What are you doing in Elite?
- Thread starter Jethzk
- Start date
I'm currently pondering on what to do next.
I spent the first few months of playing just doing missions then passenger runs then mining just to build up my credit base and build a tiny fleet of ships.
I now have just over 263m credits and the following ships:-
Cobra MkIII (outfitted as a delivery ship)
Diamondback Exploror (outfitted as a 'misc' ship)
Asp Explorer (outfitted as a mining ship)
Python (outfitted as a mining ship)
Dophin (outfitted as a passenger ship)
Anaconda (outfitted as a passenger ship)
Having got all the ships I wanted I'm now left twiddling my thumbs and wondering what to do next. I have utterly ZERO interest in engineers and none of my ships are upgraded and never will be, I have no interest in powerplay and I do not do combat whatsoever.
So. I am left to consider my options and right now I might just head off on an exploration trip for a few months, although I've not yet fully decided on it.
I spent the first few months of playing just doing missions then passenger runs then mining just to build up my credit base and build a tiny fleet of ships.
I now have just over 263m credits and the following ships:-
Cobra MkIII (outfitted as a delivery ship)
Diamondback Exploror (outfitted as a 'misc' ship)
Asp Explorer (outfitted as a mining ship)
Python (outfitted as a mining ship)
Dophin (outfitted as a passenger ship)
Anaconda (outfitted as a passenger ship)
Having got all the ships I wanted I'm now left twiddling my thumbs and wondering what to do next. I have utterly ZERO interest in engineers and none of my ships are upgraded and never will be, I have no interest in powerplay and I do not do combat whatsoever.
So. I am left to consider my options and right now I might just head off on an exploration trip for a few months, although I've not yet fully decided on it.
Im still engineering, working to unlock the last couple of engineers right now.
I dont think Fdev will blow away your efforts in Engineering (at least i hope they dont, because ive got some nice ships which have taken ages to build). The changes to engineering arent going to happen for at least a year, so why not still use the feature?
Unlocking Engineers actually pushes you through a cross section of the games mechanics. So unlocking the engineers might help you find some direction in game.
Don't grind it'll kill all the joy.
Currently I'm playing taxi in Alliance space and making a fortune because I am Allied. 80 ly there and back for 2 million+ sound good?
Cheers o7
I've decided to take a break from engineering (I already have a fleet of fully engineered ships)...but 5 months is a long time to have NO engineered ships. It would probably be worthwhile to take a week and gather the materials to engineer a G5 laser anaconda or something, that'll let you rule PVE with an iron fist and have a good time until the update drops.
Here, try this Ethgrezian bud, it's a good pairing.
Hit what others said was the "MMO Wall" a few months ago so stopped playing, jumped back on with 2.4 fought some aliens with the Corvette. A few mates with very small play times started playing again so left the Corvette in Merope somewhere and went and bought the Cutter, did a lot murdering with the new players and enjoying it again.
Currently between playing with newbs I am unlocking the last few engineers that I will probably not use.
So Fujin tea......
Currently between playing with newbs I am unlocking the last few engineers that I will probably not use.
So Fujin tea......
You mean like exploring dangerous systems, killing wanted NPCs in anarchies and smuggling illegal rares?
+1 I wouldnt mind mercing for a player faction with a goal.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
![[VR] Frank_G](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/59/59394.jpg?1553527111){kind=avatar}
I love to explore new content, like to pick up missions and play them like missinos. This means, i do not stack them, prepare accordingly, like checking all available data, refit my ship if neccessary, plan a course and try to stay under the radar. I drop into USSs with silent running, trying to stay stealthy all the time. That keeps the fun factor high for me.
I read he local news, as they offer opportunities and adventure from time to time and hide real gems.
I play the game like i live in that world... Make a profit without getting into trouble. It is fun every time i log into the game.
I read he local news, as they offer opportunities and adventure from time to time and hide real gems.
I play the game like i live in that world... Make a profit without getting into trouble. It is fun every time i log into the game.
Respect.
I'm still playing and enjoying FFED3D, just for the spaceflight, not for any of the missions.
In the previous two versions of Elite, spaceflight itself is fun, so you get drawn into just flying around aimlessly, much like driving in GTA.
Practising crazy combat manoeuvres, or high-speed atmospheric re-entries, not just into rocky worlds but gas giants and brown dwarfs etc.
I occasionally take military missions to destroy or photograph enemy bases, just for the combat challenge.
Or diving into an anarchy system - the equivalent of visiting a "combat zone" in ED (or whatever they're called - never tried it), except it spans the entire system..
