This week I'm the one starting an Atmospheric Planet Thread!
This is about why landing on atmospheric planets can be a game changer (and not an eye candy feature only) and how it may affect all the main game activities in general:
STORY CONTENT:
Civilizations don't develop on airless planet!
Guardians: FDEV would be able to develop new story content on the planets where the Guardians actually lived and developed their technology.
Thargoids: we already have modules to protect the ship from caustic damage. Let's make them more useful by protecting the ships when we want to explore an ammonia world. This would allow Frontier to develop new story contents for Thargoids.
Further Civilizations not introduced yet. Same as above. Possibility to access to their home world.
Here there are also big contents for Space Legs. Instead of exploring alien sites with SRV we could have temples, caves, building to be explored and scanned by feet where antiques are not 1 ton bricks but small object to carry in the backpack (Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider style)
POWER PLAY/RANKING:
Once you reach the higher ranks of pilot federation you would receive limited access to the capital worlds where you can accept 1-2 very sensitive missions (per power cycle) directly from the Leader/Royal families. This would also make the ranking system more consistent giving some feedback to the CMDR's at higher ranks.
NEW COMMUNITY GOALS:
Supply resources, POI scans, material analysis to complete the terraformable process of a planet. Immagine how cool it would be to see the very same planet before and after the terraformation.
MISSION SYSTEMS:
Considering that the mission system will not drastically change in the future, we could at least have more varied locations and different scopes: bring tourists to a water world resort. Bring supplies to scientist working in labs in dense atmospheric world and other missions in Star Trek (classic series) style. This would allow us to see different places instead of the same touristic beacons and the same coriolis starports.
PVP/COMBAT:
Fighting in atmospheric planets would be more immersive and challenging, hiding in the clouds/fog of planets with thick atmosphere, fighting in turbolence where gimballed weapons are less effective and you have to maneuver the ship to compensate the winds gusts that could also affect the missiles trajectory. We already have a turoblence model (white dwarf jetcone) and gusts effects (explosions in damaged starport). These models just need to be a bit refined for the gamplay. Weapons may react to the atmospheric composition making some more and others less effective.
TRADE:
This proposal would not change the gameplay but add more immersion: you buy food commodities from an agricultural world and sell it to an industrial world. The first planet is very green with huge fields of crop, a lot of lakes and rivers, blue skies and white clouds. The second planet is foggy with grey/green clouds and smoke coming out of the factories. You only see buildings up to the horizon.
These effects would make your experience more realistic because you are aware of the reality around you. When you do the same trading between two space stations you do not realize the background. It would give a higher sense of accomplishment reducing the monotony/grindy effect of doing a repetitive action. Someone may claim that once you've seen it all it would be boring anyway. Yes and No. If you like trading you trade anyway and this would provide more immersion to your gameplay. If you don't like trading and you need to do it for short time because you need the money for your rebuys, it will be a nicer experience anyway.
Last but not least, EXPLORATION:
Visit new worlds with colorful horizons, collect atmospheric gas with the ship and biological samples with the SRV to increase exploration data values.
Forests to be explored with the SRV to find ancient ruins from old civilizations now extinct.
New Explorer SRV: no weapons and more cargo space and tools for collecting samples and dedicated modules to scan and analyze the biology and geology. Or a smaller version with same cargo space but more agile.
Submarine SRV to collect data in the water worlds such depth, temperature and pressure of the sea floor (you would need to reach the sea floor and use a scanner to collect the data). It would be a challenging experience to avoid rocky formations and passing through canyon with strong submarine currents, or get lost in caves. Collect biological samples, analyze composition of the oceans.
When you find very cool planets with particular features you generate your own beacon to share with the community. Every CMDR that visits your beacons generates a reward in terms of credits letting you gain money with your exploration discoveries, other than the universal cartography data.
Later with life on planets: scan and analyze species on planets. When you've enough information to define the food chain and the ecosystem you get a special reward.
This is about why landing on atmospheric planets can be a game changer (and not an eye candy feature only) and how it may affect all the main game activities in general:
STORY CONTENT:
Civilizations don't develop on airless planet!
Guardians: FDEV would be able to develop new story content on the planets where the Guardians actually lived and developed their technology.
Thargoids: we already have modules to protect the ship from caustic damage. Let's make them more useful by protecting the ships when we want to explore an ammonia world. This would allow Frontier to develop new story contents for Thargoids.
Further Civilizations not introduced yet. Same as above. Possibility to access to their home world.
Here there are also big contents for Space Legs. Instead of exploring alien sites with SRV we could have temples, caves, building to be explored and scanned by feet where antiques are not 1 ton bricks but small object to carry in the backpack (Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider style)
Once you reach the higher ranks of pilot federation you would receive limited access to the capital worlds where you can accept 1-2 very sensitive missions (per power cycle) directly from the Leader/Royal families. This would also make the ranking system more consistent giving some feedback to the CMDR's at higher ranks.
Supply resources, POI scans, material analysis to complete the terraformable process of a planet. Immagine how cool it would be to see the very same planet before and after the terraformation.
Considering that the mission system will not drastically change in the future, we could at least have more varied locations and different scopes: bring tourists to a water world resort. Bring supplies to scientist working in labs in dense atmospheric world and other missions in Star Trek (classic series) style. This would allow us to see different places instead of the same touristic beacons and the same coriolis starports.
Fighting in atmospheric planets would be more immersive and challenging, hiding in the clouds/fog of planets with thick atmosphere, fighting in turbolence where gimballed weapons are less effective and you have to maneuver the ship to compensate the winds gusts that could also affect the missiles trajectory. We already have a turoblence model (white dwarf jetcone) and gusts effects (explosions in damaged starport). These models just need to be a bit refined for the gamplay. Weapons may react to the atmospheric composition making some more and others less effective.
This proposal would not change the gameplay but add more immersion: you buy food commodities from an agricultural world and sell it to an industrial world. The first planet is very green with huge fields of crop, a lot of lakes and rivers, blue skies and white clouds. The second planet is foggy with grey/green clouds and smoke coming out of the factories. You only see buildings up to the horizon.
These effects would make your experience more realistic because you are aware of the reality around you. When you do the same trading between two space stations you do not realize the background. It would give a higher sense of accomplishment reducing the monotony/grindy effect of doing a repetitive action. Someone may claim that once you've seen it all it would be boring anyway. Yes and No. If you like trading you trade anyway and this would provide more immersion to your gameplay. If you don't like trading and you need to do it for short time because you need the money for your rebuys, it will be a nicer experience anyway.
Visit new worlds with colorful horizons, collect atmospheric gas with the ship and biological samples with the SRV to increase exploration data values.
Forests to be explored with the SRV to find ancient ruins from old civilizations now extinct.
New Explorer SRV: no weapons and more cargo space and tools for collecting samples and dedicated modules to scan and analyze the biology and geology. Or a smaller version with same cargo space but more agile.
Submarine SRV to collect data in the water worlds such depth, temperature and pressure of the sea floor (you would need to reach the sea floor and use a scanner to collect the data). It would be a challenging experience to avoid rocky formations and passing through canyon with strong submarine currents, or get lost in caves. Collect biological samples, analyze composition of the oceans.
When you find very cool planets with particular features you generate your own beacon to share with the community. Every CMDR that visits your beacons generates a reward in terms of credits letting you gain money with your exploration discoveries, other than the universal cartography data.
Later with life on planets: scan and analyze species on planets. When you've enough information to define the food chain and the ecosystem you get a special reward.
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