Elite: Dangerous (PC game) - Successor to "Elite"

[shootemindehead]

Nice. Is there a release date?

[Neil]

Nice. Is there a release date? Aimed at "later this year". Primary Beta release is a week today. This will offer a majority of the game for people to play, so a lot of information will come forth. I'm signed up for Secondary Beta which will be sometime in the coming months... ...and then sometime after than, true release...

[shootemindehead]

Christmas job then I reckon

[Neil]

There has been lots of talk if an external view will be available or not in the game. This week a Lead Designer implied some sort of external view will be in the game, and indeed the latest video form Frontier Designs seems to show it in action

[Neil]

E3 demo - definitely worth a watch! - http://www.gamespot.com/videos/e3-20.../2300-6419611/

[Neil]

Well, the suggestion is the standard beta will be coming soon. My guess is 5-7 weeks. I'm signed up to this

[Neil]

[Neil]

OK, I've been given the orginal Combat Demo to play with, as a little gift to the Beta subscribers. I downloaded and tried it last night. On my aging machine (6yrs old) with a modernish graphics card (1 yr old) it ran very smoothly (60fps +) for all but the very last missions which is a big space battle. There is was around 30fps. There's a lot of controls and systems to get your head into to start off with - This is not a quick arcade game to simply load up and play. But so far so good. I need some time with it, and ultimately when I get the Beta in a few weeks that will be very telling!

[Neil]

Looking around a cockpit is important. It allows you a feeling of immersion, but also allows you to get your bearings and see targets all the better. Elite Dangerous allows you to look around your cockpit in a number of ways, but one of the most interesting is by using TrackIR. This is a little device you put on your headset so as you look around (a little bit) your virtual view (on the monitor) moves around a lot. So a small look to the left means a bit look to the left in game. It's easy and functional. The problem is TrackIR is about £140, which I think is a rip off! Enter clever people on the Elite Dangerous forum who, like me, also think TrackIR is a rip off. These clever folks have made "EDTracker" using cheap arduino movement sensors (like from inside your phone). I ordered the parts and I now have a box ontop of my headphones about the size of a box of match sticks, and I can look around my Elite Dangerous cockpit very nicely. Cost? £30! Satisfaction? Priceless! - - - Updated - - -

[Neil]

Wow! Look at this gratuitous 16K shot from ED - http://elite.frontier.co.uk/extra/ne...2cb7-303014205 It's showing that the game engine is capable of handling future generations of PCs with high power CPUs/GPUs... Look at that image and zoom in to see the rediculous detail! And here's some ED video porn...

[shootemindehead]

Cheers for the regular updates Neil. I feel that this is going to be a bit of a life sapper.

[Neil]

Standard Betas is out tomorrow, which I'm signed up for

[Neil]

OK... Thought I would give a small update. So I've been playing the standard beta now for a month. It offers a small region of space (40-50 system) within which you can go about your business. Thusfar a reasonable selection of weapons are available across a small selection of ships. Trading it pretty complete, while the other roles (bounty hunting, piracy and exploration) are yet to truly be available. Missions are in the game, but are thusfar very simple. The game plays pretty smoothly and the rare hangs and drops and seemingly improving too. Even my 6yr old machine (with a 1yr gfx card) plays the game smoothly at highest detail. There is a reasonably high learning curve to start off with, and keep in mind the current game has only a small proportion of features coming in the final version! So expect it to take a good week or so to feel comfortable, along with a number of learning exercises given new locations/trades/situations. I spent a good couple of weeks simply trading to build up some cash to then go and do other things. Trading at the moment is too safe, reason being if you are brought out of warp by anyone, it will be an NPC, and you can easily escape and get back into warp again. In the future when real players can "interdict" you, and threaten to blow you up unless you give them some of your cargo, things will be more "interesting" (dangerous) for traders! So now I've built up enough credits to not have to worry about it I'm flying around in a small figher ship (Viper) with various weapons shooting anything with a bounty on it Note: There will be a total game data wipe in the future before release (maybe two), so anything I have now, I will certainly lose! The next Beta will add a lot more we've been told, but there is nothing specific except more complex missions etc. I would hope this update will be coming in the next two weeks at a guess?

[Neil]

Beta 2 is out on Sep 30th. It's the 30th anniversary of the original Elite too this week...

[shootemindehead]

Just got my new machine last week. An i7 4790K with a GeForce 770 GTX and 16gb of RAM. So, I can't wait for this thing to come out. Should run as smooth as silk.