Glad to hear the effort is going to be put in on Odyssey PC woes before thinking of pushing it onto consoles. Here's my ten cents worth for what needs to be fixed for Odyssey explorers and how to ensure more that one dimension of gameplay to every feature (this will be a recurring theme, something that is the key shortfall of Elite, if a feature is added it MUST have more than one thing useful/enjoyable about it).
I could go on, but you get the point. Elite can often be the most infuriatingly one dimensional 3D game in the universe, and it really does not need to be like this. Add layers to EXISTING gameplay, that is what makes it interesting and retains player engagement. We all like the new stuff when it comes, but then when we are delivered with something like the Vista genomics stuff we get annoyed very quickly. This same ethos should be applied to other new areas of on foot gameplay and also existing in ship gameplay that has been woefully one dimensional for years.
Get someone with an actual imagination to pitch the ideas and support making them happen, I'm getting made redundant from my software documentation role at the end of the month, hint! lol
- Enable on foot gameplay involving geological scanning, sampling, and simple mining of rocks and fumeroles for rewards including materials and fossils. You have good rocks and interesting scatter now on all worlds. Use this feature, dammit. Currently it has zero dimensional gameplay.
- Enable even being able to target existing geological POI when on foot. Why can I do it in an SRV but not on foot?
- Enable genetic sampling to have more than one dimension, possibility of RNG secondary and tertiary effects of your scan - and ability to bargain with Vista NPC for bigger rewards where your sample has found interesting RNG secondary data.
- Enable genetic sampling to handle more than one species at a time. That is cruel and unusual punishment. Ditch the remove canister animation, its cool but just highlights the underlying problem. Have the canister have three separate LED completion lines for up to three species at once. And when any one line is full, just press the damn button.
- Enable to genetic sampling tool right click ping have a 1km range. Since the biologicals scatter distance was increased the ping range to find the 2nd and 3rd sample is now utterly useless and adds to the rage inducement of the gameplay
- Enable secondary ways to potentially get discovery data too - howabout try zapping the biological with the charger tool, to see if it produces other effects (a bit like you can with the stellar phenomena biologicals). Maybe some biologicals with try to defend themselves or release spores when zapped?
- Change Vista Genomics to a more general "Vista Planetary Sciences" or something instead, again to cater for more than one dimension of gameplay
- ability to hand in fossils (collected fossils are even seen in game on foot in bases - it makes sense that we should be able to discover them ourselves in rocks)
- ability to hand in data from on foot geological scans (evidence of past habitability, biologically created mineral seams, etc., the kind of stuff done on Mars by rovers today)
- make Vista NPC also able to provide missions, go to X with a known rare type of Y, get bio/geo samples for Z reward
- Fix FSS scan not showing rings any more
- Fix post FSS system map view not showing any terrain, e.g. you cannot find big mountains any more, all worlds are flat ping pong ball representations. You have to visit and hope to find genuinely varied topography elevations
- Fix post DSS not showing latitude and longitude markers any more, you cannot see where the poles or equator is any more (this has a particular value if the previous point is also fixed)
- Fix other FX that seems worse than Horizons, e.g. stars prominences etc.
- Fix neutron star routing. It works worse than Horizons.
- Fix the camera suite, it fades to black on surfaces 75% of the time, for no reason, no where near obstructions or the surface. Infuriating
- There are still too many human POI out in the black with 3 or 4 distress beacons and wreckage on each DSS scanned world hundreds of LY away from Colonia and main travel routes
- speaking of on surface POI, enable profile scanner to be used on bodies and escape pods found on surfaces for data able to be handed in to S&R contacts for an extra dimension of gameplay
- and enable shot down skimmers wreckage able to be cut open looted with arc cutter tool for an extra dimension of gameplay
- Make the Armstrong Moment more than one dimensional - fairly easily, even without remodelling all the ship interiors or ship exit mechanics etc.:
- First footfall triggers an animation of reaching down to your boot on the ground, and touching the soil. Much better than just a teleport and fanfare music
- You also plant a marker at the point (this marker can also then forever be discovered and visited by other players who can see some more of you details other than just cmdr name). Just as we all get to know more about who first put a foot on the moon than just the legendary name Cmdr Armstrong.
- Deliver an actually useful carrier variant for explorers, smaller, lighter, less capacity, less upkeep and tritium requirements, but allow explorers to take half a dozen small and medium ships out into the void for any gameplay loops out there. Re-use the unused carrier support ship models if you have to.
- Make the SRV able to be deployed from hovering the ship to close the surface, sometimes you cannot find a place to easily land. You can board your SRV to your ship from this close hover situation, but not deploy why? It would be cool AF and requires no additional development from what is clearly already there.
- Make the helpful noob autodock/land module just a default ship feature and not take up the module slot.
- Make a type of small limpet controller synthesis-programmable so that players are not locked out of participating in some deep space opportunities for the existing gameplay loops, such as low level refuel/repair rescue signals, opportunities for xeno/bio sampling, hacking, etc. This type of module would not negate the bigger dedicated modules geared to a specific gameplay focus - it would just enable people to participate at a low level in these activities, and also drive more on surface material collection for said synthesis.
- When you enter a new galactic region, have the ship Covas announce it
- Make things feel more DANGEROUS, its in the title. More sounds/feeling and actual peril, mining should be a grubby risky affair, black holes should make your hull scream and strain, flying in normal space should be fraught with micrometeorites pinging off the shields or dinging your hull if you are unshielded. etc.
I could go on, but you get the point. Elite can often be the most infuriatingly one dimensional 3D game in the universe, and it really does not need to be like this. Add layers to EXISTING gameplay, that is what makes it interesting and retains player engagement. We all like the new stuff when it comes, but then when we are delivered with something like the Vista genomics stuff we get annoyed very quickly. This same ethos should be applied to other new areas of on foot gameplay and also existing in ship gameplay that has been woefully one dimensional for years.
Get someone with an actual imagination to pitch the ideas and support making them happen, I'm getting made redundant from my software documentation role at the end of the month, hint! lol
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