So I have been sitting on an install of E:D through all 2016. Something keeps me from playing it, especially since I have a Rift and a neglected hotas only getting occasional use from House of the Dying sun. The same thing keeping me from even opening it up E:D to try it out is the same thing that made me excited yet apprehensive to ever get past the logon screen on EVE:Online. The scope of it sounds overwhelming, and I also don't have all the time in the world to spend on expansive games. Oddly, I have spent a couple hundred hours on No Man's Sky, probably because it's a fairly risk-free and objective-free game that lets me wander around saying "oh pretty" while listening to music or podcasts.

Before people scream at me to just open up the damn thing and play it, I would just like to know what people get out of the game, or at least people's first experiences getting into the game.

You should play it if you want to play it. It's also fine to not play it.

Euro Truck Simulator 2 or American Truck Simulator would probably be better if you just want to chill and listen to music/podcasts. Elite does have a learning curve. You basically do jobs for money and buy more expensive trucks. It's quite simple. Elite requires a commitment to its controls and systems. That being said, once you do get used to it, you could have a good podcast game. It just takes awhile.

Elite: Dangerous is the game I really want to play in VR, so I would highly recommend trying it out just to see how it feels. It took me a few hours of flying around and goofing off in a starting Sidewinder before getting the hang of what I was supposed to be doing.

It's an enjoyable zen experience for me. I like relaxing and hearing the hum of the engines on the different ships and just enjoying space for its emptiness. Brief moments of fear and and anxiety dropping out into a creepy brown dwarf or a black hole seem to enhance the experience for me. I get super immersed in what I'm doing, even while I'm listening to Jeff and the gang talk shit about nothing.

The learning curve is too steep for my tastes. I'm more of a Freelancer guy when it comes to space trading and whatnot.

No really, if you've paid for it and have it installed then just launch the game. It will take seconds. You have nothing to lose. You can quit after 2 minutes if you don't like what you see.

I made the jump into ED about two weeks ago, and like you I picked up ED about a year or so back on a steam sale and never got around to playing it. I too have tried EVE Online and was overwhelmed by the expansiveness and the daunting learning curve of that game, needless to say it tainted my view about Elite. However much to my surprise Elite is a lot easier to pick up and it literally keeps you in the drivers seat for this game. No spreadsheet management, no queuing of commands its mostly an in your face interface (literally if you've got a VR headset from what I've seen).

I would strongly suggest trying out the training missions the game has to offer, it not only eases you into the mechanics but also lets you try out combat and some other fun things that quickly become the norm for actual play. However I would strongly suggest playing with a controller or picking up a HOTAS for this game, when I first tried to play with a mouse and keyboard I felt I had no true control over my ship and using the mouse to control the roll and pitch felt awful. Now I decided to go all in and picked up a Saitek X-52 Pro HOTAS, and it has made the game so much better to interact with. Not only did I NOT have to spend an hour configuring the controls (elite has an actual control scheme profile set up to work with the X-52 HOTAS so it's literally plug-n-look-up-what-each-button-does-then-play) but you actually feel like you've got complete control of your ship and that you're really in the driver seat of your space brick. But again, a HOTAS is a bit pricy so maybe try with a standard controller first.

Now I haven't gotten very far into game yet, I've mostly been Space Truckin' for the majority of my activity in game, but its a decent amount of fun just doing courier missions for folks (I've mainly been hauling liquor and wine around the cosmos strangely enough). If you're worried about combat and or losing your ship I wouldn't be to stressed about it. I've only ran into one combat incident and that was with my very first courier mission into the actual game (got a cool 20k bounty along with a bonus of 20k to my mission for dealing with the thief from the client I was haulin' for). Since then I haven't been in any combat, and I unwittingly went mining in a resource extraction zone (they are hotbeds for pirates and thieves, great place to farm for bounties if you want to go that route for earning your creds).

Elite has a lot to offer that isn't very upfront with you about it. I kind of like that since most games nowadays tend to beat you over the head with the assortment of things they have or drag you through it via an in game tutorial. The extra excitement of figuring things out for yourself plus the added buzz that's going around the community about aliens right now really adds to the mystery of this game that I kind of want to spend more time exploring.

Elite is more than a space trucker. Space trading is a large portion of the credit gaining mechanic.

However, there is also space combat, piracy (if you like to RP, cuz the earnings are poor in comparison), exploration (my favourite) and just generally pissing about in the ship of your choice.

There are fewer funny moments than taking a stock sidewinder (smallest manned ship in the game) and meeting up with a pile of players (Commanders/Cmdrs) and demolision derbying till one remains, or dashing in and out of a station with several other Cmdrs.

The game that the missions and rankings encourage you to play is fun and challenging at times, you must have patience and understand that it is very difficult to rush this game. It can be done, but you will more than likely burn out on the game (most of us have at times, i speak from experience), it will probably draw you back if you enjoyed it though.

Elite really comes alive if you embrace the community and the events that occur within it. Check out the Elite Dangerous sub Reddit or the Frontier (developer) forums for more info.

If you do decide to join the space faring Cmdrs, join the GB unOfficial Classic Wing over at http://inara.cz/wing/1738 and join the GB Elite: Dangerous Discord channel here.

Hope we see you in space prospective Cmdr.

Cmdr Embryo

@yellownumber5: There's really not much to E:D, at least, in terms of galactic simulation. The game systems just aren't that complex in actuality. Even the ship outfitting is a lot more basic than it looks (discounting the Engineers update stuff). Just dive in, go with a default control scheme and run the tutorials. That should give you a decent idea if you're going to like the flight model and basic game loop. The game's features have been expanded in discrete patches, so you can safely ignore the additional content until you're ready to tackle it.

The only thing we used to tell prospective CMDRs on the subreddit was to learn the game and your preferred control scheme out of VR. Then add the VR complexity on top of that. If you watch Drew's latest E:D stream you notice him struggling with the controls constantly; printing out a reference sheet and not trying to play effectively blindfolded really helps with that.

@freedom4556: Thanks for the tips on VR. Watching some of Drew's stream is what made me think about it again, but I was worried about handling controls while wearing a headset. I do like the idea you can just look at your interface in VR. It was the first thing I bought on the Oculus store, so I'm not sure I can not play it in VR.

@emumford: I do have an old basic Logitec hotas that works, it moves smooth, has some buttons and a throttle I modified to be on the stick, but not nearly the buttons you get on something like the X-52, and it doesn't have a separate throttle. For House of the Dying Sun, I set up the controls to play with the hotas in my right hand, and used the left side and thumbstick of a standard controller in the left hand. I'm hoping I have enough buttons with all that for E:D. I'm playing in VR, so I don't have the option to use a keyboard.

Thanks for everyone for the advice and stories. I'll dip my toe in when I get some time this week.

You should be able to get the non-VR version of Elite Dangerous for free if you have the Oculus version. I think this is the site to do it. You can always submit Frontier's support a ticket. They're great guys who will get you straightened out.

I've been playing elite consistently for over a year. I play to get lost in the game. If you give yourself over to it and take time to learn the different disciplines, combat, trade, smuggling etc. You can really experience some great things. Truly allow yourself to get lost in that universe and definitely play with a controller

People should play Elite: Dangerous if they enjoy outfitting and piloting spaceships. The depth of the simulation in this regard is in a league of its own right now. If you want a game that will use up every button on your hotas this is it. The gorgeous graphics and stunning sound doesn't hurt either.

People should not play Elite: Dangerous if they want to follow a narrative. There can be several narratives going on at any one time, such as the introduction and investigation of the Thargoid aliens or the expansion of human space at Colonia, but we're not talking The Witcher 3 levels of narrative here. It's more like reading a newspaper article or reading about other players' experiences on the forums.

People should not play Elite: Dangerous if they want to be given objectives to complete. The only objective the game gives you, and the only real sense of progression in the game, is to earn credits so you can afford bigger ships so you can earn credits faster so you can afford even bigger ships. Anything beyond that is going to have to come from your own imagination.