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Elite Dangerous: Horizons |OT| Just scratching the surface

I just got this on PS4 and I'm experiencing major disconnection issues on both Open and Solo games. I can hardly play for more than 10 minutes before getting a black "Commectionn Error" screen. Is anyone else experiencing this? Is it my home network acting up? It's a damn shame because I'm loving what I've played so far but I cannot make any progress like this.
 
On PS4 Pro we seems to have two interesting graphics options.

1, Performance - this is the option for people who really like tearing. Lots of tearing. A whole screen full of tearing. If you like tearing, this is the option for you.##

2, Quality - This is for people who want less tearing (but still lots) but want the variety that terrible frame pacing and stuttering can bring to the game.

FFS the Xbox version is smoother than this mess. At the very least FDev we need a vsync option. How the PS4 Pro is going to get a 4K version when it runs so bad in 1080p I don't know. But this release version is very shoddy. The whole majesty of arriving at a station is ruined by the horrible stuttering mess that appears when you drop out of supercruise.

I've also had multiple crashes and moments when the game has gone crazy. A station began moving oddly while I was leaving and it destroyed my ship, thankfully I had a rebuy, but it was the game that destroyed the ship not gameplay.
 

Burny

Member
Since I got the physical version, I also got 1000 Frontier Points to spend. What's the best use for them?

They're for cosmetic items only, right? Don't know what the real world money equivalent is, but I'd say the ID nameplates and one variety of normal nameplates. Those can apply to all ships you'll ever have and provide visible personalization. Maybe some laser colors?

It's still all cosmetic items. The rest however apply to a select ship only and you'll be switching through ships over time. Okay, there's also pilot suits and face tattoos now. *rollseyes* ^^
 

Widge

Member
Elite Dangerous is a masterclass in BAD game design.

Weirdly, I found it easy to get to grips with the basic mechanics. Part of this is understanding from the original Elite days (space station entrance faces the planet, match rotation to the space station and fly through slot), but I found everything really accessible from the controller.

Holding the face buttons brought up shortcuts and I quickly got muscle memory for the ones I consistently used.

The stuff I found difficult was doing missions that were more than bog standard drop off ones. I'm a bit clueless down on planets and finding a place to land on them. I only figured out a while in that your ship had enough magic inside to do multiple jumps on one tank (original Elite, you had about 7 light years of jump and that was it per refuel). I kind of had to fathom out what to do in the various instances in a system.

Basic control mechanics though, going from place to place, that came pretty quickly and intuitively.
 

Widge

Member
I think you misrememberd how hard docking was in the original version.

It was the hardest thing to learn, which is why almost every single player guide at the time recommended you get a Docking Computer as soon as you could.

So, what are the general impressions on the PS4 version? I love Elite and am up for putting some serious time into this, but how is it performance wise?

I used to have to get someone else to do it for me. Funnily, the technical advances in 3D make it muuuuuch easier now. I can see how pad alignment is a bit of a faff. Sometimes I glide right up and it's easy. Sometimes I do a bit of space ballet above the freaking thing. Mainly, no speed higher than 1 or 2 and most of my movement done on the right stick sorts it out.
 

DrBo42

Member
Nice to see new pilots having fun in here. What a change from us jaded folks that have been playing since the start on PC. Right on, CMDRs. o7
 

Peroroncino

Member
The Deluxe Edition and Retail Edition does include the Horizon dlc.

I managed to make my way from my starting location Asellus Prime to Manama in a Hauler. Trying to get rank 4 to get access to Sol for the Trophy before I move on. Do I need pledge my allegiance to the Earth President to rank up in Federation, or can I just complete missions as a freelancer?

AFAIK it can be done as a freelancer.
 

Max^Samp

Member
On PS4 Pro we seems to have two interesting graphics options.

1, Performance - this is the option for people who really like tearing. Lots of tearing. A whole screen full of tearing. If you like tearing, this is the option for you.##

2, Quality - This is for people who want less tearing (but still lots) but want the variety that terrible frame pacing and stuttering can bring to the game.

Is It truly that bad? I hear the Xbox version runs 1080p 30fps and they said pro had 4k native... Maybe a dayone patch? (Physical version Is out tomorrow)
 
On PS4 Pro we seems to have two interesting graphics options.

1, Performance - this is the option for people who really like tearing. Lots of tearing. A whole screen full of tearing. If you like tearing, this is the option for you.##

2, Quality - This is for people who want less tearing (but still lots) but want the variety that terrible frame pacing and stuttering can bring to the game.

