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OS X Anyone else geeked about Elite Dangerous?

960design

960design

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 17, 2012
3,844
1,709
Destin, FL
I could see myself becoming addicted to this game. I will make rules:
1) I must visit the sunshine everyday
2) I must go to bed with my girlfriend, when she goes to bed
3) I must run everyday ( for doritos and coke )
4) I must swim in the ocean every weekend
5) I must NOT play on girlfriend's birthday

I could see 2 and 5 not really being an issue after a couple of months. :rolleyes:
 
As someone who put countless hours into Elite on the C64 and Frontier on the Amiga, I guess I will have to cancel every social life as soon as ED is released.

I was already instantly stoked when the Kickstarter campaign started (I'm a backer) and each and every newsletter I get about the game's development makes me more and more impatient.
 
Another Elite geek here (who also put untold hours into the C64 and Amiga versions) and a Kickstarter backer too.

I'm now in my early forties and I'm wondering how much time I'll be able to invest into it once it's released. Possibly, more than I'm anticipating. :D
 
I just read the newsletter about the size of the galaxy.

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=cfcdbae60e

Alpha 4 genuinely contains over 400 billion star systems. And they are all moving correctly; spinning, orbiting each other in an incredible astronomical ballet. We are also modelling interstellar molecular clouds, and though some of the detail in these (particularly for nebulae) will come after Alpha 4, wherever you are, the ‘night sky’ is accurate. Beyond our galaxy, perhaps surprisingly we do still have a ‘skydome’ - but it is now a staggering 100,000 light years away, containing all the other galaxies, including the Magellanic Clouds. That’s one heck of a draw distance…

If you go to Earth (not available to travel to in Alpha 4 – but you can see Sol in the galactic map), you’ll see our familiar constellations. In fact over 130,000 objects in the night sky – including all stars visible to the naked eye – are modelled. We can even show those joined-up Solar-centric constellations when viewed from elsewhere – which become stretched and distorted due to parallax. Want to travel to Orion’s belt and see what good old Sol looks like from there? Do it. Or just sit and marvel at the local sunrise (yes all the planets are moving too) over the rings and moons of a gas giant you’ve just found.​

This just sounds awesome. Just a few ten years ago I had to go to a planetarium to see a virtual galaxy of this scope. If they manage to deliver even half of their promised features, Elite: Dangerous gonna be a hell of a game.
Who wants to roam through Skyrim if you can visit all the stars in the sky? :D
 
I'm a backer too and looking forward to the start of the beta at the end of May. I'm wondering if I need to get a proper joystick to play it or if I can get away with a keyboard and mouse as I did with Frontier?
 
I have very fond memories of playing the original to death on a BBC Micro in the mid to late 1980s. I backed it via kickstarter back in December 2012 and bought the expansion pass a year later once it had become apparent that the core of Elite: Dangerous was faithful to the original. Recently I upgraded to the premium beta tier and I've been having a blast learning to fly again in single-player combat mode ready for the first beta release on 30th May. The alpha tier backers have already been testing multiplayer combat, station docking and ship outfitting; they'll start testing the trading mechanics in a 200 cubic light year volume containing five star systems on 15th May. That tier was too expensive for my tastes, though.

I originally used keyboard and mouse but decided fairly early on that it was worth getting hold of a HOTAS joystick for this game. I chose the Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X rather than a more expensive setup as it has all the axes and buttons I need and it should work just as well in OS X as it does in Windows once the Mac game client is released. It also has a switch allowing it's use with a PS 3. Bonus! It really adds to the in game immersion and this feels just like the game I loved all those decades ago but brought bang up to date.

In the forums there are players using all kinds of setups. There are purists using keyboard only :eek:, others using keyboard and mouse as well as xbox 360 controllers and all manner of joystick types. The general consensus is that, whatever your choice of control setup, the key is to practice, practice, practice in order to learn to fly well.
 
So why is the beta listed as $150, is this kick start and is a subscription projected? I imagine yes.

400 billion star systems, too much of a good thing? That's huge, but they must be procedurally generated and makes me wonder how unique theses locations will be?
 
tomvos said:
This just sounds awesome. Just a few ten years ago I had to go to a planetarium to see a virtual galaxy of this scope. If they manage to deliver even half of their promised features, Elite: Dangerous gonna be a hell of a game.
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I played around with Celestia a couple of years ago and always thought that it would be awesome if someone made a game like Frontier with graphics like Celestia's (which were impressive back then). Well... wish granted. :D

fat jez said:
I'm a backer too and looking forward to the start of the beta at the end of May. I'm wondering if I need to get a proper joystick to play it or if I can get away with a keyboard and mouse as I did with Frontier?
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You can definitely play with keyboard and mouse or with a standard gamepad, if you are so inclined, but most of the previews suggested a decent flight stick to get the most out of it.

