Elite: Dangerous - my days flying a Space Transit Van

[major_clanger]

My first thoughts on Elite: Dangerous: I liked it, although there was clearly a bit of a learning curve. And indeed, a steady trading grind to get more money.

I've now been playing on and off for a couple more weeks. I took the helpful hint and have been playing mainly in solo mode, which means you only meet NPCs rather than trigger-happy loons, and I also took myself well away from the core area of starting systems. By the time I was a hundred light-years out, the visiting ships stats for stations I was docking at - even back in multi-player mode - showed that very often there was only ship passing through in the last 24 hours, i.e. me!

Wanting to Make Money Fast(er), I traded in my Sidewinder (fast but small) for a Hauler. This really is Frontier's idea of a Space Transit Van. It even sounds like a Transit with a dodgy transmission, especially decelerating from frameshift drive. It handles like a pig and is armed with a popgun, but, with a minor upgrade, holds 16 tons of freight - four times the cargo of the Sidewinder. Once I'd found an adjacent pair of systems where I could reliably trade gold at a profit of 1,000 credits per ton (and consumer goods at 200 credits per ton profit the other way) I could hop back and forth making tens of thousands of credits per hour. Even better, I was offered some very profitable missions; somebody was awfully keen to pay a lot of money for lithium, which didn't take too much tracking down.

Finally, my net worth exceeded half a million credits, so I went ship-shopping again.

Cobra Mk 3, you are mine!

This was the ship you had in the original Elite, and it was a further shot of nostalgia to see a Cobra Mk 3 in 3D rotation during the loading screen, albeit much more nicely rendered than the crude polyhedral model from the 1985 version. Much faster than my Space Transit, respectably-armed even in the basic version, and with 18 tons of cargo capacity by default.

Emboldened, I tried some of this bounty-hunting that you can supplement trading income with. I headed off to the nav beacon in my local star system, and sure enough there were several 'unidentified signal sources' on scan. Heading to one of them and dropping out of frameshift, I found a Sidewinder pootling around; a further scan marked it as 'wanted'. Tally ho! A rather one-sided fight ensued, and as my target exploded I was notified of a 1,700-credit bounty.

Hmm, this is easier than I thought. I find another such USS, and this one turns out to be a Hauler. Ha, having flown the Space Transit, I can see this one - another 'wanted' - will be easy.

Perhaps I should have wondered why a pirate would be flying a truck.

I was within moments of finishing off my target when another ship appeared, hailed my target, and offered to help. I'm not sure exactly what it was because one shot knocked my shields out and took my ship health from 100% down to 78%. I was not hanging around; hit afterburn, frantically pick a distant station in the same system as jump target, and engage frameshift. I limped in to dock, went to repairs, and looked at the bill for getting the dents buffed out of my shiny new Cobra Mk 3.

1,700 credits. There is probably a moral in that.

Comments

[hano.livejournal.com]

So worth playing you think? I'm seeing some pretty polarised reviews. I'll probably give it a crack in a month or two, when I'm slightly less snowed under. That and when I've finished Dragon Age Inquisition...

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying it, and now that I've got a reasonably-spec'd ship I'm playing it as 'space trading with added combat' rather than avoiding all risk of being shot at. It can get quite addictive, especially with the way that this version usually presents you with several missions at any one time, often quite lucrative ones. "That's enough for now... oh well, just have a quick check of the Bulletin Board before I quit... Oh! 22,000 credits to find 6 tons of rutile ore! I'm sure there was some in the last system I visited, it won't take long to fly over and get some..."

I suppose what you think of it will very much depend on what you expect from games. It's not very interactive yet, although Frontier are promising that 1.1 (due next month) will be a major upgrade, especially in terms of adding cooperative play. For old Elite fans like me, E:D is pretty much the ultimate dream version of the game we loved, albeit with some odd foibles that are still being ironed out. I can imagine that players who want a more immediate combat experience or a more genuinely multi-player style of gaming may well not like it.

[andrewducker]

The main complaints I've seen have been things like this:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/17/the-arc-structure-of-elite-dangerous/

Which complain that pure trading without combat isn't well balanced.

I don't know how that matches with The Major's experiences - but I suspect that adding some combat in makes it a lot more fun.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Although I'm not sure how the author of that piece expected trading without combat to be fun? I mean picking up stuff and dropping it off again? You might as well be a man with a van.

[andrewducker]

But some people do love that kind of thing - so long as there's a challenge involved, and a difficulty curve.

I know people that play MMOs just to craft things, which I find deadly dull, but clearly appeals to a fair chunk of the audience. Doing non-combat missions certainly could be fun, to the right kind of people.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Given how big the galaxy is, 'hunt the most profitable trade route' is doubtless a fun and valid game for many.

And it's more than just finding adjacent systems with a huge price difference. Time is a factor; I found one otherwise good trading route where the trip one way involved a supercruise from the jump point to the sole in-system station of 400,000 light-seconds!

