Three things to make Elite: Dangerous Odyssey better
Here are three things that will make your Elite: Dangerous Odyssey experience better: a proper joystick, a good VR headset and a Fleet Carrier.
The last couple of months I’ve confirmed how different things, not all of them real, have contributed to make my Elite: Dangerous experience better. Those three things might be all you need to know to have a better experience with the space simulation, so I decided to share them here. Time to check the three secrets that will change your Elite: Dangerous experience forever.
The first of them is a proper joystick or, what’s better, a “combo” from VKB Sim built around the company’s Gladiator NXT EVO Omni Throttle and the Gladiator NXT EVO. Which do not need to be introduced, as both are well known for their excellent value. After years going through Thrustmaster’s joysticks that would stop working properly in a couple of years or less, I decided to invest a little more and opted for VKB for one good reason: I already had their T-Rudder Pedals Mk.IV, which have given me a few years now without any problems. Only once, after a couple of years of use, I had to fix something: a screw that was a bit loose…
Based on my experience with the T-Rudder Pedals Mk.IV and what I read online about VKB products, the Gladiator NXT EVO Omni Throttle and the Gladiator NXT EVO seemed like a sound investment and… believe me, it was. I’ve had them since April this year and they have given me not just pleasure but also better control of my spaceships in Elite: Dangerous — and planes in MSFS and DCS. In fact, I even use the Gladiator NXT EVO Omni Throttle for walking on Elite: Dangerous, paired with the mouse on the right hand. Works perfectly for my exobiology sessions…
If you’re after a joystick/HOTAS/HOSAS “combo” for your adventures in Elite: Dangerous, look no further. The Gladiator NXT EVO Omni Throttle and the Gladiator NXT EVO are fantastic and affordable. If you want to go the extra mile, get the T-Rudder Pedals Mk.V, which is the newer version of the rudder pedals from VKB, which gives you extra control of your spaceship. Or plane in MSFS or DCS, and are essential in helicopters, if you regularly fly those.
So, this is the one thing — well, in fact three, but it works as a package — that made my Elite: Dangerous experience better. The second is a VR headset, which gives you the kind of immersion that this space simulation deserves. Yes, it is true that Frontier does not support VR in the “walking portion” of Elite: Dangerous Odyssey (which is the version I am talking bout) but still, seeing the landscapes — on foot — through a VR headset will give you a better notion of their dimension than on a flat screen. And when you’re flying around or driving the SRV, the VR headset really “puts you there!”.
As for VR headset, I’ve settled for the Pico 4 VR, launched one year ago (September 2022), which is just a great VR headset that spared me from all the troubles with the HP Reverb G2, which was great… when it worked. HP is leaving the VR market (already has!) and the future of the Reverb G2, with a cable that is prone to problems, does not look as viable or anything to put your money on. The fact that Windows Mixed Reality has reached, apparently, a dead-end, does not help, so looking elsewhere is a good option.
The Pico 4 VR headset is, IMHO, the best solution — and I am not alone thinking that — as it is both affordable and offers excellent quality for the price. Now, because it is a standalone VR headset used for PCVR and it uses wireless to transfer data, two things must be considered: there is some degradation of the signal…. and you need a beefy computer to be able to use it, as the video must be encoded and decoded on the way to the headset. With the pancake lenses and the high-res achieved, you’ll hardly note the difference… and you have a non-tethered headset, which for some may be bonus.
You also need to have a good Wi-Fi 5 or better accessible and be able to reserve the 5GHz channel for your headset and your PC needs to be connected to the router through Ethernet. The software that makes the magic happen is Virtual Desktop (the version for Pico 4 VR), which costs money but is better than the software offered by Pico. Virtual Desktop works with SteamVR — which can be a PITA… — but the next version of VD will work directly with OpenXR thanks to the integration of the layer by Matthieu Bucchianeri, who created the implementation of the OpenXR standard for Virtual Desktop on Windows… allowing you to run OpenXR applications without SteamVR.
A beta version, which is being updated regularly, is available — if you find the right links — and it’s very promising. In flight simulations like DCS and MSFS it gives extra frames and options without the cumbersome routines of SteamVR in the background. It’s working in Elite: Dangerous too, with some extra effort, and, for me, the fact that I don’t need to use SteamVR is the cherry on top of the cake. When I used the Reverb G2, not needing to use SteamVR for DCS and MSFS was one good thing that I thought I had lost when moving to the Pico 4 VR and Virtual Desktop.
