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alpharx7
  • alpharx7
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  • From: Bane, Brisbane
Post #1 post 3rd September 2013 - 09:11 PM
Hands up all those people who remember playing the original game Elite back on their Commodore 64 or Commodore Amiga computers.....

Well a company called Frontier Developments is making the new game Elite Dangerous, based on the original, funded through a Kickstarter campaign and due for release in the first quarter of 2014 (march 14th eta)

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/EliteDangerous

QUOTE
Elite Timeline

1984

"Elite" was written by David Braben and Ian Bell starting in 1982 while the authors were still at Cambridge University. It was first published by Acornsoft on the BBC Micro in September 1984 to huge critical acclaim.

"Elite" set many firsts, and was the first genuine 3D game on home computers. Even many years after its release it is fondly remembered. For example "Probably the best computer game ever" (The Times, December 1988). It went on to sell around 1,000,000 units, and is popular still.

1993

"Frontier: Elite II", which the company is named after, was the long awaited sequel to Elite.

"Frontier" also set a number of firsts. It was the first game to have real-sized planets, where cities could be viewed from orbit, it was the first to use curved surfaces (Bezier), the only game to do a palette-fit every frame to get best use of colours (Amiga and ST only), and (apart from First Encounters) is the only piece of software (games or otherwise) that attempts to simulate our entire galaxy.

1995

"First Encounters" was the sequel to Frontier. It was released in Easter 1995 and was well reviewed, despite being released before the development team thought it it was ready.

The detailed modelling of the geography of the planets was groundbreaking, using procedural texturing to generate the vegetation, snow, etc. on the planet surfaces. Mountain ranges, cliffs and wonderful alien landscapes and atmospheric effects all contributed to the mood of the game.

2012

"Elite: Dangerous" Kickstarter campaign was announced in November 2012 and was successfully funded in January 2013 with backers raising over £1.7 million to date.

"This is the game I have wanted Frontier to make for a very long time. The next game in the Elite series - an amazing space epic with stunning visuals, incredible gameplay and breath-taking scope, and also fully multi-player." - David Braben (Frontier founder and CEO)



--------------------
QUOTE (J2 @ May 12 2009, 01:24 AM) *
soz man, i cant come up with an insult to rival one like that... your wit and intellect are obviously far superior to mine... excuse me while i go /wrists please :rolleyes:
alpharx7
Post #2

Here's some screen shots from the game.


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Attached File  Elite_Imperial_Schematic.jpg ( 841.71K ) Number of downloads: 27
Attached File  Elite_Pirate_Landing.jpg ( 403.39K ) Number of downloads: 24
Attached File  Elite_Sidewinder_Schematic.jpg ( 800.7K ) Number of downloads: 30
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Attached File  Elite_Viper_Mk_2.jpg ( 787.26K ) Number of downloads: 20
 
alpharx7
Post #3

mafia8
Post #4

I used to play that on my commodore 64! really keen to play it!

B Unit
Post #5

QUOTE (mafia8 @ Sep 18 2013, 10:02 PM) *
I used to play that on my commodore 64! really keen to play it!

Haha same. Although I'm more interested in the release of Star Citizen. I will more than likely play this first though, as Star Citizen is still a fair time away. I've been playing a bit of Eve, but it's losing my interest fairly rapidly.

alpharx7
Post #6

QUOTE (B Unit @ Sep 22 2013, 01:40 PM) *
Haha same. Although I'm more interested in the release of Star Citizen. I will more than likely play this first though, as Star Citizen is still a fair time away. I've been playing a bit of Eve, but it's losing my interest fairly rapidly.

x rebirth is coming out this year / mid November, so we have that to look forwards to whilst we wait for elite & star citizen.

alpharx7
Post #7

new dev diary out, looks epic.

alpharx7
Post #8

interesting link, in that it tells you in a column on the right hand side how many people have pledged what amount of money towards the games development, and the various reward tiers / what you get in return.

not to mention the announcement about supporting the Oculus Rift headset.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146141...us/posts/624594

QUOTE
Elite: Dangerous will support Oculus Rift


Great news that we know many of you have been hoping for – today we’re announcing that Elite: Dangerous will support Oculus Rift. We’re very excited by this and if you aren’t aware of what Oculus Rift is then visit their website to find out more:

http://www.oculusvr.com/

I’m sure you’ll also be pleased to learn that the Oculus Rift version of Elite:Dangerous will be available to ALL backers that have an Oculus Rift headset for no extra cost.

