External View [A definitive discussion]
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Yeah, we need to keep it as realistic as the Mined Rock Chunks With Brakes®, or sitting in a tin can about a million miles away from the corona of a white dwarf star!
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Funny you should mention this. I've already bought a few.
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Actually, no it doesn't. What it deals with is the single pilots usage of such a system or tactic. The fact is, if it is going to be abused it most certainly won't be done by just the single pilot. What you'll have is a small group of ships powered down, who know the layout of their hunting ground, who are cold sitting on the blind side of a Nav point hiding behind roids or the shadow sides of small stations with a character in external mode overviewing unaware ships. Of course, whilst feeding all the intel via voice chat to their stealthed mates. It will basically be use to set up fast perfect ganks on those mining in busy core systems and anywhere else these inquisitive minds can put it to use. The solutions you offer there do nothing to really negate any of this happening.
So, with that said, I'll stay on my side of the fence and say; no to (EVE like) camera drones and no to turning ED into some warped version of EVE. 2.0. Not interested, not until EVA or Robotic Hull Repairers hit us. FD talk about having camera views sure, but they seem to hint at being camera views from within the hanger or from EVA (at a later date). They do not hint at being a free-flow camera likes of which you see in EVE-online or you see in Flight Sims.
Also on the side note of flight sims, combat flight sims in particular, you rarely find sim pilots when playing hardcore mode having the 3rd person cam on in multiplayer server settings. They seek to recreate what it is like to actually be in the aircraft. I was always under the impression this is what FD were going for in respect to their game here. Your proposal here for a drone cam destroys that path they are currently walking design wise, it destroys and cheapens the feel of the game in my opinion.
The latest news you added to your initial post is relative to the side of the fence you are on. Looking at it is not implementing it.
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That actually sounds really awesome. I'd love it if the game would offer this kind of gameplay.
Unfortunately the galaxy is too big to have these type of traps.
I love this appeal of the "no external view like in every game because I hate to lose an argument" brigade, like they wouldn't play the game anymore, if external cams where introduced.
First of all, I never played EVE, nor do I like games like EVE (external cam or not). So I come from Combat flight sims. The kind where multiplayer is very common, where multiplayer means dogfightkng, situational awareness and flying with wingman coordinating etc.
ALL flightsims I can think of, have external cameras, yet it isn't much of a problem as while fighting in a plane, it is far more effectiv to turn your head in cockpit than going external. Most servers I played on ( most DCS), don't limit external cam other than to limit map access, so you can see your plane, if you chose to.
Yet, you are right in multiplayer dogfight, you rarely see people go external view, as it messes up situational awareness.
But if you really think you could setup such an attack ONLY using external cam, just LIMIT IT TO SOLO MODE! Or do you think AI will have an advantage?
Now for the scenario you laid out there, why do people not set up such an attack today??? Just put the one ship at the lookout powered down between the Outposts extended parts or close to an asteroid or even behind another asteroid... would work the same way! Now you see a target, all that wing comes swooping in and 'bam'... all without an external camera! So how do we prevemt people now from employimg this unfair and cheting tactics? To coordinate an attack with teamspeak and not use the bad in games comms/chat? May be we can limit the number of human players in an instance to maximum 2, to cater people that fear for their virtual lives???
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The Future: External View, Video Capture and Editing
Whilst ship cameras in the manner of CCTV monitors around and throughout the ship are a great idea and a welcome addition to the game that will reinforce immersion and realism, the demand for an external view is not about breaking immersion or realism, nor is it about gaining an advantage in combat. It's purely about eye-candy, about watching a sexy movie of your own spacecraft from the outside. In Frontier First Encounters there was a zoomable rotatable external view centred on the player, which could be exploited in combat by pausing the game and looking around outside your ship before resuming. That isn't an issue in ED since you can't pause combat and against human players it would be a crippling disadvantage; you can't fight whilst using external view. And then if you don't want to watch sexy movies of your own spacecraft from the outside because you feel it will break the immersion of feeling yourself to be physically inside the spacecraft, you don't have to use the external view function do you, so there's absolutely no good reason for people obsessed with immersion to deny external view to people who want sexy movies of the outside of their spacecraft. Is there. You're just holding up development of an important game feature which is the future of 3D gaming. As for realism, whilst it is true that IRL you would not be able to see the outside of your own spacecraft without some sort of external camera drone or some other more far out technology, it is also true that IRL you are sat in front of a computer terminal and not in a spacecraft cockpit and this is only a game. People with enough imagination to be able to suspend disbelief enough to imagine themselves sitting in a spacecraft cockpit, should have little trouble imagining themselves outside a spacecraft as a disembodied camera. The impossible disembodied eyeball external view has been the basis of all cinematic science fiction since La voyage dans la lune in AD1902.
