I really want to try this game but I need to buckle down on my certs. When I get my MCSA I think I shall reward myself with a month of playtime.
Bought Elite Dangerous the other week and have been having a blast flying around the galaxy.
So much so that Iāve bought a new computer to play it on, and am looking very hard at a ārealā HOTAS setup. (A friend loaned me his old Saitek Cyborg X-5 to get started with.)
Anyone have good / bad experiences with HOTAS arrangements on a Mac?
How much is it like say, Privateer? Iāve watched a few letās plays, but they were mostly focusing on blowing shit up and other crap.
In a lot of the more modern versions of wing commander type games Iāve found that situational awareness sucks. Not like Xwing or Wing Commander was, they seemed more intuitive.
Does it use real space physics? Is it possible to fly backwards via inertia and light shit up while flying sideways and skew turning to reverse course? Or is it arcade dogfighting style?
I havenāt played in the arena or anything. But Iām told it uses real space physics.
Sorry, Elite Dangerous is what I was asking about.
Doh. 
I found it worthwhile to purchase ControllerMate for programming my Warthog HOTAS on OS X, since the TARGET software doesnāt work on OS X. Itās not a requirement, but man, did it make setting up macros super-easy.
You can flip off flight assist and do inertial maneuvering if you want to, and in some circumstances it gives you an advantage. For the most part itās easier to leave it in āairplaneā mode, but, sure, the option is there if you want it.
Itās like Privateer, sort of, but itās really more like, wellā¦Elite. Privateer can best be understood as āWing Commander crossed with Elite,ā since Elite did the mixture of trading/fighting in 1984.
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Thanks for that.
My friend has been having issues with programming all the buttons properly on his Saitek X52, so Iāll point him at that.
If it works out for him, then I will grab one as well. (Nothing like using your friends as crash-test dummies!)
I bought one of these a couple years ago, trying to recapture my Tie Fighter days.
I was pretty happy with it. I might pick up Elite after Gen Con.
Definitely been having some fun with Elite: Dangerous while we await new/some/any content from Star Citizen. Iāve done a little bit of everything so far, but have recently found that freelance bounty hunting is the most profitable. I did make an explorer run to Spica, just to say that Iād been there. A little frustrated that Sol was āoff limitsā unless you had a permit. Screw the Federation, I want to jump in illegally.
That said, if Iām being honest, Iām starting to have my concerns with Star Citizen. I donāt bother posting them on their forum as fanboys seem to grab the pitchforks as a knee-jerk reaction.
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CIG appears to be allergic to deadlines. I donāt think theyāve met one of them within months of setting it. Albeit, some of the goals they had have indeed expanded since originally setting them, but they have a bad habit of not setting a realistic expectation. Any āinvestorā in any other business would surely pull their money if this were to consistently occur. They have different teams tied to different pieces of functionality and content, and itās seriously concerning that major deadlines havenāt been met. Despite from being slotted to release this year, I can only imagine that Squadron 42 will fall behind schedule, despite being worked on by a completely separate team from the other content being produced.
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The amount of new functionality rolled out is somewhat laughable at this point. Arena Commander 1.0 is certainly not a complete product (Yeah, Iāve read the post about the stigma of labeling it ā1.0ā, but itās still a no-no in my book). Iāve yet to have a positive experience with it. Whether itās the inability to get into a coop lobby or having an extremely laggy experience that I canāt really do that much before being obliterated by someoneās Hornet. As far as Iām concerned, itās still an unplayable product.
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Thereās been an awful lot more sales lately. At least one every month. It would seem that CIG has a team wholly dedicated to producing content for selling ships in a new way that gets people to open their wallets. Yes, itās a pledge. I get that. But their latest āstarlinerā was priced at $400. You mean to tell me CIG needs its next pledges at $400 a pop? Thatās ridiculous for pricing, on its face, for a digital item you canāt use or see yet. Itās like CIG has a bridge to sell, and everyoneās buying it. Perhaps Iād be more inclined to pledge again if, yāknow, a deadline could be met. Iād also argue that if it was more about getting pledges, then the prices shouldnāt be so insanely high. Theyāve made the point of ānot letting everyone start the game with the same shipsā and āmore diversity among playersā. However, to that point, theyāve mentioned that players will make up ~%10 of the galaxy, 90% of NPCs making up the other half. Unless CIG expected its player base to mostly saturated by its investors, then I suppose I could understand, but Iād still argue, āWhy not?ā. Itās a game. Your players canāt fly all their ships at once. Theyāll have to settle on one at a time. Why not let it be available to everyone?
