I have not read any reviews of ED that did not mention a lack of content. A mile wide and an inch deep is a common refrain used for this game. I love this game and my intention here is only to see what most people recognize as it's biggest flaw to be fixed.
In this infamous post, most players wanted some form of player owned stations. And now we have resources to be mined so you can make ammo.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=166180
I've been playing a game that just came out, Ascent the space game. It's
just been released and, just like ED at release, it has bugs and a lot of stuff that still needs to be refined.
The crazy thing I have noticed is each game's weakness is the other game's strength.
ED
ED is GORGEOUS. ED's dogfighting is very good. Exploration in ED is novel and unique but not lucrative. Station trading is the only lucrative profession. Mining with a scoop or limpets, for me, is frustratingly bad. Bounty hunting is fun but only lucrative with the right site and the right sites are hard to find. Smuggling is fun but usually ok money. Pirating with a scoop or limpets is frustratingly bad and most pirates have to supplement their income with something else.
Ascent
Ascent's graphics are good to mediocre. Dogfighting in ascent is frustratingly bad.
It has a player-run economy for all but the basic minerals, foods and ships.
Exploration in Ascent can be very lucrative(250 billion procedurally generated systems). When you get outside of the known systems you can find systems with high value asteroids or planets that would be good for colonies. And you can fly from space to any planet's surface to find the gravity, atmosphere composition and take soil samples for mineral content.
Mining in Ascent is so satisfying. Once you find asteroids that you want to mine you get within range of your mining laser and shoot the asteroid to a certain temperature (temp is depicted as color from orange to blue). At the optimal temperature you stop the laser, the asteroid vaporizes and you get the most amount of minerals possible for your mining level and age of the asteroid. If you stop the laser before the correct temp you get way less minerals and if you heat the asteroid too high it vaporizes and you get nothing.
When you find an asteroid field exploring, you bookmark the system and come back to mine when you want to (asteroids in a new system start small with small mineral content. Over 4 to 6 weeks they grow and get much more mineral content). Most people have quite a number of these fields they've bookmarked and they harvest them so that they always have old asteroids to mine.
While exploring, if you find a planet that suitable you can build colonies. They can be for minerals or agriculture/animal farms. These resources can be sold on the stock market to other players or used in your space stations. Morale of your colonists plays a role in productivity and they even hold elections to pick governors and whatnot. Entertainment, restaurants, universities and palaces can be built to improve morale.
You start early on with a deed to build a space station in the inner systems. You can build shipyards to build ships and modules. You can build different factories to produce things to sell or to use yourself. This is where you research stuff, like factories, colony buildings and whatnot. You also research improvements to colonies and factories. Then you can build space stations in the outer systems as well.
In the later game, you can have npc fleets of ships that can help you with colony/space station maintenance. You can smuggle as well but I have yet to try either of these.
All of the warp gates from one system to another are player built and if you need to go somewhere without a warpgate you use a hyperdrive that runs on hydrogen. Hydrogen can be scooped from gas giant planets or bought from the stock market. ED's scooping mechanic is vastly superior.
Combat missions so far have been underwhelming but I think it's obvious the devs have focused on the economy and industry.
The dev team for Ascent is 3 people. Which is pretty crazy. Again the game has lots of bugs still and is rough around the edges. It's all pve so far, although there is talk of pvp being added later on. I have no idea what form the pvp will they have in mind.
I, personally would love it if Frontier bought ascent and worked it's content into ED. That would be amazing. Solo players could still buy from the player stock market.
More realistically, I just want to start a discussion on fixing the content hole in ED. I've read about the engineers and that does not seem like much. If ED could incorporate the good from games like Ascent, I think it would be amazing. People would be like, "woah!!! ED has too much content now! I'm drowning in all the content!"
In this infamous post, most players wanted some form of player owned stations. And now we have resources to be mined so you can make ammo.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=166180
I've been playing a game that just came out, Ascent the space game. It's
just been released and, just like ED at release, it has bugs and a lot of stuff that still needs to be refined.
The crazy thing I have noticed is each game's weakness is the other game's strength.
ED
ED is GORGEOUS. ED's dogfighting is very good. Exploration in ED is novel and unique but not lucrative. Station trading is the only lucrative profession. Mining with a scoop or limpets, for me, is frustratingly bad. Bounty hunting is fun but only lucrative with the right site and the right sites are hard to find. Smuggling is fun but usually ok money. Pirating with a scoop or limpets is frustratingly bad and most pirates have to supplement their income with something else.
Ascent
Ascent's graphics are good to mediocre. Dogfighting in ascent is frustratingly bad.
It has a player-run economy for all but the basic minerals, foods and ships.
Exploration in Ascent can be very lucrative(250 billion procedurally generated systems). When you get outside of the known systems you can find systems with high value asteroids or planets that would be good for colonies. And you can fly from space to any planet's surface to find the gravity, atmosphere composition and take soil samples for mineral content.
Mining in Ascent is so satisfying. Once you find asteroids that you want to mine you get within range of your mining laser and shoot the asteroid to a certain temperature (temp is depicted as color from orange to blue). At the optimal temperature you stop the laser, the asteroid vaporizes and you get the most amount of minerals possible for your mining level and age of the asteroid. If you stop the laser before the correct temp you get way less minerals and if you heat the asteroid too high it vaporizes and you get nothing.
When you find an asteroid field exploring, you bookmark the system and come back to mine when you want to (asteroids in a new system start small with small mineral content. Over 4 to 6 weeks they grow and get much more mineral content). Most people have quite a number of these fields they've bookmarked and they harvest them so that they always have old asteroids to mine.
While exploring, if you find a planet that suitable you can build colonies. They can be for minerals or agriculture/animal farms. These resources can be sold on the stock market to other players or used in your space stations. Morale of your colonists plays a role in productivity and they even hold elections to pick governors and whatnot. Entertainment, restaurants, universities and palaces can be built to improve morale.
You start early on with a deed to build a space station in the inner systems. You can build shipyards to build ships and modules. You can build different factories to produce things to sell or to use yourself. This is where you research stuff, like factories, colony buildings and whatnot. You also research improvements to colonies and factories. Then you can build space stations in the outer systems as well.
In the later game, you can have npc fleets of ships that can help you with colony/space station maintenance. You can smuggle as well but I have yet to try either of these.
All of the warp gates from one system to another are player built and if you need to go somewhere without a warpgate you use a hyperdrive that runs on hydrogen. Hydrogen can be scooped from gas giant planets or bought from the stock market. ED's scooping mechanic is vastly superior.
Combat missions so far have been underwhelming but I think it's obvious the devs have focused on the economy and industry.
The dev team for Ascent is 3 people. Which is pretty crazy. Again the game has lots of bugs still and is rough around the edges. It's all pve so far, although there is talk of pvp being added later on. I have no idea what form the pvp will they have in mind.
I, personally would love it if Frontier bought ascent and worked it's content into ED. That would be amazing. Solo players could still buy from the player stock market.
More realistically, I just want to start a discussion on fixing the content hole in ED. I've read about the engineers and that does not seem like much. If ED could incorporate the good from games like Ascent, I think it would be amazing. People would be like, "woah!!! ED has too much content now! I'm drowning in all the content!"
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