What have you been up to in Elite?

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Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/329520-Sightseeing-missions-disabled?p=5152787&viewfull=1#post5152787

Hi there,

We found a variable generator in some of the passenger missions was occasionally causing crashes in the edServer and thus disconnecting players.

The templates have been disabled temporarily to mitigate this while I investigate what has gone wrong and work on a fix.

I hope to have these templates back online soon.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Dom
- Dominic Corner

New VIP & Sightseeing Passenger Missions are temporarily disabled for stability reasons. Active missions of this type can still be finished.
- @Frontier_Help

https://twitter.com/frontier_help/status/831563983488446464

Oxidire

Fightguey (6)

Posted 7 years ago.

I was Pioneer 20% by going around A* couple of times so these missions didn't grant me the Elite title so easily either. Still the 80% were quick, I admit it. Hoping that they'll only nerf the exploration ranking process and not the missions rewards Big Grin

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Went out to see Cygnus X-1 and have a look around the area. Found a bunch of water and terraformable worlds and two earth-likes so far, all that was on the way there.

Found these little fellas a bit later. (neutron stars)

For some reason I assumed all the cool stuff nearby would have been found by now but guess not!

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 7 years ago.

Neutron stars do look pretty cool. I guess Cygnus X-1 isnt that far from the human bubble?

btw, it looks like the sight-seeing missions are back. The reward looked pretty much the same to me.

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Cygnus X-1 isnt that far from the human bubble?
- Roguey

Yeah only about 7500 LY away ingame. It surprised me as to how much stuff is still undiscovered. Undiscovered neutron stars near a famous object... to me that is just bizarre. I regret bringing the diamondback explorer on this trip. I made sure to fit an AFM but I couldn't fit a SRV. The fuel scoop is undersized for the ship too so it takes too long to refuel.

Next time it will be at least an Asp.

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Well its been 3 weeks. Everybody quit?

Anyway much has happened in those three weeks. The first thing actually happened before I headed out to explore. I taught myself how to mine. I am addicted. Not sure what about it I like so much but I just love it. So much easier than it used to be for sure and the money isn't bad once you know what to look for. I unlocked the engineer that wanted me to refine a bunch of minerals then brought in the painite he wanted. Far easier than I expected to get that done. I put my Clipper to use as a mining ship. Good starter miner if you have the rank to buy it.

Second is the trip to Colonia. After visiting Cygnus X-1, I decided to just go head and fly over. I was already about 1/4 the way there from my current position. I discovered something interesting, but is known to hardcore explorers. Turns out there is a giant field of neutron stars above and below the galactic plane. I had no clue that was there. From Cygnus X-1 it was only around 1k LY to the start of the field and I used them as far as I could before dropping down into Colonia.

Nice place. Not super active from what I saw but there were people around. I bought a T-6 and fitted it up for mining, but sadly there are only D-rated modules there so it was not very good. However since there are pristine metallic rings right there in system... So I spent a few days there mining and seeing the sights.

After returning home I mined some more and started ranking up with the Federation with mining missions. Huge mistake. Most mining missions want materials from ice rings, rare materials and a lot of them. On top of that they are actually worthless for anything other than missions. While it did gain me a rank and a few hundred million credits, it is not worth the time. There are low temperature diamonds in ice rings but they are extremely rare and really not worth much more than painite, which is significantly easier to find.

Third is the purchase of a Saitek x52. I found a decent one on eBay for a mere $50 USD (they are $150 new here). It was missing the cable that connects the throttle to the stick. Found one online for a $1. So, $51 x52. A little refurbishing work on it and it is good as new. Still getting used to it, i'm now to the point where I can fly as well as I could with the mouse + keyboard and it feels like I can get much better. I was worried that wrist fatigue would be a problem from the twisting of the stick but it seems to be a non-issue.

Next is the horrible grind that was Federation ranking. It was worse than the Imperial grind as the mission system was completely borked for nearly a week. I was unable to get missions from any station, every single one was 0/0. I had to exit to desktop and reload the game 15 - 20 times to make a few missions spawn. If it wasn't for that, I would have beat you to Rear Admiral Roguey. I feel like Fdev was messing with me on purpose. As soon as I got the rank, suddenly all missions were working fine again. I even tried to do the donation mission you were doing, nope. Not a single one ever spawned.

