Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous - Which is the better space sim?

hello citizens and commanders and welcome back in today's video I want to take a look at Star Citizen and Elite dangers and talk about their main differences what each game does well and what not so much at this point I feel like I have had enough time playing both to make this comparison but I would be very happy to hear your thoughts as well also if you would like me to check out other space sims let me know in the comments as always if you like this video Sacrifice a like and a comment to the YouTube algorithm And subscribe for more and here's a shout out to our amazing patrons for their support of the channel and the Armory if you would like to join their ranks check out my patreon or consider becoming a channel member now before you start typing up the angry comments both games are awesome and I love both of them each has some strengths and weaknesses and I do see how Elite being a complete Game gives it an edge but do keep posting the angry comments it feeds the algorithm and it gives me more views I decided to pick a few categories for this comparison new player experience level of detail simulation quality variety of gameplay and playing as a group I think this cover what but I and many others look at when trying to pick a game so let's start at the beginning of your journey as a new player in both of these games the new player experiences often what defines the next steps for each of us both games have a very steep learning curve but Elite does a much better job of introducing the player to the game there is a very extensive set of tutorials on the basics that will give you all the tools and knowledge to get started and to look for further information in Star Citizen the new player experience gets confusing even before you purchase the game you are asked to select a game package and there is very little explanation in the store about the differences between the ships or more important things like insurance I don't see this part improving in the near future however as of patch 319 Star Citizen has a short in-game tutorial it guides players through the first 30 minutes of the game and shows them how to navigate and interact with the world and operate their ship this is an excellent starting point and will no doubt be expanded in the future especially with the upcoming Arena Commander changes next let's take a look at the level of detail and World building the two games take a drastically different approach Elite has a mostly procedurally generated World which gives it a very random feeling and the planets and systems feel very much the same Over time however this means that Elite contains basically an infinite Universe for players to explore Star Citizen also uses procedural generation but rather than generating full systems the designers use procedural tools to generate worlds and areas this results in a much more curated and Artful experience at the cost of increased development time the other major difference is that Elite uses a small number of standard layouts for stations and Landing zones while these areas in Star Citizen are always different which can be confusing for new players and it also slows down development it's important to mention that at the time of writing Star Citizen still only contains one star system which is being used as a test area for new tools to build planets as far as I know every planet in Star citizen will be created with some manual input from the designers but I think that only the most relevant locations will get a lot of development time now as of the Odyssey expansion Elite allows players to visit planetary outposts on foot and for some reason this was a controversial feature when it was released also coincidentally it was when I picked up Elite and I think that Star Citizen does FPS locations a bit better but the planetary outposts in Elite have NPCs all over the place working and patrolling and the area feels much more alive which brings me to simulation quality by simulation quality I mean how alive the game Universe feels Star Citizen lacks this to a large extent as most of the simulation is currently invisible to the player and is only reflected to some extent in the commodity prices at certain locations there is some limited presence of NPCs around locations usually linked to missions on the other hand Elite has a very detailed simulation starting at the global Universe wide power play to individual areas having their own States and governments and NPCs being very common depending on the population of the system the part that I particularly like is that if you encounter Pirates and you have nothing valuable on board they might just leave you alone but if you have something of even the slightest value they will fight you for it alternatively in mining areas you will find ships mining or you will have Security Forces patrolling around planets and points of interest I think this is the single best feature of elite dangerous even if you play solo the universe feels alive and I hope that we will see similar NPCs in Star Citizen as well I also think that Star Citizen is more focused on individual simulation what I mean by that is that you have to take care of your character by eating and drinking also doing most tasks requires you to get out of your ships and travel to The Landing Zone where you're at this in my opinion creates a lot of time sinks elite doesn't have any of this and I think it's more focused on the global simulation of the universe and the individual star systems moving on to variety now both games offer a wide range of gameplay options or professions players can take on but the two games take a very different approach in Elite pretty much any ship can do any profession depending on how you outfit the components and while Star Citizen does have multi-row ships some professions like mining Salvage and refueling require specialized ships and while these are obtainable in game this is not an easy task to accomplish so while both games offer a variety of things to do I think Elite creates a much lower barrier of entry into professions and makes it much easier to switch this might also be the case with Star Citizen later on when ships are no longer the major part of the Project's funding and we transition to a different model I also think that Star Citizen will eventually have a lot more depth to its gameplay Loops as the developers seem to be designing some very ambitious new features but only time will tell if or when this will happen next we finally come to a place where the two games differ significantly multi-crew gameplay the ability to multi-crew one ship exists in both games but at first glance it seems that an elite the options are fairly limited and that the game is more focused on playing Solo or as a group of multiple ships on the other hand Star Citizen places a lot of emphasis on playing as a crew of a single ship while also offering many opportunities for solo players or groups with multiple ships so which one is the better game well that's really up to you I think these two games offer a different approach to the same concept and you have to decide for yourself which one is better for you you can try Star Citizen out for free several times a year elite doesn't offer this option also it's important to know that Elite offers a much more consistent experience yes the game is still being updated and maintained but these updates rarely cause a larger disruption to Performance and stability on the other hand Star Citizen is still going through major changes and this can make the game unplayable for weeks or sometimes even months I also think that many players including myself will appreciate the solo mode that Elite offers but players who enjoy playing as a group will likely have more fun in Star Citizen personally I love both games and I play both very actively I know that sounds pretty weird since I'm a Star Citizen content creator but the truth is that I picked up Star Citizen about four years before I picked up Elite and at that point I already had a YouTube channel dedicated to Star Citizen so it wouldn't make sense to combine the content on that note there has been a trend of elite dangerous players fleeing to Star Citizen after the release of Odyssey I am not sure why if any of you watching did this let me know in the comments why and with that being said that's all for tonight what do you think which one is the better space Sim or is it Eve online let me know in the comments thank you for watching fly safe and I will see you in the verse

Channel: TheSpaceCoder

Views: 16,851

Keywords: star citizen, exploration, cinematic, citizen, farrister, morphologis, ship, eclipse, review, dreamwalker, terada, valkyrie, greycat, ROC, youtubers, patch, cig, lti, server, meshing, gladius, server meshing, pvp, jumptown, gadgets, ptu, aegis, release, levelcap, bluedrake, avengerone, guide, polaris, endeavor, idris, 890jump, odyssey, liberator, railen, carrack, nautilus, apollo, hull, merchantman, star citizen gameplay, star citizen news, star citizen 2022, star citizen update, delay, pirate, 3.19, elite dangerous, space sim

Id: P_afFKyYP8s

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 19 2023