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STAR F CLASS

Can I walk around the ship, planets and space stations?

Elite - 1984
Frontier: Elite II - 1993
Frontier: First Encounters (Elite III) - 1995
Elite: Dangerous - 2014

How big are planets and star systems?

Elite: Dangerous has a scientifically accurate 1:1 scale, fully seamless Milky Way galaxy, created from scientific first principles where stars and planets will be accurately positioned relative to your view.

And just like last two Elite games the planets and stars are on a 1:1 scale realistically sized with vast distances between them. The detail in Elite ranges from the macroscopic to microscopic scale.

Do planets rotate and orbit around stars?

Yes, just like in the last two Elite games, Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters (Elite 3), planets and moons orbits and rotates in 1:1 scale real-time and tilt will affect their seasons.

Full orbital periods are noticeable in-game.

Are there alien life forms?

Alien life is common, but sentient alien life is rare. From these the major alien race are insectoids called the Thargoids, which appeared in the original Elite and had an extensive story arc in Frontier: First Encounters (Elite 3) and they will make a return in Elite: Dangerous.

How many ships are flyable by player in "Elite: Dangerous"?

There are 29 flyable ships and there are plans for at least 30 flyable ships. Both new, modified, and improved models from the previous Elite games.

Can I own multiple ships?

Yes, there is no limit to the amount of ships you can own, but you can only fly one at a time.

Multiple Ship Ownership

Can I own and control capital ships?

There will be capital ships in the game, but initially you won't be able to control or own them, but they will probably be player controllable in an expansion.

Although you can't fly capital ships, you can own and fly large multi-crew ships like the Anaconda and soon to come, the Panther Clipper and Beluga Liner. Some ships, like the Anaconda, can carry smaller ships, so you’d be able to launch a small fighter from it, which is more nimble.

Can I build an empire and own space stations and fleets?

You will be able to own small inflatable asteroid stations as depicted here as part of an update, but you can't own large stations, build empires or own fleets, since that would change the nature of the game.

For example, why would you pilot space ships yourself, when the most efficient way to make money and progress in a game is to sit back in an office and hand out commands?

It's also problematic from a lore and immersion standpoint, since the game is simulating realistic societies, social structures and time scales, so building an empire would involve a lot of resources and politics that only big nations can afford and would stretch over months or years, even building a large space station can take a month or more.

So as an Elite federation pilot, you will only be able to aid in building empires and large space stations through Community Goals, by taking missions to transport resources and defend them, but you are too low on the social ladder (not important enough) to be able to command or own these kind of things.

That said, you will be able to hire NPC wingmen and escorts and give them simple commands, but you won't be able to own or remote control them directly.

Q&A about Development Plan

Why are the ships simpler in design compared to other games?

Because Elite: Dangerous is set in a realistic galaxy where there is no artificial gravity and atmospheric capable ships are engineered to be symmetrical and aerodynamically streamlined, therefore they carry their weapons inboard within a bay to be able to believably skim, enter and freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) fly through planet atmospheres at hypersonic speeds.

The ships in Elite: Dangerous have airlocks, proper mass distribution with no off-centre main thrusters and separate tessellated cargo holds.

However, just like the ships in the previous Elite games, there will be a lot of variety in designs with each manufacturer having its own unique style, which can customized into numerous configurations.

Ships

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Designing the Future - The Ships of Elite Dangerous
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What are the general differences between "Elite: Dangerous" and "Star Citizen"?

The differences are predominantly in issues surrounding scale, complexity of background simulations, adherence to recognized science of the universe and release schedule.

Heritage:

Elite: Dangerous is the 4th instalment in the Elite series dating back to 1984.

Star Citizen has a heritage in the Wing Commander / Privateer / Starlancer / Freelancer series dating back to 1990.

Release Schedule:

Elite: Dangerous was released on December 16, 2014.

Star Citizen is projected for a general release in late 2016.

Story:

Elite: Dangerous has and Star Citizen will have an on-going background story which will be influenced by the players and augmented with developer injected events.

Star Citizen comes with a single-player focused cinematic scripted campaign called Squadron 42 and is projected for general episodic releases starting from late 2016, followed by two DLC sequels in the future

Ship Design and landing on planets:

In Elite: Dangerous, the ships are relatively larger for their class, and atmospheric capable ones are modeled to be aerodynamically streamlined and symmetrical, and therefore carry their weapons within a bay. This provides ships with hulls that are able to enter and freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) fly through planet atmospheres at hypersonic speeds. Capital ships are in the 2 km range

In Star Citizen the ships are less aerodynamically streamlined and carry their weapons outboard, some are asymmetrical. Players can own capital ships up to 345m in length, and can persistently capture & control ships up to 1KM in length The largest ship in the game is 3KM long

Landing on populated planets in Star Citizen will use virtually guided paths to point you to a dedicated landing zone. Unpopulated planets, or planets with no landing zone, will allow for freeform flight and unrestricted landing.

