Elite: Dangerous

[Pedrito]

OK, after giving it a serious couple hours this evening, I've learnt how to dock my ship without too many bruises. The approach is still a bit problematic though, because I find myself entering the docking bay always perpendicular to the entrance, so risking a collision. The time I'll be able to sychronize my ship's movement with the space station one, à la 2001: a Space Odyssey, are far, far in the future.

My gripe now is the supercruise: it seems impossible to find the right spot to brake the ship: either I stop some light weeks before my destination, or I speed past it and usually into a nearby red dwarf. 

L.

[Warspite]

Docking must be a lot easier with a joystick, where the X axis is mapped to roll.

[Pedrito]

Beta 3 out tonight, downloading right now 

L.

[Syt]

What is the new beta like? I was looking for a proper change log, but couldn't find one.

[Tamas]

I have bought a controller, and cannot wait official release (that's the one my pledge will give me). I hope it will run ok on my 40'' LCD.

[celedhring]

I played Elite back in the day but gave up when I kept crashing while attempting to dock.  Knowing the game has the same issues I am hesitant to try it.

My thoughts exactly, why do they keep making something that should be trivial so annoying?

Man, the day I was able to buy the auto-docker in the original Elite...

[Pedrito]

What is the new beta like? I was looking for a proper change log, but couldn't find one.

NEW FEATURES & CONTENT
- New ship - Imperial Clipper added
- New ship - Federal Dropship added
- Added player driven interdiction
- Players can now interdict NPC ships and the NPC will be recreated in normal space along with the player (player interdiction is also possible)
- Fuel scooping from stars added
- Asteroid mining added (metal and rock)
- Players can own multiple ships
- Play area expanded (capsule 350ly long, radius 37 ly - 2400+ systems)
- Planet visuals overhaul
- Planet liquid colours now reflect chemical composition
- Atmospheric colours now reflecting their chemical composition
- Surface types and colours now reflect chemical composition
- Planets display volcanic features
- Complex Craters can create dust ejecta
- Crater frequency dependent on atmosphere thickness
- Ice planets now have fracture features
- Dynamic ice caps on all planets
- Dynamic liquid levels on all planets
- Asteroid belt clusters added
- Nebulae added to galaxy map
- Nebulae added to sky map rendering
- Make outpost landing pads more zero-g
- Status panel now shows faction reputation
- Improved range display and route finding in galaxy map
- Philanthropy missions added
- Partial name searching added to galaxy map
- Additional ships added to loading screen

For Celedhring and CC, the Autodocker is rather inexpensive. I've yet to try it, though. After some time docking becomes a rather simple (yet needing care) maoeuvre, if you use a joystick/HOTAS even more so.
Tamas, what controller have you bought? I'm quite happy with a simple joystick, but people on the forum are raging about the Saitek X52 HOTAS.

L.

[Tamas]

I have the Saitek X52 back in Hungary, I purchased it many years ago. It is great. You definitely should buy it, and eventually I want to use it for Elite myself as well.

Its just that in my current accommodation I simply lack the table space for it. So I have bought what is basically a ripoff of the Xbox360 controller, for PC. Seems to work quite well.

[Syt]

Domo arigato, Mr pedrito!

[Pedrito]

Those are the gameplay and -for now- cosmetic additions, I've spared you the Bible-long list of ironed bugs and tweaks the devs applied to this release.

I've yet to try most of the functions in the game, either because I've little time to play (the mercantile system and being a serious trader) or because I feel I'm not proficient enough (the combat careers, pirate-smuggler-bounty hunter): for now I'm building my money base by picking simple courier missions between starports, before I get a good scanner and a fuel scoop and venture into the unknown.

Sometimes I simply enter supercruise mode and enjoy the panorama 

L.

[Pedrito]

The game will be released Dec 16.
Backers should be able to play it since the gamma release, that will be Nov 22.

For your information, making decent money in game can be quite the struggle. 

L.

[Tamas]

The game will be released Dec 16.
Backers should be able to play it since the gamma release, that will be Nov 22.

[Josquius]

The game will be released Dec 16.
Backers should be able to play it since the gamma release, that will be Nov 22.

For your information, making decent money in game can be quite the struggle. 

L.

How is the trading system? Similar to frontier or have they gone down the route of all the clones and added too many different goods?

[Syt]

Offline Single Player has been cancelled. Which is a shame, because it was one of the reasons I pre-ordered.

[Tamas]

Offline Single Player has been cancelled. Which is a shame, because it was one of the reasons I pre-ordered.

Yeah. On the other hand, I was wondering how the forever static gameworld of Elite 2 (which offline single player would have been unless they dedicated a significant development time to replicate player activity with algorythms) would have worked today. As much as we have fond memories, times and expectations have changed.

So, this "online singplayer" mode they will have is what I probably would have ended up playing anyways.

My biggest concern with it is being robbed of playing at my own pace: lets say I can't/won't play for a month, then I log back and it is a noticeably different game world because of one reason or the other?

For that, I will not care much for true multiplayer, for sure, as that would be magnified by the presence of griefers.