Overview
READ THIS BEFORE CONTINUING: This guide was written prior to being forced to watch the devs of Elite let the game stagnate while they cater to a whiny minority of people that want the game to be as boring and soulless as they are. Constantly the devs pump out lackluster and broken updates that either add nothing substantial to the game or just flat out are functionally broken and glitchy. They spend more time on their damn cosmetic DLC than they do the actual game. And the community is filled with screaming children who are psychologically incapable of realizing that the game they obsess over is in a horribly place and as a result the game suffers. I have been called a rapist, terrorist, potential mass shooter, and worse things for daring to try my hand at PvP piracy in a game that flat out advertises itself on people being able to be pirates. If you buy this game, you are going to be subjecting yourself to one of the best LOOKING space sims out there, but you will quickly realize that the grind in this game is all there is and all there ever will be. Anybody who tells you “oh I haven’t spent a single minute grinding” is lying to you. There literally is nothing but soulless grind for the sake of grinding because the devs don’t know how to make actual content beyond stuff that looks pretty.If you want to best space sim currently available, go ahead and get Elite, but you could easily get a better in-depth player experience from EVE and a better more engaging exploration experience from Space Engine. Both of which are free. Elite is the nicest smelling turd in a sea of feces. That’s it.You have been warned.———————————-Nearly every single day, numerous people come on to the forums asking “Should I buy Elite: Dangerous”? Many, MANY different answers are usually given, and so I’ve compiled this handy guide that will answer many of the routinely asked questions. There will be no sugar coating, and no bias. Simply blunt, truthful answers to questions about the game from somebody who has spent hundreds of hours playing it. This guide might convince you to buy the game, it might convince you that it’s not worth your money, either way, you will walk away informed.
What IS Elite: Dangerous?
Elite: Dangerous is a Space Simulator. And by Simulator, I mean an actual Simulator. Real physics and science came in to the making of the game, and everything is 1:1 scale. You see it all from first-person through the eyes of your pilot in the cockpit of your own star ship, and you are completely free to do whatever you wish…as long as you are willing to accept the consequences and dangers of what you do. Your goal is whatever you set for yourself, the storytelling is in the dynamically changing galaxy around you and it is up to you to be a part of it.
How hard is Elite: Dangerous?
Elite: Dangerous is very difficult at the beginning because there is just so much you need to know. As you start figuring out everything and understand all the concepts and get comofrtable with the controls, it starts to get much easier, however it still takes quite some time to get to that point.
What can I do in Elite: Dangerous?
Whatever you choose. Want to be a bounty hunter and eliminate law-breakers? You can do that. Be a criminal yourself and steal and murder to make your living? You can do that. Want to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy, potentially getting your name permanatly added to a celestial object if you are the first person to discover it? You can do that. Want to be a miner, and make your living searching the stars for the rarest ores and minerals hidden away in asteroid belts or in the rings of planets? You can do that. Want to be the ultimate space trucker, buying and selling commodoties between systems while risking the possibility of your valuable cargo becoming the target of pirates? You can do that. Want to participate in political intrigue and become the agent of one of many public figures for their respective factions, being sent across civilized space and beyond to carry out the will of your benefactors? You can do that. Want to join up with you friends and explore the galaxy together and use your combined might to take on the biggest challenges? You can do that. There are many, MANY paths you can take, but ultimately they all earn you money. Just like real life, your ability to go out and do more is limited to the size of your wallet. Want to take on the biggest pirate lords to get the biggest bounties and rewards? You’re going to need a ton of money and the most expensive weaponry. Want to travel across civilized space bringing the rarest of cargo to the highest bidder? You’re going to need a big ship with a huge cargo bay, which costs a ton of money. Want to reach the other end of the galaxy? Unless you’ve got months to devote to the trip, you’re going to need the best exploration ships and the longest range Frame Shift Drives. In the end, while it may not seem like it getting there, the game is indeed one big grind-fest, so if you aren’t able to make the most out of what you’ve got, or simply enjoy it for what it is, then Elite: Dangerous isn’t for you.
How much time do I need to devote to Elite: Dangerous?
A lot. It takes a good while to get accustomed to the large amount of info you need to know and be able to use in order to excell at Elite: Dangerous. On top of the time you need to spend learning, remember that everything is 1:1 scale, and space is big. Like…really really REALLY freakin’ big. Even with the ability to travel faster than light, distance is still a giant factor and most of your time will be spent moving from point A to point B. Often times you will find yourself on 20-30 minute long journeys moving from one region of civilized space to the other. You have two modes of hyperspace jumping: economical routes, and fastest routes. Economical will get you the farthest with the amount of fuel you have because it’s going from one system to the next, but it will take the longest. Fastest routes will get you the farthest the fastest, but because it’s jumping to the farthest system your Frame Shift Drive can reach in one jump, it takes a lot of fuel very quickly, and if you’re not careful or don’t have a fuel scoop to harvest more fuel from a star, you can end up being stranded in deep space. Other times, you will have a mission in a star system, but the station you need to be in is 30 minutes away from where you entered the system. You Frame Shift Drive drops you out of hyperspace at the object with the most mass in a system, and usually that means the star everything orbits, but some times it can drop you at the largest star in a binary system and everything else is orbitting the other star a long supercruise trip away. Other times you will find yourself needing to hunt through an entire star system scanning unidentified signals to find a bounty target or cargo target for a mission, a process that can take a few seconds if you’re lucky or an hour if you’re not. Once you get going and have a good ship and are set up in a profitable region, you can hop on Elite for a few minutes every once in a while, but until then it’s best to dedicate an afternoon on the weekends or on a day off to getting accustomed to everything and getting yourself set up.
