News From orbit down to Europa

[Mark Allen]

I'm fairly certain they said that the smaller ships thrusters are very capable at controlling the ship in a planets gravity, whereas larger ships, not so much. With that in mind small ships should handle almost exactly the same as they do out of the gravity well. Hard to say with Europa, 0.13g, not exactly very strong.

Indeed, 0.13g is too light to really cause much of a noticeable effect. Past 0.4g it's fairly clear, higher than that gets extremely obvious - especially if you flip upside down! Clearly I'm not speaking from experience there... >.>

With FA on your ship will always try to hold position if its thrusters can cope (at the cost of generating heat/fuel usage, those things aren't designed for long continuous burn), but unless you're balancing on your ventral or rear thrusters ships can't manage that in any meaningful gravity. With FA Off your ship will faaaaaaaalll.

Exactly where the balance is between ships thrusters and gravity is very much something where we need a wider sampling of people to pitch perfectly - tweaks expected .

 

[Jon flint]

I hate to be the nitpicking guy. But it looks like some of those structures are neither casting nor receiving shadows, bug?

 

[Mephane]

With FA Off your ship will faaaaaaaalll.

Please tell me full newtonian gravitational acceleration till death.

 

[Im_Lost]

But wait, Europa has an atmosphere right (a thin one)?

Thought we were only getting barren worlds?

 

[who?]

Yeah, little things, but can turn "dead city" to "living space base" and dramatically change whole feeling.

Agree wholeheartedly. Though the ports we visit in the Horizons season are the sleepy backwater type destinations, so perhaps they're meant to seem a bit quiet and isolated?

The question is, shouldn't be this step done already in the first release version? Also - will it be ever done (sooner than in few years)? All this "unfinished" and "postponed" stuff can just make an impression it is just a half-baked product.

It's a fair expectation, but you have to factor in the scale of the project. Modelling an entire galaxy from the personal level up to planets, stars, and spacecraft jumping tens of Lys is a massive undertaking. If they withheld sales until it was fully complete, they'd likely have run out of money long, long before release. Star Citizen may manage to do that, but that's an outlier - $52m is a freakish amount of money to collect based on a long-term promise. Contrast with some other sci-fi games and how much they've received through crowd-funding - Descent Underground $600k, Infinity Battlescape $300k.

I've sunk a huge amount of money into this game too (original game + LEP + several skins (+ a huge amount on hardware, not including a new gaming PC I need for Horizons)) so I have high expectations too - but it's just not going to happen on a short timescale.

 

[StuF]

Looks fantastic - however what is there to do once planetside?
Have had most of the year away from the game since loosing everything in an uninsured Conda back in Jan however I have refound the love for the xmas period
(much to the wifes joy)

 

[Kris]

In the end Frontier are a small development team (by today's standards), yes it would be nice to have those things in v1 (of v2), but not at the expense of waiting another 12 months for Horizons.

ED was always going to be made this way, the issue is that will people ever be truly satisfied? Frontier could add some of the things you have mentioned (at the expense of other features), and then it still wouldn't be enough.

As stated, one step at a time, Rome was not built in a day.

Fully agree. I think 2.0 will be basic Planetary Landing. Ideally i too want more, but i think it is unrealistic to hope too much for version 2.0 . I think development pace is already at full gear and it is simply amazing what they have done in this limited time. Adding new things takes time.

Sando has said that 2.0 will not be all for Horizons Planetary Landings. There will be things added during Horizons season for Planetary Landings feature (for example they already teased that they plan to add volcanism during Horizons season).

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Please dont say we loose control during the "glide" phase? If it is so it may be a game breaker for me

I thought Orbital Cruise was Glide mode? ... There wouldn't be any point in having a transition (instance wise) between SC and orbital cruise mode otherwise. I thought the whole point of this mode was so that you could skim over the surface at a relative high speeds to get around the planets quicker / sightseeing.

 

[Katie Byrne]

oh wow the colors of Europa look much better in this video

will be amazing to see depth in the ice when Subsurface Scattering is working too. cant wait

 

[BEKTOP 3APEMOB]

After a sneak peak of a Viper (or was it Cobra) standing on the ridge of a small crater in the middle of bigger crater filled with volatiles, these new sneak peaks don't deliver. Please show us amazing stuff

 

[Artie]

In the end Frontier are a small development team (by today's standards), yes it would be nice to have those things in v1 (of v2), but not at the expense of waiting another 12 months for Horizons.

ED was always going to be made this way, the issue is that will people ever be truly satisfied? Frontier could add some of the things you have mentioned (at the expense of other features), and then it still wouldn't be enough.

As stated, one step at a time, Rome was not built in a day.

