Planetary landings

NeilF

NeilF
Planetary Landing DLC - Earth restricted air space

Let's think ahead a little bit and have some fun with the proposed future planetary landing DLC.

I foresee a problem which can be demonstrated best of all by considering good old Earth!

Can you imagine the amount of effort poor old Frontier Designs will need to go to just for this one planet? If people can fly around where ever they like, they will need to get most of the geography correct down to quite a high detail.

Add to this cities - Now this might actually not be so bad, as in a 1000 years time they will all be unrecognisable, so the engine could put any old buildings up in London for example, and we'd be none-the-wiser.

But the problem still stands that a hell of a lot of effort will have to go into just this one planet, so when people fly down over any of its 150m km2 surface, it is fairly accurate.

And of course the same is true of other well know bodies such as the moon or Mars (getting all their craters/valleys/mountains correct). Their surfaces too would have to be accurately mapped. (That said Mars will be terraformed? :))


So, I see three outcomes:-
1) Some how Frontier Designs manage to render all these well known surfaces accurately so when you fly down to them, they reflect what's actually there.
2) The surfaces are more approximations, so they are not particularly accurate on closer inspection.
3) On better known worlds, we have restricted air space, so can only fly down to certain areas. And these areas are the ones where they are accurately rendered, while the rest need not be.


Apologies if this has been discussed before - I've not seen/found it!
 
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[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
I think you nailed it. It is highly unlikely a world like earth would let you land where ever you want so limiting that I don't think will feel cheap at all. So long as I can land where ever I want on lowly populated planets I am happy for restrictions on the built up ones.
 

NeilF

NeilF
Mad Mike said:
I think you nailed it. It is highly unlikely a world like earth would let you land where ever you want so limiting that I don't think will feel cheap at all. So long as I can land where ever I want on lowly populated planets I am happy for restrictions on the built up ones.
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It would seem a bit daft to invest huge amounts of time and effort on a single planet (+ Moon & Mars?) when that could instead be invested in improving the experience on the vast majority.
 

Skizomeuh

Skizomeuh
The game takes place 1289 years from now, there numerous ways to alleviate the reproduction work. Pollutions, wars, etc. If humanity is in its space gold rush, it's probably because Earth (and even Sol) is not enough anymore or dried out.

Even FSX doesn't feature a high level of surface details, rely heavily on satellite pics quite ugly at close up. We shouldn't blame FD if in its final state Elite dosen't allow to go inside our houses :)
 
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Erimus Kamzel

Erimus Kamzel
They could make 99% of Earth's landmass a barren featureless wasteland with just a few oasis's of high-tech city domes dotted about since in the Elite timeline world war 3 was fought during the 2040's. The details of why people migrated to just a few settlements could be fleshed out later.

If I remember, in Frontier there where only 4 or 5 cities left on Earth, the rest of the planet was pretty barren and empty, that was down to computer limitations at the time more or less, but it still fits in nicely with a barren Earth timeline.

But I mentioned this ages ago, I honestly think landing on Earth will be off limits, because as you say they would have to put a ton of work in just for one single planet. It would be much easier to make it so the closest we can get is low Earth orbit before orbital defense systems zap us out of the sky ;)

If FD did want to build a realistic Earth and all its cities, that would be an expansion in itself. And I can hear the moaning now - "hey FD you suck, you got Doncaster city center totally wrong!" and "where's my garden?" :D
 

reload

reload
On the other hand, the Sol system is the only one we have a significant amount of detail on. With procedural generation taking care of large parts of the surfaces of the known worlds (Megacities? Or will Earth have reverted to a more pastoral garden/tourist world? Will Mars have finished terraforming?) and pretty much the entirety of the worlds in other systems, it might be nice to have a high level of detail in Sol. It'd encourage tourism if nothing else :D
 

Tinman

Tinman
Of all the planets in the universe Earth is the one we have mapped most accurately. There are already plenty of map databases/height maps that relatively easy can be put into the game pretty much as is and that will get the basic layout of the planet done. As you said, things like cities can be done the same way as on other planets due to how far into the future it is. Manually add in a couple of landmarks here and there and done! Even parts of the terrain doesn't need to be perfect...maybe there has been big changes due to climate change and pollution.

Edit: ehm...yeah...and what everyone else said above...ninjad!
 

VR Mr Teatime

VR Mr Teatime
If the engine allows it then FD can probably use the SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topology Mapping) data set to get down to a 1KM resolution for the terrain and then run something based on Perlin noise for the additional detail required. Perhaps also combine that with DX11 Tessellation and there should be a good looking Earth to visit.

There are very good tools available these days for terrain modelling, it took me 2 days to do an area of the Eastern Adriatic in CryEngine for example, down to a level of detail that could be used for 32x32KM FPS. Most of that was automated (until I broke the engine with size limits etc. ;-) ).

A good way of "redoing" known cities is to raise sea levels by say 50-100 feet and that should flood out most of the well known ones. Then put procedurally generated cities and star ports near to where the old cities were with maybe say the statue of liberty poking out of the sand on the coast........

