News From orbit down to Europa

[Angus]

While I know this is a highly unfair comment, it now feels like ED is at the point of being a full game. By that I look at FFE etc. etc. and think that most of what was there is now truly coming to light.

You sure you're not wearing those old rose tinted spectacles again? Not having a pop at anyone, but did you read the newsgroups when FFE was released? For my money, Elite Dangerous has been an extremely impressive game from day one and using FFE as a role model for how any game should have been done is ..................interesting.

The only feature from it I'd call for are unique, one-off, hand coded missions that break you out of the inevitable routine of the generated bulletin board missions that we now have, but then the original game had unique missions, so its not really an FFE thing.

 

[Athan]

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

Re-watch the video, I see definite, but subtle, manoeuvring during the Glide phase.

 

[Dweezle]

Right now the proccess goes like this:

Orbital cruise - supercruise instance
"Shake" - no instance and therefore invisible to others since you have dropped the SC one and not yet connected to the new one.
Glide - new instance

What I'm proposing is "simply" that people drop directly to "Glide" even if they in the beginning of this phase from a network point of view will not be connected to any instance (like SOLO mode if you like), the same thing as the "shake". Then, as the connections have been made you enter that instance and "fade into view" for other players.

There may be a problem with that if you're heading directly toward the planet at top speed. Entering Glide may take you straight into the planet before the new instance is ready. And then what will your position be?

 

[Kemo]

Re-watch the video, I see definite, but subtle, manoeuvring during the Glide phase.

yes, I got no sense that during this phase control was removed or restricted, sure looks like David is controlling the ship there.

 

[andrak]

I think that comparison pretty much says everything it needs to say.

I'm not trying to have a dig just for the sake of it, but some constructive criticism would be good.

1. Remove the bang from the "loading screen", unless you want to make it as obvious as possible that it's not seamless.
2. Build glide into the transition for loading the instance, at least keep the damn ship moving while the next part is loaded instead of stopping dead in the air/space.
3. Increase LOD. The ground looks OK at some parts detail wise but mostly it's too low poly or resolution. Please at least give us the option to turn it up if our machines can deal with it.
4. Improve the lighting, it looked overcast, how is this possible with only direct lighting from surrounding interstellar bodies, where is the direct light?
5. Add higher frequency detail to the base design. Cargo areas, roadways, lighting, ancillary buildings. The buildings look totally out of place on the surface.
6. Would a base like this not need to emit heat, could we not see some kind of smoke / vapour emissions or haze above the outpost?
7. Increase the ground level detail around outposts or bases if possible to match the poly count / detail of the buildings sitting on top of them.

I'll still be playing regardless of the above and think the mechanics are great, it's the aesthetics that need some love.

 

[CMDR Reaper]

Looks very cool, but I wish instead of the bang in the transition it was more like a shaking and rumbling experience.

 

[Tinman]

There may be a problem with that if you're heading directly toward the planet at top speed. Entering Glide may take you straight into the planet before the new instance is ready. And then what will your position be?

Glide disengages at roughly 7 km above the surface according to the devs.

Gradually slow down the speed as you approach the surface until you reached that minimum height. Most of the time the instance change will be complete by then. If it still isn't THEN I guess you can "shake" for a while at the end of that path until everything is ready. That would create a smooth motion downwards in the majority of cases...unlike now when there is a hang every single time before the glide even starts.

 

[xyphic]

Remove the bang from the "loading screen", unless you want to make it as obvious as possible that it's not seamless.

It's clearly the same effect as coming out of supercruise, and I can believe that the bang is an effect of the FSD deactivating and dropping you back to normal space. What's more jarring for me is the stationary period.

Build glide into the transition for loading the instance, at least keep the damn ship moving while the next part is loaded instead of stopping dead in the air/space.

The problem is that the time taken to load into an instance is effectively unbounded, but as long as the ship keeps moving that implies boundedness (with no given lower limit, as there could be ship(s) anywhere nearby). If your ship were allowed to continue moving, and you join the instance (say) only when you've reached what should be a busy starport it's going to be very jarring for *everyone* when you suddenly materialise in their midst. The hard stop for the transition means that you appear consistently for everyone.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be better -- it clearly could. But I don't think allowing ship movement to continue while hoping that you can join the instance in reasonable time is the way to do it. Better to try to preempt the joining of an instance so that the hard stop can still be in place but shouldn't need to be used.

Increase LOD. The ground looks OK at some parts detail wise but mostly it's too low poly or resolution. Please at least give us the option to turn it up if our machines can deal with it.

I'll reserve judgement on this until I've played the game. It's hard to tell what's low detail on compressed video.

Improve the lighting, it looked overcast, how is this possible with only direct lighting from surrounding interstellar bodies, where is the direct light?

Again, I'll reserve judgement on this until the subsurface scatter has been implemented. Given this is an ice planet direct light would likely lead to overexposure and loss of detail (imagine a snowscape in bright sunlight).

Add higher frequency detail to the base design. Cargo areas, roadways, lighting, ancillary buildings. The buildings look totally out of place on the surface.

This doesn't bother me too much. What *does* bother me is that these starports are clearly designed for SRVs to roam, but there's little indicating use in this way (such as worn-down tracks).

Would a base like this not need to emit heat, could we not see some kind of smoke / vapour emissions or haze above the outpost?

Pretty sure the red hexagonal things are radiators. There'd be no heat haze because there's no atmosphere for the heat to perturb.

Increase the ground level detail around outposts or bases if possible to match the poly count / detail of the buildings sitting on top of them.

