Conceptually, how would you approach designing your dream space-themed game?

[rhiz]

I would model it more like Escape Velocity: Override. Mankind's first journey into the stars was immediately met with conflict, and it was only by the skin of our teeth that we developed the technology required to defend ourselves and are now a very militarized species. The conflict has turned into a cold war, and for the first time we can actually explore the outer reaches of space. There, we find a sprawling and complex culture comprised of many species of aliens.

This is a great model. You start in what's familiar, there is a clear and present danger to fight against if you want to, and if you have the fuel for it, you can leave the bubble and end up somewhere truly exotic.
There are also sections of the map too hostile to explore until the technology was developed to navigate it (nebulas) and one mysterious ancient structure that deliberately locks out some other systems. Those areas are mainly there to accommodate mods, but the mystery of it all was really well done.
Escape Velocity and Elite Dangerous are very similar. But escape velocity did storylines and lore way better for a video game.

That’s probably why Subnautica works so well – a carefully crafted environment with clear sense of progression, where the discovery of new areas can be genuinely dramatic. In many ways it's much more amateurish than Elite (not keen on the cartoonish art-style, VR is a hellish bug-fest), but the conceptual core of the game is very solid and well thought out (albeit more modest in scope).

 

[Jacques d'Orleans]

I'd get as much crowd funding as possible. Start a cult following and then milk my backers for every penny by selling them jpegs. Then cackle to myself while making space ship noises with a pencil.
Also I'd go all Scrooge Mcduck in my money pit.

That sounds eerily familiar.

 

[rhiz]

persistance would be a core part of "my" game....... if i do a mission well for an npc this is saved on my HDD and there is a chance that same npc will then offer me more stuff based on what i did previously.

and because it is not all server in direct base base building would be a thing (supply npcs with stuff and the better you look after them the better they expand), ship gets blown up, it would be a persistant wreck , at least for a time, and we can go and salvage our gear (as well as npcs gear) from them.

Yes, that would be my instinct also. User generated content stored locally with a purely P2P option for those who want to establish modest player groups.

 

[cpbtrading]

Good 'AI'..

Single-player seems like dirty words nowadays. But great games of the past that held players attention were single player, then use your imagination. But instead of putting time into AI over the years, devs have gone a simple route and just thought MP, let players play others because it will be a better playing experience...... Not true..

I play Arma 2CO with an AI mod that blows your socks off, we also play coop against the AI. Nice thing there is they (AI) play the game as 'directed' like a tactical military sim, rather than a COD type thing with kids and the rest running around like nutcases getting shot knowing they'll get respawned all the time.

So yes, a space sim with 'decent' (DECENT) AI [mad], is the route I'd look at. [yesnod]

Go and lay down now...[blah]

 

[rhiz]

I actually disagree, at least as far as the requirement of a broad skill set - this is more a by-product of the "lean-manufacturing" mentality. Granted, from a pure cost-analysis perspective, it is far less expensive for one person to do 3 or 4 or 5 different jobs. However, that old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" holds even more true here. Let's take something fairly basic - the design, animation and skinning of a model. A good model designer is going to make an exceptionally good model. A good animator is going to be able to take that model and animate it, and a good skin designer is going to apply the textures in such a manner as to make the final asset look its best.

Not every modeler is an animator. Not every animator is a skin artist, and not every skin artist can manage to model a believable cube. But far too many studios have modelers animating and skinning models regularly, all in the name of saving money. Meanwhile, there is another part of that equation that is being missed - that of time.

If a single modeler is also animating and skinning, the total time to produce a finished asset is greatly increased. This also costs money, which in turn also slows production, which in turn can also cost money. In the very end, if you're extremely lucky, you wind up breaking even on the cost savings, and are only a few weeks behind schedule. Whereas a more proper team allows each person to focus on the area where they are most skilled - modelers making models, animators animating and skinner skinning. Production deadlines are met, and the final, finished product is that much better.

Now this isn't to say that there aren't modelers who can't also animate their models - there are. There are also modeler-animators who can skin their models as well, and can do all these tasks equally as well as any specialist - I know a few. But doing all this still takes time, many times far more time than having a proper team collaborate.

