Just admit there's artificial gravity already

[Ceres_O7]

I think making Elite work as-is requires a few corrections to the lore and to zero-g concourses. Just retcon the "no artificial gravity" thing and instead say "only pilot chairs and fleet carrier jump seats are able to keep people alive at extreme G forces". And then remove gravity defying decals from concourses, replace bar glasses with bottles on outposts and carriers.

High G planets make sense then, it's your pilot chair that allows you to survive. But you cant get up from it. Maybe you can withstand just long enough to get to the SRV seat and back.

But from then on the artificial gravity problem is more-or-less solved from an on-foot perspective.

 

[Morbad]

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.

Within the absolute speed caps, it is fully Newtonian and even the caps aren't hard ones, they are enforced by forces applied to the vessel by the simulated thrust.

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.

I think it's pretty much a given that even augmented humans in fancy suits would be killed during combat maneuvers if they weren't secured to their seats.

For travel, the orientation of the seats doesn't matter much for vessels that can accelerate in any direction...or for peak acceleration during maneuvers with ships that can accelerate at 30g+ for several seconds at a time while boosting or breaking. Also, Elite ships don't need to create gravity via constant acceleration during travel as they have FTL drives.

Anyway, the layout of most ships can be explained by where they tend to spend most of their time...docked, landing gear down, at starports with simulated gravity or on planet surfaces with the real thing. Those looking to the ship design as an argument for artificial gravity probably think my folding camper is impossible because you can't use the toilet in it while it's on the road.

 

[Ceres_O7]

I suppose that artificial gravity already exists in Elite in the form of supercruise - there's no way the pilot is experiencing the amount of gravity they realistically should be when accelerating up to 200c.

I don't really have an issue with the design of ships because having the chairs be the handwavium required to justify how you can boost up to 932m/s from 0 in a racing Viper is good enough for me. I mainly think they should do a second pass of outpost and fleet carrier concourse designs. Carriers are mostly alright anyway, but outposts simply don't make sense.

And I do think it's important to set some clear logic for if/when ship interiors arrive and they need to decide whether to let us walk around ships that are in motion or not.

 

[Brrokk]

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.

Not only is it not inertial in this way, there are extra non-physical bodges to nerf FA-off.

In the good old days there was an interesting escape-from-combat method. FA-off... boost... pitch 90 degrees... boost. The end result of this, if you think about it, is that you should be traveling at sqrt(2) times your usual boost speed at 45 degrees to both the boosts you did.

For some reason FD decided this was an exploit and somehow patched it so that your speed in a boost direction depends on speed components perpendicular to it! Flight is nothing like inertial, even with FA-off.

The design philosophy seems to be that the flight model is meant to set up for WW1 fighter-ace combat. It's fun, but it bears no resemblance to anything that would happen in space.

 

[yelboc]

If you want an example of true physics screw ups you should look at the way your head moves under acceleration. Compare left right with up down and you will soon realise that the up down effect is reversed and thus in contradiction to simple newtonian mechanics. Go try it if you like and then imagine yourself in a plane or a fairground ride - this must qualify for the longest running bug in the game.

 

[Ronzer]

I like the idea of the magboots, but they should allow us to walk around the outside of an outpost too...like, keep the idea of magboots, but you also need mag-cups and also magnets in our spacesuit bottoms, so we can sit...but if power dissipates, you float.
Also, I find it a bit odd that, in EDO, we have settlements where we can run around, jump, use jet packs, walk all over any objects, ships included, then we have station concourses and planetary ports where we're bound, to the floor, just as if we're in our ships seat. No way to jump up onto our ships, while it's docked...why not?
Why not make the planetary ports out of the same base models as the settlements? I wish I knew coding and whatever that would entail...but you can see what Im suggesting there, yes? Redo the planetary ports, the way settlements have been made...you know...with doors, so we can just walk out onto the planets surface, etc. And then follow suit at least with outposts. Go through a space door, and you can bounce around the exterior of the outpost.
And stop with the handholding. If I do something, step off a ledge and I fly away from the outpost, and die, ok....I die, too, if I get shot 200 times, and I get sent back to the outpost, or whatever. No big deal. In a starport, if I walk over the edge where the ship is rotated...splat..Im ok with that...but invisible barriers? No thanks.

