[Megathread] Odyssey EVA suggestions thread

proxyalpha

Banned
P
Here's a way I had in mind to implement EVA, which I created after watching one of GhostGiraffe's streams.
  • add welding mode to Maverick cutting tool
  • let us target (or at least tell apart, like an x-ray highlight in our hud) and repair (or damage) individual modules on ships granted we are close enough on foot
  • allow us to repair our powerplant and canopy using this method
  • let us use our jetpack (or some similar tech) to maneuver, however slowly, in the weightless vacuum of space
  • let us leave the ship while in space, with a tether attached, if the following conditions are met:
    • The ship can hold itself in place with its own thrusters, a.k.a. the thrusters are strong enough to counteract the current body's gravity
    • The environment isn't too hazardous (calculated using distance to star)
    • The landing gear is deployed
    • The ship or its owner aren't in combat
    • The thrusters are enabled (or they can enable themselves when leaving)
    • the ship is flying at less than 20m/s and not rotating too fast
  • Events that will cause all commanders tethered to a ship to be pulled back "fade-to-black" style:
    • the ship taking damage from a deliberate source (attacked)
    • being pushed too hard/fast either by an object in the environment or another entity, in other words, if the ship's velocity is forced to go over reasonable limits
    • negative or immediately-threatening status effects, like caustic or shutdown pulse
    • anything else that makes piloting the ship a top priority
  • Tether behavior:
    • Tether attaches to the normal exit spot on the ship and arches outwards depending on the cmdr's position relative to the entry/exit point
    • Tether length allows approaching at least the farthest module from the entry/exit spot
    • If the ship is slowly moving or rotating, the cmdr automatically inherits its movement while tethered (or is pulled along, whatever is more convenient to code)
    • cmdr-to-ship collision deals no damage if the cmdr is tethered to said ship, and is pushed outwards in case of clipping
    • anyone on-foot who has permission to dock (owner and teammates, provided team boarding is enabled), can see a visible marker on the ship's entry/exit point, allowing them to interact and board, resupply or connect a tether.
    • max tethered players to a single ship is the same as the team crew seats (1 owner + extra seats)
    • tether allows detaching, which will prompt only the owner with a warning, stating that "The ship and/or its owner could be forcefully relocated by external factors while performing untethered EVA; Proceed at your own risk".
    • if the ship is destroyed, all tethered commanders are untethered and maybe even damaged, depending on their distance to the powerplant module
  • Untethered, space-bound behavior:
    • Mechanically, the game handles weightless movement very well as it is, as seen in giraffe's stream, which I'll link below; all that's needed now is the ability to maneuver in all directions
  • Apex can now be called in space to pick up lost, space-bound commanders, with shuttles having a similar boarding prompts at their entry point
  • your own ship can be called to pick you up, like while being on a planet, as long as you are not falling inside a planet's gravity field; falling players can still be rescued by other players with Interstellar-like stunts
[click for Ghost Giraffe livestream]
 

Coehoorn

Coehoorn
I like it and feel like the basics would be easy to accomplish. The rest (repairs, apex, etc.) could be added in little steps.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
But what about the elephant in the room? Everything regarding current on foot experience is designed that we have gravity, even space outposts, where we have no gravity, everything is designed as we do... trying to justify it with you have to have your mag boots enabled... but then everything in the outpost is designed as if there was gravity, open top glasses on the bar. stuff hangs in the shop like we have gravity, etc.
Take a look at our own cockpits, that we can't move around in, look at the newer ships, like the Kraits cockpits, as it is quite clear, that these are designed with a "gravity" downward force, for moving around etc, and it is more obvious in these ships compared to the older ones, as we have more stuff in the cockpit.


So before even addressing this issue, having any sorts of EVA is pretty pointless.

One thing why I think we do not have walkable ships, is all the problems with having no artificial gravity, take one of the larger ships, Beluga, Corvette, Cutter. Have a friend board your ship, and walk as far to the front or back as they can. Now just rotate your ship in any direction on the spot, without any artificial Gravity, your friend should be flung against the walls, floors and ceiling depending on what direction your rotating in. But with the current "mag boots" cheese, this will of course not happen...
A corvette is 167 meters long, and if we rotate it around its axis, we have have a lever that is ~80 meters (half of 167 rounded down) if you are in the front or back of the ship. and with the rate of rotation we can achieve with those ships, there are not insignificant forces at play here.

Think about how the simple play ground see saw works, the the longer you make it, the faster the ends will go. I would not want to be at the ends of a 160 meter long see saw,
 

proxyalpha

Banned
P
The design "issue" you are describing is quire frankly an acceptable simplification of fairly complex behavior that would take a long time to implement and account for every single place in the game where such behavior would have consequences.

For instance, if the game would be realistic about forces exerted on commanders, we would become mangled corpses everytime we rammed a static object at high speeds. And if you for some reason think that's a good idea, or if the Krait cockpit rubiks cube being welded to the table bothers you, please keep in mind this is very likely not the direction FDev want to take the game.

As for the game in its current state, while interior-design-wise it doesn't seem to be built around weightlessness (I just assume small scale gravity machines in outposts), from a mechanical standpoint, as seen in D2EA's and GhostGiraffe's videos, the game already has a solid foundation for zero-gravity behavior.
 
