Oolite Bulletins

This is interesting. Looks like FD are putting a lot of effort into creating different feels for the different factions in the game.

Ooh, that's really interesting - civilisation developing along a pattern.

I'm not sure whether to be sarcastic or not. I can see the benefit, in that each culture will have a defined "feel" to its worlds, but at the same time I'm not sure that a free-minded species can be as contrained as that, and cities don't develop in natural geometric shapes. They may start off as regular shapes (Milton Keynes, Glenrothes and the other "New Towns" for example), but when the settlement starts to spread then it just grabs whatever land is available.

Looks good though.

Selezen wrote:

Ooh, that's really interesting - civilisation developing along a pattern.

I'm not sure whether to be sarcastic or not. I can see the benefit, in that each culture will have a defined "feel" to its worlds, but at the same time I'm not sure that a free-minded species can be as contrained as that, and cities don't develop in natural geometric shapes. They may start off as regular shapes (Milton Keynes, Glenrothes and the other "New Towns" for example), but when the settlement starts to spread then it just grabs whatever land is available.

Looks good though.

Well, culture has a lot of influence. Most cities in Europe are built up around a central square. I can easily foresee an emerging empire embracing a common principle for laying out their main settlements and even the standard farm layout on new worlds.
The patterns should probably be less prominent on the older worlds, but as long as it's not overdone I think this is a really nice touch.

Selezen wrote:

One player at a time, Cody. You can play as one character then log off and log back in as another. You can't control more than one player in the game at a time.

Yeah, I get the 'one avatar at a time' bit - it's this having a 'garage' ready and waiting wherever you are that's puzzling me.
Still, my old frazzled brain struggles with much of this multi-player stuff, instancing etc - and I ain't too sure I want to learn it.

Ooh, new newsletter.


So, looks like about 3x10x8m size for the Sidewinder, assuming that's an average height human - or about the size of an Oolite cargo canister.

That implies that most fighter combat is going to take place at ranges of a couple of kilometres or less, at relative speeds of perhaps 100 m/s at most, or you'll never hit anything. Much closer in and slower than any of the previous games... roughly comparable to the speeds and scales in Freespace, I think. Since they also seem to want to have realistically-sized star systems and planets, though, it's going to be interesting to see how they reconcile those two vastly different scales.

(At the opposite end of the scale ... that Imperial Cruiser is much bigger than it looked in the first picture they had of it. Wow...)

cim wrote:

(At the opposite end of the scale ... that Imperial Cruiser is much bigger than it looked in the first picture they had of it. Wow...)

Oh yes! Featuring a small docking slit for Anacondas, no less!

Commander McLane wrote:

Anacondas

I have to say that I'm finding the designs that FD are coming up with for the empire ships rather impressive. That goes both for the smaller ships and the cruiser. I also like that there is a distinct design philosophy and feel for each faction in the game. So far so good.

One small inconsistency, or maybe I have misunderstood.
I thought that the Anaconda was Alliance or maybe Federal. Why then, would an imperial cruiser have docking slits specifically for the anaconda. Or it might be just an example or generic docking bays.

Edit: I now see that it says "Anaconda Sized Ships dock"
<note to self>Must read things properly before posting</note to self>

Anyway, good stuff from the developers.

cim wrote:

Wow, so much lovely detailing on that ship! Can't wait to see more of their stuff - I guess they're going to make us wait a bit for the Cobra III then

There's a new Dev Diary up on YouTube:

Elite: Dangerous Progress Diary #2

Just seen this great video on YouTube - Elite: Squad

Just logged back into the Backers page and noticed that Commander DaddyHoggy has an approved thumbs-up next to the name.

Whoop! Whoop!

Check out this funny video by Kate Russell, promoting her book (loosely): Slough Reports Ep.1

I get the feeling that Frontier are thoroughly enjoying revising the history of Elite.

Cody wrote:

I get the feeling that Frontier are thoroughly enjoying revising the history of Elite.

It's almost as if JJ Abrahms has been drafted in to re-imagine Elite...