Black holes: Cool in Fortnite. Boring in Elite Dangerous

TheSisko

TheSisko
I don't play Fortnite, but from what I've read, Epic have done some good (?) story telling to the point that players were watching streams of black holes for hours:
www.theverge.com

With the apocalyptic black hole event, Fortnite’s storytelling has grown increasingly ambitious

The most interesting downtime ever
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

And I ask myself, what is Elite Dangerous, a space game which feature black holes, doing with them?

They pose no danger, just some extra heat and a lens effect. Even when you drop out of super cruise next to one.....nothing. No gravitational pull (yeah I know, the FSD counter-acts this because of science) but still, I can't help thinking that more should be done with them. If not gravity effects then perhaps some kind of time dilatation maybe?

In reality, Black holes are one of the scariest things in our universe. Not even light is safe from these soulless, gravity sucking monsters.

In Elite Dangerous, my premier space game, Black holes are......boring.

Boring. Black holes!!!!!

Frontier, can we at least update the look of them? Please?
discovermagazine.com

The First Close-Up View of a Black Hole

An Earth-sized telescope will capture the unseeable
discovermagazine.com discovermagazine.com


sYJmxjM.jpg
 

Phazon Xenomorph

Phazon Xenomorph
People have been asking and it's pretty much just on the backburner from the few responses we've ever seen. Plus one needs to be feeding to have any sort of accretion disc. Granted there's no excuse for the ones in a system that are tiny RIGHT next to a damn star in a binary with it.

But there's pretty much just nothing to do in Elite, and I have doubts that the 2020 update will be anything more than a weeks worth of content as a glorified patch.
 

Red Anders

Red Anders
Obligatory 'so go and play fortnite' post :D

I agree by the way - for larger black holes at least, an increase to both their visual impression and their danger to an unwary pilot would be nice. I'm sure that there are 10,000 things that would be 'nice' to do though, each of which would have some players in raptures and others saying 'huh? why the hell are they bothering with that?' As much as I'd like black holes to get a makeover, they wouldn't be near the top of my list of priorities (or probably FDev's) because I doubt if anybody who doesn't already own it would rush out and buy a copy of the game based on that.
 

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
It would be cool to dramatically accelerate ship movement in supercruise the closer you get to the black hole. You could zip around it lickety-split, but if you time things poorly you might hit the point of no return and be SWALLOWED BY THE RAVENOUS ABYSS
 

askavir

askavir
Indeed, black holes are a disappointment. That was made even more apparent since neutron stars and white dwarfs were changed.

In the very least, you should get a warning from your ship about getting too close to the even horizon, and if you proceeded at your own risk you would be pulled in instead of hitting the invisible safety belt.
 
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archie456

A
It would be good if you could interact with the energy flying around the outside of the black hole:

  • slingshot ship
  • collect things
  • accidentally be sucked in
  • throw stuff into them
  • collect energy from them
  • have energy havesting ships that you could interact with
  • ship get tossed about in the energy streams
...
 

777Driver

777Driver
Have always found it a bit strange that major wow moments in game have been lacklustre, visuals and sound has always been Elites strong points.

Black holes are trippy, but nothing wow. Stars in close proximity still remind me of a game made in the 90's, we still have copy paste nebulae. Cant wrap my head around why they wouldn't put more effort into those areas.

Just found an old vid of mine from 2015. The visuals are nice, I guess it is possibly correct for a non feeding black hole. Still, it would be nice to drop out at something awe inspiring, especially at SagA*

 
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TheSisko

TheSisko
archie456 said:
It would be good if you could interact with the energy flying around the outside of the black hole:

  • slingshot ship
  • collect things
  • accidentally be sucked in
  • throw stuff into them
  • collect energy from them
  • have energy havesting ships that you could interact with
  • ship get tossed about in the energy streams
...
Click to expand...

This. I want.....all of this.
 

george653

G
Well truth is that, despite popular beliefs, black holes are not ,visually at least, anything impressive. They are just gravitational points. And stars and planets do orbit black holes. Actually you can hover with a spaceship above the event horizon and nothing will happen given that the ship will have the necessary velocity. The only visual clue of a black hole is just the lensing except when it's a feeding black hole where we have the accretion disc. And if you get into the photon sphere then congratulations you get 360 vision. Of course i agree that in a game like Elite black hole should be a visual stunning and terrifying phenomenon, with deep rumbling bass sounds, module malfunctions,
visual impairment and a feel of imminent death and destruction if certain corrective actions won't applied.
 

TheSisko

TheSisko
SenseiMatty said:
Uhm.. it doesn't seem so interesting on Fortnite too.... you can't even play the game (n)
Click to expand...
You can now, isn't Season 2 up?

But yeah, there's a boldness to storytelling on Fortnite which Elite lacks. We have 400 billion stars, can't one of them go POP with resulting supernova destruction of the local system and have just players thinking what just happened? And why? Who did this?!? Will this happen in my system?

Or even dangerous black holes in a game with dangerous in the title (yeah I know, dangerous refers to the combat rank but still).
 

Arioch

Arioch
Old Duck said:
You know, it may be a corny movie by today's standards, but The Black Hole (1979) did a pretty amazing job at making black holes scary, at least for me as a child back then.

Source: https://youtu.be/49gS6rDRZMs


If nothing else, I might have to play the sound track if I ever visit Sag A!

(I need to watch this again)
Click to expand...
The first part of that film is the kind of Generation MegaShip encounter I’d like, especially with ‘leety legs.

Also well worth the rewatch, looks great in HD and still has one of the darkest/weirdest/messed-with-my-child-brain endings of any Disney film :)
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Dragons: Cool annoying in Skyrim. Not present in Elite.


That said (whatever it means), I do agree that Black Holes need some love.
 
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