After a lifetime of playing every previous version of Elite to death, there's a traditional pattern of progression to the gameplay:
- First, learn to trade. Finding good deals, and how best to exploit them. This is fun, but you're aiming to build capital in order to move onto the next stage, kick- combat. Combat during this initial stage is an uphill struggle, but still fun, as you have save-games, so only lose out on unsaved progress.
- Next, start working through the various combat ship options and outfits, having lots of pew-pew fun. Maybe become a fugitive, or bounty hunter, or military grunt etc.
- Then you're ready for some kind of rank progression, unlocking better missions, and perhaps engaging in a story arc, with a sequence of connected missions.
FFE got this part wrong by tying story arc events to the calendar, forcing the player to engage in the story before they're ready, with now-or-never choices. Whereas, i'd fully explored all 8 galaxies in BBC Elite before i accepted the custom missions. FE2, while lacking custom missions, didn't force event timings on the player, allowing you to progress at your own pace.
During this stage of ranking up, in whatever respect it may be, the player begins to think about retirement options, and what they're gonna do when it's all over... such as exploration and mining.
- In the exploration and / or mining stage, you're a battle-hardened veteran with near-limitless resources, looking for the perfect ship or upgrades, or solving some ancient mystery such as searching for classic Elite's generation ships, space dredgers or the chance of triggering further hand-coded missions. You're looking for interesting astronomical phenomena, extreme challenges, exotica of any and all descriptions.
In FE2 you could search for, and find, distant remote outposts, enabling galaxy-wide exploration, plus an additional incentive to do so. Or you could search for the fabled black hole, which is definitely, totally there, somewhere, because DB said so. You could search for other outlier phenomena, such as contact binaries, close white dwarf binaries, or just really massive systems with say 60+ bodies, or objects in very tight orbits, such as a planet inside the corona of a red giant..
FFE has a slightly more impoverished end-game phase due to the limited bubble of human habitation, combined with the need for annual servicing. Both issues can be patched with a hack, though, and besides, FFED3D more than makes up for it with its improved strafe controls, allowing for even more combat and general flight fun.
And that's where i'm at with FFED3D right now. Just fightin' and surfin' the gravity fields. I've used the hack tool BUFFET to buff the AI loadouts for more challenge. Searching out cool places, and stupid stunts to perform there.
Elite: Dangerous strays from this traditional gameplay course because of its complete lack of basic flight experience - ie. of unrestricted speed in "normal space", with real inverse-of-radius gravity. If i'm not allowed to fire my ship's thrusters then i'm not meaningfully "piloting" it. Instead of being liberated by "my ship", i'm constrained. Instead of indulging my will, it's denying it.
I got as far as trading my way up to an Asp before realising that without free flight, none of the rest of the traditional Elite gameplay was ever going to arise. With such a pathetic speed limit for all ships, all basically handled identically - at a slow taxiing velocity - or else supercruise speeds, with nothing in-between. But it's precisely those missing speed ranges - slower than supercruise but much faster than a jet - where all the fun of the previous games occurs. Naturalistic combat encounters, and especially encounters with astronomical bodies, are utterly neutered by the enforced space speed limit, and various supercruise / planetary cruise transitions and limitations.
Even bypassing the anemic combat, and weird and neurotic mission systems to proceed directly to the 'end-game' of exploration, becomes a dull and tedious affair in ED - basically ticking off discoveries that are empty stats, like collecting baseball cards.. Whereas in the last two games especially, the fun was in interacting with novel, interesting systems, chiefly by flying around in their gravity fields.
This more basic underlying game simply isn't there in ED. It's the background context for all your motivations and actions in the game - you're the pilot of a spaceship in a free and open galaxy. The central, binding purpose of Elite. That whole premise is instantly and irreparably shattered the moment my thrusters cut out because i've reached the paltry speed of a few hundred meters / sec relative to some arbitrary nearby object... *poof* and the magic's gone. Rug royally ripped out from right under the whole raison d'etre.
If i do not have control over my own ship's thrusters, and cannot choose how, why and when they should be switched on or off, then This Is Not Elite! It's an interactive slideshow, tantalisingly unable to ever fulfill its promise.
I AM THE PILOT OF MY SHIP! I CHOOSE WHEN, WHERE AND WHY TO FIRE MY THRUSTERS. THAT IS THE SINGULAR, OVERARCHING CONCERN OF PILOTING A SPACESHIP. IT'S WHERE ALL THE FUN OF ELITE IS!
With the greatest of respect to all the intrepid ED explorers and Top Guns here, you've only ever experienced a fleeting taste of the fun you'd've had with unrestricted seamless flight and realistic gravity.
