elite dangerous is currently free on epic store

danlightbulb said:
the two attractive options at the moment are:
1. deep space exploring - i.e travelling to the other side of the galaxy
2. becoming a notorious ruthless killing machine


So for number 1, when I go off exploring, my questions are:
1a) is it possible to find stuff no-one else has found before?
1b) and if so, how do I show other (real) people these discoveries? Can I, for example, photograph them and publish them somewhere?
1c) is it going to be a case of - once ive seen one earth like world ive seen them all? Or is there significant variation in what's out there - genuine undiscovered things?

And for number 2:
2a) is it possible to become a notorious bloody killer, don't I just become wanted myself and get destroyed by the computer controlled ships?
2b) if it is possible, where is my earned notoriety displayed?


for both questions 1b and 2b, what Im getting at is that is this a community type game or is it just really played solo? I know the game world is filled with other real players, but do you get to interact with them in any meaningful way? Do you get to build a 'real' reputation in the simulated universe?
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I've played Elite Dangerous since it was launched, and it is my go to VR game. I started as an explorer, though I've not done much of that recently.

Both of your questions seem to be about how you interact with other players and a wider environment. To be honest, Elite Dangerous isn't good as a community game now.

Open Play just leaves you open to griefers who are looking to kill noobs. I play it in the Mobius universe, though even that's quiet. If you want human interaction then this game may not be for you.

Initially, Elite Dangerous seemed to be a rush to get the biggest ships - the Anaconda etc.

If you want to try out the game and its environment, my advice is to work up to a Cobra MkIII. It's a general purpose small ship that will you the best enjoyment in the game and see what you can do.

Then move onto other small ships which are more specialised - Diamondback Explorer (exploration), Viper (fighter), Vulture (heavy fighter) - but keep the Cobra as it's a great ship to just experience the universe.

If you want to get more, then get the money for a Python. But what will you do with it?...

It's a massively open universe. Do as you will...
 
kration said:
it is my go to VR game
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Be interested to know what framerates you and others manage to get.

I have followed a youtube guide for settings, quite a lot stays on ultra but others drop down. I can maintain 72 Hz in space but when approaching a station or inside one, its dropping me into 36 Hz reprojection mode.

I want the game as sharp as possible really, so Im running about 1.3x on the Oculus pixel density settings. But tomorrow Im going to try dropping this down a touch.
 
Will give it a go thanks. The sharpness difference when supersampling is really marked, but I cant maintain framerates in stations and combat which is really annoying.

Im finding games look best on supersampling resolutions of 1.3x or higher, but the GPU won't cope even though its a 3070.

Would a 3080 cope? A 3090?


Ridiculous that the latest gen can't run a five year old game at full resolution in VR.
 
danlightbulb said:
Ridiculous that the latest gen can't run a five year old game at full resolution in VR.
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Even 3080's and 3090's have difficulty running modern games at 4k at a locked 60fps.

Elite has had a lot of graphical upgrades and is a demanding game.

With VR and supersampling on Quest 2 or G2 you're trying to run the game at >4k at 72-90hz. It's no wonder even the latest cards struggle.

The best hope is VR DLSS becomes more widely supported.
 
It maxes out for me. It ran me in on a default ultra setting, id not played it since building a new machine. Elite is fairly simple when compared to other games in the genre that are far more taxing. Jumped a couple of systems, landed at a station, performance seemed fine.
 
lokiss said:
It maxes out for me. It ran me in on a default ultra setting, id not played it since building a new machine. Elite is fairly simple when compared to other games in the genre that are far more taxing. Jumped a couple of systems, landed at a station, performance seemed fine.
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Yeah in the game itself it runs on VR ultra provided I don't change the pixel density in Oculus tools. If I go for a higher pixel density, then it looks so much better visually, but I get the ASW reduction to half frame rate in stations etc.

Id have not known where the ASW was happening until I turned on the performance overlay, but visually I can tell the difference with the pixel density setting.
 
finding it a really steep learning curve to get into the basics of it. The multitude of controls is quite overwhelming, and have just bought an X52, trying to figure out what does what, when you cant see the physical controls with the headset on is frustrating, nevermind feeling in the dark for keyboard presses that have no control alternate.

As a complete newbie, I've read up on dangerous/horizons/beyond. Apparently each has new content. What exactly do they mean by new content, better graphics...more planets...quests ? If I play one and then load another does my ship etc carry over ? As a first timer, should I just go for the latest one (beyond ?).
 
I only use an xbox pad and am finding it fine. Can long press the buttons to get extra options pop up on screen, so don't have to remember them, and the only time i need to peek under the headset is if i need to use the keyboard in the galaxy map search box.
 
tangey said:
finding it a really steep learning curve to get into the basics of it. The multitude of controls is quite overwhelming, and have just bought an X52, trying to figure out what does what, when you cant see the physical controls with the headset on is frustrating, nevermind feeling in the dark for keyboard presses that have no control alternate.
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I think for VR, using VoiceAttack for voice control is pretty much a no-brainer. You can bind voice commands like "landing gear" to key presses, so you don't have to find space on your controller to bind all the different commands you need.

