Personally, I like both, especially if the number of limited number of EVA suits is dependant upon an optional module, like the SRVs, and/or your life support class.
Death and Legs
- Thread starter SlouchMonster
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Personally, I like both, especially if the number of limited number of EVA suits is dependant upon an optional module, like the SRVs, and/or your life support class.
I just want to point out that that using a holographic version of yourself tied to a small drone has been used in some of of the ED novels.
I personally prefer the idea of using up eva suits till you run out; but I'm just saying holo me drones are part of the universe.
I personally prefer the idea of using up eva suits till you run out; but I'm just saying holo me drones are part of the universe.
That makes no sense at all gameplay wise.
CMDR on foot encounters CMDR in SRV, both shoot at each other and die. One respawns in the ship 2 miles away and the other at the nearest station hunderts of lys away??
Doesn't work. Both death have to be dealt in similar ways, so respawn at the ship is most likely.
Commander in SRV is not dead but has been ejected in his escape pod from the SRV.
The clone is you. You are the disposable fleshbag, at all times. The way I see it, after you die you don't "wake up" in a different body; when you wake up, everything you did before is an implanted memory, and your life actually begins. The only thing that is real is the current "life loop" you're in.
Also, being non-disposable doesn't mean much if you just respawn everytime you die, does it? At least the clone alternative means your character can die.
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![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
Not much you like is there
Your idea is horrible - someone out exploring at BP, has a mishap and ends up ... in Colonia. Where if they were in the SRV they end up ... in their ship
But think of the gameplay!
Imagine running frantically back to the SRV with 1% health so that you can climb inside and safely DIE
So the autopilot on my ship is capable of scooping up my escape pod from terrain it can't land in, whilst simultaneously avoiding taking any damage from the angry Elite Clipper which is the reason why my SRV is currently a slowly cooling scattering of twisted metal, spreading out across the surface of a moon? Why couldn't it do that BEFORE I got turned into a pile of molten slag?
Please, there is no imaginary SRV escape pod.
I am assuming the escape pod jetisons you into orbit and your ship picks you up.
Why isn't there. There is one in your ship, no reason to not have one in your SRV. How do you think you get back to your ship, by magic teleportation?
I don't want an arguement about this topic. I have voiced my opinion what I would like and why I am not sure about the other ideas some other have mentioned.
It's not about realism, but about consequences to your actions, being able to learn from those consequences etc. I don't like consequence free death mechanics. You ship is destroyed, there are major consequences. Your SRV is destroyed there are some minor consequences, but could be major depending on circumstances. Character Death should have consequences too in my view. So far my idea is the only one that seem to do that.
If someone comes up with something that does have consequences and sounds okay regarding the lore of the game, I will be all in. Currently I have not seen any yet.
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There’s two POIs in the Pleiades that has exactly the scenario Max describes. Look up “Bug Killer” on the Canonn site, or go to HIP 16613 1 in the game, for details. The only reason the unfortunate Commander wasn’t picked up in his life pod after his SRV was destroyed, was that it was an early Thargoid encounter which interfered with his ship’s distress signal.
I must get around to reading the rest of those books. I think I own all of them (can't be 100% certain without checking) but have only read Drew's and a couple of others. Even then there are understandable inconsistencies, given that most were written when the game was still in pre-production. Heck, even if you go back to the original novella (also written before the '84 game's release) there's a scene that implies holograms may have a physical presence. Or that the protagonist is losing his marbles I guess, depending on interpretation.
Yeah, I've read all the interpretations and it's cool that it works for some people, but it doesn't work for me. This isn't Altered Carbon. When I sit down to play the game I control an avatar (actually one of two avatars, depending on which account I'm playing) and that's a necessary conceit given that I'm playing a videogame. But for all intents and purposes that avatar is me, within the Elite universe. If that avatar is actually an avatar of a character whose avatar I'm controlling, it's one level too removed for me. The immediacy is part of why ED's environment works for me, especially when it comes to the sense of scale and isolation and of how lonely it is to "die" of stupidity tens of thousands of light-years from home. If the lore is that I'm a clone, it breaks that because it removes that sense of both isolation and of risk.
