Elite: Dangerous Feels like Coming Home

Happy New Year, dear readers! I wish you all health, joy, and everything nice.

Fasten Your Seat Belt, Pilot

Let's kick off the new year (I'm a few weeks late, I know, just bear with me) with a recent discovery of mine: Elite: Dangerous (or ED for short). ED is a space simulation video game... thingy, and probably the best of its genre I've played so far.

I used to play Freelancer way back when, a game that I still consider as one of my favourites (top 3 no doubt), and I've been looking for a game that would inspire that same sense of awe and adventure ever since the Freelancer servers closed up. I looked around and tried a few, including the popular X series, but none managed to satisfy me; they were either too restrictive, or so complex as to be inaccessible to new players. I feared that I would never again experience a game like Freelancer, and I started to wonder if I was maybe remembering my own undertaking through rose-tinted glasses. Then I learned about ED (I swear I ain't talking about the other ED).

The Sidewinder Mk. I is a good ship to start, but you'll want to replace it as soon as you can afford something more specialized for your needs.

In ED, you take on the role of YourFirstnameHere YourLastnameHere, commander and pilot of a brand-new Sidewinder Mk. I, a small multi-purpose ship capable of trading, exploration, combat, and even mining... if you outfit it properly. You're thrown into space and from there, the galaxy is the limit. No, seriously. ED takes place in our own Milky Way, and contains approximately 400 billion procedurally-generated star systems along with many (can't find a number on that) real systems, such as our own Sol.

Let that sink in for a moment. The game contains approximately 400'000'000'000 systems to explore.

Get Ready to Crash... A Lot

ED is a hard game, and the initial learning curve is probably the biggest obstacle any new player will have to face. I would compare the type of difficulty to that of Dark Souls, although not nearly as intense. New players find themselves at the mercy of an unforgiving universe, and the game will hand your ass to you on a platter if you don't respect its difficulty.

The first time I got destroyed was while undocking my ship from the starting station.

Pictured: a successful undocking procedure. NOT what I'm about to talk about.

The game leans heavily on the "realism" side of the "realism vs fantastic scale", and some rigorous protocols need to be followed sometimes. As I learned later, the reason I was destroyed was because I was loitering around the landing pad after I had been cleared for launch. This is illegal, as it keeps other ships from docking, potentially keeping a distressed pilot from getting some much-needed aid. To be fair, the game gives you 5 minutes to clear up the pad, but I was still figuring out the controls at that point (since I stupidly chose to skip the "pre-flight check" tutorial).

The second time I got destroyed was coming out of a space station. At that point, I had a few hours of flight behind my belt and I felt confident in my skills (once you understand pitch, yaw and roll controls, flying becomes somewhat easy) and accelerated quickly to leave. However, another quite large ship was coming into the station, straight in my path. I panicked, veered out of the way and straight into the station itself, destroying my ship.

And don't get me started on docking.

It can take some time to get used to the faster-than-light travel; more often than not, you'll end up going too fast and overshoot the target. A tip for beginners: try to keep the "estimated time remaining" value between 0:07 and 0:08, decelerating if you get below that value and accelerating while above.

When you'll die - and you will - you get sent to a screen with the option to either restore your ship (at the cost of 5% its value - your ship is insured so you won't have to pay the whole thing) or start over with a free Sidewinder Mk. I. This may seem steep, but if you plan your things properly there is no reason why this would be a threat to you; even by playing stupidly I never lost a ship because it got destroyed. Despite this, when you're speeding away from a large ship you "accidentally" pissed off and your cockpit is bathed in blinking red lights, you'll always worry about whether you have enough to pay your insurance premium and will end up losing your ship.

From Trader to Miner to Bounty Hunter in under 10 Minutes

In ED, you don't have to commit to a job like in most other MMOs - oh, did I forget to mention this was an MMO? I'll get back to that in a bit.

Like I was saying, you don't have to commit to playing a certain way. You want to be a miner? Outfit your ship with a mining laser and a refinery. Mining too zen for you and want to move on to trading? Replace your mining laser by a basic weapon and your refinery by some cargo space. Since you're already passing through unexplored systems, why not add a discovery scanner to your ship and become an explorer? Want to become a pirate? Just attack passing traders... but not with your trading-slash-exploring ship, that would be suicide.

Planetary rings are a great place to mine minerals, hunt pirates, or be a pirate.

While some actions, such as accruing a bounty, will limit your options in some systems, it is always possible to change how you play the game with relative ease. There is a lot to do in ED, and not much keeping you from doing it.

The Galaxy Is a Shared Playground... Or Not

As I hinted at earlier, ED is, at heart, an MMO.

WAIT COME BACK

Those familiar with the space exploration genre might feel turned off by that fact, as multiplayer has never been a big selling point for most flight simulator-esque games. ED, however, was designed with multiplayer in mind, and the whole thing feels pretty seamless, at least for me. I'm the kind of player who enjoys losing myself in my games, and so far I have yet to find another player who broke that immersion for me. Most of the time I don't know if I'm dealing with another player or an NPC, regardless of the situation (if it wasn't for the "this is a player" indicator I would never even know).

Sights like this are not uncommon as you roam the galaxy.

If you still feel intimidated about exploring a galaxy in what amounts to a steel coffin while being surrounded by people who want to kill you, and no amount of convincing on my part will change your mind, then fear not! The game includes a solo (not offline) mode, which - as the name implies - allows players to roam without other player intervention. The twist is that the universe is still the same whether you play solo or online; any effects online players have on the economy, for example, will be reflected in your solo session (and vice-versa) so you're never truly alone.

Take Me down to the Paradise City

In short, Elite: Dangerous is a good game. In fact, it's probably the best game of its genre I've played so far (as for Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' narcissism project, I may or may not share my thoughts at a later time), surpassing freelancer in scope and things to do. The game is hard, but not inaccessible, the galaxy is big, and the only limits present are those you impose on yourself. For someone who has been looking for a game just like this for years, ED feels like coming home.

On my way to do some miner protection (bounty hunting on pirates) aboard my Eagle Mk. II.

As for myself, I may end up writing more about my adventures in this universe; if there ever was a game which would allow for a fanfic-like "captain's journal", this would be it. Hell, I think I'll write about my epic journey trying to reach our own Sol.

Pictured: not Sol.

That's it for now. As usual, let me know what you think in the comment section. Take care, fly safe, and I'll see you later!