The subtitle "Dangerous" refers to the 3rd best Elite Rating you could achieve during combat in the Elite games. In the new game it has been expanded to include more than combat.
Pilots will be breaking blockades, battling pirates, attacking enemy positions and installations, and more, leaving their mark wherever they go.
All actions will change history of human kind.
Free-form play allows everyone to choose their own path, becoming an angry pirate, a spy, a peaceful trader, an explorer, a soldier, or a mix between these roles.
Specially handcrafted overrides for 160,000 known stars in the night sky and planetary objects that we know and love. For example, our solar system with Earth, Moon and Mars, other systems with recently discovered planets, etc.
Freeform (manual yaw/pitch/roll) interplanetary flight allows to fly freely through star systems in realistic scale to get to a destination. Players can choose to travel wherever they want, including vista points to see Earth rise on the moon, or sun appearing behind of Mars. Or they could choose to explore the vast expanse of space and discover new points of interest in star systems.
What are the minimal system requirements to run "Elite: Dangerous"?
While the full release of Elite: Dangerous is available on both Windows PC and Apple Mac computers. Everyone who bought the Elite: Dangerous, will be able to download the game for Windows and/or Mac computers once it is available, at no extra charge.
PC:
DirectX 11
Quad Core CPU (4 x 2Ghz)
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 260 / ATI 4870HD (or equivalent)
Internet connection
8 GB available hard drive space
Windows 7 and higher
Mac OS X:
2.3Ghz quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GT 650M 1GB (or equivalent)
Internet connection
8 GB available hard drive space
OS X Yosemite (version 10.10.3) and higher
Are there plans for other platforms to be supported?
Frontier Developments have confirmed that the game will be released as a timed-exclusive on Xbox One in the Summer of 2015 and a Playstation 4 release will follow at some point in the future and also Linux desktop, but the initial release was Windows only with Mac OS X planned for a few months after.
Does "Elite: Dangerous" support Physically Based Rendering (PBR)?
Short answer: yes it does. Elite: Dangerous adopted a physically-based rendering (PBR) model right from the start - we want it to look as good as possible under a variety of lighting conditions (and space certainly gives you that!). We expect the visual quality of Elite: Dangerous will continue to improve as we progress through development. It's worth mentioning though that PBR isn't a one-size-fits-all solution as much as it's the start of a discussion that could probably occupy someone for their entire career - kind of like the way "High Dynamic Range" was quickly adopted by everyone years ago but people are still arguing over the fine details!
Yes, the modules all have a position in or on the ship, and some calculations are done based on your armour to decide if there's any penetration at all (which gets more likely as your armour gets beaten up), then how far it's likely to penetrate and which modules are along the path of that penetration and might take damage (there's several more subtle rules, but that's the broad strokes).
Supercruise, formerly known as frame shifting, is used for freeform (manual pitch/yaw/roll) travel within star systems. The maximum speed varies based on proximity to celestial bodies, up to 2001 times the speed of light (2001C) that rarely gets reached, to be able handle the most extreme spatial distances. It consumes a small amount of fuel and you can also see other ships that are super-cruising within a star system from a long distance away visually and with long range sensors and also do combat manoeuvring to perform interdictions.
Hyperspacedrives are used to travel from anywhere between star systems. Hyperdrives with different ranges, charge up times and fuel consumption parameters are available, and so your particular model of hyperdrive governs your specific ability to move around the galaxy. The game ensures that you will get grouped with other ships near the star with the largest mass during hyperspace exit.
How are players going to meet each other in such a huge galaxy?
Most of the action will take place within the human populated core systems of the major factions and because of the way interstellar hyperspace travel works, the game will ensure that you will get grouped with other ships near the star with the largest mass during hyperspace exit. You will also be able to find other ships that are super-cruising within a star system from a long distance away visually and with long range sensors.
There will also be ways to follow each other's hyperspace trail.
Having such a large quantity of star systems permits the game to have many major discoveries and many more minor ones, enough for hundreds of thousands of players to experience the opportunity of unique finds without the feeling of tripping over the Ark of the Covenant every two minutes.
Is there an extensive dynamic economy?
Yes, every station has it's own demands and supply that dynamically change.
Yes, missions fall into several types, the ones that you find en route and the ones that will have you actively engage in through a contract. These can earn you both credits and status within the faction you are working for, whether it is a disreputable criminal group or the Federation or Empire themselves.
Just like in all the previous Elite games, you are not fixed to a specific role like in a traditional roleplaying game, there are also no skillpoints that directly affect the way your avatar performs. Instead you will always be directly in control of your avatar so your own skill will determine the outcome of your interactions.
That said there are extensive ratings and reputation systems that affect how NPC's and players perceive you, even going so far as taking ship appearance (age/damage) into consideration.
There is also an extensive customization option for the ships.
The story wasn't explicitly told with traditional cut-scenes, but unfolded from a first person perspective with the help of news events and corresponding missions.
The game will also have more than 13 official book tie-ins to tell different stories about Elite universe, with lots of places, events and people referenced in the game.
In addition to this the Elite universe does have an extensive background history which is covered in many different sources, like In the official novellas - The Dark Wheel from Elite, Stories of Life on the Frontier Life On The Frontier and The Gazetteer from Frontier: Elite 2, and Further Stories of Life on the Frontier from Frontier: First Encounters which can all be found in the following links [1][2][3] .
Yes, you can hire wingmen and escorts, but you won't be able to own them. Their loyalty will depend on their morality and faction connections, so they will be able to betray you, or simply refuse to engage in certain criminal acts.
Future expansions will also add the possibility to seamlessly freeformland on planets. Landing and docking will be doable either using auto pilot, or manually.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Elite: Dangerous has lightspeed pulse and beam lasers on all ships fitted with energy weapons, as opposed to Star Citizen which has slow moving beam weapons only on capital ships. The remainder of the Star Citizen fleet will have slow moving laser bolts like one would see in Star Wars.
In Star Citizen, planetside movement will be restricted to specialized locations, connected by scripted sequences, such as star ports, small city hubs, bars and FPS arenas, while the rest of the planet is off limits.
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 (less efficient, but most comfortable for a human pilot), 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 (most efficient, but discomforting for a human pilot). It deals with turreting by having a G-LOC system as seen here, but this alone doesn't alleviate the problems completely, but it is less critical due to the lack of lightspeed lasers on the smaller ships.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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[4][5]. 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"[6]
"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."[7]
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.
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.
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.
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 initial roadmap is to add these features over the following expansions (in no particular order): [8]
Elite - 1984
Frontier: Elite II - 1993
Frontier: First Encounters (Elite III) - 1995
Elite: Dangerous - 2014
