Traveller, in it's heyday (late seventies-early eighties) was considered "hard sci-fi", but, like all other games, it was full of holes and handwavium.
The Wheel never stops turning.
Braben’s Vision and It’s Implications
- Thread starter Delilah
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Traveller, in it's heyday (late seventies-early eighties) was considered "hard sci-fi", but, like all other games, it was full of holes and handwavium.
The Wheel never stops turning.
Look down this week's newsletter... Look down any recent one...
How often is there anything to do for example with gameplay added in the past 2 years? How often is the exciting ways you can participate in the ED universe via mechanics put in over two years ago?
Look at what's been added in the past two years and consider how much of it is the "hard science" mentioned in the original post, and how much is light weight bolt ons?
How often is there anything to do for example with gameplay added in the past 2 years? How often is the exciting ways you can participate in the ED universe via mechanics put in over two years ago?
Look at what's been added in the past two years and consider how much of it is the "hard science" mentioned in the original post, and how much is light weight bolt ons?
Having watched a similar argument over in social media land, I get the impression that a few people don't understand the (admittedly potentially blurry) distinctions between 'Hard' and 'Soft' Sci-Fi. The galaxy modelling is pretty 'hard', as games go. Everything else... That said, it's like 'study' vs. 'survey' flight sims, or 'task' versus 'environment' simulators. There's a continuum of 'hardness' for almost every feature.
That said, it's like 'study' vs. 'survey' flight sims, or 'task' versus 'environment' simulators. There's a continuum of 'hardness' for almost every feature.
Agree. The "hard" vs "soft" sci-fi is quite vague. It's almost more like "does it feel like it could be true, real physics and science", then it's hard. If it's more like "this is so fantastic, on the verge of magic and incomprehensible phenomenon", then it's soft. So in that sense, ED is closer to hard than soft, but there are things in there are most definitely not very true to science. Any game that goes all the way to true Newtonian physics, will lose a large number of multi-pew-pew people since it'll be tedious, boring, difficult beyond belief to combat.Having watched a similar argument over in social media land, I get the impression that a few people don't understand the (admittedly potentially blurry) distinctions between 'Hard' and 'Soft' Sci-Fi. The galaxy modelling is pretty 'hard', as games go. Everything else...
I think most hard science advocates might find that too. Way back when, shortly after the Elite era started, Periscope attempted a true space sim. Some of you may remember Karma & it's flight trainer. Trying to play it was mind bogglingly complex, but it's ambition was so far ahead of computing power at the time, it died for lack of funding (amongst other things). I still have my copy!
My take on this is that my computers should take care of all the 'real physics' so I don't have to. Wouldn't flying spacecraft in the future be like driving cars today? You still have to point it in the right direction & if you badly misjudge your approach speed you're going straight through that roundabout. However, some modern cars can help you out, if you haven't over cooked it too badly.
On the other side of the coin though, I suppose, are all those Star-Wars-esque bangs & flashes.
But in the end, it's still only a game, however much it might try to convince us it's much more than that.
And interesting point about future cars. Considering that we're facing self-driving electric cars and even airplanes are more or less automatic. There are automatic helicopters and drones used by military. So why would the future space ship not be the same? Probably it would be. And probably the human race will be different as well, cyborgs of sorts I guess. Things as we know it won't be the same tomorrow.I think most hard science advocates might find that too. Way back when, shortly after the Elite era started, Periscope attempted a true space sim. Some of you may remember Karma & it's flight trainer. Trying to play it was mind bogglingly complex, but it's ambition was so far ahead of computing power at the time, it died for lack of funding (amongst other things). I still have my copy!
My take on this is that my computers should take care of all the 'real physics' so I don't have to. Wouldn't flying spacecraft in the future be like driving cars today? You still have to point it in the right direction & if you badly misjudge your approach speed you're going straight through that roundabout. However, some modern cars can help you out, if you haven't over cooked it too badly.
On the other side of the coin though, I suppose, are all those Star-Wars-esque bangs & flashes.
But in the end, it's still only a game, however much it might try to convince us it's much more than that.
That is were it gets confusing. Braben didn't want to touch the consoles.....as did Roberts until they could get their vision on the PC side working. Roberts continued his no console approach, whereas Braben shortly after the beta launch announced the console version. At that point the writing was on the wall. Then we find the entire game is written on a console game engine leading us to believe the PC version features talked about were just a sales tactic. So far that has been the case, and we are still waiting for those features.
The pew-pew mentality did destroy the game from where it originated. Combat for the pew-pew crowd would have been unacceptable with the Newtonian model. None of what made the originals the historical games they were is in this version. (Got to take that back....the galaxy is a masterpiece alone.) If it was it would have been a top seller on Steam since it release, but they didn't go that way. They bowed down to the mediocrity of the mindless masses and we got this version. The future for the genre does look brighter now. And ED has given that a push in the right direction if nothing else. I may be irritated with how it panned out, but if the game can lure more gamers to the genre for it to progress.....that's good.
