ANNOUNCEMENT Odyssey: Update on VR and Ship Interiors

[Mohenjo]

I own both SC and Odyssey.

Both I have owned since their kickstarters.

One is perpetual alpha and the other just dropped to alpha.

Both are beautiful graphically and both are just as buggy.

Ships in Elite cost credits and they do alot, while ships in SC cost real money, but you can't do much. SC ships have walk around interiors while Elite ships have visible cockpit area's.

Both SC and Elite have shallow content.

Elite I have built quite a fleet and credits. SC is just a sandbox I wasted too much money on.

Which one? Elite was my first computer game in 1984 with many hours of fun and memories.

I hear that. Back when I was looking at buying one of the two, I ended up choosing Elite more for the nostalgia than anything.

Indeed, one of my favourite moments was when I returned to Lave for the first time. It felt truly epic, returning "home" after 30 years.

 

[Winterdyne]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as @Paul Eddington. Didn't back Elite at kickstarter/LEP stage, kind of wish I did as it wasn't really that much in the scheme of things. SC was cheaper at the time... but I've got tens of thousands of hours in Elite (from the original through F:E2, FFE and ED/Horizons/Odyssey).

You can grind for the entry level mining ship (mole I think) in the SC alpha in a reasonably short time if you run decent missions/trade routes (when/if the trading is working at the time). I've not actually played in a few patches, really should check it out, apparently the gas giant landing zone is dropping soon which could be interesting, especially if they rehash the racecourse there.

I disagree that you can't do much in SC - I think you can do 'more' than in Elite, but in a much, much more constrained space. The gameplay is much more 'immersive' - you definitely feel like a person, not a ship/business manager. But that's come with a massive development overhead. There are things being simulated which are borderline insane for a game project in my view. Conversely, Elite's ship-centric model definitely seems to be biting it in the butt right now.

As ever, Elite and SC are approaching the same target from different directions I think. One is historically overdeveloping and struggling under its own complexity to achieve feature stability, the other is underdeveloping and is built of oversimplified layers kludged together that at any point can't quite achieve the vision of the next stage.

It's worth saying if you're thinking of looking at SC that it's very, very resource-hungry. You absolutely need a decent rig (good CPU, 32Gb RAM, plenty VRAM and a chonky GPU), and critically, you really must install it on an SSD. Be prepared to spend a good amount of time fiddling with the config, too. They're really not bulling when they say it's alpha. It's interesting, can be fun, can be impressive, has some (mostly) stable gameplay loops, but it's not a full product yet. So, sort of like Odyssey cranked to ultra with more features in a single system.

 

[VR Lucian Arkright]

@Arthur Tolmie @Zac Cocken @Bruce G

VR feedback thread?

 

[jojon]

Didn't they say next tuesday, or was that about something else? ...or answers, rather than questions. by tuesday, perhaps?

 

[VR Lucian Arkright]

I could be wrong, but I thought Arthur said he was going to get Bruce to create a feedback thread, implying sooner rather than later.

 

[CMDR JENCK]

I got my Refund (

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I don't even own a VR setup, yet I still see this as a MASSIVE betrayal of the player base as a whole. Poor form, FDev, poor form.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

The decision not to commit to implementing ship interiors and on-foot VR anywhere down the line and after all fixes, even in a phased approach as has been suggested for both (step one being VR headcam on-foot, and just cockpits for interiors), is probably a good indicator of where immersion ranks in Frontier's current vision for the game, and by extension, an indicator of how much they've misunderstood the true appeal of this imagination-driven sim.

 

[Archhanny]

This thread aged frighteningly Well. After how they handled Oddysey I don't want to say I saw this coming but... Yeah... I saw this coming.

 

[VR - wickfut]

Can someone clarify if VR is unsupported in the game from now on or is it just unsupported in the FPS section of Odyssey?

Are future expansions/DLC etc not going to have VR support?
Are FD going to support new headsets when they become available?
Are FD going to fix any issues which arise with VR in the future?

Is what we have now all we are going to get?

 

[Riverside]

Can someone clarify if VR is unsupported in the game from now on or is it just unsupported in the FPS section of Odyssey?