About two days ago I finally got the rank and obviously bought a Federal Corvette. I wanted to wait until 2.3 but that new CG popped up wanting materials for something in the whatever system. I... um... fitted the Corvette for hauling. You know just to get used to how it flys. I logged in yesterday to find the CG has been completed in record time. I did make top 25% though for an easy 21.5 mil payout.

It was then I noticed my trade rank was at 95% tycoon still. How "long would it take?" I thought. I thought maybe no longer than an hour or two at most. Yeah, no. Try 14 hours of trading in a Cutter with 704 cargo at 4500 per ton for that last 5%. Elite trader yay! At least this one is actually legit. Still a long way to go for combat though.

I decided to swap some mods from the Cutter to the Corvette and give it a try at combat. I have to say, I see why everybody hates the Cutter now! I don't understand how it is possible for the Corvette to be so maneuverable, it was a total "WTF!?" moment when I was able to keep the nose on an eagle trying to stay behind me. Insane. It had the cockpit set back really far like the Anaconda though. I don't really like that but it is hard to argue with those two huge hardpoints and the agility to use them effectively. I miss the speed and epic shields of the Cutter but pretty much everything else about the Corvette is superior. Great ship, can't wait to engineer it some more.

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Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 7 years ago.

Sorry for not posting soon, just there has been quite a few things happening for me. I also wanted to get the fed rank done before v2.3 hits, just in-case there are some hidden changes. A big congratulations on gaining the Corvette, the fed rank and the Elite trading ranks. You have been busy!

I agree the fed rank is a really pain in the rear to complete. In the end I grinded donation missions using one of glitches (not ideal but saved a lot of time). It basically allows you to complete a bunch of donation missions and keep repeating them. However it still cost me over 300 million worth of credits. Someone said on Facebook that the donation missions were changed, and the million one were 10,000cr.

It sounds you're really getting into Elite now, just swigging around to Colonia. I do agree its a little empty there, but something worth checking out. I think in 2.3 the Colonia station turns into a one of them mega-ships... although im not 100% sure on that. Whether this means something will happen to Colonia in 2.3 is another question. Frontier also havnt said if those mega-ships can move - I think they will be to be honest.

As for the Cutter and Corvette, well I skipped the cutter. The only really bad thing with the corvette ive seen (not took it into battle yet) is the -20ly jump-range. Id like to seen 25ly (after mods).

ps. you can also filter the universe map, to only show non-sequence stars (which includes neutron star and black-holes). There does appear to be a lot more around the Colonia area, and they do help get around quicker (200+ly jumps are nice);

Hopefully I can get this commander section finished soon too. That should hopefully make it easier to see every-ones progress etc.

ps2. I started looking into getting Modified Embedded Firmware for multi-cannons, but those are annoying to collect.

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Just had a great time attempting to be a pirate. I dusted off my Viper wearing a flag as paint.

Interdicted everybody I saw and demanded they drop their cargo. Lets just say nobody did, I tried to kill the people who didn't comply but that didn't work either. Ended up getting followed by a NPC Vulture that destroyed my guns and sensors. While trying to dock I went silent running and got scanned anyway and destroyed by the station. Was a very fun time and I encourage everybody to give it a try.

Next time I need something with more firepower though, was thinking a Vulture but its hard to fit a cargo bay on it. With no cargo you aren't a pirate anymore and just a murderer.

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 7 years ago.

Basic dogfighting has been the most fun thing to me in E:D, so I want back to basics and started bounty hunting with Cobra MkIII Smile

. Being a pirate could be fun but I would like it to have much more depth like boarding etc. Hopefully that will be possible once "space legs" has released.

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Heh possible, i imagine almost everybody would be in solo if boarding was a thing. Oh wait its like that now! ROFL

By then though star citizen might be out. But considering how FDev is developing their game, i imagine boarding won't be a thing. Prolly be like in Eve Online where all you can do is walk down a hall and sit on a couch.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 7 years ago.

Well.. thats kind-of the trouble with pirating - it doesnt work all that well.. players either flee or get killed for very little reason. For those looking for real PvP encounters will probably struggle to find another player. So those pirating will probably move into busy area, where the police are next to useless to keep order. Pirating isnt profitable enough, police dont keep order and there is too much griefing. and on-top of that you have combat-logging too.

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 7 years ago.

Yeah, I guess boarding is not going to happen with Space Legs either but that could be actually a good for E:D since it is more concentrated to flying a ship. Maybe X-series like boarding would work better but still wouldn't fit well for E:D.

