Sandro 2.3 Q&A Summary

[Faybs]

There are very practical reasons why FD will add new planet types, primitive atmospheres in Season 3 - but most likely no space legs yet.

For space legs they need more content fleshed out. They need NPC comms/dialog trees. They need more persistence. They need avatar tech worked out with all kinks and issues. They will have to move away from unsupported hardware (DX11 cards only and then might be even upgraded to DX11.3/DX12/Vulkan ones). There's huge list of dependencies just to make walking look visually awesome. But then you need gameplay too. People mention Hellion - but that game has very specific scale, it is comparingly simplistic visually and concentrates on it's gameplay - and does it great. Scales and development goals differ heavily.

For atmospheric planets/new type of planets/big improvements for airless moons however they don't need that much work - they have foundations to which they add new and new layers. That's why primitive atmospheres or gas giants might be closer than walking around. Because of way development works.

I think it's fair to say that whatever they come up with for spacelegs gameplay will be somewhat surprising. After all, no-one expected the SRV. We all thought it would be ships as before, just nearer to the ground. If they make yet another FPS they're wasting their time and they probably know it - by the time spacelegs comes out, there probably will already be a sequel to Infinite Warfare, and say what you want about Infinity Ward, they have a ton of experience making this sort of game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I think it's fair to say that whatever they come up with for spacelegs gameplay will be somewhat surprising. After all, no-one expected the SRV. We all thought it would be ships as before, just nearer to the ground. If they make yet another FPS they're wasting their time and they probably know it - by the time spacelegs comes out, there probably will already be a sequel to Infinite Warfare, and say what you want about Infinity Ward, they have a ton of experience making this sort of game.

I agree with those that FD will try to implement space legs correctly there will be quite a load of disappointed people. I would like to remind that there's no artificial gravity on ships. So what happens when you lose touch with surface of magnetic boots? Will I be able to float if I decide to? How I will navigate? How I won't stuck in places just floating? How to make players to understand all this?

This is just walking around in ships btw. I won't touch how to do EVA. Amount of gameplay, tech, and potential issues involved is just crazy.

I will also blame some of (in my mind unjustified) backslash about SRV on FD dragging their feet with walking.

 

[nexxo]

On the other hand, Hellion is in roughly the same state as SC is, and that took only about a year - their code is based on Unity, which is an all-purpose engine like Cobra. CIG took ages because they were trying to shoehorn a spaceship game into an FPS engine.

Not at all so. Hellion currently consists of a single ship level and a station level against the backdrop of a planet. That's it. That's all. It's impressive, but not expansive. SC is far further along, with multiple ships, assets, mechanics stations, PG planets etc. ED is far ahead of that again in some areas and far behind in others.

All these games basically started from a different starting point. There are no pros and cons to where you start, but the way ED finances its development meant that it had to have something playable and entertaining quite quickly, so it did the gross outline and has been filling in the details since. SC started from the details, and is building its way up. Hellion is doing the same.

 

[Faybs]

Not at all so. Hellion currently consists of a single ship level and a station level against the backdrop of a planet. That's it. That's all. It's impressive, but not expansive. SC is far further along, with multiple ships, assets, mechanics stations, PG planets etc. ED is far ahead of that again in some areas and far behind in others.

All these games basically started from a different starting point. There are no pros and cons to where you start, but the way ED finances its development meant that it had to have something playable and entertaining quite quickly, so it did the gross outline and has been filling in the details since. SC started from the details, and is building its way up. Hellion is doing the same.

Actually, I think Hellion is following the same model as ED, not SC. The very first build was extremely bare bones, and they're steadily adding some very fundamental things - for example, ships main thrusters are not operational yet (the reason why we're stuck between either RCS or hyperdrive) and the game is getting more survival-like (starting stations have a lot less functional loot than they did last patch, and it's expected to become even lower to force us to go out and explore).

 

[iFred]

What iFred said is right, so Right said iFred

*loud lol*

Am I allowed to use this for my signature? Credits go to you of course

 

[Lobstris]

*loud lol*

Am I allowed to use this for my signature? Credits go to you of course

Go for it. Who am I to impede progress?

 

[Trueno33]

bumping ahead
+1 rep op

 

[SAB380]

I always assumed space legs would come after the planetary content was finished.
It makes much more sense to continue to build off their base planet work - thin atmosphere, gas giants, thicker atmoshpere, complexity like waterworlds, Earth like, etc...

Space legs could first be implemented on the current atmsophere-less planets.
Being able to walk around just to take photos would be fun.