FFS the Xbox version is smoother than this mess. At the very least FDev we need a vsync option. How the PS4 Pro is going to get a 4K version when it runs so bad in 1080p I don't know. But this release version is very shoddy. The whole majesty of arriving at a station is ruined by the horrible stuttering mess that appears when you drop out of supercruise.

I've also had multiple crashes and moments when the game has gone crazy. A station began moving oddly while I was leaving and it destroyed my ship, thankfully I had a rebuy, but it was the game that destroyed the ship not gameplay.

I'll wait for a few patches before getting this then. Thanks for the impressions.
 

Peroroncino

Member
On PS4 Pro we seems to have two interesting graphics options.

1, Performance - this is the option for people who really like tearing. Lots of tearing. A whole screen full of tearing. If you like tearing, this is the option for you.##

2, Quality - This is for people who want less tearing (but still lots) but want the variety that terrible frame pacing and stuttering can bring to the game.

FFS the Xbox version is smoother than this mess. At the very least FDev we need a vsync option. How the PS4 Pro is going to get a 4K version when it runs so bad in 1080p I don't know. But this release version is very shoddy. The whole majesty of arriving at a station is ruined by the horrible stuttering mess that appears when you drop out of supercruise.

I've also had multiple crashes and moments when the game has gone crazy. A station began moving oddly while I was leaving and it destroyed my ship, thankfully I had a rebuy, but it was the game that destroyed the ship not gameplay.

That sucks... on base PS4 there's no tearing at all.
 

morgtheborg140

Neo Member
Loving elite so far on Ps4. Just outfitted my sidewinder so I have about 300,000 in credits and about 600,000 in assets. My question is what should I be working toward next, whats the eventual endgame?
 

danowat

Banned
Loving elite so far on Ps4. Just outfitted my sidewinder so I have about 300,000 in credits and about 600,000 in assets. My question is what should I be working toward next, whats the eventual endgame?

There isn't one really, you just
grind
your way to more and more expensive ships, and just do the same things you've been doing for that last 200 hours!!
 

Seraphis Cain

bad gameplay lol
Okay, question. I've gotten enough credits to upgrade to a Cobra Mk. III, which I've heard is a pretty good first ship. Only thing is, I've noticed it lacks a planetary vehicle hangar, which my starter ship does have. Should I just assume I won't be doing much, if any, planetary stuff this early in the game and just let it go, or should I store my starter ship for that purpose?
 
Okay, question. I've gotten enough credits to upgrade to a Cobra Mk. III, which I've heard is a pretty good first ship. Only thing is, I've noticed it lacks a planetary vehicle hangar, which my starter ship does have. Should I just assume I won't be doing much, if any, planetary stuff this early in the game and just let it go, or should I store my starter ship for that purpose?

You don't need the hanger to go land at planet bases. So you can still visit planets for missions, passenger trips and trading.

Also the hanger isn't expensive and you can easily add one to your Cobra when you need one. Remember you can also store modules. So you can buy a hanger but leave it stored at a station and fill the space with something else.
 

ookami

Member
Okay, question. I've gotten enough credits to upgrade to a Cobra Mk. III, which I've heard is a pretty good first ship. Only thing is, I've noticed it lacks a planetary vehicle hangar, which my starter ship does have. Should I just assume I won't be doing much, if any, planetary stuff this early in the game and just let it go, or should I store my starter ship for that purpose?

It depends of what you're about to do. If you want to do planetary stuff just transfer your planetary vehicle hangar module to your Cobra.
 

wetflame

Pizza Dog
I'm interested in this for the space exploration side of things, but I'm not huge on combat and I don't (currently) have PS+. Am I going to be missing out on the bulk of the game if I pick this up? I don't mind light combat, but I'm not keen on huge battles and I'd rather be doing other stuff instead.
 

Synth

Member
I'm interested in this for the space exploration side of things, but I'm not huge on combat and I don't (currently) have PS+. Am I going to be missing out on the bulk of the game if I pick this up? I don't mind light combat, but I'm not keen on huge battles and I'd rather be doing other stuff instead.

If you're into exploring you'd pretty much never see another person anyway (you can be literally thousands of lightyears from the next existing AI, let alone player). So no, you won't be missing out on much of anything.
 

Peroroncino

Member
Okay, question. I've gotten enough credits to upgrade to a Cobra Mk. III, which I've heard is a pretty good first ship. Only thing is, I've noticed it lacks a planetary vehicle hangar, which my starter ship does have. Should I just assume I won't be doing much, if any, planetary stuff this early in the game and just let it go, or should I store my starter ship for that purpose?

