Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, BOOM

[Agema]

Yeah, it's the "do thing, relog, do thing again" nature of materials farming I loathe. The Jameson crashsite is stupid but it's a lightning-quick grind for months' worth of mats, but wake scanning and HGSS farming are just horrendous. About the only one I halfway enjoy is the Dav's Hope Raceway, and that's because gotta go fast.

HGSS have had their frequency upped. Not by much, but enough to make a difference. Although pharmaceutical isolators and improvised components are still hard to the point of awful to find, at least you barely need the former and can almost completely ignore the latter.

I really just wish they'd add a player-driven auction house or brokerage for materials attached to the BGS. That way you can just buy the crap and save yourself a few hours' grinding unless you want to sell, and there'd be a purpose to materials grinding beyond engineering -- it'd be a legitimate way to earn credits.

I think what they may be trying to avoid are systems where longstanding players can gift new players millions of credits so they can skip the grind and slot straight into a death machine (even if they can barely fly it).

That may be about a) improving player numbers by making them grind rather than go straight to the top and potentially get bored faster, and b) ensuring newbies have a PvP playground with other newbies on a roughly equal footing rather than have some roflstomped in their Sideys and Adders by Anacondas.

It's nice, sure, but the conversion rates are kind of awful and there's a lot better ways to handle that than what we have.

Yeah, I could certainly live with kinder conversion rates. 1:6 is amazingly poor when trying to pick up other equal-tier mats.

Hell, I dropped a C3 Guardian FSD boost in my Courier. That ship's still on the backburner until I can get it engineered up -- I built it as an all-purpose bubble-runner which means it'll have to be engineered through the eyeteeth before I can really expect much out of it -- but it's still a fun fly as-is. Right now, I have that, my mining Python, my Funship, my Phantom, and my Tradeconda to finish off which is going to mean unlocking the rest of the engineers and grinding an absolute ass-ton of materials, but once I get all that done I'm planning on finally picking up a Chieftain to fill the "not a damn brick" combat role.

Let me see... I've got a Federal Corvette just for a sense of invulnerability (it's all but indestructible in PvE). FdL is on balance a better combat ship - the manoueverability means it can usually kill faster despite the odd squeaky bum time if it hits a lot of opposition and a Krait II when I just want to buzz around with no fixed plan as it can do everything. Then in second tier use, an explo-focused Asp and a Vulture (which I'd owned a long time but engineered late last year to see what it was like upgraded), and a part-engineered Cobra IV I use when I have to do mining. It's about as small a mining ship as is worth the bother, but I've never invested much in mining.

After that, I've got an unengineered Type 7 I bought years ago and did a bit of trading with, but I never was that interested in trading and should probably just sell, the unfinished Phantom, and my Cobra Mk. III (also unengineered) that I kept as a memento. As far as I can tell, the Type 7 is mostly a liability if you encounter the wrong type of pirate: can't run or jump away.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

So this would mean, if true, Michael Keaton would have blown up like 600 years ago, give or take a century?

Sadly it was a false alarm, thinking right now seems to be a convergence of its cycles with a generous helping of dust between us and the star. Still going to yield some interesting data.

I think what they may be trying to avoid are systems where longstanding players can gift new players millions of credits so they can skip the grind and slot straight into a death machine (even if they can barely fly it).

Mining is so lucrative now players can be in mid-range ships within hours of starting the game, and in the big four in a couple days, provided they're searching online for guides, tips, and information. G1-4 mats are plentiful enough they'd likely only sell for a couple thousand each at most, and G5 mats would probably top out at maybe a hundred thousand apiece, so it's not like it would be an economy-breaker.

Which, that's the big problem the game faces at the moment, the discrepancy between in-game tools and outside-game tools. It's rather silly a significant chunk of game time would be spent on Inara, EDDB, Coriolis, and other tools thanks to how clumsy the in-game tools are. Especially in a game in which trading and hauling commodities is such a large focus. All the game's tools need to at least be on par with the route planner.

Let me see... I've got a Federal Corvette just for a sense of invulnerability (it's all but indestructible in PvE). FdL is on balance a better combat ship...

I went the Imperial route, but I do plan to grind Fed rank at some point. I'm happy enough with FGS, and don't see getting a Corvette as a huge priority right now. Funny enough, it's my experience in FGS that makes me more inclined to get a Mamba if I'm going to ever pick up one of the high-end Zorgon Peterson combat ships. I'm already used to flying FA-off, using boost for maneuvering, and reverse turning/flying to compensate for weak rotational characteristics.

