Elite Dangerous : Odyssey

Submitted by Unifex on

Elite Dangerous:Odyssey has been out for a while now. It was launched in a state that the community justifiably found disappointing. This has been covered a lot. In many places.

My experience has been limited. The majority of missions have been legal missions with no expected combat. Go to a place, pick up the package, return the package to the mission giver. The AI's driving the NPCs need a lot of work. The dialogue trees are terrible to the point of suspecting there aren't dialogue trees at all and they're just doing a general RNG response. Security stops you "One moment Commander, I just need to scan you. You know how it is." You get scanned, cleared and go to move past them to go on you way and their response and tone is clearly hostile like you intentionally ran them down while sprinting past.

The other thing that got to me was the various responses to infractions. There's actions that you can do in-game that will trigger a response from personnel and security forces. Stealing something that isn't yours. Not submitting to a security scan. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being caught with a cloned ID... These things will a response from the following list:

  • Lethal force

That's it.

You pocket an optical chip that isn't yours: They will shoot you.
You get caught with a fake ID: They will shoot you.
You approach the security guard asking to scan you when you can see they can't reach you: They will shoot you.

Having said that, a solo mission to clear out scavengers at a base at night was actually awesome. :) Limited batteries, limited ammo, lots of sneaking, attacks of opportunity. Waiting for that moment when the opponent has wandered past the door to the engineering building so you can cut through the access panel, spend the last couple of watts of suit energy to charge the door so the damned thing will open for you so that you can rummage around in the dark looking for energy cells.

The game has a lot of potential. I trust that FDev will eventually get it there too. It's just not there yet.

Elite offers a lot of other gameplay though and one that I really enjoy is exploration. So I'm going to do that.

I'm heading back out into the Black for a few years. Hopefully, by the time I get back, ED:O will be in a more playable state. At least one where every single NPC doesn't treat you with suspicion and hostility for just walking near them.