Elite: Dangerous

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The People's Republic of Clogher
Soooooo ... Beyond.

What was the thing that even diehard fans hated about Mass Effect 2? Oh, right, the bloody scanning...
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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



there's a frog in my snake oil
Soooooo ... Beyond.

What was the thing that even diehard fans hated about Mass Effect 2? Oh, right, the bloody scanning...
Hey I heard some people loved it. And the Mako too

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Got in last night after the servers settled a bit. I like the new mining. But then I kinda liked the old mining

A Night Down the Mines:


Who can argue with big boom?


Or atmospheric aftermath?

On the payouts and mechanics I reckon they've got it right ultimately. They saved it right at the end of beta by stuffing the explodable rocks with crazy pricey rares, rather the generic ring materials. Now everything makes sense, is proving mainly fun to do, and pays good. Can't complain

When you hurl probes at a planet's rings now you'll reveal some hotspots for bizarre new commodities. Head to them, interpret the (horribly blocky :/) scan until you find the brightest, biggest, bestest rock. And, slower than you can say Skinner's Box, you crack a rock and hoover up its 4mil cred payout

The actual mining mechanics themselves are all cool, for me. They all require piloting skills to nail the shot, and then the top two have some cute little mini-games to get the most ore which feel genuinely suitable. I get the rock cracking now in particular - you're supposed to choose how strong a blast charge (holding the trigger) you're going to apply to the appropriate weakpoint. (Like whack a huge charge on a super fragile area, and then top it up via adding lesser charges to middling weak points, or whatever works to get you in the best yield-to-destruction tier. Possibly disarming the odd mine if you overcook, although that takes an agonising amount of time to comply...). Flying around doing it can definitely lead to you being super close as it goes off, while you greed-chase the optimal result.

The only downer is that the explosion isn't that dangerous at all . It really should be...

The sheer number of tools needed is absolutely ridiculous, but I found a way to get everything in a weapon-less Krait, and it's ultimately pretty workable once you sort your firegroups.


Same Old Elite

Of course what I actually wanted to do last night was try the Thargoid system-invasion zones. But was the game amenable? Noooo . So I did what was vaguely accessible.

It also trolled me with hope early on, as I rose like a bird from a flame-coloured planet, towards an exciting cluster of persistent USS opportunities... all of which were degraded emissions meh. Except for one exciting distress signal! Which turned out to be a glitched parade of pirates escorting their target through empty space...

Never change Elite

(Plz keep changing Elite... )
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The People's Republic of Clogher
I like what they've done with the menus, the codex etc.

Been doing some scanning - I'm up to Trailblazer in Exploration and wanted to level up - and am really puzzled as to why they've introduced a load of extra faff. If it's true that things like this are largely done at the behest of the 'forum dads' then I despair.

Do want a Mamba to sit alongside my Kriat though, so I'll keep playing for a bit.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Yeah there's some solid QoL stuff in there. (I listened to a fair bit of the new audio lore trucking around the beta too )

I think the Explo scanner might grow on me, although it's my least favourite addition. I quite like the probes though in a chill way. And the fact that you can find points of interest on the planets dead easily once scanned is... well it's better than never being able to find them at all before

The system states / permanent USSes / new installations feel like they're edddgggging towards making systems more diverse back in the bubble. If still at a bit of a snail's pace. I need to hit a load over the next few weeks to really judge the changes though.



there's a frog in my snake oil
Handy mining vid



(And dammit I've been drilling the bits with the densest rock, not the densest minerals :/)

EDIT: And explo:




there's a frog in my snake oil
So it turns out the motherlode rocks only come in one shape per ring type. The metallic ones are this pear shape:



Pick a particularly glowy one and you're pretty golden. (Although not always guaranteed to get the quarter-mil-per-ton ones for the zone).



You still need to nose in and confirm, because they can be end-on and look round etc. Makes it easier to sniff out some payday though.

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Thinking I'll gird my travel loins and take a passenger somewhere deep dark in a bit. Still don't think the Explo mechanics are as filled-out as I'd like, but reckon there's more positives to dangle my head in now. And getting more cash alongside the views won't hurt . Reckon I'll keep going til going til I find some weird alien life in a nebula, then sashay back.



there's a frog in my snake oil
This was cute.

I'd figured out I could defend a local medical installation as part of a civil war. Rocked up and there were various combat zones littered around the place too and I got this in Supercruise as I got close.



Ultimately it played out like a standard combat zone, but with the 3 waves of ships that arrived trying to take out power plants on the station (and the new audio chatter would warn you when they were causing damage there).

Honestly it could do with a bit more flow to encourage flying amongst the installation itself, but it was a tight win in the end, and all the scene setting was solid.



Of course it's Elite so it was a bit glitched. Like the faction who owned the installation sent the ships who were attacking it. So I helped kill them all. Then the same faction gave me much faction rep




there's a frog in my snake oil
Some fun apparent file digging. No way to confirm, but this Yamiks guy is an old hand (if very much a giant Latvian troll ). The claim is that this Thargoid model was found in the files around the 2.1 beta update, (and around late 2016 for the fancier images).



