Spacelegs is a pipe dream.

[Lestat]

You bring up SRV and Sidewinder and such. I believe they said the SRV was not going to be used in smaller ships. People complained that all ships will not be going to be able to support SRV. It was either before Horizon Beta or during a Horizon beta that they decided to let Sidewinder and Eagle that can have SRV. Also, the SRV being able to fold onto itself.

 

[Riverside]

You bring up SRV and Sidewinder and such. I believe they said the SRV was not going to be used in smaller ships. People complained that all ships will not be going to be able to support SRV. It was either before Horizon Beta or during a Horizon beta that they decided to let Sidewinder and Eagle that can have SRV.

That's a good explanation for the situation we now see in the game. Being able to use an SRV (particularly from a startwinder) has a lot of positives, I can see why this decision would have been made. Some of the ship models were reworked for 2.0 with extendable landing gear & other things to accommodate the SRV bay, it seems that work to maintain room for ship interiors was put off until a future update rather than being taken into account during that remodelling.

This is the kind of topic I'd like to see a livestream on.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

That is pretty weird tbh. I do not see the harm in having sidewinder and eagle having to land at bases only and not have an SRV. Maybe if we get space legs this can be revisited (if we can go on foot then the SRV can be dropped?)

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I think some people are thinking about module size/placement in a weird way. For example, at outfitting we are given module "slots" to put equipment into. However, I do not think that represents actual chunks of the ship. Instead i have thought of it as representations of the total amount of space available within the hull.

For example, you can put either a cargo hold or a fuel scoop in the same size 6 slot, but that does not mean it occupies the same area of the hull. If woul swap out a SRV hanger for a hull reinforcement package, they are not putting a solid hunk of steel behind that SRV door.

Once you realize this, then it really opens things up. The cargo hold does not need to be one giant chamber, it can be in a few different spots. And you would only need a tube big enough for the standard cargo containers going from the hatch to the hold.

Additionally, I am not sure it makes much of a difference for Space legs. SRV/SLF hangars have a standard position on ships, and the back doors are established as well. There only needs to be a corridor from the cockpit to those places and maybe a crew cabin or galley- something that would be standard regardless of Optional internal modules.

TL;DR quit stressing

 

[VR Golgot]

Or they'll demand rocket packs or some other tosh to mitigate the slowness compared to an SRV.

This prejudice against rocket packs is unbecoming...

(PS the SRV has a rocket pack )

 

[Riverside]

Okeeey, I take that. But then I wonder what would you consider the fundamental difference to SRVs at all? To me it's just wheels instead of legs. Have you ever tried to imagine how a wheelchair user might look at this sort of overemphasis of legs? .)

I can certainly imagine how any player wheelchair user or not might look at a feature like zero-G moving about the ship.

I think your point about relative speed is a good one. Ambulation is for short distance, nearby stuff (primarily) with maximum environmental interaction. What the SRV is to the ship, ambulation would be to the SRV. I think moving around the interior of a ship would be core to that, but it may turn out to be just loading screens as discussed earlier in the thread.

 

[krylite]

I'm glad so far ED hasn't fallen into the shortcut handwavium gameplay of "compression"-ray or whatever miniaturizing cargo that the X franchise already employs, and hope it never does.

As for the preparation of future spacelegs by FD, I think it's apparent enough there were considerations such as in several pieces of the conceptual artwork, and the design of overly massive stations, ground buildings, and the ships themselves as well as the game's cobra engine now 64-bit capable in all instanced locations.

 

[VR Golgot]

Okeeey, I take that. But then I wonder what would you consider the fundamental difference to SRVs at all? To me it's just wheels instead of legs. Have you ever tried to imagine how a wheelchair user might look at this sort of overemphasis of legs? .)

I think they'd enjoy roleplaying as someone who could fly

Yeah I'm just messing with you mainly. I agree on the central point that the SRV is the ideal way to explore big proc gen surfaces. (I'm just hinting that: That doesn't mean Legs couldn't be of use on surfaces outside bases. IE cave exploration & interaction with fauna potentially. And such game mechanics could be worth pursuing if there was crossover with EVA / base gameplay etc)

TLDR - EVA jumpjets (see right side) could still be fun on planets

 

[VR Golgot]

You actually have a (sad) point here, and it's poking into the open wound of ED's missing verisimilitude with all it's heavily tinfoiled module sizes, already starting with the 'logical' toad of 1 ton for every single unit of cargo, no matter what it actually is.

