Elite: Dangerous Review in Progress and Failed Combat Training

So recently I have been playing Elite: Dangerous any chance I can get and I will honestly tell you it isn’t much, since the game released in December 2014 and I had to move in January my gaming time was very limited and I spent the last two months just doing partial tutorials and training.  My take on playing any game is to beat all tutorials before diving into the full game story or online mode typically, however I ran into a problem with Tutorial Combat Training Incursion where you are supposed to be taking on 10 waves of increasingly more difficult opponents.  Despite over 20 attempts at this tutorial my best ever was to make it to Wave 7 and below are some videos recorded with Shadowplay which show my futile attempts.

Don’t let the tutorials fool you though, I was daunted and too scared to try the game thinking that if I couldn’t beat this tutorial I wouldn’t be able to make it very far in the actual game, but I do recommend you play this tutorial a few times because if you get even to wave 5+ you will be able to handle most simple combat situations in Elite: Dangerous provided you are not facing a vastly superior opponent.

Docking was a bit of a pain to learn too, but once I picked it up, I mastered it like a Boss.  The trick is to make sure you deploy your landing gear, are facing the right directions and leverage your 6 directional thrusters to slide left, right, up and down until you line up with the docking position.  It is easier to dock on a station that has open docking pads, but only slightly harder to dock inside a station I originally had a ton of trouble and it took hours for me to figure how to dock properly.

Docking at Descartes Gateway

I have only played the game a few hours already and have done just a few cargo runs and some commodities trading, in just a week I was doing a mission to hunt some traders but found myself on the wrong side of the law and had to kill a Federation Viper who tried to hunt me down for my bounty.  So now I am up to a point where I have an over 18,800+ CR Bounty on my head but so few credits I can’t pay to wipe a clean slate so I am attacked quite frequently by those who would try to take me down.  The often will Interdict me while I am in transit to a space station, and so far I have been able to shoot down anyone who has attempted to claim bounty by destroying me but I imagine it won’t be long before I am shot down.

I have yet to meet any other players in the game, and I have scanned dozens of sidewinders and other ships, I actually don’t even know how to tell if they are other players or scripted NPC’s at this point so will have to research it further.  I also have to learn how to leverage Silent Mode more which I hear can help you evade detection and get you to space station ports without interdiction if you can do it right.

So far I can tell you the game reminds me very much of my old Elite and Frontier playing days, the graphics are beautiful and coming out of Hyperspace and entering Supercruise with the giant star in front of you tugging on you with it’s gravity and it’s heat starting to overload your ship is quite a sight every time.  Navigating and exploring the solar systems and undiscovered points on your scanner while in Supercruise is also fun for me.  The game has vast moments of peace and quiet if you aren’t a fugitive between traveling to destinations, and often you wait 5-10 minutes in Supercruise while you approach destinations, this is a great time to just check out the scanners and become more familiar with the controls and build speed at bouncing between everything.

One thing I wish is that when you go from Galaxy Map to the Solar System map, you can select points of interest in the Solar System map and lock onto them without having to enter the system and use your scanner to find those points of interest, it would save some time.  The other thing is, there are so many jobs that I don’t qualify for and so few that I do, it seems like it takes forever to earn enough reputation to qualify for jobs as well as most jobs require you to have a lot more cargo than the small sidewinder default of 4 cargo slots.  I haven’ earned enough CR to purchase upgrades and don’t even know how to purchase a new ship yet so I am still learning, this is simply a review in progress.

I can tell you that if you enjoyed the original Elite, EVERYTHING I see here has elements that I love, it is definitely a game where you create your own story and path, don’t expect to find any linear story missions to follow, this game is online only though you can play single player and not see other players it is still online and using their live star systems and maps and info that updates so you require an Internet connection to play at all times.  This disappointed some fans who wanted to play offline, but honestly I have been so used to MMO games and the fact that there is a persistent Universe constantly updated and kept updated in real time is a benefit not a disadvantage in my opinion.

I am Commander DragonBlogger, and feel free to look me up and add me as a friend if you play Elite: Dangerous and I will be happy to see you around online sometime.

If you want a real pilot experience like flying a ship, you may want to consider buying the Saitek X52 Pro which has configuration for Elite: Dangerous and I hear is one HELL OF A WAY to play Elite.