Huntn said:
So why is the beta listed as $150, is this kick start…
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The purchaseable beta (and the previous alpha access) are a kind of post-Kickstarter funding campaign. The prices more or less correspond to the Kickstarter pledge levels to get the same access (e.g. you had to pledge £100 to get into the first round of the beta, which is the same as the roughly the same as the price you have to pay now –*but without many of the rewards you'd get as Kickstarter backer).

…and is a subscription projected? I imagine yes.
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Nope, no subscription involved.

400 billion star systems, too much of a good thing? That's huge, but they must be procedurally generated and makes me wonder how unique theses locations will be?
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From the newsletter already quoted above:
In fact over 130,000 objects in the night sky – including all stars visible to the naked eye – are modelled.
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So, about 130,000 star systems are placed and modelled manually. The rest is in fact generated procedurally.
 
Huntn said:
So why is the beta listed as $150, is this kick start and is a subscription projected? I imagine yes.
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No, there's no subscriptions. It's £35 to pre-order the game. I don't know what that is in dollars but probably $50. Minor updates will be free but major ones, such as a planetary landings expansion, are planned and will be paid for. An expansion pass is available for a further £35 that will cover all these expansions for the life of the game. The premium beta (which also includes the game and expansion pass) is available as a standalone purchase at £100, while the public beta is available for £50. The alpha is no longer available but it did cost £200 while it was available. The alpha and betas' prices have remained the same since the initial kickstarter campaign.

400 billion star systems, too much of a good thing? That's huge, but they must be procedurally generated and makes me wonder how unique theses locations will be?
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Procedural generation has been used for over thirty years with increasing complexity in every iteration of the Elite universe. It works very well and it's one of the main reasons why I (and many other players of previous versions) are so optimistic about the game.

If you want a sneak peak at how things are going you should have a trawl through the Elite: Dangerous forums. I particularly recommend the Design Discussion Archive. Here, for example is how the politics and economics of the inhabited regions are simulated, how they affect player choices, actions, missions, etc and how the results of those player interactions feed back into the simulation.
 
cal6n said:
No, there's no subscriptions. It's £35 to pre-order the game. I don't know what that is in dollars but probably $50. Minor updates will be free but major ones, such as a planetary landings expansion, are planned and will be paid for. An expansion pass is available for a further £35 that will cover all these expansions for the life of the game. The premium beta (which also includes the game and expansion pass) is available as a standalone purchase at £100, while the public beta is available for £50. The alpha is no longer available but it did cost £200 while it was available. The alpha and betas' prices have remained the same since the initial kickstarter campaign.



Procedural generation has been used for over thirty years with increasing complexity in every iteration of the Elite universe. It works very well and it's one of the main reasons why I (and many other players of previous versions) are so optimistic about the game.

If you want a sneak peak at how things are going you should have a trawl through the Elite: Dangerous forums. I particularly recommend the Design Discussion Archive. Here, for example is how the politics and economics of the inhabited regions are simulated, how they affect player choices, actions, missions, etc and how the results of those player interactions feed back into the simulation.
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But 400 BILLON? :p Thanks for the info! I'm definitely interested in this title. When is retail projected? This link says 2014.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ
 
Final alpha testing starts 15 May, premium beta starts 30 May, which leaves beta and gamma testing to go. make your own best estimate of retail from that ;)

These are PC dates, when the retail Mac version comes out, who knows.
 
In a one word reply to the OP - Nope.

Did not play Elite the first time around so will not be playing
the second, and well look at the asking prices o-O
 
Washac said:
In a one word reply to the OP - Nope.

Did not play Elite the first time around so will not be playing
the second, and well look at the asking prices o-O
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If you are referencing the $150, I don't believe that is the retail cost, and there is no subscription. Don't know about micro transactions either, if you can buy your way to the top.
 
The 2014 July PCGamer highlights Elite Dangerous. It looks interesting. I wonder how similar to Eve this will be? One thing I've learned is that I'm a casual gamer so I won't devote my life to a game and wonder if it can be approached satisfactorily in a casual manner? I wonder how death penalties compare to Eve?

If it has not been specifically mentioned, it is to be released the end of 2014 with a Mac version scheduled for 3 months later.
 
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I offered to test for the Mac release version and was notified that I could purchase the kickstarter and download the windows version. I did not reply. I will wait for the full mac version to be released.

I already have the HOTAS ( Thrustmaster Cougar with FSSB R2 mod ) and trackIR ( looking into Oculus for future purchase ) just waiting on time and sailing / running as much as I can now, because I will probably become a Surrogate once it releases and travel to the far corners of the universe.
 