/soapbox
No worries. I will point out that itās on sale this week. Something stupid like 33% off. (Of course, the sale comes 2 weeks after I bought the damned gameā¦)
Dumb question. When you take a bounty-hunting / assassination mission, you have to find a particular person. How? The job details gives you the system to jump to, but space is awfully darned bigā¦ Iād like to have half a clue about how things work before I go making a fool of myself to employers.
So I took up one of these before and I would say itās best not to do this 'til youāve put a lot of creds into your ship. Class B weapons and shields, at the very least. Cause I found that out the hard way, these assassination missions donāt mess around. These guys usually have a wing on 'em and are toting around heavy weapons. I was dropped to no shields within 5 seconds and managed to get away with 50% hull. Needless to say, I didnāt complete that mission. To answer your question, you basically roam around the system theyāre supposed to be in until you scan a ship with the name of the gent/woman youāre looking to exterminate. Upon doing so, youāll most likely need to use an interdictor to drop them out of supercruise.
What Iāve been doing is using a kill warrant scanner on any ship thatās wanted. You can usually cash in 50K fairly quickly. I got lucky once and had an Anaconda show up as wanted. 110K in the bank with the help of the local navy. I typically hang around nav beacons. Seems to be the best way not to get blown up and get some general assistance from the locals when you do find that special someone.
Cool. Thanks for that.
Just finished a ~500 light-year round trip trading rare items. Over 4 hours real-time, and a profit of about 1.1MCr. Donāt know if itās worth it or not in the long run. (Maybe not with a Cobra MK III, itās not.)
As for picking off pirates, the NAV beacon is a good location, as are Resource Extraction Sites. In particular the āHigh Intensityā ones. (Neatly referred to as HI-RES.)
I have some doubts about the game AI, too. I got interdicted with a hold full of loot, and thought it was āGame Over, Man!ā when I saw it was a āDeadlyā rated pilot. Except all he did was shoot me once then proceed to drop chaff everywhere. Which is strange when Iāve had āCompetentā rated NPCs FSD out of the area when they got too badly chewed up.
Yeah, Iāve got a few concerns with their AI, particularly the fact that when you engage an enemy while theyāre firing upon another ship, they immediately ignore their initial target and go for you. This becomes troublesome in multi-enemy scenarios, from what I understand.The prioritization has been mentioned several times to the devs and I believe theyāre working on it, but perhaps thatās for a later patch.
That said, does anyone know how war bonds work or conflict zones? Iāve been wanting to go into a conflict zone, but have no idea how to successfully engage without gaining a bounty on my head.
I think theyāve fixed the AI a bit - Iāve seen pirate / criminal ships continue shooting at the Police ships after I started shooting at them. On the flip side, Iāve also watched Police ships shooting the crap out of each other. Go figure that one outā¦
Although a nasty bug seems to have crept into the Mac version - if youāre under attack, thereās a good chance the attacker will not turn red/white on your radar scanner, so you have no idea who is shooting you.
On the HOTAS front, I picked up a Saitek X52 today. Now to re-program most of the default controls and re-learn which button combination does whatā¦ And before anyone says āUse the configurator program!ā, I canāt. There isnāt a Mac version.
As for your question, P57, I have NFI how war bonds work. With regards to the conflict zones, I once picked up a mission that was āgo to conflict zone X and kill Y ships belonging to faction Zā. You have to be careful, as all the ships are marked as āSystem Defenceā (i.e., the cops) and you have to scan them one by one to identify which faction they belong to. Once you find one, you can attack it - at which point half the ships on your scanner turn red.
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Hmmā¦ maybe itās time to pick this game up finally.
Oh I know. I was (in my head) referring to both games actually. I hear good things and bad on both sides and I could use a space sim until No Manās Sky releases*. I fired up Wing Commander the other day and although nostalgic, not quite what I was looking for.
*I hope it does and lives up to the hype.
I sit down with Star Citizen once every 2-3 weeks and try it. Last time, a couple of weekends ago, I tried to run through the flight tutorials and kept running into game-breaking bugsāI couldnāt see which landing pad I was targeting, or the flight controls would stop responding, or the throttle would stop working, and so on. I tried about a half-dozen times to complete even the first one and eventually gave up.
Also tried the social module, and flat-out couldnāt connect for ~10 minutes of trying. Gave up, havenāt been back.
I want to love this game with all my heart but itās making it so, so difficult.
I hear you, Lee. My biggest beef is they keep expanding the scope. Star Marine is not necessary at launch. I want a space simulator, not a first person shooter. The latter is a dime a dozen these days.