Legs Activity: Survey

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
I just want to throw out some ideas in case FDev really is thinking about doing Space Legs(tm) in 2020.

Part of the problem with Legs is that activities have to have reasonable benefit in order to make Legs gameplay profitable, yet the downsizing in scope from ship->legs seems to suggest that credit earning would be less for doing legs stuff than for doing ship stuff.

My main idea for legs profitability would be to have surveying capabilities, where the CMDR can equip sampling devices for finding large deposits of biological resources, minerals, rare earths, etc. The CMDR could find a resource site on a landable, map it by doing several scans in the vicinity, and sell the data via Universal Cartographics for a large payout based on value of that resource (essentially the CMDR is not just selling the data, but the "claim rights," hence the large payout.

Theoretically there could be new scanning modules for ships that would allow some resource surveying to be done from the air, or via SRV. But hopefully we will also get atmosphere landings eventually, with forests and other topography that can only be navigated by a BOTG (boots on the ground). This is where Legs and this surveying mechanic could really shine.
 

AdmiralXanos

AdmiralXanos
  1. Tie it into assassination missions, go to a system find out your target in X base, dock, hunt them down.
  2. Those old generation ships have the data logs. You have to Eva and find a way inside to retrieve it.
  3. The game starts you without a ship and you have to crew other cmdrs ships (npc or players) to start your career.
  4. Ship repairs mid flight, would work like afmu but takes longer + some parts can randomly fail like in DCS
  5. FSS is not accessed from the pilots seat you have to go to that terminal to use it.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
J.States said:
Ship interiors, guns, boarding action, crash landing survival scenarios. That's my wish list. :)
Click to expand...
Sounds cool and all, but before many of these things would make sense in the current set of engagement rules we have, we would have to stop blowing ship up... it is way to easy to blow up a ship in comparison to just disable it. and if you expect to hunt someone down, and then board their ship, then some fundamental things have to be changed to make that a working game mechanic.

And do not forget, that much of the current gameplay could be vastly different if it gets adopted to space legs. it could still be great, but it would be different. And think about the demo from another space game, where you docked, walked of your ship, entered a bar, find a contact, to receive a mission, how much would do this in the end or would we just go back to the select mission from the cockpit? It all comes down to what is the game play and what is considered "wasted time", running around space stations to deal with missions etc, is just more time sinks, if would take 5-10 minutes to walk off your ship, find the contact, and then get back. Would add nothing to the actual game play, just time fillers, and we already now that people are upset about travel time in super cruise...

I have nothing against space legs, but I doubt we will have the same game with space legs, assuming that we actually make it mandatory to use for certain stuff, if not, it just another cool feature that very few will use...

Personally, I would love to be able to walk around my ship, and look out thorugh various windows etc, but I do not have any good ideas for what we would be doing... what would the game play be? why would I move around my ship? what would the purpose be, just because it would be cool is not enough to justify all the time needed to implement it, it need to give us more than that.. remember SRVs... cool when they where added, look at it now, still lacking alot of potential game play. and I am afraid that space legs would offer even less gameplay.
 

GeoJase

GeoJase
Perhaps making things done with legs more EFFECTIVE

Use the AFMU and you get 90% recovery. Get out of your chair, go fix the unit, gets you 100% recovery.
Buy commodities via the main menu, you get normal pricing. Get out of your chair, visit the broker, and you get a 5% discount.
Destroy an assassination target, you get the payout. Disable him, board the ship and kill him in FPS combat, you get the payout plus a bonus for collecting his hard drive.
Other stuffz..
 

Phongsalt

Phongsalt
I honestly don't see the point in having legs in a game about flying spaceships.Having to invent new routines involving legs to do things we can already do through automation seems like a retrograde step to me.(no pun intended).
That's just me though.If they do come,i will be happy for those who use them,but i doubt they will enhance my gameplay.
 

sandkid

S
J.States said:
I just want to throw out some ideas in case FDev really is thinking about doing Space Legs(tm) in 2020.

Part of the problem with Legs is that activities have to have reasonable benefit in order to make Legs gameplay profitable, yet the downsizing in scope from ship->legs seems to suggest that credit earning would be less for doing legs stuff than for doing ship stuff.

My main idea for legs profitability would be to have surveying capabilities, where the CMDR can equip sampling devices for finding large deposits of biological resources, minerals, rare earths, etc. The CMDR could find a resource site on a landable, map it by doing several scans in the vicinity, and sell the data via Universal Cartographics for a large payout based on value of that resource (essentially the CMDR is not just selling the data, but the "claim rights," hence the large payout.

Theoretically there could be new scanning modules for ships that would allow some resource surveying to be done from the air, or via SRV. But hopefully we will also get atmosphere landings eventually, with forests and other topography that can only be navigated by a BOTG (boots on the ground). This is where Legs and this surveying mechanic could really shine.
Click to expand...

Food for Thought:

Underwater welding makes more money than most mid-level managerial positions in Fortune 500 businesses, but only requires equipment worth less than $500,000...substantially lower than the average value of the training and development invested in the mid-level manager.

Mall Cops make more per hour than most cook staff in casual restaurants but have less impact on retained sales (i.e. not stolen) than loyal cook staff.

The typical aircraft fighter pilot can eject from their craft on average 3 times before the loss incurred by the lost fighters exceeds the value of the pilot due to investments in time, loyalty, and training.

The labor costs of many industries are artificially inflated by collective bargaining by Unions. This creates an interesting phenomenon where independent workers and contractors can make more than the industry average because they can compete against the artificial rates of unions. One example of this is the outsized cost of employing labor in the oil industry as (in the US) the costs of employment in the North create a nearly 215% wage gap for the south, leading to intense employment competition that benefits non-union competitors and employees.


