Honestly I'm surprised that you're not using the Xbox controller for flight. If your father wants to play with you on Xbox, I'd think that you'd want to use uniform flight controls between the two systems. Absence the presence of a more immersive HOTAS setup on pc at least.
Honestly I'm surprised that you're not using the Xbox controller for flight. If your father wants to play with you on Xbox, I'd think that you'd want to use uniform flight controls between the two systems. Absence the presence of a more immersive HOTAS setup on pc at least.
I hadn't even thought of it honestly. I jumped on PC last night to see if my name was available (it wasn't) and to just dick around for an hour before getting ready for bed. Going the uniform controller route does make the most sense though.
Also it would make the cat easier to deal with. It's not usually a problem playing Xcom or something because I can spare a hand to move her or appease her, but jeezus, the only challenge I had to maneuvering into the station for the first time last night was trying to keep her off the keyboard at the same time.
Honestly I'm surprised that you're not using the Xbox controller for flight. If your father wants to play with you on Xbox, I'd think that you'd want to use uniform flight controls between the two systems. Absence the presence of a more immersive HOTAS setup on pc at least.
I found an Xbox controller to be more difficult to use, honestly. I feel like I get much finer aiming control when I can use the mouse to perfectly zero in on a target. Using the mouse for pitch and yaw turns it into a very slow first person shooter.
The pain of getting your materials pirated was never really the problem though. The problem is that there is zero incentive to mine void opals in open.
Now if they were to flag the void opals as mined in open, and only preserve that flag if you never leave open once you have them, then they could reward the miner for mining in open with the prospect of higher profits at the risk of being exposed to pirate interdiction. THEN we'd be cooking with gas.
If they do it right, then they would have a profit multiplier that's great enough that players could still outperform solo mining income even after losing a percentage to pirates. Then you'd be encouraging player interaction and draw in all of the players who are interested in maximum profit, while still preserving the less lucrative option of safe solo mining for those who just want a relaxing evening blowing up rocks.
The pain of getting your materials pirated was never really the problem though. The problem is that there is zero incentive to mine void opals in open.
Now if they were to flag the void opals as mined in open, and only preserve that flag if you never leave open once you have them, then they could reward the miner for mining in open with the prospect of higher profits at the risk of being exposed to pirate interdiction. THEN we'd be cooking with gas.
If they do it right, then they would have a profit multiplier that's great enough that players could still outperform solo mining income even after losing a percentage to pirates. Then you'd be encouraging player interaction and draw in all of the players who are interested in maximum profit, while still preserving the less lucrative option of safe solo mining for those who just want a relaxing evening blowing up rocks.
I've been advocating for open only power play (it just makes sense, as it was created as a consensual pvp system - FDev said so), and outside of PP, a bonus to activities in Open (like 20%).
But yea, I don't blame folks for being in solo. There is no incentive in-game to be in any other mode.
Speaking of playing in solo...I tried playing in Open last night because I was told that the gankers aren't actually that numerous. Nope. Right out of the starter system I was interdicted by a player and one shot in my piddly little not-even-anything-new-in-it-yet Sidewinder. Didn't even get a message.
Is the starter system actually a specific system and not a random location? Then ofcourse some jerk will be camping it. There are always jerks who like to camp noob town in any game just to farm grierf.
Space is big and there are far far more systems within the bubble alone than there are players. Many systems within the bubble might only see only a handful of players passing through for seconds at a time in a month. Pick a random star and you are highly unlikely to find a player. However there are hot spots of activity. Faction capitals, trade hubs, engineer sites, community goals, and oddball systems with unique characteristics in regards to the background simulation such as Robigo. These sites will have tons of player activity in them. Enough to the point that there are many sperate instances of that system in open.
So if noob town is actually a specific place, then it's gonna be gank central. Guaranteed. Just fire up your frameshift drive and leap a few dozen light-years in any direction and you'll be fine.
