Elite: Dangerous: ship design?

[Dygon]

Hello everybody,

Just wanted to pick everybody's thoughts on this. At the moment I'm playing loads of Elite, I love the game! However, unlike in SC, I just can't fall in love with the ship design. At the moment, I'm flying with a diamonback Scout, which I feel has the most personality, design wise, in the game.

Now I understand that they're staying true to the Original game design, where everything was triangular, but that's the about the only reason I see for using those blocky shaped ships.
When I went over to check out why this was on the frontier forum, apart from the reason that it's legacy, which I get, their other most brought up reason was, it also needs to be aerodynamic for planetary flight...?

Now I don't really see how a brick design would be more aerodynamic then a plane design? Then they also went on to say that the creators want realistic design, which I can also appreciate. On the other hand, you're making a video game where you can travel at multiple times the speed of light.

As I said, I love the game, but the ship design is hard to love, or justify apart from honoring the legacy.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this :)

 

[Op4ArcticFox]

I too like the look of the Diamondback Scout the most, the rest of the ships kinda fall flat. They often aren't well designed in regards to their purpose. By that I mean the combat ships have huge blindspots in actual view and with weapons. The haulers are not very efficient at hauling. The explorers aren't actually explorer ships, they are multi-purpose ships. Some of the various designs look neat, I wont fault the artist there, even if I don't like a majority of the ships. Most of my grips about that game fall on the lack of game design in it. On topic, after the DB-scout, I'd say the Imperial Cutter and the Viper Mk III are my favorite ships. They look exactly like what they are, sleek and fast.

 

[Dygon]

Most of my grips about that game fall on the lack of game design in it. .

Well, I do quite like the design of the world, but yeah, the ships also kinda look the same on the inside, and well, the outside, I mentioned above what I think. However, I love the sound design, really good!

 

[CosmicTrader]

You would rather have them look like an Aurora?

 

[Dygon]

You would rather have them look like an Aurora?

Probably my least favorite ship in CS :p

 

[BUTUZ]

To be honest you can't really compare the design of the ships in SC with Elite.

Elite ships are not even anywhere near as good as "grey box" star citizen ships, not much thought gone into them, not fleshed out, not much detail, mostly square/blocky/samey - unfinished.

Frontiers job is to provide maximum value for money to investors - whilst also "just" managing to hit the deliverables originally promised to fans. They appear to have a minimal staff count on the project, this is why progress is very very slow, details are low, barely anything new happens from month to month. Just accept the game for what it is, it is a fun modern take on an old 80s game - I've played it a lot. Had a break for the last 6 months but I may go back to it at some point, I actually miss my elite friends much more than I miss playing the game.

 

[Dygon]

Join my group on Elite, I'm on there with 4 other people from on here :) Just look for my username

 

[Xian-Luc Picard]

I agree with the ship design. While I like many of the aspects of the game and admit that it is the best VR experience out there for space sim... by far... I feel like every time they release a feature it falls short of what it could be. Let's take multi-crew, for example; with multi-crew, they had an opportunity to make an actual co-piloting role. Instead, they made it a "helper" role where the co-pilot only has the choices of sitting in the ship while the other person pilots until there is something to actually fight -or- taking control of the ship, effectively removing the role of the pilot until there is something to fight. It is very limited -- they should have allowed the co-pilot to actually be a copilot having the ability to control power distribution, shields, weapons groups, etc. while the other person is flying the ship. Instead, the pilot retains all of those abilities.

Every update just seems like it is half-baked and not completely thought out... and that is coming from someone who owns the lifetime season pass.

 

[Han Burgundy]

ED has an excellent premise and gameplay style, but it was horrendously executed. Mile wide - Inch deep. It seems that at every opportunity, Fdev makes exactly the wrong choice for the situation. They just can't seem to get out of their own way....

 

[Dygon]

I agree with the ship design. While I like many of the aspects of the game and admit that it is the best VR experience out there for space sim... by far... I feel like every time they release a feature it falls short of what it could be. Let's take multi-crew, for example; with multi-crew, they had an opportunity to make an actual co-piloting role. Instead, they made it a "helper" role where the co-pilot only has the choices of sitting in the ship while the other person pilots until there is something to actually fight -or- taking control of the ship, effectively removing the role of the pilot until there is something to fight. It is very limited -- they should have allowed the co-pilot to actually be a copilot having the ability to control power distribution, shields, weapons groups, etc. while the other person is flying the ship. Instead, the pilot retains all of those abilities.

Every update just seems like it is half-baked and not completely thought out... and that is coming from someone who owns the lifetime season pass.

Totally agree, especially with the VR part! I'm playing with the oculus and it's just a delight! I love the design of SC waaaaay better, but honestly...I just can't enjoy a space/flight sim anymore if it's not in VR, and recent comments of a dev have made clear that VR won't be added untill the veeeeeeery end :(. I wanna play SC, but I reeeealy want it in VR

 

[Han Burgundy]

Totally agree, especially with the VR part! I'm playing with the oculus and it's just a delight! I love the design of SC waaaaay better, but honestly...I just can't enjoy a space/flight sim anymore if it's not in VR, and recent comments of a dev have made clear that VR won't be added untill the veeeeeeery end :(. I wanna play SC, but I reeeealy want it in VR

I have a Vive and I will sometimes play Star Citizen using Virtual desktop. It's not quite VR, but it's a damn sight more impressive than looking at my 24 inch monitor!

 

[Op4ArcticFox]

When I said design issues, I didn't mean with the ships but the actual game. For instance the 3 core "jobs" of combat, exploration, and trade have no impact whatesoever on themselves or each other. Detailed exploration doesn't affect the minerals found or available in the universe. Nor is there any strategic value as all flight paths are "can you see, and have enough fuel to get to this star". And combat, you can kill every ship from one of the system factions, and have zero impact on that factions control of the system. You can go out and kill every trader with a specific resource, and not change the value or price of that resource. It's a game that lets you think you have an impact when literally no matter what you do, your contribution is utterly meaningless. And that's just the wide angle look.. The rank and reputation grind is slow and not fun or interesting. Any time players find a way that essentially exploits that to make it faster, Frontier nerfs it beyond usefulness, negatively impacting the actual process. They basically punish emergent gameplay and force you to go by their rigid expectations of player interactions.
I used to work at Microsoft Studios, and we did several projects with Frontier Developments, and they are one of the worst studios I have ever had the displeasure of working with. Their development team was rude and incredibly difficult to work with. They missed more deadlines and milestones than I would think possible. And as a personal note, I just don't like most British accents.

Well now I got that out of my system.... shooty mc shoot shoot.

 

[BUTUZ]

They missed more deadlines and milestones than I would think possible. And as a personal note, I just don't like most British accents.

Well now I got that out of my system.... shooty mc shoot shoot.

Jolly good!

Wait!!!

Screw you old bean!!

 

[Op4ArcticFox]

Jolly good!

Wait!!!

Screw you old bean!!

I'm not sorry, most of them sound grating to me. I can't stand any southern (US) American accents either if that helps?
I'm a legendary hater sooo... /shrugs

 

[Dygon]

I'm not sorry, most of them sound grating to me. I can't stand any southern (US) American accents either if that helps?
I'm a legendary hater sooo... /shrugs

Ooh, I added you too the group in Elite :) and don't worry, I have a pretty American accent, not southern :p