General Dungeons & Dropships

[RetroPaladin]

We definitely need more content for the on-foot gameplay.

Please add the "dungeons", underground locations to settlements and POIs like:

• Smuggler/Pirate/Bandit minibases with underground levels and hangar doors to underground.
• Underground levels for the Odyssey settlements.
• Opened buildings, underground levels and NPCs for the Horizon POIs.
• Rogue pirate/smuggler/bandit ministations in space, which will have some enemy ships, destroyable guns and hackable docking hangars. In Civil unrest or Pirate attack systems. (I took that idea from Galaxy on Fire 2)
• Derelict facilities with hacked combat Achilles androids with rare loot, precious data or... something else. With "System shock" vibes.
• Power's military bases full of top tier power's soldiers in buildings and underground levels. Bombing them from the ship will not help to defeat them all.
• Abandoned underground bases to activate them and loot the rare or illegal items and download old but precius data.

Traps:

• Small plasma turrets on ceilings inside the corridors;
• Mines - EMP to disable shields or plasma to do the direct damage.

Enemy SRVs:
- Let them to ride from the the underground hangars and attack us.

Please also add missions for these places:

- Clear the place from the enemies;
In solo or in the group of faction soldiers or Omnipol;
Frontier solutions dropship mechanics will be interesting to use in this case. Take a mission, wait for dropship, proceed with the group to the facility.
- Retrieve something;
Loot the item or download the data;
- Sabotage the facility;
Upload a malware or destroy a power plant with a timer to run away;
- Rescue a person;
Come and rescue a faction NPC from the bandits who captured NPC;
or just NPC is the distress signal - no power and low air (use power link) and broken SRV or small ship (use Maverick's cutter and replace the power regulator);
- Defeat the bandits/pirates base;
Find and destroy the pirates ministation in space with on-foot assault, hard NPCs, the power plant to compromise or disabling the defences for Omnipol
...and the timer to run away from the explosion if we have a goal to do that.
- Power assignments to deal with the another power's base in the specific systems.

Outlawed dropships with Smugglers/Pirates/Bandits.
With harder mobs like in Military settlements or High intensity ground conflict zones.
We do not have them outside the said locations, and we need some real action for G5 top tier equipped players.

Dropships with Omnipol personnel. (They are extremely rare now)
They can drop on the bandit's heads and start a fight.
We can help them and/or proceed to the underground level.

We need more locations for missions and exploration and harder and numerous NPCs in them.

 

[aRJay]

Why underground apart from it being harder to procgen using height mapping?

 

[RetroPaladin]

using height mapping

The part of terrain can be cut to make a hole, or be invisible with disabled collision.
For example some culling box which disables the group of terrain polygons.
Do you really think that it's so hard to create something via procgen?

If you're dev, then you have an answer.
If you are not, then it's pointless to discuss it here.

My job is to suggest, FDev's job is to take it or ignore it.

 

[aRJay]

The part of terrain can be cut to make a hole, or be invisible with disabled collision.
For example some culling box which disables the group of terrain polygons.
Do you really think that it's so hard to create something via procgen?

If you're dev, then you have an answer.
If you are not, then it's pointless to discuss it here.

My job is to suggest, FDev's job is to take it or ignore it.

But why underground?

It seems so medieval.

 

[RetroPaladin]

But why underground?

Because we already have something on the ground and in the sky?
Underground has no content.

It seems so medieval.

Alarm parties do not think so.
They enjoy to use the elevators to come from the underground to help the ground folk in 34th century.

Or ground ports with hangars underground.
Why?

Underground facilities have advantages - more protected, more stable, more secured from the environment.

 

[Don Samen]

Elite is basically a space sim, so I am pleased with how it is now. I would rather have ship interior than this.

 

[RetroPaladin]

Elite is basically a space sim

Cool but Odyssey is the ED expansion which adds the ground gameplay, especially first person combat and exploration.
Remember, the space is full of bodies with grounds and objects on them.
I see nothing wrong here to ask for more ground content.

PS. Unfortunately, this thread is not for discussion about the ship interiors.
There a tons of them outside this thread, please feel free to contribute in one of them.

 

[PilotB]

The system is visibly not built to cut holes into the terrain as can be seen by the terrain being still visible when you go to hanger at surface ports.

We have so many places that don't require an engine rebuild first.
All the horizons hubs could use interiors and ground combat through corridors and rooms would be a better place for your dungeon feel.
All the abandonned sites could use interiors.
The Horizons random POIs and little mini settlements should come back and have interiors.
Guardian ruins, thargoid ruins could be tweaked to interact on foot.
Overall none of this really matters unless they actually improve the gameplay for on foot content. Even if they add more stuff if it's the same stuff that isn't fun it won't get done.

