Elite: Dangerous

I'm just enjoying being able to play AAA releases at all on my machine

Here's me drunkenly deciding to take on the Capital ship



Braben was waxing lyrical about Star Wars in that long talk I posted before, and I reckon his love the originals definitely shows

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Yeah, I guess I get too greedy. Even my old 560ti will play anything from the 360/PS3 generation at higher resolutions, framerates and detail levels with faster loading, modding free online etc etc.

I'll crank up Elite again at the weekend hopefully. Last I played I'd been exploring the edges of the map - lots of it is just placeholder (and even then it's a 50th of 1% of the full game or something) systems with no stations to land at, which was a bit of a bummer.

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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

Yeah I guess exploration mapping, mining, inflatable stations, & general human expansion are meant to fill the void. That and future aliens

I got so far away from meaningful civilization that it was easier to start a new save. It's one big ass game but I'm thinking that our expectations have evolved dramatically since they first tried selling us on Elite. The only really interesting thing going on in the Beta seems to be combat, and that's the part I've deliberately shielding myself from.

Oo why are you avoiding it? Yeah it seems like the only thing worth messing with to me right now. I've stacked trade missions and such just to get my Viper feeling fun, but mainly I only drop in to get my Star Wars on . It's grand that you can be a pretty mediocre pilot but still have enjoy strafing around the space furniture and taking out the mid-range AI. Also good to learn certain things (big blue plasma bolts will one-shot your Sidey if you've no pips in systems etc ). I also really need to get better at stealth, if only for later cold running into stations - still can't ace that tutorial for the life of me.

I never really played Elite for the combat. Sure, you needed it to actually rise in rank but it always evolved organically for me. I've been playing the Beta in such short bursts that I've not had the chance or inclination to do much.

That'll change in December.

How's that T-flight stick working out? Thinking maybe that could be my treat this Xmas, and that I could probably live with the right-handedness. (I'm using the right stick on the controller as it is, but with the left stick doing yaw it all feels more ambidextrous). And hey, I manage not to stab myself in the eye when eating, should be fine

Trying to source an ambidextrous stick & a throttle control all looks like a bit too much faff & cash-splashing :S

Main thing I'm wanting, beyond yaw being on the same command input as pitch/roll etc, is to have a smooth way to operate the horiz/vertical thrusters at the same time. Is the wee thumbstick thingy on the actual joystick good for that?

I'm loving the stick and you can bind the keys whenever you want, even swapping on the fly without going into game menus. It doesn't have the deadzones that the FLY5 has and the throttle has a nice tactile 'stop' between forward and reverse thrust.

I use buttons on the face of the throttle for vert thrust and the analogue rocker beside it for left and right. Not tried the joystick for anything other than navigating game menus. The stick gets recognised by the game and most stuff gets mapped to where you'd expect - I've only swapped a few keys and added the vert thrust mappings.

You can also lock the stick twist if you find yourself yawing unintentionally. The rocker on the throttle is supposed to be the alt placement for yaw.

Yep, I'd wholeheartedly recommend the stick.

Sweet, I'm sold

It's the T Flight HOTAS X if you need the exact model. The mind boggles...

T Flight HOTAS X sounds like a guy who makes the popular 'wrapping' music. Terminator X's brother.

I think you'll find that's Thrustmaster T Flight HOTAS X, Esq

But cheers yeah, there are a ridiculous number of variants out there. And prices are already more than a bit Christmasy. Imagine the ED launch date will prob have played a role with that too. I'll be lucky to get it for £32 at this rate :S (Ah well, at least I'm not paying this time )

Try the BT shop, that's where I got mine. £29.99.

Oo cool, so it is. I thought you'd snagged it for 25 for some reason so thought the price loom was upon us. On it

I nearly bought it on Amazon for £36-ish but was reading a spammy BT email advertising their store and went for a browse. It's the cheapest I've seen it.

Feel free to offload the FLY5 by the way. It's done its job, ie: made you spend more money.

I am actually thinking of gifting it to my old man, just to get him back into Elite

Then he can move it on to someone else when he buys a better stick. We've started an Elite charity!

I know he's dabbled in flight sims too, and hell, he's retired, and loves sci geekery. If I can't get him to spend some time flying in his study it will be a terrible shame

I see Frontier are dangling carrots for use embattled Beta types.... 'one careful owner' insurance status and everything, the sexy swine

Yep, I saw the last newsletter where Davey B (he's partnering with Thrustmaster Flight Hotas X on a new Grime project) showed Beta backers his carrot. The ship insurance thing was something I didn't use too much in the original game but was damned glad of the Beta's 'press X to re-buy your old ship and fittings' button after it bugged out majorly causing my fully loaded Hauler to crash into a sun.

I was never a big flight sim guy but when I got the new stick I downloaded everything in my Steam library which came close to the genre. IL-2 Sturmovik, Evochron Mercenary (which I really should try to get into - It's Elite developed by one guy over a number of years) and X3 Albion Prelude, which is the least dense of the X games.

I've not touched any of them.

Bought X-Wing and TIE Fighter from GOG though.

Oo, Evochron looks interesting. Suprised that didn't scratch your Elite itch for a bit Touch late now tho

I see that the internet is getting its knickers in a twist over the decision to drop offline single player mode. I can understand the ire to a certain extent but online solo won't require much of a connection - it'll just be touching base with the server every so often.

I'm more concerned about the actual game. Played a few hours this morning and multiplayer was still extremely glitchy, but at least stable. Seem to have nixed my stuttering problems too - The game doesn't seem optimised for 120 and 144HZ so dropping my settings to 1080P/60 smooths things an awful lot.