Here’s David’s opinion on this:

“We’ve been playing with the Oculus Rift dev kits and are excited about the potential – just glancing around your cockpit or being totally immersed in a space battle. Many of our backers have made it clear that they would like Oculus Rift support – and so do we! We’re very pleased with the results so far.”

Thanks as ever for reading and why not pop by our forums to discuss the latest news:

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=29

Thanks for reading

Michael

alpharx7
Post #9

I posted this in the spam thread, since I've found this thread again I'm updating it with this news.

Elite Dangerous has entered alpha testing, for those who've backed the game the required amount of dosh. (I think it was 200 pounds for alpha testing- plus this gave you a whole heap of starting options / commander name / ship types/ starting status etc)


alpharx7
Post #10

Elite Dangerous newsletter No. 15

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b...p;id=4075b302f4

alpharx7
Post #11

here's some alpha testing footage, advance to the 5 minute mark for the first mission.

alpharx7
Post #12

more alpha test footage by someone who can actually fly. thumbsup.gif

the first beta testing should be starting in a month or two, that's when they'll first open up the game in it's entirety, 100 pounds to subscribe / purchase the game / which includes access to all further expansions for the life of the game

alpharx7
Post #13

Back to the Retro.

David Brabem and Ian Bell talk about the making of the original Elite game.

Elite's 30th anniversary @ release 30th September 1984. Although the new Elite Dangerous was initially slated for release March/April, it is now rumoured to possibly being delayed by extended alpha/beta/gamma testing, and possibly being released on the 30th Anniversary of the games release. (this has not as yet been confirmed by Frontier Developments ie scuttlebutt)

alpharx7
Post #14

alpha testing patch 2.0 - multiplayer is now out, here's some youtube footage from various players.

QUOTE
Alpha, Beta and Gamma Dates.

Alpha is now live, this will continue until Frontier decides that the game is ready to goto Premium Beta (1st stage), this is scheduled for early 2014 at the moment, but Frontier will announce details when they are ready to proceed.

Currently these are set as follows.

Alpha Phases 1.0 started December 2013 (£200) includes expansion pass
Alpha Phase 2.0 to started 4th Feb 2014 (£200) includes expansion pass
Beta Phase Premium Beta (formally 1st beta) to start after Alpha has finished. (£100) includes expansion pass
Beta Phase Standard Beta (formally 2nd beta) to start after Premium Beta has finished. (£50)
Gamma Phase to start after Standard Beta has finished. (£35)
Commercial release end part of 2014

With the new upgrades option you can now include your original pledge in your price when upgrading to a higher level. This includes the expansion pass



alpharx7
Post #15

More elite goodness. A 500 credit ship just owning it in free for all space pvp thumbsup.gif

alpharx7
Post #16

Alpha 2.2 build was released today

good to see so many fixes / changes and that developers are on top of things

QUOTE
Alpha release 2.2 is now live, here is the change log:

Additions/Changes

- Pilot's chair and pilot added to cockpit
- Damage to shields is scaled based on the power distribution, now defined by the shield generator item.
- OPtion to turn off shadows added.
- Updated fire damage FX.
- "You died" is now "You were killed by [CMDR name]"
- Anaconda material tweaks.
- Weapons balance tweaks.
- Added small dot to center of targeting reticles.
- Added option for logarithmic or linear scanner scaling.
- [audio] latest soundbanks - numerous fixes and mix tweaks.
- Art pass on lens flares
- Pass on class 4 A drive lens flare and lighting
- Add UI messages for cargo scoop actions
- Loading screen movie replaced with model (not final)
- Updated options - players will need to resave their options!
- Thinned targeting brackets

Crash Fixes

- Crash fix: multiplayer joining another player would cause that player to crash immediately and the new player to crash shortly after.
- Audio: Fixed crash in AudioSourceBlendRTPC when the ship is destroyed
- Help debug and recover with out crashing from using the results of a raycast that contains invalid physics objects and shapes.
- Speculative crash fix for moon.
- Fix for crashes with multiplayerand guided missiles
- Fix AudioManager hang on shut down
- Fix for crash caused by failed loads on texture resources (seen on some low end Nvidia cards)
- Authority of multiplayer scenarios leaving while other players are able to take the authority will no longer cause the remaining players to crash.
- Fix crash exiting Endless War
- Fix crash for invalid factions in Endless War
- Fix zero length vector crash when loading new scenario
- Fix for crash when second capital ship created (don't create it)
- AMD crash fix worjaround no longer needed