Hence my desire for a Chieftain as a second combat ship. I want something that's still tanky, but has strong lateral and rotational characteristics as a complement for my FGS.

My Conda's going to be my big PvE "doomship"; it's going to take significant engineering and I'll be missing out on SCB's/HRP's, but I'll be able to squeak out decent combat performance without compromising cargo capacity too much. I'll probably have to compensate by running bi-weaves and resistance-heavy SB's, but it should be by the end of it capable of handling everything except high-intensity CZ's.

 

[Agema]

Mining is so lucrative now players can be in mid-range ships within hours of starting the game, and in the big four in a couple days, provided they're searching online for guides, tips, and information. G1-4 mats are plentiful enough they'd likely only sell for a couple thousand each at most, and G5 mats would probably top out at maybe a hundred thousand apiece, so it's not like it would be an economy-breaker.

Which, that's the big problem the game faces at the moment, the discrepancy between in-game tools and outside-game tools. It's rather silly a significant chunk of game time would be spent on Inara, EDDB, Coriolis, and other tools thanks to how clumsy the in-game tools are. Especially in a game in which trading and hauling commodities is such a large focus. All the game's tools need to at least be on par with the route planner.

Yeah, I had to do some mining (engineer unlock) somewhere in the middle of last year; I'd noticed with void opals and stuff that there was some stupidly awesome income to be made quickly - just required a quick zip through the guides, as you say.

My feeling is that games like Elite would rather relegate lots of guides to the user base. Cheaper and easier than coding anything in-game. What I do think makes no sense is that the lack of trading info is absurd: how would you not know what the prices were in another system in a galaxy where you can go 50ly in a few seconds?

Hence my desire for a Chieftain as a second combat ship. I want something that's still tanky, but has strong lateral and rotational characteristics as a complement for my FGS.

My Conda's going to be my big PvE "doomship"; it's going to take significant engineering and I'll be missing out on SCB's/HRP's, but I'll be able to squeak out decent combat performance without compromising cargo capacity too much. I'll probably have to compensate by running bi-weaves and resistance-heavy SB's, but it should be by the end of it capable of handling everything except high-intensity CZ's.

Might want normal shields on a 'conda rather than biweaves: has a fair bit less shields than a FC and so harder to get the shield tanking up. It's really SCBs however that make them virtually indestructible, even in a high intensity combat zone. Still, easy enough to get a mean combat ship with over 200t cargo space, ~4-5000 hp (effective) shield and hull each.

I was wondering about the mamba. A couple of my friends have it and prefer it to the FdL for the better hard point placement, but I wonder whether it's worth the loss of agility.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

My feeling is that games like Elite would rather relegate lots of guides to the user base. Cheaper and easier than coding anything in-game. What I do think makes no sense is that the lack of trading info is absurd: how would you not know what the prices were in another system in a galaxy where you can go 50ly in a few seconds?

I can certainly see the argument, but on the other hand I still feel as a matter of principle games should not need exterior sources to be played effectively. A player base will generally make better tools than what are available, but I don't feel that excuses a developer from making a usable toolkit in-game.

One thing that was a real eye-opener to me, was last week or so on the Elite Reddit someone shared screencaps from the game's pre-release footage. What trading was apparently supposed to be, is so different from what we have that it looks like an entirely different game. FDev was apparently planning on a galactic market of complexity and depth somewhat parallel to EVE's, even if it wasn't necessarily based on player crafting but rather commodities trading in general. Consignment, brokerage, futures trading, galactic market versus "local" sales. It really put a contrast to what we have now, and I'm honestly hoping even five years after the game came out FDev still works a system like that into the game.

Might want normal shields on a 'conda rather than biweaves: has a fair bit less shields than a FC and so harder to get the shield tanking up. It's really SCBs however that make them virtually indestructible, even in a high intensity combat zone. Still, easy enough to get a mean combat ship with over 200t cargo space, ~4-5000 hp (effective) shield and hull each.

My final build is going to sit at ideally 324t cargo space; I plan to run C6 shields over C7, and not loading out SCB's or heat sinks. My intent with it is just to poke around CZ's and resource extraction sites to bust up trading monotony, and fend off interdictions. So, I don't necessarily intend to be in intense combat, and have the ability to sit back and recharge as-needed. A big reason I'm eyeballing bi-weaves is to run light on the power plant (hoping to keep power demands within the capacity of an overcharged 6A) as a best-possible compromise to keep my laden jump range over 35ly; 6A shields might be a bit taxing, so if I have to downgrade I may as well run resistance-heavy bi-weave.

