Will I ever be able to get out of my ship?

[Kayweg]

Here you go: http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ac1081437f

Scroll down to "To Launch, And Beyond with the Lifetime Expansion Pass".

Both atmo planets AND space legs are said explicitly to be things that will be done. In the game's newsletter no less. Followed by a "buy the LEP" link.

You're right, that's certainly official confimation back then.
No more though than that everything can be subject to change. The reality back then is a different one from the reality in sept. 2017, 2 1/2 years post launch.
Now, i wasn't around during the KS, so i have to ask, were space legs an actual pledge tier in the KS ?
I ask because i feel that's the only solid nail anyone could reasonably pin them down with.

 

[lysan]

I always believed it would be in season 3, now as they move away from seasons not so much.
This could be because A) They are working on it, and need more time to complete it as they now run it as DLC's?
B)Not started due to???? thus the plan to fix the core of the game, but in my mind that is really not the best example of PM or Game Design.

However it's coming, because DB said so

 

[lysan]

It's not worth the development time imo. There are far more important things to add.

I mean what's the point of them spending a year coding the 'space legs' when it will be used for 2-3 hours at most? lets be honest, once you've walked around your ship 2-3 times and walked on 3-4 planets the novelty of walking will wear off and you'll probably never bother again. So why spent all the time on it when there are more important things to work on?

Not really, I still enjoy driving around in my SRV, and now I'm playing Prey, floating around the space station is really a immersive experience, that alone would be enough for a long time.

 

[lysan]

That's really the crux of it, right? There's been extensive discussions about space legs all over the forums, and it's a difficult one to answer from our perspective. It's something we really, really want to do.... but if it doesn't add any long-term value, it's a lot of work for something that lacks meaningful gameplay. There was another thread on this that we were taking notes from with regards to the comparison to EVE's version of 'space legs'. Unfortunately that thread was lost as the OP requested his account to be removed and all posts he made to be wiped. Essentially it was a discussion regarding the feature being removed from EVE (if I recall the linked article correctly) due to lack of people using.

It's still something we'd like to do, but the focus after 2.4 will be improvements of core gameplay mechanics. To add this rather heavy feature without meaningful activities around it would be a disservice to you guys, and it's a hell of a lot of work for the dev team. My advice would be to work on the assumption that it'll be a ways off yet, because as has been mentioned many times before: to do it properly would be a whole new game within ED.

There are many threads discussing this, however if you really need a brainstorming thread where we can give feedback please open one.
However I know that you can't do that, because if you do it will be used against you, so that is a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

 

[Mark Lock]

Except that many of the types of gameplay being proposed would require me to do just that. Boarding actions (having to defend my ship) and repairs, for two examples. Also, it would take up development resources which could otherwise be devoted to further improving the space flight gameplay.

I'd rather have the space sim I love grow deeper and more complex rather than spread itself thin expanding into other venues.

I understand your point but consider this, many ppl paid for it in the hope the initial vision to come to life, the vision includes space legs as well, the space flight is already deep and complete in my opinion, certainly there will be more features in the future but that's not all, the game needs space legs.

 

[askavir]

You're right, that's certainly official confimation back then.
No more though than that everything can be subject to change. The reality back then is a different one from the reality in sept. 2017, 2 1/2 years post launch.
Now, i wasn't around during the KS, so i have to ask, were space legs an actual pledge tier in the KS ?
I ask because i feel that's the only solid nail anyone could reasonably pin them down with.

I just want to add that that newsletter that confirms atmos and spacelegs is not from early alphas or some old stuff from the kickstarter era, that newsletter was sent after Horizons had already launched so less than 2 years ago.

Seems like a far too drastic change of mind in that timeframe.

 

[Quantis Trap]

Personally, want space legs more than Thargs or atmospheric landings.

 

[Kayweg]

I just want to add that that newsletter that confirms atmos and spacelegs is not from early alphas or some old stuff from the kickstarter era, that newsletter was sent after Horizons had already launched so less than 2 years ago.

Seems like a far too drastic change of mind in that timeframe.

