OS Neutral Elite Dangerous Tips

[Huntn]

Guys, for those of you participating in ED dog fighting in the VR environment, how do you find it as compared to using a monitor? I assume it takes getting used to, but in the end is it easier, harder, about the same? I assume in the VR environment you have better visibility of the target as far as looking over your shoulder at least with the flight decks that allow you to see behind you or at least to your side.

 

[garnerx]

It's much easier, you naturally follow the enemy ship with your eyes. Without VR you're generally just looking ahead.

Similar thing for driving games, too. I recently got a steering wheel so I could play racing sims, and you just follow the corner with your eyes as if you were in a real car. It's not something you have to think about, you already know how to do it. Being able to focus instantly on any part of the scene always beats having a fixed viewpoint.

 

[Huntn]

It's much easier, you naturally follow the enemy ship with your eyes. Without VR you're generally just looking ahead.

Similar thing for driving games, too. I recently got a steering wheel so I could play racing sims, and you just follow the corner with your eyes as if you were in a real car. It's not something you have to think about, you already know how to do it. Being able to focus instantly on any part of the scene always beats having a fixed viewpoint.

Using a monitor, and I lost sight of the enemy, I used the sensor thingy, with the dots representing ships and turned in the shortest direction to reacquire. I just don't remember how big of a wind screen I had, remembering it as not having any ability to look over your shoulder, but that is in the Cobra. I don't remember if the Eagle was better in this regard, but as I recall, the Cobra had better armor.

 

[garnerx]

Yes, you can't see much behind you due to the bulkhead but above / below / sides are all good.

I prefer ships with a lot of glass in the cockpit - Asp for exploring, Vulture for combat and Type 9 for trading. You get a great view in all of those. I saved for ages to buy a Python once, was really expensive but I hated the narrow letterbox canopy so I sold it almost immediately.

 

[Huntn]

What I did right at the start, before VR, was print a diagram of my controllers that I found online, print the entire control mappings prefs file and cut it up so I had all the button labels. Then I tacked the labels onto it so I could move them around until I got something comfortable and I had a reference sheet I could look at.

This is all second nature now, so in VR it feels great. I chose the CH throttle because it has a mini joystick for looking around, but now that I use Oculus I have the thrusters mapped to the mini stick, which is even better - ideal for soft landings and VR acrobatics. Now I have an 8-way hat switch that was previously used for thrusters, currently unassigned. Also the headlook reset button is no longer required, so these controllers have far more buttons than Elite actually requires.

To access the panels I hold down on hat 1 on the throttle, which is on the back under my index finger, then press hat 2 with my thumb in the direction of the panel I want to look at. It's very quick, I was using this system before VR. Alternatively, the default setting has the panels pop up when you look in their direction (I didn't like that at all).

Honestly, the CH controllers are so good, I can't recommend them highly enough. Plain, simple, no gimmicks, no flashing lights or breakable parts, more buttons than you'll ever need, and they're the only ones with that mini joystick. I also have the pedals.

Plenty of people use Xbox controllers though, it's perfectly workable in VR.


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What they need with OR is the ability to toggle this image on and off in your headset, in case you need a reminder.
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Well I went ahead and moved my P3D install to my external HD and reinstalled Elite. Yeah they certainly made the AI guys more challenging after over a year of not playing Elite. My Vulture used to be able to own almost any ship outside of the Anaconda. Now Imperial Clippers and Federal Dropships are a struggle if I go in alone.

Based on this comment from a while back, how would you all, who are dog fighting now, say the A.I. is?

 

[gkarris]

Holy crap!!!!

 

[Razzerman]

Holy crap!!!!

That is one hell of a DIY project - I can only look on with some envy but mostly admiration. He clearly loves the game.

Nice find

 

[whooleytoo]

What they need with OR is the ability to toggle this image on and off in your headset, in case you need a reminder.
[doublepost=1505521300][/doublepost]
Based on this comment from a while back, how would you all, who are dog fighting now, say the A.I. is?