 

[Profane_Pagan]

Instead of throwing out one key priniciple of a 38 years old franchise the easiest solution would be to ammend the inconsistencies.
Trash don't float and some assets don't reflect the microgravity? Then the assets need to be developed. Anti-gravity and inertia dampeners have far-reaching consequences which create more problems in this established franchise -game.

The inconsistencies - I think - are caused because of time constraints and limited resources during EDO's production. Elite Dangerous is not a monolithic immutable entity -it constantly changes its form. This is how many different station space layouts were added later in-game many years ago. The same can be done with space port interiors too. That is the easiest, albeit somewhat expensive solution.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It's time to just accept it. Odyssey makes no sense without it. It's OK, we already have tons of other space magic. One more won't hurt. I've never understood why Artificial Gravity was somehow more space magic than hyperspace jumps or Supercruise, anyway. How is that the line? I

because FD made a huge deal about elite not having nor would it ever have fake gravity but that hyperspace IS part of the game rules.

At this point i would probably use the example of startrek....... they have beam tech, but it is very limited, it can be blocked, but at the same time ships cant instant jump. and that is ok because those are the rules set in the star trek universe.

But then Discovery happened......................... so there goes that thought blown out of the water

I have gotten over it, it is what it is. I have re adjusted my expectations of the levels of detail in elite in terms of things like that. The days of claims that every ship is designed with utility in mind ready for internals, with things like handles on the ceiling for moving about in zero G are long gone and the developers who cared about that may not even be at FD any more.

it is what it is.... damn shame imo, there was a game Hellion, and whilst the PvP aspect had less than zero interest to me, the actual mechanics of the game in space were for me perfect for how i would like to see space legs..... but I now accept that is not going to happen - and given that the game Helion failed, perhaps FD are right not to go that route and instead go bullet sponge shooter... i dunno.

i dont mind mag boots, but for instance cutting off the power to a base would have an effect if we wore magboots. i know planets arenot zero g and never will be, but they would still have an effect if turned on or off.

 

[Galactic Fork]

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.

It's weird, cause we're making the same point but in different directions I guess?

• Instantaneous hyperspace between systems.
• Being able to fly like a plane while traveling at superluminal speeds.
• Flight assist basically being a "physics negator"
• Beams of light (laser) which travel at the speed of projectiles, and not actually at the speed of light.
• Instantaneous communication across light years.

These listed were kind of my point. They're all space magic. Space magic defined and accepted within game. They aren't denied but done anyway. There was no, "Hyperspace travel is too much space magic for us and will never be done," followed by an expansion with rules and designs that make no sense without hyperspace, but still not acknowledging hyperspace.

It's not "wot breaks da immershin" because it doesn't make sense, it breaks "da immershin" because this was a hill they were really willing to die on. Now they've blown up that hill but won't accept it's gone.

"Suits and weapons costing more than medium sized ships." Not sure how this fits, it's just bad economics. Or that Frontier Supplies has such a massive monopoly on supplying the 3 suits and 11 guns available for use in the whole galaxy. Either way, it's not like Frontier said from the start that personal weapons will be realistically priced compared to ships and then wordlessly did this.

 

[Galactic Fork]

Instead of throwing out one key priniciple of a 38 years old franchise the easiest solution would be to ammend the inconsistencies.
Trash don't float and some assets don't reflect the microgravity? Then the assets need to be developed. Anti-gravity and inertia dampeners have far-reaching consequences which create more problems in this established franchise -game.

The inconsistencies - I think - are caused because of time constraints and limited resources during EDO's production. Elite Dangerous is not a monolithic immutable entity -it constantly changes its form. This is how many different station space layouts were added later in-game many years ago. The same can be done with space port interiors too. That is the easiest, albeit somewhat expensive solution.

OK! First I want to ask what are the far reaching consequences of artificial gravity that would create more problems?

Second, When Elite dangerous came out, there was no in system superluminal travel. It was all thrusters you could fast forward through. Then Elite Dangerous came along and threw out that key principle of a 28 year old franchise. Why? Because the in the old games, the players were alone. In multiplayer each person fast forwarding their travel at different rates would make it impossible to share the same world. So Supercruise was born. It was easy to keep something out when there was no affect on gameplay.