The point?

Space-Legs can make as much or more credits than flying the ship. From a gameplay (not real world) perspective, the valence of an activity is generally tied to the time it takes to do the task with skill acting as a secondary or primary modifier. For Space Legs, credit gain will need to be fairly high to justify the time-sink before ever approaching the skill modifier.

As great as 'just walking' can be for aesthetics and immersion, ultimately 'walking' has to have a pay-off of some kind to ensure continuous use as a feature.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Phongsalt said:
I honestly don't see the point in having legs in a game about flying spaceships.Having to invent new routines involving legs to do things we can already do through automation seems like a retrograde step to me.(no pun intended).
That's just me though.If they do come,i will be happy for those who use them,but i doubt they will enhance my gameplay.
Click to expand...

Happily they're coming as part of a DLC, so we can continue flying spaceships while other people are sitting in their empty spacebars looking out of the window.
 

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
Misty_Dark said:
Sounds cool and all, but before many of these things would make sense in the current set of engagement rules we have, we would have to stop blowing ship up... it is way to easy to blow up a ship in comparison to just disable it. and if you expect to hunt someone down, and then board their ship, then some fundamental things have to be changed to make that a working game mechanic.

And do not forget, that much of the current gameplay could be vastly different if it gets adopted to space legs. it could still be great, but it would be different. And think about the demo from another space game, where you docked, walked of your ship, entered a bar, find a contact, to receive a mission, how much would do this in the end or would we just go back to the select mission from the cockpit? It all comes down to what is the game play and what is considered "wasted time", running around space stations to deal with missions etc, is just more time sinks, if would take 5-10 minutes to walk off your ship, find the contact, and then get back. Would add nothing to the actual game play, just time fillers, and we already now that people are upset about travel time in super cruise...

I have nothing against space legs, but I doubt we will have the same game with space legs, assuming that we actually make it mandatory to use for certain stuff, if not, it just another cool feature that very few will use...

Personally, I would love to be able to walk around my ship, and look out thorugh various windows etc, but I do not have any good ideas for what we would be doing... what would the game play be? why would I move around my ship? what would the purpose be, just because it would be cool is not enough to justify all the time needed to implement it, it need to give us more than that.. remember SRVs... cool when they where added, look at it now, still lacking alot of potential game play. and I am afraid that space legs would offer even less gameplay.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think the whole ship blowing up thing has needed an overhaul for a while. Your SRV runs out of fuel... and blows up. Your powerplant gets crippled, your life support runs out, then... you blow up. Your hull gets shredded to 0%... you blow up. Who came up with these mechanics, Michael Bay? I can see the ship blowing up based on the hazard level of stuff in the cargo bay, or if the fuel tank module takes critical damage, but realistically most of the time ships taking extreme damage should just become riddled, drifting hulks.

Disabling ships when certain modules are destroyed should become the new normal, with explosions being rarer and requiring some effort and intention by the attacker. So the normal fight flow would be: engage enemies, disable enemies, finish off enemies when all their ships have been disabled. Notice this allows a CMDR to finish off an opposing pilot either via boarding and legs combat, or from their ship.
 

AdmiralXanos

AdmiralXanos
J.States said:
Yeah, I think the whole ship blowing up thing has needed an overhaul for a while. Your SRV runs out of fuel... and blows up. Your powerplant gets crippled, your life support runs out, then... you blow up. Your hull gets shredded to 0%... you blow up. Who came up with these mechanics, Michael Bay? I can see the ship blowing up based on the hazard level of stuff in the cargo bay, or if the fuel tank module takes critical damage, but realistically most of the time ships taking extreme damage should just become riddled, drifting hulks.

Disabling ships when certain modules are destroyed should become the new normal, with explosions being rarer and requiring some effort and intention by the attacker. So the normal fight flow would be: engage enemies, disable enemies, finish off enemies when all their ships have been disabled. Notice this allows a CMDR to finish off an opposing pilot either via boarding and legs combat, or from their ship.
Click to expand...

take out the pilot and sell what remains of their ship or if enough is still there, repair it for yourself!
 

enonymous

E
Whatever they do, I hope they add something for every career. I have little interest in picking up rocks. Assuming they go all in with VR, I wouldn't mind standing on the outside of a station being attacked to help shoot down enemies that are too small to target with a ship. If I have to control it with my HOTAS or a normal controller and we're literally talking about being on foot. No.

I can imagine landing your ship on a planet, walking to a building to free a prisoner, then leading them back to your ship and transporting them to safety. You'd have to fight, sneak, steal, etc.

I'm very curious how they'll handle death.
 

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
enonymous said:
Whatever they do, I hope they add something for every career. I have little interest in picking up rocks. Assuming they go all in with VR, I wouldn't mind standing on the outside of a station being attacked to help shoot down enemies that are too small to target with a ship. If I have to control it with my HOTAS or a normal controller and we're literally talking about being on foot. No.

I can imagine landing your ship on a planet, walking to a building to free a prisoner, then leading them back to your ship and transporting them to safety. You'd have to fight, sneak, steal, etc.

I'm very curious how they'll handle death.
Click to expand...
Was it Firefly or Dark Matter where people could have their consciousness transferred into a clone that would be created on demand somewhere far away? The clone body had a four day shelf life, and when the user was done with business the clone's mind (with updated memories, etc.) would be superimposed on the original, as if they had actually been there.
 

Tunstan

Tunstan
J.States said:
Was it Firefly or Dark Matter where people could have their consciousness transferred into a clone that would be created on demand somewhere far away? The clone body had a four day shelf life, and when the user was done with business the clone's mind (with updated memories, etc.) would be superimposed on the original, as if they had actually been there.
Click to expand...

Dark Matter
 
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