Maybe something that could be added along with the ship interiors people keep asking about. Leave the airlock and go walkabout on your ship for a sneaky break-in on a station or outpost.
Just admit there's artificial gravity already
- Thread starter Galactic Fork
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AFAIK, one can be catapulted into space from a low gravity world with the help of a geyser, then relog and find oneself floating in space. Once arrived at this point one can use the jetpack for flying around and even walk on the outside of a ship thanks to the magnetic boots.
Personally I'd agree, just admit that we have artificial gravity as it makes the most sense when looking at how the game actually works. And actually one probably doesn't need the magnetic boots, as obviously we have some kind of antigravity device in our suits allowing us to walk normally on a 0.03g world.
Personally I'd agree, just admit that we have artificial gravity as it makes the most sense when looking at how the game actually works. And actually one probably doesn't need the magnetic boots, as obviously we have some kind of antigravity device in our suits allowing us to walk normally on a 0.03g world.
I know you're making a joke, but can you explain what's mind boggling about it?
Because as mentioned, the game is already crammed with "realism breaking" things, which can only be explained away with handwavium.
Instantaneous hyperspace between systems.
Being able to fly like a plane while traveling at superluminal speeds.
Solar prominences/CMEs that only take about 15 minutes.
Being able to see events occurring in real time that are happening light seconds/minutes away without delay.
Instantaneous communication across light years.
Beams of light (laser) which travel at the speed of projectiles, and not actually at the speed of light.
Flight assist basically being a "physics negator"
Suits and weapons costing more than medium sized ships.
And those are the things off the top of my head, which we as players conveniently ignore but are every bit as bad in terms of "breaking from realism" as a few bits of scruffy rubbish on the floor of a concourse. And that's fine, because at the end of the day this is a computer game we're talking about and not a molecular level advanced simulation of what life and travel in space would actually be like.
Its not artificial gravity, rather accumulated Kumo Enterprises (Burger, Kebab etc) grease that makes people, pizza boxes, ships etc stick to surfaces.
So not only does Kumo Burger solve galactic hunger, control the population, is tasty, nutritious and value for money, it also allows convenient zero G traversal.
So not only does Kumo Burger solve galactic hunger, control the population, is tasty, nutritious and value for money, it also allows convenient zero G traversal.
And lets not forget Super Cruise...
Also not forgetting breaking the light barrier without so much as a bump, nevermind without things blue and red shifting everywhere. Then there's the idea we can scoop hydrogen out of a star without vapourising. Plus there's those insane g turns we do without our eyes coming out of their sockets.
Then some bigger stuff. Why can we jump between systems 0.2 ly from each other except where it's Alpha Centauri and Proxima? Why do we have falloff to damage and a maximum range to projectile weapons in space? How does boosting speed work in real spaceflight? We can accept all of this because it's a game and it all leads to being a more interesting game.
Thing is looking at that list, it's fair to see why we'd agree a bunch of pizza boxes stuck in the floor is pretty trivial compared to the defiance of physics that we've already come to know with the game.
I couldn't agree more...
I think you might be confusing realism with verisimilitude. The examples you provide may irk some & not others of course, but in general the game should be presenting an internally consistent set of 'rules' for how the universe works in lore.
Telepresence is a good example of something that creates a problem here, that the ability to have a presence at a distance in an SRV turret is no problem, that's just like a VR helmet or viewfinder. Flying an SLF remotely is fine too, we have remote drones with cameras in them IRL. Joining another ship on the other side of the galaxy is tech that could plausibly be retconned but in doing so it makes the fundamental reason for us all flying our ships moot, hence the occasional attempts to retcon this kind of mechanism in a way that suggests it's all telepresence, or all an illusion. Well of course it is, it's a game
But it creates an issue with internal consistency, not necessarily scientific accuracy. Light travels instantly in ED, our ship & flight suit somehow protect us from high-G, ships have safety protocols that make them environmentally safer even at the expense of it's pilot's life and escape capsules are 100% infallible and travel nearly instantaneously. Incredible but consistent.Now I haven't docked at anything other than a carrier in months, but my understanding was that at some point shortly after Odyssey release the litter was removed from zero-G environments (outposts, megaships & carriers) and only found in rotating stations & ground bases where there is a downward force.
