A few shots for the next Answers from the Devs:
#1 Overall Design
Does FD still intend to implement the overall DDF designs, recognizing that some may be too difficult to code or change slightly after coding starts? No timeline, no specific commitments, just in-general, is this still what FD are doing?
I really cannot imagine what FD would do after Power Play other than stick to what has been discussed in overall terms. The original design documents are so excellent, doing otherwise would not make sense to me. Yet many in the community have asked this many, many times and there is no generalized answer to the question, although some specific items get answers like Orrey View still "on the list", and Mission enhancements in the works, etc.
#2 Beauty Shot and Machinima Tools
The many streamers and YouTubers have IMHO been fantastic and free marketing for ED. Given some of the stunning videos, does FD have any plans to provide any new tools at all to allow awesome fan-videos and machinima?
Two examples. In various racing games and flight sims where the program can be toggled to "record" video or positional data from the game that can later and only off-line be viewed from various angles in a replay mode. Also, the original Elite had various cameras the player could toggle to view things. Isn't it really inexcusable in 3300 AD not to have rear and downward facing cameras for safety, docking and situation awareness? It just seems really silly of FD to insist these not be in the game in any form? IIRC, the original docking design mentioned having to use the down camera to be sure of alignment and position over the landing pad?
#3 Planetary Body Composition
The Stellar Forge contains lots of data about planets and presumably about asteroids. Are there plans to pull in the information about the composition of these bodies into exploration and mining? For instance, to make it more apparent what elements and what processes are required by Explorers to identify say, the atmospheric composition, surface liquids and solids and then what lies beneath (minerals, elements, gases, liquids)?
#4 Weather Variation on Different Planetary Bodies
Does FD aim to model a variety of weather conditions on planetary bodies as we see in our own solar system such as the violent, hot furnace of Venus, sand-storms on Mars, various Earth weather events, and the massive gas cloud storms on gas giants?
#5 Geologic Activity on Planetary Bodies
Various states of volcanic activity can not only influence weather, but are interesting to watch in their own right. Will we see planets with active volcanoes and other evidence of geological changes which will be interesting to witness?
#6 Locked Doors
When FD gets around to EVA mode and exploring Outposts, Space Stations and cities on planets, which is probably years away, is the intent to use Procecural Generation to have every room explorable? Or is the practicality that there will there be mostly "locked doors" that prevent players entering except for specific areas like shops? I am interested in the technical achievement of PG being able to remove "locked doors" despite any objections to "make it meaningful". I think that ultimately with the game built-out and having persistent NPC that missions could be generated that target specific PG created buildings and rooms as either starting or target points.
#7 Destructible Environments and Stuff (because, fun!)
Given ED uses a lot of PG and it is impossible to store data on the exact look and physical status of every object in the game, will we ever see destructible environments where damage persists? Something more than just ships.
#8 Asteroids as Realistic Objects
Will it ever be possible to tow a smaller asteroid or push it out of its acquired, stable orbit? I don't want players drawing persistent lewd pictures by shoving asteroids around but think in a given instance ships are powerful enough that they could cause asteroids to move and collide.
#9 Flight Model and Projectile Firing
Wondering about the full complexity of the physics of ships, does firing a physical projectile impart an equal and opposite force on the ship that fires it? If so, FAOn would obviously counter the force, but with FAOff should a ship's position and momentum be changed when it fires a cannon?
#10 Ship Damage Models
Will we ever see damage models like the Anaconda interior from the Kickstarter videos? Is this something that will come with EVA mode?
#11 Capital Ships and Conflict Zones
Does FD have any schemes to make it possible to "settle" a battle with destruction of large objects like Capital Ships? In a single-player game this is easy, but in the instanced multiplayer game that is ED this becomes more complicated and problematic. Personally I would forgive some "sins" like having hero quests and allowing some players to destroy a Cap Ship that others may not get to see because it would be fun and to me with the miracle of ProcGen and instancing we can all be heroes and who cares it is a game. As it is today, it can be really frustrating to have endless conflict zones where Cap ships just sit and spew spawn out fighters endlessly or are never able to be disabled.
*edit- Added #11 as the last conflict zone with Capital Ship I played in some time ago was not a satisfying experience...
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