550 replies to this topic

[Kyone Akashi]

The Asp Explorer is the civilian version of the Asp MK2. I really wouldn't call it a fighter as it's so sssllloooowwww and just about any smaller vessel will have little difficulty staying in its blind spots. Don't get me wrong, it might make for a fine gunship, for if you put quad m-cannons on her, she'll absolutely wreck stuff in seconds.
This pretty much requires you to initiate the encounter, though, rather than reacting to a faster opponent. If you do co-op with someone who acts as bait, it may work out amazing, I'm just not sure I would recommend it for flying solo.

POWR, on 22 December 2014 - 03:07 AM, said:

I found 5 crates of liqour made from human eyeballs and sold it for 8000+ a pop.

Eww!

That's even worse than the Bile Distillate I "found".

[xeromynd]

So here's a question. Is this playable with a keyboard and mouse? Or is a joystick or xbox controller absolutely necessary?

[Hex Pallett]

xeromynd, on 22 December 2014 - 08:16 PM, said:

So here's a question. Is this playable with a keyboard and mouse? Or is a joystick or xbox controller absolutely necessary?

I'm playing with kb+m. Need some tweaking in the options menu but I would say in my case it works far better than any joystick.

[o0cipher0o]

xeromynd, on 22 December 2014 - 08:16 PM, said:

So here's a question. Is this playable with a keyboard and mouse? Or is a joystick or xbox controller absolutely necessary?

Yup, it's totally playable, as long as you stick with flight assist. Flying with flight assist off is somewhat tricky without a joystick+throttle combo, as it's quite difficult to carefully dose the throttle with the keyboard, making even simple maneuvers difficult.

[RalphVargr]

It can be done. But, as a RL pilot, I use a joystick.

Beware of the guys who have built virtual cockpits, with HOTAS.

PSA: Be sure to check your key bindings under options. To remove a troublesome binding, select it, and hit the Escape key. This will clear the binding. If a keyboard binding does not work, it is probably bound to a joystick or mouse button (as a secondary). And, vice versa, for a joystick.

Watch your fire groupings, and place each scanner in it's own fire group. (KB mapping is the "N" key for cycling fire groups) Especially with KWS. Do not put it in your primary weapons firing group, or you might wind up with a bounty on your head for firing on a cop...

[xeromynd]

o0cipher0o, on 23 December 2014 - 05:01 AM, said:

Yup, it's totally playable, as long as you stick with flight assist. Flying with flight assist off is somewhat tricky without a joystick+throttle combo, as it's quite difficult to carefully dose the throttle with the keyboard, making even simple maneuvers difficult.

Hmmm that's good to hear! Does the flight assist situationally handicap some players though? What I mean is, I'm sure there are 1337 players out there that could dance around me in a dogfight because they aren't using it, with all sorts of crazy moves and stuff. Not a factor in whether or not I pick up the game, just wondering.

[o0cipher0o]

Well, i guess flying in FAoff gives a little advantage in combat, as you can keep your nose at the enemy, while being still able to maneuver to follow his movements. This is somewhat achievable with flight assist, but it's a bit less effective. By the way, i haven't fought yet against a human player that was in FAoff (well, haven't fought against a human player at all), so i'm only guessing here.

[Hex Pallett]

xeromynd, on 23 December 2014 - 07:18 AM, said:

Does the flight assist situationally handicap some players though? What I mean is, I'm sure there are 1337 players out there that could dance around me in a dogfight because they aren't using it, with all sorts of crazy moves and stuff. Not a factor in whether or not I pick up the game, just wondering.

Here's the thing: flight assist off means no assist WHATSOEVER, which means for every vector you applied to move/turn, to stop it you need to apply a counter vector all by your self. That means in reality, while FA off gives you the freedom to keep your prey in your line of sight and leads to some spectacular dogfights, it is also inCREDIBLY difficult. The only times I use FA off is to perform sharp turns to get enemies back in my sight.

[Hex Pallett]

I JUST KILLED AN ANACONDA



It kinda feel like dueling an Atlas with a Locust

Edited by Helmstif, 25 December 2014 - 01:57 AM.

[Alreech]

I'm playing only in Solo mode because i don't want to play that game with other persons. For me it's not a game of competition, it's a game of trade and exploration, so I don't mind if the AI isn't very challenging during fights.
During the beta and early access phase of the game I wasn't able to play much, so here my adventures so far:

My starting position was LH 3447, a system with many planets. Most have no atmosphere and a mining economy, but one of them is an earth like planet what produces all kind of foodstuff.
I made a lot of money with the Sidewinder doing various contracts like shipping items to the neighbor systems. I keep my money together until I was able to buy an Adder.

