No atmospheric flight on the horizon

[Magnetic Sun]

None of the ships are designed for it and unless we completely neglect any notion of realism, all of them would crash immediately. You need actual wings with engines to fly within an atmosphere.

Then imagine the actual workload for FD. A vast amount of content which would have to look as good as the space flight, but more so the flight mechanics would have to feel right and immersive to the point where you really believe you're landing on an atmospheric planet. Then imagine the combat mechanics and all that balancing.

It's a whole new game and I hope they will never even spend a dime looking into the possibility of landing on atmospheric planets. ED should IMO never go beyond landing on airless bodies, which is exactly where the perfect frontier should be for a Space Combat Simulator.
And, there's still so much to do in space already.

In a decade or so, a new game might be able to pull it off. For now, let's let ED be what it is meant to be.

 

[Arindor]

Everything will be fine. Besides, its sci fi.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Then imagine the actual workload for FD. A vast amount of content which would have to look as good as the space flight, but more so the flight mechanics would have to feel right and immersive to the point where you really believe you're landing on an atmospheric planet. Then imagine the combat mechanics and all that balancing.

Now imagine more than 9 months of developing time already sunk into it.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

If the ships are able to happily land on planets with no atmosphere then wings with engines are most definitely not needed as the current output is more than enough to cope, it's all good.

 

[Chann3l]

None of the ships are designed for it and unless we completely neglect any notion of realism, all of them would crash immediately. You need actual wings with engines to fly within an atmosphere.

Then imagine the actual workload for FD. A vast amount of content which would have to look as good as the space flight, but more so the flight mechanics would have to feel right and immersive to the point where you really believe you're landing on an atmospheric planet. Then imagine the combat mechanics and all that balancing.

It's a whole new game and I hope they will never even spend a dime looking into the possibility of landing on atmospheric planets. ED should IMO never go beyond landing on airless bodies, which is exactly where the perfect frontier should be for a Space Combat Simulator.
And, there's still so much to do in space already.

In a decade or so, a new game might be able to pull it off. For now, let's let ED be what it is meant to be.

I agree it will be a lot of work, but it's going to be a lot of work to account for gravity in the light model on airless planets and they are able to achieve that. I do agree with the ships though. The majority of them clearly wouldn't be capable of lift so they would have to use extra fuel for the vertical thrusters to keep them in the air, though they would have to do that on airless planets with gravity anyway. I feel I should also add that plenty of games model atmospheric flight accurately today, not space games, but if they put in the work they could have a separate atmospheric flight model. The only real barrier here is that the ships need to be able to fly.

 

[nexxo]

Seeing as Frontier absolutely aced the dogfighting dynamics --and I mean, really, truly made it a work of ' art-- I feel quietly confident that it will all work out.

 

[askavir]

The ships rely on constant thrust to keep airborne. Don't forget the Elite ships have thrusters on all axis, not just in the rear like airplanes. Airplanes need wings to sustain flight because they only have forward thrust.

But think of helicopters, and some fighter jets that can already takeoff and land vertically (because their jets can be turned downwards to provide vertical thrust. Its the same principle.

All ships in Elite have thrusters in all directions, and are totally capable of sustaining their "airborness".

CHeck the video below, and that HArrier jet has way less thruster power than any elite ship:

[video=youtube;rCSAXixGeSo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCSAXixGeSo[/video]

Amd here's a more modern one:

[video=youtube;i7s59qe5mPE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7s59qe5mPE[/video]

Now these jets can only point their thrusters in one direction at a time, Elite ships have thrusters in all directions, it will be a breeze for them to keep airborne without wings.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Or create drones with wings that you drop in from orbit? That'd work

 

[Magnetic Sun]

The ships are huge. To keep them airborne they would have to go so fast the slightest maneuver would send them spinning into a mountain. And if FD were to massively neglect realism for the sake of gameplay, the immersion would crash straight into that same mountain!

 

[peter101cycle]

None of the ships are designed for it and unless we completely neglect any notion of realism, all of them would crash immediately. You need actual wings with engines to fly within an atmosphere.

Then imagine the actual workload for FD. A vast amount of content which would have to look as good as the space flight, but more so the flight mechanics would have to feel right and immersive to the point where you really believe you're landing on an atmospheric planet. Then imagine the combat mechanics and all that balancing.

It's a whole new game and I hope they will never even spend a dime looking into the possibility of landing on atmospheric planets. ED should IMO never go beyond landing on airless bodies, which is exactly where the perfect frontier should be for a Space Combat Simulator.
And, there's still so much to do in space already.

In a decade or so, a new game might be able to pull it off. For now, let's let ED be what it is meant to be.

Kill-joy alert!

