Discovery Scanner: Dev Diary II - Forging Your Path Recap

Crazy Joe

Crazy Joe
If we can't walk around in our ships (yet), can we at least walk around the cockpit?
I wouldn't mind getting up from the pilot seat and then when walking to the back door of the cockpit, opening it to find myself outside the ship i.s.o being directly teleported from the chair to the outside like it is now with the SRV.

That would give at least a bit of extra immersion and since the cockpits are fully modeled it shouldn't add too much extra work to Odyssey
 

Rhino Hammer

Rhino Hammer
vinnieboJ said:
Settlements will be accessed through a airlock, all seemless. I believe in stations we'll be able to get out of our ships and walk towards a lift in the back which will take you to the Hub. Also seemless with no loading screens or teleporting.

At least that's what I got out of the different dev diaries and streams. Looking forward to this update!
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My confusion lies in how we get in/out of our ship. A planetary settlement airlock makes sense and it seamless. A lift/tram in a space station makes sense. But what is not clear is how we will seamlessly enter/exit our own ship or SRV. If it's supposed to be a totally seamless experience, then how will that be seamless? A "telepresence" to my SRV or SLF? Sure. Am I not allowed to exit my SRV? Do I "teleport" out of my ship? For it to be a seamless experience, then I need to be able to walk/lift into and out of my ship and SRV.
 

vinnieboJ

vinnieboJ
Rhino Hammer said:
My confusion lies in how we get in/out of our ship. A planetary settlement airlock makes sense and it seamless. A lift/tram in a space station makes sense. But what is not clear is how we will seamlessly enter/exit our own ship or SRV. If it's supposed to be a totally seamless experience, then how will that be seamless? A "telepresence" to my SRV or SLF? Sure. Am I not allowed to exit my SRV? Do I "teleport" out of my ship? For it to be a seamless experience, then I need to be able to walk/lift into and out of my ship and SRV.
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Good question, as far as i know telepresence is only used in Multi-crew and SLF's. I think exiting the ship is going to be much the same like how you exit the ship in an SRV. Only difference being you'll appear at your ships exit instead of the cargo hatch. Not sure how you'll exit your SRV. Perhaps similar as its done in NMS.

And they never mentioned anything about seamlessly getting out of your ship or SRV. Only when talking about settlements and spaceports and such. I hope it'll be addressed in a future dev diary!
 

thistle

T
Rhino Hammer said:
My confusion lies in how we get in/out of our ship. A planetary settlement airlock makes sense and it seamless. A lift/tram in a space station makes sense. But what is not clear is how we will seamlessly enter/exit our own ship or SRV. If it's supposed to be a totally seamless experience, then how will that be seamless? A "telepresence" to my SRV or SLF? Sure. Am I not allowed to exit my SRV? Do I "teleport" out of my ship? For it to be a seamless experience, then I need to be able to walk/lift into and out of my ship and SRV.
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I don't think they have claimed entering / exiting the ship or the srv will be seamless. They have said going from landing pad hangar to hub, and in and out of settlements will be. What they have said is we can go on foot from either srv or ship, so we know we can get out the srv, presumably with an animation like leaving the ship in the srv.
 

thistle

T
vinnieboJ said:
And they never mentioned anything about seamlessly getting out of your ship or SRV. Only when talking about settlements and spaceports and such. I hope it'll be addressed in a future dev diary!
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If they do let us go from chair to ground seamlessly through the limited cockpit areas then they will leave that reveal to the very end! (not expecting it though)
 

Humbo

Humbo
Crazy Joe said:
If we can't walk around in our ships (yet), can we at least walk around the cockpit?
I wouldn't mind getting up from the pilot seat and then when walking to the back door of the cockpit, opening it to find myself outside the ship i.s.o being directly teleported from the chair to the outside like it is now with the SRV.

That would give at least a bit of extra immersion and since the cockpits are fully modeled it shouldn't add too much extra work to Odyssey
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My intuition on this is that the cockpit will remain as is - perhaps with a "disembark" option on the lower panel similar to "Deploy SRV"
I don't think that will change until they introduce Ship interior gameplay.
I would love to be proved wrong though :)
 

Maolagin

M
Stephen Benedetti said:
Can you share more about settlements? Are they controlled by factions?
Settlements are much larger than social hubs, and they will be comprised of multiple buildings which will match the nature of the settlement. There will be different types, such as extraction, agricultural or industrial, including buildings such as power reactors and habitats where workers will be able to stay. Not all settlements will have the same buildings.
Settlements are owned by factions and connected to the BGS, the NPCs in the social hubs will differ depending on which faction is in control of that system, with visual elements inside the social hub reflecting the current BGS. Players themselves won't be able to own settlements but they will be able to support a faction contesting territory - more on this later.
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Something that's ambiguous to me, and that I'd love to hear more about - are the settlements discussed here the same as the existing "settlement" locations in the game today? I.e. the persistent, faction-owned, non-dockable POIs that players currently visit to destroy generators and scan datapoints? I wonder because a notable feature of those sites is that they aren't really composed of multiple distinct buildings. They're more of a compound of interconnected structures that don't obviously map to specific functions.

