Last December 16 was released the long-awaited version 1.0 of Elite Dangerous. As fans know, it is a space simulator extremely rigorous, complex to master and able to immerse the player in a game world which consists of 400 billion star systems. In short, it is not a game for everyone, but it still offers a level of depth fascinating for any type of user.
A skeleton to which are attached to the heart and muscles
It makes sense to write a review of Elite Dangerous because Frontier Developments on December 16th has released version 1.0 of the game. Today we complete multiplayer experience, allowing you to explore a multitude of star systems, perform the quest in order to go forward in the progression and unlocks new spaceships and to fight against many opponent’s humans. But it is not the experience of Elite Dangerous complete.
As it happens to all games in crowd funding it is a development that essentially does not end with 1.0. Indeed, the 1.0 is yet another step towards something bigger, a universe that needs to be lived daily and which in the intentions of developers never runs out.
For these reasons, the 1.0 version of Elite Dangerous does not include all of the content originally promised by Frontier: you can explore the planets and lacks the entire module from first-person shooters. At the moment, Elite Dangerous is just a space simulator with emphasis on trade and on the fighting, a skeleton to which are attached to the heart and muscles.
This does not mean that it is a rewarding experience or engaging. Elite Dangerous is a simulator strict, built on a whole series of procedures and operations to be carried out with great precision and attention.
Underlying all this is a great flight model, as virtually unprecedented realism, which makes difficult the life of the player, especially early in the game. You have to learn a lot and also going to guess at the next-best move to make, which is only possible if you know the game universe and how it works.
The first approach to Elite Dangerous is so incredibly complicated, because the player does not receive any hints on how to proceed. We tried to untangle the skein with the previous article / guide Elite Dangerous, which we refer to all those who are a bit scared by the first impact with the simulator Frontier.
There are the things the knowledge of which is taken for granted. Who began his experience with Elite Dangerous you will then often be led to search Google’s tip on how to proceed or go on Youtube to see directly how it made a particular flight maneuver.
For example, a mission may come given the need to break down some traders, but we will not have any precise indication on their position, but the planetary system in which they are located. All spaces of Elite Dangerous are played a scale of 1: 1 compared to the real Milky Way and that means that we’re going to look for a spacecraft in a space of billions and billions of square kilometers.
In each planetary system, there are the reference points such as navigation beacons or sources of signals unidentified. Just get close to them to find themselves involved in a fight or in close proximity to objects or collection centers of resources with which you can interact.
Around these sensitive points might be some ships that match our description: in that case, we will have to look for the Adder or Hauler or dele ships of type 6 or type 9, which is the most suitable trade.
This is to give an immediate idea of ​​how complex Elite Dangerous. Frontier intends to provide the players a vast universe, where you can come across a myriad of different situations and where they can act freely, thus configuring their spacecraft.
The project, as mentioned, will be further expanded to become gargantuan in size, with fighting on foot and boardings other ships. It started in 2012 under the leadership of David Braben, the original creator of the Elite 1984 and the other two followed out later, or Frontier: Elite II in 1993 and Frontier: First Encounters in 1995. As mentioned, the 1.0 is only a stage, because the development is likely to continue and will lead to new content expansion, some of whom paid.
Frontier has recently released some data about the commercial performance of Elite Dangerous. At November 30, they had been sold 300,000 copies of the game, which allowed the developer a turnover of 21 million dollars.
Based on this data Frontier formulated predictions, according to which the game will reach the milestone of 2 million copies sold by 2017, which corresponds to a turnover of 20 million pounds. But this is only the worst-case scenario, while the optimal expected sales of 30 million copies by 2017, with business for 300 million pounds.
In short, Frontier is very ambitious with his project but according to these estimates, it is clear on something more important: that the work would continue still for a long period of time, and the game will be constantly updated.
Frontier has already said it is working on future content, which will be issued at a fixed rate. Some of these also will be the expansion fee. Which adds to the finishing work and adaptation, with a resolution of bug fixes and that Frontier is committed to conducting assiduously. He is also working on a native version for Max OS X, which will be in beta test within three months.
