I wasn't defending as much as offering a different perspective on the game in case someone sleeps on it. I mean, you say "mile wide and inch deep" and it is like that sometimes ( stellar anomalies are drop in, gawk, scan, screenshot and leave ). But they also say it's "space trucking simulator", and it is that too sometimes. And that it's "just a wallpaper generator", and that's also true. But these add up. There's also the "emerging gameplay" which fdev kept yapping on about - things like the fuel rats, hull seals, the dssa and star carrier networks, axi etc.

I'm probabaly wrong thinking you haven't played in a whole but you might wanna give it another chance. In their defense, fdev corrected the engineering rng bullshit and added a feature to shorten tedious in-system travel. They also reworked powerplay and added some colonization features as well as some squadron activities and operations if you're on foot. On the other hand, some flaws persist: for one, it still does not respect your time, and it still does not explain much and requires third party tools and websites if you want to dive into anything.

Also I'm genuinely curious what other sandboxes ( preferably space ) offer what elite does. I know x4 does some things much better but the flight model, controls and ui is atrocious every time I play. There's also SpaceEngine, which kinda does what Elite does with exploration but with a lot less travel time and a lot less interactivity. I was rooting for Starfield for a while but the moment todd said "One. Thousand. Planets" I knew exploration would be shite. Any other recommendations?

I, ngl, could grind money trading for days in elite. Never was a problem for me, and haulers do generate money fast. I hate engineering though. It's unnecessary tedious. The amount of planning and time wasted just to get AX ready ship is ridiculous. And pvp balance with fdl meta somewhat puts me off. Add to this that separate arena pvp mode in elite is dead. At some point I got Soo bored that I couldn't really continue playing it. No matter what, their ass engineering is too much for me. And linear progression killed any reason to even bother with that. And recent updates don't seem to really fix any of the existing issues. They tried to make engineering less painful by making rates and activities you get materials from more consistent. But it never fixed core issues with engineering. Like broken balance, or pathing that can take days to fully upgrade the ship if you have life outside of the game. Also the fact that you have to use outfit sites and inara for almost anything route related, because UI in the game is not really done in a good way puts me of playing it on steam deck as well. Elite could be a great game, but somehow it feels that devs maintaining the game and not developing it when it comes to ship related gameplay. Oh right, f-ing potato servers that will kick you from the game even if you are in solo mode on the busy weekend is painful too. Not to say that I prefer starfield. Starfield is not even on my radar, I will prefer elite any day over starfield. Just elite state is frustrating as hell for me.

Yeah I did that when the game was almost new. And I dont mind some grinding for better stuff, it's just that I felt that grinding was the entire game. I was hoping to be able to buy and sell resources and transport them across star systems for a profit, under the danger of pirates attacking me. Stuff like that. But its not that kind of game.

I guess more like the original elite game worked, but with modern graphics. That would be so cool.