When comparing Euro Truck Simulator 2 vs Elite: Dangerous, the Slant community recommends Euro Truck Simulator 2 for most people. In the question“What are the best online multiplayer games on PC?” Euro Truck Simulator 2 is ranked 16th while Elite: Dangerous is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Euro Truck Simulator 2 is:
The game is a classic rags to riches story that starts the player off in a little garage working for other companies and earning money to eventually buy a truck of his own. Owning a truck allows getting higher paying jobs, that allow getting the truck upgraded, that allows getting even higher paying jobs. At some the opportunity to hire other drivers presents itself and building a trucking empire is not far off.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Addicting progression system
The game is a classic rags to riches story that starts the player off in a little garage working for other companies and earning money to eventually buy a truck of his own. Owning a truck allows getting higher paying jobs, that allow getting the truck upgraded, that allows getting even higher paying jobs. At some the opportunity to hire other drivers presents itself and building a trucking empire is not far off.
Pro Gorgeous scenery
The game has a huge map that covers much of Europe and delivers detailed, varied scenery throughout giving each place a sense of identity and creating a specific atmosphere.
Pro Simple VR setup
To run the game in VR mode, add -oculus command line parameter.
Pro Cathartic experience
Because much of the game is based in routine and long-distance travels, it gives the ability to switch the brain off, relax and tune out the real world and supplement it with peaceful in-game representation of Europe. Minor details like local radio stations are also included, letting you can get into that driving groove without ever leaving your living room.
Pro No VR sickness
Since the player and the character are stationary with the vehicle creating a frame of reference, much of the issues with motion sickness are avoided.
It also helps that you don't need to look around very quickly either - the only time you need to move your head significantly is to look back out the window. Other than that, it's usually just slightly looking left/right.
Pro Accessible
The game is easy to pick up. It provides a friendly tutorial that explains the essential mechanics and tools used in the game in a clear and concise way.
Pro Has tons of mods
The game has a wide variety of mods available that add new locations, game content and functionality. There's even a multiplayer mod.
Pro Built with future expansion in mind
When Elite Dangerous come out, development won't stop. To build a game with the huge scope of Elite Dangerous, not all of it can be done at once, so the developers have adopted an approach of incremental improvement. Various game play elements are being designed as a foundation for later features. For example, although planetary landings aren't going to be available until a later update, the engine has been designed to be able to support going from lightyears away to meters away.
Pro Exploration at every level of detail
Full exploration of the galaxy is planned, allowing you to be able to jump from star system to star system, and fly around within a solar system from planet to planet, eventually going all the way down to a planet's surface at a 1:1 scale in a later update. Planetary landings will require a lot of details to be developed and designed, but you can still see the level of detail shift in action when flying into a planet's rings, where getting close enough show the individual asteroids within, which you can then interact with through mining, or by having a battle among them.
Pro Very realistic representation of space & star systems
Elite Dangerous uses publicly available real world star maps that we have of the Milky Way consisting of 150,000 star systems. Although in the current beta, full access to the entire galaxy is limited, in the final game, you will be able to visit any of the 400 billion stars in our galaxy on a 1:1 scale. Stars that we do know of are properly mapped in place and are of the correct type given the information we have about them. Stars we haven't collected data on are procedurally generated which allows you to explore any of the 400 billion of them.
Star systems are intelligently simulated using the "Star Forge", a generator that simulates the creation of a star system forming from its nebular cloud to determine what celestial bodies appear and what orbits they have. This feature leads to many varied and unique star systems possibly with planets that can co-orbit around each other, or with binary star systems, and infinitely more possibilities.
Pro Great Oculus Rift integration
Elite Dangerous has very good integration with the Oculus Rift thanks to its cockpit view only gameplay philosophy. All ship UIs are part of displays that appear on each side of you that appear when you turn your head, so accessing the navigation or ship menus happens seamlessly just by looking in their direction. The game also uses the direction you are looking in for targeting, so your lock on target is whatever you're head is pointing at.
By sitting in the cockpit of a ship, you are given a stationary frame of reference that helps prevent motion sickness associated with movement in game when you aren't actually moving.
Cons
Con Runs on Rift in extended mode only
Runs much slower on an HMD (head mounted display) than it really should.
Con Some parts may feel slow
Since it is a simulation game, trips and progression may feel too slow for some.
Con Menues and text aren't optimized for VR
Small text and loading screens can be hard to read as they aren't optimized for VR.
Con Requires a performant machine to run smoothly
Con Really complicated to learn
Looking up faqs and trade routes from first hand users will be the norm for figuring out many aspects of Elite: Dangerous. On top of this notes will have to be taken, which is made more difficult by the fact the game does not support in game not taking. So a pad and paper is recommended to remember all of the minutia of the game.
Con Boring
It is more a simulation than a combat game.
Con Launcher issues
I bought the game on multiple stores and were never happy how the laucher and the account linking worked.
Con "Mile Wide and an Inch Deep"
The game has a serious problem with depth and requires the user to repeat the same few fun actions over and over again. The world is massive and beautiful but feels empty. The game gets stale quickly despite being visually stunning.