Is This The Best Time To Return To ELITE?

Should you start playing Elite Dangerous again? Is it the best time to return to Elite Dangerous? In this video, I will answer these questions and tell you exactly why now is the perfect time to return to Elite.
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[@jasperlit1345]

I have over 11k hours since Odyssey was released, the game is really on a different level, crazy how entertaining it is! Thank you for your videos, you do a great job man! o7

[@lootandgrind]

Thank you so much o7

[@mookithehamster5639]

You played 10 hours a day, every day, since odyssey released? Damn

[@jasperlit1345]

@@mookithehamster5639 sounds about right lol

[@ryiscept]

I’ve tried getting into it. Just curious.. what do you do on it what keeps you so interested?

[@jasperlit1345]

@@ryiscept Starting out is super difficult in this game, try to find something you like to do and stick with it to get some credits built up. Joining an active squad adds a lot to the game. I started with laser mining Platinum, found it relaxing, this gave me creds to buy and equip ships for each task, that way when I want to do PVE, I just jump in my PVE ship, mining, exploration, AX, just board and go. Odyssey adds a lot to the game, I wouldnt have as many hours without it for sure. I do also spend a lot of time engineering ships, swapping modules to try new builds etc, its like a hobby lol I also mix in exploration when I can, easy to spend a lot of time on this. Looks like they are going to make engineering easier in the next few months, this should help cut the "grind" to improve ships. This is great, as this is one of my main complaints with engineering. o7

[@mechagenide4612]

"Elite" is 40 on 20th September... I'm sure there is going to be some huge ingame celebrations!

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah I bet there will be some in-game events

[@douglasharbert3340]

They could add so much more than would help keep the game alive for a long time to come. Dedicated freighter ships with 2,000+ tons of cargo capacity. The ability to use 3 NPC-piloted fighters. We have 3 crew member seats, so why can we only use a single NPC-piloted fighter? Ships that are bigger than what we have now, but smaller than a carrier. Price point being around 2 to 3 billion credits. Instanced player housing quarters on stations. Living quarters on medium and large ships. Dedicated fuel tanker ships with massive cargo holds for fuel, multiple scoops, and change scooping to where the various star types give varying quality of fuel. The ability to build an outpost on a planet's surface. Cargo storage at NPC stations. The ability to swap ships without having to offload or sell cargo first. Long story short, those who have been playing this game for years have billions upon billions of credits, with absolutely nothing to spend it on. Give us a reason to.

[@vladcrow4225]

Yeah, keep dreaming. It's an abandonware.

[@lootandgrind]

All good points. But the game felt abandoned last year without any meaningful updates. So I'm just glad the devs are actively working on the game again

[@Tamburello_1994]

So often one reads these wishlists and just shake your head... But this is one of the rare ones that's actually cogent, well-reasoned with excellent REASONABLE suggestions, good on you, commander.

[@rufusmurphy9990]

Nearly 40 years after I first played it on a BBC 'B' Micro and it's still the best.

[@Dydreth]

Talk about old school. Welcome back!

[@grandreefer]

Same. O7 long time CMDR.

[@cmdrrockyroad]

me to and i still have the BBC micro but sad no tape LOL

[@stevenboughner7255]

I would like to see a Base building with the option of surface mining or agriculture. It would be crazy to plop a base down on any given body. Just think of the wars.

[@staunchkient2071]

I downloaded this game yesterday just out of complete curiosity so i started watching videos about it before i try it out and this video along with the others I've seen have me hyped af 💯

[@lootandgrind]

Thanks. I hope you enjoy the game

[@Lemonhoko]

I was one of the original backers, quit after engineers, might come back some day, not sure about being on foot though...good video, subbed.!

[@lootandgrind]

Devs are revamping the engineering process. They announced it for a future update. So you might want to keep an eye out for it

[@edwardk3637]

Awesome video like always, man! I just recently came back to elite after a nearly year-long hiatus to continue my engineering grind. I really hope they add another way to get materials someday its just painful right now. I need to start doing it in chunks so i dont get burnt out on it.

[@kuuzii4903]

I'm just waiting for the game to download, I'm ready to see what this game is about is about💯

[@lootandgrind]

That's awesome. It might take a while to get a feel of the game at first. Be patient and enjoy!