Up to 2.2, the AI was fairly easy (not helped by some bugs, including one where some targets would just stop and spin to let you shoot them unopposed).

2.2 added a lot of AI improvements, and also they have access to Engineer upgrades. In the 2.2 Betas, they were pretty insane, so had to be dialled back a bit. They're still much smarter, use FA off to turn faster, use heat-sinks or chaff a lot more to break target lock (and drive your weapons crazy if you use gimballed or turreted weapons), use shield-cell-boosters to refresh their shields, and have access to Engineered weapons/shields etc.

So they're much more of a challenge than in 2.1, but a lot easier than they were in early 2.2 builds; especially if you (like most people) Engineer your own ship.

 

[gkarris]

That is one hell of a DIY project - I can only look on with some envy but mostly admiration. He clearly loves the game.

Nice find

Yeah I know.

Cool, EVERSPACE just added a 3rd view - just the outside, so you can make this set up as well as an enlcosed flight deck and have the projectors show space around you...

Gotta check if ED has this view.

His bug is that you still have to "camera over" to the right and left to view stuff. Maybe he's got a report into the devs not to do that in ultrawide because in his case, he can just look over...

 

[Huntn]

Up to 2.2, the AI was fairly easy (not helped by some bugs, including one where some targets would just stop and spin to let you shoot them unopposed).

2.2 added a lot of AI improvements, and also they have access to Engineer upgrades. In the 2.2 Betas, they were pretty insane, so had to be dialled back a bit. They're still much smarter, use FA off to turn faster, use heat-sinks or chaff a lot more to break target lock (and drive your weapons crazy if you use gimballed or turreted weapons), use shield-cell-boosters to refresh their shields, and have access to Engineered weapons/shields etc.

So they're much more of a challenge than in 2.1, but a lot easier than they were in early 2.2 builds; especially if you (like most people) Engineer your own ship.

Thanks for the info!
The last time I logged into ED was a while back, I got my ass kicked in the the extraction zone. What bothered me is that everything seemed to be good, accumulating bounties, but then it all went to hell. Possible I accidentally hit one of the Federalies, and I got the **** kicked out of me before I could vamoose.
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Holy crap!!!!

A solid wow, but arguably VR will make the expense of this setup unnecessary.

 

[whooleytoo]

Thanks for the info!
The last time I logged into ED was a while back, I got my ass kicked in the he extraction zone. What bothered me is that everything seemed to be good, accumulating bounties, but then it all went to hell. Possible I accidentally hit one of the Federalies, and I got the **** **** out of me before I could vamoose.

Hah. Yeah, hitting the security services will finish you fairly quickly if you're not good at running.

They did put in a 'fix' a while back, if you hit "Ship A" while you have "Ship B" targeted, it'll treat it as an accidental shot and ignored, unless it happens repeatedly/do too much damage. It just means if a ship flies across your line of fire and you tag it, they'll be a bit more forgiving.

 

[Huntn]

Hah. Yeah, hitting the security services will finish you fairly quickly if you're not good at running.

They did put in a 'fix' a while back, if you hit "Ship A" while you have "Ship B" targeted, it'll treat it as an accidental shot and ignored, unless it happens repeatedly/do too much damage. It just means if a ship flies across your line of fire and you tag it, they'll be a bit more forgiving.

This is great to know, thanks! Maybe I won't be so scared now.

 

[gkarris]

[doublepost=1505951757][/doublepost]
A solid wow, but arguably VR will make the expense of this setup unnecessary.

Yeah, but if you don't really like wearing a VR Headset, this is the way to go...

 

[Huntn]

Yeah, but if you don't really like wearing a VR Headset, this is the way to go...

But you are also getting 3D with VR along with a half a world/sphere view. I'm amazed in Gunjack when I looked down at about 70 degrees below level and drones were climbing to attack. My neck is getting a workout!

 

[garnerx]

Just a quick necro-bump and shout out to Elite, which I'm still playing on and off and is still the most atmospheric game ever. My ship has been thousands of light years from Earth for the past year or so, and I'm slowly making my way back home.

