Elite: Dangerous proposes many features, however many of them lack polishing and/or could definitely be enhanced.

Here are a few ideas, hints for the development team.
Feel free to comment here or directly on Twitter your best ideas that could be « relatively easy » to implement, with already existing tools and assets!

Nuse

Summary:

Landing Gears & Ship Launched Fighters (SLF)

The three standard Fighters (Condor, Taipan, Gu-97) already have their own landing gears implemented in-game, but no animations have been made and the latter are only visible in the Livery page when you customise your ship.
It would be very immersive to land our Fighters on the surface and maybe get out of them to explore the planet on foot once Odyssey is released.

Three questions:

  • And if there is no animation with Odyssey, and we can’t see our pilots getting out of the ships?
    • At least we could land our Fighter, and then fade to black screen so we can appear on the surface (have mercy Frontier, no fade to black transition… leave us stroll inside and outside of our ships, manually ._.)
  • What about the Guardians ships?
    • Their tech is anti-grav. We could « land » with this in mind and maybe float a few meters above the ground, folded. That animation is already produced as it happens when we dock our Fighter in the mothership. Then, a few antigrav stairs and here we are.
  • Nicou, we are only holograms.
    • Halp. Hopefully Frontier will clarify that point and give our pilots in flesh & bones two options: to physically go in the Fighter or to virtually take the control of it. It would be a great compromise with bonus/malus.

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Ships’ Headlights

I proposed this idea directly to the team at Frontier when they invited me back in 2018, in Cambridge, but we have never seen the idea bloom in-game: two headlights levels for our ships.
After all, our SRV have two modes as well, and they are very useful to adjust the volume of light required to easily navigate on the surface.

Obviously, the visibility range would be lengthened and widened so to see better in the dark. Increasing the brightness of the headlights would be a good thing, and for style we could maybe get additional lights when we enable the Level II, like the hauling trucks.

Twxo questions:

  • The the Night Vision?

    • A great feature. This said, I would like the Night Vision to stop showing the ships that are too cold to be detected, in stealth or other hidden objects. The Level II headlights would be helpful there.
  • Why should I use the headlights Level I then?

    • If we are close to an object, Level II will be too powerful and dazzling because of the reflections. Switch to Level I, just like with SRVs.

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Drones swarms

The Thargoids have many swarms of Thargon drones. Why couldn’t we buy a module offering swarms of various powers and numbers? No crew to maintain and considerable damage.

It would be possible to launch and recall them whenever you want, even why not launch them with a Fighter or two. The damage would change depending on the type of drones, consuming more power MW on the Power Plant for example.

Three questions:

  • So, we could buy a swarm of drones dealing damage without the cost of a NPC/Crew?

    • To balance it out, these drones would be effective as an Expert level Fighter and would not progress. Unique damage per drone in the swarm. The number of drones increases per Module Class: 5, 6, 7 and 8. Only one such module per ship.
  • Nicou, AI are forbidden
    • Then explain the different assistance modules to land, take off, supercruise and even the, Bulkwark Project, etc…
  • Nicou are you serious?! Two Fighters + a Drones swarm?!
    • I am totally serious! The drone swarm would have to count as a minimum Class 5 or even Class 6 module in order to balance it. Players would thus have to sacrifice a large module slot for this specialisation and would therefore have less resistances than those who do not have these swarms.

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HUD colours & User Interfaces

The Federation of Pilots imposes a unique interface and colour on us. Free ourselves from our chains, times are changing!
Some pilots are already changing their HUD Colours.

Having different interfaces per ships manufacturers would also be a great change to the game to give a better identity to the ships and to Elite: Dangerous. Why not make the interface modular? The same game data, in different places, in different styles and colours.

One question:

  • If we modify these design from the interface, we would also need to redo the side panels and all…

    • Yes. Doable.

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Grouped Modules, Astronavigation & Routes

Now that the developers have introduced the take-off, landing and supercruise automation modules into the game; Why not add new modules to make life easier for pilots?