General Fixes

- Sparks appearing on cockpit creation fixed.
- Audio: fix assorted aspects of cargo scanner, pulse laser, rail gun, gatling gun and submunition audio.
- Added improvements and lighting to damage effects and rolling out to all ships
- Fix for DamageParticleActivity destructor assert.
- Encourage the window to go full screen as soon as we can when creating the display. Prevents a window from appearing immediately before going fullscreen.
- Fix for VFXes in FireParticleActivity.
- Fixes and performance improvements in noise generators.
- Don't include the machine name in the upnp port description: we don't need it, and it sometimes causes trouble
- Hide the desired speed indicator when flight assist is turned off.
- Updated effects used for hull damage
- Make the restored game window appear on the monitor specified in options.
- Negative indent on the message to make blocks of text easier to read.
- Impact fires don't happen on every hit, now a 0.15 chance (the pyromaniac inside me is sad )
- Added separate path, for when you are disconnected from the server, that allows the game to unload while the dialog remains on screen. This prevents you getting

killed while view the dialog and the game trying to move you into the player has died state.
- Adjustments to the radar-highlighting of things firing at player
- Automatically time out and repoll for a different server if not connected
- Updated new heavy damage FX and added it to the various prototype files.
- Right of retaliation now implemented.If attacked, the victim can legally attack and kill the aggressor, but won't collect bounty unless scanned.
- Increased the min value of the velocity overrides as a temporary fix for the drives having strange velocity alignment behaviour
- Add the collidable flag to cargo canisters so they'll collide with things that aren't ships (asteroids specifically).
- Reduce aim assist effect at longer ranges
- Added distance scaling to the pulse and rail gun impact FX
- Network replication fixes for core system, following up with specific gameplay instances
- Stats updated after scenario end rather than shut down.
- Prevent missile lock audio looping
- Optimise network replication
- Replicating variable length variables is now guaranteed to give the correct variable value.
- Fix authority conflict slowing down return to menu
- Fix for joining a multiplayer game dupe-spawning the scenario ships for multiplayer factions.
- Fix multiplayer-join dupe-spawning on free for all.
- Fix for multiplayer-join dupe-spawn for ethics.
- Fix for wrong background when player is not the authority
- Occulus shadows fixed
- Occulus targetting reticule renders at appropriate distance

Michael




Alpha 3.0 will have docking and outfitting - I'd be expecting the next build will happen somewhere around the start of March / first week.

alpharx7
Post #17

Our first look at Alpha 3 came at the BAFTA awards in the UK last night. the Alpha 3 patch is being deployed later today / lunch time in the UK

Here's a review from The Average Gamer website with exclusive footage from the show.

http://www.theaveragegamer.com/2014/03/13/...p-configuration


QUOTE
Elite: Dangerous — Alpha 3 adds a station, systems and hyperspace jumps, is also brilliant


By Steve Hogarty, 8 hours 44 mins ago, 1 Comment


Elite: Dangerous


I've been playing Alpha 2, the next to latest version, of Elite: Dangerous, zooping around in my spaceboat, swishing between asteroids and kablooshing enemy ships in its series of single player combat missions. Elite, it turns out, is really, seriously good. It controls remarkably similarly to the original game, with dogfights consisting of a rolling and pitching your craft, twisting and arcing through space in your attempts to keep your target in view. But at the same time it introduces some of the kinetic spirit of Frontier, Elite's sequel, with less rigid physics and a touch more Newtonian space-skidding giving combat real momentum and punch. Braben's development team have worked some real nostalgia black magic here, merging our fuzzy memory of how Elite used to be with a modern, uncompromised space combat sim.

Alpha 2 is tremendous, yes, but the soon to be released Alpha 3 is another beast entirely. Alpha 3 dumps on Alpha 2 from orbit. Alpha Poo, you'll be calling it before long.

I've been playing the latest version of Elite: Dangerous, and here's what's up with it.



The current version of Elite is a fairly comprehensive demonstration of the game's combat scenarios, ranging from destroying static targets, to one on one dogfights, to defence missions with multiple enemy ships. There's nothing connecting these missions besides a scant bit of loading screen plottery, and as such these scenarios exist as stand alone levels accessed from a menu screen.

In Alpha 3 however, these combat scenarios exist as locations in space that can be travelled to. Glancing to your left during flight will trigger your in-cockpit navigation screen to appear, listing local systems to which you may hyperspace jump. Each of these systems contain one of the missions from the previous alpha, which can be jumped into and out of at will, with no loading screen or jarring exit to the game's main menu required. There is, as it stands, a brief pause during hyperspace jumps in lieu of the fancy spacewarping effects still being developed, but in later versions Braben promises this will be seamless.

