Roadmap leaked??

[Gumwars]

Atmospheric landings or space legs, I see both as being very difficult to implement. The whole FPS perspective has been explored rather liberally, and the hurdles for development to leap are fairly well known. What surprises me is no one pointing out the multitude of problems that come with atmospheric landings. Here are a few I came up with that I believe would be a programming headache:
Flight models
ED has a very well established stable of vessels that are thoughtful in their implementation, fairly well balanced, and varied in role/function. Each would require a flight model for behavior within a gravity well and inside an atmosphere. This becomes more pronounced in higher pressure atmospheres not to mention handling the effects of chemically incompatible environments. This does open the possibility of additional modules, outfitting, and engineering but it could get very complex, very quickly. Granted, FD may implement these planetary climes in steps; earthlike worlds first, then ammonia, and deliver them in stages.
The next problem is flora/fauna. ED has set a fairly high bar in delivered scope as compared to SC and NMS. NMS, which has atmospheric landings, is very simple in terms of play mechanics and is entirely dependent on a somewhat wonky procedural generation system to give you "different" plant/animal life on its countless planets. The problem is evident to anyone that has played it (not that its a bad game, Hello Games has done a great job in polishing NMS); after a while, they all look the same. Occasionally RNG will deliver something truly bizarre but you mostly see the same types of things no matter where you go. What will Frontier do to make ED different?
As it stands, we already have a glimpse of this in the very limited plant life seen in the game so far. I don't think the player base would be too thrilled in seeing the same dozen trees or critters thousands of LY apart, over and over again.
Lastly, we have the inhabited planets. Throughout the bubble we have fully settled civilizations sprawling across hundreds (possibly thousands?) of worlds. These would be modeling nightmares and even harder to properly animate to give the impression you were landing at a living, breathing metropolis.

My shiny pennies for your brain.

 

[dxm55]

Atmospheric landings or space legs, I see both as being very difficult to implement. The whole FPS perspective has been explored rather liberally, and the hurdles for development to leap are fairly well known. What surprises me is no one pointing out the multitude of problems that come with atmospheric landings. Here are a few I came up with that I believe would be a programming headache:
Flight models
ED has a very well established stable of vessels that are thoughtful in their implementation, fairly well balanced, and varied in role/function. Each would require a flight model for behavior within a gravity well and inside an atmosphere. This becomes more pronounced in higher pressure atmospheres not to mention handling the effects of chemically incompatible environments. This does open the possibility of additional modules, outfitting, and engineering but it could get very complex, very quickly. Granted, FD may implement these planetary climes in steps; earthlike worlds first, then ammonia, and deliver them in stages.
The next problem is flora/fauna. ED has set a fairly high bar in delivered scope as compared to SC and NMS. NMS, which has atmospheric landings, is very simple in terms of play mechanics and is entirely dependent on a somewhat wonky procedural generation system to give you "different" plant/animal life on its countless planets. The problem is evident to anyone that has played it (not that its a bad game, Hello Games has done a great job in polishing NMS); after a while, they all look the same. Occasionally RNG will deliver something truly bizarre but you mostly see the same types of things no matter where you go. What will Frontier do to make ED different?
As it stands, we already have a glimpse of this in the very limited plant life seen in the game so far. I don't think the player base would be too thrilled in seeing the same dozen trees or critters thousands of LY apart, over and over again.
Lastly, we have the inhabited planets. Throughout the bubble we have fully settled civilizations sprawling across hundreds (possibly thousands?) of worlds. These would be modeling nightmares and even harder to properly animate to give the impression you were landing at a living, breathing metropolis.

My shiny pennies for your brain.

I agree mostly. But I think the flight model in ED is probably the same for all ships, varying on with factors being roll / yaw / pitch rates, and acceleration/decel and top speeds, and finally mass affecting each ship's momentum. The modules obviously act as modifiers.

