Game impressions and honest review (new<ish>) player.

[Luminarium]

Let me begin by stating I love space sims. I've played them for years and I always dreamed about them coming back but lost hope. Then SC and ED came around. I backed SC first and ED second.

So honest first impression review:

Stage of development:
The game isn't that far ahead of SC - and I don't mean this as an insult in any way. It's ahead but it's not nearly as bad as people make it to be. I'm really excited now to have two space sims to choose from.

Size:
Lot's of places to visit. It's huge. A few populated systems which might be the most negative thing about the game I've noticed. In a real universe you can fly for years and never find another soul. That has been my experience so far. A really empty room.

There is a few systems, they all look pretty much the same as expected. While SC will be handcrafted and custom made, ED is proceduraly generated- meaning lots of space but don't expect the same level of detail. That's fine. Again two very different goals.

Flight system:
Having flown in FS2, Arena commander, ED, Planetside 2 - I don't find the controls hard at all. In fact the blue bar is a bit of a cheat sheet - but it's nice to have. I will not complain about the controls and how hard / easy they are. Practice helps. That being said:

I feel that ED has better controller mapping so far. I know it's early on and that SC will catch up but it's nice to have now.

Free flight mode AKA flight assist. I actually like it better in SC, with flight assist off you can tell that the physics are not 100% accurate. It's slide central sure but S:C did get that part right.

Yaw - it took a while to get used to that but it's fun. I honestly don't know if it's the best choice to balance the game but it's there and you might as well learn to like it.

I get what it aims at doing but I feel that having the very option of flying backwards brings the Turrets in space argument right back on the table (yes I know you can't use boost during that flight mode and that you're an easier target - just like you are when you do the BSG maneuvers in SC) These two issues are not that dissimilar.

6 degree of freedom.
It's there in E at all times, it's not there at all times in SC. Sure you can decouple in SC but the fact that you actually have to decouple to do that is annoying. They will most likely change it but currently I got to give credit to ED at having that in. (PS, I don't feel it would all that useful in a dog fight in SC, but it is useful in ED because of yaw and landing).


Immersion:
ED has great sounds but SC is catching up. I feel that SC needs more space dust or something to make your movement more obvious which ED did a better job at. Again there is no reason to bash the other game because of it. CR already stated that are adding that to give players better perception of movement. I think that realism is what sometimes hurts SC. They made space - space. It's dark and empty. ED added effects (sound and space dust) that make you feel like you're moving.

Combat / AI /
I have to give a clear edge to SC at the moment. AI is much better. I think they used some crazy team to build that because I have yet to see an AI ship crash into a station or hit an object unless I take out half it's thrusters and it simply looses control of the ship. Again nothing that can't be fixed and learned from.

Damage models
SC has them fully implemented and very detailed while ED has the basics. Not sure what else to say about that. In SC getting hit matters a lot more. If your port or aft shields go down you know you should roll your ship. Those mechanics are present even on a small ship as you have more than one shield subystem. Loosing a port side laser means your center of mass changes and ship handles differently. Loosing a thruster means others have to work harder to compensate or you ship might not make tight left runs anymore. That's kind of awesome and I really hope ED will implement that.

Things to be excited about:
(I wont include stuff like trade / combat missions here because both games will have that, I'll play to the strengths of each title.)

ED: Exploration. There will be a lot more of it in ED than in SC due to sheer size of the galaxy. I only hope that it will matter. Charting a system with nothing in it or one with resources but so far away that the player base will never get to see it would be pointless. There are two concerns there:

A) Everyone at start will just fly out in different directions never to see eachother again.
B) Everyone will stay clustered around the very few starting planets to keep the economy going - making the whole endless universe thing pointless.


SC:
Custom made worlds and eye candy. You get out of your ship walk around the station, get into a fire fight etc. The combination of FPS and Space sim makes it a fire fly fans wet dream.

Concern: 150 systems doesn't leave a lot of room for exploration. I guess we'll see how it works once the game goes live, my concerns are somewhat eased because of the travel speeds in SC are slower than in ED.

Multi crew ships / capital ships: Having a flying guild base that requires escort ships and getting in to capital ship fights while your outfit officers control the fate of the battle from a gigantic battle ship sounds awesome. Finding and fixing a battle damaged carrier and using is as your outfits / build home base? How can you not be excited at having a chance of doing that.

