97% of Viewers (Players?) Want Ship Interiors!

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[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Scoob101 said:
This is the age-old problem of the customer attempting to step into the shoes of the delivery team. Many customers find this behaviour irresistible.
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I definitely agree depending on how the footings were made will depend on the difficulty in building the rest of the house as it were....

However given (I think even those who don't consider ship internals a priority would admit) that ship internals WERE (are?) On the roadmap for ED at some point then one would hope that the competence of the developers would mean that this was at least at some level would have made sure the engine is up to it and was coded in such a way as to be possible.

We were told in no uncertain terms for instance that all ships were designed in advance with internals in mind for when we can walk around (and no amount of naysaying that this happened changes this fact).

So of it really is not possible for ship internals to work then isn't that saying the either 1) FD are incompetent. Or 2) FD are liars and just said anything they could to get the game passed the KSer goals.?

Either is possible but given the amount of crap People give CIG on these forums for doing those very things I would hope it's not the case here.

None of that means that ship interiors will definitely come any time soon.....

BUT it hopefully does mean that they are feasible at least and that FD have a bunch of stuff they could do with them and a plan on how to do them if the time comes.

TLDR. If someone doesn't want them and thinks they should be a low priority then sure I can grok that. I disagree but that is what these forums are for.
BUT if someone is saying it's not possible given limits of the software or the ships design does not allow it then for that to be true then they are saying FD are crap or shills, both of which I hope are not true
 

Scoob101

S
[VR] Mad Mike said:
So of it really is not possible for ship internals to work then isn't that saying the either 1) FD are incompetent. Or 2) FD are liars and just said anything they could to get the game passed the KSer goals.?

Either is possible but given the amount of crap People give CIG on these forums for doing those very things I would hope it's not the case here.
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Anything is deliverable given infinite time and resources. Fronter could put a man on the moon given enough of both.

That doesn't help understand what's workable to deliver and what adds the most value. Some of the recent posts in this thread do an excellent job of explaining at a very high level why things can sometimes not turn out the way people had hoped. That doesn't make people liars or idiots.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
[VR] Mad Mike said:
I definitely agree depending on how the footings were made will depend on the difficulty in building the rest of the house as it were....

However given (I think even those who don't consider ship internals a priority would admit) that ship internals WERE (are?) On the roadmap for ED at some point then one would hope that the competence of the developers would mean that this was at least at some level would have made sure the engine is up to it and was coded in such a way as to be possible.

We were told in no uncertain terms for instance that all ships were designed in advance with internals in mind for when we can walk around (and no amount of naysaying that this happened changes this fact).

So of it really is not possible for ship internals to work then isn't that saying the either 1) FD are incompetent. Or 2) FD are liars and just said anything they could to get the game passed the KSer goals.?

Either is possible but given the amount of crap People give CIG on these forums for doing those very things I would hope it's not the case here.

None of that means that ship interiors will definitely come any time soon.....

BUT it hopefully does mean that they are feasible at least and that FD have a bunch of stuff they could do with them and a plan on how to do them if the time comes.

TLDR. If someone doesn't want them and thinks they should be a low priority then sure I can grok that. I disagree but that is what these forums are for.
BUT if you someone is saying it's not possible given limits of the software or the ships design does not allow it then for that to be true then they are saying FD are crap or shills, both of which I hope are not true
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Again, that's the wrong way of looking at it. "Ship interiors" is not a thing but an general vague notion. There are many ways to make that into a concrete design idea. Some of them will be easier than others.

For example, allowing you to walk in a ship when it's parked is virtually trivial if you design it as a separate, closed-off, map. You walk to the door, hit load and the game transports you to a 'ship-sized building'. In this way all you need is loads of different maps. Easy, but lots of work.

Want them to to be modular based on loadout? Trickier. Only want to give access to some parts of the ship? Easier. Want it be seamlessly entered? Harder. Want to be able to walk in it as it flies in normal space so you can shoot from the ramp at a settlement with your pistol? Much harder.

Some version of interiors will always be possible. Some versions will be impossible, or so hard as to not be worth the resources. Only FD knows the details. And these details change as development takes turns. Things may turn out harder to do than initially planned. But "interiors are impossible" as a blanket statement are silly. Ignore people who say it.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Ian Skippy said:
Again, that's the wrong way of looking at it. "Ship interiors" is not a thing but an general vague notion. There are many ways to make that into a concrete design idea. Some of them will be easier than others.

For example, allowing you to walk in a ship when it's parked is virtually trivial if you design it as a separate, closed-off, map. You walk to the door, hit load and the game transports you to a 'ship-sized building'. In this way all you need is loads of different maps. Easy, but lots of work.