The same holds true on the programming side of things, database management, infrastructure - you name it. Allowing people the opportunity to focus their skills gets more done in less time and with better results - nearly always. Of course, too many people can be an issue as well, and I've watched this first hand when it comes to programmers - one programmer does things one way, another does them a little differently, the third does something completely different, and the three spend more time arguing over which is the "right" way to do things, or they end up changing what the other has done, and in the end, nothing gets done.

Finding that perfect balance, tuning a team like a fine instrument, and keeping everyone on track.. now that's the occupation of a project manager, and like the art teams and programming teams, project managers also need to be able to focus on what they're doing - not coordinating events, making live-streams, or meddling in other areas of production - again, a very common practice stemming from that "lean manufacturing" mindset.

It's a real mess of things we've made for ourselves - and it's also one of the things that often make small indi projects so spectacular. Small teams, less pressure, people able to do what they do best and collaborate on the things they're not as strong at doing, without someone calculating the pennies-per-second every bit of minutiae is costing.

Yes, but this isn’t really at odds with the point that I was struggling to make. It depends on whether or not you accept the predicate that being overly vulnerable to market forces and market expectations can harm the creative process/environment. Professional polish isn’t the same thing as clarity of vision. I’m speaking generally of course, and there are always exceptions. As you say, small indie developers can achieve great things, but their ambitions tend to be more modest and narrowly focused. I’ve attempted a few solo 2D projects which were turning out okay within their limited scope, but obviously something of Elite’s scale and complexity is an entirely different proposition.

 

[rhiz]

Single-player seems like dirty words nowadays. But great games of the past that held players attention were single player, then use your imagination. But instead of putting time into AI over the years, devs have gone a simple route and just thought MP, let players play others because it will be a better playing experience...... Not true..

I’m inclined to agree. That said, I think that games that allow for genuinely creative, imaginative and emergent play are a good thing, such as Minecraft.

 

[cpbtrading]

I’m inclined to agree. That said, I think that games that allow for genuinely creative, imaginative and emergent play are a good thing, such as Minecraft.

Likewise yes.
I play Space Engineers etc and they don't need AI really.

But for a sim, I think, a really good AI would be great. Not just fighting AI, but thinking AI, tactical in whatever it does, whether fighting, trading, mining, mission giving and so on.

 

[Yure]

Take Space Traders Elite RPG system of alliances and zones and implement into ED. Then work on system in which items in cargo hold matter for more than just economy.

I.e. Powerplants give extra but minor ship energy. Etc. Etc..

If we are to be stuck in our ship let our cargo be more interactive.

 

[Aaron T]

I'm slightly further along than concept, but basically X-Wing (single player mission based), but with Elite's controls (vertical and lateral thrust, FA on/off etc).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWuXLcsizK0

Cool.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

The universe of ELITE DANGEROUS

The planets of INFINITY: BATTLESCAPE

The ship detail of STAR CITIZEN

 

[Iskariot]

For all of the divisiveness of the forums, I often read fair and insightful comments among the criticisms and praise of the game.

I was just wondering, given the successes, challenges and shortcomings of Fdev’s approach so far, how players would conceive of an alternative. It’s not an invitation to criticise Elite per-se, but rather to use it for the sake of comparison, so please try to keep it constructive.

I’m stating the obvious, but its clear to me that ED’s most impressive achievement is also its greatest flaw, and that’s the sheer scale of the thing. Clearly, the only conceivable way of generating an accurate model of a galaxy is to use generative techniques, with all of the challenges in terms of game play, “uniformity” and the absence of hand-crafted content that this implies. Would you be willing to sacrifice that scale and degree of freedom for a more limited but carefully crafted world?

When it comes to user generated content such as base building and so on (the sandbox with no sand argument), what are the technical challenges of supporting that in an open and persistent world? Would a single player approach be better suited to the kind of game that you want to play?

I’m sure than many of you have ideas when it comes to your dream game, so I’d be interested in hearing them (the above just aims to start the discussion - all thoughts welcome). I’d particularly welcome the input of any amateur/pro developers out there.

I am not a dev. So anything I say about this is complete gratuitous bovine excrement .

But if it was up to me I would first have created the best single player off line Elite game I could.
That way I could forget about all the limiting multiplayer balancing and could have completely concentrated on fleshing out mechanics, adding diversity to the game world, etc.
I would then have been able to add a single player campaign story too and could have added paid campaign expansions at a later date. Also persistent base building would not be a problem and modding would have been an option.

