The Orrery

Aerthran

Aerthran
Hmm.. This particular point in Elite hasn't changed much in the last 25 years!
Ok, it now has better graphics and you can zoom on landable planets, but it mostly remains the same.
elitefrontier2map.jpg

Since VR is one of Elite big attractions, I hope that they consider the fact that an Orrery has a lot of potential. [smile]
(Even without VR, it was fun to rotate and move the System map.)
 
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Krash

Krash
Mechanical orreries are mostly misleading and always require extra explanation regarding scale and distance. What information do you gain from them besides relative positions of solar system points of interest? Don't we have that already with the current system map? I always get annoyed when I see an orrery or a poster showing the same thing. A truly accurate orrery would be impractical.
 

Aerthran

Aerthran
Krash said:
Mechanical orreries are mostly misleading and always require extra explanation regarding scale and distance. What information do you gain from them besides relative positions of solar system points of interest? Don't we have that already with the current system map? I always get annoyed when I see an orrery or a poster showing the same thing. A truly accurate orrery would be impractical.
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Intelligence info about the position of Thargoid Scouts in the system? Perhaps..
 
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-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
Mengy said:
I don't remember that, and I listen to everything Dr. Ross says with great interest! But then he is a soft talker too...
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It may not have been Anthony Ross. But I distinctly remember it mentioned as it made my ears up. And I can't remember what stream it was. Maybe the charity one.
 
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EISENHORN01

EISENHORN01
Nagual said:
In the highly unlikely event that an Orrery will arrive in Q4 I will personally deliver chocolate biscuits to Frontier.
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Whoa easy tiger you can’t just say ‘chocolate biscuits’ and leave it at that. The chocolate biscuit comes in many makes and forms some being far superior to others, the bribery to reward computation is governed by the type of chocolate biscuit being offered.

In the U.K the standard chocolate digestive is at the bottom of the pile and barely warrants a thank you, if one wants real results one needs to supply a quality chocolate biscuit.

Orange club
jaffa cake (it’s a biscuit deal with it)
chocolate fingers
mint viscount
Double choc chip cookies
chocolate hob knobs (creme de la creme of the ‘dunker’)
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
EISENHORN01 said:
Whoa easy tiger you can’t just say ‘chocolate biscuits’ and leave it at that. The chocolate biscuit comes in many makes and forms some being far superior to others, the bribery to reward computation is governed by the type of chocolate biscuit being offered.

In the U.K the standard chocolate digestive is at the bottom of the pile and barely warrants a thank you, if one wants real results one needs to supply a quality chocolate biscuit.

Orange club
jaffa cake (it’s a biscuit deal with it)
chocolate fingers
mint viscount
Double choc chip cookies
chocolate hob knobs (creme de la creme of the ‘dunker’)
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Chocolate hobnobs are the nuts.
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
killminster said:
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 interesting, gameplay mechanics to support having an orrery.
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Adding an orrery just for the sake of the orrery would be a mistake. The orrery has to be added with a purpose. A purpose that supports core gameplay. Only then it is worth it to put development time into it.

So yes I do ask for new exploration mechanics. I think most agree that the exploration mechanic needs to become more engaging and more fun.
In "Beyond" FDev is going to have a second look at exploration and I seriously hope they are going to address the boring honk mechanic that is now at the core of exploration.
If they do not do so, then I fear for the worst. I think my exploration probe proposal would immensely improve the exploration experience and it needs the orrery.
I believe the orrery only makes sense if it is used and put at the core of exploration. That is what it is extremely well suited for.
 

DNA-Decay

DNA-Decay
My understanding is that it was scrapped because of numerous weird edge cases that would be impossible to render.

Multiple stars in a system with multiple bodies orbiting barycenters. One big star and a bunch of planets is straight forward, but to procedurally generate every weird system and render a useful orrery for each turned out to require too mush work.

I might be wrong, but I thought trapping edge cases became a roadblock and it was abandoned.
 

CMDR Dreamstate

CMDR Dreamstate
Oh wow, that does look awesome - all they have to do is make the asteroid belts 3D and do some miniature station 3D models and they are already half way there with an Orrey map :/

Le sigh... lost oppurtunity.
 

Nagual

Nagual
A few people are quite rightly asking what sort of benefit would adding an Orrery to the game bring. The immediate one, one that many explorers would love is the ability to plan out your travels within a system to visit and scan all bodies in the most expedient time. Just now you can look at the various distances that they are from either the main star or your ship but without being a significant distance from them all you can't see their relative position to each other, and thats the key to an orrery - relative position.

Traders too could use it in a similar fashion in systems with multiple markets. Perhaps Fdev could introduce the 'slingshot effect' they talked about during the DDF days, using the orrery to plot a course to do so.

The bigger question people are really asking is how could an orrery be used for either missions, bounty hunting, or combat etc. This is where unfortunately I believe the orrery would never receive the sort of development we would like to see. Spheres of influence not unlike the Powerplay map but for minor factions, PoI's, shipping lanes highlighted. However I believe that there are so many things that Frontier don't track within the game, making the orrery useful really useful would require the DDF to be reviewed and much of what was either missed or changed brought back into focus.
 

uliando

uliando
I wonder if next paid expansion will be atmospheric or space legs, or both? Since free updates feels like meh it should've been here long time ago. For me new planets are so far the only feature I really approve.
 

jasonbirder

J
I wonder what that has to do with the system map.
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Space legs might lead to some kind of ridiculous 1st person Combat...and that's Combat!!! So obviously more important than an actual representative map of the systems our Spacecraft are flying in...Jeez next thing you'll be talking about substantive Navigation and/or Exploration...
Duh! Combat!
 

Theodrid

Theodrid
Don't mention the Orrery........it's nearly the weekend and I wanna have fun, mentioning the Orrery hurts my feels dammit!
 
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