Are future expansions/DLC etc not going to have VR support?
Are FD going to support new headsets when they become available?
Are FD going to fix any issues which arise with VR in the future?

Is what we have now all we are going to get?

There is no stated intention to remove existing VR functionality. Any more info than that would just be a guess.

 

[Bl4ckMage]

MISSED ADDITIONAL GAMEPLAY

A lack of ship interiors could simply be explained by Frontier Devs unwillingness to change the mesh of current ships. After all, should they modify the mesh they might break it and the old saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is perhaps true.

Unfortunately, the lack of ship interiors effectively prevents a whole new level of maintenance gameplay.

It would be great if internal modules broke down at random and then had to be repaired by:

a) walking around the ship to the affected area, and
b) using a set of engineered 'material upgraded hand tools' to conduct the repair.

The present system of simply pushing the AFMU button is too lazy.

This could bring so many cool gameplay features, like EVAs for instance or being able to perform component and craft from the inside of your ship. Imagine exploring asteroids or disabling vessels and boarding them. The abilty to walk to an hangar bay and boarding a fighter.
I mean the game is all about the commander and his ship, the whole elite series is about it. It is such a waste that Braben asked the team to consider the implementation of ship interiors from the very beggining, to see it not being implemented because someone thought building a shooter inside elite dangerous had higher priority.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

This thread aged frighteningly Well. After how they handled Oddysey I don't want to say I saw this coming but... Yeah... I saw this coming.

The writing was on the wall over 2 (maybe 3) years ago when David Braben out of the blue went from talking up vr to downplaying it for not being social with people in the same room and not being good enough.
At the same time they removed oculus from all their branding and the made for VR marketing.

At the time many accused me (and others who picked up on it) or being doom mongers.

I think it may finally be time to buy xrebirth VR.

 

[Gorrister]

I 100% agree, however, as the AFMU exists, why would anyone bother with the manual version?

I can assure you 100%, I would. All the time.

 

[Drelthar]

I can assure you 100%, I would. All the time.

Sure, for immersion, and that's great, but the average player would likely just hit the fix it button on the right panel unless there was some direct benefit to the manual version

 

[Riverside]

Sure, for immersion, and that's great, but the average player would likely just hit the fix it button on the right panel unless there was some direct benefit to the manual version

The benefit would surely be the ability to fix stuff even if no AFMU is fitted. Similarly for EVA the ability to repair the hull (or a broken canopy maybe).

 

[Drelthar]

The benefit would surely be the ability to fix stuff even if no AFMU is fitted. Similarly for EVA the ability to repair the hull (or a broken canopy maybe).

Sure, that works ish.

I'm totally for all kinds of stuff with interior/exterior ship things, just sometimes the design of the past confuses me considering they used to say they were designing with interiors in mind.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

The writing was on the wall over 2 (maybe 3) years ago when David Braben out of the blue went from talking up vr to downplaying it for not being social with people in the same room and not being good enough.
At the same time they removed oculus from all their branding and the made for VR marketing.

At the time many accused me (and others who picked up on it) or being doom mongers.

I think it may finally be time to buy xrebirth VR.

Yes, obviously David doesn’t like VR. It’s almost like he want to keep the experience as close as possible to the 80s game by forcing 2D on everyone.

He should retire and hand over to someone with flair and imagination. 8bit dinosaurs don’t like VR full stop.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

Honestly, they already have most of the assets they need to make ship interiors a reality. The hallways in buildings. The crew quarters. The labs. The cargo rooms. The reactor room. It's all there. They could add a few more rooms/areas, copy-paste these assets into a sensible layout per ship and there you go, there is your ship interiors.

There is enough already to even add gameplay to these interiors. Make it happen Fdev, you are more then halfway there to interiors.

The problem is that they overthink everything. We can’t land on Earth because because because...

It’s science fiction, they can do what they like but are always held back by their infuriating habit of overthinking.

Pre the ED beta, David released a 30min video all about carrying passengers. I mean, COME ON!

 

[Drelthar]

The problem is that they overthink everything. We can’t land on Earth because because because...

It’s science fiction, they can do what they like but are always held back by their infuriating habit of overthinking.

Pre the ED beta, David released a 30min video all about carrying passengers. I mean, COME ON!

And passenger missíons are re skinned cargo missions