Docking request denied
In Dangerous Elite players have several types of mission to accomplish. Each type requires a certain type of instrumentation on the spacecraft, as well as very precise characteristics. We may have to eliminate the pirates or merchants, retrieve particular items or transport of goods.
In short, we may have to become bounty hunters, space pilots skilled in the extraction of resources (mining) or traders. To carry out all these missions must have a precise ship and the proper tools to be installed in the appropriate ” hardpoint “.
Fighting is the hardest thing in Elite Dangerous, but also more rewarding and fun. With the Sidewinder base, you will be essentially defenseless against most enemies, because this ship is not very strong and not equipped with the firepower necessary.
It can upgrade, but it’s better to purchase something more competitive as a Viper or Cobra Mk. III. The player can then decide immediately whether to invest the revenues obtained from the trade or whether to wait and proceed directly to the purchase of a ship more competitive.
In ” hardpoint ” dedicated to arms can be installed machine guns or laser weapons, while in other parts of the ship must be placed the equipment necessary for the defense. We have the system of charging for the shields but also counter-offensive that such mean that the heat-seeking missiles lose their target and go empty.
Obviously, we have been available a small number of ” hardpoint “, then the choices are to be made, and especially not all types of instrumentation can be installed in all the ” hardpoint “.
In the case of the road of the trade we could favor renounce to the shields to have more space on the ship’s cargo, and in these cases, it may carry more units of goods simultaneously. Count that for certain trades, we may be required to carry 20 or even 30 units of goods from a port space also far compared to the planetary system in which we find ourselves. All this when the ship can accommodate only 4 units of goods. In cases like these then or it increases the storage space on board or devotes a lot of time to go back and forth.
The player must then be good at optimizing all these deadlines and to identify the most profitable trade routes. All using a galactic map where the routes are marked and most profitable markets that are located in the various spaceports.
In this screen we can learn for each type of goods to which port is convenient to market it or which port should buy it. All this, as is traditional for the genre it belongs Elite Dangerous, makes this type of game is particularly advisable for those who manage and business planning as well as transport.
To extract resources. We must have two elements: a laser mining and extraction module. After practicing scan in search of the most precious materials, we have to use lasers to crush rocks and prepare to collect the fragments to be sold. As with many other components of Dangerous Elite, Frontier wants to reward the pilots more accurate in flight and execution procedures, offering a further opportunity to make money.
Elite Dangerous, unlike its predecessors, is contextualized in an online world, which allows players to interact with other people in the flesh. This happens in combat, but you can see other people even within the space ports or places of resource extraction.
When you head a spaceport must request permission to land, and the direction of the port will respond only if there is a box of landing distance available. If there is high demand then, we might be rejected and then having to wait until all other players in the instance of the game liberate boxes landing strip occupied. You can even chat with them (by pressing the ” 2 ” ) and may at any time initiate voice conversations.
The system multiplayer game is based on instances: one enters in a new instance for each new planetary system explored, while in each of them, you can find up to 32 players simultaneously. It may seem a small number, but I assure you that the human presence will make you more than a little nervous in those situations where you’ll want to land on a space station and then maybe not so great with a few slots for landing.
In these cases, Elite Dangerous not expected (yet) a queue to manage requests, and this means that the only solution is to wait. In some cases also have to wait for several tens of minutes, which is frustrating considering the fact that all missions are timed and may also expire while we are there to orbit the station waiting that another player its free helipad.
Cargo hold at maximum capacity
Elite Dangerous allows you to explore a Milky Way accurately reproduced through a navigation model that respects the laws of Newtonian physics. The flight model is incredibly accurate, which leads the player to proceed with great care in all maneuvers that is called to accomplish, requiring the use of a good joystick.
You can face the experience of playing with a gamepad, while it is much more difficult and not recommended to play with mouse and keyboard. The gamepad involves its limits, especially in the arena against other human players.