At one point in the past they must have tossed all these considerations out of the window. From this moment on every thing was possible. And when in doubt, just 'telepresent' it out of any logic.

There comes a point with a game as sprawling and ambitious as Elite where you have to pick your fights. I personally wouldn't have any problem at all with them fudging big swathes of the ship internals if it meant we get a technically functioning human scale > ship scale > world scale dynamic.

They can't actually simulate a whole 1:1 galaxy you know

(But there are ways of still having strands of internal logic, and impressions of realism, even if you can't have the whole hog. You just have to insert your own god into any gaps. And hey, I've always wanted a ton of feathers )

 

[Old Duck]

I think some people are thinking about module size/placement in a weird way. For example, at outfitting we are given module "slots" to put equipment into. However, I do not think that represents actual chunks of the ship. Instead i have thought of it as representations of the total amount of space available within the hull.

For example, you can put either a cargo hold or a fuel scoop in the same size 6 slot, but that does not mean it occupies the same area of the hull. If woul swap out a SRV hanger for a hull reinforcement package, they are not putting a solid hunk of steel behind that SRV door.

Once you realize this, then it really opens things up. The cargo hold does not need to be one giant chamber, it can be in a few different spots. And you would only need a tube big enough for the standard cargo containers going from the hatch to the hold.

I definitely use this "mindcanon" to imagine the internals of my ships, especially when it comes to things like hull reinforcement packages, fuel scoops, etc. That said, it's one whole heck of a lot easier for our brains to imagine a fuzzy layout than it would be for Frontier to dynamically create interiors for literally thousands of possible combinations on the larger ships. And even then, your analogy (it's good, I use it myself) only goes so far. How can I "fill" my ship with hull reinforcement packages and not have any room left in the internal space normally "reserved" for the SRV or SLF? Has my ship become one solid mass of steel? What will that look like, walking around?

Frontier is going to have to perform Doctor Strange magic to turn the spreadsheet stats that outfitting currently is into an actual, logical 3D model for every possible combination.



Mindcanon is a wonderful thing - my AMFU is a workshop that also serves as the home of one or more repair droids, my collector limpet controller is similar to a refinery, where these huge chunks of metal and ship are processed to extract hand-sized components (thus kinda addressing massless, volumeless materials), my HRP are extra plates welded to the inside of the hull in strategic places, and on and on it goes, depending on the ship. I even install passenger cabins for berthing on ships like my Conda which has an imaginary crew!

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think they'd enjoy roleplaying as someone who could fly

Yeah I'm just messing with you mainly. I agree on the central point that the SRV is the ideal way to explore big proc gen surfaces. (I'm just hinting that: That doesn't mean Legs couldn't be of use on surfaces outside bases. IE cave exploration & interaction with fauna potentially. And such game mechanics could be worth pursuing if there was crossover with EVA / base gameplay etc)

TLDR - EVA jumpjets (see right side) could still be fun on planets

There is also the fact that you can't put you SRV inside some ruined ship to explore. Being stuck in your cockpit or bridge limits the adventures you go on and how you interact and view the game world.

If space legs doesn't come I won't be upset. While I like to have atmospheric planets first, basically there is only so much gameplay it can entail. I struggle to see how different it will be to the gameplay we get on non-atmospherics. It will be very similar or the same but with an atmosphere.

Space legs though can open a whole set if different mechanics and expand on others, such as ship repairs, synthesis, exploration of derelict vessels and abandoned bases etc. All we can do at the moment is look at them and read a cool story.

