213 replies to this topic

[Thorondor]

Space Voyager, on 09 March 2017 - 10:38 AM, said:

Gotta love driving into space!

::

Talk about radical sports!

[Thorondor]

[Space Voyager]

Sadly the 2.3 update will not bring much to an average player who just wants to play some Elite in the evening. I was very disappointed to hear that I can't hire an NPC player to sit in other cockpit seats even though you will be able to invite other players. My opinion, but without at least some scripting to personalize Elite it will stay... without soul. Void. Perhaps this is as it should be, as space mostly seems to be that way, but still the gamer in me cries for something more than just another mission. Chained missions (missions remain just the same, but several are linked into a mini story) are coming and that is good, I thought something like that could relatively easily be done with assets already available.

But what I am really looking forward to is the increase for exploration returns. Right now those are far from lucrative. You'd think travelling for two weeks, discovering systems that nobody has been to, finding new habitable worlds etc.. would be a beneficial business but basically it brought me as much as two passenger missions, easily finished in an hour or two.

Still, disappearing into the black is an incredibly calming experience and believe it or not, it actually helped me chill after a few stressful happenings at work. It doesn't get any more peaceful than that. I'd already be back out but I'm waiting for 2.3. Meanwhile I'm mining some money and testing out some engineering.

Some pics, as you've been warned.

See, algorithms are math and math sometimes shows its mathematical side, which looks weird out there.


Alien life.


Some sights.










Wear and tear, solar winds, micrometeorites and so forth will decay your paint job. Took these when returing from that two weeks trip I wrote about.




Landing on a high G planet will be stressful for you and your retro thrusters.

[Thorondor]

For me that penultimate picture almost perfectly illustrates the journey you describe, SV - the traveller, the lone figure among the stars, a spark of sentience in the indifferent yet peaceful, accepting vastness of the void.

There's a lot of beauty out there, certainly.

I would still say having the ability to speak with your ship's computer would help dissipate the encroaching emptiness a good deal. I mean, the technology level demanded for space travel clearly puts that within the possibility space.

Quote

Dr. Frank Poole: [playing chess with HAL, Poole studies the chessboard] Let's see, king...

[clears throat]

Dr. Frank Poole: Anyway, Queen takes Pawn. Okay?

HAL: Bishop takes Knight's Pawn.

Dr. Frank Poole: Huh, lovely move. Um, Rook to King 1.

HAL: I'm sorry, Frank, I think you missed it. Queen to Bishop 3, Bishop takes Queen, Knight takes Bishop. Mate.

Dr. Frank Poole: Huh. Yeah, looks like you're right. I resign.

HAL: Thank you for a very enjoyable game.

Dr. Frank Poole: Yeah, thank you.

[Thorondor]

[Thorondor]

[Thorondor]

::

Quote

Elite Dangerous 2.3 - The Commanders arrives at a time when all eyes have turned to Merope, where the Empire and Federation are drawing closer to a collision, and the Commanders of the Pilots Federation have encountered a spacecraft unlike anything designed by humanity. Elite Dangerous 2.3 puts its Commanders front and center, with new ways to play and new discoveries to be made.

[Space Voyager]

New discoveries, huh? Well, I'll go check.

[Space Voyager]

There are, there are! Asteroid bases are among them and here's one. These are situated around the galaxy, too and the one in the vid is in Eagle nebula, far from the inhabited space. As seen in the vid. I didn't know the mike was on so you can hear the mouse wheel and clicking from time to time. Oh, and the approach is a bit long so you can skip to 2:30



And here's a vid of jumping INTO the black hole, some 26km from the centre. As I was speeding away it seemed as if I broke out from the event horizon... Thankfully, Elite knows it has bugs and won't crush you even when you jump into the black hole. Nice gravitational lensing effect!

[Thorondor]

Asteroid bases, well... pardon if they don't encourage very enthusing thoughts.

The one you landed on, modern-looking and pristine as it seemingly is, has me considering how insular those places are bound to be for those who live there. It would be like living in an oil rig or something, except with far longer a journey to get back to more agreeable populated locations.

On another note, and pertaining your second video, I suppose now you can truthfully say you were "thinking of water" inside a black hole, SV. How about that!

Very transcendental and, incidentally, a thing extremely few - if any - mortal beings can claim I imagine.

[Space Voyager]

I guess your ship would be called "No detail unnoticed"?

[Thorondor]

[Thorondor]

::

Eurogamer's Wesley Yin-Poole has word that a three-year-old Elite Dangerous mystery is finally unravelling, as reported here.

[Space Voyager]

Don't care, I'm on my way to the galactic core.

I like the mysteries and all but really, they don't affect the game in any significant way. It is like reading a news about a car crash on the other side of the globe...

[Thorondor]

::

Ars Technica's Lee Hutchinson reports how an Elite: Dangerous community event was cleverly sabotaged.

[Thorondor]

::

Polygon's Charlie Hall too writes about Elite: Dangerous' 3000-player battle royale.

[Space Voyager]

Now that the so called "Salami event" (the killing of Salomé by one of her defenders, CMDR Harry Potter) has calmed down a bit, Obsidian Ant threw a description of alien encounters in Elite.



I might go to Maya system and try the alien interdictions when I return from the galactic core.

I'm about half way back from Sagittarius A* and if I don't crash I might have enough cash to buy an Anaconda, one of the three big ships. Well, I already have enough but just buying a ship is far from comfortably using it. The stock ship is usually pretty much crap and you need to upgrade the modules and weapons and then go for some engineering to get a decent ship. I'm still uncertain whether to equip it in a firepower or exploration direction, but I don't see a huge benefit from another exploration ship as Anaconda can't do anything my current ship couldn't do already. Such is the sad state of exploration where you can't find anything worth picking up.

Oh, I need to upload some pics. And post them just to tease you guys.

[Thorondor]

@SV: tease away. Alien hunting with an Anaconda - now that sounds like a plan!

::

By the way:



Eurogamer's Wesley Yin-Poole got some of the most prominent Elite Dangerous players to speak about the state of the game as reported here.

[Space Voyager]

The response of Elite community is interesting though as nobody ever heard of these "most prominent players"...

[Thorondor]

Well, then, the community has surely heard of them now, right?

::

Self-aggrandizement for the win!