Sounds like you might be ready for Desert Bus.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

--
-Pasha ("Won't somebody think of the kids!")
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

As for things to do without shooting - mining can bring in a good chunk of cash if you're willing to put up with the scoop mechanics, spending a good chunk of time figuring out which ore types are valuable and where, and a lot of trial and error as you try to remember which asteroids you scanned or not.

Exploring can net you some cash as well, though it highly depends on finding "good" planets or anomalies and knowing which planets to not even bother scanning. (And sometimes who to sell to - as certain planets may want to know about metal-rich planets vs. others wanting to know about Earth-like planets)

Granted, I haven't poked my head back in the game since... I guess February, so some of that stuff may now be easier and/or actually explained in game. Work's been too busy for me to be able to take a weekend playing space miner/explorer.

Last I checked there is a lot of info in the official forums with links to guides and such to help explain the more esoteric parts of the game. And I think people have been scraping data from the game to put on websites for things like mining or trading route optimization.

Apart from some basic tutorial missions that don't really do a lot of tutoring (most of which have to do with the combat system in one way or another), not very much appears to be explained in-game, which is my biggest reservation about it so far. It's like the player character just arrived from a parallel universe, has no knowledge of the tech base, politics, personalities, or culture of the 31st century, and was lucky enough to acquire a Sidewinder and a thousand credits somehow or another, but is otherwise completely at a loss as to what anything is or does.

Which is, admittedly, how it would go down in UF, but still. As a gameplay experience it's a bit bewildering. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Ah - ok - so they haven't improved anything.

I never really thought too hard about how the PC go into the world, admittedly. Though now that you spell it out like that it sounds suspiciously like the beginning of Farscape :P

Because single-player mode isn't single-player. They decided to implement it as multi-player where no other players will get put into your instance.

There was a pretty big row on the forums several months ago when they announced that they wouldn't be doing an offline mode for the game which had been promised during Kickstarter.

> - Where are these dumbass NPC pirates getting their intel? Did that
>guy seriously think it would be worth jacking my four tons of food
>cartridges (retail value: cr176)? I mean is there a booming black
>market for 3D food printer filament or something? Granted, I was
>being paid well above market value to transport that particular load
>for some weird reason, but if all he wanted was to beat me to the deal
>he could've bought his own four tons of food cartridges for
>less than it cost him to try to take mine.

Pretty sure AI encounters and the like are purely random and have nothing to do with what you're carrying (plus I don't think you can see what someone is carrying anyway while in frameshift).

>The attempted piracy rate reminds me a little bit of the random
>monster encounter rate in Skies of Arcadia, that is, too
>goddamned high. I've never understood that particular mindset of game
>developers. "Hmm, but some players aren't going to be interested in
>the space combat aspect of the game, how do we get them on board? I
>know - let's make it more of a bother to avoid fighting than
>fight." Fuck off, guys, seriously. Annoying me by forcing me to
>play Escape Vector Bingo every five fucking minutes, and occasionally
>losing and then ending up in a Gratuitous Fight Scene, isn't making
>the gameplay experience richer for me, it's just pissing me off. If I
>wanted to be in a dogfight I'd go to one of the 24/7 dogfight parties
>with which it seems like every star system is generously endowed and
>get paid for doing it. I'm out here hauling coffee because I
>don't want to do that. FFS.

Agreed.

I think their excuse is "it isn't called Elite *Dangerous* for nothing".

-SmkViper

Wow. That's like the lamest possible way to do that. I mean, I can see why they would have, it's probably the easiest way to do it, from a software development standpoint, but, gosh. I guess that explains why there is occasionally what seems remarkably like MMO lag for what I thought was no evident reason.

>There was a pretty big row on the forums several months ago when they
>announced that they wouldn't be doing an offline mode for the game
>which had been promised during Kickstarter.

Yeah, see, this is one of the several reasons why I don't hold with Kickstarter, particularly for big entertainment projects. With technology Kickstarters, you at least have a good idea what the thing is supposed to do before they start. Leaving aside the inevitability of delays and project creep, games and whatnot can just diverge into whatever the hell the developers happen to think of during the process, and if you don't like what their New Vision is, you're stuffed.

>>If I
>>wanted to be in a dogfight I'd go to one of the 24/7 dogfight parties
>>with which it seems like every star system is generously endowed and
>>get paid for doing it. I'm out here hauling coffee because I
>>don't want to do that. FFS.
>
>Agreed.
>
>I think their excuse is "it isn't called Elite *Dangerous* for
>nothing".