Because I play sporadically, I'm often caught by surprise with the new stuff they've added, even in deep space. Exploration is now quite a complex affair, with multiple scanners, cockpit modes, probes to map planet surfaces and so on. I found this, which is a first for me - a 'proto-Lagrange cloud' filled with enormous crystals that twist slowly and make weird noises as they clink together.

It genuinely feels like I'm discovering things in all that frozen desolation. There's no point in it beyond looking for strange things that send shivers down your spine, but that's somehow more than enough. I haven't seen another ship or any sign of life whatsoever in many months.

 

[Flint Ironstag]

Absolutely gonna dust off the Vive over the holidays.

 

[gkarris]

Thanks - been a while - so much to play, but with the cold, gonna break this one out.

Just logged in Steam for it and updated everything - made sure it runs okay...

 

[StellarVixen]

So, this is like "open world game"? You can explore different parts of the Universe?

 

[Flint Ironstag]

^^and then some. You HAVE to try it VR.

 

[garnerx]

I made it back to inhabited space! Sold the exploration data from my long trip for about 90 million, which still only puts me halfway along the path to Elite explorer status.

Visited an ancient colony ship that left Earth in the pre-hyperspace era and has recently been rediscovered with descendants of the original pilgrims aboard. 1,000 years without any outside contact. Pretty cool idea, although I'm sure I've seen sci-fi films with that premise. They've been incubating some exotic diseases, and direct contact is forbidden.

I'm currently parked on a megaship. I'm sure these weren't around last time I was near human territory. The picture below shows my Vulture fighter, which I brought out of storage to do some bounty hunting, but I've totally forgotten how to fight. Shortly after taking this pic, I let somebody drag me out of supercruise so I could melt his face off, like in the old days, and I promptly got disintegrated.

 

[gkarris]

I made it back to inhabited space! Sold the exploration data from my long trip for about 90 million, which still only puts me halfway along the path to Elite explorer status.

Visited an ancient colony ship that left Earth in the pre-hyperspace era and has recently been rediscovered with descendants of the original pilgrims aboard. 1,000 years without any outside contact. Pretty cool idea, although I'm sure I've seen sci-fi films with that premise. They've been incubating some exotic diseases, and direct contact is forbidden.
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I'm currently parked on a megaship. I'm sure these weren't around last time I was near human territory. The picture below shows my Vulture fighter, which I brought out of storage to do some bounty hunting, but I've totally forgotten how to fight. Shortly after taking this pic, I let somebody drag me out of supercruise so I could melt his face off, like in the old days, and I promptly got disintegrated.
View attachment 879428

is this the regular version or the Horizons update?

planning on playing over the holiday...

 

[Flint Ironstag]

^^ Too awesome.

 

[garnerx]

is this the regular version or the Horizons update?

It's the Horizons version, but I'm not sure what the difference is at this point. Horizons has been out for nearly four years.

Just checked the Frontier store and it looks like all Elite stuff, including the Horizons update, is 75% off at the moment.

 

[Huntn]

I made it back to inhabited space! Sold the exploration data from my long trip for about 90 million, which still only puts me halfway along the path to Elite explorer status.

Visited an ancient colony ship that left Earth in the pre-hyperspace era and has recently been rediscovered with descendants of the original pilgrims aboard. 1,000 years without any outside contact. Pretty cool idea, although I'm sure I've seen sci-fi films with that premise. They've been incubating some exotic diseases, and direct contact is forbidden.
View attachment 879427

I'm currently parked on a megaship. I'm sure these weren't around last time I was near human territory. The picture below shows my Vulture fighter, which I brought out of storage to do some bounty hunting, but I've totally forgotten how to fight. Shortly after taking this pic, I let somebody drag me out of supercruise so I could melt his face off, like in the old days, and I promptly got disintegrated.
View attachment 879428

Interesting! This post promoted me to post this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/x4-foundations-vs-elite-dangerous.2213382/