**The truth is out therrrre... looking in various directionnnns**





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Could be a giant fake, could be the spoils of file diggers as suggested (who were more interested in gaming the game at the time ). Would kinddda fit with the incredibly old claim that 'Season 3' was going to have Leg action. IE:

...especially from update 2 onwards (when interiors and first person is available).
Or could just have been meant as the pilot model of the Tharg ships that were coming

As always, Elite is as much an ARG as a story arc

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EDIT:

FDev say they're legit models, from 2014, that aren't part of their current plans...






there's a frog in my snake oil
I'm doing it. I'm going exploring...



May the game have mercy on my soul

Got a simple 10mil passenger group on board, just to give the journey shape. Have pointed myself at the cluster of nebulas they fancy and I'm on the 240s jump out... just figuring out the scanning as I go. (I kinda like that you can at least hit cruising speed past planets you're flinging probes at. Still deciding what I think about the system scan...)

So far I've found some scrubby chemical outcrops. Later I intend to find weird squid that communicate with their mouth lights

(I coulda gone full crazy and picked up a 50mil explorer group, but they wanted to go to the literal centre of the galaxy. Forget that )



there's a frog in my snake oil
So I'm just scanning and jamming...





Not sure how long I'm gonna last. Having some actual game mechanics in the mix is an improvement, but they're still fairly slim. (I've been through all the in-game 'podcasts' already and now I'm relying on music to keep me sane )

PROS
  • Knowing there's actual alien life out there to be discovered is still working as a driver at the mo
  • Scanning whole systems in the time it took to nose-scan a sun before, and cherry picking top dollar planets from range, means payout should be decent, and involves less dead-time flying.
  • The systems and location changes do look that bit prettier with the new lighting (and out here I can use the VR Ultra settings )
  • Finding planetary sites easily does make for decent rest stops, even if they're just glowy space mould :/

CONS
  • The mechanics need more engaging aspects beyond 'easy payout' :/. Something involving terraformables would be welcome, potentially using the orrery view to identify 'goldilocks zones' . A bit more skill to earn extra reward.
  • Heading to nebulae to find creatures means you're in the most-trodden zones, so the discovery/pay motivation drops off :/
  • The prettier the sky boxes get, the longer the road back feels. Guess that's never gonna change :/

Think maybe I need to wait for yet another layer of life-discoverables to make this involved enough for me. Dangerous land animals found in a variety of locations? Super rare materials you can prospect from space via planetary scans + eyeballing features? Yeah, that'd help






there's a frog in my snake oil
I stumbled onto something...



Turns out he was already discovered of course

(Tatty, if you're still exploring, def keep an eye on the far left of the scanner. Like left of the asteroids signal etc. That's where USSes show up in the bubble, and it's where phenomena signals show up too )



I woulda got a shot with the space crystals, but he moved erratically.

There's not actually a huge amount of interaction with either. (Well he kept bumping into me, which is how I initially discovered him. Did make me jump ). Some of the squidy ones spurt caustic ink if you flash your lights at them though apparently

I forgot to bring any lasers so can't do that particular bit of science :/



there's a frog in my snake oil
Ok I found my explo turn-around point. Actually made it to my passenger's destination, and it was pretty sweet. Two ringed earth-likes around a neutron star. Felt a fitting point to try neutron star jumps for the first time



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I've found explo a bit of a trial again on the whole, but there's been enough about it to see me further out into the black this time, and when it's purty it sure is purty. And the added risk is all good, be it alien or neutron-based. I reckon I'll be taking as many boosts as I can on the way back. Putting everything on the line adds a certain frisson for sure







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EDIT:




there's a frog in my snake oil
Gorramit, my napkin maths suggested when I got to this next nebula I'd have a mere 90 jumps to go. Turns out it's 130... :/





So I'm just kicking back with music, travelling out to the odder waterworlds, and probably making paydirt. And dammit if my recessive completionist gene isn't kicking in with some of these systems... (once you've cleared out a few crappy ice worlds to reveal the high metals you might as well go for that Full System Scan bonus :/)

Running out of neutron stars still burns tho



there's a frog in my snake oil
So I made it back, and I'm 150m richer. Which means I can finally buy that military hull for my Anaconda. (And not much else . Damn end game stuff is expensive )

I actually got along with it in the end. There was still too much of the 'straight line grind' of old ultimately, but there was less of it, with more colour and activity taking its place. I think what helped was:

  • The FSS is at least a game mechanic



This triggered a primal gaming 'hunt the loot' / 'complete the set' response in me at points, even though it's very simplistic on the face of it.

I think it helps that you can see it's built on the working system (with planets moving about if you're zoomed in on them enough etc). Meaning you can apply some astro-logic to hunting desired types down. IE tracking down a gas giant to find that missing metallic which must be clustered around it, knowing it's liable to be close to the centre of the system as that's where the heavy stuff would have clumped, and not a far flung one. (With the bonus Skinner's Box aspect that even worthless planets can spring cash on you, making it worth clearing them out to reveal the more precious signals. IE if an ice ball turns out to bear geologicals, or if a rocky is in the goldielocks zone it could always be terraformable).

