December 18, 20241 yr @SV: impressive feat indeed, and with a hefty amount of complimentary "fireworks" on display to boot! This xeno threat was squashed thanks to the valliant efforts of those like you, under extreme conditions, at the tip of the spear, thrusting it into the heart of the enemy. It is a day worth remembering and your name will therefore, justly, forever be imprinted on the annals of Elite history!
December 19, 20241 yr Author Thank you, thank you. :humble bow: I was kinda shocked though, receiving a mail from FDev on the 10th anniversary of Elite Dangerous. A mail titled "Elite Dangerous 10th Anniversary – Your Journey". Turned out it contains some interesting info on my Elite experience. Quote Your adventures into the unknown have seen you traverse 25,272 systems, covering 1,473,243 light years - a testament to your unyielding spirit of exploration. With 4,164 Thargoids eliminated, Aegis thanks you for your support. Your achievements in defending humanity from Thargoids exceed those of 99% of others. Your combat prowess is undeniable: 11,866 ships neutralized, a record that strikes fear into pilots everywhere, surpassing 99.7% of Commanders. Your economic strategy has yielded 1,833,413,488 credits, a profit that exceeds 98% of fellow traders. Your mining endeavours have extracted 1,776,532,110 credits of profit, surpassing 99% of Commanders. You’ve operated in the shadows, navigating the Black Market, generating 4,152,453 credits - a success in the shadows that outpaces 99.1% of Commanders. Your entrepreneurial spirit knows no conventional bounds. From stolen goods, you've amassed 1,545,918 credits, exceeding the profits of 99.3% of your most daring peers. Your pursuit of justice (and profit) has been relentless: 5,385 bounties claimed, setting you apart from 99.4% of Commanders. I mean... REALLY?! RRRREEEAAAAALLY??!?!?! was wondering how Zombie handles all those turns, while I'm obviously somewhat of a freak myself...
December 19, 20241 yr @SV: a memorable and eventful accounting of your fabled journeys across space, acknowledged by FD, no less. Most meritory! :: On a related report: RPS's Brendan Caldwell further heralds the magnitude of the victory achieved here.
February 28, 20251 yr :: Elite: Dangerous' most recent update introduces a new System Colonisation feature, as detailed here.
March 1, 20251 yr Author Reports from the field; colonizing a new system is quite some work for a single CMDR. Too much for me to care, especially as having a fleet carrier (FC) is preferable - and I don't have one. It comes with a weekly upkeep and that is just a no go for me. But if one HAS a FC, it becomes easier to buy all the necessary goods for the build. Still you need to transfer those to the colony ship via ship, which means hours and hours of investment, coupled with a 4 weeks deadline. I don't think the price for a colony is too big to be paid, but it does seem like more of a community thing to do.
March 1, 20251 yr @SV: so, requires you to personally be _that_ invested beyond the material demands such an investment requires in the first place. Nothing really new these days in the forever war for continual player engagement. Still, it's one's choice to go for it or not and as such I suppose expanding what's on offer is not really a bad thing. Thanks for the insight, Commander!
March 1, 20251 yr Author 6 hours ago, Thorondor said: Nothing really new these days in the forever war for continual player engagement. Still, it's one's choice to go for it or not and as such I suppose expanding what's on offer is not really a bad thing. All true. That said, we just hauled several kT of materials with members of our squadron and working in a group does move far more quickly and pleasantly.
March 15, 20251 yr @SV: that's human spirit - for those willing to dream, there's no frontier too far!
January 19Jan 19 Author On 3/5/2025 at 10:19 PM, Thorondor said: :: Video - Elite: Dangerous | Distant Worlds 3 Expedition teaser (coming 2026) Yesterday the DW3 was launched. As usually, accompanied with a lot of time related confusion (UTC, EU time, winter/summer time, USA time etc. etc.) but finally we did convene, got into several game instances and took off. There was actually a ceremonial liftoff first - yes, even the taking off from the planet was completely choreographed through official YT stream and it all went smoothly. After trying to land for like 6 times before the game not crashing, naturally. Then we proceeded to a designated spot in deep space, everybody turned towards the jump target system (where the official carriers were waiting for us to land on) and waited. The official YT stream coordinated us until the jump. Which more than half of the commanders made some 20 seconds before the official countdown so there we all went a bit early. I don't know whom they were listening to but hey, no point staying there after half started their jump. Anyway, 7500+ players started the voyage. Felt quite awe inspiring, really. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4JoNHyBNhI Funny, YT does not allow embedding for this vid, so a link it is.
January 19Jan 19 Looks like that was quite an event alright, SV. With so many people there are always going to be some coordination issues but the journey was started! This is the sort of thing in online multiplayer that crosses that barrier from mere "gaming" to joint human endeavour in a way - everyone is flying together live, in real-time after all. 🙂
January 19Jan 19 Author It was! I mean, for a ten years old game... Exceptional. I'm glad Elite is still doing so well after all this time.