Concern: Only the numerically large guilds might be able to to do that effectively. I don't think a 50-300 man guild can capture and hold anything larger than a destroyer, I don't think owing an escort carrier is for everyone, and I'm sure the Bangal carrier will be only for 1-3 largest guilds in game.

Overall - I really like both games. My views are straight forward and I'm not gonna colour the other game something it's not. I will not get into useless arguments as to which game should be further ahead in development because of how much cash was raised or how long the studio has been around. - Stop those. That's not helpful and creates dumb arguments that you can't win.

I will not make claims that ohh look those forums are hateful and full of fan boys. Both forums are mirror images of each-other, claiming that " all the <insert game player base> is made up of 12 year olds and all they do is post hate comments. Both forums have their share of people claiming the other game is arcadish, garbage etc. That needs to stop. Try both. We had NOTHING for years other than FS2 and now the PC community is fighting over which SPACE sim is worse? Not which one is better but which one sucks more.

Seriously?!

Count your blessings. How many of us thought there will never be another great space sim. We though ahh I wish elite / privateer / wing commander / free space had a sequel.

Guess what we got 2. 2 freaken awesome space sims.

Seriously what a time to be a spec sim fan!

 

[ZeeWolf]

Fair enough commander.

I don't think that Star Citizen is the benchmark for other space games. It could well be every bit as awesome as we all hope, but it currently doesn't exist as anything other than a pre-alpha Arena Combat game and a concept. A game (like any other product) has to exist before we can compare it to anything, otherwise we might as well compare everything to our pre-conceptions of things in the future.

Elite really has to be judged on it's own merits. The Elite series is one of the oldest epic space games there is. It has nothing to do with Chris Roberts (other than that Chris played Elite during his youth like many of us and backed this game) and David Braben deserves as much respect for bringing his vision to our computers. The man put galaxies into 48k then put the Milky Way into a low density floppy using machine code. Then he helped bring us the Raspberry Pi.

Its good that you are enjoying the game so far, however you might be interested in the larger scope of the project. Only a small section of Elite's space is populated by humans (of various factions) and you will actually find most of that big star map you now have access to has billions of empty rocks to visit that may be of astronomical or resource importance. Failing that you might just be the first one to find the Thargoids.

 

[Tacheel]

I feel this is an honest and fair review of how things currently stand with an idea of where both games are headed. Very objective and broken down into the different areas well. Kudos to you.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Yeah, it'll be pretty amazing watching ED go through to full release. Looking forward to it immensely!

 

[mkennedy026]

Not really a review, but a direct comparison between the two games, which is not really fair to either game. As both have different parts on hold or being built or staged for later development.

You made some points, but the majority of the essay is "SC will have this..." or "SC will have hand placed this..." I keep hearing how great SC will be. I hope so- but I have not seen anything to show that. Sounds, AI... don't see anything positive in AC other than it looks pretty. So far! Like you, I do have high hopes.

Anyway, no hate. Respect your opinion. Keep in mind one thing that I believe is lost of at the SC forums, which I read but rarely comment. MOST backers of ED, have also backed SC. We do want it to succeed, we prefer this genre. So many of us are invested in both and already are familiar with SC having played the AC. I don't think you can say that for the majority of SC players/backers. Again, my opinion. Good luck.

 

[Stoo]

Saying that there's not enough systems at this stage is a bit of a laugh tbh.

 

[Hellhawk666]

Fair enough, OP. I respect that you've making an effort to be unbiased but few of us can keep our gut feelings out of a comparative review. Whilst I can go along with most of what you've said my own spin is more positive towards ED at this stage of development.

 

[lysan]

Ok, many errors here, but the core of this "review" was not all bad.

I'll give you 6 out of 12.

Regarding what you will find out in the galaxy in ED you need to read about the game and the game feature to come.

I will mention a few.

Landing on planets, wildlife on planets, cities, cloud cities, walking in space stations, FPS etc.
The simulation of the universe alone in ED is more than just a pretty picture and 1:12 or 1:100 size planets.

Again as you said you can't compare and we should not compare.

 

[HaB1971]

He posted the exact same thing on the SC forums and to be honest his review/comparison is so way off the mark and full of speculation and misinformation....