Yes, it's not biggest team in game development, but also 100+ dev team isn't small indie studio. As I said, we will see on Horizons release what it will really contain and how "full" it will be (also with the updates later). I remember there was lot of critic on initial Elite release that "it lacks of content", although I was personally satisfied. There is just a danger that if each season initial release will make an impression "it lacks a content" or "it's not so finished and polished how it should", people simply will stop buying it for a full price and will wait for discounts, where they will get the same season with more content, more polished, for lower price (just let's say 6 months later). Especially when they will think that some content/features/polishing will be added later during year and it will never appear in the game (or is postponed to vague "later" to future years). But that's of course just a premature and very hypothetical speculation. I am an Elite enthusiast, I will forgive lot of things, but I am pointing to that for the very same reason.

 

[aixelsyd]

So excited for Monday! I guess it's finally time to upgrade from my SLI'd GTX460's to a 970. I was hoping to wait on that upgrade until the consumer versions of rift/vive were out.

 

[Ziljan]

The glide phase is awesome! This means that smashing straight into a planet will have some **serious**consequences. Landing efficiently and safely will require some skill and finesse, and I am looking forward to setting the speed record on a 10g planet!!!

 

[Privata]

I dont mind the bases feeling a bit empty , because at least we have ships landing and taking off.
I think maybe have some static srvs here and there might help until we get moving ones for the NPC.

 

[OriginalBadBoy]

Yes, it's not biggest team in game development, but also 100+ dev team isn't small indie studio. As I said, we will see on Horizons release what it will really contain and how "full" it will be (also with the updates later). I remember there was lot of critic on initial Elite release that "it lacks of content", although I was personally satisfied. There is just a danger that if each season initial release will make an impression "it lacks a content" or "it's not so finished and polished how it should", people simply will stop buying it for a full price and will wait for discounts, where they will get the same season with more content, more polished, for lower price (just let's say 6 months later). Especially when they will think that some content/features/polishing will be added later during year and it will never appear in the game (or is postponed to vague "later" to future years). But that's of course just a premature and very hypothetical speculation. I am an Elite enthusiast, I will forgive lot of things, but I am pointing to that for the very same reason.

The people that wait for discounts or year 3 because they will get it all in one will not be swayed from their opinion one way or the other. As stated unless people are willing to wait 5+ years for the game to be 'ready' then this is the reality we have with ED. Frontier could have gone down the publishing route, and then would have lost creative control, and we would probably be even a worse state. Or they could have gone down the Star Citizen route , and well we all know what the gaming public think about that.

I'm not saying things are perfect, far from it, but these things will come in time. Also don't forget ED is not the only thing that Frontier are working on. That 100+ team will also be working on Planet Coaster, and other projects that we don't even know about yet (The Outsider.... please).

 

[Sparkam]

With FA on your ship will always try to hold position if its thrusters can cope (at the cost of generating heat/fuel usage, those things aren't designed for long continuous burn), but unless you're balancing on your ventral or rear thrusters ships can't manage that in any meaningful gravity. With FA Off your ship will faaaaaaaalll.

Exactly where the balance is between ships thrusters and gravity is very much something where we need a wider sampling of people to pitch perfectly - tweaks expected .

Can't wait to try this out!

Can we have additional (planetary) FA Off mode with rotation damping for even more awesome planetary flights and fights?

 

[Pomerlaw]

The glide phase is awesome! This means that smashing straight into a planet will have some **serious**consequences. Landing efficiently and safely will require some skill and finesse, and I am looking forward to setting the speed record on a 10g planet!!!

You will be taken out of orbital cruise to normal speed just like you get out of SC when you fly straight into a planet = you won't crash at hyper speed on the surface.

 

[Nagual]

Indeed, 0.13g is too light to really cause much of a noticeable effect. Past 0.4g it's fairly clear, higher than that gets extremely obvious - especially if you flip upside down! Clearly I'm not speaking from experience there... >.>

With FA on your ship will always try to hold position if its thrusters can cope (at the cost of generating heat/fuel usage, those things aren't designed for long continuous burn), but unless you're balancing on your ventral or rear thrusters ships can't manage that in any meaningful gravity. With FA Off your ship will faaaaaaaalll.

Exactly where the balance is between ships thrusters and gravity is very much something where we need a wider sampling of people to pitch perfectly - tweaks expected .

Hmmm, free fall competitions ahead! How long will you go before switch on Flight Assist? Have you got the Bottle to handle it? That with canyon jumping, pillar pouncing, valley vaulting ... fun times.

I wonder if there any really really small planetoids out there that your SRV could 'fly' around, due to the ridiculously low gravity and small circumference.

 

[CmdrJacks]

With FA on your ship will always try to hold position if its thrusters can cope (at the cost of generating heat/fuel usage, those things aren't designed for long continuous burn), but unless you're balancing on your ventral or rear thrusters ships can't manage that in any meaningful gravity. With FA Off your ship will faaaaaaaalll.

........

 

[Bomber]

At 6:26 on the video whats the ship hovering over the base? & can we shoot it