Hyperspace jumps require a few moments to charge, around ten seconds, during which your ship will rapidly begin to warm up, opening all of its exhaust ports to disperse heat as much as possible. Heat signatures in Elite: Dangerous give away your position to any nearby players or AI ships, so managing heat dispersal becomes an integral skill during combat. Stealth can be achieved by locking down your exhausts, but this allows heat to build up inside your ship's internal systems, eventually overheating your cockpit and causing a nasty explosion. "It's the spaceship equivalent of holding your breath," Braben informs me.

Jumping away from danger not only paints a giant temperature target on your back, but as with the classic games you'll also be leaving behind a warp signature, one that can be traced to its destination with the proper technology. That same delay between activating your hyperspace drive and actually jumping is used to begin to generate an arrival warp signature in your destination system. That is to say, your arrival will be wee telegraphed in whatever system you're jumping to, allowing opportunistic pirates to take advantage of your piping hot ship as it sluices, exhausted and combat unready, through spacetime.

Alpha 3 only contains a handful of systems, enough to contain all of the missions from the previous version, plus at least one more 'neutral' system. Eventually however, explains Braben, all of the stars you see will be real places you can visit, each one a system unto itself. From Earth you'll see all of the familiar constellations, but click on Alpha Proximi from your cockpit, hyperspace jump to it and you'll get a whole new perspective on the heavens, one where the constellations have been skewed by a few light years. Elite: Dangerous is a living planetarium. That's tremendously exciting stuff.


That additional system is home to one of Alpha 3's most incredible new features, the epic and iconic Fort Zelado space station. The slowly rotating megastructure is immediately identifiable as the polygonal sort seen in the original Elite, a vast and roughly round station with a narrow rectangular docking port. This time around the base is rendered so much larger, a miniature Death Star hanging in the darkness, bronze light bouncing off its intricately detailed and greebled exterior.

Approaching it triggers another nostalgia-gush. After requesting permission to land, you must line up to face the docking port using lateral thrusters, before attempting to match the gentle speed at which the station rotates — there are no separate controls used here, from combat to docking you'll be using the same thrusters and throttles. An instruction to head to Bay 12 is met with some confusion. I ask if there are multiple ports on the station's exterior. Braben explains, as I sail through the opening, that the bay I'm looking for is inside the station.

As he speaks, the vast structure's interior comes into view, a ring of small landing pads arranged evenly around what resembles the inside of a high-tech washing machine. There's an atmosphere held inside the station, evident by the whooshing and audible thrumming of engine sounds the moment I passed through the docking port's magic vacuum-field. Again, there's no loading screen and no faked scaling of interior and exterior spaces, just a smooth transition from outside to inside.


The slow spinning of the station gives it a micro-gravity one tenth that of Earth, Braben proudly informs as I navigate my way to bay 12, deploying my landing gear and using vertical thrusters to manually set down. The radar switched to a special landing mode, in which I must manoeuvre my craft to align it with the centre of the landing pad. Once touched down, I can communicate with the on-board BBS or outfit my ship with new weapons and tools, such as heatsinks and cargo scanners.

The latter option carries your ship via an elevator to the bay's hangar. From your cockpit, as you descend into the station's innards, you're faced with two flickering advertisement billboards. By this point, Elite fans will be weeping.

There's no trading yet, but the ability to sell cargo collected from destroyed AI ships and use that money to upgrade your craft means that there's a gameplay loop. And with that small update Elite: Dangerous takes the giant leap from an impressive proof of concept demonstration to an actual, playable thing, a hub around which a fuller and fuller game can be built.

The direction in which the game is expanding and the care with which features are being added already makes Elite: Dangerous a more exciting prospect than the disappointingly cruddy X: Rebirth, and the rate of development looks set to outpace the vastly overfunded Star Citizen. Elite: Dangerous is perfectly placed to become the frontrunner in this next generation space race.

Alpha 3 will be released to backers "soon", with a paid beta release coming later this year.




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alpharx7
Post #18

Elite Dangerous development continues to advance in leaps and bounds. We're now playing Alpha phase 3.04, and have access to automated docking for the first time. Yay !!!!

Elite Dangerous Newsletter 18 Click Here

QUOTE
Progress diary

So - phase one of the Alpha allowed us to test the moment to moment combat gameplay.

Phase two got to grips with the multiplayer technology and with your help we were were able to test and battle-harden it in a live environment.

Now - Alpha 3 is live and we start to move towards building out the game by adding docking, an early version of hyperspace jumps between multiple locations and ship outfitting within the iconic Coriolis space station.

