The Future of Elite

[CMDR JEXRAX]

Good Morning Commanders and o7,

This being my first post in the Forums so please don't go to hard on me i would just like to express some suggestions as to how i think Elite could be better for everyone. so here goes.

i have been playing Elite for 6 years now and i have noticed that compared to other Space Sim Games there lacks that Wow Factor moment, we briefly got that with Odyssey in first footfalls but other than that the biggest thing you had to look forward too was getting an Elite rank in something.

i think this is where Elite can take strides to become a better game and better company. listening to ideas, meaningful change in order to progress in a galaxy with infinite possibilities.

1. More ships. Ships are the lifeblood of this amazing game, i think there should be a minimum of 5 devs every 2-3 years putting out a minimum of 5 ships in a 3 year rotation. older ships could be taken out of purchase so people don't lose the ships they have and replaced with new and improved ships. there needs to be effort put into the peripheral assets of the game in order to keep public interest.

2. ship interiors. this has been a widely talked about subject so ill leave this one alone.

3. better engineering. There is no single reason why 60% of engineering materials couldn't be bought on the commodity market in any industrial or manufacturing system. Iron and carbon.....really? you are telling me that you cant literally buy those? there is no reason why the first 2 initial materials for engineering modifications for the first 2 grades couldn't be bought with credits.
SRV Engineering needs to be a PRIORITY! you are going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that no person in the entire galaxy hasn't tinkered with their SRV in order to say...hook a trailer up for more cargo capacity or tinkered with their SRVs power distributor in order to maximize output... there is not a person in the galaxy that overcharged their pulse cannons in order to maximize damage output? this is one of the major core things that need looked at where engineering is concerned.

4. player made space ports. players should have the ability to work together to bring their fleet carriers full of materials to aid in building space ports in remote sections of the galaxy outside the bubble. is the materials going to be hard to come by? not any more than the current engineering materials you have to farm. will it take time? absolutely. i figured the math involved. if you bring the materials required to build the sections in a timely manner you could easily have a space port built in 8 weeks or server restarts every Thursday.

5. more alien races that aren't hostile to humanity. you will never convince me that in 400 billion star systems that there is only humanity and the Thargoids. looking at it from a science prospective that is statistically impossible. yes you can argue that the guardians are in the game but they really aren't. only remnants of their civilization are. you can grab some stuff to tech outfit your ship but there isn't really anything else to to do but steal their tech and then move to the next site.

6. Galactic Powers. there needs to be elections held for each the federation and alliance as well as each independent that is on the galactic powers list, new characters need introduced as leaders, having the same people with the same perks and the same equipment is boring, this is why a lot of the people who play elite are faction less. the people we get to choose to follow or work with have been in the game for a long time and none of these powers have made that much of a difference to better humanity. there needs to be a giant overhaul.

7. Ranks. these need to be feared, there is no reason that a competent NPC pilot should ever interdict a player that has an Elite rank in combat. this goes with synergy. now if in Elite in say trade then interdiction's should probably be increased since i had to do a lot of calculation and time spent evading people with all of my precious cargo, those who have Elite in trade would be higher targets than those just starting out.

8. Finally my favorite topic. Player made and built planetary stations. with the addition of planetary bases the assets are already in the game to let players be able to build the utopia they envision for the galaxy. put 4 build mark areas on planets that you can land and gain first foot fall. allow players to expand the bubble how humanity did in the beginning. allow us to trade with other systems and reap some rewards along the way, you could even make systems like managing a fleet carrier, hold elections, invite minor factions to your system.

i want everyone to to remember that when Odyssey came out the slogan was "Disembark Commander, Leave your mark on the Galaxy" and right now we aren't leaving a mark at all. thank you for taking the time to read this, these are just some of the changes i would like to see in the game.

