The Timescale for 'Walking Around Your Spacecraft & Landing on Planets' Was 2-3 Years

[VR Golgot]

I’ve been in a large player instance during the SRV planetary expedition; although I’m not a programmer I can’t see how replacing all the SRVs and handful of ships in that instance with the already existing player avatars would constitute a performance/coding challenge.

I should note that I too am not a dev . But as I see it...


The added demands of MMO multiplayer + geographical scale:

• Shared object networking: Players can perform more actions and interact with more items than SRVs. Some of these objects have to be checked at a high frequency to make sure they are always in the exact same state for all players. The classic example is the humble door. In a station setting there are a lot of doors. Potentially a lot of 'things' too, that bounce around when someone throws a grenade... This stuff will ask more of the P2P than it's currently having to deal with.
• AI processing: Even with PvP, there will be NPCs, and they will have a whole new set of environments to navigate (station internals, proc gen environments potentially). And a whole new set of behaviours to track (Can players EVA erratically? Can NPCs use sniper rifles at range? Can they react to a grenade's pitch and bounce? Etc). This stuff takes processing. (See the last point for why this is extra important).
• Ranged Weapons: Scopes are a challenge in large environments for VR. The ability to suddenly look in any direction and demand a high LOD version of any distant view point is taxing. They struggled with it in Fallout 4 for example, and that's an offline game with a bespoke map. (With their solution being the slightly cumbersome 'black cape' which culled anything that wasn't the scope view).
• Ships + Characters: Some of the conundrums of 'players inside ships' have already been broached by Multicrew. But as soon as we can get up they'll potentially have to deal with: Forces applying to players in some form, the rendering of the internal details while also displaying external views from fixed points. And trickiest of all, it seems: Hull breaches, which objects can pass through, which would require that complex moving environment to be contiguous with the external environment. IE a gunshot from inside could hit that ship 1km away. That distant mountain could suddenly be viewable to the player in the engine room when an external missile struck breaches the hull, also causing his 'hammer' to fall out of the hole as the ship pitches.... Etc. All potentially with 32 ships + players in the instance. (And there'll probably be loads of doors opening and closing too )
• Ship + SRV + Character: It won't just be a straight swap of '30 players for 30 SRVs'. All of these things could happen together. Imagine an SRV assault on a planetary base, supported by Dropships actually dropping players, defended by an infantry force of players + NPCs rushing in a panic through every available door, as the particles fly and the local mining rigs shatter into their various physics-friendly parts...

Stuff like that.

So there are some specific VR tech challenges in there, and lots of general processing & network load that will make achieving optimal frames for VR harder. All specifically exacerbated by the scale of the location and the number of online players. (And I'm sure there's a ton more I have no idea about too )

Well I’d point towards NMS once more - in the “Anomaly” there can be 16 players simultaneously, and in the general game there can be up to 32 players on PC.

EDIT: Ah ok, thought 16 was the highest player count.

I believe I’m right in saying that PvP really isn’t a focus though yeah? Like there aren’t really missions that encourage it / you’re only really likely to do it if you have to defend your base from an interloper etc? (So stuff like desync, and balancing between classic/VR gunplay methods, aren’t major issues etc?)

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I`m 100% sure that legs are not the issue, atmospheric planets are. In my opinion judging from the past ED cant handle such a density of PG that is required to make a semi realistic plausible worlds. We cant even have upgraded ice ones.

I can't see the issue with density of PG. We have a whole galaxy that is mostly PG. As to the ice planet upgrade, my hope is that it will still come, but to get them to look that good it's gonna take some time. Hopefully it will also include upgraded visuals for the rest of the planets too.

 

[Lori Jameson]

@Golgot My guess it that they over estimated the flexibility of Cobra and it's toolset. It probably took a long time to redo the engine and rebuild a stable codebase capable of achieving results closer to the original intent.

 

[Arioch]

I should note that I too am not a dev . But as I see it...


