No atmospheric flight on the horizon

Midian27

Midian27
CMDR Weatherwax said:
It's an interesting problem though and I would guess one which could not be overcome even with the best wing and craft design. From my admittedly poor understanding of aerofoil (is that the right terminology) design I thought the lift was due to the underside of the wing/ship shape etc having a greater surface area on the bottom than on the top and the increased speed of the air under the surface generated the lift effect. That's all based on earth's atmosphere and gravity so realistically how much benefit would an aerodynamic shape do with say gravity at 10x earth and maybe an atmosphere 1/10 the thickness (terminology fail again I imagine) anyway?
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...these aren't airplanes. They don't need to generate lift when they have BIG FREAKING THRUSTERS that will do the lifting for them...
 

Magnetic Sun

M
Of course I'm not asking for full realism! Just a sense of balance in that regard ;-)

Anyway flight realism aside, the sheer amount of surface and weather visuals of all kinds of different planets, along with the many gameplay features atmospheric planetary landings WOULD HAVE to give way for, to keep up with the IMO stellar space game that ED is, and at the same time maintaining that amazing feel of realism within sci-fi that they so far are expertly doing, seems so out of proportion for what I would want FD to work on.

Please FD, focus on your amazing space game.

The only way I can see atmospheric planets coming into play, is by doing very fast flybys, definitely not landings.
In this way it would both solve the flight realism aspect (because yes, speed does keep you airborne) and it would solve the visual surface content, in that FD could do with much less detail.
 

Tinman

Tinman
Magnetic Sun said:
No kill-joys here. Look at SC and what happens when you get too ambitious. FD should spend their time working on what they already got, rather than creating a new game to somehow merge into this one.

About flight mechanics, come on guys, the ships are huge and so awkwardly shaped. It would require immense amounts of fuel and yield terrible handling. I for one love the simulation feel of ED. Making ships hover down to fly with the birds would just be plain out silly for this game.
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Yes, having "flying bricks" flying around in atmospheres would be just "plain silly" in this franchise...

0.jpg
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
I looked, the last evening the movie "Apollo XIII". At one time, the mother of Jim Lovell said, "if a washing machine would be able to fly, my Jimmy would do it, to land "
 
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CMDR Weatherwax

C
Midian27 said:
...these aren't airplanes. They don't need to generate lift when they have BIG FREAKING THRUSTERS that will do the lifting for them...
Click to expand...

Yep appreciate that is what would be needed in 'real' terms and 100% agree as nothing else makes sense. It was just my inner physics geek wondering how normal wings would cope with changing atmospheres anyway
 

777Driver

777Driver
Magnetic Sun said:
(because yes, speed does keep you airborne) and it would solve the visual surface content, in that FD could do with much less detail.
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Speed over the surface of a planet does not keep you airborne... If lift is required, avoiding critical angle of attack or brute force is what keeps you falling out of the sky... Not an issue on machines that rely purely on vectored thrust.

You are badly misinformed
 
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lysan

lysan
All you need is enough thrust, and in ED we got plenty. Heck they did it back when most of you were just a sweet itch in your daddy pants.

[video=youtube;FRp3S8OOeZc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRp3S8OOeZc[/video]
 

Tinman

Tinman
Magnetic Sun said:
Of course I'm not asking for full realism! Just a sense of balance in that regard ;-)

Anyway flight realism aside, the sheer amount of surface and weather visuals of all kinds of different planets, along with the many gameplay features atmospheric planetary landings WOULD HAVE to give way for, to keep up with the IMO stellar space game that ED is, and at the same time maintaining that amazing feel of realism within sci-fi that they so far are expertly doing, seems so out of proportion for what I would want FD to work on.

Please FD, focus on your amazing space game.

The only way I can see atmospheric planets coming into play, is by doing very fast flybys, definitely not landings.
In this way it would both solve the flight realism aspect (because yes, speed does keep you airborne) and it would solve the visual surface content, in that FD could do with much less detail.
Click to expand...

Elite has always been more than just a space sim...and in case my word is not enough:

David Braben said:
Nevertheless, I have never seen Elite as (just) a space trading game - it is way more than that - even though I realise this is how it has been classified since. What we plan to with Elite 4 is quite different, and much of what we are doing in Outsider will feed into that.
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Gameplay from "The Outsider":

[video=youtube;AsjsvHCs-94]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsjsvHCs-94[/video]

Elite is and have always been a sci fi open world game IMO. It was stuck in space back in the 80s due to technical restrictions. In Frontier/FFE they gave us access to the planets and in "Elite 4" the plan has always been to give us the ability to leave our ships and explore these worlds in other ways (Horizons being the first step). This is and has always been the end goal with the game...this IS the "focus" of the game. To create a simulated galaxy to play around in across all scales.
 

Gidio

Gidio
Magnetic Sun said:
Of course I'm not asking for full realism! Just a sense of balance in that regard ;-)

Anyway flight realism aside, the sheer amount of surface and weather visuals of all kinds of different planets, along with the many gameplay features atmospheric planetary landings WOULD HAVE to give way for, to keep up with the IMO stellar space game that ED is, and at the same time maintaining that amazing feel of realism within sci-fi that they so far are expertly doing, seems so out of proportion for what I would want FD to work on.

Please FD, focus on your amazing space game.

The only way I can see atmospheric planets coming into play, is by doing very fast flybys, definitely not landings.
In this way it would both solve the flight realism aspect (because yes, speed does keep you airborne) and it would solve the visual surface content, in that FD could do with much less detail.
Click to expand...

David Braben has stated many times that he wants big game hunting to be a part of the game. So basically he really wants to shoot some space cows.
Therefore, we will be able to land on planets in the future.
 
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