Horizons Atmospheric landings - will we see them in 2017?

[rennarda]

What do you think ?

To be clear, I'm not necessarily talking about the full blown Earthlike biomes with plants and animals running around. I just mean those currently inaccessible worlds that are high metal content, mars like or icy worlds that have an atmosphere making them unlandable.

Do you think we'll see these in 2017? If not, what might be the technical challenges that prevent this?

Mars-like worlds shouldn't be too hard, right? They are mostly going to be just like the rocky airless worlds we have now, just with a sky and atmospheric haze. There might need to be changes to the terrain generation to realistically account for atmospheric erosion, but surely that's not too hard either.

Volumetric clouds might be a bit more challenging - but FD showed a tech demo of this years ago. The kinds of worlds we're talking about at first probably don't have massive clouds anyway, just a thin layer.

I can see surface fluids (seas, lakes) being more problematic - mainly because you just know that players will try and see what happens if you fly into them! But I'd be OK FD limiting access to worlds that don't have surface fluids at first.

I can't wait to see what these are going to look like, and FD have been extremely quite on the whole subject for far too long. Please tease us with some screenshots of what we might expect! I just hope they don't end up looking cartoonish, like the current landable worlds sometimes can.

 

[firemane]

I asked my magic 8 ball and this was its reply...

I hate to say it, but it looks like season 2 will extend at least up to summer 2017 and possibly beyond that. Guesstimates put 2.3 at around March-April and the mysterious 2.4 with its suspiciously empty feature list (I hate surprises) is likely to take a minimum of at least 3 more months. That puts the best estimate for the beginning of season 4 on the for side of the 3rd quarter of 2017. Likely after Gamescom, since that would make sense from the business standpoint.

FD has stated in the past that landings in atmospheric planets are somewhere in their mid to long term set of goals. That's was said before season 2 was extended (or stretched ).

Meanwhile, you may (or may not) get some developments in regards of geothermal or volcanic features. They are worth seeing, if you can find them.

 

[rennarda]

That would make me sad. I'm really hoping we'll see some of the Planet Coaster technology rolled into ED soon...

 

[afreeflyingsoul]

Not in 2017. They're going for Hi-fidelity environmental simulation and want to do it right. We will probably see the first-person shooter aspect rolled out, even if there's no shooter part (I think that's going to be season 3) and with that we'll slowly get access, first to our ships, then to stations (but not the rings), then to ground bases and finally EVA, both in space and on the surface.

I'm expecting 2.4 will either be (very likely) Thargoids or (not very likely) access to the rest of our ships in 1st/3rd person mode.

I think we'll need the next generation of consoles before we have atmospheric landings.

 

[Iskariot]

What do you think ?

I don't think so myself, but who cares what I think.


I do hope that we will get access to some truly volcanic planets in the near future, because that would be an awesome experience. I don't expect that to be in 2017 either though... Creating the myriad of volcanic effects in a convincing way is not that easy.

I am also dying to be able to fly through the upper atmospheres of gas giants. Just think of all the gameplay options that would bring.

What I do hope is that we will also see more planets with atmosphere with truly alien ecologies.
Currently I encounter no atmospheric planets with truly differently coloured flora for example. I imagine not all plant life on a planet would have to be predominantly green for example. Why are there for example no planets with deep red and purple flora, or other colours? It could just be huge yellow or red tundras covered in alien mosses or other growths.

I would like to see planets with flora that must be obviously alien, even when seen just from space.
Or perhaps seas that are coloured very differently because of alien algae and bacteria.

Or have I perhaps overlooked something?

In general I would like to see a bit more diversity in planetary colours, even on the planets without atmosphere.
Look at Pluto for example.

 

[rennarda]

Yes, the colour of flora would be closely linked to the spectra of the parent star. I can't remember what the correlation is, but red, purple or even black (to our eyes, at least) foliage would be most efficient for certain colour star light.

Anyway, despite the pessimism I don't think it's unlikely that we'll some some additional kinds of worlds opened up for landings in 2017.

 

[Foxiol Eagle]

We are going to see the first "atmosphere landings" by March 21st.

Spoiler

Mass Effect: Andromeda release date.

 

[Iskariot]

Yes, the colour of flora would be closely linked to the spectra of the parent star. I can't remember what the correlation is, but red, purple or even black (to our eyes, at least) foliage would be most efficient for certain colour star light.

Anyway, despite the pessimism I don't think it's unlikely that we'll some some additional kinds of worlds opened up for landings in 2017.

