Elite: Dangerous (ED) is fine and all, but it does have its shortcomings. Specifically, the scientific aspect of it is lacking. ED if focused more on gameplay rather than scientific accuracy and discovery.
True, the gameplay aspect of it fits some of the playerbase better than it does others. But for commanders like me, I want to see the actual physics of the galaxy come into play. I want to see CME's scour nearby planets, while their darkside remains shrouded in ice. I want to see accretion disks around protostars and black holes. And yes, black holes need to be deadly. And time dilation effects need to have a profound impact on your ships, as well as your body.
The commander should not be impervious and needs to be fragile as every other human. Yes, this includes commander maintenance. You need food. You need to poop. And you need to water the flowers. The effects of zero-g should have an impact on the commander's ability to operate. Even space madness should be a factor if you're out in the black alone.
Large ships with complex parts need to have more than a one man crew. And each crewmember needs to be responsible for various tasks. There needs to be NPC crew members with various levels of training and sometimes they need to f'up which would create an emergency situation that you have to respond to. There can be human crew-members as well, but they need to be backed up by an NPC crew member if the human crewmember is away. Your ship needs to continue flying, even though you're not online. This is a simulation, and not a shoot-em-up game.
Technology is not perfect. There needs to be wear and tear on the ships and it needs constant maintenance. If you run out of materials to maintain the ship, then you need to land on planets to find said material, refine them, and shape them for use.
Speaking of material, exploration should not be a magical honk machine that discovers all planets all at once. Sure, you can have several telescopes mounted on your ship to discover bodies in that system, but to get a more detailed scan of the system you need to fly around bodies, or send probes to them to gather information.
Time needs to be a factor. Light can only travel so far, after all. As you warp space around you to travel to the system, the object you're steering towards needs to appear to speed up its orbit, and you need to adjust accordingly.
Ships should not simply be made up of modules. There should be specific ship designs, wiring, circuitry, infrastructure, etc, and each should serve a purpose and be connected. A whole module or structure can fail and you have to replace it, or part of a module or structure can fail and you can repair it.
We could start another kickstarter for this game, FD. Both Elite: Dangerous and Elite: Universe can feed into each other. ED can serve to improve the playability of EU and EU can serve to increase the scientific accuracy of ED without sacrificing playability.
What do you think? Would you like a more simulation based game that complements ED, or do you think ED is enough?
And oh yeah, it will be a new development team that is strictly focused on simulation and scientific accuracy so that pew-pew game play doesn't sneak its way in.
I'm amending this post to address some of the naysayers. The format I will use is a summary of they naysayer's response, followed by my response, a summary of my response, or a summary of another's response:
* Go work for NASA. This is a game and needs to be playable. It would be boring if too accurate
Some of us actually like things that are scientifically accurate. To us, this is game play.
* Go play another game that matches what you want
Don't try to turn me or anyone away from Frontier games. I like Elite: Dangerous and I do not want to switch. So suggesting that I or anyone go play another game is counter-intuitive to actually supporting Elite: Dangerous and Frontier Development.
* Frontier Development won't read your post, don't care about your ideas, so don't even bother.
They read more than you think! And an idea not expressed doesn't exist. At least I made my thoughts known.
* Why would FD put developers onto making a new Elite: Dangerous when this game has so many bugs/problems with it?
Again, I'm not talking about Elite: Dangerous. I'm talking about Elite: Universe with a separate set of developers dedicated to development. And I'm recommending another kickstarter to pay for it. And kickstarters aren't just for new companies. FD has been around for a long time and they started a kickstarter for ED. And Elite: Universe would be a completely new game, borrowing from ED environments and code, but focused more on the scientifically accurate side of simulation.
* It would be a waste of DEV time. Time would be better spent on bug fixes.
The same argument was given when Christopher Columbus wanted to discover the new world. And also when people talk about contemporary space exploration. "We have too many problems here on earth."
True, the gameplay aspect of it fits some of the playerbase better than it does others. But for commanders like me, I want to see the actual physics of the galaxy come into play. I want to see CME's scour nearby planets, while their darkside remains shrouded in ice. I want to see accretion disks around protostars and black holes. And yes, black holes need to be deadly. And time dilation effects need to have a profound impact on your ships, as well as your body.
The commander should not be impervious and needs to be fragile as every other human. Yes, this includes commander maintenance. You need food. You need to poop. And you need to water the flowers. The effects of zero-g should have an impact on the commander's ability to operate. Even space madness should be a factor if you're out in the black alone.
Large ships with complex parts need to have more than a one man crew. And each crewmember needs to be responsible for various tasks. There needs to be NPC crew members with various levels of training and sometimes they need to f'up which would create an emergency situation that you have to respond to. There can be human crew-members as well, but they need to be backed up by an NPC crew member if the human crewmember is away. Your ship needs to continue flying, even though you're not online. This is a simulation, and not a shoot-em-up game.
Technology is not perfect. There needs to be wear and tear on the ships and it needs constant maintenance. If you run out of materials to maintain the ship, then you need to land on planets to find said material, refine them, and shape them for use.
Speaking of material, exploration should not be a magical honk machine that discovers all planets all at once. Sure, you can have several telescopes mounted on your ship to discover bodies in that system, but to get a more detailed scan of the system you need to fly around bodies, or send probes to them to gather information.
Time needs to be a factor. Light can only travel so far, after all. As you warp space around you to travel to the system, the object you're steering towards needs to appear to speed up its orbit, and you need to adjust accordingly.
Ships should not simply be made up of modules. There should be specific ship designs, wiring, circuitry, infrastructure, etc, and each should serve a purpose and be connected. A whole module or structure can fail and you have to replace it, or part of a module or structure can fail and you can repair it.
We could start another kickstarter for this game, FD. Both Elite: Dangerous and Elite: Universe can feed into each other. ED can serve to improve the playability of EU and EU can serve to increase the scientific accuracy of ED without sacrificing playability.
What do you think? Would you like a more simulation based game that complements ED, or do you think ED is enough?
And oh yeah, it will be a new development team that is strictly focused on simulation and scientific accuracy so that pew-pew game play doesn't sneak its way in.
I'm amending this post to address some of the naysayers. The format I will use is a summary of they naysayer's response, followed by my response, a summary of my response, or a summary of another's response:
* Go work for NASA. This is a game and needs to be playable. It would be boring if too accurate
Some of us actually like things that are scientifically accurate. To us, this is game play.
* Go play another game that matches what you want
Don't try to turn me or anyone away from Frontier games. I like Elite: Dangerous and I do not want to switch. So suggesting that I or anyone go play another game is counter-intuitive to actually supporting Elite: Dangerous and Frontier Development.
* Frontier Development won't read your post, don't care about your ideas, so don't even bother.
They read more than you think! And an idea not expressed doesn't exist. At least I made my thoughts known.
* Why would FD put developers onto making a new Elite: Dangerous when this game has so many bugs/problems with it?
Again, I'm not talking about Elite: Dangerous. I'm talking about Elite: Universe with a separate set of developers dedicated to development. And I'm recommending another kickstarter to pay for it. And kickstarters aren't just for new companies. FD has been around for a long time and they started a kickstarter for ED. And Elite: Universe would be a completely new game, borrowing from ED environments and code, but focused more on the scientifically accurate side of simulation.
* It would be a waste of DEV time. Time would be better spent on bug fixes.
The same argument was given when Christopher Columbus wanted to discover the new world. And also when people talk about contemporary space exploration. "We have too many problems here on earth."
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