The Orrery

[-VR- Max Factor]

Lots of great ideas here, but this is kind of the problem when people say "wouldn't an orrery be great, can we have an orrery please?". Really you're asking for a whole ton of extra, admittedly cool and ineresting, gameplay mechanics to support having an orrery.

If you watch the OA video the part where he uses the orrery website shows how useless an orrery just by itself would really be. It would just be a less convenient way of accessing the information and features that the system schematic view already offers in a clean and easily readable manner.

I disagree. An orrey could add so much more. It only looked useless because there was no gameplay associated with it. Also it wouldn't replace the existing system schematic. They would both have their uses, but the current system schematic is incredibly limited and doesn't show you much of how the system is layed out.

Look at this for ideas of what an Orrey could add:
https://imgur.com/gallery/l1wBF

 

[killminster]

Tried scanning a large system? Going back and forward between bodies because your system can tell how far away something is, but not where it is in relation to everything else?

Again, an orrery by itself wont help, I'm assuming you have a picture of a new navigation system with some kind of XYZ representation of your current location and an ability to set a rudimentary series of waypoints for intra-system travel right?

It needs so much more than just being shoved into the game to make it worthwhile is my point.

It only looked useless because there was no gameplay associated with it.

Yes! This is my point. An orrery for its own sake wont offer much of anything, it's all of the non existent yet to be designed, coded, and tested gameplay mechanics that would make it any good.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Yes. I do it all the time. Figuring out the optimal route is the only fun/challenging part of the current exploration gameplay

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an orrery, just that I wouldn't personally have much use for it. Maybe Q4 will change that.

At the moment there isn't much use for it as none of the gameplay has been designed around an orrey map. It's a bit like people saying there is no gameplay for spacelegs in at the moment so they might as well not add it. You have to get it in first to design features to work for it.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

At the moment there isn't much use for it as none of the gameplay has been designed around an orrey map. It's a bit like people saying there is no gameplay for spacelegs in at the moment so they might as well not add it. You have to get it in first to design features to work for it.

Because that strategy worked so well for multicrew

 

[Mengy]

Again, an orrery by itself wont help, I'm assuming have a picture of a new navigation system with some kind of XYZ representation of your current location and an ability to set a rudimentary series of waypoints for intra-system travel right?

It needs so much more than just being shoved into the game to make it worthwhile is my point.

I have to be honest, even if a basic Orrery was added that simply showed us a 3D view of the system, with no additional mechanics at all, I'd still use it every time I jump while out exploring. It would be a great way to quickly identify systems with very interesting orbital paths, like off axis moons around ringed gas giants, or planets very close to stars, etc.

I'd use it every time I jump. Every time.

 

[Drelthar]

Guys... The orrery has been in since 1.0

It's called super cruise.

The zoom and rotate controls are a bit slow but....

 

[Mengy]

Guys... The orrery has been in since 1.0

It's called super cruise.

The zoom and rotate controls are a bit slow but....

Related to that, I’ve always thought that a supercruise probe or drone could be useful. Something small and unmanned we could fire from our ship and pilot around the system at like 10X normal supercruise speed just to visually look at things quickly up close, or yes even get a quick “birds eye” view of the system from high above.

Of course an Orrery Map does the same thing only better, but my second choice would be my probe described above.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Guys... The orrery has been in since 1.0

It's called super cruise.

The zoom and rotate controls are a bit slow but....

Probably one of the most idiotic posts I have seen.

I am hoping it's a joke and not serious.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

Probably one of the most idiotic posts I have seen.

I am hoping it's a joke and not serious.

It's quite obviously sarcasm.

 

[Drelthar]

Probably one of the most idiotic posts I have seen.

I am hoping it's a joke and not serious.

It is a joke yeah, obviously!

However, a Game Designer could totally get away with saying it.

It has all the planets in the right places, they move in their orbits in real time, they are to scale, they even have orbit lines (by default, turned on, by the way), you can move around it and rotate around it...

I mean... that's all the parts of an orrery view really.


If you look at the orrery view in Frontier Elite 2 - Aside from being able to zoom in, and rotate faster, it's finctionally identical to super cruise.

So, yeah, I think it would be a terrible way to look at it when your customers want an actual orrery view, and you essentially told them it would happen at one point, but, it is... technically a legit thing to say.

There you go Sandro, next time someone asks you, you can say it exists already. No probs mate, enjoy.

 

[MarkAusten]

The system map view in virtual reality is very nice. I've never understood FDevs reluctance to make an Orrery, I mean obviously they can scale the system bodies down as in the System map, they know where everything should be it's just a matter of scale.

Not quite. You see, in order to create a correct orrery they also need to add and keep the orbital information about every body in every system and it has to be correct or they'll be complaints that the moon or Mars or one of Saturn's many planets is in the wrong place. The orbital information for each system body is not trivial information and there would be a significant increase in the amount of data required to describe the galaxy. Increased data means increased time to retrieve, process and display it and then there are the non-trivial equations required for the system modelling.