There is now a mini starter system bubble around LHS 3447 which is permit protected as of this week's update. No-one with a rank above Harmless or equivalent can jump in. Once the new player levels up in combat, trade or exploration they're given a mission. When that's completed they lose the permit and are fair game if they choose Open etc etc.
Is the starter system actually a specific system and not a random location? Then ofcourse some jerk will be camping it. There are always jerks who like to camp noob town in any game just to farm grierf.
Space is big and there are far far more systems within the bubble alone than there are players. Many systems within the bubble might only see only a handful of players passing through for seconds at a time in a month. Pick a random star and you are highly unlikely to find a player. However there are hot spots of activity. Faction capitals, trade hubs, engineer sites, community goals, and oddball systems with unique characteristics in regards to the background simulation such as Robigo. These sites will have tons of player activity in them. Enough to the point that there are many sperate instances of that system in open.
So if noob town is actually a specific place, then it's gonna be gank central. Guaranteed. Just fire up your frameshift drive and leap a few dozen light-years in any direction and you'll be fine.
Prior to the recent update there was one system everyone started in (LHS 3447), with a second option if you had Horizons. The new update adds another option to drop new players in Dromi, a system in a permit-locked region of 10 planets. The permit for that area is only available to new pilots, existing pilots can never get it, and once you gain a single rank in Combat, Exploration, or Trade, you get given a "graduation mission" that leads you out of the starter area and your access permit is revoked.
The rub comes from the fact the game now no longer asks if you want to start in Open or Solo, it always drops new players in Open, though you can obviously change that later.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Good, IMO. It's not as scary as people make it out to be.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I've been void opal mining in open for some time now. I hardly ever run into another player, much less pirates and griefers. There are dozens of stations at any one given time buying them for ~1.6m/t. When I'm going to cash in a load it's just been NPCs trying to interdict me. The bubble is really REALLY big. I'm amazed I run into anyone outside of community goals and other such hotspots.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
Where has anyone suggested a punishment for playing in solo? All I've seen suggested are incentives for playing in open.
Usually people who are interested in ganking thing playing solo should be "disincentivized" but they really mean punished. I don't think it's a PA problem.
I had shelved this for awhile because of the lack of updates coming until next year. However I just was missing the black and decided to sell off my krait mk2, grab a cobra mk3 and just start engineering it as much as I can while unlocking the engineers, running some missions that sound fun and have some materials rewards, and maybe dropping into Eravate to see what's going down, help out some newbies etc.
For the first time in quite awhile I had some solid fun in ED. For like 5 hours even!
It helps that I really like this 25th anniversary paint job too.
DarkMecha on
Steam Profile | My Art | NID: DarkMecha (SW-4787-9571-8977) | PSN: DarkMecha
Picked this up on a whim because it was on sale last week. Took a minor amount of work to get it working through Proton (see: https://github.com/redmcg/wine/wiki - this worked perfectly), and I cranked it up yesterday.
First impressions
1) The field of view sure is restricted, at least on the starter ship
2) CIG obviously have infiltrated saboteurs, because the tutorials were insanely frustrating and unhelpful compared to the actual game.
Anyway, I completed a data courier mission, managed to avoid a fiery death in a sun on the way, and I'll continue exploring tonight...
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
ED does not hold your hand. Luckily it's pretty safe and easy to blow up a sidewinder a bunch of times trying to figure out the mechanics. If you're flying with KB&M I'd recommend setting roll, to A and D on your keyboard and putting pitch and yaw on the mouse.
ED does not hold your hand. Luckily it's pretty safe and easy to blow up a sidewinder a bunch of times trying to figure out the mechanics. If you're flying with KB&M I'd recommend setting roll, to A and D on your keyboard and putting pitch and yaw on the mouse.
There's not holding your hand, and there's outright lying to you.