February 20Feb 20 :: PC Gamer's Charlie Hall writes about how much of an impact an Elite Dangerous player that discovered a way to write new stories into the margins of the game has eventually made on player-driven activities.
March 5Mar 5 Author It's kinda sad to see all the ships of old becoming obsolete. You get used to your own flying space den. But these now ships are super-cruise optimized AND have superior weapon mounts. Super-cruise is a new way for intra-system travel in Elite. Previously you spent minutes and minutes just travelling from one planet to another. It was super-luminal travel but even light travels slowly when you're trying to travel between planets. So the super-cruise was introduced, more or less a boost for FTL drive. In order to travel this way you need new faster-than-light engines; super-cruise optimised frame shift drives (SCO FSD) While you can mount an SCO FSD to any ship, only the new ships are SC optimized, meaing that older ships will need far more guidance while SCO travel, but they will also heat up like crazy and use like three times more fuel while using SCO. This is mostly a problem when travelling to a secondary star, say 150 kLs away. With an non-SCO ship it will demand at least four breaks from SCO to cool down the ship and it will drain your tank completely. So you use the SCO only to save those first minutes and quickly get away from the gravity well, then you travel the old way like 15 minutes. Naturally you set up the autopilot and go get some coffee. With a newer, SCO optimized ship, you hit that boost and you're there in say two minutes. Cobra mk. V gets up to 7000x light speed that way and has no problems maintaining speed and direction. Great little ship, BTW. Anyway, this SCO thing (and weapon mounts for battle builds) will make you mothball all your old ships and jump into new ones. I guess this gives us vetererans something to do, optimize and engineer new ships and all, still seeing all the old ones have no use anymore feels wrong. It could just be me, naturally.
March 5Mar 5 Thanks for painting such a detailed picture of the implications of the tech employed in new gen ships, SV. Certainly improved my understanding and shows how much beyond aesthetic / "aerodynamic" concerns it all goes. I guess it all comes down to how obsolete things can be made by more advanced technology. But the differences here, as you explain them, are stark and whilst one can make a case for using older ships given, shall we say, financial constraints and suffer the consequences in terms of quality of life, it gets past a point where the distances involved mean you really don't want to be using - to make a real world analogy - "steam" engines anymore and those ships are effectively going to land on a scrapyard at some point. It's not that those older ships literally have "no use", it's simply a case that they will end up not being fabricated or used anymore due to lack of interest once the "world moves on".
March 5Mar 5 Author To the point. Some commanders do stick to their beloved ships but I am certain sooner or later, everyone will want that SCO working properly. There were pleas written on Elite Dangerous to at least let the old ships sacrifice a slot to fit a SCO optimization module - which would only be a solution for some explorers as you can easily fit all the necessary modules and have a slot or more left. No reply as of yet.
March 17Mar 17 :: PC Gamer's Jess Kinghorn reports Elite Dangerous fan "CMDR Wacko" went the distance and created a space faring sim rig for himself.
March 24Mar 24 Personally I love the lore surrounding the Guardian Precursors, so I am kitted out in Guardian stuff. I used to fly an exploration Alliance Chieftain, but I switched out to a Mandalay briefly, and then to a Caspian. The Caspian has a lower jump range than the Mandy, but I can bring my Guardian SLF fighters. Did my best to make it look like a Guardian hybrid ship :3
March 24Mar 24 Author 4 hours ago, Gurlluas said: The Caspian has a lower jump range than the Mandy, but I can bring my Guardian SLF fighters. Exactly why I simply skipped Mandalay. No SLF = no fun out in the black. I did my best to convert a T-11 Prospector into a pretty slick explorer though as it can hold SLFs! Bofore that I used a Krait mk. II but the SCO fuel consumption was abismal, naturally. My main explo ship for the Distant Worlds 3 expedition is Caspian. The bloody thing can JUMP! 6x the range from newtron stars... Almost 500LYs. Makes keeping up with the expedition a non-existing problem. Krait mk. II still is my AX ship, but I guess I'll shift to an SCO optimized ship there, too. Probably Python mk. II or Corsair. Nice to have another ED player around!
March 24Mar 24 Yeah I am also using my Caspian for DW3 :3 I do hope we get proper new content soon though. Colonization was fun at first, but it got stale quickly due to the limitations. Operations don't seem too interesting...Really hoping for something nice in the future. An actual Guardian hybrid ship would be epic.
March 25Mar 25 Author On 3/24/2026 at 2:38 PM, Gurlluas said: An actual Guardian hybrid ship would be epic. But would get old pretty soon IMO. What we need is new gamplay, preferrably exploration. Something to actually find out there.
March 25Mar 25 True, I'm hoping for more things. More lost civilizations, actual regions in the Galaxy with Thargoids, even more Guardian regions with whole new mysteries to solve, etc.
April 25Apr 25 :: The availability of Elite Dangerous' upcoming multiplayer PvE mode - Operations - has recently been pushed back to June, as announced here.
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