I’m not further subdividing the terrain in this version. It’s a bit bigger if you watch it full-screen in HD though.
Ok. The idea of building a planet engine for unity is interesting.
The full release of Elite Dangerous is scheduled for tomorrow. I think there’s still time to pre-order and get a free extra starting ship.
The gameplay has advanced to a large degree since the beta. It used to be the case that there didn’t feel like much purpose and the limits on where you could explore even ruled out sight seeing.
I’ve have a good session playing gamma and its much better now. Obviously you have the whole galaxy to explore if you enjoy that sort of thing but also missions are more complex now with the procedurally generated missions offering branches with different outcomes. The missions you do and the choices you make (I’ve been offered credits by an NPC to intentionally fail a mission) affect the influence of the many minor NPC factions in the game.
There’s currently a group on the Frontier forums that are trying to destabilise a federation world by doing missions for a rebel faction and trying to increase its influence to the point where the world rebels.
The gameplay is looking promising and combined with some of the best visuals that have been seen in a (released) space game up till now, I can definitely recommend it.
That got a mention in the latest newsletter as well. I’m impressed that these ramifications are already coming through, doubly so now that Frontier announced there’d be no post-gamma wipe. I’m gonna need to get in the game before the launch I think.
Those are exactly the kind of missions I want to see in Infinity someday. That pretty much seals the deal: as soon as I can afford a suitable graphics card, I’ll blocking up a copy of Elite Dangerous.
Incidentally, it just occurred to me that, just like Infinity Battlescape, Elite Dangerous has a the kind of initials that tickle teenage boys and independent news reporters alike.
2 Likes
I genuinely had not noticed that until you mentioned that just now.
And you know what they say, what has been seen can not be unseen.
1 Like
It’s amazing the kind of thing you discover when touch screen typing and trying to save keystrokes!
1 Like
Our initials are I:B dammit!
4 Likes
Not being a native speaker, I had to look Wikipedia up for the acronym ED.
Well, there are so many that could be interpreted like that, in the end I still can’t see it.
Confusion : protecting mental health since even before the internet?
Btw, did the movement/combat gameplay change recently? Is it still less-than-playable with keyboard/mouse? That’s the big stopper for me atm.
I think what Kichae stumbled upon was an affliction that specifically affects a gentleman’s private parts.
I mean, if FD can use ED, I say we go back to IBS 
3 Likes
ED or IBS: Which would you prefer to have?
Neither, I choose the blank directly ajoined to the or (if for no other reason than to promote being a smart-ass).
Of course, if a man were to have both and the symptoms couldn’t be experienced simultaneously, then you would have a Shakespearean tragedy on your hands. Food for thought and all that…
I play entirely with KB/Mouse and find it easy to fly. I’d say that KB/M gives a slight edge when aiming with fixed weapons but a stick might have a slight edge when using gimballed weapons.
You might have to play with the control setup a bit to find a set of bindings that work well for you. I have pitch and yaw bound to the mouse, lateral thrust on WASD and roll on QE. Have experimented with binding roll to mouse with right mouse button depressed, but find that using right mouse button to target the ship in front of me is more effective. Secondary fire I bind to the third mouse button.
Anybody playing with an occulus rift ? I tried a couple days ago and it looks incredibly immersive. And I “only” have a DK1.
1 Like
We will never let you forget. 
1 Like
Some coworkers of mine actually had it running on our Occulus Rift today at the office and they seemed to be enjoying it quite a bit. Sadly, though, I didn’t get a chance to check it out today so I’ll have to see if I can set some time aside later this week to check it out.
I played ED a bit for the first time last night. I did some of the training missions, finally pretty good at docking now. So far, I am not liking the combat much, it’s frustratingly slow. It doesn’t make sense to me that in space, the pitch & yaw rate of the ship is so painfully slow. I’m betting this is due to gameplay reasons, but I dislike it so far. Still some more training missions to do
I think the combat is conceptually one of the weaker sides of the game, but if you treat it for what it is and can forgive the forced mechanics then it’s as much fun as any other dogfighting game.
I’m currently spending my time trading rare items (there’s a list of where to find them on the Frontier forums) to make money. If you take a rare item about 150LY from where you bought it you get really high prices. I’m not doing too great so far, two failed attempts and one successful attempt. The successful attempt made me about 100k credits though,
The first attempt failed due to running out of fuel in a remote system between Lave and Sol. My most recent attempt ended with me being pirated by another player, I decided to fight back but then realised I’d forgotten to bind a weapon I’d just purchased to a fire group. Doh.
I’m still in the early stages of trading. I upgraded to a small hauler from the standard ship just before the end of Gamma, but I still need to update the game in order to play again since it’s now on release! Unfortunately, I don’t currently have access to fast internet so my download speeds are atrocious…
I enjoy the trading, feeling like I’m making a bit of money slowly but surely. I have got quite good at evading interdiction because I am a little bit scared of combat (I suck at flying under pressure with those controls)! Still love the immersive cockpit, though I do wish for some way of viewing the exterior of my ship just to admire it!