 

[etien]

I don't think atmospheric flight is going to be a very popular feature, for the simple reason that FDev will try to implement it properly. Flying in dense atmospheres will feel different to flying in light ones, flying at low attitude will feel different to flying at high altitude, cross-winds and lightning will be something to worry about, and ships that fly well in space will be terrible in atmospheres and vice versa. Awesome right?

Indeed Awesome, this is what I want in any cases.

 

[Eymerich]

Indeed Awesome, this is what I want in any cases.

Keep your expectation low you padawan

In The best case tHey ll answer it was too difficult to do because you know lack of time and man power
The idea is a good one and we have discussed about it but no promises

In The worst they ll no answer at all

 

[agh42]

I was also disappointed with the answers regarding exploration. For miners they added at least turreted mining lasers and prospector drones.

But for exploration you can only join as a passenger or camera-person with not a single actual thing you can do to help? Not scanning objects from the turret view? Not even setting nav-targets from the system map?

Am I seeing this correctly?

 

[CMDR MadRaptor]

Thanks for posting the summary, but the majority of it greatly disappoints me.


Of course not, that would be useful for explorers so we can't have that. How can Frontier not have planned for SRV's with multicrew from the very beginning??? :S



Again, useful to explorers, so not worth developing.



See above.



It would go a lot better if MC was actually developed to be useful for anyone other than just combat players. If MC gets used even less than CQC, maybe it's due to it's lack of utility to most roles in the game?



Frontier doesn't need to think anything through for the engineer seat in MC, there are a plethora of ideas fully fleshed out all over the forums, all Frontier need do is implement them. I think what's lacking here is finding a combat use for the engineer seat, and thus Frontier just didn't bother. Plus it would be useful for explorers, so can't have that.



No effort by the crew for exploration? Maybe that's due to Frontier not putting any effort of their own into developing MC FOR explorers???


My reaction to Sandro's Q&A answers:

http://i.imgur.com/pmvemcM.gif


This was probably one of the most deflating and depressing Q&A's I've ever seen by Frontier, not just from an exploration point of view, but from a future of Elite Dangerous point of view. The lack of vision or hope for the game's future is astounding, so many non-answers or surprisingly uninspired remarks. Frontier seems much more eager to develop Frontier Store content than Elite Dangerous content.

Completely agree. While there are some tiny bright spots in the next patch....I do love the creator and some of the small improvements they made to some geology, there just isn't anything enjoyable for us explorers and again no hints of tools or expansions to come. The Alien stuff could be cool if they get it working right out of the gate instead of having to wait months to be fixed, but if it's more of these puzzles like we have I may not be interested. Besides, that story is all at the control of FDev and not us, explorers want things to engage with at any time not when FD are ready to move story forward.

It appears they may have added more organics, but surprise now way to find them or narrow down a location, I get they want secrecy but , without giving us any idea or even a few sites in Beta to find, who knows if they are working correctly or not. Sometimes the secret isn't needed. Or at least keep the reason but allow the location to be easier to find.

Anyways, I agree. It'll be interesting to see what coming after this patch but I feel the more and more they just focus on one career...they'll start losing players of the rest and those are even more numerable then combat players...for the moment.

Time is running out though. The open world, sandbox space game is coming back with a bang and they may be overrun.

Hell even NMS is starting to be reborn into something worthwhile. Honestly, there are times when I want my exploration fix that I'll suffer through some of it's mess because it does have the exploring exotic worlds part down.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

How do exploration and MC tags works? MC can't benefit from exploration. No effort by the crew.

This speaks to me of a lack of imagination from FD.

We all know jonking, plotted route, enter system, line up for scooping, align with next jump point, charge FSD, enter system map for seconds to decide whether the system is worth investigating, next!

The Helm could line up for scooping, align with next jump point, charge FSD, a navigator could check the system map have time to read some specifics to see if they're worth checking out, and pick the next destination system by hand instead of relying on the random route plotting device. Especially when looking for shinies (Black Holes, Neutron, Wolf-Rayetts, Planetary Nebs, etc.)

It's true that for scanning a system, there's no effort by the crew. But that's because of the simple reason FD decided not to include exploration in the roles. On the positive side, all the effort FD spent towards combatty multicrew to make it easy accessible and fun are appreciated by the combat community by nagging about how inefficient it all is and not seeing the point if it doesn't yields as many gamey point as wings. So nobody is happy.

Luckily, since FD knows how important credits are to explorers, we make more credits by jonking and scanning.

