We have a couple games bumping around the "What Are You Playing" thread, as of late, so I thought it might be cleaner to use this space to discuss the greatest of those games, Elite:Dangerous.

I'll grab some screenshots of my lousy ship and uninspiring progress later tonight, to get things started.

Recently discovered VoiceAttack, which is a very promising system.  I'm still in the early stages of getting it set up, but frankly part of what I enjoy so much about this game is the configuration.  

I use VoiceAttack with voice packs from HCS VoicePacks and they are nice, though they can be bit fiddly to setup initially. Truth be told, it's quicker for me to just use the buttons/keys on my HOTAS rig.  Aside from the specific throttle settings (e.g., 0%, 25%, etc.), I've got everything bound to setup with the exception of ship lights, orbit lines, and rotation correction (which is always on, anyways).  The only reason they're not bound is because I almost never use them, and if I do need to use them, I can just use my keyboard.

With that said, random quips from Verity can be entertaining at times.

I don't even use VoiceAttack but I have been a bit tempted by the Brian Blessed voice pack for it.

Would that be Blessed behaving himself, or doing his usual which is swearing like a trooper?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFseqTnysBY

Edited December 24, 201510 yr by Craig Sawyers

6 minutes ago, Craig Sawyers said:

Would that be Blessed behaving himself, or doing his usual which is swearing like a trooper?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFseqTnysBY

Here's a sample.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3_yZax1Ctk

 

Edited December 24, 201510 yr by Salt Peanuts

Yup - behaving himself.

For anyone new starting the game...

Useful web sites/web tools

• Coriolis - shipyard/ship build site.
• E:D Shipyard - another shipyard/ship build site.
• EDDB/Elite: Dangerous Database - you can find info on system/stations, where to buy things, trade routes, etc.
• INARA - Elite:Dangerous companion - very nice (though slow at times) site to keep note on your progress; station/system info; game news, etc.
• Active Discounts thread - over on the official forum w/ info on systems/stations with current and past discounts.
• Rare Commodities List! - over on the official forum.  Not sure how up-to-date it is since I haven’t traded rares in a while.
• ED Black Market Finder - uses data from EDDB/EDDN.
• https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/ - E:D subreddit.  If you can filter through the usual crap, it can be useful.
• Elite Dangerous Wiki - Not all up to date, but still useful.

 

3rd party tools

• TrackIR - the standard for PC head tracking device.  Bit pricey at MSRP.
• EDTracker - a gyro sensor based head tracking device.
• TrackHat - A TrackIR alternative.
• VoiceAttack - Speech/voice to keystroke/mouse action software.
• HCS VoicePacks - Voice packs to use with VoiceAttack.  Pre-built commands for E:D with voice feedbacks.

 

I'm forgetting few things.  I'll add more as I remember them.

Edited December 25, 201510 yr by Salt Peanuts

Much like the subreddit, beware the general discussion section of the official forums. It's home of some of the most entitled people you will ever meet.

20 hours ago, Fitz said:

Much like the subreddit, beware the general discussion section of the official forums. It's home of some of the most entitled people you will ever meet.

But I want my Federal Corvette for free.

I'd forgotten how bad it is over there.  I hadn't browsed there aside from specific threads I have bookmarked.

Edited December 29, 201510 yr by Salt Peanuts

Sometimes it's more like "I want a Federal Corvette and Imperial Cutter for free or I'm going to pursue legal action because I backed the game on kickstarter and this one feature isn't exactly as promised yet so FD better give me stuff in game to make up for their anti-consumer behavior"

Then there's the perpetual Open vs. Private Group vs. Solo crap threads.  Argh.

I fear the official forum is worse than the subreddit, which is saying something.

 

I fooled around a little bit in Horizons a few weeks ago. Sadly I struggled to get decent performance on planet surfaces out of my old machine, and had a host of other graphical issues (missing terrain in a checkerboard style). But when things were working right, it was incredibly fun.

First time going down I belly-flopped hard onto the surface because I vastly misjudged the distance and scale. Then after I'd gotten a bit more used to it, I was flying through canyons and weaving around mountains while staying a few hundred meters or less from the ground.

I haven't really touched the game since December when I took a break with the holidays.  I think the only thing I've done since then is to look at the Horizons pre-order paintjob.

Everytime I spot the title of this thread, I first read 'Ellen Degeneres', and for a split second I want to see what may have happened to her.

Maybe she's vacationing in this planetary nebula I discovered on the other side of the galaxy by sheer chance, about 33 thousand lightyears from civilization, and quite likely no other player in the game has yet to visit months after me finding it.

Or perhaps this sunny beachfront trinary system (that nearly melted my ship)

Well damn, son, it does have three suns. 

I loved finding weird systems or planets when I was out exploring. Different region, but see if you can spot the biggest problem with living on this otherwise fairly reasonable Earth-like world.

Tidally locked?

Colin wins!

It took me and some wingmates going over that planet's details probably close to an hour before we even noticed it was tidally locked and just had a collective facepalm.

Edited March 30, 201610 yr by Fitz