Do you think it would require more depth or is it just fine as it is now? Any ideas how FD could make it more versatile and interesting? Better AI could help a lot.

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

Do you think it would require more depth or is it just fine as it is now? Any ideas how FD could make it more versatile and interesting? Better AI could help a lot.
- edqe

Excellent question which I cannot answer.

The problem with Elite IMO is that it is too rigid in what you can do. I tend to compare it to Eve Online since I have a lot of experience with that game. Take for example the meta-game in Eve. It is a real thing (I think you know this but can't remember if you are/were an eve player or not). Corporate espionage has a purpose and large player alliances have battles over resources, even the small groups do this. This puts a lot of power in the hands of the player.

In Elite though, there is no point. There are no resources to fight over, there is no reason to form a group with others. Knowing where a wing of people are at any given time is irrelevant. The only thing you can do in Elite is shoot a laser, supercruise, land on a planet and look at stars. There is no interaction with the environment in any meaningful way. I think this is partially due to FDev making an upgraded version of the original Elite then deciding to load it with microtransactions as "content" instead of developing interesting systems for people to interact with. The original Elite games were the same way, quite shallow in terms of what we consider content, the difference is back then it was more of a technological hurdle. Now it is the desire to milk people of their hard earned cash. Standing Elite next to any other game and you quickly realise that Elite should be a free to play title. There is no reason Elite should be in this state other than pure greed or just simple incompetence.

I started referring to the game as a "concrete sandbox". It looks inviting and sandy from a distance but once you are there it is completely solid and the only thing you can do is put graffiti on the wall (and only your name), do the wrong thing and you will only end up with scrapes and bruises trying to create your own stories.

So to take a stab at the actual question, I almost feel it is beyond repair at this point. It would take significant changes to the core gameplay to make boarding meaningful. The scope of which would make it a different game. Piracy has a chance if they decided to drop solo and groups to make it an MMO, but again, it would take huge changes to the game to make it something worth doing. With Eve, piracy was a legit way to make a living, I've personally gained a fortune just from ransoms alone when I was in The Tuskers (was about 1.5 billion in straight isk) not including ships i've stolen by forcing people to eject from them (beautiful story of my taranis taking down a vagabond and making the guy eject... ah i miss that Smile

). In elite, none of this is possible, so instead of people pirating, they just kill people randomly for fun instead. So if you can't take their ships, you can't take their money, whats the point in boarding at all? Just to make them fail a mission that is worth peanuts?

Orbot

Proguey (12)

Posted 7 years ago.

@Sinxar: Very interesting post and it had many excellent points.

I have been expecting too much from "space legs" and how it could be a game changer. After reading your post I don't believe anymore FD even wants it to be a new gameplay mechanism but just a cosmetic thing to make ships and space stations feel a bit more personal and living.

Boarding as FPS is out of question but a more stratightforward way like in X-series could work better. Still, it would be really hard to balance it in multi-player game because for example players with wings would be OP against a single ships etc.

I recently saw a video from Roguey how to make money in E:D. It is an excellent video but what cought my eyes was that it looks like he has achieved ultimate end-game state already; Elite-titles and enormous amount of money. Is it so?
There must be lots of players in same situation as Roguey is at the moment. I feel that FD should forget cosmetics "space legs" etc. and focus on deeper game mechanisms and give veterans much more content to play - something to work towards. I guess Thargoids needs to be much more than just pew-pew.

Reading these posts and seeing Roguey's videos pulled me away from an idea to get back to play the game again. I came here for motivation but got facts instead ... Wink

As a veteran players, what do you think FD should concentrate most?

Sinxar

Cruguey (18)

Posted 7 years ago.

I think they should work on group mechanics and fix server stability first and foremost. Its been out for what almost three years now and the servers are still just as broken as release day. I can be in solo exploring and get kicked randomly because it can't connect to the matchmaking servers.

Since they wanted to do the planet landing thing, I don't feel it was right to leave it like it is now to come back to later. Give us all the landfall planets including earth-likes.

Why do we have to scavenge the barren planets for common minerals like we are some sort of wild animals looking for our next meal. Is there really no iron, nickel, sulfur etc for sale anywhere in the entire universe? I can buy battle weapons, platinum, medicines but God forbid there would be some iron.

I know it isn't easy doing these things, but considering how rich they have gotten you would think they could hire somebody who could do it.

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