Here's my proposal to FD. Next time just triple the bounty vouchers, combat vouchers, combat mission payout values, so the creditperhourisfun crowd is happy, and spent the amount of effort you spent on multicrew on exploration mechanics without having to worry whether explorers will use it when it's cr/h value is 12% less than jonking.

 

[VR Golgot]

It's true that for scanning a system, there's no effort by the crew.

My impression was that he meant there's no effort in getting out to the sites, so it'd be cheeky to benefit from it.

 

[Bobbydylan]

Many many questions answered by Sandro 'Really Really Kinda Wanna Do It' Sammarco


[*]Why do crew see a Holo UI? Awareness of ship's movement, especially if not near window.

Why do they need awareness? They're either in the magic gunner camera (that no one can see but it's there, honest!!!!eleven), or they're flying a separate ship.

[*]Why MC toned down to dreadnought gunners only? Dev process. Time, resources, priorities, unforeseen stuff. Depending on how well MC received, and other updates, there's no reason why it couldn't be expanded, other than time and resources. Take step at a time. At the moment it's fulfilling a specific role of quickly linking players and having fun shooting time together. They have concepts for taking it further. [9m30s]

Adds MC features as simple and as basic as can possibly be conceived. Holds back interesting gameplay to see if this most basic addition is used beyond the beta. I think I know the future of MC then.

[*]Will Wings teleport to other locations? No, silly.

[*]Why can't I TP to my ships around the galaxy? Because that would be a bit rubbish

[*]Data courier and passengers over now we can teleport HoloMes? No reasonable lore reasons for not streaming data IE don't want your data being intercepted

[*]Can we cash in exploration data remotely, and get update info? No would change game in ways don't think appropriate and can explain via lore [67m50s]

[*]Are we humans or are we dancers now? Eh holograms? Was it a hard enough decision to break down the 4th wall like a bulldozer? It's not a decision we took lightly. We try to back it up with context, put effort into the rendering, think about the lore. Have to balance that against what's best for gameplay. Would argue they're not truly breaking the 4th wall. Doing best to get best gameplay and still contextualise it. That's they're opinion. [69m26s]

Huh. Sooo.... they try to make lore reasons for all the things they add. Ok, so why can't (apart from being rubbish) I holo-me over to my ship in Colonia and fly that for a bit?
If Telecoms isn't secure for the transmission of data, are we saying that control of a ships vital systems is open and not secure? If so, can we hack them, take control of an enemies ships and turn the guns on themselves? Why cant Exploration data be sent back, even if not secure?
Why cant I holo me over to my friends ship, buy another ship from the station he's docked at and instantly wing up? These no (new) lore reason not to. It'd be a rubbish game mechanic, I agree. Just as Rubbish as teleporting my rear-end over to my mates ship to take control of the weapons.

Telepresance is an absurd lore addition to explain something, it opens up more holes that it fixes. There are far more interesting and workable solutions to the "instant MP join" problem.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

My impression was that he meant there's no effort in getting out to the sites, so it'd be cheeky to benefit from it.

Funny how that sentiment is completely absent when talking about AFK players providing a free pip. That's not cheeky at all!

 

[Knightshark]

So, in summary, no love for exploration or anything beyond combat, nothing planned, no promises...

That is, man... back in premium beta i was so sure this game will be so awesome for its exploration and trading part. We have a highly skilled team of tech nerds, DB as boss whose eyes glow each time he talks about science, space, or fancy PG tech. But now, years later, no major gameplay elements were added. Trading is still impossible (just silly) without third party tools. Exploration is the same chore it was on day one. And the reason is not because there are technical limitations, but that this simply does not seem to be the focus of FD anymore! FD, doing self-publishing doesn't mean that you have to mimic the cliché bad decisions of a publisher focussing on some mass-market-average-customer-peer-group.

 

[StiTch]

[*]Are hull repair limpets planned? They are on a list... Technically still has to say no ETA, no guarantees, but he wants them, has a feeling you guys want them, just a case of when can sneak them in.

I thought I was being hyperbolic when I made the statement that we'd be able to go to Beagle Point soon and come back in better condition than when we left...

 

[Bobbydylan]

https://notimefortrivia.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/bear-how-about-no_thumbnail.jpg

Agreed. I'd much rather hull repair be tied to EVA gameplay.

 

[VR Golgot]

Agreed. I'd much rather hull repair be tied to EVA gameplay.

http://i.imgur.com/9bExDR8.png

Can still be both. Attempt basic patch and mend repairs to tide you over, but a rescue squad would still be superior.