 

[Flagioz07]

I'm agree to new stuff everytime, but now I think the priority to improve the game is works on better restyled UI/UX to manage and understand more stuff as possible inside the game that now requires hundreds of external tools generating only confusion to new players (since 2015 I've seen lot of frinds/player left the game due to totally incomprensible mechanics, and I hunderstand them) and frustation to player with little time to play. And improve Odyssey and Horizon to works togheter (I mean stuff like simple target sync between SRV and Suit for example)
FDev's is already too busy at create new contents, narrative and liveries intead fix simple core stuff like antialiassing or broken menu. This is bad in my opinion. They have to leave for a while every new content and works again on some game core stuff and mechanics that everyone know doesn't works.

Now there's already a infinite way to play this game, new stuff it's not so important if the game core then doesn't work well and players can't grow due to nightmare mechanics that requires to spend hours to find tricks and glitches anytime to go ahead.

Anyway, i like your suggestions

 

[Exeider]

I would like to see an improvement to the game's narrative and how it actually tells a story. What I would like to see is perhaps story missions that are organized into a series of "strands", much like in how GTA will put a series of narratively related missions together and give you a story within the main context of the game, that is a smaller narrative from start to finish of 8-10 missions.I would like to see these missions voice acted, perhaps have some use of animated "talking heads" in comm windows, or even fully fledged cinematic in certain places. So doing each story arc would be a complete story but could leave threads to be addressed in later strands. as Fdev adds new strands, it starts to form a complete narrative and essentially a full campaign. But they could do it piece by piece.

One of the things in particular is faction specific mission strands or even campaigns. It would be cool if when you create your Cmdr, you could designate what "Citizenship" they have, Fed, Empire, Alliance, Independent, Pirate/Anarchy. And you'd have a themed story based on those respective factions. Fed could be "You're a brash rookie pilot for the federal navy", empire "A rebellious imperial bucking the social ladder in favor of adventure." or "Alliance pilot finally makes good with rumors of a big mystery and bigger payday." Granted you wouldn't actually be pigeon holed into anything, it just would be an interesting story as a starting off point, that when it ends would be like "And now the limitless potential for anything await." because people change and grow, no one in game is what they started out as, and I just feel it would be neat to have a story that would reflect that. Plus it would give you sense of ownership of what Superpower you belonged to.

I've often seen people in these forums say how they are a Fed or Imperial or even Alliance citizens and I'd like to see that reflected in game somewhat, maybe even with some perks associated with it. Like citizens of a certain superpower get the permit for the home system on creation, while you still have to earn the other two normally.

Think like powerplay but more story and narritive driven, not so much the expected chores you have to do in PP.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

7. Ranks. these need to be feared, there is no reason that a competent NPC pilot should ever interdict a player that has an Elite rank in combat. this goes with synergy. now if in Elite in say trade then interdiction's should probably be increased since i had to do a lot of calculation and time spent evading people with all of my precious cargo, those who have Elite in trade would be higher targets than those just starting out.

This is already the case to a limited extent - the rank of some of the enemies you get is determined by your rank (it used to be combat, or highest non-combat minus 1, whichever is higher - but that may have changed slightly) - but not of all of them: some are dependent on mission difficulty, others on the local environment. I certainly very rarely get interdicted by anyone less than Dangerous nowadays, and they're mostly Elite.

Of course, now it's pretty quick to get to trade Elite (which gets you Deadly enemies) and then see no change at all until you get to combat Elite as well.

More variety in enemies might help - I can take on a single Elite NPC of pretty much any type without trouble in my day-to-day ship, but three Expert-level ones in decent medium ships is much more of a concern as they've got the same hit points as the Elite Anaconda (between them) but considerably more firepower and it's harder to dodge all three at once. But being interdicted by a wing rather than a single ship is very rare in most cases.

 

[AEBRAM]

I like the OP direction of their ideas. Some of them are unfeasible and would not add long-term appeal.

I agree with #1 about more ships. The thing about ships is not whether they replace an existing ship. New ship models are similar to the cosmetic appearance of your CMDR except on an external basis e.g. I purchased this ship for the aesthetics "look" of the ship. In a pragmatic world, the ship size, internal modules and convergence of hardpoints often decide whether to purchase, engineer and fly the ship. When you begin introducing more ships with an appealing aesthetics appearance than you feed into the fantasy players have with their CMDR in the Sci-Fi. Alternatively, the ship kits could be expanded upon with more mix-match options to completely remap how their ship looks too.

