Elite Dangerous and modding?

[Hellhawk666]

Funny, I was thinking about this just this morning. I'd prefer the Elite universe to be its own thing with a distinctive look and feel, rather than trying to graft the graphics of another fantasy realm onto it.

However, that doesn't rule out some forms of modding. One area where this could work would be user created missions that could be submitted to FD for inclusion in the game.

DB has made mention of enriching the random mission system by concatinating missions to create a pseudo "storyline", but without implementing fixed quests. Accepting user-created modular content could be a good way to expand the available story elements and involve the community.

If they gave us the scripting tools and set parameters it could be made into a competition.

 

[Darth Sidious]

Spacesuit moding could work.
Because the network is peer to peer and the suit is only shown in small environments.
And with virtual reality around the corner it could become a Big thing
There could even be a virtual fashion line sold by Frontier as are our ships paint jobs.
But hopefully the fashion is designed by the users and it would be great if those designers could make a bitcoin with it

 

[Daeron]

Mods need screening, integration support, and some kind of accessibility framework. This generally involve work, work, and more work. Anything doing something more than sitting there looking pretty, is messing with the online environment. In which case such content must be restricted to the offline domain!

Decals, paint jobs, colours, hats, and other purely cosmetic entries are quite harmless though. Unless they're so ugly someone go mad and run naked down the street, howling like mad, under the full moon. Still, it was probably the last drop at that point.

Plug-ins, semi-macroing, and UI helpers, please let them stay in a certain online game out there, where it makes the environment so putrid and imbalanced as can be, with the feeble excuse of equal availability, that somehow magically is supposed to rectify the magnitude of variables, destined to never add up in order to support a balanced and healthy online experience, creating artificial needs and extraneous material dependencies, affecting behaviour and social interaction more deeply than anyone will ever admit.

 

[Walli]

as was mentioned before, I don think that it would be easy to make E fully modable. But FD could start with custom paint jobs for example. They even could think of adding those to the store and share profit between artist and FD, this could be a nice win-win situation.
And perhaps they could open that even more, so that users could create props for the stations for example.

 

[Serpentstar]

Adding new weapons is already altering the gameplay. There is no reason to limit anything. If people want to use a silly mod with flying invulnerable unicorns that shoot pink lasers I'm fine with that, I don't have to use it.

Problem here is you don't bring your mods into an online multi player game. It doesn't work. If you want to break your offline only game, that is different. Then again, you can purchase the DLC and wonderfully crafted cosmetics from the online store.

This forum has overall an attitude of "If I don't like / need it others don't need it". Make as much things optional like the lens flare and everyone will be satisfied. Give us mod support, if you don't like mods, don't use them, you don't have to.

This "feels" like the same attitude that has be expressed for guilds, groups, crafting, station ownership, etc. There have been an excessive amounts of Polls and threads regarding things like this. The majority of the people have said NO.

FD has already expressed their intent to provide a vast amount of content for when this beta actually becomes a game.

I assumed it would be obvious to everyone that the persistent universe (even the solo mode) would not be moddable for very obvious reasons.

Yes, you did assume. The way you phrased your statement, however, did not give this indication.

Mods aren't hacks. And if somebody wants to ruin his own singleplayer experience with cheat like mods hes welcome to do that.

Point is, many mods ARE hacks. And the moment you "open that door", it is going to be very hard to limit how far it can be accessed.

I'm surprised there is not more feedback on mods, especially positive feedback. Usually modding games is fun and using mods, especially total conversions are a huge addition to the game.

This should be telling you something. Mods do have their place, just not here, and not when this isn't even a game yet.

I personally would love to see a well done BSG mod for example and help creating it.

Personally, I would love to see a BSG based game... Just not in the Elite universe.

 

[Lone Solo]

I feel you OP. I'd love to see mod support for offline games. Look at the incredible stuff that has been done with Half-Life, Skyrim, Homeworld, Freelancer, etc.

If, for technical or experience-breaking reasons, I had to choose between playing with a bunch of random people online or mod support I'd choose mod support every time.

The perfect space sim does not exist yet, for me. Not until there's one that combines the best features of Elite and Star Citizen into a single moddable package and isn't shackled to online infrastructure.

I'll take what I can get though.

 

[prometh]

It'd be awesome if the Cobra engine could at least be licensed out for other companies to make space games. Perhaps a new X-Wing/Tie Fighter!

 

[Skip Intro]

The only 'mod' I can see working is something similar to World of Tanks where you can mod your own tank skins. If a player has a copy of these skins, they'll see them in-game, if you don't you see the generic skin. I can't see ED taking this up as it might run a coach and horses through their commercial skin store model.