The last Elite newsletter had some news regarding the Mac version:
Serge: Can you talk about the expectations of the Mac version?
We have said that the Mac version will follow around 3 months after the PC version. Currently we have been focusing on building the fundamentals of Elite: Dangerous on PC. Now we have got to Premium Beta we have enough of the game present that it makes sense for us to start focusing on Mac specific porting and optimization tasks using our cross-platform Cobra game engine software. We have been laying the groundwork for the Mac version in the background for a while now, and have just started to ramp up the activity. We’ll keep you posted as we have progress to share!
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Huntn said:
I wonder how similar to Eve this will be? One thing I've learned is that I'm a casual gamer so I won't devote my life to a game and wonder if it can be approached satisfactorily in a casual manner? I wonder how death penalties compare to Eve?
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It hardly compares other than being set in space. In Elite, you directly pilot a single ship (but you can own multiple ones). There are no skills to learn to improve your character, you can only buy new equipment for your ship.

The game will be much more accessible than EVE. If you play as trader, your ship's computer will help you find a decent deal, and while the game's economics are dynamic (at least when playing online) it will be far less complex than EVE's.

Unlike EVE, you can choose to which extent you have to deal with other players. You can play in a MMO mode, only with friends, solo online and solo offline.

The death penalty in short is mainly monetary, at least in normal mode (there is also an "ironman" mode). You respawn at the last station you have docked at, where you can choose to get an identical replacement ship for a fee (that might put you in debt) or forfeit your destroyed ship in favour of another ship in your possession.
 
Janichsan said:
The last Elite newsletter had some news regarding the Mac version:



It hardly compares other than being set in space. In Elite, you directly pilot a single ship (but you can own multiple ones). There are no skills to learn to improve your character, you can only buy new equipment for your ship.

The game will be much more accessible than EVE. If you play as trader, your ship's computer will help you find a decent deal, and while the game's economics are dynamic (at least when playing online) it will be far less complex than EVE's.

Unlike EVE, you can choose to which extent you have to deal with other players. You can play in a MMO mode, only with friends, solo online and solo offline.

The death penalty in short is mainly monetary, at least in normal mode (there is also an "ironman" mode). You respawn at the last station you have docked at, where you can choose to get an identical replacement ship for a fee (that might put you in debt) or forfeit your destroyed ship in favour of another ship in your possession.
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Thanks for the info! I'm not sure I want a dog fighter if this is what ED is. (What initials :p) When I tested Eve, this is one thing I did like about it, no dogfighting. I want to say in the future, the autopilot could probably do a better job setting up a shot than a pilot could visually. In actually if I am driving a larger ship I expect there would be minimal dogfighting but telling your crew what to attack.

I'm more into general strategy versus jinking. I've read a lot of the Honor Harrington series, and my impression with the smaller ships there was maneuvering but it was not on the same level as a WWII dogfight.
 
But you can land on planets and asteroids and probably capital ships! Land on planets!

I guess this is the bit that made the before Elite's so amazing to me. I could take off, point to a star and fly there. Find a planet, fly through the atmosphere, over the oceans and land a patch of soil. If I was lucky enough, even find a station to visit. Then I could take off again and just keep going!

Guess that's why I like sailing so much. Just point her out through the jetties and pick a heading and just sail.
 
I am excited for this game. And thanks for the info on the Mac version. At least it is something.
 
Huntn said:
Thanks for the info! I'm not sure I want a dog fighter if this is what ED is. (What initials :p) When I tested Eve, this is one thing I did like about it, no dogfighting. I want to say in the future, the autopilot could probably do a better job setting up a shot than a pilot could visually. In actually if I am driving a larger ship I expect there would be minimal dogfighting but telling your crew what to attack.
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The larger ships have turrets that can be set to attack automatically. But yes, in general the combat in Elite always was and will be more typical dogfights.

960design said:
But you can land on planets and asteroids and probably capital ships! Land on planets!
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Not from the get-go. They will add this in the first expansion for ED.
 
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Alternative to Elite for now

Until they release Elite Dangerous for OSX which according to there website wont be for a "three months later on Apple Macintosh computers" please let it be native , ill keep using Oolite

If you liked the original Elite game you will love Oolite, its opensource and has a truck load of customizations for it i have 112 mods loaded into my game at the moment. They add everything from better textures, more weapons, ships etc. Give it a try it is brilliant.

There are even mods that add extra missions such as assassin, go out an hunt down and kill a certain individual.

The galaxy conisist of 8 galaxys and there are hundreds of hours of gameplay to be had. The best thing it free just download the game from the site

http://www.oolite.org/

and then follow the link to the OXP list to start adding the add-on expansions. The game is great you wont regret it.

Below is the link to the Wiki OXP list

http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/OXP_List


Also check out Smivs online for some more OXP's

http://www.smivsonline.co.uk/oolite.htm

Cant wait until Elite Dangerous comes out by the videos it looks brilliant.
 
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