The added demands of MMO multiplayer + geographical scale:

• Shared object networking: Players can perform more actions and interact with more items than SRVs. Some of these objects have to be checked at a high frequency to make sure they are always in the exact same state for all players. The classic example is the humble door. In a station setting there are a lot of doors. Potentially a lot of 'things' too, that bounce around when someone throws a grenade... This stuff will ask more of the P2P than it's currently having to deal with.
• AI processing: Even with PvP, there will be NPCs, and they will have a whole new set of environments to navigate (station internals, proc gen environments potentially). And a whole new set of behaviours to track (Can players EVA erratically? Can NPCs use sniper rifles at range? Can they react to a grenade's pitch and bounce? Etc). This stuff takes processing. (See the last point for why this is extra important).
• Ranged Weapons: Scopes are a challenge in large environments for VR. The ability to suddenly look in any direction and demand a high LOD version of any distant view point is taxing. They struggled with it in Fallout 4 for example, and that's an offline game with a bespoke map. (With their solution being the slightly cumbersome 'black cape' which culled anything that wasn't the scope view).
• Ships + Characters: Some of the conundrums of 'players inside ships' have already been broached by Multicrew. But as soon as we can get up they'll potentially have to deal with: Forces applying to players in some form, the rendering of the internal details while also displaying external views from fixed points. And trickiest of all, it seems: Hull breaches, which objects can pass through, which would require that complex moving environment to be contiguous with the external environment. IE a gunshot from inside could hit that ship 1km away. That distant mountain could suddenly be viewable to the player in the engine room when an external missile struck breaches the hull, also causing his 'hammer' to fall out of the hole as the ship pitches.... Etc. All potentially with 32 ships + players in the instance. (And there'll probably be loads of doors opening and closing too )
• Ship + SRV + Character: It won't just be a straight swap of '30 players for 30 SRVs'. All of these things could happen together. Imagine an SRV assault on a planetary base, supported by Dropships actually dropping players, defended by an infantry force of players + NPCs rushing in a panic through every available door, as the particles fly and the local mining rigs shatter into their various physics-friendly parts...

Stuff like that.

So there are some specific VR tech challenges in there, and lots of general processing & network load that will make achieving optimal frames for VR harder. All specifically exacerbated by the scale of the location and the number of online players. (And I'm sure there's a ton more I have no idea about too )




EDIT: Ah ok, thought 16 was the highest player count.

I believe I’m right in saying that PvP really isn’t a focus though yeah? Like there aren’t really missions that encourage it / you’re only really likely to do it if you have to defend your base from an interloper etc? (So stuff like desync, and balancing between classic/VR gunplay methods, aren’t major issues etc?)

We are talking about instances of 32 players maximum, 6 degrees of freedom character movement. We already have that in ED, flying (also with NPCs) and driving (NPC programmer position not filled yet?).

I’m afraid I’m not seeing anything in your proposed problems that doesn’t already apply to the existing game. A player avatar is just another attachment to the players POV, just less polygons as they don’t have a ship or SRV wrapped around them.

As for VR sniper guns, you should check out Pavlov VR, it’s a CounterStrike clone and pretty much the work of one guy - it’s got great scopes.

Edit: regarding NMS, I haven’t tried it myself but I think you could damage other players, not sure whether that has changed. It’s true that it’s not a PvP focussed game, but then again, the majority of ED players are apparently of a similar mind, so are those issues you mentioned a problem here?

 

[VR Golgot]

and driving (NPC programmer position not filled yet?).

Yes, I wonder why we don't have NPC SRVs. And why that position's not been filled? (I'll give you a hint: It's because AI pathing on proc gen surfaces is tricky. Hence the use of skimmers to dodge the problem. And seeing as NPC characters can't float all the time, they would have the same issues as the currently non-existent SRVs...)

I’m afraid I’m not seeing anything in your proposed problems that doesn’t already apply to the existing game

Yeah I'm getting that

As for VR sniper guns, you should check out Pavlov VR, it’s a CounterStrike clone and pretty much the work of one guy - it’s got great scopes.

Yep, the sniper rifles in Pavlov are ace . The maps are the size of a postage stamp though. And so they don't encounter the performance issue I was talking about (having to have high LOD versions of a huge swathe of distant land available to view at any given moment of the player's choice).