  • Integrated into the game, a grouping of recurring modules just like the Fighters and SRVs currently. We could apply this system of submodules to Drones Controllers in order to have a single module with, for example, three locations where we could put Collector, Research hatch-Breaker.
  • A route automation module between A and B could give us time for other tasks while the autopilot lead the ship to its destination. The process would be slower than manual navigation in order to advantage the players piloting manually. All the automations modules could be contained in one main module of different class / size depending on how many automations we want.
  • Integrated into the game, the possibility of defining waypoints on our route; Without it being bookmarks. The route automation module could take these waypoints into account and Fleet Carriers could be programmed to jump on these waypoints (regularly if necessary, via parameters).

A question:

  • No wayyyyyy, we’re already too much assisteeeeeed! What else, automatic farminnnnnnng?

    • On every MMOs we have Taxis, Fly, Gems that we add onto our gear to specialise them, etc… why not Elite: Dangerous?
  • Yes, but Elite is not an MMOooooo.
    • FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

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Credits & Materials Transfers

Credits will do fine……… no? Trading Credits and Materials is a double-edged sword, but it could do the trick!

Two concerns:

  • We will have even more beginners in Anacondas…
    • If we take it like that, yes it’s something possible… but it’s already possible to have an Anaconda in less than a day and we can also exchange a lot of Diamonds to a new player so that he/she has his/her Anaconda in just 30 minutes watch at hand. So the negative point being already there, we might as well authorise these exchanges of Credits and Materials in order to be able to pay players for their services such as an armed escort, a resupply or even simply because he or she is a friend.
  • Oooh wait… and we could also buy modded ships sold by the owner of a Fleet Carrier and his shipyard service?
    • IF ONLY!

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Screenshots Filters

Le système de photo-caméra d’Elite: Dangerous est assez développé et propose des options de suivis de vaisseau, ou bien un plan fixe, un réglage de mise au point, flou et autres outils… mais qu’en est-il de filtres qui pourraient venir donner un effet de style sympathique à nos prises de vues ?

Elite: Dangerous’s photo camera system is fairly developed and offers options to track or not your ship, focus adjustment, blur and other tools… but what about Filters that could give a nice style effect to our shots?

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Ships Escorts

We talked about it earlier with the Credits exchange: creating a system of beacons that could allow their users to call for help would be an excellent thing. In addition, this system was available during the Beta of Elite: Dangerous but was unfortunately withdrawn upon release.

Why not also offer a Services platform so that players can offer their services for taxis, escort in combat or for explorers returning from expedition, etc… these things could be very useful to us.

It would also be interesting to be able to temporarily pay NPCs in given ships, so that they follow us during our playing time in order to protect us. We could give them orders just like the Fighters.

A question:

  • WOWOWO, two Fighters + two escort ships + a swarm of drones ?! Are you kidding me now?
    • I’m still not kidding Mike Omplain. Balancing it would be difficult but if you farmed enough credits, you could have it… Credits = play time and it is easily accessible to all… so in the end it would be balanced? There are some pros & cons, but with a good balance it could be really interesting. Maybe ban NPCs from escorts to players who are Wanted, with Notoriety or fines… and have them only recruit criminals who would be much more expensive if that is the case?

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Enhancement to Ships Swapping

A very simple trick: On a station, when we swap ships, the game always makes us go crazy like ascending the ship on the pad, then descending again, then turning it, then going to the back of the hangar… what a waste of time! If I’m docked and swap ships, I want it to goes BAM here is your ship and I don’t want to spin all around before I can use the ship and/or the station’s services.

It’s even more annoying when we change all the IDs of our ships or go through them for modifications. How about a list of all of our ships on a window with drag & drop modules we can fit to the ships? That would save us a lot of time during modifications and tests!

Here.

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Bounty Hunting & Tracking

Like the Flechette Launchers and the Flak Cannons, it would be interesting to be able to mark a ship in order to follow its movements in the galaxy via a marker, in systems via a marker close to the ship’s closest astral body, but also via a tag we can recognise in the system.
This Hunting Beacon could be countered by Point Defence, deactivated by Electronic Countermeasures before impact on the target ship or by performing Ship Maintenance on a station.

A hunting board could also help Bounty Hunters with their gameplay, for example by placing bounties on the heads of certain players… but for that, Frontier would have to rework the very low limit of credits that can be recovered by killing a wanted player… because this system is very easily exploitable in order to make a player rich… but that can easily be counter-countered by dissociating the fines from the bounties.