You can enable the ” flight assists on “, which results in an important help for the player. In the absence of this facility the spacecraft will be dragged by the force of inertia and the player will learn to master a whole series of controls for balancing with respect to the inertia. The player can, in addition to also enable the rotational correction, so as to obtain an aid in compensation with respect to the inertial forces.
Everything is contextualized within a basic narrative with facts that are set in 3300 AD, when humanity came into possession of a hyperspace engine that allows you to instantly fill the gap bigger.
This has led to the proliferation of so many spaceports around the world, whichas we said, you can already interact by this 1.0. For in traffic space players must learn to fly under the laws interplanetary and know all the instruments on board.
It must, above all, manage the energy available to the vehicle, since the player can direct it to the defense system to the engine, to the arms or to the other functions of the ship. Having a vehicle more reactive in terms of the engine allows to use more often the overboost, and thus to move more quickly within an instance of the game, which can be crucial especially when fighting or when you want to quickly reach a station orbiting.
There are four-speed regimes in Elite Dangerous. The traditional one, which serves for the movement of precision; overboost, which serves to accelerate for short intervals of time; Supercruise, need to move from one planet to another within the same planetary system; hyperdrive, useful to move from one planetary system to another.
The schemes consume different amounts of fuel and depending on the storage capacity of fuel of own ship. This can prevent a planetary system to reach particularly far.
Players can choose to go on a ship more powerful, leaving the previous port in a given space. This can be useful if you want to be able to move from a budget, for example functional in the fighting to another more effective in mining or in trading. To retrieve the previous ship, you must return to the port where it was left.
The various ships differ in terms of top speed, maneuverability and responsiveness. The commercial ships, for example are more elephantine and less rapid and usually also the most resistant. The specialized vessels in the fighting, such as Viper are snappy and quick. So much for the first two-speed regimes, but for hyperdrive and Supercruise, there are differences in performance between the various types of space ships.
Successful docking, engine disengaged
Based on the physical shape of the space port to land requires a specific flight maneuver. The players as we have seen in the aforementioned guidance, must become familiar with the management of yaw, pitch and roll, but also with the instruments on landing and with speed.
Are maneuvers that require precision and that, once completed, give gratification. Frontier studied conformations always different for the various spaceports (some of them are really freaked out) just to make these maneuvers as varied as possible.
The universe of the game 1.0 of Elite Dangerous is not so full of things to do as you might have expected and, above all not always gives the feeling of being alive. Very often we will have to make long journeys into space because in some circumstances Supercruise hyperdrive or may not be available. Precisely for this reason it is important that there is variety of and gratification for the flight maneuvers.
To break the monotony of trade routes, Frontier at some point of the beta has introduced the ability to bring out, through appropriate instrumentation, a ship of another player mode Supercruise. It is obviously a ” violence ” that applies to another player, in which he can respond trying to stay anchored to an ” escape vector ” that just appears if someone else tries to implement the ban.
As said, in Elite Dangerous there can be specialized in various types of craft, with the goal of accumulating credits as quick as possible. Among these types, there is the possibility of lurking in the vicinity of the busiest trade routes and proceed interdiction and then slaughter the ships to retrieve their cargo.
So stolen goods can be marketed through illegal markets that are located in some space ports. But, be careful, because the police and the other players could do the scan of your cargo to realize that you have stolen the goods and attack you.
With a special tool, you can try to penetrate the space ports in silent mode, which allows you to keep hidden the cargo at the sight of the most curious. We must enable these cases the so-called mode ” silent running “, which prevents others from scan.
As a downside leading to overheating of the ship, so you have to be pretty quick to penetrate the structure. And besides moving cautiously, without making strange, twisted or incorrect maneuvers, because in these cases the careful IA does not take anything to identify the suspects.
The vessel may undergo the so-called ” heat damage ” in different kinds of circumstances: for example, if you overfeed a system, or if you pass too close to a fiery mass as it can be a star. Especially in the absence of this shield it involves the almost instantaneous explosion in the middle.