If we ever get spacelegs and atmospheres, or even biospheres, these will make for novel minigames for a while, a la No Man's Sky, but without the central binding premise of full piloting freedom, it will soon feel like yet another constrained, repetitive hand-holding exercise. The supercruise transitions for atmospheric re-entry will seem even more like cut-scenes, with more "critical attack angles" and scripted effects.
When you can plunge into any atmosphere at silly speeds and at any angle, under any combination of thrust and gravity, sweep across the surface and bring it screeching to a halt above a landing zone in one seamless unbroken sequence, or likewise wrench an overladen craft off a high-G world, gradually climbing free from milimiters to meters per second upwards, punching through the haze and building up speed to escape velocity.. all in the space of a few uninterrupted minutes... then Elite 4 will finally have arrived, and no player will ever have any excuse for boredom, or need any particular narrative incentive to play.
What we currently have is akin to GTA, except all the cars are stuck at either walking speed, or 'air brake mode' (basically warp speed). That would be more like "Postcards from GTA" though, because its central binding premise and core gameplay all arises from and is based around unrestricted motorhead madness, in that very speed range between walking speed and freeway speed..
So what i'm currently doing in ED is floating somewhere near Mercury, for around the last year, in a crummy lame- Eagle that simply dies three seconds after i open the throttles, interupting my planetary play with orbital cruise and glide mode transitions and critical attack angles. It cannot do anything i'd want to do in it, therefore there is thus no game to be had, nothing to be sought or won, no thrills or spills to test my piloting mettle.. no sense of the profundity and spectacle and grandeur, gravitas, or raw, visceral danger that comes with actually flying, through space, carrying real mechanical momentum, to those wondrous destinations and sights to behold. It's an eviscerated, emasculated shell of the previous games' legacy..
So i'll continue floating there until either we finally get basic ship control, or else the game dies, whichever comes first. Basically, the very second an actual Elite sesh is possible, i'll buy the onesie and retire. Til then, i'm getting my Elite kicks from a customised install of FFED3D..
In the previous two versions of Elite, spaceflight itself is fun, so you get drawn into just flying around aimlessly, much like driving in GTA.
Practising crazy combat manoeuvres, or high-speed atmospheric re-entries, not just into rocky worlds but gas giants and brown dwarfs etc.
I occasionally take military missions to destroy or photograph enemy bases, just for the combat challenge.
Or diving into an anarchy system - the equivalent of visiting a "combat zone" in ED (or whatever they're called - never tried it), except it spans the entire system..
After a lifetime of playing every previous version of Elite to death, there's a traditional pattern of progression to the gameplay:
- First, learn to trade. Finding good deals, and how best to exploit them. This is fun, but you're aiming to build capital in order to move onto the next stage, kick- combat. Combat during this initial stage is an uphill struggle, but still fun, as you have save-games, so only lose out on unsaved progress.
- Next, start working through the various combat ship options and outfits, having lots of pew-pew fun. Maybe become a fugitive, or bounty hunter, or military grunt etc.
- Then you're ready for some kind of rank progression, unlocking better missions, and perhaps engaging in a story arc, with a sequence of connected missions.
FFE got this part wrong by tying story arc events to the calendar, forcing the player to engage in the story before they're ready, with now-or-never choices. Whereas, i'd fully explored all 8 galaxies in BBC Elite before i accepted the custom missions. FE2, while lacking custom missions, didn't force event timings on the player, allowing you to progress at your own pace.
During this stage of ranking up, in whatever respect it may be, the player begins to think about retirement options, and what they're gonna do when it's all over... such as exploration and mining.
- In the exploration and / or mining stage, you're a battle-hardened veteran with near-limitless resources, looking for the perfect ship or upgrades, or solving some ancient mystery such as searching for classic Elite's generation ships, space dredgers or the chance of triggering further hand-coded missions. You're looking for interesting astronomical phenomena, extreme challenges, exotica of any and all descriptions.
In FE2 you could search for, and find, distant remote outposts, enabling galaxy-wide exploration, plus an additional incentive to do so. Or you could search for the fabled black hole, which is definitely, totally there, somewhere, because DB said so. You could search for other outlier phenomena, such as contact binaries, close white dwarf binaries, or just really massive systems with say 60+ bodies, or objects in very tight orbits, such as a planet inside the corona of a red giant..
FFE has a slightly more impoverished end-game phase due to the limited bubble of human habitation, combined with the need for annual servicing. Both issues can be patched with a hack, though, and besides, FFED3D more than makes up for it with its improved strafe controls, allowing for even more combat and general flight fun.
