Like everyone else sensible I use the trainwreck that is Star Citizen for popcorn-munching fun and actually bought Elite Dangerous instead. I’ve had this on the back burner for a while, as I’m not much of a fan of flight sims of any sort. I do have fond memories of playing Frontier: Elite II however so I thought I’d give this a go. Now that I have a bit more disposable income I thought I’d also give gaming with a proper joystick a go. I did try playing it with a standard gamepad for a bit but after having a lot of difficulty with just docking, I knew that this would be impossible. I bought a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, pretty much the cheapest on the stick on the market and was shocked by how much easier it is to control and how much more fun it is to fly ships with it.
The thing about this game is how much flying there is and how fiddly it is. Docking requires manually aligning with the station, locating the correct docking bay and landing precisely on it. Approaching destinations in supercruise requires paying attention to the changing distance and speed of approach. Even jumping to another system requires manually aligning with the target star. You get the message soon enough. This game is all about the flying and if you don’t enjoy that you’re going to have a tough time because that’s all you do all the time. If you do however and the direct, visceral sense of control that a joystick gives you makes that easier, simply flying around transporting goods and people can be very satisfying in a very undemanding way.
Combat of course is a whole different game in of itself and I don’t pretend that I’m any sort of expert. But does feel great to be able to use lateral movement to evade enemy fire and it’s where the full set of the game’s features really come to life since there’s not much call for adjusting power levels or using utility mount devices when you’re just transporting goods. Advanced players can make their ships dance by selectively turning off flight assist and use silent running to prevent enemies from targeting you. For my part, I’m happy enough being able to dogfight enemies, switching between energy and kinetic weapons as needed and even target specific subsystems when fighting tougher enemies.
One problem I have is that while there are multiple activities that you can do, the game sort of rewards those who specialize more. You won’t earn much money if you’re dong a little bit of everything. You really do have to pick something and go all in. What’s more is that due to how important faction reputation is, it also really rewards you picking one star system and doing everything there. Faction reputation vastly increases the quality and the compensation level of all missions so you really do want to lay down roots in a base somewhere. Once you get things rolling, making money and grinding reputation isn’t that difficult so I occasionally go off and do other stuff just for the sake of variety even if it means earning less money.
Unfortunately all space games can’t get away with the fact that space is pretty boring and monotonous. It’s great to run into neutron stars and black holes for the first time and to fight amidst an asteroid field but the vast majority of the time whether you’re transporting stuff or doing exploration, space is just empty space. Venturing out into unexplored space to earn money by tagging unknown stars and planets sounds cool but it is so boring to do nothing but cruise towards planets for hours at a time. The only activity I haven’t spent time on is mining because it sounds even more dreary. I’m aware of the humongous size of the galaxy as well as how the world develops in the background but it’s hard to feel that any of that matters. I do like the attention to detail in the game though like how I got suckered into flying the For the Mug! route that took about one and a half hours of real time of straight-line flying with a commemorative mug at the end as compensation. Never again!
Anyway I’m putting the game down for now as I’m a bit burned out but I think I will buy the Horizons DLC later and play it again. I do miss being able to land on planets like in the old Elite games and being able to drive around on the surface sounds like great fun. The crafting stuff also offers some long-term objectives to work on beyond just making more money. I will be coming back to it however because it really is very satisfying to fly the ships around and I love how each one is distinctively different, down to individually recognizable engine sounds. It sounds silly but I really like the idea of owning a fleet of ships, each specialized for a different purpose, even if I barely use some of them. Perhaps one day I might even find it in me to undertake one of those 20,000+ light-year expeditions.
