Next year in December, we´ll walk on planets!

[Zenicetus]

I personally am torn on the idea of planetary landings, I mean I like Kerbal space program for this very aspect, getting a craft to another body in one peice, but when you get there you realize it is just a barren empty rock with random topography.

The Evochron space game has planet landings, but except for a fairly basic station/city on the surface, that describes the experience -- just random topography, no weather systems, nothing interesting on the surface. FD will need to do much better to sell what will probably be a fairly expensive DLC pack.

it sounds like it could be a great concept but it doesn't really lend to the space experience, even if they had a million developers i doubt they could make unique planet content spanning the entire galaxy if i'm optimistic about the idea i can see landing areas in the same number that there are orbital stations with maybe more or maybe less variety.

going down to a planet is only gunna be really cool if there is something down there to do or get. but don't let me sound like a pessimistic sour , I'll see what they can do with it and if it seems like it'll add some extra depth to the game then ill buy the expansion. if not ill simply be content with what is already there.

That's my view also. I'm not getting my hopes up, but they did a great job with modeling the look of star systems, so I'm interested to see what they'll come up with. Procedural generation will work for varied terrain, and if they can manage to model different weather systems to fly through, that could be fun. I want a landing that mimics the drop ship landing sequences in the Aliens movie, following a glide path through clouds, and my ship saying "We're in the pipe, five by five."

I'm not expecting big cities on the surface. It will probably be something like small surface outposts the size of current space stations, with similar landing pads and UI for interacting with the base. We may get that before a full "walking around on the surface" expansion, depending on what they're able to come up with for alien plant/animal life. That's going to be tricky; there is a fine line between plausible and cartoonish. I'd like to see alien animals, but I don't want it to look like something out of the Spore game.

 

[Robert Crusoe]

How about ED becomes one big game that makes all other games redundant?
So you land on this distant primitive planet, get out, and find you are in something like Skyrim with a whole beautiful world to explore and fight dragons in.
Then land on the next planet to find its a post apocalypse game like Fallout or Stalker where you can find rare anomalies that are worth a fortune back in the ED Universe.

Life on board your ship could become more interesting as well as you find amongst the cargo you just bought is an "Alien" that you have to hunt down before it hunts you down.

At least at the space stations we could have a disco like in Vampire Mascarade where you can dance with other commanders you have just been flying against, (then maybe you can drink their blood).

I sure hope that if not FD then some other developer has this kind of idea on the drawing board or in production before the end of the decade.

a few other games have somewhat already pulled it off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but unfortunately the time factor will take its toll on the most dedicated fans.

 

[Oddball]

Next year in December, we´ll walk on planets!

We can all hope. I still think there is much more to include in the current implementation.
For example....

1. Giant cities in space (as promised)
2. Terraformed asteroids (pirate basis etc.)
3. Thargoids and their ships
4. Docking with larger ships
5. Panther/Puma Clipper

I haven't encountered any of the above in the game so far so I am assuming they are not in yet, but should be.

 

[Zephyriel]

If they have managed to make the galaxy an interesting place to play, I'm sure they can also pull it off for individual planets. The thread in my signature has some ideas of what could be done on planets of various stages of habitability and development, and are reasonably achievable by the dev team (sorry guys I don't think you'll have GTA V cities on every planet with Skyrim npcs who can all tell you their individual life story and give you a quest).

But these expansions will probably be released in several stages. One thing I'm particularly excited about is flying in an atmosphere, in the middle of a storm.

 

[gurugeorge]

DB was a genius pioneer of procedural generation, I'm sure they'll go farther into this than any development team has gone before, and I have confidence that everyone will be amazed.

PG has a bad name, but that's only because it's hard to do well, and hasn't been implemented very well yet (except in Elite).

It's a bold, exciting path FD are going, and I for one am looking forward to it. Even procedural planets with just landscapes, flora and fauna would be awesome. Imagine if they could also procedurally design random sentient aliens to have first contact with, and the like.

The complete s-f game (with spaceships, atmospheric flying, vehicles and ground combat) has always been a holy grail of games. Make it so FD! (And/or RSI - I'm agnostic and love both - MOAAAR S-F GAMES!!!)

 

[Antenociti]

PG has a bad name, but that's only because it's hard to do well, and hasn't been implemented very well yet (except in Elite).

Three words for you:

No Mans Sky

 

[Macgyver]

I'm hoping for a good character creator. More important than that I want good realistic animations. And some ability to interact with other players through animations, like a variety of emotes.

And the five people still playing this game could meet up on Lave and have a /dance while the rest of us play SC.
Face it, ED won't even be around for another year, let alone 6 months.

 

[Milacetious]

How about ED becomes one big game that makes all other games redundant?
So you land on this distant primitive planet, get out, and find you are in something like Skyrim with a whole beautiful world to explore and fight dragons in.
Then land on the next planet to find its a post apocalypse game like Fallout or Stalker where you can find rare anomalies that are worth a fortune back in the ED Universe.