Want them to to be modular based on loadout? Trickier. Only want to give access to some parts of the ship? Easier. Want it be seamlessly entered? Harder. Want to be able to walk in it as it flies in normal space so you can shoot from the ramp at a settlement with your pistol? Much harder.

Some version of interiors will always be possible. Some versions will be impossible, or so hard as to not be worth the resources. Only FD knows the details. And these details change as development takes turns. Things may turn out harder to do than initially planned. But "interiors are impossible" as a blanket statement are silly. Ignore people who say it.
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No argument from me, I was just responding generally to the points that some have made that internals can't work because of the way the ships are modelled or another comment that the engine won't be able to handle it. IF That means fairly limited ships internals is all that is feasible then I would say that is better than none at all. Perfection is the enemy of the good and all that.
BUT until we hear otherwise from FD that internals are.off the table then all I am basically saying is it is putting the cart before the horse makeing excuses for why they won't come. All we can hope so far is they are in the plan (because we were told they were and have not been told otherwise since) but they are not in ED:O at launch.

For all we know FD ARE working on them right now.
 
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Old Duck

Old Duck
I'd like to add my own 2c to this conversation. I've already stated how much I would LOVE ship interiors if done like Subnautica (or Space Engineers), and I've explained why, so I won't rehash that. I'm here simply to point out that we already have ship interiors in Elite Dangerous. That's right, our cockpit is a fully-rendered ship interior that I can freely walk around in using VR. My ship can be flying on some strange vector and I can still walk around my cockpit, some of which are bigger than my living room, so I hit real walls before reaching virtual walls, LOL. Most of these cockpits are extremely detailed, especially some of the newer ships like the Mamba. Many of us just want Frontier to continue what they already started and model the rest of the ship, at least the other rooms and hallways. So to say that modeling the interior "can't be done" because of game engine limitations is wrong and falsifiable.

Of course there are additional issues currently not addressed by VR legs (I'm basically a ghost who can walk through walls and float down through floors), but these issues are have already been addressed by Odyssey, including walking in moving environments - spinning stations. As for gameplay, Frontier has been pretty clever with the gameplay in Odyssey, so that same gameplay could be extended to our own ships - replacing burned out components, putting out fires, repelling raiders, etc.

One interesting thing I have noticed is that ship interiors look different (very basic) when looking at them from the outside of our ship through the window, at least in Horizons. Does this remain the case in Odyssey? There would definitely need to be some LOD and hidden geometry culling done to keep performance acceptable once interiors were expanded in ships.

ps - A lot of people who were opposed to space legs have since changed their mind after playing Odyssey. Done right, I believe this would be the same for ship interiors.
 
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[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Personally I don't mind what I have seen in ED:O as a stand alone game. But this whole deathmatch .thing does seem like a different game. Initially I thought it was an extension of CQC and in that case the magic respawn and carry on where death means nothing fits well.

But in the main game?....

But that is for another thread and doesn't change the fact that mechanically it all seems fairly decent esp after some balancing.

Ships interiors I believe would have fit in elite better than unreal tournament but again that is just me.
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Just for the record, I'm not terribly enthused by ship interiors. They flopped in EVE, and would only work well if a lot of effort was put into game loops using them.

My view on this thread is that attacking persons for having different ideas, especially the vitriol over content creators putting up a simple poll, is overblown. "Anyone Who Does Dare Speak For Me Is Committing Thoughtcrime!"

The forum is nuts.
 

Stinja

S
Scoob101 said:
This is the age-old problem of the customer attempting to step into the shoes of the delivery team.
Click to expand...
However you do get over-smart developers pushing out features which arent wanted, or project managers / BAs thinking they know what stakeholders want, but if you go talk to the really experienced stakeholders they'll tell you how they actually use a product and what improvements they'd like (which you'd obviously filter for ROI).
Often a new developer is shown and given standard training on an app, then access to the code, but they don't know the full workflow utilisation. Ditto some contract tester / QA probably needs to talk to a stakeholder to write their scripts.

At least in enterprise development writing off customer knowledge seems poor practice.

Eeekster said:
Really quite genteel and naive compared to EvE :)
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Do they forum-gank each other? ;)
 

Mikaa

M
I'm all for interiors, but I also agree the implementation must include gameplay loops. The big ones I can think of off the top of my head would be manual repairing of internals (and hull if we get EVA in conjunction with interiors), switching to different multi-crew seats for different tasks, as well as Holo-Me integration in your quarters. It also seems to me like a lot of the foundation for things to come is being laid with this initial Odyssey launch.

