The way capital ships appear is badass …
And yes you made me preorder it yesterday.
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Guy flies 3 hours all the way to the surface of a planet and “lands”.
The surface is surprisingly detailed already.
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+1
Yes, let’s go back to IBS, 3 letters is more manly.
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I managed to make my way to Sol.
Apart from the badass battleship, it was a bit anticlimactic really.
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Haha, I had that exact same experience just yesterday. Finally worked up enough credits to get a better FSD for my ship (and the new route-plotting function helps) and travelled all the way to Sol gathering data as I went.
Now I find out it’s pretty much as interesting as any other system - i.e. not hugely! Ah well. I can sightsee a bit I suppose 
I’m sure it’d be plenty exciting when Frontier start rolling out events. Maybe there’ll be a full-scale war between the Federation and the Empire?
I’m still undecided about what side to cosy up to, the Empire seems far more interesting, but the Federation has Earth (at the moment). If a succession crisis spills over to the player world (and I’m assuming it would), then the Empire would be really interesting to play in
The bugs you get with contracts annoy me the most - most of them seem to die horribly and get glitched to hell if it ends up being modified half way through by those incredibly common random encounters (especially when they give you alternative places to hand in the quest)
Seems like a very half finished game that doesn’t really encourage community or player interaction.
Pretty though.
Well, I caved in and bought my copy as an late christmas gift.
Here are the order of events:
1 - Installed the combat tutorial instead of the game, ruining my entire afternoon.
2 - Installed the game, but for some reason my computer cut out halfway through, leaving me with only the tutorial. Again.
3 - Installed the game for realz this time, started a solo game.
4 - Immediately upon leaving the station I test fire my weapons, and I now have a 100c fine to pay.
5 - I spend 15 minutes trying to find out how to dock at the stupid station.
6 - I decided to ‘land’ where I exited. Seems to make sense to me.
7 - I land, but nothing happens, and I spend the next 5 minutes looking through menus again.
8 - That’s when I notice there’s a loitering law, and I was on the verge of getting a 600c fine.
9 - That’s when I notice that my ship is stuck. It won’t move. I press every single button on my keyboard, but nothings happening. Except the countdown timer. Whoops, out of time.
…
10 - I rage quit.
I did try the tutorials in the actual game in between steps 9 and 10, but that can’t be described without a lot of crude adjectives. For my health I abridged the story.
Well, I did finally complete a simple mission, so I’m okay now (I wiped my save and started over), but seriously, I thought X3 had a difficult learning curve, but elite has that curves and adds teeth!
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I found the best way to learn was to watch others play the game. I watched a lot of Youtube videos before I bought elite, and I found it very easy to remember what to do and what not to do 
Without those videos I would have been lost, I can’t imagine trying to figure out the game all by myself; the learning curve is pretty nasty. At least the interface is more intuitive, which I can’t really say was the case with X3.
Interesting. I had no problems. Just looked at the controls settings and went from there.
If you can remember, what was it specifically that you found tricky?
The learning curve is reasonably steep to begin with, but the overall game flows a lot better than the X-series. Though this might be partly down to it being simpler at the moment.
The thing I still have problems with is getting my supercruise speed correct so I don’t overshoot my destination.
I think the biggest factor for me was playing this game with X3 logic. After an hour or two into it, I am much more comfortable with it, and would say that it is much easier than X3.
The biggest problem was just figuring out where things were. Handling the ship was no problem, but interacting with stations was a HUGE headache, as described. The reason being is because, although I knew through the tutorial ( 
) that I had to communicate with the station to dock, but I couldn’t find the comm button or whatever. I was convinced that the ‘comms’ bar on the upper left had something to do with it. I didn’t stumble upon the fact until 15 minutes of searching helplessly that the docking permissions were in contacts. Once I figured that out, however, the game was much easier.
@Topperfalkon By my vast experience gained over the past 2 hours, I’ve found it’s much better to take your time in the approach than to try to speed till the last second before the red light.
Indeed, but you pick up loads of speed on long-distance cruises, which complicates things.
Oh, and Coriolis starports are a pain in the arse. It took me a while to figure out that the holo-image has arrows on some of the faces to tell you where the bloody entrance is.
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This might seem like a really stupid question, but is there any way to legally obtain large amounts of cash? I’m leaning more on the trading side, but honestly, after countless hundreds of hours in X3, I don’t think I have the patience to grind out 70+ trips with my dinky little cargo hold to get an actual freighter.
So I have 16k cr, and have been going between Fairbairn and Boswell stations trading Indite for 2.5k cr profit. Any suggestions?
That would be between LHS 3447 and LTT 18486. About 7 Ly Travel, plus 100k Ls from entering 3447. It takes about 10-15 minutes to complete a run.
Disclaimer: haven’t got the game, no plans of getting it.
Having said that, I’ve heard the term “rare goods” mentioned on youtube, along with a description of spending long periods slowly filling up a cargo of them, taking them very far away, and selling them for profits in the (iirc) millions. Same video specifically said that it would be more profitable for ships with larger cargo holds to do ordinary cargoes, so it might just apply to you.
Yes. Certain systems have rare goods and can be sold for profit at any station far away. They also replenisch really slowly.
Okay, I’ll look around for some rare goods.
I find that taking contracts earns you enough money without the need to travel 150ly as in the case of rare goods. Check the Bulletin Board for Supply Missions, missions that request some item in some quantity, then check your galaxy map for systems that export those goods. You can make 25k profit for a one system jump, and as you stick to a specific system, your reputation increases and you get higher paying missions. You should also look at the system you want to “settle” in a bit more closely, things like being local to an extraction system, hi-tech and agriculture one.
I made some tools for ED and many others have, tools that can help you if you feel comfortable with that, here is a link to get you started:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=76793
About combat in ED, I had read that you can either fly with the “atmospheric simulation” computer help (trying to to move toward where you are pointing to) and the orientation help (trying to point the ship where the cursor is), or neither - but not with only the orientation help.
Given that (based on Pioneer Space Sim experience) I don’t see the point of flying without the orientation help at all, did they change that (or did I misread)?
That’s probably the one thing that would stop me from buying it, giving the recent feedback; if I find enough time for it, that is.
There is a Flight Assist Off switch, you basically go into semi-Newtonian, the ship does not auto-correct your orientation, essentially you are firing your thrusters on your own, however you still can’t accelerate to realistic velocities. And TBH I might have used FA-Off a handful of times since Alpha, there really is no need for it, unless you go hardcore on a player Cobra in a stock Sidewinder. (You can drift/slide with FA-Off.)
I don’t want to preach, but if you are on these forums, you should own a copy of Elite Dangerous, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best we have and it keeps getting better.