Methods of Travel:

Elite: Dangerous has freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) interplanetary fast travel; aka Super Cruise. Due to the realistic 1:1 scale galaxy with proper distances, it necessitates faster than light speeds, specifically up to 2001 times the speed of light (2001c). These high speeds make travel times practical with very long range sensors and combat interaction. Players are able to seamlessly enter hyperspace to travel from anywhere in a system to another star.

Star Citizen's interplanetary fast travel - Quantum Drive - allows for speeds up to 0.2c (20% the speed of light) across a solar system. This limit is for realism reasons, as there is no lore explanation for radiation shielding beyond 0.25c. Due to this, distances between planets are scaled down in order to make travel times practical. QDrive allows for freeform travel within a solar system, althoughonly in a straight line. Travel between solar systems requires wormhole-like jump points (which will allow some interactivity) at fixed locations

Galaxy:

In Elite: Dangerous the galaxy is scientifically accurate and includes around a 100 billion star systems (around 400 billion stars considering most systems contain multiple stars). The Elite Universe is modeled on current galactic charts. Planets and moons will rotate and orbit in 1:1 scale real-time, therefore constantly changing a system's environment.

Star Citizen's galaxy will have 120 star systems at launch, and an unknown number of explorable, procedurally generated systems. Time is compressed to 2 hours for each day (1:12 scale time). Due to QDrive speed limits, distances between planets are scaled down to around 1/100th scale. Gravity & Orbits will be simulated where practical.

Weapons:

Elite: Dangerous has lightspeed pulse and beam lasers on all ships fitted with energy weapons, along with missiles, railguns, cannons, and other weapon types

Star Citizen has a mix of slow-firing lasers (akin to Star Wars), missiles, gatling guns, railguns and ballistic weapons available

Artificial Gravity:

In Elite: Dangerous there is no artificial gravity, so space stations are designed to rotate

In Star Citizen, space stations and ships use artificial gravity.

Flight and Combat Models:

There are major differences in how each game handles close combat flight (as you can see from this video). There is an inherent flaw with the premise of close combat space flight, leading to endless turreting and circle-strafing especially in PVP multiplayer due to the lack of terrain features in mid space, compound that with the fact that Elite also features lightspeed pulse and beam lasers making this issue even more apparent.

Elite: Dangerous deals with this by limiting the yaw rate and enforce an optimum corner speed by way of thruster placement and limits in the flight control computer, forcing to roll and then pitch to get the most efficient turn rate, in addition there is a G-LOC system, a preliminary version can be seen here.

In Star Citizen ships can be pointed more intuitively in a fashion akin to FPS, requiring a strong yaw. It deals with turreting by having a G-LOC system as seen here, but this alone doesn't alleviate the problems completely, and it's up to the pilot's skill to deal with it correctly. Star Citizen features a fully simulated IFCS that translates pilot input to thruster/gyro activation on the ship.

Multiplayer:

Multiplayer is handled with a grouping system in Elite: Dangerous and a PVP-PVE slider which doesn't completely control engagements in Star Citizen. [sentence needs clarification]

Additional Links:

What are the general differences between "Elite: Dangerous" and "EVE Online"?

Elite: Dangerous is pay once and play, therefore does not have a periodic subscription like EVE Online. Although Elite: Dangerous does offer paid "season passes" these behave more like paid DLC and the more traditional major expansion pack, in that not purchasing them does not prevent the base game from being paid, whereas failure to pay for a periodic subscription prevents the base game from being played.

Another major difference is that in EVE everybody within a star system is in one big instance and when there are too many people within it they slow down the update rate of the game.

Elite: Dangerous features dynamically created free roaming multiplayer instances, based on perception bubble, that are decoupled from the star systems themselves (but you can also play solo).

Due to a lot less network traffic, this allows Elite: Dangerous to have twitch based action instead of classic MMO click 'n' roll (where actual world updates are comparatively slow depending on server load and all attacks are calculated on servers using modified D&D system) which is used in EVE.

That means that Elite: Dangerous combat is twitch skill based.

An important difference is that EVE's economy is totally player driven - so to have ships and weapons in the game have to be manufactured by players themselves, by collecting resources and providing them to factories. Elite: Dangerous uses an economic model that drives NPCs to simulate the flow of products, which also have all player trades as input to the shared universe.

Another important difference is that EVE has a lot of empire building and RTS elements, while Elite is what it would be like to be a spacefarer in a galaxy from a first person’s perspective.

PVP also has some differences which are explained here.

The Elite: Dangerous galaxy is based on the real Milky Way and planets will rotate and orbit their stars, thus constantly changing a system's landscape and adding lot of depth - and it has around 100 billion star systems, as opposed to EVE where the planets are static and don't move.

Elite: Dangerous has freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) interplanetary fast travel up to 2000 times the speed of light (2000C) and you are able to seamlessly enter hyperspace from anywhere to another star. EVE on the other hand has point & click travel and you must fly to a jump gate to enter another star system.

A major feature that Elite: Dangerous will have is freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) atmospheric flight and seamless landing on planets and walking on living planets with cities and wildlife as part of expansions.

Where can I follow development news about "Elite: Dangerous"?