It's my belief that all this put together requires far too much of development effort for the moment so it keeps on falling further and further down the priority list.

Personally, I'd love the system map to include an orrery. Maybe we'll get one later.

 

[Philip Coutts]

Orrery...weeps

I would love a full on proper one, pretty please Frontier, I'll be really good and everything!

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It is a joke yeah, obviously!

However, a Game Designer could totally get away with saying it.

It has all the planets in the right places, they move in their orbits in real time, they are to scale, they even have orbit lines (by default, turned on, by the way), you can move around it and rotate around it...

I mean... that's all the parts of an orrery view really.


If you look at the orrery view in Frontier Elite 2 - Aside from being able to zoom in, and rotate faster, it's finctionally identical to super cruise.

So, yeah, I think it would be a terrible way to look at it when your customers want an actual orrery view, and you essentially told them it would happen at one point, but, it is... technically a legit thing to say.

There you go Sandro, next time someone asks you, you can say it exists already. No probs mate, enjoy.

I would like to the orrey map to have an actual function though like tocosos ideas. The current schematic just wouldn't be able to go into that detail.

But I do see having a use for the current schematic view. Doesn't need to go or be replaced. Have both.

 

[Mengy]

The last official word I can find on the Orrery was by Dale Emasiri back in August of 2017:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...again-in-3-0?p=5869907&viewfull=1#post5869907

Having spoken at length with some of the designers, this is the general consensus with regards to the challenges that they'd face. Of course, those aren't really the problem since our devs love a good challenge. The issue is that it isn't a high priority as far as needed features or things that require refinement. It would be fantastic to have and I know for sure it's on the wishlist of things that our artists and designers really would love to see, but that wishlist may not always be practical or realistic. I don't think it's a 3.x sort of feature we'll see, but who knows? As is always the case, we'd love to; however, we have to be realistic about it.

Dale makes it sound like it is not planned for Beyond at all.

Of course two years prior to that David Braben himself sounded much more confident about it, back in April of 2015:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=140032&page=20&p=2145595&viewfull=1#post2145595

It is still on the list...

So priorities obviously changed from 1.0 to today. Sucks for us who really got excited for it back during alpha.

 

[Ignition]

Not quite. You see, in order to create a correct orrery they also need to add and keep the orbital information about every body in every system and it has to be correct or they'll be complaints that the moon or Mars or one of Saturn's many planets is in the wrong place. The orbital information for each system body is not trivial information and there would be a significant increase in the amount of data required to describe the galaxy. Increased data means increased time to retrieve, process and display it and then there are the non-trivial equations required for the system modelling.

It's my belief that all this put together requires far too much of development effort for the moment so it keeps on falling further and further down the priority list.

Personally, I'd love the system map to include an orrery. Maybe we'll get one later.

Im sure they have all the information in the procedural generation.

It should be even posible to determine the position of a celestial body in a particular point in time.

In fact, they have that information with the actual 3D system in supercruise, they only need to transfer that information to a map which should be even easier than render the actual 3D system.

 

[Cosmos]

I disagree. An orrey could add so much more. It only looked useless because there was no gameplay associated with it. Also it wouldn't replace the existing system schematic. They would both have their uses, but the current system schematic is incredibly limited and doesn't show you much of how the system is layed out.

Look at this for ideas of what an Orrey could add:
https://imgur.com/gallery/l1wBF

This is frontiers own concept: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net...ngerous.png/revision/latest?cb=20180121115830

When I compare this with what we've got I am reminded about the game I thought I had backed. The current system map is about as low effort as it gets.

 

[Nagual]

In the highly unlikely event that an Orrery will arrive in Q4 I will personally deliver chocolate biscuits to Frontier.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The last official word I can find on the Orrery was by Dale Emasiri back in August of 2017:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...again-in-3-0?p=5869907&viewfull=1#post5869907



Dale makes it sound like it is not planned for Beyond at all.

Of course two years prior to that David Braben himself sounded much more confident about it, back in April of 2015:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=140032&page=20&p=2145595&viewfull=1#post2145595



So priorities obviously changed from 1.0 to today. Sucks for us who really got excited for it back during alpha.

Pretty sure Dr Anthony Ross mentioned it was something they were looking at it at some point after that statement.

 

[znôrt]

Dale makes it sound like it is not planned for Beyond at all.

dale actually emphasized needed in 'it isn't a high priority as needed features'. i totally get the context in which you emphasized a different phrase here, but couldn't help smirking at this.

yeah, because devising intrincate ways to buff shields a whopping 100%, introduce ridiculous healing beams or generate 40 random inane names for 5 different collectible items were absolute necessities ...

i'm sure he's a fine guy and a good professional but ... holy molly, the bullcrap our jobs force us to say sometimes!

otoh, you guys are well served for asking anything to frontier in the first place

 

[Mengy]

Pretty sure Dr Anthony Ross mentioned it was something they were looking at it at some point after that statement.

I don't remember that, and I listen to everything Dr. Ross says with great interest! But then he is a soft talker too...