 

[Backelaer]

Or create drones with wings that you drop in from orbit? That'd work

If Askavir in the post above yours hadn't already explained why atmospheric flight would be possible, yours would actually be quite an elegant solution.

Also, its sci-fi. You're expected to at least be able to exert *some* suspension of disbelief. Otherwise being a sci-fi fan would be quite frustrating I imagine.

 

[EUS]

The Dropship may, at one point in a couple years, have a purpose after all.

 

[TIVBS]

all that matters is drag to thrust ratio of the power plants (even in real life jet engines thats what they are designed for) and Im pretty sure EDs power plants are sufficient for this.

Also. helicopters are also examples of vehicles that fly in atmosphere with this concept

 

[lysan]

None of the ships are designed for it and unless we completely neglect any notion of realism, all of them would crash immediately. You need actual wings with engines to fly within an atmosphere.

Then imagine the actual workload for FD. A vast amount of content which would have to look as good as the space flight, but more so the flight mechanics would have to feel right and immersive to the point where you really believe you're landing on an atmospheric planet. Then imagine the combat mechanics and all that balancing.

It's a whole new game and I hope they will never even spend a dime looking into the possibility of landing on atmospheric planets. ED should IMO never go beyond landing on airless bodies, which is exactly where the perfect frontier should be for a Space Combat Simulator.
And, there's still so much to do in space already.

In a decade or so, a new game might be able to pull it off. For now, let's let ED be what it is meant to be.

Sooooo, you're an airplane engineer are you?

I'm pretty sure they can fly, at least some of them.

 

[Lord_Crazy]

The impracticability of atmospheric flight and/or landing with our ship is relevant only if you decide to make it a hardcore simulation with 100% accurate physics. Nothing prevents FD from creating a flight model that feels right and yet takes some freedom with physics. They are already working on planets without atmosphere but they said gravity will have an impact, so that the flight model will be different anyway: what is done now will probably be helpful for further development
Also, don't forget that a game is about fun first and does not have to be 100% accurate as long as we can enjoy it.
Finally, as for the "whole new game" we already knew it, and I remember David Braben himself saying something like that. The fact that seasons are sold almost as much as an entire game is here for a reason I suppose.

 

[Gray Lensman]

If a Federation Star-Ship can achieve a planetory landing then I'm sure an ED ship can too. Very few wings on Voyager or the Enterprise (etc).
Hmmm, then again they had anti-grav tech. Oh well.

 

[askavir]

The ships are huge. To keep them airborne they would have to go so fast the slightest maneuver would send them spinning into a mountain. And if FD were to massively neglect realism for the sake of gameplay, the immersion would crash straight into that same mountain!

No, they can actually stand still in the air, relying only on upwards thrust like a helicopter.

A helicopter has a giant propeller pulling it up, elite ships have thrusters with huge power pushing them up. Result is the same, countering gravity.

Don't forget elite ships have thrusters in all axis. They're not 21st century airplanes.

 

[Tinman]

"Planetary landings are never going to happen and even IF it will happen it's YEARS away!!!"

*FD announces Horizons that gives access to airless worlds as planned one year after first release as they've always said they would.*

"Ok ok...but that's just AIRLESS worlds! Atmospheric worlds are NEVER going to happen!"

.....

They have already spent plenty of time looking into atmospheric worlds and they are going to release it later just as they have always planned to do...

The very first dev video from the KS (4:22 mark)
[video=youtube;iTBvpd3_Vqk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBvpd3_Vqk[/video]

Some early prototype work they released in a newsletter of simulated weather patterns on a gas giant:
[video=youtube;BCQXXNCawF4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCQXXNCawF4[/video]

This mesmerising time-lapse video of our Work-In-Progress gas giant atmosphere simulation shows incredible detail, including a persistent 'red-spot'-like storm.

We'll reveal why (other than the sheer beauty of it) we are going into so much detail in a future edition of the newsletter...

It's coming...

.
.

As for the "no-wings-issue": Thrusters.

 

[Lord_Crazy]

The ships are huge. To keep them airborne they would have to go so fast the slightest maneuver would send them spinning into a mountain. And if FD were to massively neglect realism for the sake of gameplay, the immersion would crash straight into that same mountain!

Immersion? You are travelling faster than light against the rules of physics as we know them nowadays, but you think making a big ship flight in the atmosphere would break the immersion or the realism? Wow.

 

[Vandaahl]

The wings you need on earth are totally different from the wings you needed on Venus, or the ones you needed for the upper atmosphere of Neptune. If you don't have wings you just need vertical thrusters, and all ships have them.

Besides, almost all ships have wings, or are (like the Cobra) a flying wing. I don't see the issue.