It’s true that it’s not a PvP focussed game, but then again, the majority of ED players are apparently of a similar mind, so are those issues you mentioned a problem here?

Yes. FDev are professional developers who have included PvP in the current game and taken the standard care to include design depth, underpin it with tech that supports stable 'twitch' gameplay, and tuned its balancing over time. That's what pros do. (Engineer metas & wonky P2P issues excepted ).

They have also pitched comparable PvP for the Legs. They will doubtless want to take the same care over those areas again.

 

[Arioch]

Yes, I wonder why we don't have NPC SRVs. And why that position's not been filled? (I'll give you a hint: It's because AI pathing on proc gen surfaces is tricky. Hence the use of skimmers to dodge the problem. And seeing as NPC characters can't float all the time, they would have the same issues as the currently non-existent SRVs...)

No hints required - the last post I saw about the position not being filled was a while ago, hence my question.

Yep, the sniper rifles in Pavlov are ace . The maps are the size of a postage stamp though. And so they don't encounter the performance issue I was talking about (having to have high LOD versions of a huge swathe of distant land available to view at any given moment of the player's choice).

What matters isn’t map size, but the computing cost of doing Picture-In-Picture. What does matter is that the game has to render the scene again from a different position (closer to what you are looking at) and display that in your “scope” view. Some games “cheat” and do the black-surround thing on the scope, so the players POV is actually just moved closer to what they are looking at.

It’s expensive for VR because the scene has already been rendered twice, hence why the scope views in Pavlov are 2D ie. a flat image. I’ve played one driving game where the mirrors were actually 3D images, so the scene was being rendered multiple times, but the game graphics were simpler than, say, Project Cars 2 VR, I assume to compensate.

If sniper scopes would be a thing in ED I’d guess they’d be “black surround” style ones. The camera suite can zoom out to suitable distances during gameplay, so perhaps something like that?

 

[VR Golgot]

No hints required - the last post I saw about the position not being filled was a while ago, hence my question.

Yeah they keep relisting it. Still unfilled. Latest listing taps out in April.

What matters isn’t map size, but the computing cost of doing Picture-In-Picture. What does matter is that the game has to render the scene again from a different position (closer to what you are looking at) and display that in your “scope” view. Some games “cheat” and do the black-surround thing on the scope, so the players POV is actually just moved closer to what they are looking at.

It’s expensive for VR because the scene has already been rendered twice, hence why the scope views in Pavlov are 2D ie. a flat image. I’ve played one driving game where the mirrors were actually 3D images, so the scene was being rendered multiple times, but the game graphics were simpler than, say, Project Cars 2 VR, I assume to compensate.

If sniper scopes would be a thing in ED I’d guess they’d be “black surround” style ones. The camera suite can zoom out to suitable distances during gameplay, so perhaps something like that?

Both matter, AFAIK. (Obviously it's exacerbated by if you've got 10x scopes or whatever).

But I'm glad we can at least agree that there are various demands associated with scopes that would need addressing

---

Honestly I'm not even sure what we're spatting back and forth about. It seems like these are fairly reasonable aspects we could agree on:

• Adding Legs gameplay to the game would involve technical challenges / difficulty.
• VR compatibility brings extra challenges.

¯\(ツ)/¯

It doesn't seem to be worth going round and round on whether the technical requirements of PvP support would make ED ultimately a unique endeavour if they were to support classic/VR parity. Let us agree to disagree on that

We seem to agree already that FDev are unlikely to be able to lavish excessive love on the VR aspect as it is.

 

[Arioch]

Yeah they keep relisting it. Still unfilled. Latest listing taps out in April.




Both matter, AFAIK. (Obviously it's exacerbated by if you've got 10x scopes or whatever).

But I'm glad we can at least agree that there are various demands associated with scopes that would need addressing

---

Honestly I'm not even sure what we're spatting back and forth about. It seems like these are fairly reasonable aspects we could agree on:

• Adding Legs gameplay to the game would involve technical challenges / difficulty.
• VR compatibility brings extra challenges.