First upgrade for the Adders was a better Frameshift Drive to increase the jump range to 10,5 light years, giving me access to some systems with other products than minerals, metals and food.
Even with the increased drive I have to use an uncharted system as step stone, always with an uneasy feeling - one time i barley get out with a damaged ship after encountering an AI pirate.

After a some real good trade runs i was able to outfit my free Eagle with upgraded items.
Three gimbaled Pulse Lasers and a C class reactor / C class power distributor give that Eagle some sharp claws.
(Putting 3 fixed multi canons in the ship and keeping the reactor also works, and is cheaper, but needs more skill...)

One thing in that Elite Dangerous really scores is the feeling of a vast, wide universe. Space seems to be an endless ocean with tiny islands in between. Making a longer trip needs careful planing of the jumps, always with the risk of stranding in an uncharted system without fuel.

Joysticks:
I play with a Saitek X52pro, and the game makes good use of a HOTAS system. The X52 has 2 rotation wheels on the Throttle. In real flight simulator games you can use them for trimming your plane, in most space games the are useless, and most of these games don't even support more than 4 axis (yaw, pitch, roll, thrust).

In Elite Dangerous it is for example possible to map the Yaw axis to the rotation wheel on the Throttle.
What give the ability to turn the ship during landing on the spot without using the Stick or Rudder pedals.
The same is possible with the Roll axis and the second rotation wheel.
Landing on outposts is incredible easy that way.

• I roll my ship, so that i can see the landing pads on above me (using mouse look and the mini stick of the X52) and approach it.
  
• Then I use the small wheel to roll and the big wheel to get the right facing.
  
• After that, the throttle Coolie hat allows me to use lateral and vertical thrust for the last fine tuning.

The important thing is to put the wheels in middle position before take off, otherwise it get's a little out of control

Technical:
Xeon 1231, 8 GB of RAM, R9 280. Maxed out settings in 1920 x 1200 with 60 - 120 fps. I put on V-Synch and the best AA option, and have still 60 fps.

[Hex Pallett]

I'm playing in open, and based on my experience so far I could guarantee you that unless you have like 20k bounty hanging on your head, nobody's gonna mess with your business (except for NPC Fed Sec interdicting you for random contraband check, and even those can be easily escaped). I started out in LHS 3447 too and honestly I would be glad if I run into a couple of familiar faces

Currently running my free, pre-order Eagle, built as an dedicated hunter-killer - two gimballed Beam Laser and a Railgun, maxed out powerplant and power distributor. After that 'conda kill I decided to make this lil' f**ker as mean as possible, but right now I'm still a million cred short on maxing shield and thrusters. Other than that I have a miner Hauler. Next ship hopefully is a Viper but still wanna save up for my Eagle....

[MechaDonkey]

xhrit, on 19 July 2014 - 09:37 AM, said:

Actually, there is true newtonian physics in ED. The in-atmosphere flight feel is the result of flight assist mode, which automatically applies reverse thrust. You can toggle flight assist on and off with the Z key.

WHAT, LOGIC?

Thank god, I was beginning to believe that the internet was 100% populated by idiots.

I've heard fanboys from elite AND star citizen whining about how the other game sucks because of it's "simplified atmospheric flight models".

I'm glad someone knows that both games are like that because of flight assist and not the game limitations itself.

[Alreech]

MechaDonkey, on 27 December 2014 - 01:56 AM, said:

Thank god, I was beginning to believe that the internet was 100% populated by idiots.

I've heard fanboys from elite AND star citizen whining about how the other game sucks because of it's "simplified atmospheric flight models".

The internet is populated by 99% by idiots (and the rest 1% are our cat overlords, dominating the world with cuteness and Toxoplasma gondii)

The ED vs. SC thing is at the moment one of the most stupid things on the net.
Stupid in the sense that both games aim at specific fandoms, but also that both fandoms are not to separate.
Will be hard to find an old Elite fan that didn't also has liked the Wing Commander and Privateer games.

I'm wondering at the moment a little bit about the reviews of E:D from professional gaming journalists.
While most reviews are high above medicore ratings, but many critics claim that E:D lacks a campaign with video cut scenes (yeah, Minecraft and Day Z are lacking that too...) or that the gameplay consist mostly of "flying around in spaceships without auto pilot".
They praise the feeling of a great, big universe with vast space... and criticize that the star systems of ED don't like like the are handcrafted by a designer who made every system special...

The Squadron 42 hit the shelfs the same critics would probably tell us that those game doesn't give the player the opportunity to fly around freely because all he can do is to follow the missions of a predefined campaign, and that the universe is nice with every star system looks different - but their are too few star systems...