I'm not pessimistic, but just realistic about the incredible amount of work involved in creating full-fledged atmospheric planets.
Atmospheric planets have so much going on, even if they are lifeless, or even when they only have some relatively primitive plant life like mosses, fungi, lichen and bacteria.

FD are like gods who have to recreate the galaxy. They can't do it in six days .

By the way I did make a proposal about planets with obviously alien ecologies as mentioned above.
I suppose FD is aware off the absence of these planets, but it doesn't hurt to point it out.

I mentioned your above statement too.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ies-as-seen-from-space!?p=4966484#post4966484

 

[Eleuth]

Well I have the feeling FD is putting more energy in making the game accesible for different platforms then developing new game content.
And beside that it looks like they are building the game more widely than deep.
Using the same gamemechanics. Carrying passengers is nice, but it is nothing different than carrying biowaste.
You click on the spreadsheet, you choose accept and there you go. Claim your reward.

I don't want to start a war on games, but sometimes it looks the same as the development of Starcitizen. Hardly any new developments, but building and making the things which are already ingame better and trying to get them perfect.
No problem with that. The only difference is that SC calls it Alpha. And this game is finished [yesnod][big grin]
As long as walking in ships and landing on atmospheric planets will come...

 

[Mercury7]

I'm going to say it again - they need to sort out the mission rewards! What is the point if you can only get 10,000 credits? Passenger missions are OK, but the risk is too high for the OVERALL rewards available (time spent vs. credits is too low).

 

[khooke]

My ideal addition to ED would be to see the richness of the landscapes from No Mans Sky blended with the rest of the ED game. It's sad to see the barren landscapes of ED compared to the variety of landscapes in NMS. Although maybe leave out the majority of the cartoonish creatures (they feel like they fit in NMS but wouldn't be a good fit for ED)

 

[maxpayne]

imo...atmospheric landing will come after spaceleg.

The reason is that, if atmospheric landing only focuses on the ship gameplay, most of the gameplay will be the same as in the air-less planet.
The most important thing in atmospheric planet is creatures and life.

 

[TheRealTommo]

Would love to check out some atmospheric worlds!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Based on dev comments, not likely.

Not sure what this year will bring that we don't know about, but 2.3 first, then whatever 2.4 is..... only going to leave us perhaps half a year for whatever is coming next.

 

[EzeThieL]

Don't think we will see this in this year. And not likely in the next one also. But when we will have it, better be good as they said it will, I think everybody is looking towards this and it will be a disappointment somehow if it will be very limited and very scripted.

 

[Warshrike]

I'm going to say it again - they need to sort out the mission rewards! What is the point if you can only get 10,000 credits? Passenger missions are OK, but the risk is too high for the OVERALL rewards available (time spent vs. credits is too low).

Exactly Mercury you hit the nail on the head again. How about fixing what is in the game 1st before adding more content that they will only break anyway. I hate passenger missions with a passion if i was 1 of those Ganker aholes i would shoot every player passenger running ship i could find just to make a point. I did not get Elite to be a bloody space bus driver just to be able to make anything. I have said it before how is nerfing long haul sothis/ceos runs any different to the payouts that passenger missions get? Was bad enough i had to become a space trucker to make money as all i luv is combat. Now with the over engi'd rail gun packing npc's even that is 0 fun anymore in conflict zones. People wonder why players use the skimmer massacre mission exploit to get ahead? Because everything else sux.

 

[Ravnik]

We are going to see the first "atmosphere landings" by March 21st.

Spoiler

Mass Effect: Andromeda release date.

Or This

Spoiler

Star Citizen - Release date unknown....

Now thats gonna be some amazing atmospheric landing!

 

[GG7]

Check out the beginning of the Charity Live steam on YouTube. David Braben answers some questions in the first segment, and one was related to this feature.

His response in short was "Not Anytime Soon". This due in large part to the amount of work involved and the quality they will be striving for when the feature does actually make it into the game.

So... For anyone who is seriously expecting to see this feature in 2017, you are going to be VERY disappointed. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see this until 2019 or 2020.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Based on dev comments, not likely.

Not sure what this year will bring that we don't know about, but 2.3 first, then whatever 2.4 is..... only going to leave us perhaps half a year for whatever is coming next.

the last update of S1 happened at the same time as the first part of S2. See no reason why the same couldnt happen here. Maybe time it so they can hype it at the conventions a bit.

 

[dannysquid]

I think we'll get uninhabited atmospheric worlds first, although as that may require weather it may make more sense to figure out gas giants first.