Life on board your ship could become more interesting as well as you find amongst the cargo you just bought is an "Alien" that you have to hunt down before it hunts you down.

At least at the space stations we could have a disco like in Vampire Mascarade where you can dance with other commanders you have just been flying against, (then maybe you can drink their blood).

You sir are making me dream.... Stop that.

also:

They can take as long as it requires, I only hope they show it to us as they make progress.

 

[Macgyver]

We can all hope. I still think there is much more to include in the current implementation.
For example....

1. Giant cities in space (as promised)
2. Terraformed asteroids (pirate basis etc.)
3. Thargoids and their ships
4. Docking with larger ships
5. Panther/Puma Clipper

I haven't encountered any of the above in the game so far so I am assuming they are not in yet, but should be.

#4 yes we can already, you just have to find the Capital ship that allows it.

 

[Neo-ST]

How about ED becomes one big game that makes all other games redundant?
So you land on this distant primitive planet, get out, and find you are in something like Skyrim with a whole beautiful world to explore and fight dragons in.
Then land on the next planet to find its a post apocalypse game like Fallout or Stalker where you can find rare anomalies that are worth a fortune back in the ED Universe.

Life on board your ship could become more interesting as well as you find amongst the cargo you just bought is an "Alien" that you have to hunt down before it hunts you down.

At least at the space stations we could have a disco like in Vampire Mascarade where you can dance with other commanders you have just been flying against, (then maybe you can drink their blood).

Then you land on a planet to support ongoing war with rebels and game transforms into FPS such as Battlefield/Planetside.
Or, you receive a distress beacon signal while passing by some god forbidden planet, decide to land to check it out, turns out something horrible happened - game transforms into Star Trek / adventure type, etc.
Ah yes...one day perhaps...

 

[LiquidLogic]

I'm sure that I will be burned out by the time the next expansion comes out.

 

[Tenshi]

It looks like they got the height maps already in the game for the planets anyway, and the space stations have the walkways and doors. So to implements landing on planets would not be that hard as I understand it most of the background work for this is already done. As in the planets are all ready prepared for walking on them and landing on them.

The only thing is they are not yet populated with anything yet such as cities or ports to land in. Then there are the npcs that live in these places as well.

Elite Dangerous has come a long way since the first outing of Alpha after seeing what the FD team can do in a year I think we can expect them to either have it out or be very close to release of this update this time next year.

 

[gurugeorge]

Three words for you:

No Mans Sky

That looks great, but Elite is going to have to do it better and look better

 

[Phero77]

I'm gonna moon walk like Michael Jackson..

 

[TUXER]

That looks great, but Elite is going to have to do it better and look better

I dont like the art style of No Mans Sky
plus as far as anyone can tell there is no trading, no mining, no fighting, no exploring for specific items. all we know is flying around looking at animals, everything else is assumptions

 

[Darkflame]

Theres also Limit Theory;
http://ltheory.com/about.html

(Another procedural space game, everyone forgets about this one though)

 

[Herik]

Theres also Limit Theory;
http://ltheory.com/about.html

(Another procedural space game, everyone forgets about this one though)

Yeah Limit Theory; there will be 'Gates or Highways' between systems, but all the station building and ship building. Basically very 'X games' like. Massively procedurably programmed....
I just hate Gates or Highways.

 

[Zenicetus]

Three words for you:

No Mans Sky

Looks interesting, but from what I saw of the last teaser trailer, the planets are very small; more like a large moon or planetoid. The landing sequence from space happens very abruptly (no atmosphere penetration), and then you walk around with what seems like Earth gravity. They're probably keeping the planet sizes very small to avoid generating too much procedural stuff on the surface.

 

[Marikc0]

Right? 12 month after release = December 2015

Now this will be interesting, will we get a character creator?

And where are we uhm,.. going to walk?
Bars? Space Suit Boutiques? Pet Shops?

It is not something that development should be wasted on. This is a space sim. Not Planet Walking Simulator 2015.

 

[Hekantonkheries]

I'm hoping for a good character creator. More important than that I want good realistic animations. And some ability to interact with other players through animations, like a variety of emotes.

Kinda hope for a character creator on par with EVE

But i just know were going to get maybe 4-5 "pieces" of faces to put together premade style like WoW, and itll be terrible, because everyone will be walking around looking almost identical to everyone else

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It is not something that development should be wasted on. This is a space sim. Not Planet Walking Simulator 2015.

yes, this is a SPACE sim, and you know whats IN space? planets. and you know whats ON planets? those dudes that got away and are trying to duct tape their FSD back together.

besides that, it opens the chances for more pirate/faction stations in scenic locales, thinking Sandbox from S.H.I.E.L.D./GI Joe, opening up and you sneaking in.




also, dont be one of those guys, any expansion of content/exploration is good for the game, or are you content to forever have literally nothing new to do/explore? just repeating the same combat missions in your little dogfighting simulator forever?