Will Elite Dangerous have Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs or Procedural Cities by 2019?

[Tadeus72]

Even in the funny over-optimistic Kickstarter related materials they've said they would like to see walking and biospheres on planets, but it would be the ultimate (final) goal of the development process. Seeing as most of the core content isn't refined yet and tonnes of ready assets don't even have content related to them I don't think we are close to the final stages. Beyond is a very good move. The thing I might see them doing after Beyond is maybe some new types of lifeless planets. They will be never able to invest as many resources and funds in the development process as CGI does, and having most of the engine ready is actually a hindrance and not helpful for this kind of thing, cause they will have to rewrite it. The current engine has even performance problems with the rocks we have now.

 

[Jack Schitt]

The thing is, if FD reveal their hand and say they won't be doing legs/flora & fauna/atmospherics, then the player base may die. So it's far more lucrative for FD to keep quiet and give people hope in order to get more cash. It's got them this far.

Exactly. What I'm saying is that if the day ever comes when these features are officially cancelled, and we haven't seen any SC-type tech demo videos in the meantime, we will know for certain that FD didn't even try and were just stringing us along. That's why they'll never say anything either way unless/until they're ready to reveal them. Worst case scenario is that they keep repeating that these features are on the wishlist right up until the day they turn off the servers.

I'm still hoping it won't come to that. ED has been in a constant state of catch-up ever since the December 2014 launch, which many people in the DDF and elsewhere thought was too early by at least three months if not more. And the pace of change has been and its slowest and most erratic for a while now. But I still remember being utterly blown away by the planetary landings reveal at the start of Horizons, which I did not see coming at all. That's the level of shock and awe FD needs to recapture, but in hindsight that was probably being worked on from launch if not earlier. They just didn't tip us off.

Which brings me back to my original point. If some of this stuff is being tested in the skunkworks then they stand a good chance of being able to pull off one or more Horizons-style surprise reveals within the next 18 months. If not, I doubt we'll see any of this wishware by 2019 if ever.

 

[hypervoodoo77]

No simple

 

[Vasea Azure]

No simple

How so?

 

[Tadeus72]

The thing is. If SC ever becomes a game it will win in the space legs/atmosphere planets competition right away. You can see it was designed from ground up for it (ships that are hollow tubes etc.). Elite, despite what Frontier was saying in the beginning isn't. Tonnes of features it has will actually make introducing space legs much harder (like passengers). If there will be some form of space legs/atmospherics it will be probably much more limited and light on content.

But doing a Omni-SF game isn't everything. No man's sky is one and for most people the game in it simply isn't fun to play. So the first thing Frontier should concentrate on should actually be to make it more fun. People will surely change to the more technologically impressive game for a time, but in the end they will stay where the fun gameplay is.

 

[Lecitron]

Once 3.0 gets released, i bet you 80% of Elite players will migrate to Star Citizen.

Maybe 6.0, SC is a loooong journey.

 

[Eymerich]

At Frontier Expo 2017 the highly anticipated features called Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs and full-scale Procedural Cities weren't announced for Elite Dangerous: Beyond.

The core-improvements that ED Beyond will bring sound awesome, but there wasn't really anything jaw-dropping. Personally I really like the Squadron (guilds), but we have to wait almost a year (Q4 2018).

Zac Antonaci seems to imply that Frontier hasn't even begun working on space legs "Spacelegs (as the community are dubbing them) is something that David B and the development team are very excited by and it’s certainly high on the list of features they would like to make. However, as we’ve mentioned before, “Spacelegs” is something further down the line." Yet in 2016 Braben said "Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."

David Braben's core vision for what Elite really is has always been about you're a person in a real futuristic setting, not just a ship.

An other upcoming space sim (which doesn't need to be named) showed live in-engine demonstrations of all these highly anticipated features. The thing is, we want to experience landing on atmospheric planets, space legs and full-scale procedural planets in Elite Dangerous too! We want to be fully immersed in the Elite universe.

On paper Frontier Developments is a bigger game developer. They recently got a major investment from Tencent, 17.7 million pounds ($23.2 million). However, they spread their resources across multiple franchises: Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and another unannounced game (maybe Planet Safari).

This begs the question how long does Frontier want the Elite fans to wait for these features?

Can we expect to have either 1. Atmospheric Landings 2. Space Legs 3. Procedural Cities in any form in-game by 2019? I'm afraid that Frontier is putting Elite Dangerous on the back-burner and that it'll be just a dream.