I was wondering about the mamba. A couple of my friends have it and prefer it to the FdL for the better hard point placement, but I wonder whether it's worth the loss of agility.

To me it just seems a matter of whether you prefer boom-and-zoom style play, or orbiting a target to stay out of weapons arcs. On paper Mamba seems friendlier to players who like FA-off, boost turning, and playing the geometry game, but it definitely doesn't seem like the ship you want if you prefer the closer-range style of dancing around a target jockeying for position. Mamba just seems a better fit for my preference is all.

 

[Agema]

I can certainly see the argument, but on the other hand I still feel as a matter of principle games should not need exterior sources to be played effectively. A player base will generally make better tools than what are available, but I don't feel that excuses a developer from making a usable toolkit in-game.

Maybe; thinking about parallels like spell/skill choice in RPGs, you see the baseline rules but often not the effects, which only come with experience. Although the balancing involved in ship design, more so with engineering, is much more complex in E. I think part of it is that E was built up from bare bones with live development. They're already way behind schedule on a lot of things - I suspect coding tools was more they could do without.

One thing that was a real eye-opener to me, was last week or so on the Elite Reddit someone shared screencaps from the game's pre-release footage. What trading was apparently supposed to be, is so different from what we have that it looks like an entirely different game. FDev was apparently planning on a galactic market of complexity and depth somewhat parallel to EVE's, even if it wasn't necessarily based on player crafting but rather commodities trading in general. Consignment, brokerage, futures trading, galactic market versus "local" sales. It really put a contrast to what we have now, and I'm honestly hoping even five years after the game came out FDev still works a system like that into the game.

Yeah. E had grand designs, but very little funding to make it happen. I know a guy who used to work for Frontier as a project manager - they were constantly working on Elite in small ways for years, but were not a big and rich studio to make a hugely complex game. It started primitive but what was there was smooth, and then I suspect what they focused on to build up may have been guided heavily by the player base.

I am bewildered people want the devs to work on wandering their pilots around space stations. It strikes me as like playing a fight sim just to walk to and from the plane in the hangar - missing the point. I'd rather have an amazing, detailed galaxy based around flying a ship - including such things as a complex economy system for trading - than what will almost certainly be a less than thrilling sub-FPS walking component.

But hey, if I'm outvoted I'm outvoted.

The end point of a totally integrated game world with walking around space stations, planets, and getting in your ship and flying is a lovely one. I'd just rather have the ship flying optimised before adding a hiking simulator.

My final build is going to sit at ideally 324t cargo space; I plan to run C6 shields over C7, and not loading out SCB's or heat sinks. My intent with it is just to poke around CZ's and resource extraction sites to bust up trading monotony, and fend off interdictions. So, I don't necessarily intend to be in intense combat, and have the ability to sit back and recharge as-needed. A big reason I'm eyeballing bi-weaves is to run light on the power plant (hoping to keep power demands within the capacity of an overcharged 6A) as a best-possible compromise to keep my laden jump range over 35ly; 6A shields might be a bit taxing, so if I have to downgrade I may as well run resistance-heavy bi-weave.

Ah gotcha - when you said doomship I thought you were aiming at something a bit more stompy. I agree biweaves are great for energy efficiency, because the recharge is such a massive plus unless you're taking particularly heavy fire.

To me it just seems a matter of whether you prefer boom-and-zoom style play, or orbiting a target to stay out of weapons arcs. On paper Mamba seems friendlier to players who like FA-off, boost turning, and playing the geometry game, but it definitely doesn't seem like the ship you want if you prefer the closer-range style of dancing around a target jockeying for position. Mamba just seems a better fit for my preference is all.

I play E with mouse and keyboard; I found flying with FA too difficult to control.

I'm pretty sure a PvP player would scrub me efficiently enough - I've seen vids of those guys and I just don't think I can get that much control. A lot of that is I think a substandard control mechanism, coupled with the fact I'm getting a bit old and my co-ordination isn't what it was, so I find it pretty hard to manage the finer details of things like pip management. I could usually keep my FdL mostly with a fire arc against Pythons and larger; not so much Asps, FD/FGs, etc.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Snip because I'm freaking lazy.

Don't get me started on space legs. I don't think most really realize how much developer time is going to be eaten up creating assets for that, when a lot of other things could be done faster and easier to improve the game experience overall. I get it'd be cool to walk around inside and around your ship, but there are things which should be higher priorities which continue the game's lifespan, now.