¯\(ツ)/¯

It doesn't seem to be worth going round and round on whether the technical requirements of PvP support would make ED ultimately a unique endeavour if they were to support classic/VR parity. Let us agree to disagree on that

We seem to agree already that FDev are unlikely to be able to lavish excessive love on the VR aspect as it is.

Are we spatting here? I thought we just discussing different views on the difficulty level of implementing stuff; please don’t read any animosity into my words, we’re good

You’re seeing technical hiccups with regards to VR and things, whilst I see stuff that’s not that far removed from what we already have in game.

Example: imagine being able to select a sniper scope view, doing the weapon raise/fade-to-black view change, and then getting an up-close view of a target up to 30km away. Be a pretty good scope in my opinion! Care to guess what already existing game mechanic that’s copying?

I suppose my view about the problems of a possible Legs expansion are coloured by a few years worth of VR usage - I like to take pseudoEVAs using the camera suite and they are pretty much FPS controls when using a gamepad. There’s even surface collision detection of sorts when the camera does the blur-fade thing.

We do indeed agree on what level of VR love FDev are able/willing to give - I’m not worried (as some other posters are) about VR support being dropped, but I do think it’ll be along the lines of how Subnautica did it. No waggling arms for us!

 

[Barking_Mad]

I would be surprised given the Covid situation if this turns up on time. No shame in that though.

 

[VR Golgot]

Are we spatting here? I thought we just discussing different views on the difficulty level of implementing stuff; please don’t read any animosity into my words, we’re good

Cool

Example: imagine being able to select a sniper scope view, doing the weapon raise/fade-to-black view change, and then getting an up-close view of a target up to 30km away. Be a pretty good scope in my opinion! Care to guess what already existing game mechanic that’s copying?

Hmm, which mechanic are you thinking of here? (We can certainly see absurd ranges at low LOD, but I'm not aware of any way of snapping instantaneously to a high LOD view 30km away etc).

I suppose my view about the problems of a possible Legs expansion are coloured by a few years worth of VR usage - I like to take pseudoEVAs using the camera suite and they are pretty much FPS controls when using a gamepad. There’s even surface collision detection of sorts when the camera does the blur-fade thing.

Yeah I was wondering if this might be the nub of it, given your talk of Legs just being 'a POV with less polygons'.

That doesn't really accurately mimic what a Legs implementation with gameplay is likely to be. Which is what FDev's pitches entail.

Certainly EVA actions alone may be requirement light. But there are a ton of other circumstances that look liable not to be. (Multiple Cmdrs running around inside rendered ship interiors during a firefight, altering new objects that need to be tracked etc etc). Those circumstances would require extra asset, processing & networking aspects on top of the current load. It would be additive load.

Legs = more than freecam floating in the current build

We do indeed agree on what level of VR love FDev are able/willing to give - I’m not worried (as some other posters are) about VR support being dropped, but I do think it’ll be along the lines of how Subnautica did it. No waggling arms for us!

Yeah, I've prepared myself for a flat controller port if it pans out that way. Still think, if console VR is a target they could well have the budget to get motion controllers in though (and potentially try to at least match the functionality of the likes of NMS).

 

[VR Golgot]

I would be surprised given the Covid situation if this turns up on time. No shame in that though.

Yeah not ideal. Guess we'll see.

Lots of other contingencies like whether the consoles get delayed too. (I wonder to what extent a gaming company can work from home effectively? Would normally need computers with grunt to do the daily builds / work with unoptimised stuff etc. But then... most devs probably have mad kit at home you'd think? So long as software licenses aren't an issue you'd think they could rub along, if slower).

 

[zimms]

Maybe they could also remotely connect to their workplace machines. Writing software is probably one of the jobs where it's easiest to do home office, but it would have an impact on productivity nonetheless I assume. Especially since you'll probably have to take care of your kids at the same time.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I think its financial as much as anything.

Frontier has investors and share holders that want more growth so the company needs to focus on those areas regardless of what has come before short of reputation damage of course.