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More Optional & Utility Modules

The game could offer more gameplay, and break the current meta thanks to new Utility Modules.

For example:

  • Power Distributor Booster, Optional – To quickly regain points in one or more Energy Capacitors; Systems, Engines, Weapons. It could consume a lot of power on the ship and heat us up, but in return we could be more resilient for a short time, easily shoot in bursts or increase speed tenfold.
  • Swarm Booster, Utility – Could boost the speed and damage of our swarms for specialist players.
  • Gas Harvesting, Optional – With Odyssey we could get different atmospheric gases for our Engineer upgrades?
  • Multi-Tracker, Utility – Allows us to select up to x targets to fire at our selections at the same time depending on the availability and current use of our turrets, in order to bring back turret gameplay.
  • Advanced Targeting, Utility – Cannot lose target lock, even if you are attacked with experimental effects intended to destabilise your tracking or evenif your target goes stealth.
  • FSD Micro-jump, Optional – To jump to a point in the same current system after a charge time and fuel cost. Current fuel, no need for a new fuel to grind, thanks.
  • Supercruise Accelerator, Optional – Instead of a charge and fuel cost we could simply accelerate much faster to our target in the system.
  • Magnetic Field, Utility – Gives a % of chance that missiles launched at you will bounce back and deal no damage to you.
  • Capacitor, Utility – Grants a constant amount of additional MW to the ship’s Power Plant. If the module is destroyed, these MW are lost.
  • Cargo, Utility – Why not even additional cargo, fixed up to utility slots?
  • …

There is so much to do!

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eWar & Furtivity

Like the previous chapter, new Electronic Warfare gameplay would be welcome!
The goal would be to weaken your target in order to prevent it from fleeing, to reduce its energy capacity, to decrease its weapons range, to jam its radar, in short, lots of things.

Obviously we need offensive and defensive eWar modules to mitigate or even fully counter the effects of electronic attack. Engineer effects could even be added.
The bigger the class, the stronger it is for offensive or defensive purpose.

  • Offensive Gyrostability – Decreases target shooting speed & maneuverability
  • Defensive Gyrostability – Increases your shooting speed & maneuverability
  • Stasis – Decreases the target’s speed
  • Fluidifier – Counter the effects of reducing speed
  • Jump Interdictor – Extends charging times during supercruise & hyperspace jumps
  • FSD Tunnel – Counter the effects of loading times during supercruise & hyperspace jumps
  • Shield Disruptor – A percentage of damage passes through the target’s shields.
  • Realignment of Shields – Counter the effects of disruption
  • Shield Field Generator – Protects against weapons fired from outside the shields. A kind of drone to be placed in space that can be destroyed.
  • Power Vampire – You absorb a part of the target’s generator MW when standing x km from the target
  • Lightning Bolts – Much like the Thargoids, hurl lightning bolts at your target doing massive shield damage but zero hull damage. Can also destabilise the thrusters and power plant.
  • Simply hack certain modules in order to reduce their efficiency, and you could of course counter these hacks.
  • …

On the stealth side, objects that are too cold should not be displayed on the night vision in order to restore some semblance of activity to the stealth gameplay.

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Utility SLF

  • How about a Fighter who would shoot at our mining ship to either cool it down while we fire our lasers or transfer power to us so we can shoot for a longer time… both at the same time would be extremely handy!
  • A Fighter-bomber for ground targets? Or with rockets? Railguns?
  • A Fighter mining with our mining vessel to speed up the mining speed… or one who does all the deposits with its Abrasive Surfacer?
  • A transport Fighter, in order to leave our ship in orbit and descend quietly to the surface. There could be exploration and cartography, courier, cargo version, …
  • Drone Fighter, which could contain several types of drones for example decontamination, repair, …

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Vehicles’ Racing

The most recent version of the Elite: Dangerous tutorial features some kind of doors that can be found in Arena mode, Close Quarter Combat.

Why not offer races at facilities or at various locations? For example a location known directly in the live world, with powerful police ships inspecting the surroundings. Every Sunday, the big xxxx race which would earn you special racing rewards!

Why not even buy a special module that would allow these doors to be placed for a given time (24 hours for example) in order to allow players to create their own races in space and on the surface? Something similar would be needed for VRS.

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Do you have great ideas?
Tell us in the comments or on Twitter!