Elite: Dangerous

Seems like the Gamma is much tougher on requiring the scan to display 'wanted' now before allowing a clean attack on enemies (which is daft). But possibly the real glitch is that attacking craft don't seem to be being tagged as wanted after attacking you. Either way def needs balancing up a bit. Especially as I'm planning to try piracy and bounty hunting next Those in the know say picking on minor factions in Indy systems is the way to go.

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Ach, min-maxing is no fun.

Got my Cobra, after a bit of a slog, and the game finally seems to have started. Fuel is now actually relevant and your ship is big enough so that you can experiment with roles without unbalancing yourself. Am going to do a bit of bounty hunting myself now - My previous foray was in a Sidewinder and it wasn't much good unless it was against really low level AI or really stupid people.

I actually hope they do something about interdictions before the 16th. Playing Solo you'll get interdicted on maybe 30% of your journeys, playing Open it's 80% and getting a tad boring. Imagine what it'll be like when the game's released and every numpty buys a cheap interdictor?

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Cobra makes all the difference doesn't it

It's great for trying out all the different styles. Was on the bounty hunting last night - saw this fun bita NPC chatter

*EDIT - THIS WAS ALL WRONG * You definitely can get warrants in strange scenarios now. Got one from the main faction in an Indy system, but my target was definitely the second-from-bottom faction and was wanted locally. They both had 'Purple' in their name though so I'm wondering whether there are inter-faction alignments that aren't advertised (unless just through the name!). Could be that the warrant itself was from one of the other minor factions? Is that possible, or is it always the boss faction in the area?

Gonna try and do a proper investigation soon. Killing all the different factions, in the name of SCIENCE

Yeah can see why interdiction is rampant, tried that out too and it does make supercruising round the system actually fun! Trying to second guess destinations, and lying in wait for approaching ships etc, or just cruising for USSs in the interim. It is kinda easy to see when an NPC is lining you up (plus there are audio queues occasionally), so I'm guessing the solution online will be to watch for tails, and to take oblique approaches to destinations.

All moot for me until my lan chord extension arrives. Imagine wifi ain't the way to get my online on.

Actually managed a few cold runs too incidentally. The cobra seems to do fine with just a heat sink eject and then a quick boost in (although I may have been lucky with the position of the local cruisers). I did go full shut down for an important final one though - quick hint: Don't turn off your sensors, it seems to cancel your docking request

Yeah, the bounties are increasingly random. The entire Federation is now hostile to me because I followed one of those unexplained signal sources which led me to a cache of Black Boxes. As soon as I scooped them up they got marked as stolen (how's that work? ) but I didn't realise until I made my way to the Federation station I was trading with.

Cue ship scan and 47,000 cred fine!

I'd just bought the Cobra at that stage and didn't have enough to pay it off so headed to the nearest Anarchy system and fenced the gear, which only netted me 30k. Once I'd paid the fine the Federation was still hostile to me.

Next run I got interdicted (don't even bother trying to avoid them now I've got the Cobra. The bounty is nice ) and because I made the mistake of not waiting to be fired on by the Wanted Master pilot I was the one getting a 200 cred fine. The 7k bounty I got for smoking him made up for it though.

Despite all the issues (performance is frankly unacceptable on a rig like mine) and bugs I'm really digging the game now, although with the Feds still after me I may as well turn full pirate.

The names just keep getting better. Firstly, the Galaxy's cheeriest system:



And then this.



"With a Kebel Yeh, she cried 'More, more more'"

The devs have definitely had fun with the namings

I think the idea is that when we buy stuff it gets marked with our signature. Anything you pick up in space still has the last owner's tag on it.

I had a similar one where I got caught with blackmarket booty, and the 28k crime was enough to neg-rep me with the system. Luckily they're just a little indie set up so it's only local. Are you totally banned from Fed-land now, or are they just red to you and a bit pissed off? I'm finding I can lessen their anger via bounty hunting etc.