So the same thing can be done with the atmospherics flight model. Everything could be the same, just scaling up or down along the factors mentioned above.


As for flora and fauna... I think they can probably exclude fauna for the most part. Even on atmospheric worlds, complex life would be rare, most would be bacterial.
Flora could also be procedurally generated. The odd plant could have 10 models, and mixing and matching in groups might make things less repetitious. And certain places like forest might well be unpassable for an SRV. If they're excluding space legs, maybe they won't need to worry about modelling an entire forest through and through since no one's gonna be able to see the center of it anyway.

Who knows?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Planet atmosphere would be much harder to sell wouldn't it? It would be horizons 1.5 and we've eaten 3 years of horizons so far.

Gas giants looking like they're solid from every viewpoint is a bit dumb, maybe some haze to make them believable (consoles i know, the ps4 pro barely handles base elite at 1080p).. That would be nice.

Doing the same thing, current planets reskinned on different looking planets sounds less appealing than the first wish of elite. Without space legs, what could you do differently on atmosphered planets? Scooping around gas giants sounds epic, but also hollow without legs.

Without Max Factors brilliant prediction, i had no idea what to expect. Starting from ship interiors with frontier style mission board centric approach sounds very realistic to imagine. If it turns out to be more star citizen design and less menu that can only be a pleasant surprise... but no expectations because frontier. I hate to bring up that horrible thing that exists, but a glorified version of freelancer star citizen xrebirth / x4 / rebel galaxy it would be pretty good in our elite. Id be happy with ship interiors and npcs to pick up missions from rather than some stupid text box. At least elite would be "almost finished" then...

Also while i actually am well impressed with what 20 (tm) people did with x-rebirth, if elite ends up feeling the same it will be a massive fail. x-rebirth was forgiveable because it was by a tiny team releasing most of star citizen in 2015. Elites a little bit different.

I wouldn't call it a prediction. It's just something they could do, something I hope they will do. With over two years to develope, I expect some kind of gameplay.

I will be happy with either space legs or atmospherics depending on implementation.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Space Legs = Unnecessary addition to the core game concept = scope creep
Don't make the same mistake as Star Citizen, and keep piling on side quest features that are not central to the concept of the game.
That is when you get lost in an endless quagmire of stretch goals, lofty ideas, and ultimately delayed/flawed execution.

This is a space combat/trading/exploration sim at its heart.
Not a foolhardy attempt at a swiss army knife.

The ability to fly into and land onto atmospheric planets would IMO, complete the core concept of this game, finally making it complete at the most base level.
Which is about flying to places, landing, and generally just being there. Everything else, trading, mining, community goals are things to do in the game, that rides atop the ability to be able to go that locale.

In Frontier:Elite 2, you could approach and land at almost any planets except gas ones. You had cities on atmospheric planets. Landing pads in the open without airlocks.
Imagine how cool it would look with today's technology.

Sure, for a bit more of immersion, perhaps you can give cut scenes or 3D static scenes of an office, a lounge, a bar, a factory, etc etc, when you access the different starport services (instead of a menu in your cockpit). That requires a lot less work and unnecessary distraction to the main theme, than space legs. That can be added later on, once the core of the game has been completed.

I see ED as a galaxy SIM with a game attached to it (I have played the previous Elite games). That game can be anything Fdev want it to be.

Personally I am looking forward to exploring the inside of Alien ruins that we may find, exploring generation ships, infiltrating enemy bases for your faction etc.

The space ship part will still be the main part of the game though, space legs just allows us to do more. There is only so much you can do when stuck to your seat.

David Braban said that Elite has always been about a commander, not just about your ship, its just in the past they didn't have the technology to do what he wanted. Now they do.

As long as its implemented well it will do well and I will certainly get it.

 

[GoryDamnPixie]

I see ED as a galaxy SIM with a game attached to it (I have played the previous Elite games). That game can be anything Fdev want it to be.

