Elite: Dangerous (Kickstarted Sandbox Space Flight Sim)

I know it's only an alpha but I like most of what I've seen of it, and it's good that the old Elite "3d" radar is back

Background: In 1982 some boffins at Cambridge University worked out how to make a sandbox universe where you could fly your spacecraft and fight/trade/explore/pirate the galaxies. 8 galaxies of 256 stars, each with individual stats and info. In 3D. In 32Kb. That's 38068 bytes, people - about an email.Watch it Here.

The big publishing companies at the time said 'Hell, no' to this sandboxing malarky. At the time everything had 3 lives and a high score. Yet it got published by an offshoot of the BBC and the numbers sold were massive.

Years later, the authors, Braben and Bell, made 2newerversions, they allegedly fell out, last game was buggy etc everyone got prissy (allegedly, of course) and then acted like dicks over rights whenOOlitegot released for free to play and download. The dicks are alleged.

Nowadays, thekickstarterfor a new, 21st centuryElite: Dangerous, raised a lot more than they expected. Looking to go live in March/April.

I have attached a few videos to see if anyone else on FoH has any interest in this. Is this another has-been with a vision? If this is a game on your radar, post thoughts below.

Gorrfink.

Declaration: I'm inAlpha - but its looking bloody good so far.

Amod should probably mergethis.

I'm following it for sure, I played the C64 version until my ears bled The Blue Danube.

The videos look absolutely amazing. The next couple of years are going to be great for space sims.

I don't get why people called Frontier Elite 2 bad. It worked. It was sandbox. It's a long shot from what Vanguard was.

Quineloe_sl said:

I don't get why people called Frontier Elite 2 bad. It worked. It was sandbox. It's a long shot from what Vanguard was.

Click to expand...

Frontier 2 was great. It was Frontier: First Encounters that was the problem. When I first got it the game wouldn't even start and the configuration program wouldn't work with soundblaster cards. As it was before the days of the internet being in common usage they advertised in PC gaming magazines, and you had to send in a coupon/letter to request a floppy disk with a patch on. Even then there were masses of problems, and the storyline involving the aliens never worked properly.

A pretty amazing video from the alpha. At least the combat part seems to be shaping up very well.

fap fap fap

This looks like so much fun.

Soygen_sl said:

Looking good. I can't believe how rare space sim/rpgs are with today's tech. I'm glad to see a resurgence through Kickstarter. Is the engine proprietary or is it a licensed tech?

Click to expand...

It's proprietary as far as I know.

Krag_sl said:

It's proprietary as far as I know.

Click to expand...

It's an in-house engine they call Cobra. While the Kickstarter only began in late 2012, the engine's been around for years and is in it's fourth evolution. It certainly feels solid.

https://frontier.co.uk/our_technology

Tuco_sl said:

Just a real life question for everybody.... do people's FOV change when they press the accelerator on their car's gas pedals?

Click to expand...

"Cockpit movement is currently under discussion in the alpha forum. As the movement is very likely to cause motion sickness, it is turned off by default for users of Oculus Rift"

- posted today on the Frontier forums

When I hit 88 mph I don't need a rearview mirror anymore.

Looks really good and all, but the gun sounds remind me more of a WW2 plane than a weapon for a space sim.