I know it's daft from some people's perspectives because all it's really doing is taking a conceit I already accept (my avatar dies and is respawned when real-world me presses some buttons on a screen) and translating it into an in-universe conceit (my clone dies and is respawned because game-world me has some tech-the-tech insurance policy). All I know is that the very idea dilutes some of the magic for me, and if implemented would require some serious mental effort on my part to retcon it out of the game world and restore that magic. I already do this to some degree with other in-game tech. For instance, my Anaconda is plenty big enough that its SLF bay holds several replacement fighters in self-assembly kit form, without the need for 3D printing. The smaller ships? I try not to think about it too much, and rarely fit SLFs to them. I really don't want to have to do these sorts of mental gymnastics with cloning technology, but at the end of the day it's FD's call.
There's certainly no technical or lore reason not to have clones in ED; they too are mentioned in the original novella, albeit as a reproductive choice rather than a means to transcend death. It's the memory transfer that's the step too far for me. It would make the characters immortal, almost godlike. Which technically they already are because they're videogame characters, but they don't know that
. Besides, there's already a godlike entity that acts as a memory transfer between my characters' lives. It exists outside of the game, and it's me sat in this chair. I see no reason to move that "feature" into the game universe just as a way of explaining something that IMO doesn't require an explanation.But it's wholly subjective I grant you, something I've always acknowledged whenever this topic has come up.
In my head my character does die. They're sitting in or on a starship cockpit or bridge when it explodes, which is fairly terminal in my book, and the game stops for a bit. Then I select some options and the game starts up again, with my character on a space station and facing a bill for a ship he recently lost. Does he remember his death, or do I remember it for him? It's all a bit metaphysical but I've never had a problem with it, nor needed an explanation that risks upsetting my relationship to the game and its flawed but immersive universe.
But light-years per tonne obviously vary.
I wrote this six and a half years ago, back when escape pods were planned to be an actual part of the game rather than an ill-defined concept...
Still waiting.
Other than stations we send out facsimiles of ourselves which are controlled remotely. Depending on the class of robo making chamber module depends on how many 'lives' we have.
Which gets around the no AI in Elite universe. After all lives are used restock at a station.
Although I don't want to get all beardy about it, I don't actually care what the reasoning is behind respawns. So long as it's fun gameplay.
Lore hounds can think up whatever they want. It wont stop people complaining on the forums whatever they do.
Which gets around the no AI in Elite universe. After all lives are used restock at a station.
Although I don't want to get all beardy about it, I don't actually care what the reasoning is behind respawns. So long as it's fun gameplay.
Lore hounds can think up whatever they want. It wont stop people complaining on the forums whatever they do.
Even just as a loading screen rendering the pod instead of your just-destroyed ship.
I must get around to reading the rest of those books. I think I own all of them (can't be 100% certain without checking) but have only read Drew's and a couple of others. Even then there are understandable inconsistencies, given that most were written when the game was still in pre-production. Heck, even if you go back to the original novella (also written before the '84 game's release) there's a scene that implies holograms may have a physical presence. Or that the protagonist is losing his marbles I guess, depending on interpretation.
Yeah, I've read all the interpretations and it's cool that it works for some people, but it doesn't work for me. This isn't Altered Carbon. When I sit down to play the game I control an avatar (actually one of two avatars, depending on which account I'm playing) and that's a necessary conceit given that I'm playing a videogame. But for all intents and purposes that avatar is me, within the Elite universe. If that avatar is actually an avatar of a character whose avatar I'm controlling, it's one level too removed for me. The immediacy is part of why ED's environment works for me, especially when it comes to the sense of scale and isolation and of how lonely it is to "die" of stupidity tens of thousands of light-years from home. If the lore is that I'm a clone, it breaks that because it removes that sense of both isolation and of risk.
I know it's daft from some people's perspectives because all it's really doing is taking a conceit I already accept (my avatar dies and is respawned when real-world me presses some buttons on a screen) and translating it into an in-universe conceit (my clone dies and is respawned because game-world me has some tech-the-tech insurance policy). All I know is that the very idea dilutes some of the magic for me, and if implemented would require some serious mental effort on my part to retcon it out of the game world and restore that magic. I already do this to some degree with other in-game tech. For instance, my Anaconda is plenty big enough that its SLF bay holds several replacement fighters in self-assembly kit form, without the need for 3D printing. The smaller ships? I try not to think about it too much, and rarely fit SLFs to them. I really don't want to have to do these sorts of mental gymnastics with cloning technology, but at the end of the day it's FD's call.
There's certainly no technical or lore reason not to have clones in ED; they too are mentioned in the original novella, albeit as a reproductive choice rather than a means to transcend death. It's the memory transfer that's the step too far for me. It would make the characters immortal, almost godlike. Which technically they already are because they're videogame characters, but they don't know that
But it's wholly subjective I grant you, something I've always acknowledged whenever this topic has come up.