Getting Legs functionally working as opposed to working right with decent/lasting gameplay for all is not going to be easy. I remain sceptical until I see it in action and I still wouldn't be surprised to see Fleet Carriers rolled into the next paid update in order to compensate for the holes with the 'but you'll be able to walk inside a carrier' justification.

 

[Arioch]

Hmm, which mechanic are you thinking of here? (We can certainly see absurd ranges at low LOD, but I'm not aware of any way of snapping instantaneously to a high LOD view 30km away etc).

SLF - not instant, but certainly on a par with a switch to sniper scope canned animation and screen zwwt switch on (like the SRV turret).

I think the camera suite at maximum range would be a better fit though, and that pretty much is instant. Not many FPS games have engagements at long ranges, and Elite seems to like combat to be up-close.

Yeah I was wondering if this might be the nub of it, given your talk of Legs just being 'a POV with less polygons'.

That doesn't really accurately mimic what a Legs implementation with gameplay is likely to be. Which is what FDev's pitches entail.

I wouldn’t say “less polygons”, they’d have to add any hand-held equipment after all

Shift the Commander avatar from the SRV and you’ve still got to power the same amount of triangles - except additionally you’d have to track what was happening to the stationary SRV. I’ve been in fairly large player instances when the Guardian sites first started getting discovered - ships (landed & flying), plenty of SRVs pootling about, and also using the external camera. Within the existing game, it looks to me like it wouldn’t take huge leaps in processing power to implement Legs.

Replace physics-enabled Guardian artefacts rolling about (the same for all players in that instance) with your doors opening and closing, or current multicrew VR users being able to move around moving ships during a firefight, well, I’m not seeing the need for masses of extra computing power.

Hopefully we shall see within the next nine months

 

[VR Golgot]

SLF - not instant, but certainly on a par with a switch to sniper scope canned animation and screen zwwt switch on (like the SRV turret).

I think the camera suite at maximum range would be a better fit though, and that pretty much is instant. Not many FPS games have engagements at long ranges, and Elite seems to like combat to be up-close.

Hah, hadn't thought of the SLF

I think you're stretching it there though. The transition is almost 4 seconds end to end. As a comparison, here's a scope from Battlefield 4: About 1 second. Or how about a VR scope in Pavlov: It's as fast as you want it to be. Because there's no canned animation

My recollection of the camera suite is that it also isn't capable of the type of 'snap to 1000m North high LOD, snap to 1000m South high LOD' in scant seconds that a typical FPS player could do with a sniper rifle. But happy to be shown otherwise though.

(Also, addendum: FPSes don't do ranged combat? Elite doesn't really do ranged combat? Are you definitely sure you want to make these arguments? )

Shift the Commander avatar from the SRV and you’ve still got to power the same amount of triangles - except additionally you’d have to track what was happening to the stationary SRV. I’ve been in fairly large player instances when the Guardian sites first started getting discovered - ships (landed & flying), plenty of SRVs pootling about, and also using the external camera. Within the existing game, it looks to me like it wouldn’t take huge leaps in processing power to implement Legs.

Replace physics-enabled Guardian artefacts rolling about (the same for all players in that instance) with your doors opening and closing, or current multicrew VR users being able to move around moving ships during a firefight, well, I’m not seeing the need for masses of extra computing power.

Ok at least you're acknowledging that there is a step up in load now

But you seem to keep gravitating towards scenarios where the load would be at its least, and then saying: See, it's the same! But ignoring the scenarios I keep raising where the Legs aspect would be additional to existing assets / gameplay processing / networking load etc. For example ship interiors alongside external rendering due to hull breaches. You just... don't mention that. The ship interiors are apparently not a thing that's being added. Likewise AI pathing on proc gen. (Oh it's... well we don't have it... but how hard can it be!). Likewise NPC voicing (potentially synthetically) and pathing if they do station interiors (which could overlap with the docking bay zone populated with ships). Etc etc etc.

The Guardian artefacts rolling around aren't 'replaced' by the doors. They're rolling around in proximity to the doors while 3 cmdrs run around making them open and close . (Admittedly this could be culled and not conflict. But equally, there could be a hull breach, and all aspects are relevant to said commander and rendered / tracked etc ).

