It’s a shame I didn’t see the game in it’s ‘alive’ state back in the day but the headsets sucked back then.
Even with the Oculus CV1, it was still amazing.
Remember when I said No Man’s Sky is ironically the best space sim.
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Yes, imagine using this in ED:O
Wow. I am amazed it is actually credible that some software fixes from such a small development team was all it took to enable crossplay.
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Crossplay, Space Legs and Mechs. @mirage335 as much as I was laughing at the No Man’s Sky fail memes when it launched and didn’t get caught up in the hype. Like I said some how it ironically became the best space sim.
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I’ve always been hovering with this one because I haven’t seen anything convincing yet to say that the gameplay is better than ED. Same proc gen problems, would love to hear otherwise. Endless variation but all equally shallow. Sightseeing in VR is boring for me.
Ie planet 1 is red and the aliens are blue. Planet 2 is blue and the aliens are red. Repeat x trillion. Not gameplay, the scale changes nothing.
Crossplay does nothing for me, it has zero effect on gameplay. More people goofing around without things to do isn’t a solution. ED, NMS and SC all have this as far as I can see. SC wins for me, slightly, with better gameplay loops and hopefully more to come, but it’s not enough yet.
So…do you have to change what you do on different planets? Different dangers, different equipment, tactics etc? Do some areas need you to build up your skills or kit before you can go there? Are there things that require players to work together to achieve?
Mechs are cool, but how does the gameplay change when you have them? Eg in Subnautica the two subs and prawnsuit have very different uses and unlocks zones and resources that couldn’t be reached safely otherwise. Right now that’s my gameplay gold standard, but no multiplayer. I didn’t think I’d like the survival element, but it’s integrated well so I like it.
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If you want to fly ships/explore space - ED is much better.
If you want to explore planets - NMS is much better.
Gameplay both can get grindy and repetitive fast but it also depends on what you do and what goals you set (neither game requires much grind for flying around universe and exploring it).
If you want competitive PvP I don’t think either of them is good option.
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SC has the most ill conceived, trying to simulate but failing non-gameplay loop of any of the Space Sims.
At least ED and NMS know who they are targeting and the gameplay loop is centered around that.
By the way what you are talking about different planets and dangers and prepping for them, thats what mechs are for. Unlike in SC where that is just still a pipedream of unimplemented features.
I’m afraid we’ll have to disagree on that. I’m finding even it’s buggy alpha state that’s it much more enjoyable because the design decisions are fundamentally better in virtually every area. Deciding to scale back from too much simple proc gen is a huge one. And this is from years of ED and a relatively short time with SC so I was sceptical before I tried it. Going to be long time before it’s done, but at least the potential is there. FDev have let me down too many times now.
But yes, it does ultimately depend what you’re looking for. A space-based, co-operative / combined arms Arma sounds good to me. I don’t mind an ambient exploratory experience either, but not when it’s all the same. You can look at a few systems and try a few loops and you’ve seen it all. I prefer one hand crafted system with actual interesting variation on every planet and moon than billions with different colours pretending to be gameplay.
Will go check out the mech stuff 
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Thanks, I like all those things (well not so much PvP I’m past that, large scale co-operative PvE in an open world is my preferred thing these days), but the aspect I like most is gameplay with dynamics and variation.
The combination of environment, AI, players, situations provides ever changing scenarios and requires constant re-adaptation. I don’t want to be able to predict what comes next, I think in that way you can build tension, excitement, and so on.
That’s your key word ‘Potential’ you are buying into the dream not the here and now.
I can load up Star Citizen right now and have a blast.
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I honestly find that SC’s here and now, with all its problems, is much better than ED’s here and now. I am enjoying it.
And FDev have already had five years’ worth of actual release game potential, and done very little with it. I really can’t be bothered to log in atm, there’s nothing I want to engage in that I haven’t done a million times before. Fleet Carriers does nothing for me.
Now, I’m aware that NMS has had a lot of good updates since the poor launch, but I’ve only glanced over it once in a while esp during Steam sales. I may well pick it up on the next one. I’m not a big fan of some of the multi-colour design, but if there’s plenty of gameplay in there, then great.
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My issue with NMS is that I just really don’t like the art style. It just looks too cartoony to get me sold on being in a real space ship, not just playing a space game. I actually bought it but hardly played it, so cannot comment on the game play at all, but the visuals just kill the immersion for me. Which is of course an element ED excells in. SC may even better ED on that, certainly when looking at the planets it has, but if you want to simulate 3-400 billion stars and its planets & moons, there has to be proc gen applied for rather obvious reasons, because hand-crafting them would let you end up with almost Pimax-like delays… 
So even if SC manages to make the jump to VR one day, which seems to be at least 5-10 years away, if it only offers 40 or 80 planets, it could be a great game situated in space but still would lack a disctinct element of the universe out there, which you would expect to be included in a space sim - the sheer, unbelievable size, quantities out there.
But sure, you could create a logic to limit this to hand-crafted planets, e.g. by making quantum leaps a sort of a railway system, i.e. only available where tracks, tubes, wormholes exist (as it apparently was in one of the interim Elite games featuring Galcorp). That would then explain why you can only visit a very limited number of systems, say the 30 systems most proximate to Sol: because serious preparational work of the Federation (or whoever rules in SC, no idea) is a prerequisite for the user space ships to jump to other systems, not the magic of a built-in frameshift drive.
So I would be absolutely open for SC if it only would become available in VR… NMS just feels to me as if it were better suited for my daughter, sort of expecting unicorns and teletubbies to run around on the next planet I visit…
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Honestly I have the other problem with SC. It tries so hard to be immersive but every 10 minutes something goofy happens that comes out of a Bethesda game and I’m reminded it’s a tech demo. At least with NMS it works.
I have to agree about the visuals, but now I have the same problem that ED’s visuals are looking dated for me. They are still going for a degree of realism though, which is definitely also my preference.
And yes SC is never going to match ED’s scale. It is a mix of proc gen and hand crafted work, but I’m personally good with that decision because I love the visuals and art and design choices. I can endlessly explore these places because of the vastly different biomes and structures, atmospheres, etc on every one to date. No ambient stuff like creatures yet, but the prototypes are pretty intriguing.
The jump gate and wormhole tech has been shown off, but not coming until another system is complete, Q3 or Q4 at this rate. Interestingly unlike ED it will be a gameplay loop in its own right travelling though the tunnels, with branches etc, and getting it wrong will have consequences like being thrown into a different part of space and / or damaging the ship. I like the idea.
As on the link above, VR is supported underneath and there are devs there who are dedicated to making it happen. But it will definitely take time, as they say it needs to be done properly if it’s going to happen and that means a lot of fundamental design decisions needs to be made, with ships / FPS etc etc.
This is true although several hours typically rather than 10 minutes, unless it’s one of those free trial weeks and thousands of extra people overload the servers. Then logging in becomes the problem, but ED is the same after a patch as well. And I don’t know about NMS, but ED is hardly bug free.
I’ll put up with SC’s bugs because it’s fun and there’s a sense of excitement and enjoyment that ED is sadly just not generating for me any more.
None of these games will be bug free.
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