[SIB] Elite: Dangerous?

To go through your requirements in order.

  • There's an acceptable variety in ships with more added here and there but it's by no means the most expansive collection in the genre. There are currently 17 available ships with about 7-9 in various stages of production yet to be implemented.

-The customisation is very good, you can swap out most aspects of your ships load-out. This currently includes your weapon hardpoints, external utility mount for automated weapons systems, defence systems and other utilities. Internal components including but not limited to your ship's shield generator, scanning systems, cargo hold, frame shift drive (how far you can jump), fuel scoops and so on. Finally your bulkhead (armour) and cosmetic changes such as decals and paint jobs.

-Each ship has a fully modelled and textured interior which adds a nice variety in aesthetic when flying civilian and armed vessels, the sense of quality in manufacturing and so on varies and the more expensive ships have a cleaner and more sophisticated looking interior, though the UI its self is the same between ships.

-You can be a badass space pirate, you can interdict other players (pull them out of hyperspace forcefully) you can lay wait at signal sources and ambush players and NPCs and take their loot, though the ingame VOIP doesn't get much use from most currently active pirates, so those aspects of emergent gameplay seem to be fairly neglected, though NPC pirates will communicate their intentions.

-You can't currently walk around stations and when docked you meet a UI and a 3rd person view of your ship and nothing more, though you can read the station news and so on. Though a cursory search does show their roadmap has this feature on their radar.

-Mining is one of many avenues you can take. Bounty hunter and military contractor is a viable career as is trading, hauling and exporing.

-Missions are currently fairly deliver this to there or go kill 10 of these. There is a fair amount of politics and intrigue behind these missions though it is basically a re-skin of the same mission template. You have a reputation system with the various authorities, collectives and corporate entities in the game. There are special events on some missions such as capital ships coming out of hyperspace and so on.

Multiplayer is good, works exactly the same as the single player but with other players knocking around. In populated systems it is not unlikely to run into other places, be interdicted by them and see them milling about minding their own business. Multiplayer is persistent once you join that mode and you will encounter players in all systems when you are running it. You can switch modes once you dock, simply disconnect and hop on single player. You won't be without interaction on single player as the NPCs do a reasonable job of making your life difficult too.

I hope this information is useful I am sure there is more to be said but I did my best to cover your points. Feel free to ask me any questions and good luck in making a decision.

/r/ShouldIbuythisgame Thread