The way zero-G has been dealt with by the game is not great. Personally I was looking forward to being able to use the 6-DoF flight model, having an ability to switch off my mag-boots and fly my suit around. It didn't happen. We are prevented from jumping in all dock social areas whether zero-G or not, but be are not prevented from running, with the animation clearly showing both feet off the ground. We sit in chairs and interact in environments clearly designed with gravity in mind. This is disappointing. But it's also easy to forget about because in lots of other sci-fi universes artificial gravity is a thing (for verisimilitude and in no small part ease of filming).
Hence the proposal in the OP.
I think part of the issue there comes from both carrier interiors and being able to sit down in them very much being as a result of player demands. Now I'd suggest that the former is fair enough, but what we seem to be doing with the latter seems to be (as a whole) asking for the ability to sit down then when FDev implement it we complain it's not realistic.I think you might be confusing realism with verisimilitude. The examples you provide may irk some & not others of course, but in general the game should be presenting an internally consistent set of 'rules' for how the universe works in lore.
Telepresence is a good example of something that creates a problem here, that the ability to have a presence at a distance in an SRV turret is no problem, that's just like a VR helmet or viewfinder. Flying an SLF remotely is fine too, we have remote drones with cameras in them IRL. Joining another ship on the other side of the galaxy is tech that could plausibly be retconned but in doing so it makes the fundamental reason for us all flying our ships moot, hence the occasional attempts to retcon this kind of mechanism in a way that suggests it's all telepresence, or all an illusion. Well of course it is, it's a game
Now I haven't docked at anything other than a carrier in months, but my understanding was that at some point shortly after Odyssey release the litter was removed from zero-G environments (outposts, megaships & carriers) and only found in rotating stations & ground bases where there is a downward force.
The way zero-G has been dealt with by the game is not great. Personally I was looking forward to being able to use the 6-DoF flight model, having an ability to switch off my mag-boots and fly my suit around. It didn't happen. We are prevented from jumping in all dock social areas whether zero-G or not, but be are not prevented from running, with the animation clearly showing both feet off the ground. We sit in chairs and interact in environments clearly designed with gravity in mind. This is disappointing. But it's also easy to forget about because in lots of other sci-fi universes artificial gravity is a thing (for verisimilitude and in no small part ease of filming).
Hence the proposal in the OP.
Of course as a response to this, they could come up with some lore as to how artificial gravity works, to which we'd then get threads on how it's not good enough. "Here's a list of reasons why that thing you didn't want to do is wrong" is not exactly a good motivator for a group of staff who have got to be feeling at least a little battered by now.
Maybe a neater solution is we can't run without launching ourselves in the air and floating about helplessly in low g environments. Seems awful, but solves the realism problem without developing a whole new and complex jet pack solution.
Big gravity oops in carrier design:
We have an armed security guard and locked elevator to the command deck. Even though the command deck is fully open (in 3D space) to the observation room.
We have an armed security guard and locked elevator to the command deck. Even though the command deck is fully open (in 3D space) to the observation room.
I agree that preventing running in zero-G environments would make sense, and it seems clear to me it's a concession to playability (it would be frustrating to not be able to move more quickly).
Nevertheless I don't think it was handled all that well and I disagree that it couldn't have been handled much, much better than it was. Maybe we'll get a 6-DoF flight model for the suits if we ever get EVA? Hope so, not holding my breath though.
Just conceding that gravity plating has been invented would also be disappointing (compared to creating a workable zero-G environment that would be frustrating in different ways for many players and an extremely cool USP for others) but it would at least allow for a more internally consistent game environment at little expense to the Dev team.
That would be easily solved with some glass partitions.
First time I tried I was a little disappointed that I couldn't walk off the edge to get down to the lower area though
Some (a minority) of the physics defying phenomena are necessary for gameplay and have appropriate context, but the pizza boxes and similar oversights are not.
Areas of extremely low gravity could simply have all the garbage cleaned up, some more prominent fasteners placed around, and standard containers replaced with pouches or the like.
If we want to retain the familiar clutter that would be an outright hazard in microgravity, it can be relegated to outposts in proximity to objects with significant gravity, and instead of having those outposts in orbital free fall they can levitate, with thrusters. The single best established facet of the game's underlying technology is that we have engines with fantastic specific impulse. The game depicts such efficient engines that using them should be a nearly universal explanation for why some areas appear to lack provisions for microgravity. Only surface outposts on extremely low gravity worlds or the odd asteroid base would actually be kept from simulating gravity with constant acceleration.
