275 replies to this topic

[Space Voyager]

I figure we'll hear about the game plenty more, so I'm posting a dedicated thread.

Anyway, we've been speculating about the Horizons and whether that is a new game, or an expansion or what. The original announcement has been clear enough on that; it is a normal, paid expansion. So the owners of the game without expansion will not be doing any landings, yet they remain in the same universe.

[Space Voyager]

Ok, so this dedicated thread was not abused as it was supposed to be. Still, I have to say the game is visually stunning. I was dropped at some godforsaken outpost with no missions available. I went through basic learning missions so I know the absolute basics. The basic-most of the basics is that the original ship is always available to me and I can crash as many times as I want. I haven't crashed yet though. I was jumping around a bit and it looked I might be left without fuel. I read that I need to commit self-destruct to be "reborn". Unless someone saves me as article Thor posted writes about. Forget about that for a n00b.

Anyway, just when I thought I was done for, using my last possible jump, I finally arrived at a system with any kind of station. A huge one, really a sight to see. I called Nadja to show her the station in all its majesty. I mean, an obviously coolest sight one can get, screw mountains. She looks at the screen and goes... "Yeah, ok, what?" "Erm, a space station!" "Yeah, ok, SO WHAT?" "Nothing, dear, sorry. Go back to the television."

So there I am now, docked and waiting for at least an hour of free time to figure out what to do next. I have checked and there are missions available and I have a little starting dough minus the fine for firing in close proximity to the station. A good start.

[Thorondor]

Allow me to provide some insight: you just dragged her away from TV *insert scarcely-contained grumbling at the disturbance*, and the enjoyment of a screen several times larger than the one you usher her to on your machine, to point out something that would then, naturally, look unimpressively small and bleak in the dead of space.

Well, here's the thing, SV, nothing short of VR is ever really going to get the point across. I think slingshotting her in a fighter craft out of a battleship in Eve: Valkyrie is the ticket!



Meanwhile, pick a mission, fire your thrusters and see what else out there can aid you in your quest for enlightenment!

[silencer_pl]

Or just wait until you have son old enough.

[Space Voyager]

He he he, the screen size may play a role in this awe effect failure, true. STILL, a space station...

Erazem loves sitting in my lap, promises wide-eyed not to touch a thing and just to look, than the ship starts to steer in random directions. He waited until the screen got my full attention and snuck his arms towards the touchpad. There is nothing that he likes more than to fiddle with working controls. Give him an unplugged keyboard and he'll press a few buttons to see if anything moves and flashes, then discard the thing with a 1g acceleration. I disabled the TP but it keeps coming back to life. Will have to go through device management.

[Space Voyager]

AAHAHAHAHAH, I'm soooooo happy I didn't buy the expansion yesterday. Because today...

[silencer_pl]

I'm also quite surprised that you can play this game. All that talk about your comp being inferior...

[Space Voyager]

Oh, so you noticed...

[Space Voyager]

Ok, my initial thoughts...

Firstly, there is no reason to play in open world. At least for a looong time, until you upgrade your ship considerably. Not the Sidewinder you are given mind you, it CAN NOT be upgraded enough to stand a freaking chance against ships already established players are flying in. So don't even bother. Today I found an unidentified nav beacon and oooo, something interesting to see in the depth of space. I drop out of shift drive, look around, find a destroyed ship, redistribute energy from engines into an even distribution and get into a position to collect the things flying around. When my ship is destroyed by Doctor Smith in a second. I had time top throttle up and that was it as his ship had enough weaponry to eat through my upgraded shields and hull in no time at all. The cost to get my ship back is cca. 4k, which is not really a problem and I lost all navigational data I would be able to sell if I went exploring. And my current mission was a failure. He got nothing out of it, destroying my ship was just for fun as he probably grinded for a long time to get a ship capable of it. Anyway, after reading Elite forums, only players like this douche reside in open play, the rest play solo. You're not missing anything really playing solo so I'm dropping out of open world, too.

The one thing worth upgrading in a Sidewinder is cargo hold as a lot of missions demand at least 6 units to be transported and Sidewinder only has 4 units of cargo hold initially.

