Elite: Dangerous

2.4 Beta is Live:

Much much QoL. Too much to list.

+

Mystery ship added: Type 10 Defender
(it's still a mystery, we just know the name)

+

Ludicrous 'limited gold' sale in operation. It's a cartel I tells ya...



Luckily I can't afford the solid gold SRV (having recently liquidated all my money...), so I'm ignoring all of it

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

Elite VR Report:

Rarg, finally had a proper go at optimising the settings, and this can get a bit special at times

Main highlight was scudding past the city-surfaces of coriolis station in a tutorial Sidey, and realising I just had to go and have a traditional FA-off fly inside



Pix still can't get across what's cool about being in the middle of all this stuff, but here's another album anyway just in case



I guess pragmatically I can discuss how my current settings pan out. Dumping a load of Supersampling and glitter (bloom, blur, ambient occlusion, high end shadows) and making do with lowly FXAA etc allows me to boost the 'HMD' setting to 1.5 (basically downsampling, as I understand it). Gives much better distance views and general fine detail render. Decent balance of smooth & pretty. Getting the reco 90fps in space & stations and a solid 'asyncronous 45fps' (IE 90 fps with half the frames filled in) on surfaces, and all looking pretty clean. (Turns out I was dropping sub '45' previously, which is why it was a melty hell).

This pic probably gives an idea of some of the payoffs:



Text is all big and bold on station menus, but you can see some aliasing shimmer in the bigger cockpit of the 'Conda. (Aliasing / shimmer is probably one thing I'd still like to tweak - most of it's fine, but station meshes do crawl a fair bit on some approaches). The slight barrenness of the cockpit is barely apparent when you're in motion. (Keeping reflections high seems to help in some of the shinier cockpits too - the Courier's interior looks pretty fantastic as the starlight shifts over it )

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TLDR: The game's still stupid (got sent on a '10 minutes away' assassination, agaaiiin). But now I've got it stable in VR, it is also pretty fantastic again. Flies and feels like a wonderful sci fi beast

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EDIT: Additional:

Combat:

After doing some prolonged CZ combat, I can say that it is a bit like viewing everything through a sieve. Even though you essentially rely on the larger HUD info, you still spend a lot of time tracking small dots at range, be they the sub-system boxes, or the orientation hints of the target in flight.

Not playing to any of the tech's strengths really. But with the bonuses of the headlooking for target tracking and general whizz bang when shots got close and **** got intense, still happily spent an hour doing it . (Really wish the Arena mode was active - would love to use this set up with that 'visual make and break' rule set)

Alien Ambience

Visited a fully sprouting alien zone...



Again impossible to put it across, but here's a mini-album trying to show the 'waarg' element that VR adds to being 'in' this classic sci-fi style environment

Canny Valley

Seeing your own Av in 3D is odd . Impressive, but most strange...

Ok two epiphanies!

In Space Things Are Big (but you are always the same size):

I've figured out why the scale really kicks home in VR. It's not just the stereo imaging. It's that you've got a point of reference! Even when not in my ship, just floating in the CQC menu screen looking back over my shoulder at the echoing chasm that is the bay behind me, it feels enormous because I know how big I am compared to it. We are the scale. In my case I know that I'm 1.80 metres, and that thing over there is ****ing huge

So sure, there's always been points of reference. I know that this perk disc is wider than my ship, but now I know just how big my ship is compared to me (in a way that just doesn't bite until you're 'in' the game, 'being' the av, rather than just jiving with the idea of seeing from its point of view). Something about the stereo view and the precise head tracking really does kick in an extra convincer for your brain that this sh*t is actually there in relation to yourself. Some extra hard-wired world-perceiving part of you really does buy into it, and brings a few more instincts and calculations than normal along for the ride...

This thing is fricking massive



Can confirm Arena is even more insane in VR!

