After Sunday's Anaconda crash, I didn't have any chance to play, having been away on business - ironically I drove through Cambridge, probably only a few miles from Frontier on Monday and Wednesday. Didn’t see their offices on the route I took though!
My funds were just under 11 million, having been depleted by 6M after crashing the Anaconda, so the objective was to revitalise the bank account.
Last night was my first day back in the game since Sunday and first play with my new GTX 970 graphics card. I got the Oculus wired into the new card and ran up Elite with the graphics options on Ultra and the resolution set to 2560x1440 down-sampled. I cannot describe how sharp it looked and how fast it ran! The best I can say, is it’s like the super-realistic video you see shot with 48fps. Anyway, enough about how shiny my rig looks; back to the game!
I took out my Anaconda and started doing a Palladium run from Gliese 868 to LHS 3802 which netted around 1M CR per return trip. On my first leg, CMDR SneakTiger logged on and came on dMw’s teamspeak, so I suggest he join me as he was trading. We joined a Wing in Gliese and started doing the run together. At the end of each leg, as soon as both of us were in the station vicinity, I could sell my cargo and Sneaky got a dividend of 20K and I got a dividend of 6K (his 100T Type 6 doesn’t carry as much as my 420T Anaconda). The dividend payments are a bonus, like an extra few tons of cargo every trip. We did three runs, then Sneaky had log off, so I flew back to Zeta Trianguli Australis to pick up my Fer-de-lance. By this point I was up to 14M CR.
I went over to Lugh and found when docked at Ballandin Gateway, that the Trade Community Goal had completed while I was away, so I cashed it in collected 2M CR. Now I had 16M CR. Kerrching!
Also, while I was out of commission, the Spear of Lugh had continued without me and I had dropped out of the top 40% into the top 70%. That wouldn’t do at all! I launched my FDL out to the high intensity combat zone and started picking fights with Anacondas and Pythons. After around twenty minutes in “the zone” I had racked up 200K CR combat bounty, so I returned to Ballandin to reload and cash in.
Three days of missed TV was calling, so I logged off and called it a night. After the evening’s trading and combat I was 5.3M CR up on the night.
I see this morning that the Spear of Lugh mission is now over, so when I log on tonight, (if I’m still in the top 40%) I might be 12.5M CR better off, so despite my setback of last weekend, I’m still quids in.
That A rated thruster for my Python will cost 14M CR at Jameson Memorial, so the money won’t sit in the bank for long…
Had some fun with Wings tonight. And when I say "fun", I mean I got my behind kicked.
I was hailed by one of the commanders on my friends list, Ed, who asked “want to meet up to try out the Wings features?” (I had to think very carefully how I phrased that..) and I thought, well why not?
He had already added two others to the group, so the four of us made our way to the point roughly in the middle of where we all started in the galaxy, which turned out to be “Zeta Trianguli Australis” or “zeta T” as we call it.
There just was just Ed and myself initially as one of the group had 160+ Lyr to travel and the other commander was in station outfitting. I had switched to my Anaconda and we started shooting Wanted ships at the Nav Beacon as we found them. All went well for five minutes then an Anaconda turned up Wanted. We started shooting him and I had his shields down and Ed was risking life and ship for some close combat, when I realised my shields were dropping fast. There was a second Anaconda on my tail! Eeek! Shields were down and I had no choice but to flee. The AI has been beefed up and while my Anaconda is armed, it was set for defence rather that major offence, so I only had Class 5 shields and no major guns or shield cells. The good thing about an Anaconda, is it can jump away from trouble fast. So a quick trip to Guest City for repairs. Now anyone who has had a big ship in Elite (Clipper, Python, Anaconda) knows that a scratch in the paint costs 100s of thousands of credits and having your hull reduced to 63% is really going to cost. Millions. So when I fired up station services in Guest City and my repair bill was 38,000CR I was laughing. I’d already made that in bounty! That’s one “nerf” I defy anyone to complain about!
Anyway, Ed and Co. (Aleksej and Reighdar had come to Ed’s rescue while I fled) were still at the Nav Beacon having finished off the Anaconda and were making debris of all the Zeta system’s Wanted ships.
I decided to “suit up” properly, so switched into my Fer-de-Lance and re-joined them at the Nav Beacon. Obviously word of the Wing’s killing efficiency had spread, because the Wanted ships dried up. We then decided to go looking for trouble and try and find a Strong Signal Source.
Nav-locked to my FSD, the Wing jumped into super-cruise and travelled back towards Guest City, when a Strong Signal Source appeared on Contacts. We dropped out and found… cargo! Gold canisters floating, alone in space. My gut reaction was “this is too easy, it’s a trap!” and I said so. I started filming at that point (see video below – NSFW some swearing) and I wasn’t wrong. About a Wing of seven Vultures jumped in together and mobbed us. Aleksej hadn’t arrived at this point. Ed was under fire, I was shooting a target, but under fire from all directions. Within seconds, poor Reighdar was toast! Blow to space-dust! Aaaaah! My target's shields were still on one ring, but mine were nearly down. Time to run away! Thankfully the FDL is damn fast, so I beat a hasty retreat, as did Ed in his Cobra.
So if you go into a Strong Signal Source, consider taking more than one Wing. Seven Vultures are a handful.
I’m hoping to try out “trade dividends” later this week to see what kind of money a merchant’s escort can make by acting as a caravan guard.
The new Wings update (1.2) was released yesterday and apart from a raft of bug fixes, a load of new features including new internal upgrades and two new ships, what has Frontier ever done for us?
- You can make a wing with anyone in the same system as you, or with friends anywhere in the galaxy.
- You can join or leave a wing at any time.
- You can communicate using voice chat or text chat with Wing-mates.
- You can see Wing-mates shields, hull, interdiction status and targets.
- Wing-mates show on the galaxy map.
- If activated in the functions panel, your ship's beacon will emit a "Wing Signal" for Wing-mates to find in super-cruise on their contacts TAB.
- You can "nav lock" to Wing-mates so you all enter and exit super-cruise (even if interdicted) together and jump to hyperspace together. The group is limited to the jump range of the smallest ship.
- When nav-locked, if you are out of range of your Wing-mates jump location, your ship will jump when you come into range of their FSD wake.
- If in combat, all bounty and combat bonds are shared equally with those Wing-mates who caused damage to a target.
- If exploring as a wing, all wing members can sell their collective data. Newly discovered systems will be tagged with all the members of the wing.
- If a single wing member is on a "kill 5 pirates" mission, if that player scores a hit on a pirate that a wing member kills, the kill will still count towards the mission objective.
- You cannot commit crimes against wingmen, and no authorities will intervene as long as your actions do not affect other ships or structures.
- When a wingman makes a profitable trade, all other wingmen will receive a trade dividend claim, a small, profit-based credit payment awarded by star ports.
See Frontier's tutorial video here.
If you've got access, get downloading! Debug camera, Wings, Sounds, Ships it's all there!
The Beta of the much awaited "Wings" update has been released. So what's it like?
Well, there's two new ships and I will cover those in detail, but we have two additional short-range fighter craft with some impressive combat capability.
The full release notes are available on the Frontier forums here.
Sounds. The audio has been buffed again with new effects for FSD offline/online and disengage super-cruise. Little things everywhere.
The debug camera. You can now grab screenshots from outside your ship. The camera is sluggish and when engaged (with CTRL-ALT-SPACE) you have no control over your ship. This means pretty pictures, but no third-person play. The perfect compromise.
Hi Folks,
Dead Men Walking is a long-established multi-gaming community with an excellent reputation for fair play, mature attitude and teamwork. Our continuing mission is to provide a home for gamers who recognise that achieving success as a team is far more rewarding than racking up individual scores.
Still reading? Excellent! First jump point successfully negotiated.
Our Alliance within Elite: Dangerous is looking for new pilots to help us grow and to further reinforce our reputation gained in the other games we have supported over the years. We currently have around 30 commanders and hope to grow with the addition of like-minded gamers.
Your skill as a pilot is unimportant to us, your willingness to put your team before yourself is what matters. Whilst the less honourable professions in the Galaxy are not encouraged, we do understand that it's all about about having fun and occasionally a Commander does enjoy a good fight. Just be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions!
DMW will have divisions within the Alliance for many types of gamer (our focus will be on the coop elements of the game, but not to the exclusion of other play styles), for example:
Security - escort duty, contract (legal) work, intelligence, asset defence etc
Economic Resources - fuel, mining, trading
Transport - hauling or escorting, fine-tuning jump routes, moving cargo etc
Exploration - encompassing exploration, SAR, salvaging, system/asset discovery
Basically whatever the good people in Frontier may offer up to the hard working pilot of the 31st Century!
Exploration will be a key activity for us, it will lead us to new systems and ultimately will feed the activity of the other divisions. Membership of a division will not be mandatory and will not have 'minimum playing hours or commitments', it's about you opting to join in with your buddies doing something that's fun, when your schedule allows.
Since 1996 DMW members have played a variety of different games together in this way. We make extensive use of TeamSpeak and, where it is possible, we also provide our own gaming servers. We also organise regular social events such as LAN parties. Whilst our largest contingent is based in the UK, we have members from across the whole of Europe and beyond.
We value friendship, fun and teamwork in an atmosphere of mature mutual respect. As such our members are typically 18+ yrs, so if you are significantly younger then you are welcome but please be aware that you'll need to fit in with our mature membership. If you get on well with our existing members then you'll have found a great social home for your gaming experience.
We have absolutely no desire to be a major force within galaxy so if you're looking for an Alliance full of pilots who share a badge but have no idea who each other are than I'm sure you'll have no problem locating one, but it won't be us!
Our active forum is a great place to learn more about us and, specifically, what we aim to achieve within our games.
If you like what you see and you think you'd like to be part of this great little community or if you'd like a bit more information then please post a 'Hi' in our forum or reply here.
Our website: http://www.deadmen.co.uk
Our forum: http://www.deadmen.co.uk/forum/forum.php
See you around. Have fun, wherever you are in the Galaxy!
Commander Albert