The game is simply beautiful. I love it for the sights alone. The downside are some incredible distances to be travelled to some godforsaken outposts. Extremely rarely your ship will get interdicted (thrown out of shift drive) and if you chose to make some coffee while the travel lasts you will be destroyed. If you are there to take control you will be able to destroy the NPC, but if you're away... So I bookmarked an outpost 300k Ls away from the star just to know never to take a mission to it again.

If you bought Horizons beware of missions that demand driving around on the planetary surface. By buying the expansion you are NOT given the buggy, just the option to buy the module. But you can land on planets. Also a pretty time consuming feat, so I stay clear of such missions until I can get the buggy.

What else... Ah, I was destroyed three times so far. Once I was heading into the unknown and got stranded without fuel so I had to self-destruct. The second time children needed intervention while I was descending to an outpost on a planetary surface so I hit escape button and went into action. But naturally in a game like Elite going into a menu or map will not pause the game. So when I returned, the ship was almost destroyed among the buildings. Trying to get out I obviously triggered the defences and those were effective. And the third time there was Doctor Smith douche.

[silencer_pl]

I'm pretty sure same thing will meet you in EVE.

[Space Voyager]

Without a doubt. But luckily, in Elite you have the solo play option which keeps you in the full universe (that is why you need to be online) but never puts you into the same play instance with the rest of the players. So, whole Elite minus douches.

[Space Voyager]

I'm slowly grinding towards some money to get a decent ship. At least I can take on bountyhunting missions that tend to bring more and offer the most action, naturally. You get bored just flying from system to system. Though I did go on a pretty long trip into the unknown and the exploration was fun, too. The plan is to go out again now that I can afford the best scanner and discover all there is to find in the system.

Oh, there was an epic moment of "mygodthatisawesome" when I had a mission to deliver some goods to a space station far away from the star, much further than my scanner was able to find. Normally I would ditch the mission but this time I went scientific. I flew perpendicular to the planetary plane, than headed back towards the star and looked for moving dots. Stars in the background won't move (noticeably) but bodies much closer will as you're flying superluminal. Basically how the astronomers go about finding anything moving in our vicinity but reversed. So after a few flybys I finally managed to find the dot, meaning the planet and the station around it. It actually felt like an accomplishment.

Later I found out that I could just scan the navigational buoy at the star and it would reveal whole system.

[Thorondor]

Ah, the joys of visual navigation - cool stuff there, SV!

Anyone can fly by instruments, but what happens if they're not available? You use your brain.

Do consider eventually snapping some pictures of those space stations, though. That way you can make an album documenting the ones you've already visited and allow us pre-space-age apes to gawk at them.

[Space Voyager]

I have! But the damn high res pics are enormous and I wasn't able to upload. So more work.

[silencer_pl]

At least you've kept to your name sake.

[Space Voyager]

Lately I'm back into the open world and I only have good experience with other players. You rarely meet any anyway, mostly at systems that hold common interest like the ones with engineer workshops. Those will modify your equipment for a price and you end up with a much better ship.

[silencer_pl]

[Space Voyager]

Almost fried my ship to take this one. While viewing from the outside I had no idea the heat is rising and I barely got out of trouble. Ship a bit damaged but all the main systems working.



There IS life out there.



A metal-rich planet.



An Earth-like planet.



A nice view of a nebula. You need to head way out to see this one.



Just a view from a super cruise.



My 3k light years trip while heading back.



A view of the galactic disk.



A random gas giant.

[Space Voyager]

Flying among the asteroids of a planetary disc.



A gas giant.



My new ship in a station.



From behind.



Aaaand above one.



Cracked windshield. Erm, canopy. In the upper right corner of the crack you can see that when destroyed, you see far less info... Creates all kinds of problems when landing. And my purchase of a good life support paid out.



Two capital ships in a non-friendly encounter.

[Thorondor]

The ship looks spotless docked, SV - despite the expected hardships of extreme conditions in outer space and the not too friendly encounters...

You forgot to show the actual ship interiors, but I suppose there might not be much to see past the cockpit itself.

And asteroids... only in movies (and games) is it possible to entertain the idea of flying through such a field without inevitably catastrophic collisions.