See above. Not yet clear how this will appear in-game.

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

Monday cannot come soon enough!

 

[Moonax IRL]

View attachment 77941

I think that comparison pretty much says everything it needs to say.

I'm not trying to have a dig just for the sake of it, but some constructive criticism would be good.

1. Remove the bang from the "loading screen", unless you want to make it as obvious as possible that it's not seamless.
2. Build glide into the transition for loading the instance, at least keep the damn ship moving while the next part is loaded instead of stopping dead in the air/space.
3. Increase LOD. The ground looks OK at some parts detail wise but mostly it's too low poly or resolution. Please at least give us the option to turn it up if our machines can deal with it.
4. Improve the lighting, it looked overcast, how is this possible with only direct lighting from surrounding interstellar bodies, where is the direct light?
5. Add higher frequency detail to the base design. Cargo areas, roadways, lighting, ancillary buildings. The buildings look totally out of place on the surface.
6. Would a base like this not need to emit heat, could we not see some kind of smoke / vapour emissions or haze above the outpost?
7. Increase the ground level detail around outposts or bases if possible to match the poly count / detail of the buildings sitting on top of them.

I'll still be playing regardless of the above and think the mechanics are great, it's the aesthetics that need some love.

Have some rep, I agree 100%. There`s a bit of false advertising going on there with the pic`s you just put up, they are poles apart in quality. We should not be afraid to be critical, you are going to disappoint people if you can`t deliver on the hype. Still I have the lifetime pass and I am willing to give frontier time to sharpen things up but they should not become complacent and not promise what they can`t deliver. If they have everything in 4k give people with the hardware the option to run it, that's the whole point in having a hi-spec machine.

 

[Ving]

Spoiler

View attachment 77941

I think that comparison pretty much says everything it needs to say.

I'm not trying to have a dig just for the sake of it, but some constructive criticism would be good.

1. Remove the bang from the "loading screen", unless you want to make it as obvious as possible that it's not seamless.
2. Build glide into the transition for loading the instance, at least keep the damn ship moving while the next part is loaded instead of stopping dead in the air/space.
3. Increase LOD. The ground looks OK at some parts detail wise but mostly it's too low poly or resolution. Please at least give us the option to turn it up if our machines can deal with it.
4. Improve the lighting, it looked overcast, how is this possible with only direct lighting from surrounding interstellar bodies, where is the direct light?
5. Add higher frequency detail to the base design. Cargo areas, roadways, lighting, ancillary buildings. The buildings look totally out of place on the surface.
6. Would a base like this not need to emit heat, could we not see some kind of smoke / vapour emissions or haze above the outpost?
7. Increase the ground level detail around outposts or bases if possible to match the poly count / detail of the buildings sitting on top of them.

I'll still be playing regardless of the above and think the mechanics are great, it's the aesthetics that need some love.

The image comparison is very revealing. It could definitely look at lot better.

I wasn't very impressed with the landscape either. It reminds me of Comanche form the 90s!

Hopefully this is just a bland planet and they will eventually improve the lighting.

 

[Buford T Justice]

As you come out of the Glide is auto docking a function that still works on planet bases?

If so i will be testing the bejezuz out of it till i can break it, if I can break it.

 

[Tinman]

Have some rep, I agree 100%. There`s a bit of false advertising going on there with the pic`s you just put up, they are poles apart in quality. We should not be afraid to be critical, you are going to disappoint people if you can`t deliver on the hype. Still I have the lifetime pass and I am willing to give frontier time to sharpen things up but they should not become complacent and not promise what they can`t deliver. If they have everything in 4k give people with the hardware the option to run it, that's the whole point in having a hi-spec machine.

"False advertising"!?

Really?

It's concept art.

"Hey! Concept art guy/girl! Could you please make your images uglier? Just in case we can't make the graphics as good as your painting!"

 

[andrak]

As soon as they put that image external in a newsletter that image became advertising as well as concept art.

 

[Moonax IRL]

"False advertising"!?

Really?

It's concept art.


"Hey! Concept art guy/girl! Could you please make your images uglier? Just in case we can't make the graphics as good as your painting!"

We all know the what the concept is behind "concept art" pardon the pun, but you are obliged to pay some homage to what you put out there. What we saw in the last 2 peeks is falling well short of what was advertised, if you cant see that then obviously you are are happy with what you have got, others are entitled to disagree. if we all said "lovely" every time nothing would ever get improved.

 

[Sparkam]

Sadly, I think it's multiplayer puts limitations even on landscape detalization. You can't put in the same instance players with different landscape geometry settings...

At least in solo mode it's theoretically possible to increase LOD and minimise transitions.

 

[Tinman]

As soon as they put that image external in a newsletter that image became advertising as well as concept art.

So they should not show the concept art then? While people at the same time scream for things to see...because at the time that was released people were indeed screaming for something.

 

[mossfoot]

So they should not show the concept art then? While people at the same time scream for things to see...because at the time that was released people were indeed screaming for something.

And so you've entered into the No-Win scenario of game development

 

[Moonax IRL]

So they should not show the concept art then? While people at the same time scream for things to see...because at the time that was released people were indeed screaming for something.

All the more reason to be realistic in what you put out so as to manage expectations or do you think is alright to over promise for the sake of sales.

 

[lefty1117]

I'm guessing Glide is a loading mode? Otherwise I don't see the point of it - in space you go from SC straight to normal space, what's the point of the Glide interlude if not to load in the local environment?