The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[Tinman]

Hmm, but tell me this.
Let's say you're in normal space, somewhere near Earth.
There are 3 stations nearby, that you could visit at normal speed if you wanted to.
How does instancing work then?
Say you went to A.Lincoln station, took you 30-45mins to arrive, and there were some players.
Then you redirect to M. Gorbachev station.
Who will you see there, if there was no instancing in the meanwhile ?

Instances are decided by "bubbles" around your ship (or POIs). If two ships "bubbles" intersect the matchmaking server (which always keeps track of everyones position in the galaxy) will try to match you two (or more people) together. In theory you could drop out in the middle of nowhere and if someone else by pure chance happened to be at that exact location then you would be matched together and see each other. This worked even back in Alpha 2 when people eventually realized that two of the battle scenarios we could choose was positioned rather close to each other. People then managed to start of in one scenario each and meet up in the middle after about 10 minutes of flying.

So in your scenario you would be connected to the station until you reached a certain distance away from it where you would drop that connection. If someone was flying alongside you then you would still stay connected to them. As you eventually approached the other station you would at a certain distance be matched against other players there.

Please don't ask me for sources for this since they are spread out all over the place. I could find them...but I don't want to spend my entire evening doing it!

 

[Huita]

Yes it will.

Old video I made...but this is still true. BTW...the LOD system is a lot better nowadays and the station doesn't appear out of nothing like that anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fORAin5jIo0

Another way to test this that doesn't take as long is to fly towards a station or any other POI without having it selected and drop out. You will then exit at the location you pressed the button and can then approach in normal flight.

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Yes you could, but it would take a really really long time and there is also the possibility that you won't be able to catch up with the stations orbit unless you manage to intersect its path thus putting you into its point of reference.

That's not dropping LS away. That's just 1mm. Try doing that from further away and you'll see what happens.

 

[777Driver]

That's not dropping LS away. That's just 1mm. Try doing that from further away and you'll see what happens.

I flew between two stations over 1mm away using normal thrusters in a Cobra, the outpost and ships gradually appeared in the distance, it was all seamless.

 

[Tinman]

That's not dropping LS away. That's just 1mm. Try doing that from further away and you'll see what happens.

You know what?

Dropping "only" 0.1 Ls away still means I'm going to have to fly in normal flight for 24 hours (at 300m/s) before I reach it. 1 Ls away would mean 10 days...so no. I'm not doing that.

If you want to do it you are more than welcome!

 

[Privata]

I flew between two stations over 1mm away using normal thrusters in a Cobra, the outpost and ships gradually appeared in the distance, it was all seamless.

intresting , thats real cool.
however one thing is not if you fly with normal thrust from say ''ring-a'' to ''ring-b'' it will not work sadly

 

[Tinman]

intresting , thats real cool.
however one thing is not if you fly with normal thrust from say ''ring-a'' to ''ring-b'' it will not work sadly

That is true...I've noticed that too. Could probably be fixed, but I'm guessing that is rather low on "the list" since very few (other than us fanatics) ever really does that while playing.

Unless it has been fixed of course...was a very long time since I tried that.

EDIT:

Damn you! You made me go and check!

Nope, not fixed, but it did make me remember what the issue seems to be.

The rings move at different speeds and when you drop out from supercruise you will automatically match the speed of the one you are closest too. If you then try to approach the other one you will still be moving relative to the one you started closest too. I'm guessing that the code doesn't load the high detail assets of asteroids unless you have matched speed to the ring/area (otherwise they would smash straight into you at great speeds and probably cause all kinds of errors in physics calculations).

The rings relative proximity to each other is probably the culprit here why your ship doesn't switch reference point when you approach the other one. That and also because that would also create other sync issues between the different rings. If two pilots flew together towards the other ring with one of them ahead of the other one the one behind would see the other ship be swept away at high speed suddenly when they reach the border.

I do know that stations are capable of snatching up a ship in it's trajectory though that isn't in it's reference frame since I've tried that several times. I've been sitting ahead of its orbit and see it approach even though I am still (relatively speaking) at a certain distance it suddenly "stops" which means that my ship just switched into its reference frame. So changing reference frame while in normal space is possible. The rings seem to be the exception though...and hardly a priority to fix either to be honest.

 

[johnwer]

Do we know the definitive answer?
Me i have one. The project Horizons will be very very very excellent .Very.
No matter what.
As fully fledged computer program, Elite Dangerous is simply a work of art. A programming jewelry.
With months and years to come, it will be even brighter than ever.

 

[Huita]

You know what?

Dropping "only" 0.1 Ls away still means I'm going to have to fly in normal flight for 24 hours (at 300m/s) before I reach it. 1 Ls away would mean 10 days...so no. I'm not doing that.

If you want to do it you are more than welcome!

Thanks, i'll definately go and try that now. Yay, i have a purpose in game again!