I picked up some missions to go SCAN the settlement uplink on some planet. I figured this is a good opportunity to figure out landing on planets and driving the rover around. So I go to a planet and and somewhat shocked at the fact that supercruise works on the planet, but I guess it makes sense if there's no atmosphere.
I fall in and out of some sort of glide thing. Whatever, I'm just trying to get near this settlement. When trying to land I'm kinda thrown off by the scale of the ship and and end up bouncing and skidding across the surface a few times before getting my throttle and orientation under control. Shockingly, my ship took no damage during this. After a few minutes I even figure out how to get into the rover. I drive to the settlement and everything starts shooting at me. There's so many things shooting at me, so I decide to rush to the datalink and scan it. Well, it says the datalink is inactive. I can't scan it with the data link scanner. I've got my hardpoints out. The internet says to make sure that's true, also that the data link scanner is set to secondary fire in the first fire group; it is; and that I'm in analysis mode; I am. I'm sitting about 15 meters from this thing staring right at it and it's not scannable. The HUD says there's nothing in range, I can't get any closer to this thing, I've got bounties out against me now, and it's the only fucking data link in the contacts tab. So I leave.
There's a hilarious bit where I'm screaming away from the camp at high velocity and kinda bouncing all over the place and landing facing a new direction and just keep going until things stop shooting at me, and then I realize I can't remember where I left my ship, because I foolishly thought it would be visible on the radar at just 2.5ish km out. I figure out how to recall it and then spend a few minutes trying to redock the SRV before I try backing it in.
I ended up abandoning the missions. Apparently the internet says you're actually just supposed to blow up some other non-data link stuff like the power grid at the settlement instead. Nowhere in game mentions blowing anything up. What the fuck?
ED does not hold your hand. Luckily it's pretty safe and easy to blow up a sidewinder a bunch of times trying to figure out the mechanics. If you're flying with KB&M I'd recommend setting roll, to A and D on your keyboard and putting pitch and yaw on the mouse.
There's not holding your hand, and there's outright lying to you.
I picked up some missions to go SCAN the settlement uplink on some planet. I figured this is a good opportunity to figure out landing on planets and driving the rover around. So I go to a planet and and somewhat shocked at the fact that supercruise works on the planet, but I guess it makes sense if there's no atmosphere.
I fall in and out of some sort of glide thing. Whatever, I'm just trying to get near this settlement. When trying to land I'm kinda thrown off by the scale of the ship and and end up bouncing and skidding across the surface a few times before getting my throttle and orientation under control. Shockingly, my ship took no damage during this. After a few minutes I even figure out how to get into the rover. I drive to the settlement and everything starts shooting at me. There's so many things shooting at me, so I decide to rush to the datalink and scan it. Well, it says the datalink is inactive. I can't scan it with the data link scanner. I've got my hardpoints out. The internet says to make sure that's true, also that the data link scanner is set to secondary fire in the first fire group; it is; and that I'm in analysis mode; I am. I'm sitting about 15 meters from this thing staring right at it and it's not scannable. The HUD says there's nothing in range, I can't get any closer to this thing, I've got bounties out against me now, and it's the only fucking data link in the contacts tab. So I leave.
There's a hilarious bit where I'm screaming away from the camp at high velocity and kinda bouncing all over the place and landing facing a new direction and just keep going until things stop shooting at me, and then I realize I can't remember where I left my ship, because I foolishly thought it would be visible on the radar at just 2.5ish km out. I figure out how to recall it and then spend a few minutes trying to redock the SRV before I try backing it in.
I ended up abandoning the missions. Apparently the internet says you're actually just supposed to blow up some other non-data link stuff like the power grid at the settlement instead. Nowhere in game mentions blowing anything up. What the fuck?