Moreover, lurking at the sites of resource extraction sites or in so-called ” seeking luxuries ” or in conflict zones remains profitable operation. Not only, you can attack other ships and steal their goods, but it’s simply not possible to go around and pick up something that has remained vacant space, after which another player has shot down an enemy ship. For putting up this type of objects you must use the ” cargo scoop “.
Consider, also that the game gives the killing to the player who dealt the final blow. So it can happen that someone has attacked a ship by force of blows to tracking calorie and highly advanced laser weapons, before breaking his shields and then leading the resistance to zero, but that the killing be given to you just for being a seemingly useless shot, but it took away the 1% of vital resources crucial. In the case of killing of ships sought by the police this allows to grab the bounty placed on the criminal space.
If you find yourself at the mercy of the enemy and you have more chance to shoot it down then it should run away from the battle zone: selected target a solar system away and enabled the hyperdrive to disappear immediately. In case of reduction, you can buy back the previous loadout of the ship at low prices, but there is no way to recover the cargo (which of course can also apply several tens of thousands of loans).
To prevail in combat, it is crucial to have a competitive boat (there even touches the idea of ​​fighting if you have at least one Viper) and equipped with advanced modules. The first is surely to strengthen the so-called Power Core, which is the tool that provides power to the various functions of the ship, including shields and engines, the latter obviously critical to discard reactivity with the projectiles launched by the enemy. Also because in this model of combat pilot ability is greatly rewarded, beyond the characteristics of the medium possessed.
In Elite Dangerous we have two types of weapons: thermal and kinetic. In the latter type also they fall missiles, able to track and follow targets in which they were engaged and for this very fruitful. Every bullet of this type has a cost very important, so should be used sparingly.
It happened, for example, of ” oneshot” an enemy ship with a single bullet from 15,000 claims, but the ” bounty ” for that target was only 1,700 claims. In short, the universe of Elite Dangerous everything is a matter of investment and affordability, not least in the fighting.
The speech is then declined on the basis of the characteristics of various ships. Depending on the vehicle may be fitted possessed weapons of classes of low-level or upper classes of weapons, of course more effective and responsive.
But also the maneuverability of the ship affects a lot: you have a vehicle with an anaconda elephantine and very durable, with which it is difficult to make the changes necessary in the fighting or rapid reversals. The Viper are very rapid, especially suited to skilled players in the flight, although quite vulnerable to any type of weapon, while the Python have proved particularly effective in the inversions.
Elite Dangerous does not look like from this point of view to other games of its kind, in which the ship is the only, or almost discrimination element in the fighting. Here skill is rewarded greatly, because unless you have a good shot and an excellent command over the middle, as well as a good interface system, it is widely penalized in the fighting.
Each planet Dangerous Elite has its own history, a certain type of economy and is managed by a specific political regime. The more experienced players in the trade should be aware of all this information. For example, a planet which is a largely an agricultural economy could take agricultural machinery and exporting various types of food. The players, looking at the screens on the various star systems and galactic map, can learn this information and use it to organize their trades.
Moreover, the universe of Elite Dangerous there are three factions predominant Federation, Empire and Alliance. Depending on missions that lead to the end and their behavior in the fighting, players may be able to gain a reputation in one of three factions.
In some cases, if a mission will not have sufficient confidence in us, there will outsource certain types of mission, then think in optical gain the trust could produce results in the long run.
But of course the focus of the game remain the fighting, especially if you decide to pursue the path of bounty hunter. This is because the AI ​​of Elite Dangerous is very competitive and some pirates have ships and weaponry definitely valid. It means a lot that needs to be strengthened his ship and provide it with the most effective weapons to shoot down opponents of this type.
But we must also know how to drive, handling the ship as if it were their own limb and knowing then make the changes disparate to prevent the enemy behind us unprepared and defenseless, as well as be equipped with a suitable interface device.
Elite Dangerous support’s Oculus Rift gaming experience incredibly realistic and immersive. And most importantly, it supports devices like Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog or Saitek X52, equipped with stick and throttle for speed control, which at a cost of between $200 and $300.