Personally I am looking forward to exploring the inside of Alien ruins that we may find, exploring generation ships, infiltrating enemy bases for your faction etc.

The space ship part will still be the main part of the game though, space legs just allows us to do more. There is only so much you can do when stuck to your seat.

David Braban said that Elite has always been about a commander, not just about your ship, its just in the past they didn't have the technology to do what he wanted. Now they do.

As long as its implemented well it will do well and I will certainly get it.

Couldn't agree more. I think some people have forgotten David Braben's original vision and development plans for elite. Space legs has always been part of the core vision, its only taken this long to implement because they want to do it right. The side effect of that however is people have become too comfortable, thinking of elite as only a ship/menu simulator.

 

[amigacooke]

but the implementation of the gameplay will disappoint just about everyone because expectations are so high !

In general that may be true, but my expectations have dropped dramatically. It is a blot on ED's reputation that only a subset of planets can be landed on after seven years.

 

[dxm55]

Couldn't agree more. I think some people have forgotten David Braben's original vision and development plans for elite. Space legs has always been part of the core vision, its only taken this long to implement because they want to do it right. The side effect of that however is people have become too comfortable, thinking of elite as only a ship/menu simulator.

Well, be that as it may, between space legs and atmospheric worlds, I would prefer the latter to be the priority because it would add more locations, content, and gameplay options almost immediately.

Space legs, and walking around stations, bases, and your ships would be, realistically speaking, just more fluff.

With space legs, you would have to actually create more models of stations/bases interiors, integrate an FPS engine, and then try to vary the tens of thousands of stations and installations galaxy-wide to avoid too much repetition. Also, what kind of missions would we get on foot that games like Call Of Duty, Battlefield or Medal of Honor haven't done before, and so much better? In short, it would be just a lot of work, for minimal gains but eye candy.

Unless you're telling me that DB had a Space Marine vision for Elite? Or that pilots also make good heavily armed marines?

Because the worlds are procedurally generated, FDev could build the base models/materials much more easily and then seed them across those planets.
And atmospheric physics can act as base function similar to current vacuum flight models, and then account for variance via stat modifiers.
It's really a lot less work, relative to Space legs, for a lot more returns.

Not to say that I wouldn't want to see Space legs. It would be cool. But between the two, I think we'd get more bang out of new worlds (and new TYPES of worlds) to visit, rather than running around installations on foot.

 

[Arioch]

Also, what kind of missions would we get on foot that games like Call Of Duty, Battlefield or Medal of Honor haven't done before, and so much better?

I really hope FDev don’t take (all) their design cues from point&click manshooters, but rather the System Shock’s, Deus Ex’s, Lone Echo, etc.

For example, I’d love to be able to discover and explore ED’s abandoned Mega-ships, retrieving the story logs, but in the playstyle of Tacoma, or Alien Isolation.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Well, be that as it may, between space legs and atmospheric worlds, I would prefer the latter to be the priority because it would add more locations, content, and gameplay options almost immediately.

Space legs, and walking around stations, bases, and your ships would be, realistically speaking, just more fluff.

With space legs, you would have to actually create more models of stations/bases interiors, integrate an FPS engine, and then try to vary the tens of thousands of stations and installations galaxy-wide to avoid too much repetition. Also, what kind of missions would we get on foot that games like Call Of Duty, Battlefield or Medal of Honor haven't done before, and so much better? In short, it would be just a lot of work, for minimal gains but eye candy.

Unless you're telling me that DB had a Space Marine vision for Elite? Or that pilots also make good heavily armed marines?

Because the worlds are procedurally generated, FDev could build the base models/materials much more easily and then seed them across those planets.
And atmospheric physics can act as base function similar to current vacuum flight models, and then account for variance via stat modifiers.
It's really a lot less work, relative to Space legs, for a lot more returns.

Not to say that I wouldn't want to see Space legs. It would be cool. But between the two, I think we'd get more bang out of new worlds (and new TYPES of worlds) to visit, rather than running around installations on foot.

