If it’s excitement you want, use your Sidewinder’s pulse lasers to hunt pirates and collect bounties. Dogfighting in Elite is a thrill, like being in a Star Wars battle. While it has the same ‘jousting in space’ feel as other sims, there’s a rich sense of physicality to the combat. When you fire your miniguns, you hear the rattle of the bullets as they shred your opponent’s hull. Sparks spit from your cockpit as you take damage, and the slight delay before a defeated foe explodes is hugely satisfying.
Your starting ship can only be fitted with a couple of puny lasers, but upgrade to a larger vessel and you can cover it in heat-seeking missile launchers, searing laser beams, and rapid-fire miniguns. This is when you can start hunting bigger game, like fearsome pirate lords, which will earn you large bounties. But getting there will take some time, as the really cool ships cost millions of credits. Not to mention the upkeep: repairs, insurance, munitions, fuel. Above all, it’s money that keeps Elite’s galaxy spinning.
So it’s a good thing there are plenty of ways to make it, many of which don’t involve firing a single shot. Trading is a huge part of the game, and buying and selling goods between stations is an easy, but slow, way to generate income. You can buy special hauler ships that trade combat prowess for big, fat cargo holds. You can either take on courier jobs, like a galactic UPS, or play the market yourself, taking advantage of supply and demand in different systems to buy low, sell high, and earn big.
Choose this career and you’ll spend a lot of time in transit, where the only interactivity is adjusting your acceleration so you don’t overshoot your destination. It’s like driving down a straight space freeway. There should be something more meaningful to do during these long, uneventful journeys. The distances between stars and planets are realistic, sure, but this doesn’t exactly translate into a fun experience.
Then, when you get there, you have to slowly approach the station, request docking access, lower your landing gear, guide yourself through the narrow, spinning entrance slot, and hit the landing pad – all in real-time. This is a glacial, slow-paced game that you’ll need to sink a good few hours into every evening to get the most out of.
It can feel like a grind sometimes, especially at the beginning when you’re doing short-range deliveries for 2k a pop, but upgrade your ship and things get increasingly more varied and exciting. In a better ship you’re able to take on more dangerous combat missions and carry more goods to trade. It’s a slow road, but when you finally swap your Sidewinder for something better, the game gets steadily more enjoyable.
Supply Gamesradar
Elite: Dangerous review - App Review 4u
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