Fast forward to today (or engage stardreamer). We now have spacelegs. It was easy to dismiss artificial gravity when we never left our ships so it didn't affect much other than tangentially. But with space legs and some station interiors, it's now something that directly affects gameplay. The existing designs more reflect an environment with artificial gravity (not just the specific items, but the layout as well). While I'd be all for them redoing assets to better express 0g environments, I personally think that ship has sailed. I think it has the potential to improve gameplay while not actually hurting existing gameplay because until Odyssey, whether or not there was artificial gravity was functionally irrelevant.

 

[Profane_Pagan]

It's microgravity not zero gravity. If you know the difference, you can have an idea why is it such a huge task to model them in Elite.
Fork, why are you so upset with the fact that Newtonian laws of physics are the cornerstone of this franchise even though its art in some places have some inconsistencies? It's like arguing against the Force in Star Wars and agitating for deleting the idea of Force or whatever. it's retconing, it won't happen.

You forget that there was Frontier Elite II and Encounters? Bear in mind this franchise has literature as well -this is why I am refering to it as a - franchise - not just a game. It has books too.
I loved Frontier Elite II so I am fully aware of the differences of the interstellar engines in the lore. Both used scientifically plausible so called Warp Bubbles (at least plausible in supercruise if we use Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire's paper on Physical Warp Drives). The difference between the games is the fact that one engine took in-game days to travel from star to star, the other engine takes seconds. Yes because ED is an MMO.

Still. Surely you have noticed the inertial effects of flying with flight assist off. Or the megaships which look like flying skyscrapers for a reason. (I would rotate megaship interiors on x axis -it wouldn't solve every inconsistencies, but would solve the problem of why do we see trash on the floor: because the drives of the megaship would push them to the deck's floor -even if they are used once a week) it's good until Frontier develops weightlesnes for props -but now people want good performance first - surely they don't want unoptimized trash floating in the air?

Inertial dampeners in a game where law of motion exists would make Elite look like any other sci -fi games you know. I understand people don't know the possibilities of Newtonian physics on-foot (they are not here yet), but it baffles me that they want Elite to look like other creatively bankrupt sci-fi space operas.
As I said overhauled assets can solve the inconsistencies of the art. But it's still a game which don't want to frustrate us. Like we get a jetpack and the game lets us run around on a planetoid instead of making Elite into a QWOP game. Yeah, you couldn't run on the surface of the Moon.

But I don't know if you have noticed but when you kill an enemy their lifeless body drop to the ground according to the gravity of the planet which itself travels through space in real time. Or when your instance synchs out when you are in a spaceport (due to a rare bug) and your ship smashes to the inner side of the hangar -it happens because the station flies with hundreds of kilometers per second in real time. Newtonian physics are modeled in the game, the game just synchs you up with the star base or the megaship when you arrive there. For gameplay reasons.


I am pretty sure the art design of outpost and megaship interiors didn't get as much expert oversight as the interiors of the settlements. Basically they used the assets of rotating spaceports because of time constraints. Again, it's just art design -since we use starport interiors to exclusively just walk around - a revamped art design can amend the problem without impeding gameplay. I am pretty well read about the adverse effects of microgravity environment and the ways we can mitigate them, I know there are a lot of different ways to rationalize current space port and megaship interiors in their art. I am saying this as set designer. EDO's megaship and outpost sets need more work, but with some shaders, some 3D and 2D assets they can be revised as an immersive rational microgravity experience. I can do it in movies, so I have ideas for games as well (it's is just a different subject -and this is already a TL ; DL reply). You need to see them as their development of said interiors are halted, but not finished. Since ED is in de facto perpetual Beta, they can be perceived as temporary assets. This work just needs more resources, but they are not Frontier's priority at the moment.

 

[V'larr]

Sometimes games are better off without explicit explanations for things.

I thought we all learned that with "telepresence".

 

[Profane_Pagan]

Sometimes games are better off without explicit explanations for things.

I thought we all learned that with "telepresence".

Which is canonically being phased out. The only reason it is still in the game because there are players who still play Horizons.