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So I don't just want an external view. I want inbuilt video capture capability. And I want a full-on remote external camera with ship-lock toggle that can go anywhere and point in any direction. And then I want a frame-by-frame-capable video editor utility. The video editor in the old fighter pilot game Red Baron by Dynamix for MS-DOS systems is the sort of thing I'm talking about. In video editing the camera can be made to go anywhere and tail any craft in the game world. And then ED players will be able to produce the sort of exciting movies of their exploits that have been used to promote ED, and share them with the gaming community.
Whilst ship cameras in the manner of CCTV monitors around and throughout the ship are a great idea and a welcome addition to the game that will reinforce immersion and realism, the demand for an external view is not about breaking immersion or realism, nor is it about gaining an advantage in combat. It's purely about eye-candy, about watching a sexy movie of your own spacecraft from the outside. In Frontier First Encounters there was a zoomable rotatable external view centred on the player, which could be exploited in combat by pausing the game and looking around outside your ship before resuming. That isn't an issue in ED since you can't pause combat and against human players it would be a crippling disadvantage; you can't fight whilst using external view. And then if you don't want to watch sexy movies of your own spacecraft from the outside because you feel it will break the immersion of feeling yourself to be physically inside the spacecraft, you don't have to use the external view function do you, so there's absolutely no good reason for people obsessed with immersion to deny external view to people who want sexy movies of the outside of their spacecraft. Is there. You're just holding up development of an important game feature which is the future of 3D gaming. As for realism, whilst it is true that IRL you would not be able to see the outside of your own spacecraft without some sort of external camera drone or some other more far out technology, it is also true that IRL you are sat in front of a computer terminal and not in a spacecraft cockpit and this is only a game. People with enough imagination to be able to suspend disbelief enough to imagine themselves sitting in a spacecraft cockpit, should have little trouble imagining themselves outside a spacecraft as a disembodied camera. The impossible disembodied eyeball external view has been the basis of all cinematic science fiction since La voyage dans la lune in AD1902.
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So I don't just want an external view. I want inbuilt video capture capability. And I want a full-on remote external camera with ship-lock toggle that can go anywhere and point in any direction. And then I want a frame-by-frame-capable video editor utility. The video editor in the old fighter pilot game Red Baron by Dynamix for MS-DOS systems is the sort of thing I'm talking about. In video editing the camera can be made to go anywhere and tail any craft in the game world. And then ED players will be able to produce the sort of exciting movies of their exploits that have been used to promote ED, and share them with the gaming community.
Nope! Lot's of compromises and 'game' mechanics to cater the gaming part as well as the fun part (just read through the design discussions and the comments from developers why they tweaked and edited the flight model - not FSD - sublight flight, to make it fun, as dogfighting in space is no fun passing one another at 2,000+kph briefly glancing at ezch other for a second)
-As well as the chose to design it with a radar range of a few kilometers (5-8?) to keep fighting close, limkt weapons range for the same reason,.
-They put in these unrealistic floating 'particles in space' to give a sense of speed and direction.
-you can hear explosions laser beams and weapons fire through the void to make it fun to play and get feedback (in space sound can't travel)
-you see beams from the side, even with no atmosphere, gases, or dust to fracture or reflect the light? Not that realistic, yet nice to play.
-cool explosions, yet they would look more like perfect spheres, without any atmospheric turbulence or gases...
-bullets don't magicaly disappear after a certain distance they travel until hitting something (solid or gas) or getting under gravitational influence
-power required to counter a simple 1MW laser beam would be minimum 1MW on the shield, that is for the 0.5 square cm the beam hits, so how much surface has the ship covered by shields??? ...and the powerplant has how much output 10MW? 20MW? Even 500MW wouldn't barely cover.