Suggestion #4 would be awesome albeit costing a uber number of credits and farming commodities similar to CGs. I had this conversation with a buddy that FDev should implement the option for Squadrons to purchase an asteroid space station and limit the docking location to asteroid fields e.g. I am not meaning the asteroid belts around planets but the free floating planetary asteroid field in space. So, the placement is limited but unlimited, in which this could lead players to propagating a colonized area of the black or establishing remote outposts for exploration. You could also ally the asteroid base to either the Federation, Empire or Alliance to expand and offer sell of those ships at the shipyard. My discussion with my buddy was about expanding the gameplay of squadrons and coordinated efforts between players that want to invest in the development of the "civilized" colonies of Humanity.

As for suggestion #8. This would be similar to suggestion #4. You could place #4 as the prerequisite to unlocking #8. Both of these endeavors would be very costly to maintain, and you would have to consider squadron taxation to maintain the assets. Should the squadron default on the Upkeep then how would you handle the situation? Would the asset be converted to NPC status and unable to be regained by the squadron of players?

 

[Kalvak]

Good Morning Commanders and o7,

This being my first post in the Forums so please don't go to hard on me i would just like to express some suggestions as to how i think Elite could be better for everyone. so here goes.

i have been playing Elite for 6 years now and i have noticed that compared to other Space Sim Games there lacks that Wow Factor moment, we briefly got that with Odyssey in first footfalls but other than that the biggest thing you had to look forward too was getting an Elite rank in something.

i think this is where Elite can take strides to become a better game and better company. listening to ideas, meaningful change in order to progress in a galaxy with infinite possibilities.

1. More ships. Ships are the lifeblood of this amazing game, i think there should be a minimum of 5 devs every 2-3 years putting out a minimum of 5 ships in a 3 year rotation. older ships could be taken out of purchase so people don't lose the ships they have and replaced with new and improved ships. there needs to be effort put into the peripheral assets of the game in order to keep public interest.

2. ship interiors. this has been a widely talked about subject so ill leave this one alone.

3. better engineering. There is no single reason why 60% of engineering materials couldn't be bought on the commodity market in any industrial or manufacturing system. Iron and carbon.....really? you are telling me that you cant literally buy those? there is no reason why the first 2 initial materials for engineering modifications for the first 2 grades couldn't be bought with credits.
SRV Engineering needs to be a PRIORITY! you are going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that no person in the entire galaxy hasn't tinkered with their SRV in order to say...hook a trailer up for more cargo capacity or tinkered with their SRVs power distributor in order to maximize output... there is not a person in the galaxy that overcharged their pulse cannons in order to maximize damage output? this is one of the major core things that need looked at where engineering is concerned.

4. player made space ports. players should have the ability to work together to bring their fleet carriers full of materials to aid in building space ports in remote sections of the galaxy outside the bubble. is the materials going to be hard to come by? not any more than the current engineering materials you have to farm. will it take time? absolutely. i figured the math involved. if you bring the materials required to build the sections in a timely manner you could easily have a space port built in 8 weeks or server restarts every Thursday.

5. more alien races that aren't hostile to humanity. you will never convince me that in 400 billion star systems that there is only humanity and the Thargoids. looking at it from a science prospective that is statistically impossible. yes you can argue that the guardians are in the game but they really aren't. only remnants of their civilization are. you can grab some stuff to tech outfit your ship but there isn't really anything else to to do but steal their tech and then move to the next site.

6. Galactic Powers. there needs to be elections held for each the federation and alliance as well as each independent that is on the galactic powers list, new characters need introduced as leaders, having the same people with the same perks and the same equipment is boring, this is why a lot of the people who play elite are faction less. the people we get to choose to follow or work with have been in the game for a long time and none of these powers have made that much of a difference to better humanity. there needs to be a giant overhaul.

