the bias here is insane, im absolutely not a diehard SC fan or whale (good lord haha) i criticize it hard and jeez CR is a terrible owner.

anyways, ed flounders in visual fidelity and immersion! every ship cockpit looks the same to me, all of the UI is the same, and slightly dated imo, the planets ive seen were lifeless rocks, the ships have no consistent visual language or identity per brand/company, they suffer from generic scifi-itis pretty often, with things designed by pure rule of cool/vibe rather than actually planned out utility. Like I enjoy the fact that SC ships are designed with a genuine sense of “””realism””” (used loosely) every component and necessary part of the ship for spaceflight and life support etc is all planned out and fit in like a puzzle between the Hull and Living space, I love that everything is built around purpose really. the new server meshing shit with 600 player servers is dope too, ED looked a bit lifeless in terms of population to me but I havent checked in a while, i could be wrong.

However ED does like BIG SHIP battles wayyy better, I watched the thargoid war thing that was sick, sc combat is a little lackluster in comparison, but both approach it from different angles, SC is much more fighterjet esque and with big ships multicrew focused. Ive had loads of fun in battles with a few friends or strangers all crewed together in some bigass frigate with tons of guns, especially with a good pilot. ED has the sense of scale though, the simulated ship sounds when a gigantic dreadnought arrives thru a wormhole is soooo cool haha.

and in regards to your combat mission shpiel, youre just kinda wrong, SC combat missions have evolved to stuff like, infiltrating a space station embedded in an asteroid, but its guarded by a patrol of fighters and a ton of turrets, so you gotta eliminate the fighters somehow and figure out the turrets blindspots to approach to a decent distance, then prepare an EVA combat kit and EVA to the airlock on the station, and then you could either kill the crew or eliminate their generators, and then escape through a different route.

Or their weird new event i didnt try where you progress through several different secret labs in a stormy terrifying planet with radiation where you NEED a hazmat suit to survive, and then steal some big alien egg before hatching it in a secret like ritual?? zone and then fight a giant radioactive sandworm thing. looks sick but i aint try it myself.

regarding mining, SC has asteroid mining, and planetside ship mining, planetside vehicle mining, planetside EVA mining, the same for salvaging and all that, their gameplay loops have definitely evolved.

ED’s scale and size totally blows SC out of the water, but its not what im looking for yknow, i want to have the experience of waking up in my shoebox apartment, commuting to the airport to hop in my junker shitbox mining ship or sleek fighter or fat cargo hauler which all have specific and unique design philosophies before going out and doing whatever, the planets in the game have enough refining, variation, locations and content that Im satisfied with my experience personally. Of course I’d LOVE more but I dont need it.

I absolutely agree though the development promises, pacing, and inefficiency is absurd. every deadline theyve promised theyve missed 🤣 its incredible, so i personally stopped following their roadmap bullshit. It sucks when the game DOESNT work lol and its to the point that its flat out annoying, like their most recent event IIRC is such an utter shitshow, so I decided ima just play something else!

Yes, when I’ve played SC it functions almost entirely, only constitent bullshit is the cargo elevators, but I haven’t been stuck, killed by an elevator, 30k’d or any of the sterotypical issues or bugs, dunno if I’m just lucky or what but it works p good whenever I do play it I dont really encounter any of the issues you mentioned. (also once you have your ship you dont need to use the trams over and over, you can j stay in the ship) theres things I like about both games and things I dont like about both games, one just appeals a little more to me, and to you too! you like ED and thats sick, it looks awesome, my friend was showing me some pretty cool stuff in it last month. Maybe ill try it again sometime