Elite on Kickstarter...

[Muttley]

Quite disappointing those ship decals are micro-transaction based. And I use the term "micro" liberally here.
https://store.zaonce.net/game-extras.ht ... 1406883393

4 euros for a texture?

I assume this also means custom ones are not going to be a feature.

Cosmetic only (no Pay-To-Win here) micro transactions have been in the plan for a long time. It's how they'll be able to get away with not having a monthly fee and unlike certain other unmentionable games, at least it's no ships and weaponry you can buy (and have to buy in some cases to remain "competitive" in the current iteration of the game).

Personally I couldn't give a rats arse what colour my (or anyone else's) ship is so it's utterly irrelevant to me.

[Whiteball]

Quite disappointing those ship decals are micro-transaction based. And I use the term "micro" liberally here.
https://store.zaonce.net/game-extras.ht ... 1406883393

4 euros for a texture?

I assume this also means custom ones are not going to be a feature.

Cosmetic only (no Pay-To-Win here) micro transactions have been in the plan for a long time. It's how they'll be able to get away with not having a monthly fee and unlike certain other unmentionable games, at least it's no ships and weaponry you can buy (and have to buy in some cases to remain "competitive" in the current iteration of the game).

Personally I couldn't give a rats arse what colour my (or anyone else's) ship is so it's utterly irrelevant to me.

I'm with you there. Never seen the point in all the games these days that let you 'paint' your car/bike/ship or whatever. I want to get on with the game not spend endless hours adding multi-coloured helmets/trousers to my inventory or whatever.

The other thing with Kickstarter is you may get money upfront but that nearly always has the caveat of a copy of the game attached to most pledges so once it's out there where does the revenue come from.
1.5 Million is a lot of money but in the big game making machines of today that will soon disappear and then what....you've already made most of your 'sales'.

[defsdoor]

With online servers to host and keep running also it's more of a problem. Without a guaranteed per-player monthly revenue stream where does the funding for this come from ?

[Misfit]

With online servers to host and keep running also it's more of a problem. Without a guaranteed per-player monthly revenue stream where does the funding for this come from ?

Good question. Presumably the single player game works without the servers?

They can only sell so many copies and lots of us will have expansion packs for life so not need to invest more. yes they raised a lot of cash. But a group of developers pay for a couple of years will quickly eat that up.

I won't be paying for cosmetics either. You don't even get to play from outside your ship to see them. But people do seem to like that kind of thing or there wouldn't be so many tools and skins in other games.

[Muttley]

With online servers to host and keep running also it's more of a problem. Without a guaranteed per-player monthly revenue stream where does the funding for this come from ?

This is one reason they went with the hybrid Server curated P2P networking for player instancing. It means they don't need a stupidly large datacentre with tons of expensive servers, just a few Amazon Cloud hosted ones for doing the matchmaking and persistent universe simulation.

In other news, this has just been delivered: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/moni ... 0dsen.html

Can't wait to hook it up when I get home tonight and try out some Elite: Dangerous at 3840x2160 resolution.

[Bod]

If anyone wants to chuck a friend request my way, my commander name is: "Muttley" Maskelyne

Sent a request.

Mine is Uncle Dirk if anyone wants to add me theirs.

[Darkflame]

Its still quite a extreme price for a texture though.

Also, as pointed out, this seems to rule out having custom ship designs. The "need" for microtransactions has restricted a feature they could have put in. (and not merely a cosmetic one either- making you playable character look unique has a lot of social advantages to any multi-player game. )

This is one reason they went with the hybrid Server curated P2P networking for player instancing. It means they don't need a stupidly large datacentre with tons of expensive servers, just a few Amazon Cloud hosted ones for doing the matchmaking and persistent universe simulation.

And is that really going to cost that much per year?
How much do you think the per-player cost of running that would be?

[Muttley]

Its still quite a extreme price for a texture though.

Don't pay it then. Simples.

Also, as pointed out, this seems to rule out having custom ship designs. The "need" for microtransactions has restricted a feature they could have put in. (and not merely a cosmetic one either- making you playable character look unique has a lot of social advantages to any multi-player game. )

Custom ship designs apart from skins and decals has never been on the cards as far as I'm aware. The ability to customise your "character" will probably come in with the First Person station/ship expansion.

This is one reason they went with the hybrid Server curated P2P networking for player instancing. It means they don't need a stupidly large datacentre with tons of expensive servers, just a few Amazon Cloud hosted ones for doing the matchmaking and persistent universe simulation.