Store the hangar from your current ship and after you've bought your cobra, just transfer it from the storage. You can also buy it later, they're not expensive.

Your scanner will give off certain tones and waves based on what it finds. Like minerals, crash sites, bases. Etc. you'll get used to understanding the difference the more you play. You can also look online for what each means. At crash sites you can find canisters that have gold, platinum, ores, etc. which can be sold on the commodities market. You can also find bases that have data links you can scan to collect data and sell at bases within the same Star system.

Could you elaborate on the 'your scanner...' part? Do I need to install some specific scanner or something?

You are not truly an ED Graduate until you boost into the station on accident when you try to deploy your landing gear.

Already did that twice yesterday lol.
 

wetflame

Pizza Dog
If you're into exploring you'd pretty much never see another person anyway (you can be literally thousands of lightyears from the next existing AI, let alone player). So no, you won't be missing out on much of anything.

Thanks - there's still enough content/money to be made to make the game worth playing then? I don't mind open-ended exploring but it'd be good if there were some sort of mission related reward structure associated with it too so I'm not just off doing my own thing and never going back to a space station or something. Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Edit: I see you get credits for scanning while exploring so I'm guessing that's where the income comes from? I could balance that with doing other missions too. I don't want to be completely out of the community!
 

jiiikoo

Banned
Im just about to get to Lave system for the community goal and I was just wondering, are the rare goods talked about in the mission briefing, food or can they be any "rare goods"?
 
Seriously, first of all I spent an age trying to get my ship to the space station, every time I got near I overshot then heard a sarcastic voice taunting me saying 'really, again!' Then when I did get in the vicinity it would say good and tell me to request landing permission but the game doesn't tell you how to do this, so by the time I find the option I overshot and had to do it all again.

Now I'm in the space station and I have a bay pointed out to me. I fly near to it with landing gear out and i fly very near on top and nothing happens. Then I am overshooting it and crashing around, why when i'm on top of it cant an auto-land take place? Why two difficult steps to land?.

I will agree that leaving supercruise and how to properly dock are not well explained at all in the tutorial, but once you learn them it does become trivial to the point where I would never think to ever get a docking computer now. But I'm also a person that enjoys backing up my trailer in ETS2.

That being said, one thing you need to pay attention to when docking is that direction of your ship matters. You always need to dock facing the control tower (this is also the side where the big number appears). This is as far as I could tell never explicitly mentioned anywhere and had me scratching my head for far longer than it should.
 

DrBo42

Member
Im just about to get to Lave system for the community goal and I was just wondering, are the rare goods talked about in the mission briefing, food or can they be any "rare goods"?

Rare commodities are special items only available from very specific stations or maybe even systems. I believe they're marked yellow in the commodities tab and you're given only a small allotment per tick. I don't have the community goal in front of me so I can't really give you the contextual info you're looking for here. Usually they'll specifically say we need "Lavian Brandy" or "Azure Milk" from George Lucas station...something like that. I hope that helped in some way. LOL.
 

Synth

Member
Thanks - there's still enough content/money to be made to make the game worth playing then? I don't mind open-ended exploring but it'd be good if there were some sort of mission related reward structure associated with it too so I'm not just off doing my own thing and never going back to a space station or something. Sorry if this is a stupid question!

Edit: I see you get credits for scanning while exploring so I'm guessing that's where the income comes from? I could balance that with doing other missions too. I don't want to be completely out of the community!

You'll need to make return trips in order to turn in credits, so you won't be completely cut off from the bubble either. On your return you could then choose to take a break and do something else for a while before heading out again... and you'll probably want to, because getting that far out (and getting back) can be a LOOOOOOOOONG trip.
 
You are not truly an ED Graduate until you boost into the station on accident when you try to deploy your landing gear.

I like how most stations have a big kebab spike at the back, to skewer people that do this!

My first death in the game was when I got too cocky and boosted out of the station. Just as I approached the mailslot a giant T9 appeared and sent me spinning into the station wall.

Docking is easy once you have the right controls. Make sure you have up/down/left/right/forward/back thrusters and just tap/flick them for small adjustments. On PC you can set the controls to switch to a different 'landing mode' when you deploy the landing gear.

Oh, and for station approaches - the safe mode is to set 75% throttle at 7s from the station (most PC players have a hotkey for this). You will automatically slow down to "safe disengage" and won't overshoot.
Speed is weird in Elite. Acceleration and maximum speed decreases in gravity wells.