You are talking about First Person Shooters. While I expect shooting to be a part of space legs I also expect there to be more then that.

Space legs could potentially add far more gameplay the atmospherics planets. Lets say they release atmospheric planets, but all you can do is do the same stuff on them that you can do on non-atmospheric planets. It wouldn't add any other gameplay, just the same gameplay in a different environment. Don't get me wrong though, I want atmospheric planets too, but maybe they decided that they can do the space legs part first as current gen systems will be able to handle that. Atmospherics my be later down the line when next gen tech is more widespread and they can do it justice.

I don't want ED planets to look like NMS planets. I would prefer something much more realistic. Also being able to walk around on atmospheric planets could add more gameplay opportunitues such as cave systems and if there are earth likes, being able to explore places that your SRV can't get to would be good.

So maybe space legs may be the right thing to do first.

 

[Midian Cabal]

Compromise: petition FD to implememt amospheric legs!

That is legs with atmospheres

That's not a compromise, it's a win-win.

 

[dxm55]

Good points both. Agreed that you could do more on foot than just combat.

Crafting those environments, many of them unique would still be quite a lot of work though.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Whatever they bring out will be criticised and rage-quit by a portion of the 'community' as not what they wanted. I'll just see what they bring to the table and decide if it is worth my money/time - but without histrionics - those I'll enjoy reading here

 

[Arioch]

Good points both. Agreed that you could do more on foot than just combat.

Crafting those environments, many of them unique would still be quite a lot of work though.

That’s why I’m still a bit sceptical about the ‘leak’, looking up-close to pretty much any surface using the external camera (and I’m also using VR) shows the texture detail level to be sub-2004 Doom standard, with most markings and decals floating a few inches above their surfaces (presumably to stop z-fighting).

There’s a massive amount of art to produce to implement those required next LOD’s. I’m not saying it can’t be done, there are very talented people working on this game, but I’ll be happy surprised if it pitches up in 2020.
Haprised.

I’ll be super interested in the (presumably) proc-gen non-natural environments, the Star Citizen lot did a good video on that a while back.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Whatever they bring out will be criticised and rage-quit by a portion of the 'community' as not what they wanted. I'll just see what they bring to the table and decide if it is worth my money/time - but without histrionics - those I'll enjoy reading here

First world problems.

Others are still dealing with having a main gameplay pillar pointlessly removed with nothing more than palms up saying they knew they were going to disappoint us.

 

[Rat Catcher]

First world problems.

Others are still dealing with having a main gameplay pillar pointlessly removed with nothing more than palms up saying they knew they were going to upset us.

True - and here we are 6 months down the line and demands are still being made by those who 'quit' the game but not the forum for changes to be reverted...

Others have just played the game, changes included, and not demanded anything to the contrary...

The histrionics will never stop...

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

True - and here we are 6 months down the line and demands are still being made by those who 'quit' the game but not the forum for changes to be reverted...

Takes about 200 pages for everyone to realise frontier are just not that kind of developer.

A pointed lesson going forward I’m sure, we’re getting space legs (yay!!!)

 

[Rat Catcher]

Takes about 200 pages for everyone to realise frontier are just not that kind of developer.

A pointed lesson going forward I’m sure, we’re getting space legs (yay!!!)

Whatever they bring out next year, they won't be holding a gun against anyone's head to buy it...

 

[Pozdnyakov]

That can be added later on, once the core of the game has been completed.

It has already been completed. Or are you trying not to notice it? If you do not need space legs, this does not mean that they are not needed.

 

[Ian Skippy]

First world problems.

Others are still dealing with having a main gameplay pillar pointlessly removed with nothing more than palms up saying they knew they were going to disappoint us.

Thoughts and prayers.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Except to comment on the forum.

I think when people show obsessive behavior and frustration to such an extent, I am kinda relieved that they chose a forum for a computer game as their outlet.