And is that really going to cost that much per year?
How much do you think the per-player cost of running that would be?

How should I know? It'll certainly be less than pure Client/Server though.

[Darkflame]

I am sure its way yes, absolutely agreed.
I am not sure its enough to need much financial support per player.

Custom ship designs apart from skins and decals has never been on the cards as far as I'm aware. The ability to customise your "character" will probably come in with the First Person station/ship expansion.

umm...I was talking about decals and skins. Ie, what they are selling now.
It seems unlikely they will let anyone do paintjobs if they are selling them. Piracy risk of those textures.

[Muttley]

I am sure its way yes, absolutely agreed.
I am not sure its enough to need much financial support per player.

Custom ship designs apart from skins and decals has never been on the cards as far as I'm aware. The ability to customise your "character" will probably come in with the First Person station/ship expansion.

umm...I was talking about decals and skins. Ie, what they are selling now.
It seems unlikely they will let anyone do paintjobs if they are selling them. Piracy risk of those textures.

It's also to help fund the planned expansions (along with sales of the game). Dev teams don't work for free.

Letting people do their own paint jobs would be a nightmare to curate...

[defsdoor]

I must say this joystick is mightily imrpessive.

I've got the updater running at the moment - while thats going is there anything pre-created configs for ED I can download for this ?

[Darkflame]

No penis ships then? :-/

Whats the point of the game then?

oh, right, this;


Seeing as gas giant and being able to fly right into its rings.
wow.

[Muttley]

A colleague of mine decided he didn't have enough buttons/axis on his old Wingman joystick, so came up with this monstrosity:

http://i.imgur.com/OzwjLiZ.jpg

Code: Select all

Mu77ley: LOL. How exactly does that work?
[redacted]: heh its awesome
[redacted]: i've been flying around with it
[redacted]: and it really works
[redacted]: i cable tied it to the top of the stick
[redacted]: and its pretty sturdy
Mu77ley: what, do you hold tha gamepad?
[redacted]: yeah
[redacted]: with both hands
[redacted]: and move the stick around
[redacted]: the two triggers for primary/secondary fire
Mu77ley: You oughta post that on http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/
[redacted]: the left thumbstick does forward,left,right,back thrust
[redacted]: pushing down on the top stick does vertical thrust
[redacted]: pucing down on the bottom stick does downward thrust
[redacted]: (push top stick for upwards vert thrust that is)
[redacted]: left sholder activates the ui select
Mu77ley: hehe.  madness
[redacted]: you'll have to beleive me but it feels really natural
[redacted]: right shoulder button currently does fee look
[redacted]: with you controll with the main joystick
[redacted]: throttle on the joystick is set to forwards only
[redacted]: (since i can reverse/thrust forward with the left thumb anyway)
[redacted]: and i can either fly just accelerating with the thumbstick or I can set the throttle for cruising
[redacted]: I can also just set it into the blue area
[redacted]: and then use the thumb to do quick busts in any direction
Mu77ley: Seriously.  Post that to reddit.  :D
[redacted]: heh i dont have an account or anything
Mu77ley: I can post it for you if you want.  Tomorrow though, I need sleep now
[redacted]: yeah sure

[Mqark]

Total newbs questions...

How do I reply to contacts?
How do I request to dock?
What's the fastest way to do a hard stop? I'm getting sick of overusing the thrust already.

I managed to fly in and out a few time of the station, however they don't seem to like me being in there uninvited...

I'm totally disorganized and have lost the power and USB cable for my Rift - but boy am I keen to give it a go - it's gonna rock. And I bought the cheap Thrustmaster HOTAS stick today as an experiment. This game is so compelling and I can't do anything worth talking about in it yet...

I'm Dark Campbell in there by they way, and I'll by flying like a drunken idiot for quite some time until I figure all this flying stuff out.

[Mat]

I've just been trying the combat scenarios on my 360 pad (the X52 arrives tomorrow), and there's NOT ENOUGH BUTTONS!
I need to be able to flick flight assist on and off at a moment's notice. I got to the third scenario with the pad, but just can't keep behind the bugger.

Crazy thing is, after experiencing Rift yesterday and watching some youtube vidyas of people playing Elite with it, it just feels so constrained on my 24", 1,920x1,200 monitor!
I was immediately realising just how much better the game would be with it.
Buggrin' buggeration, I wants me a VR headset now