These joysticks are indispensable in certain types of combat, so they are absolutely recommended to all those players who expect to devote much time to Elite Dangerous. It being understood that, as mentioned, you can safely start the experience with the more traditional gamepad and that there are solutions cheaper than those just mentioned, as Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas, you can find about $50.
After gaining a little experience, the player will be able to determine, which are the most profitable activities and to optimize the time in order to earn as much as possible and as quickly as possible. It will have various types of activities, but must optimize everything facing for the first ones cheaper and you can complete in less time.
Then there will be natural to take pen and paper and write down all the routes to take, ports stellar. Where are the goods you need, and the amount to carry. The list of goals in-game is all too confusing and the interface is not sufficiently comprehensive and clear, and then here that pen and paper become the only possible remedy in this whole mess of transport and places to discover.
If at first you groping in the dark (literally!), After playing a little you acquire a familiarity in landings, study of trade routes and fighting, that would have been unthinkable only a few hours of play before. Play to Elite Dangerous then becomes a skill and who knows if in the future it will be possible to sell it in any way!
Players must also take into account the masses of space ships when they organize their strategies, because they affect the movement, you want to do. For example, we cannot reach a distant planetary system particularly if the mass of our vehicle is too large compared to the ability to ” frame shift “, or the ability to move from one planetary system to another.
During the fighting, if you disallow aid also you have to compensate for inertia and gravity manually, and depending on the mass of the spacecraft used. Maneuvers absolutely not easy for the less-experienced player and that require a very precise interface device.
Conclusions
The vote that we give to Elite Dangerous is a vote of confidence that Frontier will continue to work hard. What we have today is only a skeleton on which to continue building. Who buys today Elite Dangerous can already explore a vast world that is built on rules physical and structural rigid and well implemented. If love gestionalità and space combat, you can begin to devote many hours to flight simulator.
The problem is that there is a risk that the time spent does not lead to results. Right now, you do not see where Elite Dangerous want to go to ” shield “. For example, players cannot win for himself the parts of space and all the social part is very sacrificed.
There are very few or no possibility of interaction with others: for example, it would benefit the presence of missions to be addressed in co-op. Frontier is working hard to overcome these limitations, as we have seen here, but obviously have to evaluate later the quality of the new content.
Having said that you can play in ” open play ” mode or in solitary, but in any case, which sparked some controversy by the community, Elite Dangerous requires permanent internet connection. You can also organize groups of friends, to address combat missions with the help of people known to us. But they have to be friends already known, because at the moment is just very difficult to make friends in-game.
But the universe of the game, as battles are fun and dynamic, it still gives the feeling of being too bare and be very alive. There is always an excessive grinding, which is the virtual pilot is constantly called upon to play always the same tasks in order to earn money, which you can then buy new ships and strengthen them properly.
But, as mentioned, all the long progression could be meaningless if Frontier is not able to set up an end-game worthy of the name. We must add that history is only hinted at and limited to a few lines of text, which gives the feeling of worthlessness further progression.
Let’s go back to the starting point: we talk of review with Elite Dangerous because, we have the version 1.0, but there is still a lot to be done and the outlines of the project are still nebulous.
Because if Frontier cannot solve all the problems that we have said is likely to be exceeded by a Star Citizen and seeing most of his players move on simulator Chris Roberts, which promises to be the most technologically advanced and the most comprehensive release.
We cannot reiterate that even now Elite Dangerous is able to provide many hours of pleasure and a deep involvement. She will love to those who love to complete complex flight maneuvers, which require interaction with many different instruments.
The length of certain procedures and certain intergalactic travel will subtract literally huge amounts of time, so you cannot absolutely say that even now Elite Dangerous is a game that is not passionate about or that is not sufficiently long-lived.
Indeed, unlike other modern titles, he holds literally glued to the monitor, often without a definite aim. More than just an entertainment experience is a total immersion in another dimension, which is a world to live in its entirety, with its hopes and its speedups with its rules to learn and know how to exploit.