Dungeons are going to be way too much work for too little gain. The general state of on foot content needs improvement before they go for anything that requires a major engine rework.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Pretty sure the engine can't do underground. Not sure if it knows the concept of "loading an underground space as a seperate level". Wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no.

 

[Raedawn]

The 'dungeons' in this game are the second floors of buildings, which often require you to return to surface level to exit. Some have second floor exits too which covers the dungeon variant with 'dungeon level' exits.

In essence, your idea adds nothing to the game at all.

 

[Raedawn]

Outlawed dropships with Smugglers/Pirates/Bandits.
With harder mobs like in Military settlements or High intensity ground conflict zones.
We do not have them outside the said locations, and we need some real action for G5 top tier equipped players.

So you know where to find them, great!

There are all kinds of difficulty in ground conflicts because there are all kinds of level of player skill and equipment levels.

No problem found and no solution needed.

 

[Raedawn]

Outlawed dropships with Smugglers/Pirates/Bandits.
With harder mobs like in Military settlements or High intensity ground conflict zones.
We do not have them outside the said locations, and we need some real action for G5 top tier equipped players.

Dropships with Omnipol personnel. (They are extremely rare now)
They can drop on the bandit's heads and start a fight.
We can help them and/or proceed to the underground level.

Wait, so the enemies are too easy but you want some NPC guy to drop out of the sky and help you!

 

[PilotB]

Pretty sure the engine can't do underground. Not sure if it knows the concept of "loading an underground space as a seperate level". Wouldn't be surprised if the answer is no.

It can since it already does. Hangers at planetary bases are underground. We have elevators and disembark commands that teleport commanders long distances. It can be done with the tools at hand but I don't think it'd be worth the effort as things stand and there would be quirks.

 

[madmongoose]

High level, the physical space to put content already exists. We already have surface installations, surface cities, space installations, space cities etc. You don't need for it to share a physical instance space with the outdoors or even the map terrain, it can be it's own 'level' as is currently handled for interiors of carriers and stations. It doesn't have to overlap with ody bases just putting on foot POIs that generate into existing content. Most of the mechanics exist for hacking, sneaking etc exist but are underutilized. What i'd have to ask though is what does this add to the game? What would be unique reasons for people to use these POIs instead of ignoring them?

With the exception of the rescue scenario you can already do all the other gameloops you mentioned.

If it just adds variety to existing loops instead of adding something new to engage with the game then i don't see it being worth it. For example if a foot POI in a station just exists and acts the same as a settlement, what's the point. Now, if you say an individual or a squadron can fight to own that POI and decorate it.. suddenly it becomes interesting content.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

It can since it already does. Hangers at planetary bases are underground. We have elevators and disembark commands that teleport commanders long distances. It can be done with the tools at hand but I don't think it'd be worth the effort as things stand and there would be quirks.

I don't think those hangars are really underground as in "under the ground". There is no "ground" above the hangars, it looks like it's all part of the planetary port asset - all the ground is removed and replaced when the asset is placed. The game, as I understand it, cannot do overhangs, caves and the like. Doesn't mean it can't have stuff going into the ground, but not *under*ground.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

This would make a nice evolution forward for Odyssey, but it seems there's no more development happening for the on foot part of the game.

 

[PilotB]

I don't think those hangars are really underground as in "under the ground". There is no "ground" above the hangars

There is ground above the hangers in many of the ports you can see the rocks as you enter the hanger if they're present. It's just that usually you don't see the surface since they don't render the normally invisible back face and most ships can't see down from the cockpit so it's nominally hidden. All in all an efficient way of dealing with it. Not perfect but very easy to implement.

The t3 surface ports are elevated enough that those hangers aren't under ground but the t1 often are.

 

[Yure]

But why underground?

It seems so medieval.

There is a couple of installation places that are pre-Odyssey, that is just a building with a door. The building itself is kinda slanted seemingly like a ladder going underground. There is also a couple of places where there is like SRV "elevators" that just go straight underground. A while back I wrote a suggestion post requesting that FDEV use instances to create content. They don't have to be tied down to a "whole" world mechanism. We already have loading screens when we jump from system to system or when we dock and go underground, and when we use the elevator to go to the concourse. I am sure they can make a loading screen of a player opening a door.

Either way this would also be the best way to implement ship interiors as well.