Well, 2 1/2 or 1 1/2 years is still plenty of time to change plans.
But we don't even have to go that far, as Dale confirmed, even in this very thread, that they still want to do it, so in principle the plan hasn't changed.
What i was getting at is that all those confirmations are little more than declarations of intent, whereas if it was a KS pledge tier, it would be much more of an obligation for them to deliver.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Now, i wasn't around during the KS, so i have to ask, were space legs an actual pledge tier in the KS ?
I ask because i feel that's the only solid nail anyone could reasonably pin them down with.

Not a specific tier, but a FAQ response and so implicit in the LEP tiers.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...t-of-my-ship?p=5851626&viewfull=1#post5851626

All of the Kickstarter campaign content, including updates and FAQs, is still available for review because Kickstarter controls that content, thankfully. I strongly suspect it would be a different story if that control rested with Frontier.

And before someone says "You can leave your ship via the SRV," the FAQ directly references exploring your ship and space stations. Until you can do that with an SRV, current Horizons content doesn't count.

 

[Mark Lock]

Well, 2 1/2 or 1 1/2 years is still plenty of time to change plans.
But we don't even have to go that far, as Dale confirmed, even in this very thread, that they still want to do it, so in principle the plan hasn't changed.
What i was getting at is that all those confirmations are little more than declarations of intent, whereas if it was a KS pledge tier, it would be much more of an obligation for them to deliver.

It was in the original vision too, that newsletter just confirmed it will come, not in 2.4 but it will come .

 

[Kayweg]

It was in the original vision too, that newsletter just confirmed it will come, not in 2.4 but it will come .

I am familar with the "vision", but those have a habit of getting overtaken by reality.
Nothing wrong with trust and faith, they are good traits to have in many different walks of life. I'm afraid game development has repeatedly shown that it isn't one of them.
I actually do hope, for all who're keen on SL, that your prediction holds true.
But to be blunt, based on recent FD comments i just doubt that it will.

 

[PS4gamer]

The point of doing it is they promised it and people paid for it.

Now I know for a fact that is not true. tsk, c'mon now, stop stretching the truth.

 

[Louis Calvert]

Well, I agree to some extent but I doubt Star Citizen will be released anytime soon, I might be wrong but CIG is not doing so well lately, they seem to be forced to postpone releases a lot but yes, it it ever gets released, Frontier will have to do something, logical thing would be to release space legs asap so that if SC 3.0 ever releases, it will no longer be an issue in terms of competition. I'm confident FD is much more capable than CIG, all they have to do is to work on the important new features. Hopefully Season 3 will have space legs as a starting big feature, it would be pointless to just dedicate an entire paid Season to just improvements here and there. Season 2 started with planetary landings and it was the main selling point, Season 3 will need a big selling point too and that selling point might be space legs and related activities...

I agree, but I strongly suspect the new big feature will be atmo planet landings, since it's a natural follow on from Horizons. I suspect that at first we'll only get to land on non-terrestrial uninhabited planets and as updates roll out that will expand to include more planet types, ultimately earth-like worlds. I suspect we'll still be restricted from populated worlds though since that would mean also adding in vast cities and populations, I suspect that will come in much later.

Space legs, I think, will come after they've done atmo planets.

 

[Watcher]

I'd certainly like to see Space Legs but I can imagine it would be a lot of fuss like they say.
Gameplay is tricky. Not only do there need to be worthwhile things to do but you don't necessarily want to make them so good/useful that everyone feels they have to do it. I felt a bit like this with Engineers and it made me bounce of ED for a bit since I didn't want to.. I got over that and came back but still, a matter of being careful. You don't want to turn ED in to a walking game in which you occasionally fly a ship from place to place.
That said if we could do no more than walk around the ship a bit and wander down to the launch bay to get in the SRV that would be nice - mostly pointless for the amount of effort but still nice to see.

As an aside getting Space Legs working might be, further, useful impetuous to sort out the whole who controls what when thing that is plaguing us with multi-crew and ship launched fighters. Until we get something sorted out here anything beyond sitting in your current ship is tricky to make decent/sensible.

 

[LynxAwakening]

+1 for "space legs"

cause then you'll get space arms to wield space guns...

arms for planting explosives on a reactor core of an enemy mothership you docked and boarded, then escaped in a blaze of glory! then there's exploring alien city's, ruins, temples... perhaps discover unique artifacts from an advanced ancient civilization, that an engineer can mount to your ship! maybe animals/dinosaurs dominate and hunt you. visa versa hunt animals/aliens and cook them for sport, might taste better with spices found from other planets!

the spice must flow!