 

[nats]

Very good review and useful because I am not keeping tabs on 'the other game' at all - very good to have a comparison of each so thanks for that. Certainly it is good to be a space simmer at the moment I am sure the majority of us will get and enjoy both games. I personally prefer ED because it more suits my desire for a huge world that you can lose yourself in. But yes the downsides of that kind of game can rightly be as you mention a certain sparseness, uniformity, lack of an immersive story. I did find this with Frontier and FE after a while of playing: I desperately wanted to talk to someone, get out of the ship, do something else other than just fly around. Hopefully all that will come later in the expansions.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Speaking as a former AI games developer I have to disagree with OP massively on the AI stuff though.

Elite Dangerous has levels of AI, some pilots are less skilled. Yes the fighters do sometimes get stuck in the station, that's just a new bug - but Arena commander hasn't reached that kind of complexity. The station in Elite is orbital & rotating and changes position, it's VERY dynamic compared to anything in AC yet.

The AI in Elite is very much more complex. The environments are dynamic and complex including procedurally generated asteroids that the NPCs weave in and out of as you chase them or they run away and engage super cruise. When attacking they'll get up close and pound you with fire while using lateral thrust. They attack from a distance in groups while a wingman get's on your tail. They hunt for cargo and they break attack when you fire on them or deploy cargo depending on their mood.

The AI in Arena Commander doesn't have to do much yet, just seems to follow set paths around the static map while being chased by your AI wing-man and occasionally rams you. It isn't anywhere near the complexity I've seen in ED

 

[scrufferpops]

A few points you got wrong:


Actually, the model of procedural generation DB have worked on means that the galaxy will be richly different wherever you go..Especially with the atmospheric planetary flight/landing...The plan is to have the procedural generation so good, that you can't tell it isn't handcrafted.

Exploration: Actually theres a decent player base already (50,000) some of which will be exploring maybe never to return, many of which will be doing all manner of things including hanging around the core systems, venturing to the frontier, and making trips out to the unknown - and coming back

So you'll bump into real players quite a bit - though less often as you leave the core of human space.

Damage models.
Most small ships can only take a little battering before being essentially crippled and blown up but bigger player ships will have full damage modelling so said David Braben.
Plus an intricate damage model already exists NOW in Beta with modules of your ships being seperately manageable and target by weapons fire and knocked out. Do some research, you're totally off the mark on this score too.

Another thing: David Braben actually toned down the AI of npc's because he said he could make it so good it was unbeatable (thats not by beefing up their shields or anything).

 

[Patrick_68000]

David Braben deserves as much respect for bringing his vision to our computers. The man put galaxies into 48k then put the Milky Way into a low density floppy using machine code. Then he helped bring us the Raspberry Pi.

And he has been distinguished by the Queen of England

 

[Rygir]

The game isn't that far ahead of SC...

Only a non software developer can make a comparison like that. It's like two people are cooking, one is making a spaghetti and his water is boiling already, the other guy is making a salad and has finished cutting his cucumbers. Why are we comparing the development process? It's the dish that will matter...

Size:
That has been my experience so far. A really empty room.

I regularly see people passing by.

While SC will be handcrafted and custom made, ED is proceduraly generated- meaning lots of space but don't expect the same level of detail. That's fine. Again two very different goals.

Ya....no...that's not how stuff works. stuff that is procedurally generated is handcrafted stuff in the beginning as well. You could cut up SC assets and reassamble them algorithmically to procedurally generate an environment. It has nothing to do with detail. That said, handcrafting 150 planets will not let us have a lot of detail, I expect large generic open spaces in MMORPG style. What I want to see is First Person Shooter quality levels, but much bigger. For example Grand Theft Auto is a good open world with a doable level of detail. World of Warcraft is a good example of just using a clone tool to build everything.

Flight system:
I don't find the controls hard at all.

They aren't hard... after an hour you can hit a needle in space. But you fly a stick of butter that is more like an ocean liner rather than a jetfighter. It's tedious.

I feel that ED has better controller mapping so far. I know it's early on and that SC will catch up but it's nice to have now.

Disagree, Elite Dangerous didn't have ANY mappings for my gamepad, SC did. after mapping I don't have enough keys on my gamepad to get all the functionality on, in SC I have buttons to spare.

Free flight mode AKA flight assist. I actually like it better in SC, ...

yep, me too. I don't get why they fudged it so badly in ED, just replicate Frontier Elite's flight model and you have the perfect flight model!

Yaw learn to like it.