 

[Frankymole]

You can see artificial gravity every time you watch a Beluga dock. The passengers are sipping their cocktails without spilling any all through those high-g manoeuvres.

That's inertia... not gravity...

 

[Frankymole]

Which is canonically being phased out. The only reason it is still in the game because there are players who still play Horizons.

Multicrew is being phased out?

 

[ubermick]

Multicrew is being phased out?

News to me. They just added chairs comparatively recently to several ships, so teams of four can fly together.

 

[Frankymole]

News to me. They just added chairs comparatively recently to several ships, so teams of four can fly together.

There we go then. Telepresence alive and well.

 

[Ceres_O7]

Instead of throwing out one key priniciple of a 38 years old franchise the easiest solution would be to ammend the inconsistencies.
Trash don't float and some assets don't reflect the microgravity? Then the assets need to be developed. Anti-gravity and inertia dampeners have far-reaching consequences which create more problems in this established franchise -game.

The inconsistencies - I think - are caused because of time constraints and limited resources during EDO's production. Elite Dangerous is not a monolithic immutable entity -it constantly changes its form. This is how many different station space layouts were added later in-game many years ago. The same can be done with space port interiors too. That is the easiest, albeit somewhat expensive solution.

To be honest I don't think the rubbish and drink glasses in outposts and everything are a feature of a rushed development - it's more a feature of their art direction. I think they wanted outposts to give this... backwater rundown truckstop vibe. The bar is noticeably more like an old diner on outposts, and it's darker, less like the lounge-style bars of the Starports.

That said I agree that the solution is to do another art design pass on outpost concourses.

 

[Ceres_O7]

Multicrew is being phased out?

They meant telepresence, but no telepresence isn't being phased out either... Fighters and SRV turrets still use it and that's highly unlikely to change.

The only difference is that physical multicrew exists now, with the benefit of being able to disembark (as far as I know you can't do that over telepresence multicrew), and the added "benefit" of having a disconnection during a supercruise jump stranding your crewmate on a planet without a ship.

 

[Galactic Fork]

It's microgravity not zero gravity. If you know the difference, you can have an idea why is it such a huge task to model them in Elite.
Fork, why are you so upset with the fact that Newtonian laws of physics are the cornerstone of this franchise even though its art in some places have some inconsistencies? It's like arguing against the Force in Star Wars and agitating for deleting the idea of Force or whatever. it's retconing, it won't happen.

It's not simply the "art in some places" it's the physical environment in game. Below you talk about it being a long franchise with deep lore, but now you reduce hundreds of stations to "some art." I am not asking them to retcon it. I am saying they've ALREADY retconned it by their very design of Odyssey, so they should just own it. This isn't a current technology issue like some of the physics in the galaxy generation, it's a design and modelling choice that went through countless stages of approvals to make it a part of the world.

You forget that there was Frontier Elite II and Encounters? Bear in mind this franchise has literature as well -this is why I am refering to it as a - franchise - not just a game. It has books too.
I loved Frontier Elite II so I am fully aware of the differences of the interstellar engines in the lore. Both used scientifically plausible so called Warp Bubbles (at least plausible in supercruise if we use Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire's paper on Physical Warp Drives). The difference between the games is the fact that one engine took in-game days to travel from star to star, the other engine takes seconds. Yes because ED is an MMO.

Yeah, no. The original didn't use warp bubbles, it used hyperspace. Closest thing to the Alcubierre drive is supercruise. But hyperspace is firmly in the realm of space magic along side artificial gravity, whether hyperspace takes a week or a few seconds.

Still. Surely you have noticed the inertial effects of flying with flight assist off. Or the megaships which look like flying skyscrapers for a reason. (I would rotate megaship interiors on x axis -it wouldn't solve every inconsistencies, but would solve the problem of why do we see trash on the floor: because the drives of the megaship would push them to the deck's floor -even if they are used once a week) it's good until Frontier develops weightlesnes for props -but now people want good performance first - surely they don't want unoptimized trash floating in the air?