-if you go flight assist off you travel at full acceleration in one direction, you need to decelerate the same time inthe opposite direction ( simple laws of physics), yet you switch on flight assist and magically you quickly slow down and are 'back to normal'
I'm not saying it is bad or should be changed, just the realism argument is not valid, as you are the umptiest guy to point it out , and yet it still isn't valid.
If we talk about scientific and realistic about external cam, how come the space shuttle, the ISS and Satellites have external cameras on extendable arms? Even my car has a rear view camera AND an eagle eye view 'computed' from multiple surround cameras.
Now people tell us it is utterly 'unrealistic' to expect these technologies are not available anymore in the 33rd century, or behold, they might have advanced?
Even a 20th century fighter jet has rear view mirrors!!!
The unaccountable omission of rear and side views as featured in original BBC Micro Elite is also a big handicap.
Especially whenwe talk about a simple external camera (3rd person hints at 'over the shoulder gameplay with HUD). External cam won't offer any HUD, or possibilities to actually fight... you would need your mouse to angle around your ship, limit the range to a few hundred yards from your ship etc. so nobody has to be afraid of anything... if it breaks your immersion, don't use it.
Apparently there is very large group of commanders that are strongly oppose this idea.
Honestly the lack of camera views out from the ship does lower the immersion for me, an futurisrtic spaceship where you only can see what you see out of the cockpit is outright silly.
"camera drone" is nice but not so much an issue.
But having an window pop up on your holo hud showing bottom view would be logical for landings and for freighters turrets around the ship you can use to defend (due to freighters glacial turn rates) would be logical too.
All things that are no big things to put into the game, and so far i have seen no compelling argument against them.
Camera drones would be in so faar even an good feature in that they take up an utility hard point and you have to steer your ship or the drone, then everyone can use them to "spy" up to the range of there own radar.
That would implement another class of player, the intelligence gatherer or just the scenic space photographer, what ever.
It would be an logical implemention and add to immersivity.
And it would not make elite the same as EVE, EVE is based on Dungeons and Dragons, your stats, not your flying abilities count, and your tactical awareness offcourse, therefore cockpit view would mean nothing there.
Make external view an camera drone limited to radar range and an external slot if you have to.
I am getting tired off that people here want to limit Elite to an dogfight in space simulation with an side dish of trading to pay for the ammo.
There are hundreds out there and some of them even better (if one limits it to dogfighting)
What we need in elite is that it is more than about kill scores and so on, because that did work in the eighties, but not anymore.
And honestly, the spacefights in E, for me it is an add on, not the main point of the game.
Exploring for example, very nicely done, Trade is still rather basic, we need warehouses and commodity exchange and building ships self or building special modules or what not.
And offcourse cameras around the ship (attached to it) because it is less immersive to me to immagine that people in the future magically forgot hot to bold an camera to an space ship and route an cable into the cockpit!
Or how to build an camera drone, hell we did know how to do that 20 years back and only missed the battery packs small enough to make it working.
Stop making ELITE less than it could be but add on it, because honestly, as soon one sits in an fully outfittet and pimped Anaconda there is not much else to do than adding more millions to your virtual bank account.
If you want to dogfight only fine, but why demand that people who want to do more are limit to doing the same?
In EVE i did mainly spywork, sneaking around, and no, only to gank an few miners? Be realistic, sitting around hours only to gank an miner that needs an really screwed up mind.
With the solo option or group play in ED the ammount of griefers will be very limited because they do not have an captive audience, and that is what griefers need.
Plus the fact that an miner in Elite runs with shields and has rather powerfull weapons, so as long you do not chase them around in an anaconda your sneaking ship has no shields while hiding, so it is rather defensless.
There are pro and cons to everything but the "cockpit view only" limits elite in an big way.
And there is an way around rear turrets already, fly back ward, great turning arc for mounted weapons even in an freighter and it confuses the hell out of AI so why not allow us to have turrets facing back we can use from our cockpits?
It did make ganking an freighter in frontier at least an challenge.
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I get the feeling an large group of commanders desire elite to be 1980 T fighter arcade console game.
"camera drone" is nice but not so much an issue.
But having an window pop up on your holo hud showing bottom view would be logical for landings and for freighters turrets around the ship you can use to defend (due to freighters glacial turn rates) would be logical too.
All things that are no big things to put into the game, and so far i have seen no compelling argument against them.