It's still kinda uninspired to see all this stuff transposed into a 2D wire view, and some kind of 3D delve would have been much sexier, but it does kinda work. And the scan view allowing you to quickly parse the system ('OK that's a huge metallics signal' etc) but still require you to search for the individual sources does work.

  • Lighting + 1080 + VR



Being able to whack up my settings to Ultra VR + 1.5 HMD setting out in the black made for a super slick-looking experience. Closest I've felt to being in a spaceship

(Even if there wasn't always much to do beyond look around the canopy at the changing backdrops and drum on the dashboard )

  • Discoverables



Planetary life, for all their plaintive songs and glowy translucent tricks, didn't really do it for me, picturesque as they were as picnic stops. It was getting rammed by an errant flying 'gourd' surrounded by spiky bacterial formations that perked me up mid-trip. That ultimate extra elusive Skinner's Box kick that there's weird life out there to discover in the furthest flung fields added a certain something. (Even if the encounter again was very light on actual gameplay. And why the hell do you only get 100k for discovering a new location for an alien lifeform? )

  • Neutron Stars



One of those 'wait for updates to accrue' boons, but risking these for the first time while out in the black was proper sweaty

Can def see using some of the 'neutron routes' in future. By the time you've found you're next one it's probably not even much quicker than straight line grinding, but it's a lot more exciting

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*Traditional photo log*

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That's me done with it until they add another tier or two of content. I might check out some Codex phenomenon discovered near the bubble, but that's it. Actually enjoyed this trip on balance though



there's a frog in my snake oil
Still slightly cold-ridden, so I've been sitting down a lot. Playing Arena



Short version here:

WARNING: spoilers below



there's a frog in my snake oil
I've got mixed feelings on community art (sometimes it just feels like filling in the gaps in the game...), but this one's great



And reminds me I really should go check out the Thargoid combat zones... (I've been holding off because they're supposedly bugged in multiplayer, and like, impossible solo )



there's a frog in my snake oil
Haha, holy **** . The 2nd expansion is estimated to be ready by the latter half of 2020...

So there will be quarterly tideover updates, but pretty slim ones by the sound of it. Although at least including some 'new features' additions by the sound of it at least (not just the 'narrative' additions + ships of Q2/Q3 last year).

Definitely make or break time with the DLC though. I would imagine some major community drift during that time. On the plus side though, at least they're properly going for it . (The full production stage will be at least 2 years, & it seems there's a chance their R&D stage was equally long given past comments. That could add up to some chunky gameplay. They're also likely eyeing up the new console generation too with that launch projection, so aiming for a big splash all round...)

(Seems like they may have a few fun things on the brew, like the mission videos found in the Beta, but yeah. My suspicion is I'm gonna be more away from ED than in it for this year+. Again )



there's a frog in my snake oil
I turned the above post into a picture so I did...



(Warning, contains impenetrable memes...)



there's a frog in my snake oil
THE INTERNET IS LEAKING:

The 2020 update is looking increasingly likely to be this:



+


With some added base building, of unknown dimensions.

Source? Why the internet of course:

The purported leak describes ED 2020 thusly:

Elite Dangerous (Project Watson) - Space legs. Haven’t seen any mention of atmospheric landings. FPS style gameplay, Thargoids in the flesh. Base building. Coming end of 2020. Thargoids look very Starship Trooper. Don’t expect to see much between now and then. The focus is on keeping Elite making money on the mean time.
It has recently proved correct on these two predictions:

Jurassic World Evolution (Project Nero) - New DLC will contain Acrocanthosaurs, Proceratosaurus and Herrerasaurus.
1. Planet Zoo (Project Darwin) - Announcing this month or next. Releasing October. PC only based on Planet Coaster. Cool weather effects, actually looks fairly okay. DLC packs every 3 months or so with the first being around December.
I'm not totally sold yet, could still be a very sly troll, based on knowing the former & guessing the latter (which was very guessable). If some of the other stuff slated for 2019 pans out though, it's looking like a safe bet



there's a frog in my snake oil
CONTINUED GUSHING:

Two more predictions ticked off for the leak. It's four for four now...

There is some decoration coming.
[CONFIRMED] - Update 1.8 - Terrain Painting and Scenery improvements
Planet Coaster - Currently working on a Ghostbusters pack.
[CONFIRMED] - Update 1.12: Ghostbusters
Ok so the decoration stuff would be an easy guess, but the IP tie-in for a DLC is an eyebrow-raiser. FDev haven't done anything similar previously. And this for a franchise on its way out in theory. No way they just guessed that.

Could still be file diving, or a leak from the console certification end or whatever behind this, and all be an elaborate troll re the further predictions. But the balance of probability suggests ED's getting the Starship Trooper treatment in 2020 I reckon