It can be confusing because there are overlapping game mechanics on those bases. Some high-level missions involve attacking those kind of bases, that if you aren't in something like a Federal Assault Ship or better (or in a group), it's not going to go well. But it doesn't sound like your scanning mission is one of them. Though I do believe one tutorial mission does have you destroy the power generator first to prevent the defenses from activating, but it's been too long to remember the details. For scanning missions to take over a base, the legal versions are generally easier than the criminal ones.
If you fly your ship over a base too long, drive into the red areas marked on the map, scan the wrong item, or shoot anything, it will trigger an alarm and all the base defenses (and any patrol ships) will try to kill you. Also, for infiltration missions, I'd recommend landing your ship 2km or more away from the base and take the srv in so you aren't triggering a trespassing alarm before you even get to the base. This will also keep your ship safely away from the base's very deadly AA guns when you try to leave.
Inactive data link terminals will extend upwards when you drive close, and only when extended are they active. However, the targetable portion is the upper piece, so you usually need to use your turret to get your reticle high enough to target them. When targeting the data terminal, if it says "Public" in red on the left, those you can scan without triggering an alarm. Public data terminals are the ones you can use to gather engineering materials. If you scan a "Private" data terminal, it will trigger an alarm, but if that's the only objective of the mission, you can usually leave the area before defenses fully activate without much trouble.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
I hope you aren't referring to me because that is not the case in my instance.
Yes, power play should be Open only - but that is different than saying 'everyone should be only in open, all the time'. I happen to agree with the latter, but I also don't preach it at folks because it's just my opinion, and FDev seems dead set against it.
However, I am for incentives to be in Open, and making Open better to draw people to it naturally.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
Not knowing how to avoid interdictions or escape does not count as ganking btw. There is way too much calling a shieldless trader flying in straight lines unfair pvp when it is often self-inflicted.
In any case, I don't think FDev can do much of the above with P2P networking so...open only PP and open incentives is probably the 'best' we will ever see. If that.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
I was speaking more about banning those folks who go after newbies in Corvettes, or on the flip side, people who DC every time they see another CMDR on the scope.
They do as of several days ago yea. And I don't think anyone is after profit going after sidewinders, just some people do that kind of thing. Like max level folks camping out lowbies in WoW. It just happens, but it's not the majority, no.
Yeah, Elite's tutorials are... lacking.
The thing is,
In a lot of games, the skill of the player character is abstracted quite a bit for you. Press R to reload. Press F to pay respects. You don't actually have to know how to reload an M249; just press R. But Elite does not abstract the knowledge or skills of flying your ship. So you need to learn how to fly your ship before you take on a mission. Land on a planet. Deploy the SRV. Figure out how to drive, before you get a job as a taxi driver.
The tutorials suck. They do.
But they can be useful. What they don't do is set up the controls for you, or even tell you what they are.
What to do? First, read the manual. All of it.
There is link to it in the upper right of the launcher.
Now, go into the options menu and look at the controls. Jeez, there's a lot of them, right?
Don't try and memorize them now, just take note of the ones you need for the tutorial mission you want to do. Don't know what controls those are yet? That's OK! You can re-do the tutorials as many times as you like.
Welcome to the Pilot's Federation.
I apologize for any mistakes or offenses in this post, as I've had a fair bit of vodka before typing it out.
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
There's nothing in ED that you couldn't figure out through trial and error with some strategic googling to fill in the gaps. In the first couple of hours you're going to probably die a few times and be sent back to square 1. Once you get the hang of flying you can make some quick easy cash early on by hanging out around Resource Extraction Sites stealing bounties from the system police. You can find RES around most metallic ringed planets. Make sure you pick up a kill warrant scanner before heading out there. If you're in a sidewinder, avoid the hazardous zones but high and low sites are fine. Once you get out there look for a fight going on. It's usually going to be the system police fighting pirates. Scan the pirates with your kill warrant scanner and wait until the system police has done most of the work. Swoop in at the last minute and take the kill. You should be able to rake in a million credits an hour this way. Once you're flush with some cash you can move on to the real money maker, mining. Void Opal mining used to be the most profitable but supposedly Overlapping Painite Hotspot Mining is even more profitable now. You want to at least be flying a Cobra. A few runs should get you into a Type 6 and a few more into a Type 9. From there you should be able to bring in around 200m credits an hour. Once you've got loadsamoney you can can basically do whatever you want.