Camera drones would be in so faar even an good feature in that they take up an utility hard point and you have to steer your ship or the drone, then everyone can use them to "spy" up to the range of there own radar.
That would implement another class of player, the intelligence gatherer or just the scenic space photographer, what ever.
It would be an logical implemention and add to immersivity.
And it would not make elite the same as EVE, EVE is based on Dungeons and Dragons, your stats, not your flying abilities count, and your tactical awareness offcourse, therefore cockpit view would mean nothing there.
Make external view an camera drone limited to radar range and an external slot if you have to.
I am getting tired off that people here want to limit Elite to an dogfight in space simulation with an side dish of trading to pay for the ammo.
There are hundreds out there and some of them even better (if one limits it to dogfighting)
What we need in elite is that it is more than about kill scores and so on, because that did work in the eighties, but not anymore.
And honestly, the spacefights in E
, for me it is an add on, not the main point of the game.Exploring for example, very nicely done, Trade is still rather basic, we need warehouses and commodity exchange and building ships self or building special modules or what not.
And offcourse cameras around the ship (attached to it) because it is less immersive to me to immagine that people in the future magically forgot hot to bold an camera to an space ship and route an cable into the cockpit!
Or how to build an camera drone, hell we did know how to do that 20 years back and only missed the battery packs small enough to make it working.
Stop making ELITE less than it could be but add on it, because honestly, as soon one sits in an fully outfittet and pimped Anaconda there is not much else to do than adding more millions to your virtual bank account.
If you want to dogfight only fine, but why demand that people who want to do more are limit to doing the same?
In EVE i did mainly spywork, sneaking around, and no, only to gank an few miners? Be realistic, sitting around hours only to gank an miner that needs an really screwed up mind.
With the solo option or group play in ED the ammount of griefers will be very limited because they do not have an captive audience, and that is what griefers need.
Plus the fact that an miner in Elite runs with shields and has rather powerfull weapons, so as long you do not chase them around in an anaconda your sneaking ship has no shields while hiding, so it is rather defensless.
There are pro and cons to everything but the "cockpit view only" limits elite in an big way.
And there is an way around rear turrets already, fly back ward, great turning arc for mounted weapons even in an freighter and it confuses the hell out of AI so why not allow us to have turrets facing back we can use from our cockpits?
It did make ganking an freighter in frontier at least an challenge.
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I get the feeling an large group of commanders desire elite to be 1980 T fighter arcade console game.
I always get hungry when I see that picture. It looks so much like a chocolate cookie.
To say something on-topic: Can't we have our cake and eat it too?
As I said, I'm not against external views via EVA or some kind of repair (or in ship (expandable) screen drone cam like NeilF suggests). What I'm against is having some external viewing system that has nothing to do with inner mechanics of the game par being eye-candy. And yes, the example I gave for abuse come to think of it makes for some interesting play, but if it is going to eventually happen lets not have it by some silly detachment of the game. If you are going to allow for that, give the drone something more to do, allow for it to be a mobile repair drone with a camera, give it a set speed where it will lose contact if the main ship powers away. Also, make it a damn bit of expensive equipment to lose if you have to hyperspace out and leave it.
On your point about the galaxy being too big, I would dispute that the galaxy is too big to have these sorts of traps. The game has just been released and is in its "foundation mode" so to speak. I personally believe, as time passes and ED grows in detail and player base, the core systems are going to be a wealth of multiplayer action, I think that is only a matter of time. EVE for example had a tiny player base when it started, back then the core systems were mostly bear. If you travel around those core systems now, you can't move without passing hundreds of ships in those systems. I think what you'll find happen in ED is a hell of alot of those ships flying around in these systems will be players as opposed to being mostly NPCs. It's going to get a hell of alot busier as time unfolds, the ability to pull off group stunts is going to increase massively. It's happened before, just like this, it'll happen again here.
But eye candy is actually a feature of gameplay. You derive pleasure from beautiful sights.
It is also a feature of marketing. FD uses 3rd person views in trailers. Guess who doesn't? All those youtubers talking about the game, except a few who go to lengths shooting them.
You do hope that ED grows in size. This is not a given! It might as well stagnate or decline, and with it development. So think again if you really want to keep being the guys to shout "get off my lawn" because in some border case you might possibly abuse a wonderful feature that most of the players want.
You are shooting yourself in the foot guys.
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