Back in 1993 Frontier: Elite II had seamless atmospheric landings and full-scale procedural cities. So please Frontier: make our dreams come true in Elite Dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqhP_e855C4

No.

Nothing of this will ever come.

Elite it's been supported (at least) till 2022 and in 4 years it's very unlikly something like this will happen, considering how slow the development has benn in those last 3 years (3 = 1 season... figure...).

While nothing says they will stop after 2022, at this time they could stop after 2022.

And this second option seems to me more reasonable.

Unfortunatly.

 

[Whiterose]

Lemon and Lime its sweepstake time....

 

[Ian Skippy]

At Frontier Expo 2017 the highly anticipated features called Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs and full-scale Procedural Cities weren't announced for Elite Dangerous: Beyond.

The core-improvements that ED Beyond will bring sound awesome, but there wasn't really anything jaw-dropping. Personally I really like the Squadron (guilds), but we have to wait almost a year (Q4 2018).

Zac Antonaci seems to imply that Frontier hasn't even begun working on space legs "Spacelegs (as the community are dubbing them) is something that David B and the development team are very excited by and it’s certainly high on the list of features they would like to make. However, as we’ve mentioned before, “Spacelegs” is something further down the line." Yet in 2016 Braben said "Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."

David Braben's core vision for what Elite really is has always been about you're a person in a real futuristic setting, not just a ship.

An other upcoming space sim (which doesn't need to be named) showed live in-engine demonstrations of all these highly anticipated features. The thing is, we want to experience landing on atmospheric planets, space legs and full-scale procedural planets in Elite Dangerous too! We want to be fully immersed in the Elite universe.

On paper Frontier Developments is a bigger game developer. They recently got a major investment from Tencent, 17.7 million pounds ($23.2 million). However, they spread their resources across multiple franchises: Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and another unannounced game (maybe Planet Safari).

This begs the question how long does Frontier want the Elite fans to wait for these features?

Can we expect to have either 1. Atmospheric Landings 2. Space Legs 3. Procedural Cities in any form in-game by 2019? I'm afraid that Frontier is putting Elite Dangerous on the back-burner and that it'll be just a dream.

Back in 1993 Frontier: Elite II had seamless atmospheric landings and full-scale procedural cities. So please Frontier: make our dreams come true in Elite Dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqhP_e855C4

No one knows, but (archive this for future reference) I woukd be disappointed if we didnt have atmos or spacelegs in 2019.

 

[Pumabear8]

Do you honestly believe this. Do you think that if people start playing SC they will suddenly stop playing ED. Also 3.0 of SC is so limited in scope, you will completely exhaust everything you can in a few hours.

ED is a very different style of game to SC and I very much doubt this will happen.

Just to be clear before my next sentence, I'm highly suspicious of the claims made for SC, hype is hype.

But, if SC delivers, yes people will migrate, they may keep both games on the drive, but Frontier will see a reduced number of login's and future reduced sales as those on tight budget will be making a choice of one or the other, the threat that SC brings to Elite is real, it's a competitive business.

 

[Ian Skippy]

No.

Nothing of this will ever come.

Elite it's been supported (at least) till 2022 and in 4 years it's very unlikly something like this will happen, considering how slow the development has benn in those last 3 years (3 = 1 season... figure...).

While nothing says they will stop after 2022, at this time they could stop after 2022.

And this second option seems to me more reasonable.

Unfortunatly.

It is very unlikely we will be slaughtered at christmas, said the turkey. After all, we've been treated nothing but well for the entire year now.

In other words, you dont know what FD is doing, none of us do.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Everyone keeps mentioning non existent SC planets and ignoring game that is miles ahead in this subject: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/150306-Infinity-Battlescape/page79
If any game will drag ED players away is this one I think.

 

[Iskariot]

This begs the question how long does Frontier want the Elite fans to wait for these features?

As long as it takes. That's development for you.
Just let FDev do their thing.
Pressuring them is pointless.

Fully featured spacelegs demand a lot of new mechanics associated with FPA and FPS.
Basically it is a new game in a game.
This might take several more years to achieve.

Just let FDev concentrate on what is really important now: Getting good solid and engaging core mechanics for exploration, mining, bounty hunting, piracy etc.
FD can do so much cool stuff to improve on these mechanics. And that is no luxury. The game needs it, desperately.

When the core mechanics are solid then it will be much easier to wait for the arrival of spacelegs and atmospheric planets, simply because the game will become much more enjoyable to play.