In my head my character does die. They're sitting in or on a starship cockpit or bridge when it explodes, which is fairly terminal in my book, and the game stops for a bit. Then I select some options and the game starts up again, with my character on a space station and facing a bill for a ship he recently lost. Does he remember his death, or do I remember it for him? It's all a bit metaphysical but I've never had a problem with it, nor needed an explanation that risks upsetting my relationship to the game and its flawed but immersive universe.
But light-years per tonne obviously vary.
The book I'm specifically referring to is called Wanted. It's about a bounty hunter and she uses the holographic versions of herself to look for information in starports about her target without putting herself directly in danger. Reclamation and premonition also have a couple of brief scenes that show drones displaying holograms though not in that same way but could still support the idea it could be used in this way.
I also cite from the books that its entirely possible we could all be clones or at the very least our bodies are recovered and put into a restoration Pod like in reclamation. As far as how our bodies could be recovered the books also have worker drones (auto mechs) that arrange cargo canisters on their own and there are also mentions of medical drones as well. At the very least you could say if you die on a planet the ship senses you flatlined. Deploys and an automech to recover your body and places you in a revival pod. All of that is already possible with the current existing cannon.
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Deleted member 110222
D
It's a game.
You would respawn. No lore needed.
It's not real life.
You would respawn. No lore needed.
It's not real life.
I wrote this six and a half years ago, back when escape pods were planned to be an actual part of the game rather than an ill-defined concept...
Still waiting.
I've always felt the death sequence in Elite is pretty poor. It feels like a holdover from the 80's but with better graphics. Doesn't change the fact it's pretty bland. The description of a pod whizzing off - explaining why you might escape the clutches of a star - doesn't just sound cool but make immersive sense. If the pods have superior signal strength (we can chat from anywhere in the galaxy after all) it stands to reason rescue could find you in the black fairly quickly. Doesn't explain how you got back to a station three weeks away...but at some point immersion has to give way to practicality.
That or you get a base model sidewinder in the system you exploded. Oh the howling of explorers would be deliciously awful.
As for space legs, death to me only makes sense in a few scenarios:
- Use of telepresence via holo-emitter drones definitely works. Keeps 'respawn at ship' making sense as you never left, explains why your killer didn't just take your ship while you were knocked out or what have you. Death in ship explained by escape pod as mentioned earlier. All is well.
- 'Iron Man' HE suit or what have you works, with ship utilizing deployable drone to drag you back to safety. Doesn't explain why attacker couldn't stop your escape. If drone can fight back, why aren't we using option 1 to begin with?
- Clones. Doesn't fit Elite in my opinion but obviously works. That said, why you're carrying clones on your ship - any ship - is a dubious explanation at best.
I think the commander avatar actually wandering their ship or stations - 'safe places' if you will - makes sense. Think non-combat zones and the drones aren't needed. Besides, you wouldn't order a drink for a drone at the bar, right? But in combat or hazardous environments, there isn't a reason why a drone could not do what a commander could in person. Drones can handle micro-gravity much better, shoot better, carry useful equipment, and be totally expendable like an SRV, SLF, or limpets. It might sound 'boring' from a lore perspective but it is also logical and reasonable. It fits well with the sci-fi aesthetic as well as makes the immersion checklist.
Personally, I don't see the need for my commander avatar in combat situations. I'd be fine with just the drones. Much like I'm fine seeing my ship do the fighting or my SRV do the fighting. This game isn't built around human avatars - it's built around machines controlled by human avatars. If you really want the 'human look' for space legs in combat/hazardous environments, go the customizable iron man suit route. Still a drone, but that works, too.
Clones are in cannon.
...with the first ever mention...of the game. Even FDev call it a game. It's a game. Get over it people.
You wake up in a bed on your ship.
Or, just go the Altered Carbon route. We can print fighters, lets just say they can now print bodies. A consciousness retrieval drone retrieves your consciousness chip and puts in in a clone of your body aboard your ship or, if the ship is gone, the nearest space station.
Boom! lore and problem solved.
Also, the consciousness chips are indestructible.
Or, just go the Altered Carbon route. We can print fighters, lets just say they can now print bodies. A consciousness retrieval drone retrieves your consciousness chip and puts in in a clone of your body aboard your ship or, if the ship is gone, the nearest space station.
Boom! lore and problem solved.
Also, the consciousness chips are indestructible.