Question(s) about Odyssey...

[Stealthie]

Was just landing on a planet and something occured to me...

I was wondering if some of the planets (presumably, the bigger ones) we currently land on will develop atmospheres or whether FDev will enable atmospheres on planets we can't currently access?

That led me to thinking, all the planets I've seen in trailers for Odyssey seem to be fairly barren - kind of like the planets we already have access to, but with skies.

Question is, has anything been said/seen relating to the environments of atmospheric planets?

A lot of the currently un-landable planets are water-worlds, ELWs or planets with obvious lava flows.
It'd be nice it we could land on those and not just barren rocks like the ones we currently visit.

 

[Sublime]

It was specifically said that the new planets in Odyssey are tenuous atmosphere, like you’ve seen. So this does not include ELWs, water worlds, or any colonized worlds with significant populations/cities.

 

[varonica]

Was just landing on a planet and something occured to me...

I was wondering if some of the planets (presumably, the bigger ones) we currently land on will develop atmospheres or whether FDev will enable atmospheres on planets we can't currently access?

There are many bodies around with very thin atmosphere, you can see it in the system map when you explore a system, as far as I have been able to tell from what they have said it is these already existing atmospheric bodies with thin atmosphere that we can't land on that will be used, not the ones with no atmosphere we can already land on.

 

[Kemo]

There are many bodies around with very thin atmosphere, you can see it in the system map when you explore a system, as far as I have been able to tell from what they have said it is these already existing atmospheric bodies with thin atmosphere that we can't land on that will be used, not the ones with no atmosphere we can already land on.

I hadn't considered that they would just add tenuous atmospheres to existing landable rocks, god , I hope that's not the case. I would like to see exactly as outlined by varonica, that these tenuous atmo planets are the existing planets we are not able to land on currently.

 

[thistle]

No they aren't adding tenuous atmospheres to current non atmos planets. The non atmos planets will get the graphics surface updates though, and will have the new settlements etc.

 

[Lightspeed]

We don't know do we?
I mean, clearly many of the current landables have zero atmosphere. But occasionally (and I've not come across one recently) a planet shows signs of a tenuous atmosphere, but it either doesn't persist for long, or it's only located in a valley or crater. These might have atmosphere added.

 

[Lightspeed]

Was just landing on a planet and something occured to me...

I was wondering if some of the planets (presumably, the bigger ones) we currently land on will develop atmospheres or whether FDev will enable atmospheres on planets we can't currently access?

That led me to thinking, all the planets I've seen in trailers for Odyssey seem to be fairly barren - kind of like the planets we already have access to, but with skies.

Question is, has anything been said/seen relating to the environments of atmospheric planets?

A lot of the currently un-landable planets are water-worlds, ELWs or planets with obvious lava flows.
It'd be nice it we could land on those and not just barren rocks like the ones we currently visit.

Would be a good question for the AMA ... although you would likely only get "That's an interesting question, we will be revealing more about Odyssey later" ... sadly.

 

[varonica]

We don't know do we?
I mean, clearly many of the current landables have zero atmosphere. But occasionally (and I've not come across one recently) a planet shows signs of a tenuous atmosphere, but it either doesn't persist for long, or it's only located in a valley or crater. These might have atmosphere added.

That has been explained by FDEV in their tech talks, planets with no atmosphere can sometimes have temporary areas of fog and gas due to heating and sublimation of cold matter such as methane and other forms of ice, but this isn't defined as atmosphere because it is temporary. An atmosphere has to have full surface coverage for 24 hours a day regardless of temperature variations and day/night cycle. So no, these won't have atmosphere added because what you see is already defined by the conditions of the body, heating and cooling etc.

Oh yes just to quickly add, to change the surface conditions of an existing body would require a change in the procedural generation key for the system and would likely change the conditions on all bodies, maybe even leading to some vanishing altogether.

 

[Lightspeed]

That has been explained by FDEV in their tech talks, planets with no atmosphere can sometimes have temporary areas of fog and gas due to heating and sublimation of cold matter such as methane and other forms of ice, but this isn't defined as atmosphere because it is temporary. An atmosphere has to have full surface coverage for 24 hours a day regardless of temperature variations and day/night cycle. So no, these won't have atmosphere added because what you see is already defined by the conditions of the body, heating and cooling etc.

I hear what you say, but what if they nudged a dial in the cobra engine, just a tiny bit ?

 

[thistle]

I hear what you say, but what if they nudged a dial in the cobra engine, just a tiny bit ?

Why?

 

[varonica]

I hear what you say, but what if they nudged a dial in the cobra engine, just a tiny bit ?

No, you can't just nudge a dial in the cobra engine a tiny bit because that engine has nothing to do with the decision as to whether a planet has atmosphere or not, that's determined by the stellar forge. Systems are run through an evolutionary process from gas cloud right through to planet formation and all the other necessary processes that make up a solar system, and it's during this evolutionary process that determinations are made as to whether or not a planet will have atmosphere, and I would not suggest nudging the stellr forge just a little bit and hoping the entire galaxy doesn't go pear shaped! The cobra engine handles how things will look, not what they are!

 

[ocflyer]

No they aren't adding tenuous atmospheres to current non atmos planets. The non atmos planets will get the graphics surface updates though, and will have the new settlements etc.

Are you saying that Elite players that don't buy Odyssey will see the planet visual improvements?