 

[Arubeto]

I know NMS is kind of a red flag for some people here, but given the current discussion I thought I'd link the video from E3 where Sean Murray shows of some live gameplay of the game where the way NMS handles space-planet transitions can be seen:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/07/06/no-mans-sky-18-minutes-of-uninterrupted-gameplay-ign-first

Go to the 12 minute mark to see how approaching a planet from space looks like in the game.

The graphics are of course nowhere near the quality of EDs visuals and the planets seem to be very small and not really 1:1 scale of real planets, but the smooth way Sean can land on the planet impressed me nonetheless.

I really hope FD is able to pull something of that is at least as smooth regarding planetary landings as what we can see in this video.

 

[Whiteball]

The way I look at it is that whatever they do, to start with, will probably be just that, a start.
Ok, it may take some time before it gets revisited and changed (if at all) but the basic systems need to be put in place and tested and make sure they all work together without breaking anything else in game.

Basically, what we get one day may not be what it will be the next. Fdev have a lot of ground (no pun intended) to cover in the rich game that ED can (and I'm sure will) end up being.

Speculation is good and also can be fun, but let's remember whatever they do, doesn't mean it's always gonna be...

 

[Digestia]

The planets in SC aren't really that big, which means for 1:1 planet scale, there has to be a transition somewhere (Orbital Cruise). There might be some technical wizardry I'm not aware of that FD could pull off but I think my assumption is correct.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

No game is seamless as tinman explained, stop splitting hairs over it.

 

[777Driver]

The planets in SC aren't really that big, which means for 1:1 planet scale, there has to be a transition somewhere (Orbital Cruise). There might be some technical wizardry I'm not aware of that FD could pull off but I think my assumption is correct.

Planets are correct scale, doesn't matter if you are in normal space or SC. I'd post the Father Ted clip but it's been overdone...

 

[Schmack]

I don't think anyone cares that it's noticeable that you transition between environments. I think people will be disappointed if that transition is another scripted scene like SC and HC entrance and exit.

 

[lysan]

I know NMS is kind of a red flag for some people here, but given the current discussion I thought I'd link the video from E3 where Sean Murray shows of some live gameplay of the game where the way NMS handles space-planet transitions can be seen:

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/07/06/no-mans-sky-18-minutes-of-uninterrupted-gameplay-ign-first

Go to the 12 minute mark to see how approaching a planet from space looks like in the game.

The graphics are of course nowhere near the quality of EDs visuals and the planets seem to be very small and not really 1:1 scale of real planets, but the smooth way Sean can land on the planet impressed me nonetheless.

I really hope FD is able to pull something of that is at least as smooth regarding planetary landings as what we can see in this video.

Not a red flag However as interesting NMS is the way they do it are completely different.

NMS is not 1:1, yes it's PG however the seed is using graphical assets were ED is using "first principle". Basically that is how it works IRL. (very simple modified of course)

So it's not difficult to go from space to planet in NMS, where in ED a lot of data need to be streamed before the transition complete. We see in many many examples how you can do this, using the same method as NMS. We haven't see it done as FD say they want to do it.

 

[Digestia]

Planets are correct scale, doesn't matter if you are in normal space or SC. I'd post the Father Ted clip but it's been overdone...

Ah well, ignore everything I just said, must've gotten the wrong details from someone. Still, Orbital Cruise will probably be there for a reason.

 

[Schmack]

No game is seamless as tinman explained, stop splitting hairs over it.

I don't think the people you're responding to created that "seamless" target to hit. That was done elsewhere.

 

[dannysquid]

I think most of the REALLY tricky seamlessness will happen when they do world's with atmospheres. And rivers. Possibly roads. And maybe cities. I think about his sort of stuff a lot (I'm that sort of person!) and it seems to me that lots of the calculations you'd want to do would be bottom-up sort of calculations (when should this river branch? how would the road connect two towns, or 12 towns? should there a commericial bit near the river?), but you're actually having to do these calculations top down, from orbit, with potentially hundreds of thousands of possible rivers, roads or cities in view. I can imagine how you'd approximate things, but I can't see how you'd avoid a fairly sharp transition somewhere... To what extent are the larger views of things dictated by tiny details? I think you could have ELITE without roads, but without rivers?

On rocky worlds will there be ravines? Gorges? Even craters seem quite tricky to me! But I suspect they're doing clever things I haven't even guessed at. Would love to know.

It's very difficult, but in a fascinating way. Possibly more difficult than fascinating if you've got tight deadlines!

 

[Viajero]

I believe the change from SuperCruise to OrbitalCruise and re entry is probably necesary not for asset loading but rather for old instancing conexions to be droped and new ones to be created. Much in the same way we have to go through that exact same stage when we go in and out of SC at the moment: Normal combat speed and SC speed mean a totally different set of player and AI spawn connections. It is not really the map or the PG I suspect, it is the network and instancing.

 

[Arubeto]

Much in the same way we have to go thorugh that exact same stage when we go in and out of SC at the moment.

Let's hope they make it happen with a less disconnecting effect than current SC entries and exits. Those still rank as the most irritating and immersion-breaking moments in ED for me