Everytime I spend twenty seconds because I overshot my destination it aggravates me.

Turrets in space argument

Sitting ducks in space argument

Immersion:
ED has great sounds but SC is catching up.

I find the sounds in SC rather excellent? ED seems to be more complete but the sound effects aren't "better".

I feel that SC needs more space dust or something to make your movement more obvious which ED did a better job at.

SC has space dust now. A bit too much imho.

Combat / AI /
I have yet to see an AI ship crash into a station or hit an object

That's not how you evaluate an AI, it's very easy to write an AI that does everything perfectly, it's a whole different thing to make one that behaves "like a human" and to be honest, crashing into stuff is very human from what I've seen. Anyway, AIs are more about what they can respond to dynamically rather than what they do perfectly. You can record a perfect flight and repeat it over and over, that doesn't make it good ai.

Damage models
That's kind of awesome and I really hope ED will implement that.

It's already in to a decent degree, we just can't see much of it without external cameras. Not to mention we have shields that block a lot of damage.

ED: Exploration. There will be a lot more of it in ED than in SC due to sheer size of the galaxy. I only hope that it will matter.

myup...it will make ED have a singleplayer option basically.

Charting a system with nothing in it or one with resources but so far away that the player base will never get to see it would be pointless.

Depends on what you mean by nothing and being that it is procedurally generated means that it didn't cost anything to make so it's not that bad if it's pointless. It's still there should anyone care to check it. That makes for some very compelling immersive qualities for me.

There are two concerns there:

A) Everyone at start will just fly out in different directions never to see eachother again.

Singleplayer

B) Everyone will stay clustered around the very few starting planets to keep the economy going - making the whole endless universe thing pointless.

Multiplayer PVP. Also option C : a blend of these two. Which is what we'll likely end up with.

SC:
Custom made worlds and eye candy. You get out of your ship walk around the station, get into a fire fight etc. The combination of FPS and Space sim makes it a fire fly fans wet dream.

This is also planned for E. And given that it's procedural would allow them to make endless corridors of hotels actually visitable if they wanted.

Multi crew ships / capital ships: Having a flying guild base that requires escort ships and getting in to capital ship fights while your outfit officers control the fate of the battle from a gigantic battle ship sounds awesome. Finding and fixing a battle damaged carrier and using is as your outfits / build home base? How can you not be excited at having a chance of doing that.

Also planned for E D

That needs to stop. Try both.

Guess what we got 2. 2 freaken awesome space sims.

Seriously what a time to be a spec sim fan!

Agreed, I am happy. But I could be happier if some of the design choices in both were tuned... some things are just so sad.

 

[avow555]

Sounds like your more interested in the other game, otherwise nice wall of text.

 

[SAB380]

Elite: Dangerous will likely be the game I stick with longterm but I do love Star Citizen as well.

However, to say that Elite isn't a lot further along is just .... baffling.

Star Citizen has a big pretty room where my ships sit and a very tiny space area to test basic control and fight mechanics.

I can't wait for the full SC universe to be released, most likely in 2016 at this stage.
To say the games have a similar level of development when Elite's standard beta is in a week and gamma release a few months is just bizarre.

 

[Phaedra]

I think the OP also missed the importance of the dynamic background simulation to ED. This should go someway to address his concerns that exploration could become pointless since discovering new resources/ habitable planets etc... could ultimately lead to one or more of the major powers looking to acquire/settle the system generating further gameplay opportunities and ultimately extending boundaries of settled space. This is clearly something that won't be possible in the small scale SC universe, although no doubt it will have strengths in other areas.

 

[forger]

seriously? OP really loves SC, obviously, which is fine by me, but things you say are not even close to objective, so i only can disagree with you on anything you say, because we have very different needs to have fun, i want to have complete freedom and you want to be limited and guided, but don't say that ED is not far ahead of SC, it just is wrong, so wrong that even makes no sense to compare those games, ED has all basics right and ready for the next step while in SC nothing is right even in basics and next step will be maybe in a year..

 

[Azamo]

Backed SC first and I have now backed ED with the standard beta and expansion pass. I want both games to be good and be around for a long time.

SC is still a long ways off... 2016 would not be a bad guess when it finally goes 1.0. I see ED going 1.0 in about 4-6 months.

I look at it this way. Having 2 spaces sims being made we have double the chance at least one of them will be good... I think both will be great games so I backed them both.