Adventures in Elite: Dangerous (56k die)

[Iroscato]

This is just a little show-off thread that will contain some of my best screenshots in Elite: Dangerous. For those not in the know, ED is a combat, exploration, mining and trading simulation game set within a 1:1 scale, realistic representation of the Milky Way galaxy, with the vast majority of star systems being procedurally generated. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a laid-back but fairly realistic starfaring experience. It also provides some quite stunning views, as I have discovered.


My primary bounty-hunting ship, The Star Bitch. She's a Fer-De-Lance class attack vessel, armed to the teeth and sleek as you like.


A side-on view of an impressively-ringed planet. This was earlier in my time within ED, when I was just dipping my toe in the water with exploration. The Seeker, my exploration craft, is visible.




The Seeker diving into the rings of another ringed planet.


My second trip to Betelgeuse, my favourite star. Capturing its immense size was tricky given the limitations of the game, but this was my best attempt.


A view of the Milky Way rim from near the Sol system.


This is what the Milky Way looks like from 10,700 lightyears away from the core - the dust clouds lifting to reveal the bright heart of the galaxy. At this stage I was roughly 14,000 lightyears away from Sol, give or take.

[Executor32]

PROTIP: If you're playing in solo or private group mode, you can press Alt+F10 to take a high-res screenshot at 4x your normal ingame resolution. Then just resample it down to the normal resolution, and those pesky jaggies won't be quite so noticeable.

It's been a while since I last played it, and even longer since a last took a screenshot, but I've taken a few nice ones myself:


A super-closely orbiting pair of red dwarves, I forget where.


Self-explanatory.


The gorgeous view I got after exiting Carpini Station in the Mantxe system.


Voyager 1, facing the Sun…


…and the Milky Way.


A view from the rings of Omicron Persei 3 C A, in turn showing off the rings of its brown dwarf primary, Omicron Persei 3 C. In a crushing blow to my hopes and dreams, there was no Omicron Persei 8.

Did I mention it's been a while since I took a screenshot? We didn't even have the external camera yet.

[Iroscato]

Very nice! I have taken a few high-res screenies, but they are excruciatingly slow to upload, so I generally just use regular ones

Last night, I finally made it to Sagittarius A;

[Bedlam]

Is that measurement to Sol in the Voyager shot in light seconds? And if so when is the game supposed to be set?

The distance is about 1/12th of a light year, how long would it really take Voyager to get there?

[Iroscato]

Is that measurement to Sol in the Voyager shot in light seconds? And if so when is the game supposed to be set?

The distance is about 1/12th of a light year, how long would it really take Voyager to get there?

Yes, it's measured in light-seconds. The game is set in 3303 - I don't know if that's an accurate distance for Voyager but I'd assume they got something like that at least approximately right.

[Bedlam]

How do you find Voyager in universe? Does it get highlighted in some way because it would be worse than a needle in a haystack to try and find the thing in interstellar space even if you knew roughly where it was.

[Enigma]

More importantly, can you blast Voyager to pieces?

[Executor32]

Bedlam: Yes. Enigma: No.

Iroscato, you can use a program such as Irfanview to shrink the high-res screenshot to the normal screenshot size (1280x1024 in your case), then just upload that version instead. It won't take any longer to upload because the file size will be roughly the same as the ones you've been uploading, but they'll look a lot better because they've pretty much been anti-aliased.

Also, if Voyager 1's location isn't exactly correct it's pretty damn close, because an extremely lazy calc based on the probe's current speed would put it at that distance in 3274.

[Iroscato]

Bedlam: Yes. Enigma: No.

Iroscato, you can use a program such as Irfanview to shrink the high-res screenshot to the normal screenshot size (1280x1024 in your case), then just upload that version instead. It won't take any longer to upload because the file size will be roughly the same as the ones you've been uploading, but they'll look a lot better because they've pretty much been anti-aliased.

Also, if Voyager 1's location isn't exactly correct it's pretty damn close, because an extremely lazy calc based on the probe's current speed would put it at that distance in 3274.

Thanks for the tip!