Elite Dangerous: Difference between revisions

'''Elite Dangerous''' is the fourth game in the [[Elite]] series of games and was released on December 16, 2014. It was partially funded via a [[Kickstarter]] campaign.<ref>[http://www.pcgamer.com/elite-dangerous-crowdfunding-covered-less-than-one-quarter-of-its-total-cost-creator-says/ Chalk, Andy. "Elite: Dangerous Creator Says Crowdfunding Covered Less than One-quarter of Its Total Cost." PC Gamer, 11 Sept. 2014. Web. 14 Jan. 2015.]</ref> The Xbox One version will launch on October 6, 2015.<ref>[http://www.gamespot.com/articles/elite-dangerous-xbox-one-release-date-revealed/1100-6430369/ Hussain, Tamoor. "Elite: Dangerous Xbox One Release Date Revealed." GameSpot, 8 Sept. 2015.]</ref>

New players start out with a [[Sidewinder Mk. I]] spacecraft and a small sum of [[Credits]]. They are able to trade, pirate, bounty-hunt, mine, explore, and salvage their way to wealth and fame.

Elite Dangerous takes place in the same universe as [[Frontier: Elite II|Frontier: Elite 2]] and [[Frontier: First Encounters]], 50 years after the events of FFE, in the year 3300AD - 3301AD. The [[Thargoids|Thargoid]] race, introduced in earlier games, will also appear.

The game works in a seamless, lobby-less way, with the ability to rendezvous with friends as the player chooses. This technology is already working and has been tested since the early betas, using a combination of peer-to-peer (to reduce lag) and server connections.

All players are Commanders in the [[Pilots Federation]] – that is how they are distinguished from non-players – allowing players to differentiate between who player and non-player easily. The radar is used to distinguish a real player from a ship controlled by the computer. A player will show as a hollow square or triangle (indicating stowed or deployed hardpoints) while a ship controlled by the computer will appear as either a solid square or triangle.

</gallery>Unlike previous games, in Elite Dangerous the milky way galaxy will evolve. As players explore, the different factions will be seen to spread to further star systems, colonizing planets and building space stations. Players can participate in this process by completing missions for a particular faction to increase their influence in that system. This can eventually lead to war which players can then continue to help their chosen faction by participating in it. In addition to war, players can also influence minor star system factions in other ways such as causing an economic boom.

New star ports will be slowly built in real time. These events will create opportunities for players as the resources and workers required for building will need to be transported and there will no doubt be related military missions and scope for increased piracy.

Imagine a medieval landscape. Laying out towns, roads, castles, farm land, forests and so on can be done by a system of rules – putting castles widely spaced out on vantage points, towns near rivers but under the protection of such a castle, roads between them, then with farm land to support them all. An artist can still design the castle, the houses in the towns, but this approach greatly magnifies the content that can be created. “Frontier” did this for the star systems, and planets, and with Elite Dangerous, [[Frontier Developments]] will go further.

[[File:Elite Dangerous Dev Diary 3 - Player Roles|full|right|480x480px]]

[[File:Elite Dangerous Trading Dev Diary|full|right|1x1px]][[Roles#Trader|Trading]] in previous games was limited to a relatively small number of different commodities such as hydrogen fuel, precious metals, computers etc.  

Traders in Elite Dangerous have access to a large number of commodities both legal and illegal. Also present are "rare commodities" that are unique to a specific star system and increase in value the further from their origin they are sold.

Instead of static prices per star systems, [[Commodities Market|stockmarkets]] will now respond to events going on in the vicinity such as war, famine, blockades etc. This creates the opportunity for players to "game" the stockmarkets by controlling supply and demand.

Players are able to steal cargo from other ships using a variety of means. They can employ hatch-breakers which when fired at an un-shielded target will latch onto the cargo hatch and extract cargo canisters from it. In addition, once shields have been dropped a player can shoot the cargo hatch manually to damage it which will have the same effect but in most cases takes more skill. Once stolen cargo has been scooped it can be smuggled and sold on the black market at stations and outposts that feature one.

Throughout the galaxy players will encounter computer controlled ships and other players that have fallen to a life of crime. Once scanned a player is able to see the current bounty issued to another commander. If destroyed in combat the player will receive a voucher that they can redeem at a station or outpost controlled by the faction that issued the bounty to get the reward.

Players are able to mine resources from planetary ring systems and asteroid belts in orbit around stars. Once a [[Mining Laser|mining laser]] and refinery module is equipped the player can fire at a suitable asteroid and use his cargo scoop to collect the raw materials. They can then be sold to a station or outpost on the commodities market.  *Your onboard refinery will have temporary bins that will store a refined product (after you have scooped it); once each respective bin reaches 100%, the bin contenets will then be automatically transfered to your cargo hold as a unit of 1 at which point it can be sold at a station.

Previous games tried to obey the laws of physics to a certain extent. This meant conventional thrusters were limited by the laws of relativity i.e. players could not travel faster than light within a star system. [[Frontier: Elite II]] used the Stardreamer feature as a realism/gameplay trade-off.

However, such a mechanism would not work in a multiplayer game, so Elite Dangerous features faster-than-light travel using [[Hyperspace|hyperspace]]. Each ship comes equipped with a frame shift drive (FSD) that allows it to travel faster than light within a star system, or to other star systems. A FSD can be upgraded to increase its range, enabling faster travel around the galaxy or for long-range exploration. *Each FSD has a loaded and unloaded capability, so know that if your are laden with heavier ship parts (hardpoints, internal slots, etc) and cargo, your jump distance will be effected.

Planetary Landings is now in development, and will be released in stages in the first paid for expansion, called Elite Dangerous: Horizons. The first part of Horizons, due "Holiday 2015" will give the ability to land on "airless worlds" and enable surface exploration in all-terrain Surface Roving Vehicles (SRVs).

[[File:Engines.jpg|thumb|250px]]

Ships can be customized to give the player control over the strengths and weaknesses of each. Modules within each ship are customized to affect how the ship performs and functions. Thrusters, sensors, frame shift drives, power plants, and more can all be upgraded to affect this. All customization takes place in the the outfitting screen when docked at a station or outpost.

Weapon hardpoints on a ship can be either stowed or deployed. Other players in your vicinity have their weapons stowed your scanner will indicate a square symbol, this changes to a triangle when their weapons are deployed. NPC craft have solid squares/triangles, real players (Cmdrs) symbols are hollow.

There is going to be a vast improvement in astrophysics. David Braben has confirmed the inclusion of new encounters with comets, black holes and quasars.

David Braben, in an interview with [http://www.pcgamesn.com/article/elite-dangerous-will-have-100-billion-star-systems-and-thargoids-braben-reveals-whats-next-his-space-sim PCGamesN] indicated that Elite Dangerous will be set in a procedurally generated Milky Way with over 400 billion solar systems, including our own. In addition each system could have up to 100 objects, leading to plenty of opportunities for the player.

After release [[Features in the expansions|several features]] will be added to Elite Dangerous. Some of these were available in previous editions of the game and some new to this one.