Elite Dangerous Catch-All

You know I could forgive Star Citizen for being ten years late and a buggy mess if it were priced like a normal video game. I'm disappointed by Odyssey, but if you combine Elite Dangerous, Horizons, Odyssey and various arx purchases, I've spent probably about $150 over the course of five years. That's pretty reasonable. Star Citizen is charging that (and more!) per spaceship. I just can't get around that.

I posted this in the Flight Sim group but didn't have any takers, so x-posting here since this HOTAS served me very well in Elite Dangerous.

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I have completed my HOTAS "downgrade", finding a t16000m joystick at MSRP and will keep my Alpha/Bravo combination. The t16000m allows for both a left and right configuration which is really what I needed, since most GA aircraft with a stick are configured for the left-hand.

So that means I have a Saitek X-55 Rhino (equivalent of Logitech X-56) now taking up space that I don't have in my apartment. It's served me well over the years. I'm happy to give it to a US located, flight simulator playing GWJer for the cost of shipping (I think it will fit in a large USPS one-price box). I have the set of tension springs, and everything as far as I can tell works well. You absolutely need a powered USB Hub (not included) with 2 free ports, or you'll get a ton of ghosting on the throttle quadrant. Works natively in MSFS, Xplane 11 and Elite Dangerous, and I'm sure in the other HOTAS supporting sims as well.

ps. just so you know its a SAITEK X-55. Logitech names its Warthog, X-55.. this is NOT a Warthog.

i've got a failing x52 so i might be interested, does the rhino have a twist on the stick? i can't remember.

Yes, it does. Mine has gotten me through 1000+ hours in Elite.

my x52 too, but it also has another couple of Sands worth of other games too (i've had it for almost 20 years and i bought it used) so it's kinda busted. randomly starts pitching constantly and one of the throttle switches is falling out
send me a PM with details and I'd love to work something out.

BuzzW wrote:

After playing a bit for a few days, I like the gameplay, but I can't recommend Odyssey right now unless you have a very new computer and/or you don't mind very low frame rates.

Interestingly we tested this on 4 pcs of various specs and the least negatively affected framerate wise was a 7 year old cpu with a 1080ti which was still getting 60fps at mostly ultra. The worst hit was 2021 build with i9 and 3080...

YMMV obvs

Thanks everyone for responding. I had quite a few people inquire about the X55, and will get back to them in order I received.

Lemme guess. The constellation at the end is in the vicinity of Raxxla?

Orphu wrote:

Lemme guess. The constellation at the end is in the vicinity of Raxxla?

Raxxla is the gankers we met along the way.

Is anyone still playing this? I stopped playing after doing a massive engineer grind when Horizons came out and fully kitting my FDL. Is there enough new content to justify diving back in?

I've not played since the Odyssey beta. Not that I don't want to, it just hasn't inspired me much. I keep thinking I'll give it more time then jump back in when there's more content I've not seen.

Yeah, I've also been out since before Odyssey.

Honestly, I quite likely would have played a bit more when that launched but the way I had to set my desk up to work from home kind of made it a pain in the ass to pull out the HOTAS.

I've barely touched it. Loaded it up when I first got a VR helmet, looked around, remembered how sh*tty it is, and logged out.

It's not sh*tty. Certainly not for everyone.

zeroKFE wrote:

Yeah, I've also been out since before Odyssey.

Honestly, I quite likely would have played a bit more when that launched but the way I had to set my desk up to work from home kind of made it a pain in the ass to pull out the HOTAS.

Yeah, I had kinda taken some time off before Odyssey (which I pre-ordered), and all the press around the Odyssey release didn't make me want to come back.

On top of that, I had been spending most of my gaming time on Flight Simulator. Lately I've taken a break from FS to return to KSP, so the last thing I need is for ED to make me take a break from KSP while taking a break from FS.

TBH I never really had a lot of fun fighting Thargoids so if that's the focus of ED Aftermath I probably won't full a strong pull back right now. Maybe if FD get more involved with steering the story than they have been over the past couple of years, that could change.

Spoiler:
Orphu wrote:

It's not sh*tty. Certainly not for everyone.

I'm glad some people are still getting something out of it, but I just one day realized nothing in the game means anything, and I've barely touched it since.

Veloxi wrote:
Orphu wrote:

It's not sh*tty. Certainly not for everyone.

I'm glad some people are still getting something out of it, but I just one day realized nothing in the game means anything, and I've barely touched it since.