When I had finished a solid and complete single player Elite universe, I would then have used that to build a separate online multiplayer version of the game on top of that. I would have used a subscription model for this multiplayer part of the game. People who don't want multiplayer would not have to be bothered by it and could simply ignore this part of the game entirely.

 

[Fishy]

I'd start with reimplementing Frontier First Encounters in ED's skin. Single player, with newtonian flight, time compression and getting rid of supercruise. Atmospheric flight, all surfaces landable, etc. Keep the entire galaxy even if it's empty. Eventually work out the galactic generation to work from a given random seed, and tune it so that other sentient species rise, expansion and extinction are simulated, paving the way for remnants of those species in their former 'bubble'. And since the game is single player, open up every single thing to mods. Stats, textures, models, mission scripting, AI, planetary procgen, etc. There's a vast community out there, give them a chance to actually implement some of their dreams rather than play them in their mind.

 

[lysan]

I've seen enough space games to know what can and what you should stay away from regarding designing a space game.

ED is a good example of how to do the core right, the galaxy is great, i love the vastness of ED.

The first question should be, what's my budget? let's say for the fun of it i got $200 million USD to play with, first I will build the galaxy just as FD did.
Next would be to take a few planets and flesh them out as much as possible, cities, hand crafted landscapes, infrastructure to support how the player moves around.

Roaming freely on one of these planets should be controlled, need to land at a starport, get to a transit tube and shuttle to cities, or get a hovercraft to take you around or something that can't blast everything into little pieces.

Mission building on these planets could be like in the ESO/GTA V.

Outside these planets/moons I would make it as interesting as possible, using science, atmo planets the whole nine yards.

Then I would make it more simple to travel around, by adding a full NPC crew you could hire and manage, if you play with humans they will replace the NPC crew, however for those who do not have or do not want humans to play with this would be the solution to keep all playing the game. With a so big galaxy I don't see why
NPC crew should be a force multiplier if everyone can access one.

Helms man to set a course and take you, in real game time, to your destination is a must in my opinion, sitting for hours just smashing the jump button is just silly.

 

[Zieman]

I would make a single player game.

 

[S. Belmont]

My dream space game would be ED’s graphics, sounds, ships and galaxy (Stellar Forge) with Rogue System’s ship controls, orbital mechsnics and eva, mixed with some of the progen stuff, exploration mechanics, crafting, base building and fps gameplay from No Mans Sky.
It would be incredible!

 

[krylite]

If I wanted a single player space game with a much smaller space, I would just play an X-game or any other game limited to a single or a few solar systems.

ED is my dream game. They've done a great job keeping the company afloat and pragmatically developing it even amidst all the impatience for its future in the rest of the ten-year plan and decades to come. Even if I had funds to make a game, I would just invest in ED and Frontier.

 

[Screemonster]

Take ED's ships/engine/flight model.

Get Obsidian to write a branching single-player story and some missions for it, different endings and outcomes depending on which factions you choose to side with in each system, and so on. Room to go back to a different save and see what would have happened if you supported Hudson instead of Winters, for example. Make a game-universe that's big enough to comfortably hold it and still leave room for for a little exploration and the odd little hidden bonus here and there to dig up, but maybe not as big as EDs for a singleplayer game.

basically mash up ED, Privateer 2, and New Vegas.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Wing Commander 6. Story-driven space arcade with simple joystick controls, a beginning, an end, a fun mission tree between the two, and an epic soundtrack. Gets mixed reviews on Steam because it has no multiplayer, no modding, and no community interaction beyond strictly moderated issue reporting.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

Elite is pretty much my dream space game, whose biggest weak spots are limited by technology and possibly finances/manpower - I'd like to think that atmospheric flights are soon to be released...
At this stage, it would be great to balance the current 'technocratic', but efficient management with Michael Brookes and Drew Wagar.

 

[m0rl0ck]

That is so easy. It would be ED with no engineers, a working mission system, factions bgs and power play hooked togeter so that they were all interdependent and a development studio/publisher that actually supported the game as an end in itself, rather than as a means to generate store purchases.