I've realised why I keep getting random fines. It's because I'm now interdicting people, and you lose their 'wanted' info when you drop into the instance. Attacking em cold then makes you the bad guy - It's an outrage I tell you

And yeah, interdictions are kinda welcome once you're in combat mode (Unless it's some reprobate who rips up your shields at the first go. I'm still finding my level, and having to flee occasionally )

This. There's a load of potential out there. A solid set of gameplay mechanics and wicked over-arching vibe. I feel like I've got a broad skillset for surviving the restart now and playing it by ear (altho lord knows it's more fun when flying a Swiss-army-knife ). The depth-vs-accessibility thing feels about right. The fact that we're playing, nay grinding, with a wipe imminent probably says a lot

It could all fizzle, but as it stands they've set up a pretty damn cool sandbox. If the launch keeps it perky, and the updates down the line keep hit the same stride, it really could be a special flight of fancy

They're not attacking me on site but I'm not getting anything beyond the most basic, low paying missions from their stations now. I've not encountered any Empire or Alliance yet so this is a bit of a pain. Even turning in Federation bounties, trading with Fed stations and doing whatever scraps of missions they have all day yesterday my reputation is still Hostile Blue Triangle.

I think it's time for some garage forecourt flowers.

Wait, hostile blue triangle? Blue's good isn't it?

My lot are still officially 'unfriendly', but have dumped the down red arrow at least. I'm guessing bounties, lump trades and selling data has to be the way. Main faction aren't even offering me missions right now

The hostile blue triangle is always the one that gets left til last in the chocolate box at Christmas.

I'm actually hoping for a save wipe now (but didn't Davey B say that the Gamma saves would carry over?) because my money making opportunities have been significantly decreased since the Feds turned on me. At least I'm not wanted by them.

Yeah this has actually been a fun trial run if it turns out to be a full wipe. Have learnt a lot by failing, but would almost almost welcome it in that sense - starting afresh to make bigger and better mistakes . Would be good to figure out how to reverse faction hate before that happens though...

When pressed on the Gamma wipe Frontier have said they'd rather not, but chances are good that they'll have to. They essentially said 'If you want a yes or no, the answers is yes'.

I'd also be cool if there's some carry-over too. For all we know they might decide to keep faction status for example . At least it'd make the universe feel lived in

Have you any idea where the game data is held? I bought a new SSD at the weekend, uninstalled ED from the C drive and downloaded the installer. Pointed it at the SSD and the game booted up immediately - the game data is obviously stored somewhere else but I can't find it in the usual places, AppData etc.

EDIT - Found it. Can't believe the game's only 3GB.

The whole thing is proceeedural. Any art assets you may be seeing are a product of space frenzy

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PS this 1985 flame war unearthed by the reddits is class

Yep, I know that Davey B is some sort of Poundland Bono-glasses wearing wizard who managed to fit the first game onto a gnat's pube while Ian Bell was out buying sports cars and jewellery (probably) but even the lighting effects in ED should take up significant space.

This might purely be in my head but I got the distinct impression that, after buying a docking computer for the Cobra, The Blue Danube comes over in much higher quality in that particular ship than it did in the Hauler. The Cobra's obviously got a bangin stereo.

The docking computer, however, is even more borked in a bigger ship so it got sold pretty quickly afterwards...

I wouldn't actually be surprised if they'd done that The soundwork is clearly a labour of love, with all these little idiosyncratic touches. (There's one sound which is so kinetic I often reach for my controller instinctively, thinking the rumblepack is going off. Think it's part of the hyperjump sequence)

Putting Braben's gigabyte-defying coding capabilities into perspective - I bought The Evil Within, a linear 3rd person shooter.

40GB.

Oh God, now I see Braben with cosmic pubes. Stop that!

You've made me investigate where Bell is now. According to Wiki this is his website. That's certainly him there with the cat. The "conduct one's life without regrets" quote also fits . Not sure about the ultraviolet body art tho... (And slightly worried that the second pro string to his bow seems to be web design... )

This piece was intriguing though. Suggests Elite caused the first user group, and hosted the first eSport. These are mainly from Braben quotes mind

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Finally, neat lil countdown webpage

Yeah, I've popped onto Ian Bell's website a few times over the years, mainly because he kept an archive of playable versions of Elite for various platforms. He also linked to some of the better fan tribute games such as the fantastic Oolite, still going strong.

This is what websites used to look like, youngsters. It's probably still got links to Hotbot.

EDIT - Yep, he's still got the links, only fewer in number than I remember. Davey B's Stasi have probably been on the prowl.

I'd forgotten about Elite The Musical!

You couldn't make it up.

Please tell me that has never been staged

Having some success with faction placating btw. Doing trade runs and bounty kills have got me an up arrow with my red meanie system. You don't have to be a pirate! (But feck it, do it anyway )

Wow, seeing that HTML setup gave me a dose of 90's nostalgia haha.

I've been getting loads of blue triangles but nothing has changed yet as far as actually moving from anything other than Hostile. If we end up not having a save wipe I might end up doing it manually.