they could be nicer but it won't let me post a link
most of the gas giants i've seen so far have been blue, and they seem to be very plain. maybe it's just the texture for blue gas giants i don't like, i don't know.
while i'm aware it's hard to imagine what a 'foreign' gas giant would actually look like, i won't say elite has it wrong, but they could look nicer.
Exploring gas giants:
while i don't have an explorer scanner yet, i heard one of the devs saying you have to scan a planet. i notice that you get composition analysis in system view of most bodies, but why not add another level of exploration where you take samples of the atmosphere, see ST:TNG S7E3, 'interface', where a ship is trapped inside a gas giant's atmosphere, after failing to collect such samples.
__________
ship design:
while i like the look of plenty of the ships in the game, and i'm sure i'll be burnt at a stake for saying this, but i'm getting a little tired of flying around in a pentagon, and to make matters worse, the ship i'm looking to buy is also a pentagon.
are there any plans for player designed ships? maybe something modular where you just buy a few pre-designed parts and put them together into a new design, so if you had enough parts you could make yourself a big triangle rather than a pentagon.
__________
Abort mission button
i accidentally aborted a mission as i was about to dock with the station to finish it. the abort button's right next to the back button. add a conformation window for cancelling?
___________
Dual systems where the largest body has no planets or moons
several times i've had missions that have taken me to systems where you jump in to one star, and have to spend ten minutes accelerating to like 600c to actually get there (350,000LS in this case)
is there any way we can 'microjump' when a system is this large, and two suns are orbiting eachother? this was the one point in the game that has actually felt tedious. i don't know, maybe it's fine and i just need to get a faster ship.
____________
system 'ring clusters' vs planet ring clusters
Riddle me this
V
on system view the system mining sites are massive, they look like a huge field
you warp in and there's like 5 asteroids
V
on system view the planet mining sites are way smaller, you warp in and suddenly the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3720:1
what's with that? shouldn't there be plenty of asteroids in system rings most of the time?
_____________
Asteroids are stationary, just rotating
shouldn't they be bumping into eachother and moving around? i want to feel like i'm in mortal danger in an asteroid field, not like i can saunter around poking every asteroid to see what minerals it has
i should be constantly watching my back waiting for a huge asteroid to swat me like a fly
____________
Douchebag interdiction
not really a game problem, more of a player problem. this one guy pulled me out of supercruise right next to a star, i ended up getting like 75% heat damaged because of how close my escape vector bought me to the sun. the ..... chased me across three systems.
____________
that's really all i've got to say, i probably wanted to say more about what i did ingame and how i liked it, but i got sidetracked a lot, so i'll just post this.
