What's going on in Elite these days? This forum dries up when I'm not playing and talking about it.

What's the verdict on Odyssey now that it's had time to shake out the wrinkles?

Who's playing? What are you up to?

I'm playing ED about once or twice a week and while I'm loving the graphical improvements introduced with Odyssey, I really can't get into the first person planet/moon surface aspect. I guess the best way I can explain it is that it feels clunky? I'm still hoping that future updates improves things.

Odyssey is fun, but the dwindling player population is not.


I'm playing DCS online now, at least I can find players aplenty when I join servers to interact with.

On another note, No Man's Sky released their latest update and the player population jumped from 7 - 10k on average to 29 - 35k...



Frontier needs to get with the program and get players back in the game. We had 25k players in Odyssey on release week. I like Odyssey.

There's another possibility here where more players have shifted to playing only in their private groups instead of playing on the "open" server.

I don't mind playing on the open server and I do it from time to time. What I don't do is PvP. I just don't care for it.

I prefer human interaction, as they're far less predictable. I do run from the gang bangers though, which can be fun.

The human element gives DCS that "adrenaline edge" on the online servers that would otherwise be missing, save for the Liberation campaign, which has poor framerate in combat on my old computer. Online gets around this by pushing the processing to the server.

I played Odyssey for a while, but the new grind annoyed me (even though I got lucky with the shopping for already upgraded guns and suits).
Put it away for a while, played some MSFS2020 and Steel Division 2, about two weeks ago I came back, grabbed my carrier and set out to a random place in the dark. Now I am sitting here gobbling up ELWs, 22 in ~500 systems of that boxel visited. Will continue a little more in this boxel, and then move on, doing some "exobiology", maybe some Tritium mining (actually still have plenty and more for a return), ...

Did you do much with the infantry combat?

Yes, I did quite some combat zone fighting, but also a lot of missions. I already have different outfits for different (combat) purposes, but mostly just from getting lucky finding certain upgraded items in shops, not so much by upgrading them myself.

That is low enthusiasm

Too bad, but they should have included new ships, dammit.

And I can sort of see why the forum's dead, if no one is all that excited about it.

For me, I'm somewhat interested in the atmospheric planets, but not really interested in the walking-about shooter side of it, unfortunately one comes with the other. And VR is disabled for the FPS part.

The real reason though, is that I recently not only installed ED onto a new system, but I also got a new HOTAS, and I just can't face the remapping. It'll happen eventually I suppose, maybe if something interesting happens with the FPS part, like having ship interiors (why oh why didn't they) then it'll impel me.

I don't use a HOTAS but I've heard plenty of horror stories about just how long and arduous a task it is to fully map a HOTAS in Elite Dangerous. I've heard similar stories about DCS as well.

Takes me about 15 minutes to redo everything. So yeah it takes some effort and I get it. Just be sure to have all of the devices connected when you start, because adding one starts you over as it is recognized as a different set up I guess. Or at least that's how it worked when I added the Crosswinds.

It's not so much the time it takes to remap if I know everything I need to remap, the issue is I forgot all the stuff I need to map I do a lot of exploring, a little mining, no trading (but of course I still need to navigate station UIs etc), very little combat. So that probably amounts to most stuff needing to have some HOTAS presence.

I see, well, you can just run down the list and read it and see if it's something you need to map, no?

Anyway, I agree that it is a pain regardless.

Which stick and TQS did you buy?

Just updated for the first time in months.

I come and check here every day to see what's going on.

Don't have Odyssey, so not interested in that.

May start flying again in a few days?!

Cheers

Hey Ram, how's things? Let me know how you find the current state of Elite if you get back in to it.

On a related note, I've read quite a few online sources which suggest that the player activity for Elite Dangerous has decreased significantly while the player activity for "No Man's Sky" has increased significantly over the past couple of months.

Coincidence or not?

I retired my Thrustmaster Cougar & invested in a Thrustmaster Warthog

Not too much difference physically but my old Cougar joystick was getting a little loose around the center. I still really like the Cougar TQS though, I wish there were a standalone upgraded version of just that.



I reckon there is probably a core of players who play the "big 3" (ED, Star Citizen, NMS) and move around them as & when one falls out of favour & another rises. Other than that, NMS seems to be good at hooking in the more casual but still spacey new players. Maybe they move on after a while to ED & then to SC

The Cougar has stock gimbals? Yeah, you don't have to explain that one, I know first hand

Congrats on your new kit DM.

Thanks I can't complain though, it served me well for very nearly 20 years