Newcomer / Intro How did you guys learn Elite Dangerous?

bookmite

bookmite
Evil_Merlin said:
I was part of the Kickstarter.

I tend to split my time between Elite:Dangerous, Star Citizen (regardless what that idiotic thread on this very forum says), and my standard flight sims (IL2, Rise of Flight etc). So flying for me is natural (I'm a pilot in real life).


I tend to take the control scheme for my Thrustmaster HOTAS (Warthog) with my Saitek Combat Pro pedals (no longer made boooohissss), and use them across all platforms.



And then for a few weeks, I just kept flying my Sidewinder until I didn't feel like I was doing poorly.
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Our eldest is a commercial airline pilot...he calls me a saddo ��...he flys the A320 and loves it too
 

Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
bookmite said:
Our eldest is a commercial airline pilot...he calls me a saddo ��...he flys the A320 and loves it too
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I WISH I was an airline pilot.

Instead I get to work with Novice military pilots...

Lemme just say the number of times per week I almost sh1+ myself is high...
 

energygap

energygap
I never did the training videos but then I'm the kind of guy who just gets stuck in, I also never read instruction manuals.

I also played the original in 1984 and there was no way I could have ever used a keyboard as I did back then, I tried and failed. So I used my Xbox controller for a while, then got myself a ThrustMaster stick, which totally transformed the game and made it a lot easier to fly and made the game more immersive (for me at least). I still use the Xbox controller for my SRV.

Also, as others have said, set your key bindings/controls to what suits you, that'll also make whatever you're flying easier to control.

Perseverance, just keep at it and yes, as mentioned, it does have a huge learning curve. But once you get the hang of it, you'll probably become as addicted to this game as the rest of us. Enjoy.
 

Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
energygap said:
I never did the training videos but then I'm the kind of guy who just gets stuck in, I also never read instruction manuals.

I also played the original in 1984 and there was no way I could have ever used a keyboard as I did back then, I tried and failed. So I used my Xbox controller for a while, then got myself a ThrustMaster stick, which totally transformed the game and made it a lot easier to fly and made the game more immersive (for me at least). I still use the Xbox controller for my SRV.

Also, as others have said, set your key bindings/controls to what suits you, that'll also make whatever you're flying easier to control.

Perseverance, just keep at it and yes, as mentioned, it does have a huge learning curve. But once you get the hang of it, you'll probably become as addicted to this game as the rest of us. Enjoy.
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Well said.

HOTAS (a good one), and keep at it (Perseverance).

Once you get the "hang" of it, its actually a rather simple game (unless you do SRV sonar stuff but even that can be learned).

Be prepared for some tedium and bore, but its OK. Last night when I first upgraded (mistakenly) to a FDS, I didn't have enough space bucks to cover insurance, so I ran missions. Every single time I was interdicted, I was literally sweating knowing I was reset to Zero if I died.

Luckily I can out pilot the NPC's unless they are wicked weapon engineered, and managed to get to a safe place, sell the FDS (for a 15% profit mind you), and go to my trusty Viper mk. IV.
 

Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
the100thmonkey said:
NPCs don't have engineered weapons. Ever.
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News to me. I've literally been blasted out of the air with TWO hits of something from an NPC in a Imperial Clipper.

I was in my Vulture (5A shields, hull reinforcements), and literally two hits later, my ship was toast.

Gone.

Dust.


This happened just last night. Came out of FSD in 86 Hercules, pips even across the board. Was fuel scooping, and "I'm coming for all that tasty cargo" pops up.

I throttle down, not like I'm worried about much in my Vulture. Target the Clipper. See his wanted tag, open my weapons bay.

BANG BANG. And I'm dead.

That quickly.

I did get a warning about disruption, I think... but by then it was too late.

I was dust.

It was NOT a Commander. It was an NPC.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Evil_Merlin said:
News to me. I've literally been blasted out of the air with TWO hits of something from an NPC in a Imperial Clipper.

I was in my Vulture (5A shields, hull reinforcements), and literally two hits later, my ship was toast.

Gone.

Dust.


This happened just last night. Came out of FSD in 86 Hercules, pips even across the board. Was fuel scooping, and "I'm coming for all that tasty cargo" pops up.

I throttle down, not like I'm worried about much in my Vulture. Target the Clipper. See his wanted tag, open my weapons bay.

BANG BANG. And I'm dead.

That quickly.

I did get a warning about disruption, I think... but by then it was too late.

I was dust.

It was NOT a Commander. It was an NPC.
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Rail-Clipper does approximately 200MJ damage per shot. With PAs even more. And yours look like PAs. (And yes, they can hit with four plasmas at once. Nobody said they weren't cheating, but they don't have engineered weapons. That's confirmed)

It pays off to check their weapons and loadout before engaging. For example when I'm bounty hunting in my Courier, I have to avoid pirates with railguns. (Especially Asps, because they have six of those bloody things) I am simply one-shot for them and although my Courier can go well over 600m/s, she can't outrun a rail gun slug. :D
 
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Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
Chris Simon said:
Rail-Clipper does approximately 200MJ damage per shot. With PAs even more. And yours look like PAs. (And yes, they can hit with four plasmas at once. Nobody said they weren't cheating, but they don't have engineered weapons. That's confirmed)

It pays off to check their weapons and loadout before engaging. For example when I'm bounty hunting in my Courier, I have to avoid pirates with railguns. (Especially Asps, because they have six of those bloody things) I am simply one-shot for them and although my Courier can go well over 600m/s, she can't outrun a rail gun slug. :D
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Thanks Chris.