Hardly any of this was even in the game much less known about back when I was getting started. If I knew then what I know now I could have probably gone from a sidewinder to an Anaconda in just a few play sessions.
There's nothing in ED that you couldn't figure out through trial and error with some strategic googling to fill in the gaps.
It's been a while since I quit ED cold turkey, but "Everything in this game can either be figured out by crashing and burning, or using the internet," seems pretty accurate (the game certainly didn't seem inclined to explain anything beyond that pre-flight checklist, which was actually pretty great), and also kind of a failing.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I’m going to stay out of my Vulture for the foreseeable future. Cause it is a death trap until FDev fixes and/or reverses these canopy changes.
Then again, half of nothing is nothing so maybe the changes aren’t that noticeable on the Vulture.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Hi E:D thread! After a month long hiatus, I'm back in the game having fun fighting thargoids.... anything to find a goal/meaning in the game is welcome. Flying my Challenger, but if I want to tackle anything bigger than scouts, I guess it's time to unlock those guardian weapons/equipment, sigh.... I do not like the grind these days when I finally can find the motivation to play.
Anyyywaaayyyy... there is a new ship size comparison video by Mat Recardo out, updated with the newer ships. Worth a watch if you haven't seen the old versions at least. One thing that struck me is that the alliance series of fighting ships are way bigger than I thought they'd be. Also, the Mamba is not quite as big as I got the impression from pics:
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
The fact that you refer to the newbie zone as a “nursery” should get you to look inward as to why people don’t want to play with you.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
I play EVE, so I'm A-OK with ruining everybody's fun. And if playing Solo is what it takes by God I'll do it!
Solo player and proud of it. Also a user of the new advanced undocking docking computer and super cruise assist. They need to put more stuff like that in the game.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
The fact that you refer to the newbie zone as a “nursery” should get you to look inward as to why people don’t want to play with you.
You don't like it, but I stand by it. A nursery is where the young are protect as they learn to crawl and take their first steps in the world. This permited zone is where new pilots are protected as they learn to take their first steps in the Elite universe. Nursery is an apt description.
I'm tired of the community interaction in this game being held back by the perpetuation of the myth that there are big meanie gankers who are going to grief, harrass, troll, and kill you if you so much as dare as stick your head into open when the honest truth is that 99% of the bubble is a ghost town indistinguishable from solo mode and that you're lucky if you see a player scope at a star for a few moments before jumping away towards their new destination. There are some real jerks out there, but you practically need to deliberately seek them out to find them.
3DS Friend Code:
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I prefer to refer to it as the Kommandantengarten.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
I have no interest in open and am sick of hearing that I’m ruining everyone’s fun by playing solo followed by a bunch of theoretical punishments that should be meted out to disincentivise me for playing this as a single player game.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
The fact that you refer to the newbie zone as a “nursery” should get you to look inward as to why people don’t want to play with you.
You don't like it, but I stand by it. A nursery is where the young are protect as they learn to crawl and take their first steps in the world. This permited zone is where new pilots are protected as they learn to take their first steps in the Elite universe. Nursery is an apt description.
I'm tired of the community interaction in this game being held back by the perpetuation of the myth that there are big meanie gankers who are going to grief, harrass, troll, and kill you if you so much as dare as stick your head into open when the honest truth is that 99% of the bubble is a ghost town indistinguishable from solo mode and that you're lucky if you see a player scope at a star for a few moments before jumping away towards their new destination. There are some real jerks out there, but you practically need to deliberately seek them out to find them.
Or, you know, run into one in your first 10 minutes playing.