The cool kids approach the station too fast, do a barrel roll to help deceleration and do a close flyby of the planet to slow themselves down using its gravity well. It only saves a few seconds, often goes wrong, but you feel like a boss if you get it right.

Hard mode is when you take smuggling or criminal-transport missions that need you to avoid police scans. This means you have to approach from the right direction and use silent running (no shields!) and flight-assist-off to boost/drift towards the mailslot before the system cops spot you. Doing this in a large ship is "hold on to your butts" time.
 
Does anybody else not have access to their gold Sidewinder skin? I have the other 6 skins from the commander pack in the livery, for my Sidewinder, but it's the gold one I really want to use. Am I looking in the wrong place?
 

WITHE1982

Member
Does anybody else not have access to their gold Sidewinder skin? I have the other 6 skins from the commander pack in the livery, for my Sidewinder, but it's the gold one I really want to use. Am I looking in the wrong place?

I got the gold skin for pre-ordering the base game only so it's not exclusive to the commander pack. I found it in the livery.

Did you pre-order? If so it can take time to pop up as others have found:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/359913-Unable-to-find-gold-Sidewinder-skin
 
Im just about to get to Lave system for the community goal and I was just wondering, are the rare goods talked about in the mission briefing, food or can they be any "rare goods"?

The rare commodities are at these stations:
https://inara.cz/galaxy-rarecommodities/
(Not really a spoiler, since you'll never find them otherwise!)

You can use any for the Community Goal except for Lavian Brandy (since the CG is at the station that sells it!

In normal gameplay, rare commodities have unique gameplay mechanics.
They are available in very small amounts (typically <10t), and also have a maximum allocation per player (typically <20t). This means you can't just sit in the station waiting for the stock to refresh (which normally happens every 15 minutes) until you have a full cargo hold.
The state of a system affects the amount of rare goods available. A system in "Boom" status has more (typically 20-50t) for a temporary period. I suspect that "Lockdown" and similar states will reduce the amounts.
Some engineers require rare goods to unlock them, so I'm always checking if Fujin is in a boom state since I'm not grinding out half a dozen 400 Ly journeys for some dickhead engineer that wants rare tea *grumble*.

Unlike all other commodities, rare goods increase in selling price based on how far away you are from the source. This distance bonus massively exceeds any normal bonus (i.e. industrial systems giving a higher price for food than agricultural systems) It follows a weird price-vs-distance curve that peaks at about 200 light-years. Most efficient rare trade routes involve taking goods about 150-200 Ly before selling them.
There used to be websites that helped people plan a "rare trade loop" that would tour about dozen systems picking up and dropping off rare goods while keeping a full cargo hold but it's generally not as profitable as it was, and is less predictable since they added system state supply effects a few patches ago.

Just don't try trading Hutton Mugs expecting a quick profit. They are called mugs for a reason (literally - the community named them as an in-joke in some voting contest a year ago). You'll get the joke once you've tried to buy one.
 

KaidoRacer7

Member
Absolutely not, the flight sim aspect of the game isn't realistic but is still incredibly in depth because of flight assist off mode, aka you are in space with semi-realistic inertia obeying all of newton's laws have fun with that.

The bad part of Elite is the netcode, the absurd approach to the amount of hours you need to invest for upgrades, and the lack of content. The good part is the flight model which is really good.

When I bought this, I was expecting something like "arcade" physics... This explains a lot for me (especially when I try to stop in FSD mode). Now I'm reading this:
DCello's Science Guide to the Galaxy

Loving this game... thinking buying for PS4 now
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
How is the PS4 version? Does it run well? It it worth the $60?

Also, what are these microtransaction points for?

Looks ok not sure if its 1080p tbh on og ps4
Micro is only for extra ship colors and bobbleheads in cockpit
 

Soi-Fong

Member
It's hilarious hearing the landing stories here. The very first time I played Elite was also on the PC in VR so maybe it's different, but I find landing just an amazing experience in general especially on approach.

Seeing those big docking numbers pop right in front of you in VR and seeing how big the station is inside is a sight to behold.

I also have a HOTAS so that helps, but I've never struggled with landing at all.
 

RefigeKru

Banned
Bought this on PS4, hated it until I landed well the first time (by then I had started to understand the Economy, Star Map, Mission structure) a bit better and now I kinda love it.

My trick with space stations is to go full sci-fi and barrel roll in for about a minute or two.
 
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