I get the struggles of a smaller dev trying to make such a huge game, I really do. I appreciate it for what it is, but because of that I see what it isn't, and would love to see what it could be. I don't want to come off as my criticism being from a fundamentally negative place. But on the other hand, I do keep hearing rumors that a lot of E's development staff has been retasked to DLC development for Jurassic World Evolution and that basically a skeleton crew is working on the season 4 paid update, which I do find of some concern, but as long as the product is timely and decent quality I won't complain.

The suspension of CG's and Galnet is kind of annoying, especially since Drew Wagar has been doing some grievance-airing on his podcast of late and indicating the lack of lore development has been a deliberate choice against developers', writers', and the community's wishes. CG's and Galnet were what gave the game that bigger scope and were a huge chunk of feeling like you're playing in a living galaxy, and without them it definitely feels much hollower than it was with. One can only hope FDev sees the value of the ongoing story and changes course soon, definitely before the season 4 release which we've been promised to be the resumption of those features.

Nah, with "Doomship" I just meant large, with big guns. Realistically my FGS is the tank, and unless I'm going to dump a billion creds or more on a ship I plan to haul cargo with and kill its jump range and cargo capacity in the process, the FGS is going to continue being my tank.

I play on PS4, so I have my trusty dual shock which doesn't do half bad in the game. I just wish I could do controller/keyboard to offload hotkeys I rarely use. Actually, I figured mouse would be a better-fit for FA-off than on, set mouse movement to pitch and roll and you can just flick your wrist for rotational movement rather than have to constantly reposition your mouse. Mouse would definitely be a control scheme I wouldn't want to use on the regular, though.

Being stuck with a controller is why I stick to gimbal-mount weapons. I can't get the fine control needed to plant shots with fixed-mount weapons with analog sticks. If I had a HOTAS I'd definitely stick with fixed-mount weapons, but I don't.

 

[Agema]

Don't get me started on space legs. I don't think most really realize how much developer time is going to be eaten up creating assets for that, when a lot of other things could be done faster and easier to improve the game experience overall. I get it'd be cool to walk around inside and around your ship, but there are things which should be higher priorities which continue the game's lifespan, now.

I get the struggles of a smaller dev trying to make such a huge game, I really do. I appreciate it for what it is, but because of that I see what it isn't, and would love to see what it could be. I don't want to come off as my criticism being from a fundamentally negative place. But on the other hand, I do keep hearing rumors that a lot of E's development staff has been retasked to DLC development for Jurassic World Evolution and that basically a skeleton crew is working on the season 4 paid update, which I do find of some concern, but as long as the product is timely and decent quality I won't complain.

The suspension of CG's and Galnet is kind of annoying, especially since Drew Wagar has been doing some grievance-airing on his podcast of late and indicating the lack of lore development has been a deliberate choice against developers', writers', and the community's wishes. CG's and Galnet were what gave the game that bigger scope and were a huge chunk of feeling like you're playing in a living galaxy, and without them it definitely feels much hollower than it was with. One can only hope FDev sees the value of the ongoing story and changes course soon, definitely before the season 4 release which we've been promised to be the resumption of those features.

My feeling is that Frontier have probably decided that the income to be gained from E is now so small it can't justify much dev time. They've sold 3 million copies of the base game as far as I'm aware, but only 1.3 million of Horizons giving some idea of drop-off. I'm guessing if the next expansion is paid for, sales will be even lower. Heaven knows how much they're making from microtransactions.

I think Frontier was pretty middling as devs go before E. However their recent games from E onwards, whilst not being major Starcraft or Fortnite size smashes, have done well and given them substantial security.

I suspect the plan is to gradually add on a few features, much potentially planning for the next iteration. I think they suggested a 10-yr lifespan for the game, but likely they'd be prepping a sequel, and a lot of the existing world development from E could be applied onto a new, updated engine.

I was trying to remember where I'd heard the name Drew Wagar before... then it came to me. He's also written a book based on another 8-bit classic made about the same time as the original Elite called Lords Of Midnight.

Being stuck with a controller is why I stick to gimbal-mount weapons. I can't get the fine control needed to plant shots with fixed-mount weapons with analog sticks. If I had a HOTAS I'd definitely stick with fixed-mount weapons, but I don't.

As far as I'm concerned, gimbals are just superior full stop. Fixed mount weaponry is more powerful shot for shot, but for sustained fire you'll pack out more DPS if you don't have to constantly have the crosshairs on the target. They're pretty much essential on any ship using a combination of laser and kinetic weaponry if you want to fire both at the same time.