 

[thistle]

Are you saying that Elite players that don't buy Odyssey will see the planet visual improvements?

No (although it's possible), just that in Odyssey the non atmos planets are getting the same upgrade in graphics (rocks, textures etc) as atmos planets (edit - and upgraded settlements, surface stations etc)

 

[Gleitfrosch]

In the trailer we can see the names of different settlements. Check if they are already in the game, if not = new planets. If yes and can be landed on = growing atmosphere.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Are you saying that Elite players that don't buy Odyssey will see the planet visual improvements?

Frontier have said that planets landable on in Horizons will get some visual improvements too, even for non-Odyssey owners.

Presumably this is because it would be very weird if a Horizons player and an Odyssey player were on the same no-atmosphere planet and disagreed on fundamental issues like "where is the ground?".

 

[varonica]

Frontier have said that planets landable on in Horizons will get some visual improvements too, even for non-Odyssey owners.

Presumably this is because it would be very weird if a Horizons player and an Odyssey player were on the same no-atmosphere planet and disagreed on fundamental issues like "where is the ground?".

Surely that's determined by just jumping up and down? But anyway, yes the visual improvements should be available to all players on currently landable planets, whether currently landable planets will get new settlements, I'm not so sure, is it possible that current settlements may be used for both versions? Also not so sure, I mean what happens if you are driving along in your SRV, could you see someone walking into a building in the same settlement? Do they then vanish from your instance, of course they could make it so that Odyssey players are never instanced with Horizons players, which would be rather strange.

I think this is a wait and see thing, it's also possible that we will get something like a PAS for Odyssey that will tell Odyssey players whether or not they are on a planet where they are able to walk and all existing planets may be SRV only for both Horizons and Odyssey players! Should be interesting to find out.

 

[Vasious]

Havent the planets showing in trailers been ones that are currently unlandable?

 

[FlyingBrickyard]

Surely that's determined by just jumping up and down? But anyway, yes the visual improvements should be available to all players on currently landable planets, whether currently landable planets will get new settlements, I'm not so sure, is it possible that current settlements may be used for both versions? Also not so sure, I mean what happens if you are driving along in your SRV, could you see someone walking into a building in the same settlement? Do they then vanish from your instance, of course they could make it so that Odyssey players are never instanced with Horizons players, which would be rather strange.

I think this is a wait and see thing, it's also possible that we will get something like a PAS for Odyssey that will tell Odyssey players whether or not they are on a planet where they are able to walk and all existing planets may be SRV only for both Horizons and Odyssey players! Should be interesting to find out.

I expect for technical reasons the separator will be "getting out of the chair", and that the visual improvements as well as the ability to land on worlds with 'tenuous atmospheres' will apply across the board, Odyssey or not.

Technical reasons aside, even from a purely marketing standpoint that would be desirable. Being able to get up close and personal to the new content and see it first hand without quite being able to experience it would likely motivate a purchase for a lot of people who would otherwise be "on the fence".

Put another way, if it can be experienced while remaining in VR, expect everyone to get access to it as part of the base game. If it's 'flatscreen only' (i.e. on foot), it's Odyessey exclusive.

That's my reasoning, but we'll see how it plays out. They've got to tell us eventually, right?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

My assumption was the currently non landable ice and rocky planets (well a number of them anyway) are basically the same as the landable ones with an atmosphere.

Yeah the terrain looks identical. Most of the original footage was in deep afternoon, so the obvious parts were hidden by shadows. Still the upgrades to rocks, the fog layer and the atmosphere together might provide something new. I hope they manage to hit the "moment" they're going for though.

Not thinking about large bases with npc's, jwe style stamping and landing pads, but i was kinda dreaming about subnautica / osiris style disposable bases that we could pull up on demand and rp around in. Maybe even mine something, or have as a temporary research base next to some thargoids or pumpkins etc. Oh wait ship interiors would do that too... hmmm.

Is a combat mission board and a new scanning exploration mechanic all we're going to get? Really?

EDIT: Mining == base with automated rovers that go out to blow up and collect current srv rocks, like surviving mars. You could set up a network of remote recharge stations using an srv and log out for the night, come back tomorrow to a stack of valuables.

 

[Lightspeed]

My assumption was the currently non landable ice and rocky planets (well a number of them anyway) are basically the same as the landable ones with an atmosphere.

Yeah the terrain looks identical. Most of the original footage was in deep afternoon, so the obvious parts were hidden by shadows. Still the upgrades to rocks, the fog layer and the atmosphere together might provide something new. I hope they manage to hit the "moment" they're going for though.

Not thinking about large bases with npc's, jwe style stamping and landing pads, but i was kinda dreaming about subnautica / osiris style disposable bases that we could pull up on demand and rp around in. Maybe even mine something, or have as a temporary research base next to some thargoids or pumpkins etc. Oh wait ship interiors would do that too... hmmm.

Is a combat mission board and a new scanning exploration mechanic all we're going to get? Really?

EDIT: Mining == base with automated rovers that go out to blow up and collect current srv rocks, like surviving mars. You could set up a network of remote recharge stations using an srv and log out for the night, come back tomorrow to a stack of valuables.

Likely to be a split of missions as for ships with (a) cargo ... fetch or take ; (b) attack x at y; (c) explore for science. We were promised that such missions would be fairly close to the base, so we don't have to keep walking for days as our energy reserves drain.