[@chrisyasko9367]

Just returned a couple days ago after a year ish break… damn I’ve missed this game

[@GeologyJournalism]

Good stuff as usual! I took two years off a long while ago. Boy was it difficult to remember how to fly. But I've been playing since launch and play it almost daily. o7

[@rulingmoss5599]

I still have performance issues in the game after 4.0/Odyssey, I recently started playing again after quitting in jan 2022, mostly due to disappointment in the new updates. This game was such a huge part of my life prior to that and I did miss it, i cant say im happy about a lot of the changes but needless to say the game is still gorgeous.

[@kuuktuu4414]

Came back a week ago, very happy about Odyssey, walking around is pretty fun and can’t wait for ground combat. Missed this game so much, top space game out there, still needs some improvements

[@mangotapu]

I happened to come back just about when Fdev let up on the restrictions on the ax weapons and equipment, so I gave the thargoid thing a go, kicking some titan butt, and it was really fun. I am now b*lls deep in this stuff, and the game feels so much more alive again. All it took was for Fdev to make it easier to get into the action. I was a bit crossed with them for tube feeding the community with nothing but thargoid content for years and skipping the rest of the galaxy, but I have full understand inga for that. I hope they are on the right path now.

[@mikedawe692]

Another excellent video mate. Time I went back into the black.

[@Revenant326]

I've been away like 3 years Ago I don't know if going back to ED is a good Idea now but i think I'll give it a try.

[@demus89]

I just returned 2 weeks ago. I'm having the best time I've had in years with the game.

[@baronsengir187]

I still play horizon legacy. VR Performance is soooooooo much better. And you have no problem with aliasing. Man the first time i booted Odyssee i thought my headset was broken

[@Tanuki_03]

Did they fix VR in Odyssey? When I stopped playing I remember they just made it into a flat screen…

[@lootandgrind]

Unfortunately that's still an issue. But they might fix it soon

[@notgreatnotterribleflying9285]

I return to this game every once in a while. Like in the last 2 weeks i started to do some exobiology and exploration for the first time, with my AspX (only 35 LY jumprange) and I earned staggering 550mil credits but i just don't know what to do with the money - i don't wanna do trading or mining or grinding for engineering, or fighting... This game doesn't have an endgame and that is not necessarily a bad thing, but lately I've been thinking about buying the Anaconda - which would actaully give me the feel like i've reached some kind of an endgame here by buying the best all-round ship, but i just don't know what will i do with it besides exploring.

[@lootandgrind]

Work towards a fleet carrier and then plan a trip across the Galaxy. That's what I'm working on right now

[@chrisyasko9367]

Fleet carriers are a good grind but shouldn’t take ages if you know what you’re doing

[@alansouthwell2899]

Hi there, nice video. I play exclusively in Solo, so what effect,if any, will Power Play 2 have on me.

[@Tamburello_1994]

Why exclusively in solo? You're missing out.

[@alansouthwell2899]

@Tamburello_1994 I played in Open once, by mistake, for all of 7 minutes before a commander/ganker killed me for no reason whatsoever. My playing time on EDO is limited, so when I log on , I want to enjoy it; hence, Solo.

[@potteryjoe]

I didn't even know it was broken! 😂

[@OrionGalaxies]

It’s been several months, less than a year. I’m hoping for foot missions to pay more. They done something about that? The python mk2 looks awesome.

[@AverageAmish1]

Weird question and I know this is subjective but how grindey is it? Did they mess with that at all?

[@Tamburello_1994]

Translation: IM LAZY.

[@lootandgrind]

It depends on the way you want play the game. Grind is not necessary for many activities like exploring and mining. You only need it for advanced activities like Thargoid war.

[@AverageAmish1]

@@lootandgrind Not sure this is relevant but I wanted to pop in and mention that while controversial they did add a means to bipass the grinde, according to some other content creators if you are willing to pay additional micro transactions you can skip the grinde. I wasn't aware of these changes when I asked the original question and only just saw their videos. I'm not posting this with an agenda.