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Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I hadn't even thought of it honestly. I jumped on PC last night to see if my name was available (it wasn't) and to just dick around for an hour before getting ready for bed. Going the uniform controller route does make the most sense though.
Also it would make the cat easier to deal with. It's not usually a problem playing Xcom or something because I can spare a hand to move her or appease her, but jeezus, the only challenge I had to maneuvering into the station for the first time last night was trying to keep her off the keyboard at the same time.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the stars.
I found an Xbox controller to be more difficult to use, honestly. I feel like I get much finer aiming control when I can use the mouse to perfectly zero in on a target. Using the mouse for pitch and yaw turns it into a very slow first person shooter.
It doesn't quite match the immersion of a HOTAS, but it was surprisingly good.
Yup, probably not that hard now.
Had enough bots to deal with in PP already.
And an optional supercruise assist that takes you to a station from jump in on auto-pilot.
Void opal piracy was a good thing by FDev.
Pirates can take a few and make money, and the miner still makes alot of cash too. Win-win. Seems to encourage more folks to be in open.
Now if they were to flag the void opals as mined in open, and only preserve that flag if you never leave open once you have them, then they could reward the miner for mining in open with the prospect of higher profits at the risk of being exposed to pirate interdiction. THEN we'd be cooking with gas.
If they do it right, then they would have a profit multiplier that's great enough that players could still outperform solo mining income even after losing a percentage to pirates. Then you'd be encouraging player interaction and draw in all of the players who are interested in maximum profit, while still preserving the less lucrative option of safe solo mining for those who just want a relaxing evening blowing up rocks.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I've been advocating for open only power play (it just makes sense, as it was created as a consensual pvp system - FDev said so), and outside of PP, a bonus to activities in Open (like 20%).
But yea, I don't blame folks for being in solo. There is no incentive in-game to be in any other mode.
Space is big and there are far far more systems within the bubble alone than there are players. Many systems within the bubble might only see only a handful of players passing through for seconds at a time in a month. Pick a random star and you are highly unlikely to find a player. However there are hot spots of activity. Faction capitals, trade hubs, engineer sites, community goals, and oddball systems with unique characteristics in regards to the background simulation such as Robigo. These sites will have tons of player activity in them. Enough to the point that there are many sperate instances of that system in open.
So if noob town is actually a specific place, then it's gonna be gank central. Guaranteed. Just fire up your frameshift drive and leap a few dozen light-years in any direction and you'll be fine.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Prior to the recent update there was one system everyone started in (LHS 3447), with a second option if you had Horizons. The new update adds another option to drop new players in Dromi, a system in a permit-locked region of 10 planets. The permit for that area is only available to new pilots, existing pilots can never get it, and once you gain a single rank in Combat, Exploration, or Trade, you get given a "graduation mission" that leads you out of the starter area and your access permit is revoked.
The rub comes from the fact the game now no longer asks if you want to start in Open or Solo, it always drops new players in Open, though you can obviously change that later.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Usually people who are interested in ganking thing playing solo should be "disincentivized" but they really mean punished. I don't think it's a PA problem.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
For the first time in quite awhile I had some solid fun in ED. For like 5 hours even!
It helps that I really like this 25th anniversary paint job too.
First impressions
1) The field of view sure is restricted, at least on the starter ship
2) CIG obviously have infiltrated saboteurs, because the tutorials were insanely frustrating and unhelpful compared to the actual game.
Anyway, I completed a data courier mission, managed to avoid a fiery death in a sun on the way, and I'll continue exploring tonight...
There's not holding your hand, and there's outright lying to you.
I picked up some missions to go SCAN the settlement uplink on some planet. I figured this is a good opportunity to figure out landing on planets and driving the rover around. So I go to a planet and and somewhat shocked at the fact that supercruise works on the planet, but I guess it makes sense if there's no atmosphere.
