Elite: Dangerous - OUT NOW!

[Raveen]

Yeah, that's not going to happen. TBH it's hard to justify what I have spent for how much gaming time I have free these days.

[Adept]

Yeah, that's not going to happen. TBH it's hard to justify what I have spent for how much gaming time I have free these days.

It's cool Rav. And honestly, at this point it's progress wipe every 3 weeks. You get access at Gamma, when the game isn't yet release ready, but there are no more wipes. IMO Elite also works perfectly well for a game you can play an hour here and an hour there.

[Adept]

Beta 3 is coming, and we are going to get to try mining.

Nom - nom - nom...

[id3nt1ty]

SPACE GEOLOGY!

[Andon]

It really rocks

[Adept]

SPACE GEOLOGY!

No kidding. If you can find a good source explaining what kinds of stars, belts and planets should end up rich in valuable minerals, you should be able to use that knowledge in the game.

[Raveen]

If there isn't an XKCD comic about it, I don't know about it.

[Adept]

If there isn't an XKCD comic about it, I don't know about it.

Mining coming today, in Beta 3. You'll hear from myself, Andon and Solarflux if there is any minerology involved

[Adept]

Beta 3 trailer is out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTRbmUzc8o


Also some pics from the latest beta (not mine)

http://i.imgur.com/ojk2fJ5.png

http://i.gyazo.com/5c30e8a4499539d758ec70504d587df7.png

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/201 ... t-0041.png

http://i.imgur.com/kSjKepX.png

[Andon]

So currently, mining is absolutely wretched, although there's clearly room for improvement I'm not going to touch it again until it's redone.

What you do is purchase a mining laser (Or two, or three, or whatever amount you want), purchase a Refinery, and then go find some rocks.

Then you shoot blindly at these rocks (You can't target them, scan them, or anything. Just shoot them) until bits break off.

Then you scoop up these bits, and allocate them in your refinery. I'm glad I got a large refinery with 5 slots, but smaller ones have fewer - As little as 1. The refinery lists the percentage towards a ton of the items allocated, and once it reaches 100% you get a ton of that item in your cargo hold.

The biggest problems I have are that you don't know what's in the rock until you shoot it, and the bits of rock contain anywhere from 5-20% of what you need, tending towards under 10%. Which means you have to scoop around 12ish rocks to get one ton of an item. It is incredibly tedious to do so, very time consuming, and really bothersome. Plus, the amount of fragments you can get off of a rock is very low - Somewhere around 10-15ish. Which means you can completely deplete an asteroid and not get a full ton of stuff from it.

Now, on the other hand, Fuel Scooping is awesome and maybe a little too easy. You simply fly close to the star in supercruise, and fill up your tank. Not all stars support this (Brown dwarfs don't), and you have to watch your heat, but... Realistically speaking, if you're relying on fuel scooping, you'll just dip into the star for a moment or two when you exit hyperspace, top off your tank, and keep on going.

[Fellentos]

Beta 3 trailer is out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTRbmUzc8o


Also some pics from the latest beta (not mine)

http://i.imgur.com/ojk2fJ5.png

http://i.gyazo.com/5c30e8a4499539d758ec70504d587df7.png

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/201 ... t-0041.png

http://i.imgur.com/kSjKepX.png

Pictures look great! More detailed than I thought they would be.

Nice trailer as well, although the mining part seems boring.

[Adept]

Beta 3 trailer is out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTRbmUzc8o


Also some pics from the latest beta (not mine)

http://i.imgur.com/ojk2fJ5.png

http://i.gyazo.com/5c30e8a4499539d758ec70504d587df7.png

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/201 ... t-0041.png

http://i.imgur.com/kSjKepX.png

Pictures look great! More detailed than I thought they would be.

Nice trailer as well, although the mining part seems boring.

Mining is probably inherently boring for a combat pilot. What the devs hope is that it will be a co-operative endevour. A few people scanning the rocks and cutting our ore, one or two scooping it up and enriching it to commercial grade (you need a refinery module for your ship) and the rest playing bodyguard and providing security (mining zones tend to be in lawless anarchies).

I suspect the 3rd part of that could appeal to you Fell

[Adept]

Latest Elite newsletter caused a little storm in the teacup.

a) They won't have time to finish the 25 flyable ships by launch. Duh, I didn't honestly expect them to, and they kicked their commitment to 30, so I'm not complaining. I do expect it to keep going up over the years though.

b) They had to admit a solo-offline mode is not happening. The server does a _ton_ of simulation for the galaxy, and the solo client would become huge. I'm personally glad they aren't attempting it, because a solo offline game would be cracked and all secrets extracted in days, and then people would spoil it for everybody... it's just the way people are.

Final Beta build comes out on the 20th, then Gamma for 3 weeks on the 22th. Launch date is 16th of December. Woot

[Adept]

The game is now in Gamma preview until the 16th. Final balancing and stability fixes. Co-op features are still lacking, but man is it fun!

Everybody who got the mercenary edition (Raveen, I think this is you at least) or buys it before the 16th gets access to the single player training missions, and can start getting a feel for the game and setting up their controls.

Hop in, it's awesome!

[Adept]

Also, you should all grab the set of free Cobra skins from the store! And take the opportunity to buy half price skins, if something catches your fancy.