Never ran into a ship like that before. Well when Engineers first dropped and we had the crazy modifications going on it was a factor, but never been beaten that silly by anything before.

That was thru 5A with two C sized boosters too!
 

CmdrJacks

CmdrJacks
I knew most of it from the older games but there is some new stuff which took me a while to learn like the "report crimes" option. The obvious stuff, like supercruise, got picked up pretty quickly.
 

evert67

E
Evil_Merlin said:
I was part of the Kickstarter.

I tend to split my time between Elite:Dangerous, Star Citizen (regardless what that idiotic thread on this very forum says) [...]
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I was thinking about that, too. With Star Citizen I could play it from an alpha version. How would you say it compares to ED?
 

Evil_Merlin

Evil_Merlin
evert67 said:
I was thinking about that, too. With Star Citizen I could play it from an alpha version. How would you say it compares to ED?
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Without going too far off topic, and because there are a LOT of very touchy folks here about Star Citizen.

I enjoy them both. Elite is more of a drop in and run a few missions. Its a decent game.

Star Citizen is something every time I log into it, I find something incredibly new and interesting. Usually a ship model, or getting into a gun fight because someone wants my ship.

Two different flavours of game in the space sim world.

Elite is current "done". Star Citizen, far from it.

But overall Star Citizen is much more reaching than Elite currently is. Elite has FAR more to explore, but Star Citizen packs in (even currently in its early Alpha) far far more detail in those small areas it does have than Elite does.

The open ended game play of Elite does not inspire me. Its seriously all grind. To get a promotion in the Fed Navy or such. To get that next level in Exploration, trade or combat. Its FINE, its mostly fun, but its still a grind.

I don't much worry about that in Star Citizen, and if it keeps going the way it does currently, I never will because I can just do exactly what I want, when I want, and the level of detail in game is just mind blowing.
 

bookmite

bookmite
I've never thought to check out the npc's load out ...I usually just check their ranking. I've seen mostly harmless in vultures and elites in sidewinders, adders etc. ..I was interdicted by the same mostly harmless npc 3 times yesterday in the same 2000 ls sc...the first two times he ran ..you'd think he would learn but no...I'm almost at the Mm distance and he comes a third time, this time I ripped his shields very quickly and finished him off.

I had just had a mission failure for a boom time delivery of 40 tons of gold, which was still sat in my invent ..I certainly wasn't going to just hand it over...I made less credits than I would have, but it sold for 204k on the black market.

Personally I think the npc AI is a wonderful funny thing, I used to be paranoid about getting interdictions, I soon learned they're integral to the fun and danger . If you are alert and quick on the select highest threat button, you still have enough time to decide whether to stay and fight.....unless of course it's whilst you're fuel scooping and near a star...that's just scary...and evil :)

As for Star Citizen, I'm also a backer, but got frustrated. Yes it is graphically superior, but it's a 30gb game...I don't particularly enjoy pvp , but that's where all the focus went with star marine etc . I got fed up of being ganked, I got fed up of the not being able to play it because of the glitches, disconnects etc. The updates were driving me bonkers.

It does have potential to become a fantastic game, if they can deliver what is promised in V3, but I felt they put too much time and resources into promotional blow their own trumpet weekly updates rather than resources to fix the current version.yes I know it's alpha , but until they implement consequences into the game, there's little to stop gankers. The level of personal investment by backers is either inspiring or insane, some have put literally 1000's of real money into it..I'm into it for over £100 ..but I do get the final version and bonus's when 3 is released ..
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
I'm subscribed to the SC update emails.

No, I'm not going to spend $1,000 on a ship pack. Thanks for asking.

I hope it comes together - it certainly looks the part, and of course the Star Citizen universe needs more communism, but like this game, I'm only going to drop cash on it when it gets an official 1.0 production release.
 

Hexcaliber

Hexcaliber
I too had played the original, the subsequent games too, so had a vague idea; I remapped the keys I thought the most important on my hotas and jumped right in.

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Evil_Merlin said:
Elite is current "done". Star Citizen, far from it.
.
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You could not be more wrong, Elite is far from done.

Frontier decided to get a base game out of the door instead of trying to launch feature complete, a base game that would be added to over several years until they reached the game they had planned from the start. Had they taken the same route as SC, they would likely be in the same boat, still under development and taking similar levels of flak from folks who know no better complaining it is all taking too long.

I direct you to https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36. You may want to take a gander at what has been planned for ED from day one.
 
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Para Handy

Para Handy
Chris Simon said:
Hmm, interesting.

But it's only top rank NPCs, anyway, so I don't think that would be Merlin's case.
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I don't know though. Only ranks below master will never have engineered mods whereas deadly and elite will ALWAYS have a mod. (Though I can't find that reference at the moment and my Planet Coaster time is coming up. ;) )
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
MalcYorks said:
I don't know though. Only ranks below master will never have engineered mods whereas deadly and elite will ALWAYS have a mod. (Though I can't find that reference at the moment and my Planet Coaster time is coming up. ;) )
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Is it confirmed that Deadlies and Elites ALWAYS have weapons mods, though? I think that they always have SOME mods, but not necessarily weapons.
 
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