As far as atmospheric planets are concerned... Fully featured atmospheric planets... well... it boggles my mind just to try to think about what Fdev will need to do to get that in the game. It is so much more than just adding an atmospheric entry effect.
They need a weather system, a procedural flora and fauna generation mechanic, a PG system to generate the atmospheric planets themselves, etc. etc.
They also need to populate certain areas, add good looking cities, towns. They need new planetary station types etc. etc.
And this is just the beginning.

And if you then combine spacelegs with access to atmospheric planets... that is a whole other can of worms right there...

 

[ebbrell]

I think atmospheres will appear, in basic forms to start with. fdev have a habit of putting something and improving it with each update.

Look at the station slot, since 2.4 we have improved steam affects.

As for legs, I hope we eventually get the ability to infiltrate alien bases and shot hostiles to extract and rescue thing and people.
This could open a whole new level of game play. imagine we have to get past alien defences, either by pew pew or sabotage planet based power generators to bring down shields etc. once there we have to co op and take em out.

 

[Rubbernuke]

As long as it takes. That's development for you.
Just let FDev do their thing.
Pressuring them is pointless.

Fully featured spacelegs demand a lot of new mechanics associated with FPA and FPS.
Basically it is a new game in a game.
This might take several more years to achieve.

Just let FDev concentrate on what is really important now: Getting good solid and engaging core mechanics for exploration, mining, bounty hunting, piracy etc.
FD can do so much cool stuff to improve on these mechanics. And that is no luxury. The game needs it, desperately.

When the core mechanics are solid then it will be much easier to wait for the arrival of spacelegs and atmospheric planets, simply because the game will become much more enjoyable to play.

As far as atmospheric planets are concerned... Fully featured atmospheric planets... well... it boggles my mind just to try to think about what Fdev will need to do to get that in the game. It is so much more than just adding an atmospheric entry effect.
They need a weather system, a procedural flora and fauna generation mechanic, a PG system to generate the atmospheric planets themselves, etc. etc.
They also need to populate certain areas, add good looking cities, towns. They need new planetary station types etc. etc.
And this is just the beginning.

And if you then combine spacelegs with access to atmospheric planets... that is a whole other can of worms right there...

Well, JPE will be the prototype for all that since it will be using the same engine.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Just to be clear before my next sentence, I'm highly suspicious of the claims made for SC, hype is hype.

But, if SC delivers, yes people will migrate, they may keep both games on the drive, but Frontier will see a reduced number of login's and future reduced sales as those on tight budget will be making a choice of one or the other, the threat that SC brings to Elite is real, it's a competitive business.

One of these devs know how to spend money, one of it doesn't.

Sorry, but story does not end with dreamer winning. Wins one who delivers. FD really has no one to afraid of except themselves. Way they will deal with Beyond, way they will continue advertise and sell game matters.

What SC does affects ED at very minimum scale.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Spacelegs, no. Probably not even 2020.

Atmospheric planets, simple dead ones, maybe late 2019/2020
Complex life, ELWs, etc, no. Maybe 2021/2022?

Procedural cities? Probably never. Lol
(Not something I'm interested in, anyway)

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Rubbernuke]

There is no functional difference between SC and ED right now.

One is being sold as its developed, the other is being sold as it is developed. Both are making money as they go.

 

[Alric]

80% of people played dogfighting module instead of ED Alpha when they released within weeks of each other. Then 80% of the remaining Elite players played SC when they released the same year leaving just a tiny core of Elite diehards. 100% of those people live in a parallel universe however. The universe where as predicted, No Man's Sky blew them both out of the water.

We live in the universe where as 2017 draws to a close we're still waiting to see what SC can deliver. We're still complaining that Elite lacks deep gameplay that keeps us interested after years of play, while holding up SC on the basis of videos and keynotes.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I think people still have some strange issues with understanding scales.

If anything SC development indicates it takes huge amount of time to develop game with space legs. Yes, there are numerious curious EA games who tries to do similar things from different angles - none of them convincingly doing it all at once. It is even a question do you want to do it all at once.

People mention GTAV as example of what they want. Yet they want in-game consequences, persistent NPCs, realistic collisions, etc. - none of what GTAV have.

Amount of new tech involved to develop space legs is just insane. See how much work has gone into space flight part of ED. See how much work has gone into *balancing* even smaller tips of scale for smaller roles.