Our latest Progress video diary shows David Braben talking through the features and intricacies of a Coriolis starport, including the procedure for docking. You can view the video here:

Once successfully docked in the station – a notoriously difficult skill to master in the original Elite – Elite: Dangerous Alpha phase three offers progression where you can use your honest profit or ill-gotten gains from your in-game actions to improve your ship.

Ship upgrades include modules such as heat sinks and cargo scanners, a variety of weapons, repair to any damage sustained in combat and clear bounties.

Once you have earned enough credits, you can even purchase (and fly) that firm favourite from the Falcon de Lacy shipyards, and one of the most notorious ships in the galaxy – the Cobra Mk III…!

Finally, the consequences of combat now also have a price, with repairs being cheaper than buying a new ship you will need to make split second decisions on when to pull back from battle!




The Alpha phase of testing is coming to an end, see the announcement below......

QUOTE
We still need your help!

Each day more and more of you are signing up; this is fantastic and we are grateful not only for the support but also for the insights we are getting from you which are helping us to continue to make improvements so that Elite: Dangerous becomes the best game it can be.

We are selling Alpha and Beta access via our shop site where you can take to the stars before commercial release as you participate in our development process!
With new features such as Docking and the Cobra MK III detailed above, there are many reasons to join in on the action particularly now the game play is developing and we have the first ‘game-loop’ to experience.

The Alpha will soon be coming to an end as we prepare for the Premium Beta stage. There is one more phase of the Alpha to be released, covering travel and trading. We have always said we will give prior warning of the end of Alpha, and here it is: your last chance to join the Alpha will be April 25th. After this date we will stop taking Alpha orders.

For anyone still interested in joining the Alpha now but unsure if it is worth it for a short period of time before we start the Premium Beta - here are two fantastic reasons;
- As we move into the Beta process, all Premium and standard Beta builds will be given exclusively to the Alpha players first.
- Also, all Alpha players will be granted a life time discount of 50% on ship insurance in game as a thank you for your support!

Your last chance to participate in Alpha will be the APRIL 25TH
From then forward you can expect our Beta to roll out for Premium Beta players - more information on that is coming soon. Watch this space!
Want to upgrade from Beta? The upgrade path from Beta to the Alpha is still active! If you go to the shop and put the Alpha product into your basket, a discount will automatically be applied to reflect the level you are already on.

alpharx7
Post #19

Frontier Developments, the makers of Elite Dangerous have announced that Premium Beta begins 30th May.

Additionally, for those people who have backed the game to that level of investment (100 pounds) they now have access to an early Alpha build of the game (beginning today) - single player - to get their skills down pat

alpharx7
Post #20

The next phase of the Alpha release (Alpha 4 build) Travel and Trading has been announced for the 15th of May, before the game progresses to it's first Premium Beta Build on the 30th of May

QUOTE
In-coming - Alpha 4 release date announced
The final stage of the Alpha, Alpha 4 will be released on May 15th and will be followed two weeks later by the first stage of the Premium Beta on May 30th.

“The end of Alpha is now in sight and it is amazing looking back to see how far we have come since the start of the Kickstarter campaign. Support from you all has been fantastic, and input especially from the Design Discussion Forum has been a great help – in fact we are about to deliver one of the features we changed very significantly as a result of discussion on the DDF – ‘super-cruise’. Premium Beta backers already have access to the combat test, and we look forward to welcoming them when the Premium Beta itself starts, and seeing many more people actually playing the game. We couldn’t have done this without your support, which is something we really appreciate.

Thank you!”

David Braben


Newsletter 21 has also come out, containing more informative information......

QUOTE
Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore…



Lave. Diso. Leesti. Zaonce. The classic systems in the original Elite game evoke fond memories. Elite was the original ‘open-world’ experience, and one of the very first 3D games. It famously used every byte in the legendary the legendary BBC Micro computer to create 8 ‘galaxies’ using just 22k of program and data memory. Yes, 22 kilobytes – that’s probably smaller than just about any email you’ll get today.

Crucially, though, it used amazing techniques that allowed a generation of gamers to experience something unique as they carved their own path through a dog-eat-dog, go anywhere, do anything galaxy and worked their way to the most iconic rank in gaming history – Elite. Those techniques were further expanded in Frontier a decade later, fitting an even bigger, richer world into 512k.

And of course, as everyone reading this newsletter knows, with Elite: Dangerous we are taking another huge step for today’s hardware. Detail and accuracy has taken another great leap, but, we have a confession to make: Alpha builds 1, 2 and 3 have all used a ‘skydome’ – a static, painted backdrop around a 64 bit play space roughly 1 light year across. Within that all the planets and stars are still modelled, but the galaxy beyond was not. Until now.

