Should I be able to play Elite Dangerous without nine spreadsheets?

Macros Black

Macros Black
Don't use spreadsheets; however...

I use other tools to keep valuable data around. Never done that for a game before. ED could make good use of a PA, for instance managing Materials & Data is not on my top 10 things to do in ED list.
 

Susanna

Susanna
Elyssaen said:
Hold on... how is this a bad thing? I love Elite, it's a great excuse to make a nice spreadsheet or ten.

(I seem to make them for every game I play, though...)
Click to expand...

Ummm.... I seem to have that same 'bug'. Not to the extent of the OP though... I use INARA et al for much of what I want to keep track of. Ship modules are another thing, but they get moved around too much to be readily worth logging properly in a spread sheet...

I'm impressed though! The OP is clearly someone for who 'Order is King'!
 

verminstar

Banned
verminstar
Mole HD said:
It never ceases to amaze me how many folks can manage somehow to turn ED into a work related illness [yesnod]
Click to expand...

Is it really just me that cant be bothered with out of game resources? Surely its not that difficult an idea to grasp...play games to get away from work, then recreate work within, or rather without the game. That's really not logical in my mind...I fail utterly to understand why. I mean this is a concept we were using two decades ago because games were much more simplified back then...I thought gaming had grown up in 2017, but apparently not with ED ^
 

ShimEnki

ShimEnki
CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost said:
I think you just revealed your obsession with spreadsheets. Nothing wrong with that, everybody has some strange hobby.

I'm quite confident that nobody needs spreadsheets to play the game. They might make it easier for some players who enjoy using spreadsheets (and probably have spreadsheets for almost everything in their lives).

Disclaimer:
I occasionally use a extremely simple spreadsheet to monitor the influence of factions in systems (no calculations involved).
I occasionally write down things I want to remember on tiny bits of paper.
Click to expand...

Ditto to the very letter on this
 

Charlie Hustle

C
wow.. the only external assistance i use is ED Tradepad, just got tired of trying to find certain modules at stations. but im only 3 months in tho..
 

Red Anders

Red Anders
Nerwan said:
Did anyone ever play Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master back in the 80s? I still fondly remember drawing out all the maps as I played in graph paper that I stole from school! :) Those were the days.
Click to expand...

I not only did that, I did it for Eye of the Beholder and the sequel Legend of Darkmoon :D Great games, the second one in particular.
 

Nerwan

Nerwan
Red Anders said:
I not only did that, I did it for Eye of the Beholder and the sequel Legend of Darkmoon :D Great games, the second one in particular.
Click to expand...

Yes, the second one was awesome. I actually played it again a few years ago in DosBox :)

More recently I really enjoyed the Legends of Grimrock games, just like Eye of the Beholder, wonderful puzzles, with more modern graphics.
 

CMDR Adelind

C
As wonderful as my memories of pulling out pen and paper out for games are (Sticky Bear Bop looking at you), they're not necessary for Elite. I find the messages in the comms panel are enough of a history that I don't forget.
 

ThomasWJames

ThomasWJames
As an XBox One explorer, INARA and spreadsheets are my best friend. Because we can't download our Navlog and upload them to EDDB and other awesome sites, we're stuck writing everything old school :)

It sucks, it really does as exploration takes longer since I have to take a few minutes to write my trip log and discoveries down. I wish the game had an in-game journal for XBox One, even if it required using an outside USB drive to save that data, I'd love it.
 
Last edited:

mp4x

mp4x
CMDR Adelind said:
As wonderful as my memories of pulling out pen and paper out for games are (Sticky Bear Bop looking at you), they're not necessary for Elite. I find the messages in the comms panel are enough of a history that I don't forget.
Click to expand...

Drawing your map on a piece of paper as you type "Walk north, walk east, walk..." hah. Later doing the same when games grew into better graphics, but no mapping yet. Writing the riddles and symbols down of puzzles so you can refer back to them at a later point in the game. Good times :)

As you said, it's not needed. Myself, and the handful of players I know irl started playing and continued to without any web tools. (Not intentionally, it just didn't come up.) I only found out about them by accident when I got into VR and searched for info, September last year. I don't think it's meant to be a "now, now, now!" game.
 
Last edited:

Thetele

T
verminstar said:
Is it really just me that cant be bothered with out of game resources? Surely its not that difficult an idea to grasp...play games to get away from work, then recreate work within, or rather without the game. That's really not logical in my mind...I fail utterly to understand why. I mean this is a concept we were using two decades ago because games were much more simplified back then...I thought gaming had grown up in 2017, but apparently not with ED ^
Click to expand...

People want to be efficient, have easy access to information and stuff that they have collected, or what they need to craft something. If the game doesn't provide tools to track your progress, assets you have, or what you can do with those assets people will use excel. Hell i use excel in elite to know what blueprints I can craft, how many synthesis rolls i have which ship have witch modules etc. The game doesn't provide these in formations because bad ui design. The information is clearly there, but it isn't provided to player in one place that is easy to access. I could spent long time looking through my ships to find the mod i want to move to ship i plan to use as the game doesn't tell were my mods are.
 

CMDR-AD

CMDR-AD
I don't keep that much track of things in Elite. The most I've done is keep some notes on a legal pad for things like exploring out past Beagle Point, where each jump had been made with a certain FSD boost, and I needed to have that much boost materials on hand to have any hope of return. Or maybe a few notes on things like the ruins site while I was out there.

For the most part, I play Elite to relax so I keep it light. It's great that Elite works so well for either play style.
 

GraXXoR

GraXXoR
Nerwan said:
Did anyone ever play Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master back in the 80s? I still fondly remember drawing out all the maps as I played in graph paper that I stole from school! :) Those were the days.
Click to expand...

Dungeons and Dragons (Dragonlance) games were incredible... Yes. I used to draw out the maps as I went along... LOL... I used to have a lot of free time.
 

Don Alvarez

Don Alvarez
Nerwan said:
Did anyone ever play Eye of the Beholder or Dungeon Master back in the 80s? I still fondly remember drawing out all the maps as I played in graph paper that I stole from school! :) Those were the days.
Click to expand...

I stole graph paper from school so I could map out all the levels in the Bard's Tale.

Edit: nothing funnier than when Office Chair Warriors try to tell the game designers how to go about designing games.
 
Last edited:

Cmdr Travers

Cmdr Travers
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom