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

How on Earth did you fly for 20 years using stock gimbals? I replaced mine within a month with the Uber II NXT because of the clunk around center and the dead zone.


I have always wondered how the Warthog gimbals feel, especially when compared with the Uber II NXT.

I play all three, but this week Star Citizen announced they are wiping on the next patch, so I'll probably not play for a while since I'll lose so much stuff. No Man's Sky is casual but awesome. It is an experience.

Can't speak to Warthog, but I can attest that the VKB Gunfighter feels great, and it comes with a variety of springs & cams so you can dial it in as you like.



NMS just released a new patch which adds some new content, not surprising that folks are gravitation towards the new hotness. The mess that was the Odyssey release probably exacerbated that.

Yes, that's like a world record. Or something.

Mine lasted a little longer than a month. It was just after release, and many of us were beginning to notice the slop, when Greg came out with the Evenstrain proposal at Frugals. Probably a few months after the stick hit the market. I couldn't pass that up and sent it off to Cali for the modification. Still feels the same as it did then. I also bought an Uber NXT many years later just in case. But the Evenstrain is what I prefer and here's hoping for another twenty years!

Hello (hello) (hello) (hello)

How to type an echo? That's what I was going for there.

Disappointing no one ever posts here to keep me up to date on what's going on. Force me to hang out on the Frontier boards!

Bah. I saw there's a new SRV in the pipe. Yay.

I haven't played in seven months, but February is coming and I'll crank up the generator for this subforum and get the lights turned back on. Probably. If history repeats itself, and the axiom says it does.

But yeah, I really do wish this forum were more active.

I still play ED about 2 hours each week but it's a LOT less than I used to play it. I initially thought the surface based combat would grab me but it did not.

Hello (hello) ((hello)) (((hello)))

I think that works better somehow.

That's cool Panzer, thanks for the reply.

The Frontier boards used to be filled with posts and threads about 'space legs'. I would chime in from time to time that I've seen it before, with Silent Hunter. The players would wax lyrical about how amazeballs walking through the boat would be. And it is, the first time you do it. The second time you're like, hey, didn't notice that thing before.

On the third time you're like, yeah, looks like it did the first time, and more like the second actually, The fourth time never happens.

I would post that it wasn't going to be as amazeballs as people seemed to think it was. diminishing returns and all that. Some agreed, most kept chanting "space legs!"

Of course Odyssey is more than space legs, but I suspected the sum would not be greater than the parts, and it just seems like it was time un-well spent. Folks like it too, I'm not saying it's a disaster, but I think it was all a bit misguided really. Maybe I'll give it a go when (or perhaps if) I get back in to Elite.

I've THOUGHT about firing it back up a few times over the last few weeks, but that is about it.
I tried Odyssey on release, but FPS type stuff just isn't my thing even though I give them a go every so often (I'm looking at you, Borderlands 2).
So I think I'll just stick with Horizons if I do hop back in, as from what I've heard the VR experience is far better than in Odyssey.

I get on usually every week for a bit. Mostly just to earn some geld to pay the upkeep on the carrier. We really need o good bounty hunting CG to get the group motivated enough to log in, imho. The last few that I’ve seen haven’t been that.

Hey Bo how's things? Good to know you're still at it.

All I need is a few new appealing ships. Elite is fun, I like playing it. But I reached the stage where the gameplay itself was no longer enough to propel me along. In many games it's just the actual playing that captures me. But as I sailed past 1000 hours in Elite I felt like I'd seen it all (mostly), and it became a goal-oriented exercise. That the gameplay was the means to the end. What I did each time I logged in was another step toward whatever I was working toward. And really it boiled down to just two things, ranks and ships. Ranks don't mean much, but they gave me targets, the carrot to chase.

Ships though were the real draw. To buy a ship that appealed to me and then all the stuff needed to turn that stock vessel in to my vision of what it should be is what motivated me. The combat, the mat hunting, the long flights to far-flung engineer bases, all was just a means to an end.

But there haven't been new ships in a long time. I need another Krait ya know? A ship that feels right and needs gobs of engineering to give me focus and direction.

I'll return I'm sure. If this forum here were a hive of activity I'd be more tempted, listening to others regale us with tales of deeds and duds. I'd like to be involved in the discussion even if I'm not currently playing. But yeah, that's probably not a thing.

Hey JC, I hear ya, and same. We should do some Borderlands co-op.

It's amazing how you described my own feelings on the game absolutely 100% with your post.


I know it will never happen but one thing that will really draw me in again is if Frontier got the rights to include ships from well known scifi properties like Star Trek and Star Wars. Imagine being able to buy and custom engineer your own Tie Interceptor or Reliant class Federation ship? I'm sure this would really bring in a lot of new players for ED.

Cheers Panzer, I'd bet it's fairly common to fall in to this. Maybe Odyssey would shake things up enough to breathe new life in to it, back to where the gameplay's the thing? Not sure it would, but might be worth a go to see,

New ships, YEEESSS please!

Imagine if all the man-hours spent on Odyssey were instead devoted to making new ships, and throw in landable atmospherics and I'd have been happy with that.

I sat here thinking though about what sort of ship I would want? That's harder than it might seem at first. There's no role I perform that I feel the ship I use is poorly suited for it. So what kind of ship would I want?

I think a Gutamaya or even a Saud Kruger explorer would work. A 70-jump Courier sort of thing. Bah, there aren't too many holes in the Elite ship line-up really.

Wish they'd bring back "Bounty Hunting" in community goal universe. I do miss our wing get to gather's, good comradery

Yes indeed. Hey Wingy, how's things?

I gotta get back sooner or later. I have yet to complete Elite Combat, but the finish line is in sight. I want to do that before moving on to Elite 2

I enjoy Odyssey.

What I do not enjoy is how the developers tossed a hand grenade into the 'verse by splitting everyone among Open/Solo/Groups.

They should have kept the game 100% Open, and never introduced wings.

A lot of gamers don't like PvP and thus shouldn't be forced to play that way just so it can fit YOUR world view on what Elite Dangerous should be.

Spoken like someone with not enough targets to shoot, and those there are, have friends.

I agree with Panzer. Elite's not a great PvP game in my view and if Open were the only mode I certainly wouldn't have sunk so much time in to it, or maybe even played it at all. Solo and PG are the best modes for me.

Now in all fairness, I have played on the Open server several times just to try it out and the only time I was attacked by a human player was during a community event. If you stay out of the community events you most likely won't be bothered on the Open server.

I've played plenty in Open too. It's not the threat of attack that sours me, but the rock-paper-scissors element to ship building. I've said before that if engineering were not a thing, and each ship was simply it's stock version, I'd play in Open all the time.

Hence why I think the introduction of Wings was detrimental to the game, especially in Open.

Ever watch Twitch? There have been streams of giggling asshats murderboating players for thrills in wings of four ships versus some single, lone, helpless soul.

I'm a loner online. I had a very bad experience with large group scale organizations online back around 2014 - 2015, and that was enough. I was fed up. I have no patience of player problems or issues or any of the other nonsense and drama that comes about these groups of cats that need to be herded but can't.

I'm not alone in this view, either. Most of Elite prefers to play by themselves, or so it seems. So when gank squads come along and plow through players it can be disheartening. They're honorless dogs. I deal with it but running when I'm outnumbered, and know all the tricks so I can get away almost every time, save for that rare run to a planet and I'm caught in a gravity well--the most dangerous time for any pilot in Elite is near the surface enroute to landing and out of FSD.

Wings encourage the asshats to band together for the "lols," and inexperienced pilots have a significantly harder time escaping from situations such as this, especially when all four ships are fully engineered. I keenly remember Elite being a much better time in Open before the introduction of Wings. The clowns will still band together, but Wings make it far easier for them to identify and eliminate a single target on the scope, but more importantly far, far easier for them to find where their friends are at to join in.



I prefer having the element of human challenges in Elite. I just don't want to be forced to run in a group myself to remain competitive. I think these gank squads are a big obstacle most players have to overcome, psychologically, to want to play in Open. The deck is stacked against them, after all. Us loners just want to roam... alone.


edit: To DBond's point--yes, Engineers was also a huge negative to Open. You MUST engineer or you're toast. However, since then, the AI seems to have caught up with Engineers, too, so engineering is needed, regardless of mode of play.

You make some great points concerning wings. I myself have joined a wing with some friends but we play only on private groups anyway.

It's not power creep, or how strong engineering is, but how specialized it is. How certain modifications, especially experimentals, need a hard counter. And if your ship doesn't have it, tough luck and you'll be disabled or otherwise befouled beyond your ability to withstand it. NPC combat doesn't suffer from this to the same extent because it's very rare the NPCs will have these same exotic modifications. Maybe they never do?

It's like going in to melee combat and wearing black armor, only to find out your opponent's sword ignores black armor. Awkward example, but that's the gist of it. If I had only worn white armor!

Nadda, I posted in the FW thread, telling What's up!

Just a heads up, this week’s CG has rewards of double pre-engineered FSDs. Contingent on tier reached, 4A, 5A, and 6A. 6A being the prize as it is used in the Vette and Conda.

I found out that deep core mining has been COMPLETELY changed with Odyssey. I wish I had known that before I made a long trip out to an area that has void opals and low temp diamonds. I guess it's time to watch the new training videos.....

BAH!! I just dusted off and updated two days ago and I'm over at HIP 12099. Doubt I'll have time to participate, depending on how long I'm here.

Even if I got over there, wherever it is, don't think I would have the time to win a top reward.

Thanks though!

How has it been changed?

After updating I had been at HIP12099. Before I stop playing ED just about a year ago, I guess I was going to the Jameson crash site. I had scanned a few planets in the system, so I finished that up Thursday night and then went to the crash site twice yesterday and gathered as much material as I could and traded some in, then went back for a second round.

Looked at the CG, I thought it was all bases in Colonia, but I found out there is one in Alcor, so I ran over there last night and ran one mission.

I'm flying my Conda, and it was all outfitted for battle with 5 hull packages, so I had to transfer a bunch of cargo racks to Alcor. Did one run with a 32 capacity rack and that was it for the night.

I'll be flying there most of the day.

Viable asteroids with void opals or LTD's no longer have those blotches of red and black on them when you use the scanner. The coloring and shading cues have been completely changed. So I'll rephrase: The procedures on how to deep core mine is the same but the visual cues you get on viable asteroids is completely different now.

Oh no. So no more bright yellow flares with tiny black dots inside?

Hmm. I learned how to mine asteroids last year and it was insanely profitable for the amount of effort involved.

Same here. The great majority of the 4.6 billion credits I currently have came from deep core mining.

I found deep core mining to be quite enjoyable, esp in VR. I don't have near 4.6b, but I did get my Trade Elite from core mining.

Caught up with Wingy, Bo and Recluse last night to finish off the CG! Was great getting to talk to the guys after a year hiatus, almost to the day!

Ended up in the top 10% and got 50M. Lugged just short of 55Kt's.

I want to thank the FDevs for doing an update just short of 1 day to go, that was REALLY nice! After the update, server started dropping, probably happened at least 10 times and a lot of lagging!

And yeah, I feel like a RUFUS, I kept saying I was flying my Clipper, to find out its a Cutter!! DOH! I bought it just after the 2 CG's last year and it sat in Shinrarta this whole time.

I started out flying with my Conda and after 1 day of only 300T's per sortie, I pulled the Cutter over and stripped it down, including shields and then I was lugging 794T's per sortie.

Got boring at times and I had seen the guys in and out for a couple days, so hooking up with them on the last day was good. Lot's of chit chat for sure! Thanks!

Now we have to wait until tomorrow to get our FSD's!

Cheers

Just checked a few minutes ago, no modules yet. Sure hope it doesn't take a week to spawn them for us. Definitely good to hook up RAM22. I took the cutter home and brought back the vette to pop the FSD into.

Wingy

What's weird is I received a message on my phone from Frontier saying the modules were now present. I went there, and NOTHING??

Received a message in my Inbox that the FSD'd are now at Alcor-MacDonald settlement.

They're messed up, you can't add an Experimental to them, they have some software issue. They said they'll get back to us in 3-4 weeks!!

Speaking of FSD's, I got the double modded 5A from a Tech Broker. Went and added mass manager and lost about a LY in jump in my ASP Discovery!?! I read up on it, and it must have something to do with the Mass of the ship?!

Cheers

No, it should have given you at least 1 or 2 additional ly. Do you have any cargo on board? Limpets?

Wingy

Ram, can you post a Coriolis link to your ship with the FSD issue? Maybe we can spot what it is.

Hey, guys, I think I figured it out. I think it had to do with installing a new Power Plant and Power Distributor and engineering them also.

And no, I don't carry limpets unless I'm mining. And no cargo was on the ship.

I believe that I wrote down the jump range of the Asp prior to installing the above modules and didn't take into account the hit I may have taken from that on the jump range. So when I got the double modded FSD and the range didn't increase, it was actually down a wee bit when I added Mass Mgr, so I thought something was wrong.

At any rate, I'll post a link to the ship later today, because I may be wrong. I actually bought another double engineered 5A FSD to check, added Mass Mgr to it to, swapped it into my Asp, and the jump range was the same.

On a couple other notes, I added the second, double engineered 5A to my Krait Phantom and it gained 2 ly's.

The 6A engineered FSB from the Alcor CG increased my Conda's range by 1.7lys. The 4A FSD from the CG increased my Vultures range by 7.2ly's.

And lastly, I added one of my old 6A FSD's w/Increased range-Mass Mgr to my Type 10 Defender which had the same engineering, but was a 6E, and it increased it's range by 11.5lys!

I don't have any ship to use the 3A FSD in, to bad we can trade stuff!

Cheers

Well, yeah, if you added mass elsewhere the jump range could be affected

If that's the case no need to post the link, and I couldn't spot that anyway unless you post a before and after.

Yeah, I don't have that...Meh!!! Thanks tho!

Good hunting, commander.

Fight for the Empire CG

Darkwater Inc in the Summerland system has been declared a hostile military target for its role in abducting Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval.

The Summerland Patron's Party will redeem combat bonds for destroyed Darkwater ships at the starport Henry O'Hare's Hangar. Although the Summerland system is typically permit locked, the Empire has arranged a total exemption for independent pilots for a three-week period.

To guarantee that Darkwater is thoroughly eliminated, the Empire is offering a range of incentives to pilots.

The top 75% of participants will be elevated to the rank of Master in the Imperial Navy Auxiliary. They will also receive Arissa Lavigny-Duval's Powerplay Decal as an additional thanks.

The top 25% of participants will additionally receive a permanent permit for the Summerland system, as well as a special Empire Combat Zone decal.

The top 10 players will be granted an Imperial Hammer for their service.

Additionally, a permanent 10% discount on Imperial ships will be available at Henry O'Hare's Hangar, with temporary additional discounts possible depnding on which Tier is reached.(Read the rest at Inara, though I about covered it )

I was already in the area, 46LY's away, running missions for the Empire to gain my last rank of King in the Empire. Just about there, so I'll go participate in this and seal the deal!

Any one else going to participate? Sure will be a lot better than the crappy Colonia CG's with their bogus, what they call rewards, which are none, unless you can gain top ten commander. Which is impossible for normal fliers!!

Cheers

What exactly is an Imperial Hammer? is that a new ship?

The Imperial Hammer is a Railgun variant that fires a three-shot burst. It is a Power-specific loyalty reward for Arissa Lavigny-Duval supporters.

Thanks for that info. I'm committed to Aisling Duval so no goodies for me. :-(

Yes, but you've hung up your anti-gravity boots right?

I feel like I'm nearing a return, it's about that time of year. Not feeling Odyssey, so will probably stick with Horizons. Maybe if they run a sale.

For now but if new ships are introduced or if new graphics features are added like ray tracing I'll most likely reinstall.

Actually, I think I mean gravity boots. Who needs anti-gravity boots in space?

I think that's a good round number! Thanks for the 40M



Good CG though! Killed approximately 3800 ships. Bounties collected were 6020 when I started and now at 9822. Of course that's if Inara is correct. It didn't have my total for the CG correct as of yet, though I imported my stuff. It has it as 751M, will check in the morning as it should be totally updated by then!

Thanks to everyone who flew together, Gopher, Nephilim, Recluse, Wingy, Bo, Rotar and a few pop in's. I didn't always fly with the group as there was a ton of lag, plus I'm always online earlier than most, so I flew probably half of it in Solo or on the group server alone.

Cheers

Nice work!
I got my 40 million reward too.
My contribution was 136,086,285.

Is there a way to find out how many bounties you got without noting it before the CG started?

#%&*$# that's a lot of bounties.

I don't know of any way? In game they clump them all together by faction. It would be nice to know the amount broke down though!

Gliese 868 Planet 2 has a Crashed ship site with a Thargoid Sensor that yields sensor fragments.

They are needed to unlock the engineers Prof Palin and Chloe Sedesi. Can also be used to synthesis AX small calibre munitions and remote flak munitions.

Can be farmed by logging out to Main menu and back in!