[@jasperlit1345]

They announced that they are looking at increasing the amount of materials received from missions/drops, they also said that they want to take some of the randomness out of engineering, this is going to be implemented in next update this summer I believe.

[@viarnay]

how do you get the third person camera? looks nice..

[@lootandgrind]

It's in the camera suite

[@Keith-to2xu]

just hit Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar and it'll enable. I think you can change that bind to something easier too in the bind menu.

[@sigvar6795]

Been away since roughly the beginning of the Thargoid war. I now find myself in a station with klaxons blaring, red lights flashing and evacuation messages flashing on screens. I also find myself not remembering how to proficiently fly my ship and having switched HOTAS since my last playing I am not sure what it is going to feel like to fly. I keep logging in and then back out not wanting to attempt to make a break and get killed. Lastly I have done NO engineering on any ships. Engineering and the war have never interested me. I like to explore planets and engage in missions from the board and some mining and bounty hunting in the asteroids. I find the environment of the game quite beautiful to look at which helps keep me exploring. I have played with some of the Odyssey gameplay which is ok for a while. But there are other games to play (X4 and Star Citizen) and they pull me away after a time.

[@lootandgrind]

Why not reset the game and start over. It'll be a fresh start

[@sigvar6795]

@@lootandgrind I did eyeball that button. So many ships and so much Rep.. and I make progress slowly cause I have to divide my play time over different games. It is still a consideration... biding my time I guess.

[@sigvar6795]

@@lootandgrind I might hit the training tutorials to get my hardware sorted.. Does a vanilla ship stand any chance at fighting a goid?

[@MrJack556]

Its nice to not see anyone crying about ship interiors in the comments.

[@sinntaxdagreat]

yep, I'm back

[@viarnay]

I just bought it a month ago and it is a good game plenty of nice mechanics..worth the buy..

[@juvigoat2168]

Been away since 2016, so 8 years. Left a rookie, only 110 hours play because life, came back a total rookie trying to relearn it. It feels harder now to get back into it, prob age. Restarted on the wrong foot by deleting my save game but I reached support and they reinstated it. Had some cash, 250k, thought it was a lot, it’s not but it’s better than nothing. Then went out after doing some of the tutorials and crap, I ran out of gas…. While I was offline… 😂 forgot that once in space, you stay there unless you bring her back in! But I didn’t know how to get to the other side of the star to jump to my route! I was reading up on how to route when the thing went kaboom behind the game menu. Radical! Can’t make this shit up, I tell ya. Anyway, now I’m parked in a station and watching a lot more videos before I step out again. That’s my story of return so far… oh, one more thing, though I’m a rookie here, back in the day I played and achieved Elite status on the original Elite for the Acorn Electron microcomputer (BBC micro’s little cousin). That’s some OG shit, lots of fun at the time. ☺️

[@lootandgrind]

Glad to have you back, Commander. Stick with it the game only gets better from there. o7

[@juvigoat2168]

Thanks! And it already has. Im doing various carrier runs and getting the hang of it again. I even found out that I had a cargo ship stacked away on Yembo! Man I don’t remember any of it. 😂

[@SergH.]

Probably been gone a year gonna hop on today

[@szczyph]

2500h still playing 😃

[@cmdrTremyss]

In 1-2 years from now I'll maybe have all the necessary stuff and motivation to start engaging in Thargoid content. Don't want to be negative but these new ships and features mean nothing to me until they are well in the game AND bugfixed over and over. So maybe years from now. I have so low trust for Fdev.

[@Tamburello_1994]

"Bugfixed" Drink, everybody... LOL! One day perhaps you'll git gud. Perhaps not.

[@MrBlobhunter]

I wish we had this for console. My God would I have failed my BSc

[@thatgregguy]

Give us megaships!! Need to complete this comment later.

[@SPIR-MiffyJupiter]

I offline for a long time but i do not leave the game =.= I 'll be back !!!!

[@HighlandStudio91]

I tried ED a couple of years ago and didn't find it very intuitive...or inspiring. If a game doesn't suck me in in the first hour or two, I tend to discard it. I did give it another chance....but realized I just don't care for hardcore, ultra-realistic space game sims. I then got into No Man's Sky and I love the blend of styles(arcade and simulation.) NMS's graphics are quite as polished in some areas as ED...but No Man's Sky is intriguing right from the start and it's just fun and very inspiring.