HCS VoicePacks sell ready-made packs for Elite Dangerous which you can just load up in VoiceAttack. I haven't tried them myself, but you can try VoiceAttack with a few commands you create yourself, to see if it works for you, then maybe buy one of the pre-configured packs for the full experience :)
 
rgrocott said:
I think for VR, using VoiceAttack for voice control is pretty much a no-brainer. You can bind voice commands like "landing gear" to key presses, so you don't have to find space on your controller to bind all the different commands you need.

HCS VoicePacks sell ready-made packs for Elite Dangerous which you can just load up in VoiceAttack. I haven't tried them myself, but you can try VoiceAttack with a few commands you create yourself, to see if it works for you, then maybe buy one of the pre-configured packs for the full experience :)
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Thanks, saw reference to voice attack before, but without context thought it was something within Elite. Now i see its an add-on. Will certainly check it out. About the various versions of elite (dangerous, horizons, beyond), can you advise which one a newbie shoukl go with ?
 
tangey said:
Thanks, saw reference to voice attack before, but without context thought it was something within Elite. Now i see its an add-on. Will certainly check it out. About the various versions of elite (dangerous, horizons, beyond), can you advise which one a newbie shoukl go with ?
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Sadly, I'm a newbie myself!

I'm a bit confused by the whole Horizons / Beyond thing. Horizons seems to be a separate game which you had to buy when it was released, although it seems to be bundled with Elite Dangerous on Steam, because I have it and I didn't buy it separately. Beyond looks like it's just the most recent expansion, and is free for players of either Dangerous or Horizons?

When I start the game from Steam, I can choose to launch either Elite Dangerous or Elite Dangerous: Horizons, but not Elite Dangerous: Beyond. So I guess Beyond is just bundled into both options. I chose Horizons because it seems like it's just additional stuff on top of the basic game, so it does no harm to pick that option.

Sometimes I think they like to make everything about this game as impenetrable as possible, or maybe it's just because we're new to the party :D
 
I’ve been playing a fair bit of Elite Dangerous VR since I got my Quest 2 last week and have to say it’s what VR was invented for. I’ve spent time getting set up with my Thrustmaster HOTAS X. I still have to use the keyboard for a few things but if I decide to play longer term I’ll get Voice Attack.

Haven’t done any combat yet, other than having a go in the training section, just getting used to flying around in VR.
 
rgrocott said:
Sadly, I'm a newbie myself!

I'm a bit confused by the whole Horizons / Beyond thing. Horizons seems to be a separate game which you had to buy when it was released, although it seems to be bundled with Elite Dangerous on Steam, because I have it and I didn't buy it separately. Beyond looks like it's just the most recent expansion, and is free for players of either Dangerous or Horizons?

When I start the game from Steam, I can choose to launch either Elite Dangerous or Elite Dangerous: Horizons, but not Elite Dangerous: Beyond. So I guess Beyond is just bundled into both options. I chose Horizons because it seems like it's just additional stuff on top of the basic game, so it does no harm to pick that option.

Sometimes I think they like to make everything about this game as impenetrable as possible, or maybe it's just because we're new to the party :D
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Forget about beyond. It was a marketing thing to cover up the fact that the 2nd paid expansion was horribly delayed so they marketed beyond but made it a free expansion to all horizon owners.
It really is just a series of small updates for horizons however (with a few bits to base game,) that they could not really have charged cash for.
If you own horizons there is no reason at all to load the base game (unless you hit a bug and get your ship/srv stuck on the planet as loading base game resets it into orbit).
So it's not that difficult. ED is base game , horizons /beyond is the same thing and is the expansion..,.

And ED Odyssey is the long awaited expansion coming Q1 this year (though it looks like FD are really stretching the term released as it's not even in alpha yet, I suspect they will class alpha as release even tho progress won't count and only those who pay extra will get it).
 
bigmike20vt said:
Forget about beyond. It was a marketing thing to cover up the fact that the 2nd paid expansion was horribly delayed so they marketed beyond but made it a free expansion to all horizon owners.
It really is just a series of small updates for horizons however (with a few bits to base game,) that they could not really have charged cash for.
If you own horizons there is no reason at all to load the base game (unless you hit a bug and get your ship/srv stuck on the planet as loading base game resets it into orbit).
So it's not that difficult. ED is base game , horizons /beyond is the same thing and is the expansion..,.

And ED Odyssey is the long awaited expansion coming Q1 this year (though it looks like FD are really stretching the term released as it's not even in alpha yet, I suspect they will class alpha as release even tho progress won't count and only those who pay extra will get it).
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Thanks for that explaination. There's a huge amont of info out there, but it might take me ages to wade thru it, whereas you just sorted it in 2 ticks
Horizons from now on it is :)

Cheers
 
IF you own Elite Dangerous now in any form - you'll have Horizons as it was merged into the main game. Howver you'll still have the various options on the launcher (just choose Horizons unless you're in the situation as previously described by BigMike20vt
 
just thought I'd report that I am well and truely down the elite rabbit hole. 700M+ credits and core mining like there is no tomorrow. Working towards elite as a trader, then I'll switch ships and concentrate on fighting. Then look into getting licences for the various systems that needs them, then I might *think* about multi-player !
 
I bought myself a passenger ship the other day and thought I'd do some passenger runs for variety. Big mistake! Kept annoying the passengers and accidentally took a wanted one to a system that didn't like it and got a bounty on me. I think I'll stick to mining, exploring, cargo runs and pirate hunting. Safer!
 
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