How do I gauge my Progression in Elite: Dangerous?
There are no classes, skill levels, character levels, trait points, or anything of that nature in Elite: Dangerous. What there is, however, is your bank account, your ship, and your rank in one of three areas: Combat, Trading, and Exploration. The more ships you destroy, the higher your combat rank. The more commodities you trade, the higher your trading rank. The more systems you explore and trade data you sell, the higher your exploration rank. Doing any of those activities earns you money, and the more money you aquire the better your ship and all it’s components will be. Also, there is a screen on your right holo-terminal that displays various statistics about your career, such as: the current worth of all your assets, the amount of money you’ve made from bounties, the amount you’ve made from assassinations, the amount of goods you’ve sold, the highest profit you’ve made in a single transaction, the number of illegal goods you’ve sold on the black market, the number of systems you’ve visited and the money you’ve made from selling exploration data, among other things.
Can I play by myself in Elite: Dangerous?
Yes, but you still need an internet connection due to the fact that all your data is stored on the server to prevent cheating and save editors, and that everything you do still affects the galaxy as a whole which allows you to still benefit from community events and other things. There are three modes of play: Solo Play, which allows you a purely PvE environment with no contact with other players. Private Group, in which you can create or join a group with friends, and only people in that group can play with you. Or Open Play, in which you and every other player in Open Play are in the same space. You can go days without seeing another player due to the fact that space is still huge, or you can come across an army of other players during a community event.
Is there PvP?
Yes. In Open Play, another player can at any time decide to attack you. Usually this will result in them getting a bounty on their head, and you are free to defend yourself without punishment. However, if you are in an Anarchy system, players can attack you with no punishment. Players with bounties can then be hunted down by other players, and you can even be interdicted out of supercruise by other players, forcing you to attempt to escape the interdiction or force you in to a battle if they succeed. There is no “flagged for pvp” in Elite, in Open Play, you are fair game for anybody. Does that mean all players will attack you on sight? Nope. In fact most players tend to leave other players alone unless they are doing something to provoke them.
How do I tell players from NPC’s?
Several ways. If you are in a Wing with your friends, you will all show up on eachother’s HUDs and will also have a special color for your indicators on eachothers radars. Players will ALWAYS have the CMDR suffix attached to their name. And Players will have a hollow indicator on your radar. For example, an NPC might show up as a solid square, but a player will show up as an outline of a square.
What happens when I die in Elite: Dangerous?
YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE.
No not really. If your ship is destroyed, you get taken to a screen that allows you to do one of several things: repurchase your ship for 5% it’s total value (your insurance covers 95% of it), get a free sidewinder if you can’t afford to get your ship back (you lose it and everything with it) and respawn at the last station you docked at, or declare bankruptcy (which is essentially a game over) and you restart at a random station with a sidewinder and 1000cr just like when you started the game. If you die, you lose all cargo, scan data, and bounty vouchers you haven’t claimed. You can check the rebuy cost of your ship on your right holo-terminal so always ALWAYS make sure you never let your bank balance drop below that just in case. You don’t want to be caught in a helpless situation that causes you to lose an extremely valuable ship.
What sort of space stuff can I find in Elite: Dangerous?
If you can think of it, it’s probably in Elite: Dangerous. Black holes, Neutron stars, red dwarfs, white dwarfs, gas giants, earth-like worlds, all different typse of stars, asteroid belts, moons, planets, nebulas, all sorts of things. Due to the fact that a lot of Elite is made using NASA star-charts, a lot of real-life systems and objects are there. If you egt in good with the federation, you can come back and visit Sol and see Earth. You can travel to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Go see Betlegeuse, the red supergiant. And many other sights. Just pick a destination, and start exploring.
Is there future content planned for Elite: Dangerous?
Yes. The game is regularly updated and several major expansions have been planned for the future. In time, players will be able to land on and explore 1:1 scale procedureally generated planets, and even get out of their ships and explore stations and planets on foot and engage in first-person-shooter combat. Eventually it is rumored that we will get giant capital ships to fly where we hire our own crew, and hostile players can land on and board. The scope and ambition behind Elite is massive, and if you are willing to put the time and patience in to waiting for these updates, then the rewards will be great.
I still don’t know if I should buy Elite: Dangerous.
Then it would be best for you to go an look at a bunch of both positive and negative steam reviews for Elite, as well as look up a bunch of different gameplay videos on youtube. Elite: Dangerous really is a game you need to see to believe, and for a lot of people it may sound amazing but once they get in game it turns out to not be what they expected and they regret their purchase. I personally am not one of those people, I do not regret buying Elite at all and in fact consider it one of the coolest games I own. However, in the words of his greatness Yahtzee, “that comes with the qualifier that I am a bit weird.” Elite is not a game for everybody, and requires a special type of person to appreciate it. So if after reading through this guide, you still aren’t sure, then go out an look up as much info as you can so you don’t become another disappointed buyer.
