Braben teased a future update, said the next logical step would be to introduce settlements on planets
- Thread starter Cosmo
- Start date
Settlements on airless worlds should be a lot easier to make look populated, you only need a few vehicles and space suited figures working outside, most of the population would be inside or underground and you could use planet coaster crowd physics to put people inside domes and buildings, visible through the glass.
I don't know why it hasn't been done yet, OK so it doesn't add much to game-play but the game would feel less empty. Even if you were to let players inside you wouldn't need to allow them access everywhere, most of these facilities are company owned or military so a player couldn't just wander around everywhere anyway.
It's obviously not that hard to give players working legs and while the community would, of course, want to wander around on planets restricting them to smaller areas first would at least show us that SOMETHING is happening at FDs development studio regarding making the game feel like it's progressing in a way that many people actually want, rather than the agonisingly slow crawl of these alien encounters and puzzle missions....
I don't know why it hasn't been done yet, OK so it doesn't add much to game-play but the game would feel less empty. Even if you were to let players inside you wouldn't need to allow them access everywhere, most of these facilities are company owned or military so a player couldn't just wander around everywhere anyway.
It's obviously not that hard to give players working legs and while the community would, of course, want to wander around on planets restricting them to smaller areas first would at least show us that SOMETHING is happening at FDs development studio regarding making the game feel like it's progressing in a way that many people actually want, rather than the agonisingly slow crawl of these alien encounters and puzzle missions....
As long as player groups can destroy those settlements.
We do and it doesn't appear anything else was revealed towards this. Perhaps just an off the cuff comment. Or something else? Time will tell ..... But to be honest, unless it is a settlement on a planet with atmosphere (a debate in another thread) then I can't imagine too many souls roaming the landscapes.
Chief
Why does it have to be groups? Why shouldn't solitary players be able to too?
I agree.
Some people don't think it through. For them creating a huge spacesim like ED is just as easy as expressing the intention in a sentence.
They only see and understand a minuscule small part of what it involves and they think that is all there is to it. They seem to think that saying something in a thread is almost the same as actually creating it.
FD doesn't get the appreciation they deserve for the awesome job they do.
I think making dozens if not hundreds or thousands of npc on multiple thousands of planets behave like they have something meaningful to do while not looking all like carbon copies is a gargantuan, if not impossible, task. I think it can only partially be achieved.
FD should not overreach. Just seeing a few token npc's on planets and in stations move around on foot or in vehicles would already make me immensely happy.
I would love to see just a few guys in spacesuits doing external repairs on an orbital, or a few technicians in orange overalls hanging around near the control tower.
Repetition in faces and general appearance will be unavoidable. Even in extraordinary beautiful open game worlds like GTA and The Witcher you see dozens of carbon copy characters with all kinds of behavioral bugs, and these game worlds are just a tiny fraction of the Elite universe.
We will have to live with such shortcomings. They are unavoidable. FD are not a pantheon of universe creating gods. They are artists creating a limited simulation.
I think many complainers expect far too much, far too quickly.
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I thought that many generation ships reached their destination and settled on the systems in the bubble. Furthermore, FTL drives were invented much later, resulting in long periods of relative isolation for the settlements.
This should have resulted in vastly different cultures, architectures and social structures. I wish this was more evident in the game, but hopefully we'll get more diversity when the settlements are improved upon.
Rubbish, you set points of interest for your NPCs, give them a decent pathing routine and as many different animations to play at end points as you like and then have them travel randomly between points.
Vehicle movement routines can be more predictable as generally they WOULD be anyway, following set routes into, out of and around the base.
it's not rocket science, should I mention planet coaster has hundreds of NPC moving around the game, or things like Skyrim or Fallout that have NPCs with daily routines?
Stop making excuses and think about what you are saying is diffficult when many many other games do it as a matter of course.
I think it strange that one of their guess speakers at the expo is an expert in alien life. given that their very little alien life in the elite dangerous universe at the minute.
Please check the original source, because Braben is being taken out of context, and IMHO did NOT intend "settlements" in the way you mean. Here's a slightly fuller quote
So when he says "settlements" he is IMHO talking about the STORIES of past attempts to settle the galaxy. Why did many settlement attempts fail & what is the story behind those failures? (And maybe some successes, whose settlements have perhaps stayed hidden for their own isolationist reasons - perhaps good stories in their own rights.)
IMHO we can probably expect more audio logs, but at failed settlements (rather than failed colony ships).
That's Boring. We want Lively Cities on Planets with NPCs walking around at least. It's taking Frontier way too long to deliver this stuff. The Ghost towns we have now without a single NPC walking around and not a Single Vehicle driving around is too barebones sorry.
It is not as complicated either. They already have the walking NPC crowd technology of Planet Coaster. They could literally reskin, make them more realistic and implement them at the planetary settlements. Maybe they have to add some new animations, but much of the work is already done.
Many people complained about the lack of NPCs and Vehicles in and around those planetary settlements when Horizons first launched. Frontier should implement it soon, because it's long overdue. The ghost towns are boring and lame.
Yes that would be cool to see, even if it's some trickery and not actual 3D NPCs.
It would be cool if solitary players can build settlements. I imagine it'll cost a lot so it's more feasible for cooperative play with player groups.
And after the people walking /driving about at the planetary settlements are added will it be that a commander takes out his SRV.............. and plays deathrace 3304... [hotas]
Bill
"Look blind pedestrian... 40 bonus points...."
Then a swarm of skimmers and security ships would go after the player. It works fine in Grand Theft Auto.
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Oct 7 - between 5pm and 7pm at the Starport Here East, Olympic Park London. Live stream will be available.
The reason we haven't seen it yet is because Elite Horizons didn't include any content that needed large crowds of people.
I just bought the PC version of Red Faction Guerrilla (from 2009) after having loved the game on PS3 years ago, and I love watching all those NPCs going about their daily lives in vehicles and on foot. GTA and many other games have done it well for years.
So fingers crossed for NPC activity.
Shadow sprites could do the trick in the control towers.
verminstar
Banned
Well done, ye fell fer a sales pitch ^
LOL, and just a handful of very samey "missions" on the "duh, missions!" board. No proper bulletin board systems, general adverts / classifieds, lost & found, jobs offered / wanted, missing / wanted persons, items for sale, trade deals and services offered / sought etc. etc.
Billions of inhabitants, in a state-of-the-art futuristic space-faring civilisation, and near-total radio silence.. system-wide comms blackout, no signs of life or normalcy anywhere to be found. Just a weird and neurotic "passenger lounge" and a Soviet "duh, missions!" board.
FE2 & FFE were bustling with life by comparison..