Well, i expect from Squadron 42 a good campaign with video cut scenes (i don't expect anything else) and i don't expect a campaign in E:D.
At least video game journalists should be able to read the feature lists. Criticizing a game for a missing feature that was never on the feature list isn't good work.

The thing is that some missing features of E:D aren't even mentioned.
One missing features is the lack of voice messages.
If you hover to long over a landing pad that was not assigned to you the station starts to fire at your ship.
Yes, you get a warning, but only in a text window.

The same are the messages of your opponents before and during dogfights.
A pirate tells you "your cargo or your life" ?
Your victim begs you to take the cargo and let him escape ?
A wanted pilot shouts out that he is going to kill you ?

All in game, but only as text message in the chat window.
While it's no a reason to put the game away, it's clearly a thing that is missing.

[Mad Strike]

Just got it for 3 days and tottally love it 10/10 , i've been on EVE online for 2 months but THIS.....is different at a personal level , you control everything , the inmersion is great. My first space sim

Some fools in fighters tried to interdict and kill me like 6 times in different systems with a 200 CR bounty on my head XD , 2 kicked me out of light speed and where behind me shooting but nothing like an agressive stop ,reverse throtle and boost to put myself behind them ....but was so low on fuel that i really needed to get out of there.....next time.....next time

P.D: Sidewinder FTW !!

Edited by strikebrch, 27 December 2014 - 10:48 PM.

[DAYLEET]

Alreech, on 26 December 2014 - 01:03 PM, said:

Joysticks:
I play with a Saitek X52pro, and the game makes good use of a HOTAS system. The X52 has 2 rotation wheels on the Throttle. In real flight simulator games you can use them for trimming your plane, in most space games the are useless, and most of these games don't even support more than 4 axis (yaw, pitch, roll, thrust).

In Elite Dangerous it is for example possible to map the Yaw axis to the rotation wheel on the Throttle.
What give the ability to turn the ship during landing on the spot without using the Stick or Rudder pedals.
The same is possible with the Roll axis and the second rotation wheel.
Landing on outposts is incredible easy that way.

• I roll my ship, so that i can see the landing pads on above me (using mouse look and the mini stick of the X52) and approach it.
  
• Then I use the small wheel to roll and the big wheel to get the right facing.
  
• After that, the throttle Coolie hat allows me to use lateral and vertical thrust for the last fine tuning.

I use 1 of the rotation button for up down Thruster(only use down actually) because you are harder to hit when you thrust down and yaw and use flight assist on off. Really good pilot find a good down thruster position and leave it there so they can go circle around you and always keep you in their line of sight, it will lower your speed but that shouldnt be a problem since it makes you turn faster than just optimal thrust+4 engine peep. This is from watching others play, i use that setting but never really got to use it myself in pvp except for one time where i was fleeing.

Edited by DAYLEET, 31 December 2014 - 09:54 AM.

[DAYLEET]

Alreech, on 27 December 2014 - 06:23 PM, said:

I'm wondering at the moment a little bit about the reviews of E:D from professional gaming journalists.
While most reviews are high above medicore ratings, but many critics claim that E:D lacks a campaign with video cut scenes (yeah, Minecraft and Day Z are lacking that too...) or that the gameplay consist mostly of "flying around in spaceships without auto pilot".

The thing is that some missing features of E:D aren't even mentioned.
One missing features is the lack of voice messages.
If you hover to long over a landing pad that was not assigned to you the station starts to fire at your ship.
Yes, you get a warning, but only in a text window.

The same are the messages of your opponents before and during dogfights.
A pirate tells you "your cargo or your life" ?
Your victim begs you to take the cargo and let him escape ?
A wanted pilot shouts out that he is going to kill you ?

All in game, but only as text message in the chat window.
While it's no a reason to put the game away, it's clearly a thing that is missing.

ED is not going have cutscene ever because there is no campaign, there is an evolving story between factions that is released and updated like you get in some mmo's(Acheron's Call was like that). Players can take part in those in some ways or others to make their side win or whatever but i am not interested at all in that and i dont even follow the story, im not even close to those system.

Voice chat is implemented afaik, when(if ever) you get to see another player and you are in position to target him and then open chat you have the choice to type a message or open voip message, i never used it or even tried using it once for lack of opportunity and because i was more busy trying to save my life lol

When you enter a station there is a message in a loop and it clearly says, "loitering is a crime punishable by death" it plays that over and over, youll get to hear it in your sleep eventually. When you loiter there is a warning alarm(audio) and showing on screen. Though that is big indoor pad stations, small outpost with outdoor pads dont have such warning but when you start playing the game you will be in a big station.


Frontier finaly made a manual for ED, https://forums.front...ead.php?t=83514 i wish i had that when i started flying. Theres even some things i didnt know in there, the gameplay is too so deep while looking bare and plain sometimes because not much is explained.