 

[Vardaugas]

I think they'd enjoy roleplaying as someone who could fly

Yeah I'm just messing with you mainly. I agree on the central point that the SRV is the ideal way to explore big proc gen surfaces. (I'm just hinting that: That doesn't mean Legs couldn't be of use on surfaces outside bases. IE cave exploration & interaction with fauna potentially. And such game mechanics could be worth pursuing if there was crossover with EVA / base gameplay etc)

TLDR - EVA jumpjets (see right side) could still be fun on planets

Well we absolutely need emergency evacuation thrusters on the Remlok suit so we can die without dying. When your vitals go critical, the suit shuts you down and blasts back to safety where you wake up with a burned out suit you need to repair before you can EVA again. Possibly also losing some of the tacked on tools you took out. Got to have a death penalty that isn't ironmode.

 

[Old Duck]

Replying to my own post above, there is a way Frontier can pull off a totally "explorable" ship. Instead of having us "fill out a spreadsheet" (current outfitting) and the game creating a 3D render from that, have us create the 3D render, and then Frontier populates the spreadsheet from that!

What I'm talking about is similar to how many base-building games (NMS, The Sims) work, with an empty ship (minus core internals) as our template. You want things to work properly, like the SRV being able to deploy, then it's up to you to put it near the cargo hatch.

This technically reduces the numbers of workable combinations of modules - you can't stick an SRV hangar in the wing of a Clipper, but I'd personally be thrilled for the ability to visually customize the internals of my ship, even if that means less "possibilities". I already make sacrifices (no solid ships made of 100% HRP) for my own headcanon

Obviously this would require an entire rework of the current outfitting screen, but it would be muuucho awesome IMO.

EDIT

Duh, I forgot the most obvious base-building game, PLANET COASTER!

 

[VR Golgot]

What I'm talking about is similar to how many base-building (NMS, even the Sims) games work, with an empty ship (minus core internals) as our template. You want things to work properly, like the SRV being able to deploy, then it's up to you to put it near the cargo hatch.

Oh that is pretty cute

Plenty of headaches hidden in the folds (NPC ships for example, if planned to be enterable, would either have to proc gen up systems that work, or just go for plain defaults, and risk immersion emojis ). Plus a big UI job as you say, and on.

But yeah, could almost hold off the calls for actual base building for longer too

The only thing I'd ponder is how many fun variants would there be? What contingencies would there be between the modules (IE benefits / downsides to placing a hot module by luxury passenger bay or whatever. Cargo modules working more efficiently if aligned etc?). Essentially, would it add gameplay, or just busy work? (It sounds like you want it to add gameplay as much as aethetics etc, so I'd assume for it to be worth doing they'd have to sling some challenges in. And with some of the tighter interiors that's going to be tough. I do also wonder whether it'd be a spanner game too far, given the current tinkering opportunities energy / heat / capacity balancing provides).

 

[Ian Skippy]

Replying to my own thread above, there is a way Frontier can pull off a totally "explorable" ship. Instead of having us "fill out a spreadsheet" (current outfitting) and the game creating a 3D render from that, have us create the 3D render, and then Frontier populates the spreadsheet from that!

What I'm talking about is similar to how many base-building games (NMS, The Sims) work, with an empty ship (minus core internals) as our template. You want things to work properly, like the SRV being able to deploy, then it's up to you to put it near the cargo hatch.

This technically reduces the numbers of workable combinations of modules - you can't stick an SRV hangar in the wing of a Clipper, but I'd personally be thrilled for the ability to visually customize the internals of my ship, even if that means less "possibilities". I already make sacrifices (no solid ships made of 100% HRP) for my own headcanon

Obviously this would require an entire rework of the current outfitting screen, but it would be muuucho awesome IMO.

EDIT

Duh, I forgot the most obvious base-building game, PLANET COASTER!

That would be absolutely amazing, and I have roughly 0% confidence of that happening. It would be an absolute nightmare to develop that in the outfitting framework we have. As for your edit: when I'm building those fancy sci-fi buildings in JWE on a stormy tropical island, I cant help but wonder how it would be to fly a little DBS around that place...

 

[VR Golgot]

Well we absolutely need emergency evacuation thrusters on the Remlok suit so we can die without dying. When your vitals go critical, the suit shuts you down and blasts back to safety where you wake up with a burned out suit you need to repair before you can EVA again. Possibly also losing some of the tacked on tools you took out. Got to have a death penalty that isn't ironmode.

