Elite on Kickstarter...

[zip accident]

Jetex was great, but I thought it was fuel toxicity and, umm, y'know, it being "a fucking rocket motor that could burn your house down" that got them banned

I dunno about the fuel toxicity, I used the things, or rather one of them, back in the day. The casing got hot, but the exhaust wasn't that hot, it came out of a pinhole sized aperture, with no flame apparent, the solid whatever it was turned to gas, or vapour, and that didn't burn any further on exiting the motor, I never tried lighting it so I can't swear that it couldn't burn in the atmosphere, but it certainly didn't seem to inside the casing, and there must have been oxidiser in the fuel.

if they were actually banned at all.

That's the feeling I'm getting at this juncture, but it's not right. It was probably something minor, like banning the sale of the fuses in shops that didn't have a fireworks licence, or to people that didn't have a gun licence or something. It was a premptive "we've got to do something, this is something, and very few voters will mind" sort of a thing. The IRA (or some variant thereof) had started blowing things up on the mainland, they never used Jetex fusing that I know of, not that I would know especially, and this was the government doing something to be seen to do something.

[axel000]

You can use air to do useful work, but only if it's at much higher effective pressure. If you're moving quickly enough, pressure builds up and you can use it to slow you down. Or you can pressurise it, as inside tyres. But moving at speed or even stationary trying to push on the air around you to make you move would be very ineffective.

Lift is created with this very pressure though, such as with a fixed or rotary winged aircraft, and the fins on a rocket.

[Muttley]

Meanwhile, back on topic:

[F-ZeroOne]

Because the one thing "Elite" needed was for docking to be harder...!

It's actually much easier than in the original.

Hmm, I'd like to see if theres any little floral tributes to Commander Jameson on the outside of the station first before I'm convinced... Are they likely to be different designs for stations? Just curious, I seem to recall "2001"-type stations featured in "Frontier", and I would kill to see an O'Neill Cylinder...

[zip accident]

Meanwhile, back on topic:

Sorry

[Darkflame]

Meanwhile, back on topic:

That looks utterly superb.

(still don't like the pseudo stars though...bah)

[rowan]

Aye it is looking just better and better and better. So glad I backed this.

One thing I noticed is that the voice which counts down from 5 when doing hyperspace is 1 second too early.

[Governmentyard]

Will this work with my saitek X45? If not I'm sticking with Oolite...

[axel000]

From what I've heard the control options are broad and include all manner of devices.

[Governmentyard]

*prays*

[Muttley]

Will this work with my saitek X45? If not I'm sticking with Oolite...

Almost certainly, every control mapping is customisable.

I bought a Saitek X52 to play it with, but I tried it with a mates ancient Logitech WingMan (it has a gameport to USB adapter it's so old) and that worked fine...

[Yak]

(still don't like the pseudo stars though...bah)

Looking at the video they don't look at all like they are meant to be stars. More like an AR overlay to give you a visual cue as to velocity, and as such not particularly out of keeping really.

It's looking really nice, my only concern is the MMO nature of it. Never really been keen on MMOs, not that keen on the idea of going in as a n00b and just getting my shit pushed in by people who've been playing for longer than me.

Be glad to be proved wrong though .

[Mqark]

*prays*

What controller is this in the dev video @ 1m7s ?

[Muttley]

*prays*

What controller is this in the dev video @ 1m7s ?

That's a Saitek X52 Pro.

[Muttley]

(still don't like the pseudo stars though...bah)

Looking at the video they don't look at all like they are meant to be stars. More like an AR overlay to give you a visual cue as to velocity, and as such not particularly out of keeping really.

Yes, that's it exactly. You need some indication that you are moving. As we know, "space is big" and without some local reference you can't really tell how fast you are mooving.

It's looking really nice, my only concern is the MMO nature of it. Never really been keen on MMOs, not that keen on the idea of going in as a n00b and just getting my shit pushed in by people who've been playing for longer than me.

Be glad to be proved wrong though .

They have some strategies for dealing with griefers apparently (from the Kickstarter details):

How do we plan to address PvP (player vs player) “griefing”?

An obvious danger is an advanced player with a big well-armed ship in a busy system spends their time just picking off beginners, for fun.

To understand how this will be stopped requires a little bit of understanding how real player ships will be treated slightly differently to non-player ships. Players will automatically be part of a “Pilot’s Federation” and will be identified as such, together with their ranking and name. Bounties are paid by this Federation – something that is therefore much higher for those that kill other Federation members. It will be balanced so that this cannot be used as an exploit (so a beginner killing a beginner is taken less seriously than an Elite pilot killing a beginner – it will be based on the ranking difference).

There are four separate ways we will address this:

1. The offender will very quickly get a serious price on their head (bounty) and criminal record. That price on their head will attract bounty hunters.

2. Local police or military will respond very quickly and strongly to them.

3. It will be legitimate for other players to attack them for the attractive bounty without attracting a bounty for themselves, as once there is a bounty on their head they are officially a pirate and ‘free game’ for everyone.

4. If enough players complain about the offender's behaviour in a certain time, then they will be banned from this group.

More details on the grouping system: http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6300

There's some more details in this interview with David Braben from the BAFTA Inside Games thing (specific stuff about griefers at the 4:30 mark):