FAQ- Elite: Dangerous
Where can I pledge to Elite: Dangerous?
Can you release “Elite” on the (iPhone/iPad/Console/Mac/Linux/Oculus Rift/Raspberry Pi) platform?Yes. It would be great. The PC version comes first though, and then we will look at the demand for other platforms. If the game exceeds its target, then there will be scope to increase the number of platforms. We will discuss with the backers in the design discussion forum, and how to address the issues that will arise, but I have every hope that we will cover some or all of these platforms.
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Will you have Newtonian physics in the game?Yes. The degree of the fly-by-wire to override the feeling of skidding is something we will carefully tune.
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Will I be able to speed up time?No, not in the sense that “Frontier” allowed you to travel huge distances in a short period of time. Instead we plan to use ‘local hyperspace’ travel. This is because time has to stay locked between the players (otherwise multiplayer doesn’t work).
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Will space be blue?
No, it will be black, with a rich, realistic-looking star field and other background objects. The reason I had the background blue in “Frontier” was so that the planets could be seen as dark against a brighter background – but on some people’s screens it looked awful. It was supposed to reflect the rich mass of background stars.
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The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.
The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.
Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).
Does the £750 tier include a +1 to the UK launch party?Yes it does!
How will the Star System named after me work? Will there therefore be five star systems with the same name?For those who get to name star systems or space stations, the name will be your choice, within reason. It does not have to be precisely your name – it could be your nickname or something else (within reason). So if your name were John Smith, it could be Smithworld, John Smith, Smithy’s Station, JS Station, and so on. Some have asked if it could be named after a relative who is no longer with us. All these things are possible. It should be something that isn’t offensive, or legally we cannot use without permission, or has some other problem (so if your name is Coca Cola, then maybe you might want to use your nickname!). If you are naming multiple systems, then we ask that you choose a different variant – so they are not identical. For the star systems there will be scope for a sentence, appearing on the system information in the game – for example “This system was first discovered by the famous explorer John Smith, who came from Paris, Texas, Earth”. This sentence should be no more than about twenty or so words, and should fit the character of the game, and will be agreed with you. If we cannot agree then a standard sentence (like the one given here) will be used.
Will the game br DRM-free?Yes, the game code will not include DRM (Digital Rights Management), but there will be server authentication when you connect for multiplayer and/or updates and to synchronise with the server.
Speed of CommunicationPlayers will be able to communicate directly with each other. This has to be done instantaneously, otherwise we think it would be very frustrating. Space is truly huge, so an inter-system distance would mean delays of several years or more if we were being realistic!
How does multiplayer work?You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) some of the other ships you meet as you travel around are real players as opposed to computer-controlled ships. It may be a friend you have agreed to rendezvous with here, or it may be another real player you have encountered by chance. All players will be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – so you will be able to tell who is a player and who is a non-player easily.
You will be able to save your position in certain key places (probably just in space stations, but possibly while in hyperspace too, if we feel it is needed). A save-and-quit option will be freely available at those points, as will the subsequent reload, but there will be a game cost for a reload following player death. Your ship will still be intact in the condition it was when the save occurred, but there will be a game currency charge (referred to as an insurance policy) for this. This is to prevent the obvious exploit of friends cooperating and killing each other to get each other’s cargo. If you can’t pay, then it will accumulate as an in-game debt, and the police may chase you!
There are no multiplayer lobbies, and the game will be played across many servers, augmented by peer-to-peer traffic for fast responses. Session creation and destruction happens during the long-range hyperspace countdown and hyperspace effect (which is a few seconds only), so is transparent to the player.
We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will, though it will be possible to be banned from groups due to antisocial behaviour, and you will only meet others in that group.
How do we plan to address PvP (player vs player) “griefing”?An obvious danger is an advanced player with a big well-armed ship in a busy system spends their time just picking off beginners, for fun.
To understand how this will be stopped requires a little bit of understanding how real player ships will be treated slightly differently to non-player ships. Players will automatically be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” and will be identified as such, together with their ranking and name. Bounties are paid by this Federation – something that is therefore much higher for those that kill other Federation members. It will be balanced so that this cannot be used as an exploit (so a beginner killing a beginner is taken less seriously than an Elite pilot killing a beginner – it will be based on the ranking difference).
There are four separate ways we will address this:
1. The offender will very quickly get a serious price on their head (bounty) and criminal record. That price on their head will attract bounty hunters.
2. Local police or military will respond very quickly and strongly to them.
3. It will be legitimate for other players to attack them for the attractive bounty without attracting a bounty for themselves, as once there is a bounty on their head they are officially a pirate and ‘free game’ for everyone.
4. If enough players complain about the offender's behaviour in a certain time, then they will be banned from this group
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