[steer.livejournal.com]

But Elite trading never did have a challenge or a difficulty curve... that's not really what it's for (indeed, pretty hard to see how it *could* have a difficulty curve, there's goods, there's a price to buy and a price to sell, to make that challenging or difficult you have to completely change the core mechanic). The only thing that was close to challenging was weighing up whether you could make a particularly risky run pay off by getting stuff to somewhere heavily armed. But the challenge there is the combat (or judging whether you can profitably make the run and avoid or survive it).

Yes, there are people out there who can find enjoyment in part of a game that the majority of people find uninteresting. More power to them. But this author did not. I would find it just as odd an article if someone decided they would play MMO just crafting and then complained that crafting was really boring for them. The answer is the same as "it hurts when I stick forks in my legs" "well don't do that then."

The author has picked something that I think most people would find boring (playing as just a trader) and complained that they found it boring but somehow that's the game's fault not theirs. Grind is grindy... news at 10.

[andrewducker]

"I would find it just as odd an article if someone decided they would play MMO just crafting and then complained that crafting was really boring for them."

But there are people who play MMOs basically just for crafting, and enjoy it thoroughly.

And there's no reason why the new Elite couldn't have trading as a fun thing, in and of itself, is there? The trading _is_ a core mechanic, but it's not one that people have to do (you can live off of bounty hunting, after all), so why not make it so that it's a fun one, with challenge in it that has a difficulty curve, things to learn, etc.?

[steer.livejournal.com]

But there are people who play MMOs basically just for crafting, and enjoy it thoroughly.

Indeed... you mentioned that before. This author, before even starting the game picked a play style that was likely to be really unenjoyable for most people, and it was unenjoyable for them. If it had been an article saying "Well, most people would find this route dull or impossible but I found a way to make it enjoyable" that would be great:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/12/06/how-to-win-at-skyrim-without-ever-killing-anything.aspx?PageIndex=3

But for now, I'm filing this with "pacifist space invaders is not fun".

The trading _is_ a core mechanic, but it's not one that people have to do (you can live off of bounty hunting, after all), so why not make it so that it's a fun one, with challenge in it that has a difficulty curve, things to learn, etc.?

But let's imagine they do that, spend a bunch of time, have a trading minigame, and trading becomes a bit more interesting. The next article is "Well, I decided before playing that I would not do any trading or combat but make my living trading in space ships... turns out that's not interesting."

Plus, of course, they sold it as a heritage experience so everyone else would complain like hell because they paid for something that plays like elite.

[andrewducker]

They paid for something that's reminiscient of Elite, certainly (those that bought it for that reason), and Trading, in and of itself, was always an important part of Elite.

(Just as crafting is an important part of many MMOs, which are designed so that you can gain significant XP that way, and level up based largely on it, if you put the effort in.)

[steer.livejournal.com]

Trading, in and of itself, was always an important part of Elite.

Their core complaints about trading are all true of the original "There is no way when at one station to check the prices of the commodities market of another station" "your best bet is to either find routes by trawling Reddit or by trawling the galaxy map, following certain principles based on station types" and " taking screenshots of each market screen you find." Those are all exactly true of the original game (except the reddit part and you'd use pencil and paper or your memory not a screenshot).

[andrewducker]

Their _core_ complaint is that at the start of the game there are almost no trading missions that you can take:
"That would be fine, if those small missions that your starter ship could complete were available from every station, but they’re not. It’s common to fly for long stretches and not find anything you can actually do. When a mission is available, it’ll sometimes still require you to first purchase goods you can’t yet afford (with no warning of this to new players), and will in any case only offer a pittance in return for hours of work."

Which strikes me as a perfectly reasonable complaint that could be relatively easily fixed by devs.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Mind you trading missions are already an addition.

[andrewducker]

So is colour graphics.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

In fairness, shipping 16 tons of consumer goods (yes, you can trade those) from Point A to Point B is probably rather prettier in Elite: Dangerous than it is in real life. Mind you, real life delivery probably has less risk of bursting into flame through ending up too close to a star, or being shot up by pirates.

[steer.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Well, at least there's eye candy while you're doing FedEx quests then? :-)

[hano.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Some of my old Eve Online mates are pkaying and have hooked up, might well join them. Our reign of terror extension of a Greater Economic Prosperity Sphere, will be remembered as a time of peace, justice and pictures of kittens.

[owlfish]

C said after reading your post "I'm one of those trigger-happy loons. But I only attack players if they're wanted. In an Eagle, making 100k an hour bounty hunting is achievable."

[davidwake.livejournal.com]

I've considered this, but I don't have the time to commit to make it worthwhile and I loathe learning curves. I'd like to have a look though sometime.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I don't have much time myself, which is why I've bene playing for the best part of 3 weeks and still only have a base-level Cobra Mk 3 and about 200k in credits. Also, it means kicking S off her computer!