And that's where i'm at with FFED3D right now. Just fightin' and surfin' the gravity fields. I've used the hack tool BUFFET to buff the AI loadouts for more challenge. Searching out cool places, and stupid stunts to perform there.
Elite: Dangerous strays from this traditional gameplay course because of its complete lack of basic flight experience - ie. of unrestricted speed in "normal space", with real inverse-of-radius gravity. If i'm not allowed to fire my ship's thrusters then i'm not meaningfully "piloting" it. Instead of being liberated by "my ship", i'm constrained. Instead of indulging my will, it's denying it.
I got as far as trading my way up to an Asp before realising that without free flight, none of the rest of the traditional Elite gameplay was ever going to arise. With such a pathetic speed limit for all ships, all basically handled identically - at a slow taxiing velocity - or else supercruise speeds, with nothing in-between. But it's precisely those missing speed ranges - slower than supercruise but much faster than a jet - where all the fun of the previous games occurs. Naturalistic combat encounters, and especially encounters with astronomical bodies, are utterly neutered by the enforced space speed limit, and various supercruise / planetary cruise transitions and limitations.
Even bypassing the anemic combat, and weird and neurotic mission systems to proceed directly to the 'end-game' of exploration, becomes a dull and tedious affair in ED - basically ticking off discoveries that are empty stats, like collecting baseball cards.. Whereas in the last two games especially, the fun was in interacting with novel, interesting systems, chiefly by flying around in their gravity fields.
This more basic underlying game simply isn't there in ED. It's the background context for all your motivations and actions in the game - you're the pilot of a spaceship in a free and open galaxy. The central, binding purpose of Elite. That whole premise is instantly and irreparably shattered the moment my thrusters cut out because i've reached the paltry speed of a few hundred meters / sec relative to some arbitrary nearby object... *poof* and the magic's gone. Rug royally ripped out from right under the whole raison d'etre.
If i do not have control over my own ship's thrusters, and cannot choose how, why and when they should be switched on or off, then This Is Not Elite! It's an interactive slideshow, tantalisingly unable to ever fulfill its promise.
I AM THE PILOT OF MY SHIP! I CHOOSE WHEN, WHERE AND WHY TO FIRE MY THRUSTERS. THAT IS THE SINGULAR, OVERARCHING CONCERN OF PILOTING A SPACESHIP. IT'S WHERE ALL THE FUN OF ELITE IS!
With the greatest of respect to all the intrepid ED explorers and Top Guns here, you've only ever experienced a fleeting taste of the fun you'd've had with unrestricted seamless flight and realistic gravity.
If we ever get spacelegs and atmospheres, or even biospheres, these will make for novel minigames for a while, a la No Man's Sky, but without the central binding premise of full piloting freedom, it will soon feel like yet another constrained, repetitive hand-holding exercise. The supercruise transitions for atmospheric re-entry will seem even more like cut-scenes, with more "critical attack angles" and scripted effects.
When you can plunge into any atmosphere at silly speeds and at any angle, under any combination of thrust and gravity, sweep across the surface and bring it screeching to a halt above a landing zone in one seamless unbroken sequence, or likewise wrench an overladen craft off a high-G world, gradually climbing free from milimiters to meters per second upwards, punching through the haze and building up speed to escape velocity.. all in the space of a few uninterrupted minutes... then Elite 4 will finally have arrived, and no player will ever have any excuse for boredom, or need any particular narrative incentive to play.
What we currently have is akin to GTA, except all the cars are stuck at either walking speed, or 'air brake mode' (basically warp speed). That would be more like "Postcards from GTA" though, because its central binding premise and core gameplay all arises from and is based around unrestricted motorhead madness, in that very speed range between walking speed and freeway speed..
So what i'm currently doing in ED is floating somewhere near Mercury, for around the last year, in a crummy lame- Eagle that simply dies three seconds after i open the throttles, interupting my planetary play with orbital cruise and glide mode transitions and critical attack angles. It cannot do anything i'd want to do in it, therefore there is thus no game to be had, nothing to be sought or won, no thrills or spills to test my piloting mettle.. no sense of the profundity and spectacle and grandeur, gravitas, or raw, visceral danger that comes with actually flying, through space, carrying real mechanical momentum, to those wondrous destinations and sights to behold. It's an eviscerated, emasculated shell of the previous games' legacy..
So i'll continue floating there until either we finally get basic ship control, or else the game dies, whichever comes first. Basically, the very second an actual Elite sesh is possible, i'll buy the onesie and retire. Til then, i'm getting my Elite kicks from a customised install of FFED3D..
Evidently they fixed it. I am in the Witch Head Sector now.