Elite Dangerous and other miscellaneous. (Gaming)

by Phoenix_9286 , Tuesday, February 27, 2018, 08:17 (2251 days ago) @ cheapLEY

I really enjoy Elite Dangerous, even more than I anticipated. I saved up enough for a Cobra Mk. III, and it's cool. I put a passenger compartment in and have been doing passenger missions, and I just started taking illegal passengers on long tourism journeys, which has been interesting. It's honestly strange how compelling taking a passenger to some out of the way spot 200 LY away is. It's a long journey that really is a whole bunch of nothing and repeated jumps, but I really enjoy it. I'm looking into saving up for something else to deck out for deep space exploration, so I can then kit out something else (maybe the Cobra) to hunt some bounties.

You want an ASP Explorer for exploration. Really you can recommend the ASP X for just about anything, but for a deep space wander, you want an ASP. The view from the bubble cockpit alone makes it worth the 6mil Cr cost of admission.

The Cobra isn't a bad ship to start with if you're looking to run bounties. Just remember, fill those empty compartments with Hull Reinforcement Packages. A Module Reinforcement or two can't hurt either (I speak from experience, I accidentally attempted to melt my Cobra, the Module Reinforcements saved my ass). If you're looking for a step up that'll let you multirole, try a Python.

I'm going to give it another week or two before I make the decision, but I honestly am enjoying the game enough that I'm looking into getting the HOTAS for it.

I have one. It's glorious. Fully recommend it. My wife still thinks I'm bonkers for buying an 80$ controller that only works with one game. I don't care, it's improved my flying, it's fun as hell, and it bumped up the immersion factor.

Downside (which you may mitigate by not having played for long): The adjustment period. I played with a controller for, well, ever, so while the stick made sense, I basically still had to learn to fly all over again from scratch. I actually still am. I got it for Christmas and it's only been inside of maybe the last month that I finally started feeling comfortable enough doing precision maneuvers to dock manually again. You'll also need to leave your controller plugged in if you want feedback, nevermind want to talk to anyone.

Pro tip: If you get one, DO trash the default bindings and immediately remap them all. Not to trash Frontier, their default bindings aren't bad, but they're not so great for getting the most out of the stick, and they frequently feel awkward. Oh, and navigating the galaxy map is less than intuitive.