 

[Pumabear8]

Gimme space legs and something to do with them inside my ship, and I might even start doing to Hutton run, right now, on trips longer than 100,000 ls, I'm out making coffee, heck, even getting some washing up done, but I digress, YES to space legs.

 

[Jools]

and the back-pedalling continues

Not very nice frontier, when you wanted our money the narrative was drastically different

How does "we have no idea how it could even work in our game" (paraphrased of course) work with the supposed detailed 10 year plan guys? huh?

 

[Badben]

That's really the crux of it, right? There's been extensive discussions about space legs all over the forums, and it's a difficult one to answer from our perspective. It's something we really, really want to do.... but if it doesn't add any long-term value, it's a lot of work for something that lacks meaningful gameplay. There was another thread on this that we were taking notes from with regards to the comparison to EVE's version of 'space legs'. Unfortunately that thread was lost as the OP requested his account to be removed and all posts he made to be wiped. Essentially it was a discussion regarding the feature being removed from EVE (if I recall the linked article correctly) due to lack of people using.

It's still something we'd like to do, but the focus after 2.4 will be improvements of core gameplay mechanics. To add this rather heavy feature without meaningful activities around it would be a disservice to you guys, and it's a hell of a lot of work for the dev team. My advice would be to work on the assumption that it'll be a ways off yet, because as has been mentioned many times before: to do it properly would be a whole new game within ED.

honestly though, there have been several updates that failed to add any meaningful gameplay, that really seem like place-holders until the system can be more fleshed out. Multi-crew being the worst IMO, but power play and CQC not far behind. Simply being able to walk around my ship rather than staring out the front cockpit would give me more reason to do long SC trips to distant stations. Besides that, I can think of tons of gameplay that could be added to space legs without ever leaving the ship. If I could go repair modules on my ship, or even better, assign a friend through mult-crew to go repair modules, then you have an engineer on the ship. You could interact with passengers in some way. If I were on a long flight and the captain came back to talk with me, I'd be thrilled. New modules like science stations could be added that you could interact with too. If there were even a few things to do around the ship, I can't see space legs being any less meaningful than mult-crew, that literally added 1 new mechanic, the gunner position, which I've heard many people call shallow and arcade-y. I've never even tried multi-crew, I think there are a lot of people who've never tried multi-crew, but FD saw enough gameplay value to add it. And I can't imagine that if you added space legs, you'd have a large portion of players who'll simply never try it like with mult-crew. So, what I can extract from this comment is that FD can't see any value in adding the ability to walk around and interact with your ship in ways never before possible, but can see the value in adding a silly gunner position that many players will never use. Sorry, but this sounds like FD are lacking some imagination.

 

[JMars]

honestly though, there have been several updates that failed to add any meaningful gameplay, that really seem like place-holders until the system can be more fleshed out. Multi-crew being the worst IMO, but power play and CQC not far behind. Simply being able to walk around my ship rather than staring out the front cockpit would give me more reason to do long SC trips to distant stations. Besides that, I can think of tons of gameplay that could be added to space legs without ever leaving the ship. If I could go repair modules on my ship, or even better, assign a friend through mult-crew to go repair modules, then you have an engineer on the ship. You could interact with passengers in some way. If I were on a long flight and the captain came back to talk with me, I'd be thrilled. New modules like science stations could be added that you could interact with too. If there were even a few things to do around the ship, I can't see space legs being any less meaningful than mult-crew, that literally added 1 new mechanic, the gunner position, which I've heard many people call shallow and arcade-y. I've never even tried multi-crew, I think there are a lot of people who've never tried multi-crew, but FD saw enough gameplay value to add it. And I can't imagine that if you added space legs, you'd have a large portion of players who'll simply never try it like with mult-crew. So, what I can extract from this comment is that FD can't see any value in adding the ability to walk around and interact with your ship in ways never before possible, but can see the value in adding a silly gunner position that many players will never use. Sorry, but this sounds like FD are lacking some imagination.

This!
+1 for Badben.
I think the problem is the work FD would need to do Space Legs, thats the reason they are more cautios about that topic.

 

[Enderby]

I've heard a lot about what they want to add.

I've seen little of this become reality.