The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[Karakhian]

yea, i definitively don't think we should rule out planetary landings. i have just been a little sceptic as i know how much work is involved into such things,
and if or when we get it i want people to appreciate it and not whine about it like they done whit all the other expansions, because if they do then i think im just going to go straight outside and shoot myself in the head

there is to many people around here that thinks procedural programming is some sort of magic that can create things out of thin air, and that a planetary landing expansion could be produced over a night, and that is just not the case.

Heheh, no need to go that far! The fact is, it doesn't matter what Frontier deliver on planetary landings - they could produce perfect facsimiles of living breathing planets with an infinite variety of fauna and flora with a fully working ecology and actual evolution modelled in, fully modelled oceans and fluid dynamics with ships cross-purposed as submersibles, seas of chocolate ice cream that you can actually taste as you play the game... and someone would have a hissy fit about something (probably that they hate the taste of chocolate ice cream; on second thought that's a terrible idea). It's the nature of forums, the internet and more broadly, people. Elite will never be everything to everyone.

I agree with you that planetary landings needs to be given the best chance possible, and I'm happy that Frontier are taking their time with it. It isn't easy, like you said. But I doubt what they've done so far is easy, and they managed to blow me away - so I can see they already know what they're doing better than I would, heh. And your concerns about procedural generation are right - David Braben actually talked about them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBvpd3_Vqk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEVutbSqBI0

Also combining some stuff from dev videos and things already in game...

Gas giant atmospheres anyone? Being able to refuel from them? Aerial landscapes of towering thunderheads with lightning crackling through it? Oh wait - gas giant atmospheres with life? Underpinned with radioplankton? Does that mean we'll see something like biophosphoresence as we do at night in the sea, but drifting through the air? Wait, 'underpins'? So they're just the bottom of the food chain? Bigger animals floating around? Herds? SPACE WHALES? SPACE WHALES DRIFTING THROUGH THE CLOUDS KEENING OUT THEIR HEARTBREAKING SPACEWHALESONG?!

OH GOD, SPACE WHALES?!

Now that would be unwarranted speculation

Though please god Frontier put them in

 

[HeimdallofHavn]

1-1 Scale Procedural generation of planet Earth with seamless transition from space:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNgWwvSaTZ0

 

[ZeeWolf]

I don't think they have confirmed a 2015 release. The original plan was to have PLs as the second paid extension. Walking about ships and stations being the first. I seriously doubt we will see both in 2015.

There hasn't been any sort of confirmation on what the first expansion will be. They have barely said anything. We had a newsletter which said the future expansions would include "Walking around" and planetary landings.

There has been a small mention of another team splitting off to work on expansions, but for all we know this could have been one guy spending an afternoon

DB did mention that "airless planets" would probably be done first (before atmospheric) but who knows?

 

[Cosmo]

Full version of planetary landings will not be tomorrow. Frontier will begin the landing on the rocky moons and the asteroids. Must be calculated in years for the full version in my opinion

The planetary expansion will be full-fledged. Space Engine is made by one guy where you can literally fly to detailed surfaces of every planet. It's not as difficult as it seems, they need to add enough content and stuff to do on planets though.

 

[Stealth Gamer92]

I hope they do it right when they do planetary landings. If not FDev'll be tore apart by NMS fans, SC fans, ED fans, AND Xbox players. It will be like watching a Pirhana feeding frenzy.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

There hasn't been any sort of confirmation on what the first expansion will be. They have barely said anything. We had a newsletter which said the future expansions would include "Walking around" and planetary landings.

There has been a small mention of another team splitting off to work on expansions, but for all we know this could have been one guy spending an afternoon

DB did mention that "airless planets" would probably be done first (before atmospheric) but who knows?

I was under the impression that EVA would come before PL

AND

that landing on asteroids and moons etc with no atmosphere would come before landing on "earthlikes" and such like.

any dates such as paid DLC coming within 12 months after launch AFAIK were made in the same era of the time comments were made of game launch coming in march 2014, 3 months after the game went into alpha.

As such, I would but zero faith in any dates regarding paid expansions.

 

[Globusdiablo]

that is not sticking to their guns........ FD said since day 1 that there would be getting out of your ship and big game hunting etc in a future DLC...

Sorry for not being clearer. I was of course referring to the pedigree of the series. Elite, Frontier: Elite 2 and First Encounters were cockpit action only. As Elite: Dangerous has been so far also.

