SCO : Possibly the Most Important Change to Elite Dangerous ever made

I'm going to say something quite bold to you now by Design we're not a channel that typically makes Bold or controversial statements so when I say the addition of the super Cruise overcharge frame shift Drive might be one of the most important changes to Elite dangerous in its 10 plus year history I hope you understand the importance that I'm placing on that statement in an attempt to at least partially demonstrate the point I'm trying to make I'm going to show you the same journey in Elite dangerous in the same ship done twice side by side on the left in regular Legacy super cruise on the right using a frame shift Drive adapted for super Cruise overcharge in case you've been living under a rock here's a very quick potted history of SE fsds and how we got here as a species we really annoyed the thargoids trying to commit xenocide against an entire species twice will do that as a result of that irritation the zenos deployed eight col colossal motherships called Titans to begin an invasion of the bubble those Titan motherships began their journey toward Earth from roughly the vicinity of Barnard's Loop they didn't travel in hyperspace however the normal method for traveling such huge distances instead they traveled at Super luminal speeds through normal space using a method that had more in common with super Crews as a result during the entirety of their months long flight they were visible as huge swirling green tinted bright lights that became known as stargo when we finally figured out how to destroy the invading Titan motherships we were able to sift the wreckage analyze and then back engineer components from the Titan Drive systems that back engineering resulted in the creation of super Cru overcharge essentially the ability to boost the now familiar super Cruise Beyond its normal capability to colossal speeds for use inside a system shortly after the first prototype SEO fsds arrived the system was adapted again allowing engineering to be applied to the new fsds in the same fashion as Legacy fsds and as a result Legacy fsds or at least when it comes to building a new ship essentially became redundant when strapped to a regular ship SEO is one hell of a whirlwind to try and ride but in everyday use and when used correctly it can be a complete Game Changer here's why we know that fdev ideally wants PVP to be a big focus of Power Play 2 later this year at the very least those Journeys in open potentially enemy player occupied space will likely benefit hugely from the judicious use of super Cruise overcharge making interdictions around the entry star less likely but instead more focused around installations where the defending ship is ultimately forced to slow down for a few nail biting seconds before dropping to normal space longer Journeys through thargoid infested systems in the current ongoing Invasion are also benefit hugely from the reduced super Cruise times that SEO inevitably brings again the thargoids have less time to interdict a player as they rock it through overcharge both of these are obvious and welcome benefits of the drive but it's in the more daytoday mundane usage of the drive that I personally feel SEO will have its biggest impact there's the obvious use for SEO in reaching the more distant outposts when performing bgs actions or fighting in a conflict Zone an installation starport or POI that is 2 to 300,000 light seconds from the entry point would see a lot less traffic simply because of the travel time in super Cruise required to get there super Cru itself does a wonderful job of reinforcing the sheer size and scale of the elite dangerous Galaxy but it also generates a significant amount of time spent staring at a largely static screen that is preventing the player from engaging in the more gamey parts of the game effectively standing between the player and the fun with an SEO capable FSD fitted launching from a planet surface and reaching orbit is now a trivially short Journey as super Cru overcharge can be activated the very moment super Cruise begins to climb out of the gravity well suddenly putting the player thousands of light seconds from the planet in an instance likewise crossing the face of massive objects like gas giants to reach an orbiting Fleet carrier for example used to feel like trying to run through a swimming pool full of treal now a very quick SEO boost will have you bearing down on your Target in mere seconds anyone who spent time hunting down high-grade emissions in super Cruise will I'm sure be able to testify to the frustration of finding a suitable POI that is 200,000 light seconds away only to then realize that its degradation timer has just 5 minutes left on it and with the best will in the world you're probably not going to cover that distance in that time essentially making its existence in the first place largely meaningless the speed restriction of vanilla super Cruise again standing between the player and what they're trying to achieve what I find most interesting about all these issues and what super Cruise overcharge brings by deafly pushing them aside with the click of a button is however the attitude that it belies in the game's designers and creators Elite has a scale problem one of the game's greatest assets is its colossal scale in order for the Galaxy to feel alive immersive and real it has to be huge and there's no point having that gigantic scale if you don't Place some of the content at the upper ends of the scale otherwise the scale is just something that happens in the distance that you're not involved in one of the ways this scale manifests in Elite is the size of star systems they're Ono one scale but you sometimes have to Traverse that one to1 scale star system in order to appreciate it and be immersed in it and as soon as you do that you're forced to have large portions of game time where you're not actively engaged in actually doing anything except crossing the void between planets sometimes for minutes at a time a veritable eternity in a video game super creu overcharge maintains that scale and immersion but also importantly doesn't let the scale and the distances get in the way of the game play in many regards in fact it pulls it in to make it part of the gameplay experience once again but definitely manages to do it without trivializing it it's also a choice you're not forced to use it super Cruise itself hasn't been replaced if you still want to appreciate the scale or go AFK and make a cup of tea you can part of the story however has to be the experi experience for newer players to the game as a live service game Elite dangerous maintains its very existence by holding on to the players it has and bringing in new ones The Nostalgia that many older long-term players feel for elite as a franchise has done a sterling job of carrying the game in many regards for the last 10 years or more those players and I count myself amongst them are able to see past some of the game's quirkier stickier and more Trey barriers because we already know what like Beyond them and we know it's worth the journey when you're trying a new game or when you don't have an already existing relationship with a franchise those thick trial moments can rapidly become an impediment to getting to the fun especially when you spend 15 minutes in super Cruise only to die when you reach the objective viewed through the prism of a new player experience it's not hard to see why many new players simply give up before they reach the moment of realization for what Elite actually is I have very strong suspicions that the road to this point in the history of elite dangerous has been paved with the carcasses of sold copies that failed to make it past their first few Vital hours in the game the few that made it through to the first genuine self-created wow moments that we all know Elite dangerous delivers over and over were paid for with sacrifices at the alar of aing player retention statistics it'll be fascinating to see if going forward SEO becomes more ubiquitous in the game and even makes it into the new player tutorial ultimately SEO fsds solve a number of problems for both the players and for Frontier but what it strikes me fdev are likely trying to do is make Elite dangerous competitive and keep it relative in the space in which it operates in an attempt to better secure its future in the longer term and for players and the game there is no more important goal have you tried super Cruise overcharge are you replacing any of your existing fsds and when you build a new ship are you installing SEO drives by default in future let us know in the comments below if you've enjoyed this video be sure to like And subscribe so that YouTube shows you all our content and if you'd like to support our work here at the burit you can also join our patreon links to that and everything we've talked about in this video you'll find linked below that's it for now thanks very much for watching we very much look forward to seeing you next time [Music]

Channel: The Buur Pit

Views: 30,740

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Id: 95WWfIa5bB0

Length: 9min 52sec (592 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2024