Edited by DAYLEET, 31 December 2014 - 10:19 AM.

[Hex Pallett]

E:D is one of those "choose your own adventure" kind of games, like Minecraft - well, not as expansive and varied as Minecraft, but again in MC you can't fly a spaceship and shoot laser beams. The game doesn't offer you objectives - you make up your own. For example, here's mine:

- build a mining/cargo Hauler with maximum jump capability [completed]
- build an assassin Eagle with extreme maneuverability for short-range bounty-hunting [completed]
- build a mining/cargo Cobra with large cargo hold and two Class 2 mining lasers so I could make money faster
- build a Viper with proper firepower, FSD Interdictor, FSD Wake Scanner and Warrant Scanner as a dedicated hunter-killer ship
- refit my Hauler to be an explorer vessel
- make money, buy a 'conda and wreck sh*t

BTW I recorded video:

Edited by Helmstif, 31 December 2014 - 02:29 PM.

[Mad Strike]

Helmstif, on 31 December 2014 - 01:13 PM, said:

E:D is one of those "choose your own adventure" kind of games, like Minecraft - well, not as expansive and varied as Minecraft, but again in MC you can't fly a spaceship and shoot laser beams. The game doesn't offer you objectives - you make up your own. For example, here's mine:

- build a mining/cargo Hauler with maximum jump capability [completed]
- build an assassin Eagle with extreme maneuverability for short-range bounty-hunting [completed]
- build a mining/cargo Cobra with large cargo hold and two Class 2 mining lasers so I could make money faster
- build a Viper with proper firepower, FSD Interdictor, FSD Wake Scanner and Warrant Scanner as a dedicated hunter-killer ship
- refit my Hauler to be an explorer vessel
- make money, buy a 'conda and wreck sh*t

BTW I recorded video:

It took me a week of bounty hunting to get a viper , no missions. I suggest you upgrade Power generator and power distributor since the default ones are "#%#" , 2 gimbaled cannons and 2 default pulsa lasers are good to begin with.

[Kyone Akashi]

DAYLEET, on 31 December 2014 - 10:14 AM, said:

Players can take part in those in some ways or others to make their side win or whatever but i am not interested at all in that and i dont even follow the story, im not even close to those system.

That's something I like about ED - there are multiple separate "plots" running in the background, supported by the GalNet news network you can access at every starport. You don't have to participate, but I think it does make the galaxy feel more "alive" and thus increases atmosphere/immersion by attempting to emulate this facet of real life.

I'm still sticking to Eranin, as I've grown really fond of that system (it all started with ED's first ever story event, though, so in a way the game has already helped me to flesh out my pilot's RP background) and currently wage a private war on the pirate Brotherhood from Freeport to keep them from gaining a foothold on Azeban. However, as I read the news, I am starting to consider moving elsewhere at least temporarily, just to swing the development of things into directions of my preference.

For example, I may go to Jera to assist in its ongoing struggle to resist an Imperial plot to overthrow its independent government, both to make some good credits as a merc as well as because my character believes in self-governance and has a bias against both the Federation as well as the Empire, albeit for different reasons.
On the other hand, I may also respond to an Imperial call for help should the current succession crisis turn ugly. Arissa seems to be the safest bet for continuity, and my character realises that the Empire is necessary to balance out the Federation and prevent it from turning its greedy gaze onto all the independent colonies.

On a sidenote, the GalNet newsfeed is now also available on the Elite website:

http://www.elitedang...om/news/galnet/

Although the archive seems to be broken as older entries keep disappearing (as if the site cannot display more than 10 newsposts). A more complete version can be found in this unofficial blog. It tends to be less up-to-date than the official website, but at least it has almost all the previous posts:

http://galnetarchive.blogspot.ie/

Edited by Kyone Akashi, 01 January 2015 - 11:21 AM.

[o0cipher0o]

Well, as i promised, i've bought an ASP, and there's my first impressions:

The ship is really capable, i dare to say the best multypurpose of the game. Yep, it's a bit pricey to upgrade the ship, but just with a A grade power distributor, D grade shield, frameshift drive, life support and sensors, it is already a good fighter. The manoeuverability is the same as a cobra, the hull is sturdy, and the shields are a bit better than the viper. It carries almost as much cargo as the type 6, and can jump as far as it. I'm doing trading, esploration and bounty hunting without changing the loadout, and i've not even upgraded the ship that much. I wanted to buy a python, but i'm starting to think that, on'ce i'll upgrade the Asp to all A grade modules, i will just stick with it.

Really happy with this lakon.


Oh, and did i say that this thing has an AMAZING view from the cockpit?