It really is space pew daydreams writ real . I'm in a weird niche position in that I'd gotten a handle on it when it was still properly alive, so despite being VR-bedazzled, after a small amount of shooting the wrong team (due to to my new VR friendly HUD colours I swear ) I was able to not get totally murderised. Finished mid-tabley each time, and had an absolute blast

A few vague thoughts on the VR side:

• You can track fleeing ships a lot better, no doubt. The 'visual lock' system is also totally suited to it. (Being able to 'lock target in front' just by looking in their direction is dead handy too).
• You do have to scramble around to refind the actual radar sometimes, so busily are you rubbernecking at all the predators and the pretty
• The enormity of the infrastructure made me feel like I could go for even small escape gaps then in the past.
• It was the closet to vom-comet city Elite has taken me too, but it still felt fitting given the manoeuvrers. Wasn't ultimately that bad, but when the numbers dropped I was happy enough to step down after 45 minutes. It's pretty fricking intense!

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EDIT:

Oo nice, someone's found one of the new Dredgers in the 2.4 Beta. Complete with daft storyline and some pretty badass lines to it. Most interesting geography since the Cap Ships...

Just some other people's pretty, and nerd-chievements, coz ED does those things well

The most travelled exploration routes since launch, drawn from EDDB data...



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Some lunatics spent 8+ hours 'booping' a moon buggy into space (pix), and then towards a station (IE pushing it with their noses)...







They plan to try and dock in their next session

That's one of my favorite games right there!

Haha cool. Got your anti-alien pants on for 2.4?

Awww yeah. Now this is a proper teaser trailer

Ok, I'm out in the pretty-lands... I'm ready for the alien insurgency...



Or trade opportunity, whichever it turns out to be



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I bit the bullet and did the last bit of grind polish on my Conda. It's got 120mil creds of 8A Powerplant, modded shields to match, and every gadget and launchable under the sun. Should be a blast in multicrew. Now to decide if I'm gonna risk the 15mil rebuy...

(In the meantime I've landed it on the 4G planet above, without misadventure, and I'm waiting on my sacrificial Courier to arrive instead )

Hellloooo Thargoids



I took the pacifist approach and made it out alive . It was fairly annoyed at this point though

Apparently there are now science limpets that will rip bits off them. I must get me one of those toys...

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In less salubrious news, I threw more money at the screen :/. In the shape of mis-matching space clothing...



(You can fashion the 'life jacket look'. It may be suitable, if I rip too many bits off the Thargs )

Noice, this stuff is escaping the 'one off cut scene' crit of the initial alien reveal. They're everywhere in the target region (Pleiades nebula), displaying various responses (layered combat responses, although they're pretty much unreadable and immortal at the moment, and semi-social reactions to their own metal residues...)

The 'barnacle' sites are growing, and in some familiar shapes...



Some new Missiles and Scanners are getting rushed onto the production line, to bolster the exclusive science drones. Things are ticking along nicely. Kinda like a timebomb


^^ As yet unseen weapon, showing off in a press shot ^^

EDIT: Aha, missiles and scanners unlocked, Smiling Dog Crew just took down the first Tharg (with difficulty). Things are gonna get messy

EDITEDIT: Oh sweet, and now a smaller, Eagle-sized Tharg (?) has been found...





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EDITEDITEDIT:

Alien's now dipping their tentacles into station space...


^^ ** Enhance ** ^^

Any thing new with the Thargoids? I read the Kotaku articles, but I'm kinda lost.

Do they serve a purpose outside of mystery? Apparently effective player weapons have been nerfed and these things are near invulnerable.

You either attack them and lose or sit back and watch them?

They're finally becoming more than just mystery and background colour. But essentially they're just a tougher new tier of AI - one that requires co-op play or a stupidly high end ship. (I'm too afraid to take my big ship up against them - rebuy is too much, and those damn aliens are too fast )

This latest player storm is a bit daft. In theory you can still take them down with a team (and there will definitely be more weapons unlocked through 'study' of their bodily parts etc - it's an arms race). Players just don't like nerfs, even temporary ones. I kinda welcome changing AI tactics, makes sense and adds challenge.

(That said I haven't toyed with them too much. Went and gave them an Eskimo nose-nuzzle when they first appeared but haven't been back in since the new weapons went live. Need to rustle up some troops for the turrets and mini-fighters in my ship )

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EDIT: While I'm here, here's another cute bit of detail that's been discovered. They curl up when they enter their uber-hyperspace jump:



I do like convincer touches like this

(Pragmatically speaking though, next time I'm in I'm going on a long trek, to buy the hallowed science drones that can rip an aliens 'cyclops eye' off... Stupid game )

Ok so FDev had their big Expo. And the info dump can be summarised as:

• The next year of updates will all be free for Horizons owners. Which is intriguing. (Are they thinking rolling unit & expansion sales across 3 platforms plus cosmetics will sustain them?)
  