Or are we getting a new class of Odyssey-enabled settlements that have these on-foot features? And if so, will there be any new ways to interact with the current settlements in Odyssey, given that we can't dock at them?
 

Humbo

Humbo
Maolagin said:
Something that's ambiguous to me, and that I'd love to hear more about - are the settlements discussed here the same as the existing "settlement" locations in the game today? I.e. the persistent, faction-owned, non-dockable POIs that players currently visit to destroy generators and scan datapoints? I wonder because a notable feature of those sites is that they aren't really composed of multiple distinct buildings. They're more of a compound of interconnected structures that don't obviously map to specific functions.

Or are we getting a new class of Odyssey-enabled settlements that have these on-foot features? And if so, will there be any new ways to interact with the current settlements in Odyssey, given that we can't dock at them?
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My guess is that the installations will be as they are now, perhaps with some upgrades (foot and SRV patrols perhaps).
You will be able to walk around them but not enter in.
 

LaughingAndy

LaughingAndy
You've mentioned that we will be able to play odyssey without owning a ship. I'd like to ask how we get from where we arrive on the planet, I'm assuming it will be a settlement or planarity base, to where the wreck sites for savaging are? It's been mentioned that they could be hundreds of kilometres away. Even if they are only 10 or 20 K away that's still a long walk. Will it be a case of telling Apex the coordinates we want to go to are, then recalling them when we want to go back. Will there be a garage we can rent or buy an SRV?

Or could it be a case of that jetpack we saw in the trailer is used for something other than jumping. Maybe something along the lines of flying like Ironman?
 

LanceLord

LanceLord
LaughingAndy said:
You've mentioned that we will be able to play odyssey without owning a ship. I'd like to ask how we get from where we arrive on the planet, I'm assuming it will be a settlement or planarity base, to where the wreck sites for savaging are? It's been mentioned that they could be hundreds of kilometres away. Even if they are only 10 or 20 K away that's still a long walk. Will it be a case of telling Apex the coordinates we want to go to are, then recalling them when we want to go back. Will there be a garage we can rent or buy an SRV?

Or could it be a case of that jetpack we saw in the trailer is used for something other than jumping. Maybe something along the lines of flying like Ironman?
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Had this question too. It seems (based on last Dev diary) that the way we'll be able to do this is using a new transportation service located in planetary and/or space side statations. What's unclear is if ALL planetary bases will have these (to include remote Outposts on surface).

Regardless if ALL planet side installations have these teleport/taxi services, there is still the issue of how to get to surface of planet Y in a solar system with several planets. Where Y does NOT have any planetside bases/outposts on it (just a barren rock with POI to explore). So that leads me to suspect we're going to have to do SOME amount of travel by ship once we arrive in a given solar system. And/or add possible SRV/Iron Man style jet pack travel to whatever foot based logistics necessary to arrive at such a remote POI site.

OR

We could get a new NPC space Uber service which would transport us to specific destinations/planets within the system for a fee. The more dangerous the POI site, the higher the cost etc.

Regardless what FDev comes up with, the new travel feature is far superior to what we currently have by means of transportation. i.e. If I want to explore the most distant rock planet in Colovia system, I'd have to spend several grueling FSD jumps and hours in real time to travel there. Then travel to said planet location in the star system to find whatever POI I'm looking to explore.

The new way is zero risk in travel (because you don't get any rebuy screens from origin to destination). So you never lose any more game progression en route. The only risk to progression is if your CMDR dies after leaving the safety of the planetary base/output and proceeds to their destination. I'd assume players would see a rebuy screen and respawn at the planet side facility they last deployed from.
 
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mikelowndes

mikelowndes
Will there being long walks from one area to the next inside starports?
We want our Commanders to be able to enter a social hub and be able to do their business in a timely manner. This is why social hubs will be built for efficiency and quest givers and vendors will be 'roughly' in the same places from port to port. Accessible areas of the starport, such as the hangars where you disembark (and marvel at your ship), are connected by a system of elevators, this will ensure that you won't have to travel for hours to access your ship, to pick up missions or meet contacts - we don't want you to be late for your Apex Interstellar ride!