I know this has been brought up before, but what if you could manually repair some (or all) internals including powerplant, as well as the hull itself after a battle or landing on a planet? This way the AFMU could still be useful for combat, AX encounters, and long distance exploration, but you wouldn't absolutely need it, and could field repair some stuff rather than being stranded without a broken module if you chose not to equip one. It'd be your choice whether you sacrifice an internal slot for an AFMU, or attempt to repair it manually (which would be slower, but afford some benefits, like being able to repair the powerplant and base hull). As much as everyone (self included) hates the material grind, we could also put the common mats to use when repairing manually, so landing on a planet and scouring outcroppings for iron and nickel could provide an additional gameplay loop, combining exploration, SRV's, mat gathering, and interiors (with whatever repair mini-game we end up with) all together.

As for the Holo-Me, it's kind of bothered me that we see our character standing inside the ship when customizing, but we select it from a menu on the HUD side-panels. They could implement something ala GTA or RDR, where in your quarters there's a mirror/closet where you could switch what your character looks like and what base clothes they wear. Then before you leave your ship you can configure your loadout and spacesuit in the entryway where your guns/remlok suits are stored.

I also don't see any problem with leaving the Holo-Me, loadout configurator, and AFMU enabled in your menus either... that way we can choose how to play.

Do I want to physically go to my quarters to switch my character? Y/N - It's exactly how Odyssey has already implemented the mission boards in terminals vs on your ship. Only difference is we can barter with NPC's on certain missions, thus giving us a reason to get out of the seat.

What about repairing my ship? Lazy and want to use AFMU? Entirely up to me to decide whether I have one equipped, or would rather go mat gathering and do it myself and equip an extra cargo rack instead.

Want to get up and repair my powerplant, or EVA to fix hull damage, or just pop into a nearby station and pay for someone else to do it? I have that choice too.


Another point of contention is the dreaded "no one wants to run through the entire length of the Cutter while it's getting shot at..." - So why don't we have a menu at the entrance door so we can choose where it loads us in our ships?
1. Entry-way
2. Bridge
3. Engineering
4. SRV Bay (pops you into the SRV and deploys it)
5. Quarters, etc. etc.
This is menu system is already implemented at a basic level with the Elevators in Odyssey, and is good enough for me in terms of immersion.


This post got way longer than I initially intended, but my point is that a lot of the issues or problems people seem to have with interiors don't seem like major barriers to gameplay to me, and a decent amount of the base mechanics are already in the game in some capacity. Right now, Odyssey feels like an FPS slapped on to our "cockpit simulator," like when games used to tell you to "insert disc 2." Interiors with useful things to do would go a long way to bridge that gap into a cohesive experience. Biggest thing holding it back is dev time to model the interior of every ship, and integrating all the separate loops so it there's something to do inside, rather than just say 'oooh shiny,' and I completely understand the hesitation to commit to a big overhaul like that.

edit: words
 

CMDR Mayhem

CMDR Mayhem
My opinion, ship interiors dont need "gameplay" to exist.
And saying that "making them without any is wasting time resources of the devs" is selfish and entitled. It will be more place holder content to be further expanded on in the future, like how everything has been implemented so far.
It would be like people in a GTA game complaining about the getting into the car animation taking too much time and that the interior serves no purpose, its ridiculous. Its just more content to enjoy the game.
If you think walking around in your ship interior without a purpose is pointless then you are playing the wrong game.
 

Murfelton

M
CMDR Mayhem said:
My opinion, ship interiors dont need "gameplay" to exist.
And saying that "making them without any is wasting time resources of the devs" is selfish and entitled.
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How do you expect to view the interiors? Use VR? Ship camera? Only when the ship is parked, and it is a static level? How happy with the role players be when they are told that they can only see the interior when the ship is parked on the ground?

There is no evidence that the engine supports viewing the interior from a walking first person view when the ship is moving (other than the special case of VR). It is a rather basic question to ask: how many months will it take developers to add that functionality? For a placeholder?
 

Draconas109

Draconas109
I think ship interiors need an actual reason to be in-game other than to look pretty or be another time sink to go from seat to exit, otherwise what's the point? you're using finite pc resources to render something that doesn't contribute in any meaningful way
 

bluetoon

B
Damn! - No ship interiors thought - that was a joke ??
Major expansion - tick
Space Legs - tick
Demand for ship interiors - tick
Marketing about first footfall - tick
What we getting - FPS shooter
A crap fade to black cockpit jump

Gutted, just gutted
Thats £40 down the drain
 
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