[@lootandgrind]

Totally understand. ED is definitely not for everyone. I actually tried to refund the game at first before getting obsessed with it

[@makroshlyta]

Possible new feature... Change music on auto dock!

[@Tamburello_1994]

Still need to be handheld? 🤡

[@Bombastic0013]

What has been fixed? I didn't noticed any special problem before... Odyssey and on foot gameplay was already smooth.

[@lootandgrind]

Not at launch. Many smaller updates were rolled out to make Odyssey better

[@Bombastic0013]

@@lootandgrind Ah yes, when it was released probably.

[@ladymisfit193]

I just started playing odyssey as a new player. I really wish performance was better.. It’s playable but compared to my performance in space, very jarring. Nevertheless I’m enjoying it after getting all achievements in no man’s sky. :)

[@lootandgrind]

You need to do some adjustments in settings for the game to work properly. Especially upscaling make the game look worse. Use a tutorial and experiment

[@christophercox4437]

It isn't fixed till they put VR in the on foot part.

[@MrArdCart]

ooooh yeah BOY!!!

[@deadstaromega8891]

I have always been here...

[@lootandgrind]

o7

[@KitHavok]

I give my solomb promise that when they add an optional 3DOF Helmet view to Odyssey VR.... I will reinstall and start buying Arx again 😇 👼

[@SWIFTO_SCYTHE]

HELL YEA it sure is ! Come back to ED.

[@HrWisch]

Too bad, carrier upkeep isn't going away. I haven't touched ED in a year but lately started playing again. I would love to own a carrier but the risk of losing it when taking a longer break from the game and being forced to constantly grind money for the upkeep, kills all fun for me. At least, the new ships might bring a little fresh motivation. The new feature will definitely not be ship internals (although it would be cool). I'm also not expecting atmospheric landings, which would be nice. Hopefully, it's not going to be crap like space legs. But we can be sure, it's going to be another grind on top of the other grinds. I've lost all confidence, FD are going to make the game more fun. I've seen too many nerfs and levels of grind instead.

[@Tamburello_1994]

What? Did you only make enough to buy your carrier, and that's it? I have enough credits that I don't have to play for THREE YEARS at 30m a week. You do the math... Lame excuse. If you collected enough to buy the FC in the first place, maintaining it shouldn't be a problem. Use it, or lose it; the galaxy is already full of dead carriers because lazy commanders can't seem to cope.

[@lootandgrind]

I actually find the need to maintain the carrier exciting. It keeps me active in the game and gives me a reason to login every day. I already have about two years of carrier upkeep covered.

[@Tamburello_1994]

@@lootandgrind I can make a months worth of upkeep in one, barely twenty light-year hop with bert, gold or silver -- whatever the commodity of the day is. Piece of cake, little effort -- and the new drive makes getting to the station much faster thus, less interdict, if at all. if you're not savvy enough to maintain a fleet carrier after grinding out five billion credits you've learned nothing in all that time. Elite is not for the lazy-minded.

[@HrWisch]

@@Tamburello_1994 I have enough cash to pay the upkeep until the servers go down. But the sheer concept of a game draining my inventory while not playing it to force me to come back and grind money is an absolute no-go and abomination of game design. I simply reject to take part in it although I was thrilled when the carriers were announced.

[@Tamburello_1994]

@@HrWischSelfish attitude, and no sympathy coming from me because I fully support the idea. The fact your un-used carrier just sits, taking up precious bandwidth while you're off playing with yourself You think perhaps FDev could use that elsewhere? As I said, the galaxy is full of dead carriers because of lazy commanders Look at it from someone else's point of view. If you don't want to play, deactivate your carrier. Draining resources? What else are you spending it on at this point?

[@DimensionDevices]

Anti-Aliasing is broken in Elite:Dangerous... No way to reduce flicker unless you run at a MUCH higher resolution, which basically kills us low-medium end PC players... Frontier don't care either... Just like they don't care about Odyssey (which is not fixed by the way) not having VR support AS THEY PROMISED before it launched... Then quickly retracted...