I personally believe that the FPS promise was on par with the offline mode during Kickstarter and premium beta and all through "development" (hasn't ended yet): Tell them what they want to hear, so we get the funding.

Don't get me wrong. I love this game. Just not very keen on some of their business tactics...

 

[ZeeWolf]

I hope they do it right when they do planetary landings. If not FDev'll be tore apart by NMS fans, SC fans, ED fans, AND Xbox players. It will be like watching a Pirhana feeding frenzy.

A normal day on the forum then ;-D

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I was under the impression that EVA would come before PL

AND

that landing on asteroids and moons etc with no atmosphere would come before landing on "earthlikes" and such like.

I've not seen any confirmation about EVA coming first. There is some reasonable assumptions that can be made, sure but no concrete word unless you know of something?

 

[Ozmodion]

i think this will be way, way of yet. they have to get a big console base first, well thats what looks like they are doing at the moment anyway.

 

[Karakhian]

that is not sticking to their guns........ FD said since day 1 that there would be getting out of your ship and big game hunting etc in a future DLC.

the whole point of making it a paid expansion rather than a free update is to devote the time and resources into doing it properly. IF cobra engine is Frontiers engine and they hope to entire other companies to use it, and if elite is a flagship title to help promote the game engine, then a solid FPS expansion could show the engine off as a nice advertising platform, that cobra is more than just about space sims.

I HAVE always worried about your CMDR getting out of his ship etc however.... esp as to what happens if he is killed on a planet.... which si why I actualy think having an "away team" where your ships pilot stays in his ship, and then you as a player take control of a member of your crew to go off ship, that way if he dies, he dies.

I do agree however that PLs are, if they are to be done properly, probably a good while off yet, and I am fine with that. There is a lot more they need to do with the base game 1st imo.

Oh! Yeah, I've been wondering about that myself - what you said about how 'death' would work once you leave your ship. It's difficult to see how to work this in with the current mechanics for your escape pod taking you to your last docked station when your ship blows up. If you've left your ship and someone/thing kills you, you don't have an 'escape pod' for yourself.

This is pure speculation - I thought I found a few clues. Obviously we already have commodities like Personal Weapons and Reactive Armour. If you read the description of those, there seems to be some set up going on for crossover into the FPS bit. But if you look at the description for Combat Stabilisers, you see something pretty interesting. It says they're a kind of drug that can basically bring human beings back from almost completely fatal injuries. There's holes here but this is my vague guess.

You land - you get out of your pilot seat - this locks your ship as a 'respawn point' - in order to walk around you have a suit with a delivery system for combat stabilisers - if you get hurt, they explain the ability to recover from crippling injuries - if you 'die', they are an in-lore method of allowing you to come back. This would also mean that you ought to be able to potentially rescue NPC crew members from a 'near death' state, which would be nice if you have a crew member you're attached to.

But how are you taken back to your ship from some point on the planet's surface, even if the combat stabilisers do keep you alive? Do you have a drone following you around (limpet?) that carries you back to your ship if you are 'killed'?

Like I said, lots of holes. But could be something.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Yes, the FPS expansion will probably be the most problematic to get right in terms of quality and detail. One the one hand there is no way an Elite FPS expansion could compete with the likes of the best FPS out there. Dedicated expert teams with years of experience and millions worth of budgets say so. But it can not be an afterthought either. I presume FDEV will go for a practical/functional experience whose core value and differentiation factor would have to be precisely the seamless and smooth transition experience from flying ships to move and fight around (boarding actions, EVA). Actual shiny gear, creative killing devices, gore and fireworks will probably need to take a second priority.

1 game title, written by FD but forced to shelve : The Outsider.

FPS shell ready to use.

 

[Stealth Gamer92]

A normal day on the forum then ;-D

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I've not seen any confirmation about EVA coming first. There is some reasonable assumptions that can be made, sure but no concrete word unless you know of something?

Situation I'm thinking of would make these forum "debates" seem tame.

 

[TorTorden_VR]

I HAVE always worried about your CMDR getting out of his ship etc however.... esp as to what happens if he is killed on a planet.... which si why I actualy think having an "away team" where your ships pilot stays in his ship, and then you as a player take control of a member of your crew to go off ship, that way if he dies, he dies.

Nothing breaks gameplay immersion more for me than "press a button, now you are a different person" mechanics.
However I have no problem if we had remote controlled drones that could even open up a wide range of "tools" ranging from small hovering craft to android like human sized robots to battle mechs...

