Why is ship interiors something that is not planned to be included if at least half the player base wants it?

[Sighman]

Most of the requests for ship interiors then go on to say 'and then you could...' - and these additions turn out to be an entirely new game (or DLC). From boarding, to fighting pirates in the cargo hold, to repairing modules, to decorating and customising, to walking around inspecting every module aboard the ship, I've seen the lot.

I was watching a livestream on youtube and the streamer asked chat how much extra they'd be willing to pay to have ship interiors for every vessel in the game. The concensus - and this is for people who want ship interiors - ranged from 'nothing' (about half) to a max of $10-$12.

I would suggest that's why ship interiors aren't in the game.

 

[SilentAssassin82]

The reason they are not going to do it is simple imo, They got lazy when they done the design on the ships ingame already and none of the scaling is correct and they probably will have trouble redesigning everything so it works, the whole getting in and out of the ship thing taking too long is a poor excuse if you ask me. The answer to that is simple, you enter and exit the ship the same way we do now and you can't get out of the seat in super cruise. But yeah no ship interiors is a serious disappointment for me.

 

[Taimaru]

If you really want Shiip Interiors (I do) you / we need to come up with a list of gameplay things you / we want to do with Ship Interiors instead of just saying "We want ship interiors". Otherwise if Frontier release Ship Interiors in the future then the forums will just be filled up with "Ship Interiors are boring after the 15th time" posts after its release. I guarentee it.

It happened with Space Legs. There were loads of "We want space legs" posts with no real indication of what people wanted to do with their legs. Now, within a couple of weeks of Odyssey's release I see posts saying "There's nothing to do Odyssey".

Also you / we need to ensure that the gameplay reason isn't something that people will just consider a "grind" or "it takes too long" after a couple of weeks of playing. Is fixing a ship, for example, going to get boring after a while?

One could say that's the job of the Game Designer, not us, to come up with gameplay reasons for Ship Interiors however there seems to be some disconnection between the Game Designers at Frontier and the Elite community. Whilst people have been saying Frontier need to communicate better so does the Elite community with constructive feedback (not just rants).

Maybe if we can suggest good gameplay reasons for having Ship Interiors Frontier "might" see a reason to spend their time (and it would require a lot of time), effort and money on Ship Interiors.

 

[[VR] James Constantine]

The short answer is resources. They don't have them in sufficient quantity (or perhaps even experience) to be able to develop and release everything on the players' wishlist - if they can't release a stable game to begin with, what chance is there for additional features. As such they had to prioritize what would be in the launch of Odyessy and ship interiors didn't make the cut - neither did on foot VR support, and that probably is a much higher priority.

A secondary reason is, as some have suggested, that the ship designs were not created with interiors in mind. As such it'll be quite difficult to make the interior look as if it is related to the exterieor and cram everything in there without making the ships look like they're a TARDIS. For example, had you considered how multiple SRV hangers would work? Different rooms? Each with access to the same exit? Or as one large room, storing all of the SRV's? And if the latter how are you going to render a room with a variable number of SRV's? Not saying it can't be done, but it would be a very special kind of headache for whomever has to come up with a programmable solution.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

I have no idea, how difficult it would be to add ship interiors in the Cobra engine nor do I know, whether or not the moving reference frame would be an issue. What I do have, though, are some random thoughts:

1. With the addition of the automatic super cruise assist, FDev has added an important prerequisite for ship-feet. Now, it’s possible to program your target and leave the seat to do something else while the ship still heads towards your goal. Admittedly, the addition might merely be a QoL feature that many asked for. But there could be also a more long term planing involved.

2. The “what can be done with ship interiors?”-question isn’t necessarily answered with activities on your own ship. Boarding other ships to capture criminals (I deliberately want to exclude PvP from my argument) might be a possibility. Or - even more interesting - ship interiors might come in the flavor of “wrecked”, which would make exploring crash sites or abandoned ships in space very, very interesting. (“Alien” meets Thargoids!)

3. Picture frames! Don’t laugh! Yes, picture frames! With customizable pictures (easy to exchange with a click and a link to a screen-shot folder) displayed in them. Because if anything, ED is a screen-shot generator! I am sure, explorers would love to have a souvenir of their most memorable findings! How would making your ship your home be easier than by decorating it with your most memorable moments of gaming? (Or, if you really insist, with the picture of your beloved ones, be it your spouse or your cat.)
Privacy considerations could be a thing, though. You don’t want a random intruder see a photo of your wife/children/dog. The solution would be to replace the the pictures with generic ones for anybody but yourself.

 

[zimms]

When they said "you will be able to walk inside your ship" during Kickstarter, that was just to get money from gullible supporters. They don't actually plan to implement that. Duh.

 

[Pigletslastand]

They even had a visual mock up of a commander getting out of his seat, it was very similar to the star citizen animation.

 

[GroG79]

This really is 'ship interior week' all over again.
I though we already had that... Perhaps it is 'ship interior month'?

 

[GroG79]

They even had a visual mock up of a commander getting out of his seat, it was very similar to the star citizen animation.

It is called a trailer. It means nothing

 

[Pigletslastand]

Tell that to a backer..

 

[Revan2610]

Just because someone has a "vision" for something and shares it, doesn't mean it will happen. That is common sense.

 

[Pigletslastand]

When someone promises something, people expect it, that is common sense.

 

[ULITE]

Even after the big boss mentioned it would be.

Just waiting for an answer.

I suppose lazyness, after making a half baked FPS there was no more time.
Or maybe the Elite Engine is not ready for players running around inside a ship while the ship is moving. I know that things like this can cause a lot of problems. I remember the time in Rust (the game) when they introduced the Cargo Ship, and there were problems with players running on deck while the Ship was moving, the animation was stuttering, but the game engine was Unity so they got around the problems.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Yeah i think they just can't do it right now. There are too many limitations at the mo. It'll come though, or else Braben is a liar.

 

[Revan2610]

When someone promises something, people expect it, that is common sense.

If my hazy memory is right, ship interiors were never "promised". I believe space-legs were promised which COULD lead to ship interiors.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Source: https://youtu.be/EM0Gcl7iUM8


2:40 onwards.. it's been in the very design of the game from launch

 

[PureEvilPie]

Just because someone has a "vision" for something and shares it, doesn't mean it will happen. That is common sense.

Peak forum moment, FDEV are apparently allowed to lie about the games they are making during their kickstarter and it's ALL GOOD! You know... if FDEV had tried to get capital funding and had lied to investors, we all know how that would pan out . But apparently because we are a bunch of suckers we are fine that FDEV lied to us when we invest in them.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Can we please stop calling the devs “lazy” for not adding ship interiors? (Or anything else, for what it matters.)

I am pretty sure, they don’t sit at a bar sipping drinks instead of working and adding the feature you want. Pretty sure.
So whatever the reason is - its probably not laziness! (Why is this insult even a thing, in internet forums? Does anybody really believe this?)

 

[Pigletslastand]

They will come, i just think they've hit technical hurdles and it's going to be in a much later release. David Braben likes things done correctly or else he'd just rush out a quick version, he's not going to do that. It may take years but I'm sure he'll get it right.

 

[Pigletslastand]

It's funny how listening to it now, David himself describes the gameplay that interiors would provide, how the ships were designed like that from the very outset and now people are saying they see no use in them.