• The roadmap looks like, um, this...
  
  
  
  
• The core improvements mooted are not exactly what you'd call sexy. But of the stuff listed for Q1 there's at least some nice QoL...

-Co-op missions designed for Wings

-More work on surface textures (aiming for general colour pass etc initially for Q1, and pitching for the concept art below by Q4 via rock scatter, mist, surface tech etc)





-Text-to-Speech Galnet (It's still not character-ready, but it's a nice touch . Possibly they're thinking of rolling it out to NPCs in flight and station announcers too? Could see it working over comms...)



Then a load of new ships for the Alliance, more story beats, and a biggish rework of Mining & Exploration mechanics for Q4, and the addition of carrier ships for new Squadrons (read Guilds?). Lots of fairly unclear and slight-sounding stuff as well, but guess we'll see (Cops being more hardcore in High Sec, Engineers being less flat out random etc). Over a year...

All told, yeah it's all stuff the core game benefits from, and kinda calls for. But hmmm. First impressions are just, hmmmm. (At least it's all pragmatic, achievable, and not accompanied by a price gouge I guess )

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EDIT:



Oh but sod it, I just tried my Asp for the first time in VR, and dropped my jaw at the view. Ate some travel with it to get some kit... And then danced with an alien while extracting one of its spare hearts . (Freaking terrifying! Especially coming to a full stop to let the drone back on board. But my disposable Courier and its crazy acceleration did good )

Lord there was grind involved, there always is. But there was some wonder there too

I'll be back for each update. Stoopid game

Ok, my Lifetime Pass is slightly assuaged. It seems there will be some form of paid DLC and/or bonus content released during 2018 as well, on top of the free core updates of 'Beyond'.

Worst case: It's just 'premium' cosmetic tat. Middling case: It's just some additional ships. Best 'stupid dreamcase' scenario: It's some form of 'expansion' DLC with novel game mechanics or sizeable content.

I wonder how many (or how few) people are playing the game on PS4? I always play in public mode and rarely see another living soul.

Got the trophy for shcooping 1000 tons of fuel last night (something you'd reckon a lot of people would get through simply playing the game) and I'm one of 16% to have it.

It's a shame because the game suits living room TVs really well and the DS4 controller is really well suited - 4 configurable hotkeys on the touchpad plus you use the motion sensing for head-look.

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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 it doesn't look like it stormed it at launch. It was only the 20th best seller in its first month, then out of the charts. Probably found its niche though. The PS4 subreddit is kinda active.

In theory by the end of 2018 there'll be more guild-like 'Squadrons', with command ships, and proper group comms. If there's anyone still playing you might be able to find them then

(I guess for now just head towards Community Goals? :/)

Checked out one of the Tharg-damaged stations. S'alright



The heat damage is more Hollywood thrills than a proper punch to the guts, but enjoyed the dash in and out . Definitely a passenger mission I'm happy to do either way

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That'll be me again for now though, until the next piecemeal update. They've been fun little additions (swooping in to punch a 'heart' out of a Tharg with my speedy science ship was another), but not systemic enough to get me back in. Can see them stacking, just not there yet. (Currently they're filling in the gaps with endless Community Goal fetch quests. Uber dull :/)

LONG-GAME PONDER:

I've got a feeling they're essentially downing tools on major additions and refactoring the whole spaghetti mess. It's one explanation for the pace to date anyway (IE difficulties adding anything beyond cosmetics, more ships & weapon balancing - variants on existing tech essentially). It would also explain the arid & revamping-the-old nature of the 2018 roadmap (audio is about the only area getting something resembling novel tech in the first 9 months, with the bigger Guild ship addition slated for Q4 - by which point the rework is perhaps expected to be in?). Probably a good thing long term if it's the case. There is essentially no way they could have prepped their code to underpin all of the insane demands of atmospheric 'living' planets & FPS-capable 'Legs' (and whatever other fidelity fever dreams Braben has ). No doubt they've hit about seven different walls made of compressed legacy missteps and are taking a pickaxe to a load of it. Guess time will tell...