Why is yaw so slow?

There is an inherent flaw with the premise of close combat space flight, leading to endless turreting and circle-strafing especially in PVP multiplayer, due to the lack of terrain features in mid space, compound that with the fact that Elite also features lightspeed pulse and beam lasers making this issue even more apparent.

Elite: Dangerous deals with this by limiting the yaw rate and enforce an optimum corner speed by way of thruster placement and limits in the flight control computer, forcing to roll and then pitch to get the most efficient turn rate (less efficient, but most comfortable for a human pilot), in addition there is a G-LOC system, a preliminary version can be seen here.

Are there Newtonian physics?

Yes, just like in the last two Elite games, the flight physics are Newtonian[1][2]. While this time the forces are fed to a proper rigid body, (so rotation is properly taken into account) instead of a simple point mass (where only linear dynamics matters), the fly-by-wire system (flight control computer) in Elite: Dangerous constrains the ship's angular and linear velocity relative to a common reference frame during regular local flight, to induce interesting tactical dogfights at close range and this flight assist can be partially disabled to be able to skid more freely. Also unlike the last two Elite games, only the Super-Cruise mode (Work In Progress) takes planet interaction into account (subject to change).

Here some quotes from the creator David Braben:

"David Braben I think in many respects it's more comparable to Frontier in terms of the way the galaxy works, that sort of thing. But in terms of the way you fly it's much closer to Elite. We're going to have Newtonian physics. But the way that we apply the fly-by-wire layer over the top of makes the combat feel really visceral and seat-of-the-pants, rather than [as in Frontier] jousting at huge distances"[3]

"David Braben Most of the ‘brutal realism’ of Frontier will continue. The real galaxy and so on. For the combat model we are doing more fly-by-wire than in Frontier, but this is to improve the feel of the game; the realism is still there. Don’t forget there was fly-by-wire in Frontier too."[4]

So there is a fly-by-wire system that keeps the ship within flight parameters, with a flight assist mode that is on by default, that helps you maintain your turns and dampen the angular momentum when rolling, pitching and yawing by automatically calculating the thruster forces needed to stabilize the ship and reduce the skidding.

You can turn flight assist off, so you will have have to manually adjust the thruster forces to control the skidding and counteract the angular momentum, the fly-by-wire however will always be partially active to keep your ship constrained within the specified limits.

Cargo mass will also affect the manoeuvrability of your ship.

Can I manually fire thrusters in every direction?

Yes the game allows for full 6DOF motion.

Is "Elite: Dangerous" an MMO?

Yes, Elite: Dangerous is an MMO, but with the important addition, that you can choose if you want to meet other players.

The game features a shared persistent galaxy server, where macro effects and events such as economy, society and war status etc. are recorded.

The are no multi-player lobbies.

The server transparently creates free roaming sessions (instances) when meeting other players and NPCs within that galaxy based on a perception bubble around you, that is defined by your scanner/visual range. That means that those instances are not a fixed location in space as in most other MMOs, but they dynamically move around.

The effects of those instances are then stored on the central galaxy server and shared by everybody.

Because the game features very high speed twitch combat and very detailed damage models, this is the most reliable way to do it, also keep in mind there can be many sessions within a star system and those sessions can dynamically move around, also because this game uses a 1:1 scale Milky Way galaxy, sessions will typically be spread out much farther away (although most of the action will be within the core systems) and it wouldn't be immersion breaking as opposed to a space game in a smaller area.

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Elite Dangerous Dev Diary 2- How the Galaxy will Evolve Over Time
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Elite Dangerous Trading Dev Diary
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Elite Dangerous Standard Beta 3.9 Searfoss Plant on release night
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Elite Dangerous - Fleet Hyperlight Jump
File:Elite Dangerous Gameplay Demo - IGN Live Gamescom 2014

How does singleplayer work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?

Yes. The online galaxy of Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for the developers is that they can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

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Elite Dangerous Dev Diary 2- How the Galaxy will Evolve Over Time
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Elite Dangerous Trading Dev Diary
File:Elite Dangerous Gameplay Demo - IGN Live Gamescom 2014

Does "Elite: Dangerous" have a monthly subscription fee?

No. Elite: Dangerous has a fixed a box price, without hidden costs. However, you will pay one-time fees for major additional expansions.

What are the expansions?

The expansions include significant new features such as seamless freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) atmospheric flight and landings and on-foot and out-of-ship activities (such as FPS combat, walking around and boarding ships, walking in stations and walking and driving vehicles on entire 1:1 scale populated living planets), multi-player crew and probably player executive controlled capital ships.

Frontier releases free updates roughly each month that enhance the game. Expansions that include significant new features and content will have to be purchased.

For example, the roadmap is to add these features over the following expansions (in no particular order): [5]

The scope for Elite is huge, so a sensible strategy is used to add to the game in stages.

Keep in mind that the game has been well planned and designed from the start with all these features in mind (it is not an afterthought) and Frontier Developments already has the technology for this.

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Elite Dangerous Development Plan
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The Future of Elite Dangerous
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