I fall in and out of some sort of glide thing. Whatever, I'm just trying to get near this settlement. When trying to land I'm kinda thrown off by the scale of the ship and and end up bouncing and skidding across the surface a few times before getting my throttle and orientation under control. Shockingly, my ship took no damage during this. After a few minutes I even figure out how to get into the rover. I drive to the settlement and everything starts shooting at me. There's so many things shooting at me, so I decide to rush to the datalink and scan it. Well, it says the datalink is inactive. I can't scan it with the data link scanner. I've got my hardpoints out. The internet says to make sure that's true, also that the data link scanner is set to secondary fire in the first fire group; it is; and that I'm in analysis mode; I am. I'm sitting about 15 meters from this thing staring right at it and it's not scannable. The HUD says there's nothing in range, I can't get any closer to this thing, I've got bounties out against me now, and it's the only fucking data link in the contacts tab. So I leave.
There's a hilarious bit where I'm screaming away from the camp at high velocity and kinda bouncing all over the place and landing facing a new direction and just keep going until things stop shooting at me, and then I realize I can't remember where I left my ship, because I foolishly thought it would be visible on the radar at just 2.5ish km out. I figure out how to recall it and then spend a few minutes trying to redock the SRV before I try backing it in.
I ended up abandoning the missions. Apparently the internet says you're actually just supposed to blow up some other non-data link stuff like the power grid at the settlement instead. Nowhere in game mentions blowing anything up. What the fuck?
It can be confusing because there are overlapping game mechanics on those bases. Some high-level missions involve attacking those kind of bases, that if you aren't in something like a Federal Assault Ship or better (or in a group), it's not going to go well. But it doesn't sound like your scanning mission is one of them. Though I do believe one tutorial mission does have you destroy the power generator first to prevent the defenses from activating, but it's been too long to remember the details. For scanning missions to take over a base, the legal versions are generally easier than the criminal ones.
If you fly your ship over a base too long, drive into the red areas marked on the map, scan the wrong item, or shoot anything, it will trigger an alarm and all the base defenses (and any patrol ships) will try to kill you. Also, for infiltration missions, I'd recommend landing your ship 2km or more away from the base and take the srv in so you aren't triggering a trespassing alarm before you even get to the base. This will also keep your ship safely away from the base's very deadly AA guns when you try to leave.
Inactive data link terminals will extend upwards when you drive close, and only when extended are they active. However, the targetable portion is the upper piece, so you usually need to use your turret to get your reticle high enough to target them. When targeting the data terminal, if it says "Public" in red on the left, those you can scan without triggering an alarm. Public data terminals are the ones you can use to gather engineering materials. If you scan a "Private" data terminal, it will trigger an alarm, but if that's the only objective of the mission, you can usually leave the area before defenses fully activate without much trouble.
I hope you aren't referring to me because that is not the case in my instance.
Yes, power play should be Open only - but that is different than saying 'everyone should be only in open, all the time'. I happen to agree with the latter, but I also don't preach it at folks because it's just my opinion, and FDev seems dead set against it.
However, I am for incentives to be in Open, and making Open better to draw people to it naturally.
For that to happen, FDev has to balance pve vs pvp, find a way to allow piracy or legitimate pvp (faction vs faction), while putting a stop to curb stomping newbies in sidewinders from gank ship wings.
Not knowing how to avoid interdictions or escape does not count as ganking btw. There is way too much calling a shieldless trader flying in straight lines unfair pvp when it is often self-inflicted.
In any case, I don't think FDev can do much of the above with P2P networking so...open only PP and open incentives is probably the 'best' we will ever see. If that.
I stated how this could be done earlier. Flag materials that were bought/refined/collected in open mode as open supplies. Remove that flag if the commodity ever enters solo or group mode. Increase the sale price of open commodities by some percentage.
With more valuable commodities, pirates might actually be able to pay their bills since right now piracy is scraping the bottom of the barrel for income. It will also increase the profit margin of traders, so the prospect of losing a few tons of cargo will no longer force them to operate at a loss.