Even if I accept the technologies currently depicted as a given, I don't consider antigravity a rational implication.
I don't have a plausible real-world explanation for personal shields that can stop bullets cold (or bullets that would need to be stopped with the sort of anemic kinetic energy EDO small arms would seem to deliver), but an anti-gravity force field is considerably more far fetched than necessary and wouldn't even begin explain how the shields would stop massless photons unless it was so potent that it could radically warp localized space (which would have major, undesirable, implications).
Conversely, looking at the shield covering the slot at a starport and assuming it has to be some force field that directly interacts with the atmosphere inside the docking tube is like like finding a burning tree after a thunderstorm and presenting it as evidence of Klingon disruptor fire, rather than lightning. We already have technology (plasma windows) that, if scaled up to a currently impractical, but far from physically impossible degree, could do that, without any exotic physics that would allow us to subvert or manipulate gravitational interactions.
I accept them because I have no choice.
As far as I am concerned, very few of these things lead to a better game (FTL travel is about the only fantasy I consider absolutely mandatory in delivering a real-time Elite-like experience and that already has a lot of baggage attached). Further compounding the nonsense, where it's not even the path of least resistance, let alone the only viable path, doesn't appeal to me.
We have thrusters that can counter 11g+ acceleration, continually, for the better part of a day, on vessels with fuel fractions on the order of 1%. An FC could just fly in a circle indefinitely and simulate gravity that way. All they'd need to do is animate it so you'd see the FC do that if you turned rotational correction off in it's vicinity.
The jetpack solution is already there. All suits allow CMDRs to change direction in mid-air and adding persistent downforce in outdoor environments would be a trivial addition. Indoors, the magnetic slippers or whatever, could simply not allow both feet to be disengaged simultaneously below a certain speed, and past that speed intermittent downforce from the thrusters could enable fairly convincing running. Again, all that would need to be done to make that simulated walking/running immersive would be to animate it.
Of course, running would hardly be the fastest or most efficient means of travel in micro gravity and it would be nice if more rational forms of movement and movement assistance were implemented, but that would be a lot more work.
Pushing off surfaces and a rocket pack that can provide frequent boosts of low kilonewton-level thrust would be way faster in low gravity than sprinting is 1g environments.
The fastest unencumbered humans on real-world Earth can manage about 20 kph over long distances while running. I'd be surprised if the flight suit's rockets couldn't manage much more that at ~0.1g...significantly stronger than that and you'd just be able to run (though it would be a bounding stride) or skip efficiently.
We pretty much do this already in outdoor environments in EDO. What we are missing is the ability to push-off of and climb arbitrary surfaces indoors. This is part of what makes the whole first-person experience seem bolted on...we've got a six-degrees-of-freedom space game that now has an infantry experience in microgravity, but we're always limited by a very firmly defined up and down, with no ability to 'roll'; we've lost an entire degree.
Not directly related to the OP's proposal but I agree being able to interact with a zero-G environment using flight suit thrusters would be very, very cool. And unlike most other FPS-style games (I am not personally interested in them generally), ED already has a suitable flight model that could be adapted to suits. It would change Odyssey's value proposition considerably in my eyes.
I note that we had seats and NPCs sitting long before players could.
All these people quoting the flight model have never looked carefully at their ships. In FA off and without rotational correction, the flight model is pure intertial. When you turn on those 'assists' your thrusters fire to give you the plane style flight model - this is just a control system making your ship easy to pilot - like saying cruise control is non physical in your car..
It's not pure inertial otherwise you'd be able to boost forward forever in FA off and continuously gain speed. Ships still have a max thruster speed even with FA off. Your ship even loses speed after a boost with FA off despite having no corrective thrust.
The most realistic depiction of a pure inertial flight system I can think of is the one in The Expanse. But in order for that to work, ships need to be designed "vertically" to avoid the crew being killed by the gravity. The front-facing cockpit seats in Elite automatically make it incapable of being used in a realistic gravity situation, unless the chair itself is the thing that provides the artificial gravity, and that all crew is disallowed from walking on board the ship while it accelerates/decelerates.