I have noticed the inertial effects of flight assist off, but surely you have noticed there are no adverse affects to us during extreme maneuvers? I'm not sure how the megaships help your case more than mine. And it's not just about the garbage. It's the whole plan for both outposts and megaships. Plants that hang towards the floor consistently are one example, especially in your "flying skyscraper" megaships with the floors NOT perpendicular to the rear thrusters. The Pamphlets for APEX interstellar. How do those stay in place with no upper covering whenever the ship pitches downward? And all the guard rails? Why? Benches and chairs were there before anybody asked to sit. General cafeteria food trays wouldn't work in microgravity. Stairs aren't needed, ramps would be much cheaper and more efficient if magboots were the reason we're on the floor. Simple cot beds on the prison ship. Everything about the interiors scream "this is an area with gravity." The only thing that contradicts it is the "magnetic boots must be worn at all time" sign which is amusingly written way up high out of eyeline. (If only we were in a microgravity environment where the height would be less relevant.)

Inertial dampeners in a game where law of motion exists would make Elite look like any other sci -fi games you know. I understand people don't know the possibilities of Newtonian physics on-foot (they are not here yet), but it baffles me that they want Elite to look like other creatively bankrupt sci-fi space operas.
As I said overhauled assets can solve the inconsistencies of the art. But it's still a game which don't want to frustrate us. Like we get a jetpack and the game lets us run around on a planetoid instead of making Elite into a QWOP game. Yeah, you couldn't run on the surface of the Moon. (Which by the way is beige in reality but people want it to be white in games- is this unrealism an issue in the community? No).

But I don't know if you have noticed but when you kill an enemy their lifeless body drop to the ground according to the gravity of the planet which itself travels through space in real time. Or when your instance synchs out when you are in a spaceport (due to a rare bug) and your ship smashes to the inner side of the hangar -it happens because the station flies with hundreds of kilometers per second in real time. Newtonian physics are modeled in the game, the game just synchs you up with the star base or the megaship when you arrive there. For gameplay reasons.

I'm not sure how artificial gravity within ships would get rid of Newtonian physics outside the ship. At most inertial dampeners would just prevent you from blacking out or dying when changing directions too fas... Oh wait, you don't have any adverse effects, maybe inertial dampeners are already there. Or commanders are all genetically engineered for that. Which totally makes sense. Or they could prevent you from dying when landing on a 45g pla... no you don't die from that either. Also, the Newtonian physics are pretty loose in places. Like how we slow down after boosting, and our thrusters don't continuously cause us to accelerate. And lots of space games use Newtonian physics.

I am pretty sure the art design of outpost and megaship interiors didn't get as much expert oversight as the interiors of the settlements. Basically they used the assets of rotating spaceports because of time constraints. Again, it's just art design -since we use starport interiors to exclusively just walk around - a revamped art design can amend the problem without impeding gameplay. I am pretty well read about the adverse effects of microgravity environment and the ways we can mitigate them, I know there are a lot of different ways to rationalize current space port and megaship interiors in their art. I am saying this as set designer - and I was walking around in Ridley Scott's Martian movie set and I personally know several of its art directors and the plans which went or didn't go into the sets. EDO's megaship and outpost sets need more work, but with some shaders, some 3D and 2D assets they can be revised as an immersive rational microgravity experience. I can do it in movies, so I have ideas for games as well (it's is just a different subject -and this is already a TLL reply). You need to see them as their development of said interiors are halted, but not finished. Since ED is in de facto perpetual Beta, they can be perceived as temporary assets. This work just needs more resources, but they are not Frontier's priority at the moment.

I'm pretty sure people had to sign off on all those details. It's all fun to rationalize why they presented the world they did, but it doesn't change the fact they did. And you think they should redo all the assets to retcon the interiors. Personally I'm all for that. I really wish they would and give us varied interiors based on region, economy, population among other things. Make if feel like I actually traveled hundreds of lightyears to the other side of the bubble, or 20plus thousand to Colonia. That'd be awesome. That's really one of my biggest complaints about odyssey. The parts of every station we can visit look the same no matter where you are, with all the same stores. Every Gunshop you visit is a Pioneer Supplies. Every Bar is a fence. I can only buy ships from Inter Astra. I want multiple floor plans with varied shop name, type, and placement. I'd love a change like that. BUT alas, they're not going to do that. So in universe, all the stuff we see in stations and megaships are how it is. So they might as well run with it.