Alpha 4 genuinely contains over 400 billion star systems. And they are all moving correctly; spinning, orbiting each other in an incredible astronomical ballet. We are also modelling interstellar molecular clouds, and though some of the detail in these (particularly for nebulae) will come after Alpha 4, wherever you are, the ‘night sky’ is accurate. Beyond our galaxy, perhaps surprisingly we do still have a ‘skydome’ - but it is now a staggering 100,000 light years away, containing all the other galaxies, including the Magellanic Clouds. That’s one heck of a draw distance…

If you go to Earth (not available to travel to in Alpha 4 – but you can see Sol in the galactic map), you’ll see our familiar constellations. In fact over 130,000 objects in the night sky – including all stars visible to the naked eye – are modelled. We can even show those joined-up Solar-centric constellations when viewed from elsewhere – which become stretched and distorted due to parallax. Want to travel to Orion’s belt and see what good old Sol looks like from there? Do it. Or just sit and marvel at the local sunrise (yes all the planets are moving too) over the rings and moons of a gas giant you’ve just found.



To achieve this, we start out with the precise locations all the known stars, exo-planets, celestial bodies and phenomena. Beyond that, procedural techniques are used in conjunction with real, ‘hard’ physics to model the other hundreds of billions of star systems – the star’s location, type, temperature, chemical compositions, what planetary systems there are, etc.

Each individual aspect of the vast galaxy is also represented with unprecedented visual fidelity, making the most of the latest lighting and ‘physically based rendering’ (PBR) pixel-shader techniques along with procedural algorithms that leverage our talented artists’ efforts.

You can seamlessly go from being pressed up close against an asteroid, thermal systems ‘buttoned down’ as you stalk your prey, to super-cruising at super-luminal speeds through a system to travelling through hyperspace across light years of galaxy.

And then there is the networking traffic which communicates the location, velocity and status of your and other players’ ship, bullets, missiles, lasers, heat-sinks, shields, current thermal profile, cargo, and of course all the AIs etc.

The sheer, raw scale of the galaxy means that even being able to accurately represent the position and vast scale of planetary objects, asteroids, ships, missiles and so on is a huge challenge in itself, requiring the use of very high numeric precision. The 32 bit tools and technology of the previous generation of computers and engines is simply not up to the job.

Being able to compute everything we need to, from the motions of those 400 billion star systems worth of stars, planets, moons, rings and asteroid fields, to the lazy whorls in a gas giant’s atmosphere and the precise self-shadowing surface detail of that small asteroid you are currently hiding behind, is a similarly Herculean task. As is fully communicating all the necessary information between players.


See the full newsletter below.....

Elite Dangerous Newsletter 21

Official 'twitch tv' broadcasts have now started, ramping up the PR ahead of the games release. See the developers play the game and answer players questions below in the attached Youtube videos.....

alpharx7
Post #21

Alpha 4 has come out!!!! Yay!!!! and what better way to demonstrate the sheer awesomeness of Elite Dangerous than some in game footage I hear you say!!!!!

Footage courtesy of Zeewolf & Elite Dangerous.

The next build phase will be released on the 30th of May when Premium Beta backers will get access to the current build - they currently have an early Alpha 1.2 build to test the game in single player mode only. If you'd like to know anything then head over to the Frontier forums or ask me here and i'll see if I can answer your enquiry.

The stars are for explorers......



alpharx7
Post #22

Alpha 4 saw Travel & Trading introduced into the game, and whilst we've been able to hyperspace to destinations since the Alpha 3 build, a spinning cobra was used as a placeholder whilst the animation was perfected.

Here's a fan inspired edit of the (now) in-game Hyperspace animation. mamoru.gif

alpharx7
Post #23

Premium Beta is upon us. and with the games ongoing development, Frontier are ramping up the PR @ E3 game show over in the U.S.A

Here's a new trailer for the game, which has debuted at the show........

alpharx7
Post #24

Update for Elite Dangerous......

Premium Beta 2 has come out, and the date for the Beta1 release has been announced for those who have back the game

QUOTE
Beta 1 Date Announced

We are delighted to announced that development continues to go very well, and July 29th will be the date when we enter the standard Beta phase!

Over the next few weeks we will be outlining the fantastic new features and content that we will add to the Beta – it’s a huge release, so ‘watch this space’ for more information.

You can purchase access to the standard Beta phase. If you already have access to the full game, the correct discount will be automatically deducted when you check out.



QUOTE
Lifetime Expansion Pack - to be withdrawn from sale


Alpha and Premium Beta came with a whole lot more than early access to the game - the Lifetime Expansion pack that is included is a significant benefit of being an early backer of Elite: Dangerous.

We have regularly said that depending on the level of success of Elite: Dangerous we intend to continue expanding it with new content and new features.

We plan to follow that same incremental development philosophy that we’ve done throughout our Alpha and Beta phases, and continue to significantly enhance the game via further expansions post-launch.

We do intend to release small, free updates after launch, but expansions that include significant new features and content will be charged for separately. For example, our current roadmap is to add (in no particular order): •Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
•Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
•Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
•Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
•Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

Alpha and Premium Beta customers, and those who have already bought the £35 expansion pass alongside either Beta or the full game, will have access to all these features and updates for as long as we create them at no further cost.

This means that if we are as successful as we hope to be, you will still be benefiting from the fantastic early support you gave us for a long time to come.

As we are now fast approaching the standard Beta phase, the time is right to withdraw the Lifetime Expansion Pass from sale.

On 29th July the Lifetime Expansion Pack will no longer be available to buy in the store shop, to coincide with the start of full Beta.

So if you are planning to join the Beta or buy the final game and want to add the Lifetime Expansion Pack, you now have one month to get automatic access to all future major expansions of Elite: Dangerous for £35.

You can purchase the Lifetime Expansion Pack here.

Alternatively you can purchase or upgrade to Premium Beta and start playing Elite: Dangerous today, which includes the Lifetime Expansion Pack. Premium Beta will be available until 15th July, as we announced last week.

Each paid-for expansion will subsequently be put on sale separately (for people that don’t have the Lifetime Expansion Pack), before its release.



Here's an excellent video from Youtube where David Braham speaks about the path to the making of the game.

alpharx7
Post #25

Beta 2 starts September 30th

QUOTE
We are very close to the release of Beta 2 next Tuesday so this week we continue to highlight some of the features to come. We have also been at the Eurogamer Expo (EGX) in London’s Earls Court and are continuing to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Elite.

There is another special GalNet bulletin with some shocking news from 3300. Many of you will have been following the extra bulletins this week, and we explain some of the background behind the events and how it is helping us with our plans for the evolving galaxy.

The Elite: Dangerous Mercenary Edition, a bonus pre-order game collection loaded with digital extras is now available to buy. The pack is listed on our store for new customers at a discounted price of £35.00 ($50 and €40) and anyone who has already pre-ordered the final release version of Elite: Dangerous (including those with Beta access and higher) will also receive the bonus pre-order collection when the game is released.


Here's a sneak peak of some in game footage that will be in the next update.

alpharx7
Post #26

Beta 2 is now out, here's a new youtube clip of the designers speaking about their favourite ships.

The Elite: Dangerous development team pick their favourite ships from Elite: Dangerous, and discuss the design and construction of interstellar craft in the year 3300.

alpharx7
Post #27

Beta 3. has come out today, here's a short spiel on what to expect from this release as we head towards the games retail release at the end of the year.

QUOTE
Beta 3.0 introduces a host of new features including: Multiple ship ownership, and the introduction of two new ships, the Imperial Clipper and the Federal Dropship. Player driven interdiction where players can interdict NPC ships out of supercruise and new Philanthropy missions have been added. Fuel scooping and asteroid mining have been added and outposts landing pads now reflect a low gravity environment.

The play area has been expanded to over 2,400 systems with an improved galaxy map. Planet visuals have been overhauled, ice planets have fracture features and all planets have dynamic ice caps and liquid levels. Plus many other improvements and optimisations.


alpharx7
Post #28

The making of Elite Dangerous

alpharx7
Post #29

Elite Dangerous have announced that the game will be released on December 16th. There's still a limited amount of time for people to back the game and play it pre release, however time is running out. A live streaming event is also being held this weekend on Twitch

QUOTE
Elite: Dangerous Development


From David Braben:

The team here have been doing an excellent job developing what is almost certainly the largest game ever created, with a framework of frequent publically released builds executed to such a high quality. It has been an amazing achievement. Their enthusiasm, professionalism and grace under pressure with which they have carried it out is to their eternal credit. I know for a fact they are spurred on in their efforts by the great reaction and enthusiasm you have shown for their work - as am I.

In addition to creating features and content, there has always been an amount of unseen, unglamorous but vital ‘work under the hood’ that has necessarily gone on as we optimize, refactor, fix and tweak to increase frame-rate, stability and general quality of experience. There is an even greater temporary emphasis on such tasks at the moment, to get the game ‘shippable’ with countless fixes, polish and tweaking and fewer features (although of course we still have some surprises left up our sleeves for you leading up to the 16th December!).

Also, as those of you have followed us from the start know, we have some grand plans for the future.

After the 16th December we will continue to update with more polish and content such as the playable ships we committed to in our Kickstarter campaign – in fact I’m delighted to be able to tell you that we are now planning to eventually have 30 playable ships in Elite: Dangerous, 5 more than we committed to in Kickstarter. And most exciting of all, we will start the work on a longer term roadmap that includes getting you up out of your pilot’s seats and out of your starships.

These additional features will come post-launch, as we have always planned. That is solely because we want to make sure it is done correctly and to a quality we are proud of and that matches the other aspects of what we plan to be an incredible experience that we will deliver on 16th December.

We will continue to fully and openly engage with you.

Continuing to grow the game past the launch date as we plan would just not be possible at all with the constraints of physical disc manufacture and distribution, and is made possible only by the online nature of Elite: Dangerous.

When we set out on this journey, our ambition was to make Elite: Dangerous as large a technical step forward today as Elite and Frontier were in their time. The way the game embraces and pushes forward the online aspects of technology has been a particularly exciting aspect of that for me.

The basic fact of being able to interact online with our community during development has been tremendous. Just as in a film, based on feedback some of the things we originally thought would work have been left ‘on the cutting room floor’. We have also added unplanned features which I think are fundamentally key to the experience, and have made the game all the better. For example shifting design emphasis towards fantastic major new features such as supercruise, outposts and multiple ship ownership, to name just a few.


We have also been able to create a connected experience which lets you play your own story whilst in a dynamic, ever unfolding galaxy that is constantly reacting to what you and every other player is doing, be that trading, combat, exploration or missions. This has become fundamental to the whole experience.

Going forwards, being online lets us constantly both curate and evolve the galaxy, with stories unfolding according to the actions of commanders. Exploration is also a key factor, too, and it is important that what a single player explores matches what other players explore whether single or multiplayer – a complex, coherent world – something we have achieved. Galaxy, story, missions, have to match, and it does mean the single player has to connect to the server from time to time, but this has the added advantage that everyone can participate in the activities that can happen in the galaxy. A fully offline experience would be unacceptably limited and static compared to the dynamic, ever unfolding experience we are delivering.

If you were able to offer me on the 3rd January 2013 what we will deliver on the 16th December 2014, I would have grabbed it with both hands. It is fantastic what the team have done, and are still doing – a phenomenal job.

I’m really looking forward to meeting those of you who are able to come to the Premiere event on 22nd November to help celebrate that achievement, and thanking you for helping to make this possible.

And more importantly, I’m looking forward to seeing you and many, many more out in space on the 16th December and for a long time afterwards.

Right on, Commanders.


Here's some more in game footage of a new ship that's just become available.

alpharx7
Post #30

here's the link for the official Elite Dangerous twitch channel to watch the streaming event 8pm GMT 22/11/2014. I believe that will make it somewhere around 4-5am tomorrow for us here (but don't quote me on that tongue.gif)

http://www.twitch.tv/elitedangerous/profile

alpharx7
Post #31

Here's the launch video link, clip starts around the 4 minute mark, seems to be very professionally done.

http://www.twitch.tv/elitedangerous/b/591647650

alpharx7
Post #32

Elite Dangerous is now live, well it has been for a while as anyone would know who follows the game (i haven't updated the thread for a while sry).

in addition to the usual assortment of tweaks and bug fixes, update 1.1 has just been released.

QUOTE
Elite: Dangerous 1.1 is out now. New features in 1.1 include city lights on the dark side of planets, community goals, an updated trade route planner, and more. Visit www.elitedangerous.com for more information.


alpharx7
Post #33

Elite: Dangerous is the latest in the seminal space simulator series and is by far the most ambitious yet. thumbsup.gif

pretty fair review, it's easy to see who's more excited regarding the game, but Hex's feedback is valid. Expect the game to evolve as time goes by - Frontier Developments have already ramped up the number of staff working on the game since release so as to be able to bring quicker releases of content - in addition to various promised updates / ground landing on planets etc.

alpharx7
Post #34

new trailer for Elite Dangerous, coming out on the Mac in the next few months, and the Xbox One somewhere around the end of the year i believe.

Elite: Dangerous Official GDC Trailer for PC, Mac and Xbox One

alpharx7
Post #35

Elite: Dangerous Xbox Exclusive & Kojima Done with Metal Gear? - GS Daily News

QUOTE
Rock Band 4 is coming, Kojima says he’s done with Metal Gear Solid, and Elite: Dangerous will be Xbox One exclusive, but not forever.


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