I would expect Mars to be terraformed. Either that or there's a host of space hippies protesting about preserving the natural environment ;)

In fact terraforming would be a really cool activity to undertake on newly discovered planets - "shake and bake colonies" anyone? It would be cool to find and select a world for colonisation and terraforming and be involved in the project to ship engineering items to that world and see the bases and atmosphere change over time.......

Just some musings and I don't think there's much need for putting in artificial walls to restrict planetary flight, just a bit of imagination needed.

PS. Personally I will be taking a sight seeing visit to Neptune - that's a very pretty planet, before I venture forth into the unknown.
 

Uridium

Uridium
Erimus said:
They could make 99% of Earth's landmass a barren featureless wasteland with just a few oasis's of high-tech city domes dotted about since in the Elite timeline world war 3 was fought during the 2040's. The details of why people migrated to just a few settlements could be fleshed out later.

If I remember, in Frontier there where only 4 or 5 cities left on Earth, the rest of the planet was pretty barren and empty, that was down to computer limitations at the time more or less, but it still fits in nicely with a barren Earth timeline.
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I like this idea.
 

Erimus Kamzel

Erimus Kamzel
Tinman said:
Of all the planets in the universe Earth is the one we have mapped most accurately. There are already plenty of map databases/height maps that relatively easy can be put into the game pretty much as is and that will get the basic layout of the planet done. As you said, things like cities can be done the same way as on other planets due to how far into the future it is. Manually add in a couple of landmarks here and there and done! Even parts of the terrain doesn't need to be perfect...maybe there has been big changes due to climate change and pollution.

Edit: ehm...yeah...and what everyone else said above...ninjad!
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Yeah I think that's feasible. I have no doubt Earth in ED will be pretty spot on as far a geography & geology goes. The Himalayas will look like the Himalayas etc. Its the content on the planet that may be the problem.

I'd love to be able to land anywhere on Earth. For example I'd like to land my ship at the exact longitude and latitude I currently live at and look up at the night sky. But I don't expect there to be anything around me except barren landscapes - maybe forests dotted about, and the odd procedurally generated ruin. However if I landed in one of the major city hubs, like London or Shanghai (both of which where in Frontier) I'd expect it to be a futuristic cityscape with thousands of npcs going about their business, and multitudes of ships and transports coming and going.

That would indeed be impressive - but I think from a practical viewpoint we'll get an off limits, no fly zone, world. Hope I'm wrong :)
 
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NeilF

NeilF
Erimus said:
They could make 99% of Earth's landmass a barren featureless wasteland with just a few oasis's of high-tech city domes dotted about since in the Elite timeline world war 3 was fought during the 2040's. The details of why people migrated to just a few settlements could be fleshed out later.

If I remember, in Frontier there where only 4 or 5 cities left on Earth, the rest of the planet was pretty barren and empty, that was down to computer limitations at the time more or less, but it still fits in nicely with a barren Earth timeline.
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That's interesting then! You're suggesting Earth will be a blank canvas as regards human hot spots. This would really make FD life easier!

However, they'd still need to worry about all the natural locations that exist? Mountains, rivers, ravines, canyons. (Great wall of china? Pyramids?)

And likewise with the moon. If you fly down to 100 meters above the moon, there's a LOT of detail that would need to be stored if you want to get it anything approaching "correct"?



Erimus said:
But I mentioned this ages ago, I honestly think landing on Earth will be off limits, because as you say they would have to put a ton of work in just for one single planet. It would be much easier to make it so the closest we can get is low Earth orbit before orbital defense systems zap us out of the sky ;)

If FD did want to build a realistic Earth and all its cities, that would be an expansion in itself. And I can hear the moaning now - "hey FD you suck, you got Doncaster city center totally wrong!" and "where's my garden?" :D
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I agree!
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
It's Earth 1300 years in future - even in with optimistic prognosis there will be some global warming, weather changes. I couldn't look up but afaik in 1300 years all current buildings will be pretty much gone, if not for very expensive conservation efforts. So really what's important is to get major landscape right. Everything else can be recreated from scratch.

So no, I don't think Earth will require such restrictions. It could require special permit for landing though (as it's restricted zone and for rich people only).
 

noodle

noodle
Pecisk said:
So no, I don't think Earth will require such restrictions. It could require special permit for landing though (as it's restricted zone and for rich people only).
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If that was implemented, I'd want to see police interceptors shoot you down rather than find I was flying into an invisible wall.
 

Havoc

H
Erimus said:
They could make 99% of Earth's landmass a barren featureless wasteland with just a few oasis's of high-tech city domes dotted about since in the Elite timeline world war 3 was fought during the 2040's. The details of why people migrated to just a few settlements could be fleshed out later.

If I remember, in Frontier there where only 4 or 5 cities left on Earth, the rest of the planet was pretty barren and empty, that was down to computer limitations at the time more or less, but it still fits in nicely with a barren Earth timeline.
Click to expand...

I see just one problem here. The galaxy map shows the Sol system with a population of 17 billion and i bet a huge chunk (maybe 10 bil) live on earth.
 
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