It’s obvious that using a standalone VR headset for PCVR means a lot of compressing and decoding that asks for a powerful computer, so this might be a problem for some. I am running Elite in VR with a RTX 4090 on a i7–9700K, and it works fine, Your experience may be different, but let me add this note, which I’ve mentioned before: I am also running Elite in VR, in an old machine, with a i7–4770 (launched in… 2013) paired with a RTX 2070 (from 2018…) and it still offers a good visual experience. When I first wrote about this, I was still forced to use Steam VR, but I’ve now tried to run with the new OpenXR integration and it’s working fine. It’s not able to give you all the details a more powerful PC offers, but it’s still a window to a trip out of this world that only VR can enhance.
Your very own Fleet Carrier
The third secret for a better Elite: Dangerous experience is… having your own Fleet Carrier. After using those gigantic spaceships — owned by other Commanders — to take me to Colonia, on a 10-month expedition across the galaxy, a journey of seven weeks through nebulas and other phenomena and two months discovering stars on a forgotten area of the map… I decided to have my own Fleet Carrier.
I was afraid of the cost, afraid of the monthly payments, afraid of having such a big spaceship and nothing to do with it. How I was wrong. The Fleet Carrier is a money-making machine, in different ways: I opted for exploration, an activity which allowed me to get the money to buy my Fleet Carrier in the first place, and it has confirmed to me what other Commanders have told me: it works!
The Yellow Star (V9V-L0X) is now on an expedition to explore areas with Nebulas and Guardian Sites. Three weeks after having left its base at Shapsugabus (home of The Stellar Cartographers Guild squadron) it is some 10.000 Ly away (Blae Eork QU-D d13–3), where it has been for three weeks now. With four Commanders on board, it has been the “home away from home”, the safe harbor to return to after each trip of discovery around the Fleet Carrier. It’s a specially good option for small vessels as the Sidewinder, which are one of the best choices for Exobiology.
It’s reassuring to travel some 500 or 700 Ly away on exploration knowing that you’ve somewhere to return to, not just to repair the spaceship if something goes wrong but also to sell to Universal Cartographics the data collected, and to Vista Genomics your Exobiology findings. Besides, you can have all your spaceships with you, as well as a collection of modules to adapt the ships for different missions.
Three of the commanders onboard are responsible for gathering the information that will result in two volumes of Nebula & Guardians, covering the two sites chosen for this expedition. The comic-style eBook to be published, from which some — still Work In Progress — pages are shared here will cover the 26 Guardian Ancient Ruins in the area explored on this first part of the mission, the Notable Stellar Phenomena and Nebulas visited and other aspects of the journey. Photography is an essential element for this coverage, which also includes written information to support the images.
The three Commanders in the mission have different tasks assigned to them… which is a way to diversify what a player can do. As these Commanders are my “alts”, having them working on different areas means when I change from one alt to the next, I am doing something different, which I believe is an effective way to play Elite: Dangerous. Besides, it gives you a sense of mission.
All Commanders do a bit of everything regarding exploration, but they have specific tasks: Fortuna D is the archaeologist in the group, and she has covered the Guardian Ruins, Jeff Hawke has explored the Notable Stellar Phenomena and Nebulas along with the vast scoopless T- deserts. The Commander who owns the Fleet Carrier The Yellow Star (V9V-L0X), Brick Bradford, is mainly occupied with Exobiology and the photographic coverage of the whole journey.
How much money can you make with a Fleet Carrier? Well, it depends on how much you invest in using it. If it serves your needs, as The Yellow Star (V9V-L0X) does for me — for a variety of reasons — then it pays for itself and any monthly expenses. I made the money for my Fleet Carrier through exploration and Exobiology: in a little more than seven weeks I went from 400.000.000 credits to over 10 billion, from which I invested more than six on the carrier and other things needed, as a Type-9 spaceship for moving Tritium. I deposited over 4 billion on the carrier for expenses and started this expedition with my Commander BB having 2 billion. My account now has more than 6 billion, meaning BB made more than 4 billion in three weeks, and I should note that many days he was not active, as Fortuna D and Hawke were busy flying… and making money too!
So, if you dream of having a Fleet Carrier and have the money to buy it — plus some extra for the first months — and the will to keep working to make sense of the investment, go ahead and do it. Exploration is not the only way to make money with a Fleet Carrier, but I wanted to share my own experience as part of the “Three things to make Elite Dangerous better” article published here. I never imagined myself writing this but here I am: although I still believe a smaller exploration carrier would be enough for many people, there is some magic on returning from a journey through the stars and seeing YOUR carrier there, waiting for you, as the ATC voice invites you to ask for docking permission.