I contest the notion that gank squads curb stomping sidewinders is an issue whatsoever. Newbies have their own permit restricted nursery where they can learn the basics of flight. Poaching sidewinders is not profitable by any stretch of the imagination. The only incentive to do so is if someone is just taking enjoyment out of being cruel. In the highly unlikely that a newbie encounters some jerk who has nothing better to do than camp the starport, then it is completely within the newbie's power to escape by logging in to solo mode for 30 seconds to high wake to litterally any star within range. From that point forward the newbie could return to open. You can't tell me with a straight face that the grierfer will be able to find the newbie within the haystack of the bubble without the aid of a wake to scan.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
I was speaking more about banning those folks who go after newbies in Corvettes, or on the flip side, people who DC every time they see another CMDR on the scope.
They do as of several days ago yea. And I don't think anyone is after profit going after sidewinders, just some people do that kind of thing. Like max level folks camping out lowbies in WoW. It just happens, but it's not the majority, no.
The thing is,
In a lot of games, the skill of the player character is abstracted quite a bit for you. Press R to reload. Press F to pay respects. You don't actually have to know how to reload an M249; just press R. But Elite does not abstract the knowledge or skills of flying your ship. So you need to learn how to fly your ship before you take on a mission. Land on a planet. Deploy the SRV. Figure out how to drive, before you get a job as a taxi driver.
The tutorials suck. They do.
But they can be useful. What they don't do is set up the controls for you, or even tell you what they are.
What to do? First, read the manual. All of it.
There is link to it in the upper right of the launcher.
Now, go into the options menu and look at the controls. Jeez, there's a lot of them, right?
Don't try and memorize them now, just take note of the ones you need for the tutorial mission you want to do. Don't know what controls those are yet? That's OK! You can re-do the tutorials as many times as you like.
Welcome to the Pilot's Federation.
I apologize for any mistakes or offenses in this post, as I've had a fair bit of vodka before typing it out.
Hardly any of this was even in the game much less known about back when I was getting started. If I knew then what I know now I could have probably gone from a sidewinder to an Anaconda in just a few play sessions.
It's been a while since I quit ED cold turkey, but "Everything in this game can either be figured out by crashing and burning, or using the internet," seems pretty accurate (the game certainly didn't seem inclined to explain anything beyond that pre-flight checklist, which was actually pretty great), and also kind of a failing.
Then again, half of nothing is nothing so maybe the changes aren’t that noticeable on the Vulture.
The power priority reset thing isn't helpful either.
But yea, loved the stealth nerf of canopies.
Anyyywaaayyyy... there is a new ship size comparison video by Mat Recardo out, updated with the newer ships. Worth a watch if you haven't seen the old versions at least. One thing that struck me is that the alliance series of fighting ships are way bigger than I thought they'd be. Also, the Mamba is not quite as big as I got the impression from pics:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hkjWl4nkzCE
The fact that you refer to the newbie zone as a “nursery” should get you to look inward as to why people don’t want to play with you.
I play EVE, so I'm A-OK with ruining everybody's fun. And if playing Solo is what it takes by God I'll do it!
You don't like it, but I stand by it. A nursery is where the young are protect as they learn to crawl and take their first steps in the world. This permited zone is where new pilots are protected as they learn to take their first steps in the Elite universe. Nursery is an apt description.
I'm tired of the community interaction in this game being held back by the perpetuation of the myth that there are big meanie gankers who are going to grief, harrass, troll, and kill you if you so much as dare as stick your head into open when the honest truth is that 99% of the bubble is a ghost town indistinguishable from solo mode and that you're lucky if you see a player scope at a star for a few moments before jumping away towards their new destination. There are some real jerks out there, but you practically need to deliberately seek them out to find them.
Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
Or, you know, run into one in your first 10 minutes playing.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]