You could also forego all need for life support outside the ship as well, and allow for exploration of much harsher climates than a space suit would allow.

 

[Karakhian]

Nothing breaks gameplay immersion more for me than "press a button, now you are a different person" mechanics.
However I have no problem if we had remote controlled drones that could even open up a wide range of "tools" ranging from small hovering craft to android like human sized robots to battle mechs...

You could also forego all need for life support outside the ship as well, and allow for exploration of much harsher climates than a space suit would allow.

They've already covered the lore side of the space suit issue - we're all already wearing them as pilots and they include a Remlok survival mask that deploys instantly in dangerous situations (that's what happens when your canopy blows out).

Check this out:

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=f703580f39

While life support is powered, it basically lasts forever - it seems to be a recycling system and it's only when it's compromised (canopy blowing) that it switches to the reserve air tank. If you can get power back to your life support, then it switches back to normal operation.

So they can do the same thing while on foot, presumably you can carry some kind of power source that keeps your life support working indefinitely. Interestingly:

"Below we see a common example of the pilot’s suit. Unlike current spacesuits these benefit from technology advances in materials within the tight body-hugging garments - advanced materials provide environmental protection from extreme temperature variations and common hazards like exposure to hard vacuum in depressurisation ‘incidents’, but also aid movement."

So presumably, you as the pilot can actually walk into those harsher climates anyway, as these advanced space suits are already designed for extreme environments... though I agree having a variety of exploration drones as 'tools' would be awesome. We already have limpets for ships. And I also hope we won't be able to 'switch perspectives' to NPC crew - that would indeed be pretty immersion breaking.

 

[Agrar Therenus]

calm down and stop insulting people with a different outlook than your own. Ie, grow up.

There's nothing 'un-calm' about it. My opinion is the Elite: Dangerous community isn't exactly the brightest lamp in the street, in general.

Deal with that opinion. It's also a fallacy that insulting people somehow lessens one's arguments.

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im sorry, but procedural programming is just not magic that can create things out of thin air.
don't call me ignorant, i happen to be quite the nerd when it comes to things like this.

I never alluded to the fact that it is easy; but you may have noticed we're dealing with expert programmers and game designers here.

If No Man's Sky can do it like it has, then I'm pretty damn sure Frontier can better it.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

They've already covered the lore side of the space suit issue - we're all already wearing them as pilots and they include a Remlok survival mask that deploys instantly in dangerous situations (that's what happens when your canopy blows out).
.

that wont help you if you get eaten by a wild animal, take a rocket to you head, or have a boulder land on you however. this is why I think it is better (though i agree maybe not perfect) to have crew do it and us control them.

I like the remote controlled android option however... you could put on a VR headset in your ship to control it i guess.

(a VR headset to put on ingame on top of the vr headset i use in real life )

 

[DeeBeeP]

Priorities, I want to feel like I'm flying around a living, breathing galaxy as was promised before I even care about stepping foot off my ship. I don't care if its a space station or planet, the game is first and foremost about flying in space so I could care less if the game NEVER lets you use a pair of legs.

 

[Karakhian]

that wont help you if you get eaten by a wild animal, take a rocket to you head, or have a boulder land on you however. this is why I think it is better (though i agree maybe not perfect) to have crew do it and us control them.

I like the remote controlled android option however... you could put on a VR headset in your ship to control it i guess.

(a VR headset to put on ingame on top of the vr headset i use in real life )

Hah yeah! Nope, the suit definitely wouldn't help with that! I think that's where combat stabilisers will come in, and possible some kind of drone to carry your regenerating remains back to your ship. I think for crew, it would be more in keeping 'lorewise' to have camera feeds and you can issue orders to them and watch them. Though that's a huge ask in terms of implementing so it works everywhere in a massive procedurally generated galaxy, however it's done. Remote drones sound incredible too, but again that seems like a huge task to implement.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

--- Deleted ---

 

[Hurricane Moon]

now the weak current gen console will be getting there slice i doubt we will see that happen....there will be some excuse because there sheep boxes have restricted parts inside.

unlike a proper gaming pc.

i really hope we get planet landings,walking around soon because my ass is aching and i think piles are developing from sitting in the cockpit for an eternity....and the colostomy bag is getting rather full.


love ED,played the original,and frontier on the amiga.....need to land on planets ...walk around hangers...space stations....derelict ships floating in space.
it will give us more scope and things to do,especially from a multiplayer crew type perspective.

come on FD dont make me go and give in to the charlatan(?) over at some space industry place.