Elite IV (a.k.a Dangerous

[shadmar]

I really hope they pull this off, and it doesn't get too streamlined. I like eyecandy but I like gameplay more.

[KingHaggis]

Of course I pledged! It's one of the most exciting spacegame projects ever. Shouldn't every selfrespecting spacesimfan (and especially Pioneer player) be supporting Elite IV? If not with money, then at least with kind words. I'm surprised at the negativity by some people here. Does this mean a seamless galaxy? By that I mean is it possible to fly from one solar system to another using regular engines/thrusters?I've only heard of this being done once before, in Artlav's game "Spaceway". It's something I'd love to see in Elite 4  Hi s20dan, long time no see! You should try building a spaceship in Shores of Hazeron. You can actually fly from starsystem to starsystem realtime without jumpgates. When you advance in technology, you can research and build wormholedrives and later on warpdrives. You do get loadingtimes when you're halfway between 2 starsystems though but the stars you see around you are actually the stars you can travel to on impulse or warp. A star can be selected on the starmap and when you look out the window of your spaceship, a crosshair will appear on that particular star with an ETA on your navigation computer.

[Brianetta]

Of course I pledged! It's one of the most exciting spacegame projects ever. Shouldn't every selfrespecting spacesimfan (and especially Pioneer player) be supporting Elite IV? If not with money, then at least with kind words. I'm surprised at the negativity by some people here.The negativity isn't toward the game, or even the company. It's toward the Kickstarter project. It's mostly borne of frustration.I suspect, frankly, that it's a frustration shared by the staff at Frontier. They can't possibly afford to show pessimism in public, but I'd imagine that there's been some internal discussion on how it has been presented so far, and how that can be improved in the last four weeks - and whether it'll make the required impact.I got this impression from Braben's responses during Gary Whitta's interview.

[s2odan]

Hi s20dan, long time no see! You should try building a spaceship in Shores of Hazeron. You can actually fly from starsystem to starsystem realtime without jumpgates. When you advance in technology, you can research and build wormholedrives and later on warpdrives. You do get loadingtimes when you're halfway between 2 starsystems though but the stars you see around you are actually the stars you can travel to on impulse or warp. A star can be selected on the starmap and when you look out the window of your spaceship, a crosshair will appear on that particular star with an ETA on your navigation computer. Hi Kinghaggis Good to see you again! Oh how could I forget about Shores of Hazeron hehe, I have actualy played that. It certainly is close to seamless in a sense. When I played I got steamrolled by some aspiring Emperor; they destroyed all my military equipment and gave me the choice of "Join or Die!" So I joined up with them, stole their technology and flew as far away as I could There was no warp drive back when I played though, but you could still travel between systems wthout the wormholes, it just took forever.

[KingHaggis]

Nice trick! There was a big galactic war in Hazeron a few weeks ago. A Federation of Empires went head to head with the 3 biggest dominating Empires in a war that lasted 3 days. I'm playing the game with a friend and we're at Tech Level 25 now. When the war broke loose, we were nowhere near prepared to defend ourselves and we still aren't. It's a hard game and it takes ages to accomplish something. Fortunately the war passed by and nobody has harassed us. We still haven't made contact with other empires but we'd better be prepared when we do.  Back to Elite IV, there's a dev update showing new gameplay footage!!

[Loki999]

Much better!

[Pyros]

What I really liked about the video is the rhythm of the gameplay. In some games (e.g. X series) flying is "slow".Great work!

[Brianetta]

harrg planets seem be plaqued on an skybox !!If it is, I very much doubt it will stay that way. Bear in mind that you're seeing pre-production footage. Frontier Developments don't have their funding from Kickstarter yet, and what they have has been knocked together in spare work time ("skunk works" style). They're not selling a game, they're asking for funding to start working on a game.Then again, it might actually be a full-sized planet, in which case it might very well look like a backdrop. Planets are not small, they are far away. To paraphrase Father Ted.

[fluffyfreak]

The dev' diary updates are winning me over

[Pyros]

The dev' diary updates are winning me over :)And quite some other people... just 22 special priced digital editions left (out of the 10k). Update: no more cheap digital editions available

[KingHaggis]

The dev' diary updates are winning me over  Good boy! :biggrin:

[fluffyfreak]

And quite some other people... just 22 special priced digital editions left (out of the 10k). Update: no more cheap digital editions available :)It's ok, there's still 8319 of the £40 level available! Hmmm, tempting.

[Marcel]

The physics look like fighter planes in space to me. If you replaced the Anacondas with zeppelins and the Vipers with Sopwith Camels the action would seem just as plausible. I hope that will be improved as they move along. I don't know if people will be able to mod this game, but it could be cool to make a pure exploration mode with no hostile ships around to distract you. It would be called...Elite Harmless!

[fluffyfreak]

You will be able to land on planets but not in the initial version. That's a bit disappointing for me personally, the screenshots you see in Pioneer are consistently about the planets!

[Geraldine]

I am with you on this fluffy, planetary landings is what the last two Elite games were about, but I guess, the level of detail and interaction that David wants to put in, would cause too much of a delay for the game's initial release. He said it's coming later with placeholders in use until it's ready

[fluffyfreak]

Yes but it's kind of a deal breaker for me, i'm less interested in shooting things than I am in exploring things.

[trumpet]

I agree with the comments re: seamless landings. It means the skunkworks were closer to 'skunk scent vapor works (tm)' . Shame.As we all know, a decent SLP engine takes a lot of work - look at Pioneer & I-Novae. If they even had it at alpha they'd be showing what they've got before Xmas. They showed those shitty gas cloud alpha where the textures popped on and off. So show me a planet surface David!! Otherwise they are yet to start work on it & we're not likely to see that function roll out for at least 12-16 months from launch . As Fluffy said, he's said it's been coming a long time.It's not a deal breaker , I'll back his promise that it will come based on the fact he did it better than anyone and did it first back in the day. But I've dropped my pledge level. Goodbye 'Trumpet Terminal'

[StarMax]

Things are getting interesting. The KS campaign is getting to the last stretch of the road, with 16 days left. I hope they show some jaw-dropping stuff soon otherwise i doubt the Backing will hit the goal.

[Helioth]

It was about time to provide an update to the KS fund raising process. A linear extrapolation still gives about £950k (same as 13 days ago), but I guess we'll now start to see an increase in the rate of pledged amounts. 

[lionheart]

It was about time to provide an update to the KS fund raising process. A linear extrapolation still gives about £950k (same as 13 days ago), but I guess we'll now start to see an increase in the rate of pledged amounts. Well its already at £983,000 with 8 days to go, so hopefully the upward trend will continue and it will be funded. I worry that if the KS fails, Braben won't see it as the fault of the poor Kickstarter, but as "evidence" that there is no demand for a new version of Elite.