[@lootandgrind]

Unfortunately that's true. But most parts of the game looks stunning and I barely notice the issues anymore

[@troy5370]

Yes it's what star citizen should have been by now

[@macmusica]

No VR LEGS and no SHIP INTERIORS. That is what Players want. They are idiots to not have this by now.

[@robertjones9275]

Eleit should come back to console

[@brentonhowe5652]

New ships but it ain't new, I want never been seen before completely new SzhIPS

[@grandreefer]

One of the top players in the game here and I just want to say thank you for making this video. Hope to see more of you out there in the black. You really have no excuses to not play.

[@lootandgrind]

o7

[@Tamburello_1994]

"Top players" ?

[@grandreefer]

@@Tamburello_1994 yep, 16th and 23rd. It's tracked on Inara by total progress in the game and ranked against all others. You should check it out. It's a good competition between the ones who play the game the most.

[@grandreefer]

@@Tamburello_1994 Yep, it's tracked on the Inara website. I am 16th with my primary and 23rd with my alt. It's actually changing a lot in the top 75 of the game. Good competition going on and most don't even know it exists.

[@grandreefer]

@@Tamburello_1994 Yep, it's tracked by total progress on a third party site I cant mention here or for some reason KZbin takes it down. The top 75 players on the game are constantly competing and ever changing. I'm 16th and 23rd. People don't just say something like that, do they? I guess somebody might but that would just be wrong.

[@alexzk3]

After couple years of the suffering I figured that "medium texture quality" is 2k. So if you have 2K monitor you should use "medium". And this just skyrocket game for me. P.S. I don't think war will end, otherwise they just wasted real money to develop 1 time used code. Most likely it will be part of PP 2.0. Or something like that - with periodic small enough war events.

[@lootandgrind]

Yeah, I think they are just ending the Thargoid content with these events. We will surely encounter Thargoids in the game in the future. Also, thanks for sharing that tip o7

[@tweaked74]

Still can do MUCH more in Star Citizen. With 5 Titans left to go, the war won't be done before the end of the year.

[@Lucpol1986]

Based on the historical behavior of the devs, questionable xpac releases and the fact that it’s a declining product (life-cycle wise), I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you are an existing player, or simply curious and seeking to scratch a particular itch.

[@ThePringels09]

Elite is a mile wilde and an inch deep, you can do basically everything and have a universe of content, you just have no reason to do it, you cant buy your own station, you cant buy a room to display all the cool stuff, your Squad cant really influence politics and if you dont wanna fight Aliens, then you have just nothing to do for the last 3 years. I have 2k hours in ED, but stopped with Odyssey and dont expect to return. They just dont want you to experience the universe they created

[@ThePringels09]

To anyone reading this: Just get X4, it's not mp, but it's actually filled with interesting races with interesting stories and people and you can actually do something in the universe

[@Icetuga1]

So nothing new yet just announcements. I love the game i really do but everything that would bring me back to play it regularly is just announced or it come out halfbaken! Why i don´t play it regularly if i love it so much you ask? My time is limited i have a job and a family and the ridiculous grinds you have to do for a single nice ship build or something else are like another job just to have something nice. And we are talking about single items that take a week to grind up to an acceptable level, i repeat acceptable level not even maxed out. After you do this 2 or 3 times you just burned out and stop for a while. Thats my cycle with this game i keep coming back and the announcements sound great but they really need to change something for us time limited players.

[@zontarr8812]

Yes, meanwhile we have received the new bug....module in the game ,,the "supercharged cruise drive" that heat up your ship depending on what video fps you play, another good content from Frontier with love.

[@mookithehamster5639]

Try actually using it instead, it's great. Makes mission running so fast.

[@Tamburello_1994]

Another person who obviously doesn't play the game.

[@zontarr8812]

@@Tamburello_1994 Good joke!

[@Tamburello_1994]

@@zontarr8812 Yeah, that's convincing.

[@zontarr8812]

@@Tamburello_1994 BUGS/ADJUSTMENTS Fixed SCO heat generation being tied to frame rate.

[@ojoshiro]

If you're an explorer, don't bother.