7. Ranks. these need to be feared, there is no reason that a competent NPC pilot should ever interdict a player that has an Elite rank in combat. this goes with synergy. now if in Elite in say trade then interdiction's should probably be increased since i had to do a lot of calculation and time spent evading people with all of my precious cargo, those who have Elite in trade would be higher targets than those just starting out.

8. Finally my favorite topic. Player made and built planetary stations. with the addition of planetary bases the assets are already in the game to let players be able to build the utopia they envision for the galaxy. put 4 build mark areas on planets that you can land and gain first foot fall. allow players to expand the bubble how humanity did in the beginning. allow us to trade with other systems and reap some rewards along the way, you could even make systems like managing a fleet carrier, hold elections, invite minor factions to your system.

i want everyone to to remember that when Odyssey came out the slogan was "Disembark Commander, Leave your mark on the Galaxy" and right now we aren't leaving a mark at all. thank you for taking the time to read this, these are just some of the changes i would like to see in the game.

Agree on most, but not the "hunt every Elite Trader". Elite he's nothing to do with your current cargo. If someone successfully scans my cargo, then ok. But you can't just go ganking ppl bc they have Trade Elite

 

[CMDR JEXRAX]

I like the OP direction of their ideas. Some of them are unfeasible and would not add long-term appeal.

I agree with #1 about more ships. The thing about ships is not whether they replace an existing ship. New ship models are similar to the cosmetic appearance of your CMDR except on an external basis e.g. I purchased this ship for the aesthetics "look" of the ship. In a pragmatic world, the ship size, internal modules and convergence of hardpoints often decide whether to purchase, engineer and fly the ship. When you begin introducing more ships with an appealing aesthetics appearance than you feed into the fantasy players have with their CMDR in the Sci-Fi. Alternatively, the ship kits could be expanded upon with more mix-match options to completely remap how their ship looks too.

Suggestion #4 would be awesome albeit costing a uber number of credits and farming commodities similar to CGs. I had this conversation with a buddy that FDev should implement the option for Squadrons to purchase an asteroid space station and limit the docking location to asteroid fields e.g. I am not meaning the asteroid belts around planets but the free floating planetary asteroid field in space. So, the placement is limited but unlimited, in which this could lead players to propagating a colonized area of the black or establishing remote outposts for exploration. You could also ally the asteroid base to either the Federation, Empire or Alliance to expand and offer sell of those ships at the shipyard. My discussion with my buddy was about expanding the gameplay of squadrons and coordinated efforts between players that want to invest in the development of the "civilized" colonies of Humanity.

As for suggestion #8. This would be similar to suggestion #4. You could place #4 as the prerequisite to unlocking #8. Both of these endeavors would be very costly to maintain, and you would have to consider squadron taxation to maintain the assets. Should the squadron default on the Upkeep then how would you handle the situation? Would the asset be converted to NPC status and unable to be regained by the squadron of players?

Colonization added #4 and #8 now just waiting on the rest <3

 

[Hank]

Nice list.

#1 agreed. There is a lot of space between a T10 and a FC, with regard to dimensions. We need to start adding ships that have landing and storage for 2 or more ships currently in the game (including a large pad). Plus, there's huge opportunities for more ships in the small to large classes. Players will have to accept the older ships are going to be less desirable and obsolete than the new stuff.

#5 I've wondered why the Guardians have to be extinct. Somewhere on the far side of the galaxy there could be systems populated by the Guardian race that we haven't found (or in locked areas). The remains we see now locally, may only be an excursion they made that failed and was eradicated by another life form or unkown event. There's a whole lot of places where other intelligent critters could possibly occupy. If the game continues, I hope we see something different from humanoids.

#8 - appears to already in the works ... I've landed on a few player built stations and many construction stations. Those are wonderful additions. I have to land at new surface ports to get construction materials in some cases and those are added fun (i.e., CMM).

I'm waiting too.
GL HF