Oo that's pretty cute too. So your suit essentially becomes an escape pod and rockets you home? (And we do all the time dilation in our head canon, like now )

On penalities, I'm not sure the repair / retool sounds fun at the restart point. I'd be more sold on the idea of lost discoveries as a penalty, IE more of the exploration weighting. (Like if I see planetary explo Legs working at all, it'd be in some form of Survivalist format. Think it could be a reasonable tally for space explo in some ways. You die, you don't get to sell your discoveries).

(Damn we've wondered way off topic )

 

[Arioch]

What I'm talking about is similar to how many base-building games (NMS, The Sims) work, with an empty ship (minus core internals) as our template. You want things to work properly, like the SRV being able to deploy, then it's up to you to put it near the cargo hatch.

This technically reduces the numbers of workable combinations of modules - you can't stick an SRV hangar in the wing of a Clipper, but I'd personally be thrilled for the ability to visually customize the internals of my ship, even if that means less "possibilities". I already make sacrifices (no solid ships made of 100% HRP) for my own headcanon

Obviously this would require an entire rework of the current outfitting screen, but it would be muuucho awesome

I think I’ve made a similar suggestion in the past, though my example was the NintendoDS game Infinite Space - there, each ship you outfit has a side-on view with limited spaces to fit equipment into, and the units are a bit like Tetris pieces. Some units have to go in certain areas, like bridges, engines and hangars. It leads to some really interesting descisions and compromises.

Transposing that into 3D, well, I can imagine losing a lot of time to optimisation gameplay

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

The accessible interior of the ship need not change drastically depending on build. I imagine there the cockpit, crew cabin, a corridor that runs to the doors on the back of the ship. If you have an srv fitted, there is a hatch in the corridor for that. Same for slf. On the bigger ships, we can see corridors an observation decks, so it would be nice to access those. That keeps it simple and the ship beyond those things remains a fuzzy spreadsheet.

This way they would only need 37 interiors for ships, and the only thing that would change is 2 or so hatches

 

[Rock-Hermit]

You’re not really planning on it, are you, FD? You’ve built no assets for it. There is no consistency in ship builds to suggest they were built with that in mind. Behind the doorways, there’s just an empty hull with the exception of things we can all see, like the SRV and SLF bays, and hardpoints. On the Hauler you even have the landing gear clipping through the cockpit, near the doorway. The stairways into the ships end up in different places. In the cobra 4, it leads directly to the srv bay. In others, it leads part way up or down or whatever, because there’s clearly no defined plan. I thought this was part of the Kickstarter.... pray tell, will we ever even walk around inside our ships? It doesn’t look like it to me:
Edit: Thanks, DNA-Decay, for linking this vid of Nebohtes. It shows precisely the sort of thing I had imagined they’d be going for with ship designs, but from the looks of it, no such plans were ever carried through, no such foundations were ever created. The ships look as though they were never designed for the future implementation of space legs.
From the Kickstarter: Go to 2:45 and watch from there plz.
Now a look at the sidewinder, the Adder and the Dolphin:
If you will notice, the SRV bay (which is not technically installed into the vanilla SRV anyway) is too large for the sidewinder and clips into the cockpit.

Spacelegs has the potential to add 1000 times more cosmetic tat to the game that will rake in a fortune, just look at the $$ SC and SotA is making from avatar cosmetics, weapons, armor, and everything else a player wants to look cool wearing. Holome is already the first step. FD would be crazy NOT to add spacelegs! Its a goldmine.

 

[VR Golgot]

Spacelegs has the potential to add 1000 times more cosmetic tat to the game that will rake in a fortune, just look at the $$ SC and SotA is making from avatar cosmetics, weapons, armor, and everything else a player wants to look cool wearing. Holome is already the first step. FD would be crazy NOT to add spacelegs! Its a goldmine.

The cheeky thing with FDev is they've already monetised half of that with avatar cosmetics, pre Legs

But don't fear, interior cosmetics have always been on the cards

...and obviously as that becomes richer, as you can walk around inside your ships, things like leather upholstery are also things that we can do.

(And personally I'm cool with it. It's optional, doesn't mess up gameplay design aspects, and means Legs are more likely to actually happen )