Not going to lie, this is basically what's kept me from coming back. I felt like I was just grinding to make the credit number go higher and the gameplay was too repetitive and shallow. I want to return to E:D, but while this has probably been the most interesting thing I've seen in years, what holds me back is A) knowing I'll need to spend about an hour or two figuring out how to configure my settings again, and B) knowing it would take me many more hours to get to a point to do combat which is the last Elite rank I would need to hit all three.

As tempting as it is, I feel like I'd get a more rewarding overall experience from sticking with the gaming group I'm currently running with in Destiny 2. Especially with my gaming time being fairly limited nowadays.

*logs in to check if fleet carrier is out of money yet*

edit: It's not. And I left the bar open, party at my carrier. I hear you can sit at barstools now

Not for a long time. My recent hankering for a space sim led me to No Man’s Sky. I’ve sunk nearly 55 hours into it over the last 2 weeks, it’s a better game.

Sorbicol wrote:

Not for a long time. My recent hankering for a space sim led me to No Man’s Sky. I’ve sunk nearly 55 hours into it over the last 2 weeks, it’s a better game.

I've played both a lot (though neither recently), and I disagree. NMS is more exploration/discovery focused, while E:D is a more technical space combat & capitalism sim. Both are fun and enjoyable, but in pretty different ways; they scratch some very different itches. In the end though, they both suffer pretty equally from the "nothing means anything" problem, and it's easy to kind of burn out on either.

Veloxi wrote:
Orphu wrote:

It's not sh*tty. Certainly not for everyone.

I'm glad some people are still getting something out of it, but I just one day realized nothing in the game means anything, and I've barely touched it since.

That's fine. It just confounds me when folks pop into threads for games they don't like and poop on other people's fun.

I was directly responding to a question as to whether people played this anymore.

I've logged a LOT of hours in elite and I enjoyed most of it, unfortunately, so many systems start to show easily fixable design flaws when you really get into them. The weapons are neat, but most of them are flat out useless. the economic system had great depth, but requires serious game logic to do anything with. the galaxy is amazingly huge but after you see like 100 systems, you're not gonna see anything new.
you can certainly make your own fun in elite, i've done it plenty, but the devs apparently aren't willing to make even small changes to content that's older then the last major patch.
I miss the game, but every time I reinstall, i enjoy the flight model SO much, but in a half hour the cracks just overwhelm that feeling.

Yeah the flight simulation part is its best feature. That and the game's audio, which is stellar.

Sorbicol wrote:

Not for a long time. My recent hankering for a space sim led me to No Man’s Sky. I’ve sunk nearly 55 hours into it over the last 2 weeks, it’s a better game.

How long does it take to get past the "struggling to survive" phase in NMS?

I keep hearing about the cool things you can see and do, but I really do not enjoy survival games and my experience of NMS so far has been scrabbling for resources to keep my spacesuit heater on and hiding from blizzards.

@Tycho the Mad, Veloxi

I agree about the flight simulation and the audio (particularly the ambient music). But for me, it all came together at the Space Stations. I never lost that sense of wonder as I approached one or left one. Every sci-fi fans dream made (virtual) reality.

I also love(d) the cockpit fiddling; moving between communications, flight and power systems. In a darkened room, in front of a big screen, with good 5.1 sound system and a HOTAS, I found it really easy to suspend that nagging sense of disbelief.

Go on, Frontier. Offer lapsed players like me a huge bag of credits, and a free ship or two, to return to the game! If I could mostly fully-upgrade my Python for trade and my Federal Gunship for combat, then I'd happily dive back in.

Yeah the last time I really played was when one of those stacking mission trade loops was going. Made a quick billion and finally was able to buy and outfit an anaconda. But still didn't have the engineering grind. And I think I found 2 of those contacts and that was just not fun. At that point it felt like nothing else to do.

Haven't had the urge to try again in a long time. Plenty of other space games and a lot of them are more respectful of my time

Yeah the last time I had fun with the game was this amazing timed loop in which you had like 25 minutes to get this expensive and illegal cargo to a place. So tense and fun and lucrative.

Then Frontier nerfed it. Killed it dead.

Which also killed much of my enthusiasm with the game.

"Here, enjoy this sandbox we've made. Okay no not THAT much."

Thanks, Frontier.

Veloxi wrote:

Yeah the last time I had fun with the game was this amazing timed loop in which you had like 25 minutes to get this expensive and illegal cargo to a place. So tense and fun and lucrative.

Then Frontier nerfed it. Killed it dead.

Which also killed much of my enthusiasm with the game.

"Here, enjoy this sandbox we've made. Okay no not THAT much."

Thanks, Frontier.

Dude, I know I'm mostly a lurker here, but I just got to say this: you consistently act like a pompous, immature jerk in space game threads. Let people like other things.