- perhaps you misunderstand... What if we WANT to wander about the place? Are elevator <cough>cutscenes</cough> the ONLY option?
 

Maolagin

M
LanceLord said:
Regardless what FDev comes up with, the new travel feature is far superior to what we currently have by means of transportation. i.e. If I want to explore the most distant rock planet in Colovia system, I'd have to spend several grueling FSD jumps and hours in real time to travel there. Then travel to said planet location in the star system to find whatever POI I'm looking to explore.
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If that's how you imagine Apex transport is going to work, I suspect you are going to be disappointed. FDev have said (on a stream, I think) that Apex travel would not be instant, and would only take you to places "in range" of your starting point. I don't think they'd bother having such a limitation, if the maximum range wasn't significantly smaller than the size of the bubble. So that means you probably can't Apex to Colonia at all, because I'd think you need at least a populated system to book the next leg of travel, and the Colonia highway systems are much farther apart than the entire Bubble is wide. And even if you could, you'd be booking hundreds of legs.

Overall, I strongly suspect that -- just like what we got with carriers -- Apex transportation will have some convenience factors, but will not be faster than travel in a ship properly equipped for travel.
 

LanceLord

LanceLord
^^
You misunderstood my post. What I'm expecting is exactly what you just articulated there. And personally, I'd rather travel isn't the traditional Bethesda deal where your fast travel is instantaneous. I'm also among the minority of realism/immersion players who would rather be a passenger on an NPC dolphin/orca taxi and enjoy the entire journey from the comfort of the 1st class/business/luxury passenger cab. Or from the cargo bay if I'm too broke :LOL:

But what I suspect will happen is travel 1) won't be instantaneous, 2) will cost a leg, eye ball and arm, and 3) will have some sort of a timer countdown the way FCs do before they can jump. After the disappointment I had with FCs, I'm no longer putting anything past FDev in not adding any grindy, immersion breaking elements into this feature. :p

Anyhow I wouldn't expect to get a direct Uber drop off at the exact POI or planetary coordinates. I expect to be transported to the closest planetary/space station that has an Apex hub. Then expect to have to either buy or pay to transport then use a ship in my fleet. Like my Sidey (if going to a relatively safe location) v. Conda (if I suspect I'm headed into Thargoid/unknown territory).
 
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LanceLord

LanceLord
mikelowndes said:
Will there being long walks from one area to the next inside starports?
We want our Commanders to be able to enter a social hub and be able to do their business in a timely manner. This is why social hubs will be built for efficiency and quest givers and vendors will be 'roughly' in the same places from port to port. Accessible areas of the starport, such as the hangars where you disembark (and marvel at your ship), are connected by a system of elevators, this will ensure that you won't have to travel for hours to access your ship, to pick up missions or meet contacts - we don't want you to be late for your Apex Interstellar ride!

- perhaps you misunderstand... What if we WANT to wander about the place? Are elevator <cough>cutscenes</cough> the ONLY option?
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Sadly I suspect this is going to be the case. Either
  • an identical station layout interior for every starport and station in the galaxy --- regardless of size. Or
  • one identical station for starports and one for planetary bases --- regardless of size. Or more likely
  • several i.e. 1-3? different interior layouts which differ based on starport size (Orbis different from Coriolis v. space outpost etc.). And these interiors would differ from surface side. eg. planetary bases (being larger) than the outposts
However, they might make special custom interiors for:
  • each of the 3 faction home world main HQ stations and
  • Prison ships (all having the same interior) and
  • Engineer bases (again all the same interior but different from any of the star ports/planetary base ones)
Don't know if this is possible, but I'm still hoping they can take advantage of random generation of interiors. This is much the way Bethesda custom built/designed Skyrim's home and dungeon interiors. Virtually every dungeon interior was unique and the majority of homes have different interior layouts/designs

Another dev who made this work was UbiSoft with the way they generated the massive Assassin's Creed cities. Like the way they did in AC1, AC2 Brotherhood, and especially how amazing they rendered Victorian England in AC Syndicate.

If FDev could make say 12 interior layouts, but be able to vary the layout design. For e.g. a "L" shaped interior station v. a "T" shaped layout, v. a square/rectangle loft like station etc. Say 12 such interior layouts where they could vary the color palette/texture graphical design of each to 24+ colors. That would yield a significantly large and diverse number of different interiors you would encounter throughout the galaxy.

No two star port and planetary station interiors would be alike for a perhaps a 100 LY radius.
 

thistle

T
They're expressly not trying to do that though. They've explained they want us to find the same services or npcs in roughly the same place across eg all the stations, or all the planetary ports etc. Not get lost in each one.
 
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