Reminds me a little bit of the Jack Emmert approach back when he was still the head honcho on City of Heroes. "If you're not playing the way I think best, you're doing it wrong and that will not be allowed." Except it's more glaringly annoying in a game that bills itself so aggressively as an Alternate World Where You Can Do As You Like.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not a dealbreaker yet, and the game has much else to recommend it by way of offset... but I'm starting to suspect that it's gonna get old pretty dang fast.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I seem to recall reading, a couple months back, how Kickstarted had implemented some sort of idea, possibly in response to exactly this or at least similar, that when the developers did something of that nature, so you could say "this is not what I signed up and payed my money for, give me my fucking dough back."

Now, I COULD be wrong, but I am fairly sure I saw something to the effect.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

Well, if I had backed Elite Dangerous from that stage, it would have been largely on the prospect of a proper single-player mode, so I would certainly have been pissed off by the bait-and-switch. Whether I would've been pissed off enough to abandon the project altogether, I'm not sure - having come to it after the change, I'm annoyed by the half-assed "multiplayer but not" implementation (partly because there seems to be little reason for it other than saving the developers some work, partly because it combines the disads of online multiplayer with the single-player experience, and partly because it means the game will die when, someday, they eventually shut the servers off), but not annoyed enough to stop me playing. I'd probably even have bought it anyway if I had known exactly how it worked, not being fully aware that they had promised something better and reneged.

But if I had been a supporter from before it even went properly into development? Yeah, I'd want at least some of my money back. Because principles.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Saw another one of these today where they wanted somebody to kill Mojo Nixon. I guess the Eravate Network aren't "Elvis is Everywhere" fans.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Obviously Michael J. Fox is behind that contract.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

Perhaps they mistook you for the Butcher of Musashi? :)

Ebony the Black Dragon

You'll never prove a thing, copper, I'm just a part time electrician – Bad is good, baby! Down with government!

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

(source, context)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I fixed that for you.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!

You're not wrong, but I feel that there's a fundamental note of optimism in the setting that makes it ... not nearly as bleak as Lovecraft himself. I mean, there's never any suggestion that people can't comprehend the deeper mysteries, or that it will necessarily drive you mad, only that it might if you're not careful. (Or it might just set your hair on fire.) The most existentially terrifying thing in the setting is the Dawn Machine, which was created by humans. And under Nuncio you find a couple paragraphs of text that might be the most elegant and moving expression of hope in the face of cosmic indifference I've ever seen.

Well, presumably, Han has to go near the Empire because, like Elvis, the Empire is Everywhere.

Ebony the Black Dragon

Michael J. Fox has no Empire in him.

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

He was doing OK in the Corporate Sector until he made the place too hot for him. You know you've screwed up when you think, Welp, my best option now is to head for the fringes of Imperial space.. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Hilarious! (Also love the ship name.)

------
Fearless creatures, we all learn to fight the Reaper
Can't defeat Her, so instead I'll have to be Her

It makes me slightly sad that the game only allows for one character per player. It has a whiff of another "do it as we think best or don't do it at all" designer fiat about it...

Ah well. I guess if I want to dip my toe into the combat game I'll just have to soup up the original Bohica Maru, so that I'm not risking my investment in the Bigger Second Ship. Which is presumably how they want me to do it. I just don't like that feeling that I'm being herded, is all.

That said, I'm enjoying the game enough that I'm actually playing around with the idea of buying a HOTAS controller, which is not something I would have considered before.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

400 bucks on a joystick?

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

The ones I'm considering range from quite a bit to rather a lot less expensive than that... though I've noticed while shopping that if you want to and you can afford it, you can basically construct an entire cockpit out of USB-connected buttons, switches, gauges, and whatnot. Hardcore flight-simmers are a little scary. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The price of my HOTAS setup didn't bother me - trying to find a good way to set it up on/next to/with my desk so that it's comfortable to use and yet not pushing me too far away from the monitor is my biggest issue. (Using my Oculus mitigates the monitor issue, but the DK2 resolution isn't high enough for the *cockpit* monitors to be legible...)

That and the setup/teardown time which pretty much means I don't hop into Elite unless I'm ready to spend a 4-5 hours to make it worth it.

Star Citizen is going to make it worse with needing a keyboard and mouse on top of a stick for when you're on-foot. (And I imagine Elite will have the same issue when they add planetary landings)

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Bonus amusement for the sound effect being an abbreviation of "Freemium."

Peter Eng
--
Because "Free-to-play with premium content" is too long.

Heh. Somebody offered me a pile of credits to take out Spiny Norman the other day. Even if I was an assassin, I'm not that crazy. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Someone's got a good memory for the classics. ;)

(Although I remember the name more from the ZX Spectrum computer game references that the Monty Python ones.)

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

Well, there was a ZX Spectrum version of the original Elite...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I know, I used to play it. The references I remember, though, are from nearly-as-famous platform games like Jet Set Willy; I'm sure there was at least one room with "Spiny Norman" either in the name or actually in the room.

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.