Well anyway, those are my sunk cost fallacies. Now back to taking the piss out of Star Citizen

Oo, Q1 has come early...



Beta from the 25th then:


Most intrigued by the Wing missions (IE will there be any new scenarios that exploit Wing play?). New ships and sprucier planets all welcome too though, and hopefully the Galnet audio will be a step towards audio NPCs. (Hey, if this update involves one step forward and no real steps back it'll have an edge over some recent ones too )

So FDev have fleshed out some details in three further vids. A load of it is just (welcome) quality of life nuancing. The biggest stuff for me is probably:

Wing missions include:

• Upscaled & bespoke combat missions. IE:
  
  
  Q: Will there be wing missions that are harder than standard missions, rather than larger quantity - like "Kill 4 Thargoid Basilisk Interceptors"?
  
  A: As mentioned on the stream, there are assassination missions that we are hoping fulfil this idea.

I'm not expecting any crazy invention here on mission templates honestly, no 'Dive Bomb This Capital Ship, Quick!' stuff. But it's a start. Hopefully they can eventually combine with the following:

Megaships can now be pirated:

• They've added things like cargo bays, generators, turrets, scanner relays which can be interfered with via limpets and guns etc (vid), allowing for some high risk piracy.
  
  Although:
  
  
  Q: Will we have missions to pirate megaships? (for instance, "Steal 10 tons of gold from mining vessel Vulcano").
  
  A:These kinds of missions will be coming in a later beyond update.
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  On the litany of small & medium nuances, some cute stuff is:
  
  
• Galnet robo-voice News (vid) can be queued up in playlists, paused easily etc.
  
• Material cap upped biggly 100 per item, rather than flat cap per class.
  
• Materials Trader - to get rare stuff and dump all that tat, at a loss.
  
• Tech Broker swaps loot tat for novel kit instead of kit upgrades.
  
• New Services filter in Galmap helps you actually find all these guys, including the guys who'll pay off the new stiffer bounties etc.
  
• You can ignore unwanted chuffing resources when limpet scooping an area
  
  
  
• The planets have new shaders and chemical-coloring (vid). Although frankly they still look like something a depressed god sneezed out. An improvement though, with no real performance hit they say, and there's more variety (vid), if within a tawdry realistic spectrum. Some hope of actual future uses for all this pseudo-science too, eventualllyyyy. IE:
  
  
  Q:Will the different colored parts (of planets) have different features (higher yield in materials, for example) or are these primarily cosmetic changes?
  
  A: Currently the changes in coloured patches are cosmetic, however, there has been a considered approach to apply the changes in colour where appropriate, based on the type of feature that it exists on. Basins, Craters, Ejecta Lines, Mountains and Canyons to name a few. This can make it easier to find interesting parts of the planets from orbit.
• Crime & Punishment: High Sec security now super-engineered. Bounty & crimes now attach to ship not you, causing it to run in an anonymous mode that deprives you of some station services in legit sectors. If you get killed by bounty-hunters etc you respawn in a prison station and can't leave until you've paid for your crimes.
  
• Trading data improved, esp regarding places you've already visited, but god I can't summon the will to find out how.
  
• New ship voices, but probably paid cosmetics.
  
• Engineering grind unwound even further. Tiny woo.
  
• The Chieftain. Alliance, medium size, agile fighter:

EDIT: Full details here

This is all pretty theorycrafty, but it is from the dev working on Megaships & mission templates etc, so some chance it could actually happen. I like these bits:

Cold running ships are generally way underpowered, so that could be a fun balance.

The PvP bounty signal is exacccctly the sort of thing the game needs. (As much as the odds of stumbling on standard player actions seems astronomical half the time . Having big bold beacons of cheeky player actions seems like a solid plan. Hell, having NPC pirate raids on Megaships signalled too down the line would be grand too. But now I'm theorycrafting )

The limpet bay is just sensible QoL. There's like 10 different limpets now, each with their own controller module. It's a mess.

Still, good to see them floating some pragmatic lil increments of fun in 2018, the year of pragmatism...

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EDIT: Cool, in the short-term at least they went with this: