Elite: Dangerous Part 4
In which Commander Bulk Paint spends a
lot of time tinkering with controls and throws down a lot of text.
A Measure Of Control
I elected to not bring my gamepad into
work. For starters, Bulk Paint: Entrepreneur isn't going to be
getting into scrapes any time soon and any time on the work machine
is just going to be spent lugging cargo around.
Actually, quite a bit of time is spent
getting the keyboard and mouse setup just so. By default, the mouse
simulates the joystick, controlling pitch and roll and the keyboard
does, well, everything else. The initial keyboard uses WASD for
throttle and lateral thrust, QE for yaw and RF for vertical thrust.
It didn't take long for that to feel uncomfortable.
Starting with the thrusters, I felt
that the yaw layout was wrong – especially for landing. Swapping
yaw and lateral thrust seemed to fix that – made things a bit more
FPS-y.
Now for the mouse. By default it felt a
bit twitchy. I decided to try something a little more akin to
Freelancer – mouse controls pitch and yaw. Moved yaw, again,
putting lateral thrust back on AD and roll on QE. Again, it feels a
bit more FPS-y and, even though I haven't played one of these on
mouse and keyboard for a long time, it's like an old, comfortable
pair of slippers.
That seems to work quite well – with
a couple of caveats.
Firstly, the lack of centering. If you
move a joystick, it will naturally attempt to return to the middle
position. Only prolonged pressure will keep it in the position you
require. When you move the mouse, it stays moved. It does not come
back to the middle. FPS use the deltaXY – how far the mouse has
moved that turn - to determine pitch and yaw. Elite Dangerous
uses mouseXY – the actual mouse position. What this means in real
terms is that to make a prolonged turn, an FPS will have you
constantly moving and reseting the mouse to keep the deltaXY going
whereas Elite Dangerous only needs you to move it once and
it'll keep going for you. Sounds good on the surface – for
starters, FPS games very rarely need you to continue rotating in a
single direction for an extended period of time* so having it stop
when you stop moving the mouse is cool. That sort of input just won't
fly here though. Funnily enough, it's not the fact that no input will
stop the ship from moving, as you often need prolonged yaw and pitch
as you're flying around. Instead the problem arises when you have to
stop tumbling. Instead of just letting go of the joystick, you have
to manually find the neutral position. Once again, the lack of
haptics** bites you in the arse.
Also, I can't seem to decide whether or
not I want the mouse Y inverted or not. Normally, I'm all “Inverted
mouse is king!” - push forward to nose down, just like a joystick.
That changes when I have a mouse cursor on the screen, in which case
pushing forward should make the cursor move up. Elite Dangerous
has a mouse cursor, so I should not invert the Y... except it only
occupies the centre of the screen and even fades out when you're not
really moving it. This means that I find myself constantly flicking
between thinking I need inverted Y and I don't depending on whether
or not I can see the cursor. Writing this on the train, I can't
honestly tell you how I left it.
I understand how this makes it seem
like I'm ragging on the control scheme but, to its eternal credit,
the game does a bang-up job of presenting you with all of the options
you need to make it work. You can tell it to centre the mouse over
time, giving you that an analogue for the deltaXY controls of an FPS
– but then you run into the can't-constantly-turn problem. You
could dial the sensitivity right down and introduce a large deadzone,
making it easier to locate the neutral spot and reducing the twitch
factor – but you're still going to have a small issue of knowing
what mouse position results in the steering input you'd like as all
mouse positions feel the same. It's all stuff you could get used to,
if you want.
But I want a joystick.
Home Is Where The Joypad Is
 |
| This is where your lateral controls are really needed |
I think I might have a solution for my
yaw-based shenanigans though. Pitch and roll only on left stick –
like a normal joystick. Then vertical thrust and yaw on the right.
Throttle is on RB and LB and, in flight, there is no lateral thrust.
I don't think I'll need it. This system works out very well in open
space.
Of course, I could have gone full FPS –
put pitch and yaw on the right stick – maybe putting vertical
thrust and roll on the left, but this will do for now.
Except for docking.
I miss my lateral control when docking.
Okay, maybe not the docking part, but certainly the final landing
bit, which seems to be where I do the most damage.
Thankfully, ol' Elite Dangerous
has thought of this. There's a section in the control options that
allow you to override things whilst in Landing Mode – ie: you have
deployed your landing gear. This means that I can swap lateral thrust
back in for yaw on the right stick and re-enable the roll into yaw at
low input on the left. As I will only ever be in this mode inside a
station or on final approach to an outpost, the fact that I have to
modulate my left stick to introduce yaw at the expense of roll is
okay.
It
works like a charm and soon I'm zinging in and out of stations like
it was second nature. Perhaps it's time to put it to the test and
embark on a mission or two?
A Deal's A Deal
Let's
stick with the cargo stuff for the time being. Some guy wants me to
take 4 units of scrap somewhere. Simple enough. The stuff gets loaded
and I make use of my new-found control comfort to blast out of the
station at speed, even hitting the boost as I'm in the mail slot. I
can only imagine outside observers marvelling at the aesthetic of
this ship as it describes a glorious arc towards jump alignment
straight out of the gate.
The
mission is a doddle. Stuff delivered. Money paid. Let's grab another.
Slightly
different deal.. This guy wants Fruit and Veg. I'm to go and find
some and bring it back. I look on the Commodities page to see where
this station normally imports from – Eravate. That's only a jump
away. A cinch. I sign up and hit the Black once more.
Eravate
doesn't have any Fruit and Veg for sale. At all. I check a couple of
stations***. Nothing. Hmm. I hit up the galaxy map. What I'm looking
for is an Agricultural system. Find one, but it's several jumps away.
Never mind – multi-jump routes in this are nowhere near as tedious
as Eve Online. I top up the fuel tanks and away I go.
Three
or four jumps later and I begin to worry. My fuel is running low and
I haven't jumped through a system with a station in for a while. I
elect to stop at the next services.
But
the next services aren't in the next system. Or the one after that. I
have precisely one jump's worth of fuel remaining.
I drop
into the next system and immediately hit up the navigation. Yes! A
station! My tanks are merely fume containment devices. I cruise
towards the station for a splash and dash...
And
I'm being interdicted.
Really?
Now? You do this to me now?
Cheeky
little AI pilot even has the gall to DM me in supercruise. Even
though I'm pounding the escape vector like there's no tomorrow, he's
got me. We drop into real space. Fangs out! It's only a Sidewinder –
which would explain how he was able to keep up with my moves - and
with these new controls he doesn't stand a chance.
Actually,
with these new controls and those gimballed Multicannons I fitted
earlier, he doesn't stand a chance. In fact, I tear down his shields
and am ripping through his hull when he decides to bug out. He boosts
away, spinning up his FSD. When he jumps, he's down to 4% hull. So
close!
 |
| So glad docking remains tricky |
I
check the bulletin board. See if there's anything on offer that I can
do on the way to the agricultural system. As luck would have it,
someone wants some Scrap taken to a system right next to the one I'm
going to. Why not? Doesn't make sense to be flying around with an
empty cargo hold. Load it up mate – I'll drop it off on the way.
A
couple of jumps out and I'm lining myself up when I spot a Signal
Source. Maybe I'm still flushed with confidence after that last
encounter or maybe it's the feeling that I didn't quite finish the
job, but I decide to check it out and maybe go looking for trouble.
There's
a guy here who wants to make a counter offer. Don't deliver the Scrap
to where it's supposed to go. He'll pay good money if I take it to a
station in this system instead. Hmm. Is Commander Bulk Paint the kind
of guy who would go back on a deal?
Actually,
after what happened the last time I stuck to my (literal) guns, yes.
In the name of science, I decide to see what happens if I follow this
arc instead. I find the station and hand over the goods. Job done.
Money in the bank. Some bars move around to indicate the shifting
political balance of power in this region. I have played a part in
something. What, I'm not entirely sure, but I've done it.
Now,
back to the task at hand – the search for Fruit and Veg. Nothing in
this system, so I need to keep on moving.
Straight To The Source
I jump
again and again I'm presented with an interesting Signal Source. Why
not? That last one was pretty lucrative.
Sure
enough, this one is similar. Some guy says it would be better if I
didn't deliver that Fruit and Veg. Instead, why don't I just go back
to Eravate and speak to his people. You know what? I haven't actually
found any Fruit and /
or Veg, so this does appeal to me...
I
accept his offer. He laughs and departs. Not sinister at all.
I
begin the journey back to Eravate. There's part of me that feels bad
for going back on not one but two deals, but I feel I'll be able to
turn it all around later in the game when I've got something other
than this entirely disposable ship. Suddenly, everything lights up –
I'm being interdicted again. I do a better job of evasion this time
but still to no avail. I find myself dropped back into real space and
staring at a Cobra MKIII intent on doing me harm. I boost to close
the distance before he can get his hardpoints deployed and brought to
bear whilst cracking open my own. After that, it's a simple matter to
stay out of his firing solution whilst the multicannons do their
work. It takes several full clips to down his shields. His chatter is
filled with bravado, but it already feels futile. More bursts pepper
his hull but the damage isn't enough to seal the deal. His shields
come back on and he manages to get himself lined up for a burst. My
shields hold – just. Wait: were those missiles? Not sure I should
let them hit.
It
continues like this for a while. A dance. A ballet. One protagonist,
flitting and nimble. Unpredictable. Chaotic. Lancing and probing with
stabbing arcs of tracer fire. The other, burly, stoic and with one
hell of a right hook****.
Something
has to give. Luckily for me, it's his hull. The Cobra erupts in flame
and debris. My bank account erupts with a 20k bounty. 20K! That's
more money than I've ever had in this game.
I make
it back to Erevate with no further troubles and still buzzing from
that encounter. It finally feels like I've made it. This is what
Elite is all about. I get a report detailing the political
ramifications of my actions – one faction's influence has increased
at the expense of another. The factions themselves mean little to me
– right now, but I'm sure that's something that will improve over
time as I have a better idea of where my allegiance lies.
It's All In My Head
Something
is bugging me though. Where those interdictions random acts of
attempted piracy or a direct response to something I had done?
There's part of me that thinks the underlying system is just reacting
to me reneging on my contracts by sending out disgruntled allies to
teach me a lesson. It may just be random chance, of course, but the
narrative in my head has me being chased down by my former patron for
stabbing him in the back which is far more satisfying. Post hoc ergo
propter hoc*****, maybe, but more satisfying nevertheless.
It's
like the difference between reading a book and watching a film. In a
film, it's presented to you as-is. In a book, your mind fills in the
blanks and, if you're lucky, will do a far better job than any film
can.
* Apart from Magic Carpet.
** Physical feedback – the 'neutral'
part of the desk feels just the same as everywhere else on the desk.
*** I have yet to work out whether or
not commodity availability is on a per station or per system basis.
**** Pretty proud of that paragraph. I
should write it down somewhere for the future...
Comments
Post a Comment