[@maetes54]

What are you talking about? What is a new ship for if the planets you can visit look all more or less the same? No lakes, rivers or seas and oceans. Strange. All the same species of biologic specimens appearing over the whole galaxy. Very strange. No animals. Stranger still. So much for "exploration".And why cant we see those thargoids in the flesh! No ship interiors too. No, for me at least it is not a good time to come back to Elite. A pity, but perhaps the time for a truly interesting space game is simply not yet here.

[@Mr.Free2Play]

This game is 10 years behind Star Citizen in every technical aspect. A new ship that brings what?? Nothing we can’t do already. You want to really impress the community?? Add ship interiors , atmospheric planets , EVA , ship boarding are just a few examples. Hell you don’t even experience G Forces while flying your ships. The physics model is terrible & the space stations have smaller interiors than most ships on SC. The Cobra game engine is a dated fossil. ED is not an MMO. Since it’s based on a peer2peer network system. That’s why you can’t have more than 4 players in a wing. No wings in multi crew. And only one FC per instance.

[@Mr_Giggles]

Powerplay V2. Arguably the worst aspect of elite and they dedicated most of their time to overhauling it. Good job. Oh aliens? Those cool advanced boss type enemies? Yeah we are removing those soon.

[@lootandgrind]

That's probably why they are revamping it to make it better. And Thargoids won't go away completely. It's just the end of Thargoid related content drops

[@Skipper441]

I haven't played Elite for over three years. This is a good game, but the most disgusting thing about it is the ships, or rather their design. When you play Star Citizen, the ships there look like real ones, they are very detailed and it seems that these could exist in real life. In Elite, the ships are made at a very primitive level.

[@chrisgroves5175]

Yes you are correct but.... When you fall threw the floor, get shot out into space when using your elevator in your ship. Not to mention the multitude of other bugs and such. takes you out of the game. Also elites ships are designed for inter galactic travel, where most of star citizens are designed for inter planetary trail.

[@Tamburello_1994]

That's the silliest attempt at a comparison I've ever seen as there are no "real spaceships." A purely subjective statement. You want to know what disgusting truly is? A tech demonstrator pretending to be a game at almost half a billion dollars, over a decade in development but still only at an alpha level.

[@Tamburello_1994]

@@chrisgroves5175 Don't you find it odd that someone that claims they haven't played a game in "over three years" is still hanging around watching that game's videos? Talk about out looking in. What? Not enough of that glorious SC content out there? Curiously, I come across more than a few of these so-called ED refugees all up in SC now on ED threads -- that for some odd reason, have to come back to tell us what we're all "missing." Almost like a concerted effort - - almost.

[@wstavis3135]

How many other systems are there in Star Citizen again?

[@simonpike346]

Plus you need a loan to buy a "good" ship in SC😂

[@kessilrun6754]

We should be careful not to call it "pay to win." It's also a pretty negative term--an an insult--coined by players, such as myself, who, almost 10 years ago, couldn't understand why nobody could just put in the hundreds of hours to actually get things organically lol. But then you grow up and you're like, "oh! I see! It's for people with real jobs who don't have much time outside of family and work, to do this stuff... I see!" 😂 It's also a means of combating third party boosting services, who can steal your account: There are thousands of people out there that pay these people to take over their account and grind things for them. If people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars doing that? Well? That's a big cha-ching for developers and publishers. Plus, you're not just funding some person in China who may, one day, have a really bad day and use that account for something else, or take it over. If you're a gamer that maybe only has 5 hours a week to dedicate, most weekends, to gaming? You're not really going to see much progress, or even remember where you left off...or what you were last working on. I've jumped back into games, months after the fact, and then just ended up doing some missions, before realizing, I was in the middle of working on something much bigger with my build and that half my perks or something were unassigned, or that certain items were missing for me to effectively play in that state. And so it ends up being a game that falls to the wayside as a result. And it becomes one of those "oh yeah! I remember that game! Yeah I just could never get into it.." But then? Sometime after that discussion, realize, "That's right! I didn't have time." So it's a good way for someone to jump in, I guess and get a broader picture of the game more quickly.

[@lootandgrind]

Well said 👍

[@pissmyasslynch5325]

Been away since Odyssey launch 😂

[@lootandgrind]

Then it's perfect timing