I'm not saying any of the things we're discussing are impossible in ED. I'm just saying this whole: 'Game is technically ready for Legs, just add moveable POV' argument you seem to be going for is definitely way, way off track.

Hopefully we shall see within the next nine months

Indeed

 

[PaulieWotsit]

Space legs?

 

[Arioch]

...I think you're stretching it there though. The transition is almost 4 seconds end to end. As a comparison, here's a scope from Battlefield 4: About 1 second. Or how about a VR scope in Pavlov: It's as fast as you want it to be. Because there's no canned animation

My recollection of the camera suite is that it also isn't capable of the type of 'snap to 1000m North high LOD, snap to 1000m South high LOD' in scant seconds that a typical FPS player could do with a sniper rifle. But happy to be shown otherwise though.

True, but then again the game is having to load in the SLF and whatnot which wouldn’t be needed for a scope view, and 30km is a bit excessive anyway

If you want to play with the camera suite, try flipping through all the different views as quick as you can. Try putting the camera speed to maximum and whip about like that. It’s pretty nippy. I think you can zoom right out on some of the views and the camera will “remember” the setting.

I don’t think there will be Pavlov style scopes, Elite doesn’t do Picture-in-Picture stuff that I can see.

(Also, addendum: FPSes don't do ranged combat? Elite doesn't really do ranged combat? Are you definitely sure you want to make these arguments? )

I mean that FPS engagement ranges are a lot lower than real life, with the exception of some MilSims (like Arma), outside of FIBUA / CQB. Elite combat is WW2 dogfighting. The devs like their hard work to be seen.

...But you seem to keep gravitating towards scenarios where the load would be at its least, and then saying: See, it's the same! But ignoring the scenarios I keep raising where the Legs aspect would be additional to existing assets / gameplay processing / networking load etc. For example ship interiors alongside external rendering due to hull breaches. You just... don't mention that. The ship interiors are apparently not a thing that's being added. Likewise AI pathing on proc gen. (Oh it's... well we don't have it... but how hard can it be!). Likewise NPC voicing (potentially synthetically) and pathing if they do station interiors (which could overlap with the docking bay zone populated with ships). Etc etc etc.

The Guardian artefacts rolling around aren't 'replaced' by the doors. They're rolling around in proximity to the doors while 3 cmdrs run around making them open and close . (Admittedly this could be culled and not conflict. But equally, there could be a hull breach, and all aspects are relevant to said commander and rendered / tracked etc ).

I'm not saying any of the things we're discussing are impossible in ED. I'm just saying this whole: 'Game is technically ready for Legs, just add moveable POV' argument you seem to be going for is definitely way, way off track.

Perhaps I’m not emphasising enough the amount of other players in the instances I’m talking about. They were busy instances with lots of stuff going on. The game coped with me playing at pretend legs as well, two years ago.

I haven’t mention ship interiors beyond the ability of multicrew to move around in VR if they want to, true. Only the bridges, SRV bays, and landing gear bits are currently in our ship models (I’ve poked my head through the rear bulkhead), but would more compartments be such a performance drag? Culling and LODs are a thing, after all.

Only the Anaconda has a damage model currently, so who knows if we’d need to do inside & outside at the same time for hull breaches

If you think I’m way off track, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I’ll keep taking my pseudoEVAs and walking around my bridge while the docking computer takes me into land or while watching the light show of a combat zone as an impartial observer

As an aside, I’ve been playing an indie game called Angels Fall First, does some really cool things with space combat; fighters, pilotable capital ships, boarding (with on foot combat) etc, up to 64 players (bots can fill up the numbers), made by 7 people and runs on fairly modest hardware.

 

[zarrazee]

Erm, says the guy with that avatar . Damnn.

Credit goes to Bitmap Bro's "Chaos Engine".

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

What's the rush? You got some where to be?

Yeah, some of us have a coffin waitin!

 

[Iskariot]

The Timescale for 'Walking Around Your Spacecraft & Landing on Planets' Was Approx 2-3 Years

And then real life happened in development land....