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Modern consoles are really only limited PCs, aren't they? So it's hardly surprising they jumped at the extra cash.
I read today that Sony have pulled the plug on cross-platform play. I was surprised when I read it; they'd always seemed keen & they have done it in the past.
Sometimes it seems like the only thing Sony wants with an advantage in market share is to test what it takes to squander it.
Very limited, not to mention the overbearing interference of their respective manufacturers, especially Sony. If you want to patch YOUR game, you have to ASK for their permission, and in Sony's case I believe you also have to pay them for the privilege of it being on their platform in the first place. They know they can get away with it too, because their market is so huge, developers would eat their own bio-waste just to access to it.
As for the cross platform thing, the game being on Xbox basically killed any chance of that ever happening. They'll share with PC, as it's not a direct competitor, but the Xbox? No way.
try using beam lasers on some debris.. hard science right there
I think you might have accidentally stumbled on the real issue right there.
As a fan of astronomy, maybe DB sees ED primarily as a piece of software intended to predict and simulate how planetary bodies might act within our galaxy - and all that stuff with funky spaceships zipping around is just fluff?
That is probably a fair assessment. Also, the game might not be hard science per se, but it's certainly more scientific than Star Wars, as the latter doesn't even seem to have multi-directional RCS thrusters at all... on anything!
Since I took astronomy a while back, there are things in the game that I'm missing from "real science". For instance, for binary stars close to each other, they travel faster, there's sometimes an exchange of mass, etc. Also, where are the meteors and other odd orbital pattern bodies, orphan planets, Oort clouds (debatable), supernovas, ... Of course all these things require some serious math, development, and computing power, and how would there be a supernova that would be interesting unless we could have a "prediction" when it's going to happen, and we all could go and watch it "live". Anyway. Many hard science things are still missing even in the universe engine, but even so, I think the FDev has done a splendid job with what we have so far, and it wouldn't surprise me there are surprises in the future.
Agreed - that's why E: D moved away from the Frontier 2/FFE Newtonian combat, to the 'WWI/WWII fighters crossed with submarines in space' approach. Apart from perhaps Bounder (Hi Bounder!) no one actually learnt how to fly without combat just becoming jousting. I-War/I-War 2 worked, but by having loads of different autopilot options, and still ended up being a bit 'jousty', and I wonder how Infinity:Battlescape will fare - in the alpha test, it felt like combat had to be consensual, with both parties cooperatively maneuvering to get into the same volume of space.
Now - if I could just figure out how to make decent out-of-plane orbit changes in Children of a Dead Earth...
That depends on the direction the genre moves in. The Elder Scrolls series "moved forward" in an effort to lure more gamers to the genre, as did Mass Effect and the FPS genre. Are the latest iterations in these series/genres objectively superior?
This is exactly what I meant, the game inside the universe is not coherent. The people building the missions all have different ideas about this game. I can just see it : Fred the mission designer is captivated by Braben's scientific vision and likes to build his missions to give you the feeling you are insignificant speck of dust in a vast universe (mission board : "Supplies are urgently need, source any random medicines from anywhere and we'll pay you well"). Then there's Benny, he loves heroes and thinks Batman is the best thing since Iron Man. In his missions, you are the hero too! Everyone gets to be the hero! Every you take is made from gold and every breath you take will swiftly annihilate any foe. Mission board : "Hi commander, your reputation precedes you. I have been longing for this chance to talk to you. You are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Please take this ultra important, irrepplacable biowaste and take it to our allies who have urgent need of it. There might be pirates coming after you because reasons."
Now this has improved since they revisited the missions, but before horizons the missions had utterly ridiculous descriptions and some still do.
In this game, dieing is of little consequence since you immediately respawn at the nearest starbase and all it cost you was a bit of money. But cargo is irreplacable and the most valuable thing in the universe because you can't replace it. 5 tons of poo is worth more than a space ship, according to the game mechanics.
The irony is that the flight model currently in Star Citizen (which is based on arcade pew pew shooter ancestry) is closer to what Elite should have had , coming from sim ancestry... It's like SC has an arcade universe with sim flight in it and Elite is a sim universe with arcade combat in it. All I can say is "whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!".....
This is the kind if thing I would expect is in the pipeline. Judging by how completely out of the blue (at least for me) they released geysers and stuff and how if a planet has just a little bit of atmosphere you already start to take heat damage if you dive straight down in glide mode, this is the kind of things that is a wet dream for the Elite devs. They probably want to see a supernova ingame even more than we do.
Yeah, this disappointed me a little when I first played. In the original Elite you didn't dare venture out in to the black because it was invariably fatal. So early on you played cautiously, with self-preservation in mind.
Later, when you could afford one, you could buy an escape pod to save your bacon when you did take on too much. Even then it wasn't automatic, you actually had to launch it. So you could still die if you weren't quick enough.
Really changes the dynamics of your early days in space.