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Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
proxyalpha said:
As for the game in its current state, while interior-design-wise it doesn't seem to be built around weightlessness (I just assume small scale gravity machines in outposts), from a mechanical standpoint, as seen in D2EA's and GhostGiraffe's videos, the game already has a solid foundation for zero-gravity behavior.
Click to expand...
But we do not have any gravity machines, the lore have excluded those, so assuming something that is not part of the lore as the reason things works that should not work, is just bad.
And yet, it is only on ships we can experience this zero gravity, and yet, all the ships have cockpits designed as we did have artifical gravity..
 

proxyalpha

Banned
P
Wait, maybe you've got this wrong. I said EVA, as in Extra-Vehicular Activities. Which means outside the ship. I never once mentioned ship interiors. I think EVA can be made with the current fade-to-black exit animation.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
and you still have the same issues.. plant your mag boots on the nose of a friends ship and then have your friend rotate the ship.. same issue as if you did it inside the ship. And if we skip the mag boots on the hull, to avoid this, then why do we have mag boots inside outposts and presumably inside our ships...

You will sooner or later have to address this issue.
 

zikolach

zikolach
Misty_Dark said:
Take a look at our own cockpits, that we can't move around in, look at the newer ships, like the Kraits cockpits, as it is quite clear, that these are designed with a "gravity" downward force, for moving around etc, and it is more obvious in these ships compared to the older ones, as we have more stuff in the cockpit.
Click to expand...
What if all we see in the cockpits is just A projection to entertain us. In reality with projection being switched off we'll see just empty square-shaped room perfectly suitable for zero-gravity movements.

On the serious side currently we have very limited set of animations for on-foot models. Why e.g. we cannot jump and swing our legs, being forced to hold them in one position?
 

proxyalpha

Banned
P
If your friend moves the ship, you get pushed/hit. Easy as that. If you're tethered to that ship, you don't take as much damage and you either get pulled along or you inherit the ship's vectors. Doesn't need to make sense. It needs to feel good and be fun.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
proxyalpha said:
If your friend moves the ship, you get pushed/hit. Easy as that. If you're tethered to that ship, you don't take as much damage and you either get pulled along or you inherit the ship's vectors. Doesn't need to make sense. It needs to feel good and be fun.
Click to expand...
so out with logic and consistency, in with whatever you can dream up and say that is fine. just ignore whatever rules and limitations that the game world has.
 

Dragorion

Dragorion
Misty_Dark said:
Take a look at our own cockpits, that we can't move around in, look at the newer ships, like the Kraits cockpits, as it is quite clear, that these are designed with a "gravity" downward force, for moving around etc, and it is more obvious in these ships compared to the older ones, as we have more stuff in the cockpit.
Click to expand...
Which is quite trivial given that they are able to land on planets, which, you know.. have gravity. You cannot expect these ships to have interior like the ISS which is simply unsuitable to gravitational environments. But using mag boots inside such ships in zero gravity shouldn't be an issue.
 

Misty_Dark

Misty_Dark
Dragorion said:
Which is quite trivial given that they are able to land on planets, which, you know.. have gravity. You cannot expect these ships to have interior like the ISS which is simply unsuitable to gravitational environments. But using mag boots inside such ships in zero gravity shouldn't be an issue.
Click to expand...

So comparing a space ship with a space station....

ISS is more comparable to outposts, and a better comparison to our ships would be the space shuttle or something like the proposed Big Falcon.

And those magical mag boots fixes the open glasses in the bar how? how do you "sit" down with mag boots? also, why would you walk with mag boots in zero gravity, when it would be so much easier to just float around? Makes not much sense.
 

CMDR Yami Sukehiro

CMDR Yami Sukehiro
At one point Ship Interiors will most definitely be on the roadmap for the game and when we get it EVA will most likely come along we don't need to worry about that. I believe next year they will be announcing these plans considering all this updates regarding megaship interiors and FC interiors coming. the only reason we still didn't get ship interiors is due to the ability to fit every ship for whatever you want. if we had something more restricted like the ships in SC for example we probably would already have it or close to. EVA would be implemented in the sequence.
 

Dragorion

Dragorion
Misty_Dark said:
So comparing a space ship with a space station....

ISS is more comparable to outposts, and a better comparison to our ships would be the space shuttle or something like the proposed Big Falcon.
Click to expand...
You missed the argument. I said you cannot compare it, like you implicitly did, not that one should compare it.

Misty_Dark said:
And those magical mag boots fixes the open glasses in the bar how? how do you "sit" down with mag boots?
Click to expand...
Probably because they are well-programmed to allow for walking around to feel natural, just like the whole spacesuit. (Like, constantly adjusting the magnetic intensity based on the individual movements.)

Misty_Dark said:
also, why would you walk with mag boots in zero gravity, when it would be so much easier to just float around? Makes not much sense.
Click to expand...
Because it wouldn't, see above. Your assumption that it would be easier to float around makes no sense. Humans have bodies meant to be agile in gravitational environments, not in the absence of it.
 

bangermsuk

bangermsuk
my implications on that was why cant they just landed and run out the back. not just sit on a robotic arm and get flung down, can you really imagine that happen in RL on a Alien planet. I think Fdev got that idea from the film "starship troopers".
 

Dragorion

Dragorion
bangermsuk said:
my implications on that was why cant they just landed and run out the back. not just sit on a robotic arm and get flung down, can you really imagine that happen in RL on a Alien planet. I think Fdev got that idea from the film "starship troopers".
Click to expand...
Why would they? It is faster the way it is. And there are thrusters (and shields) on the suits, so falling damage is not an issue.
 
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