Frontier should release a "stripped down" version of Elite that has offline mode, mods and player hosted servers

teeth_03

T
I think being able to play offline, install mods and letting players host their own servers for the game would be the best course of action for Elite right now. Basically let the players be the developers.

1. Being able to play offline or true single player would be a boon for people wanting to play that way, or if you don't have good internet or none at all.

2. Being able to install mods would be great. What if players could replace Elite's ships with Star Wars ships? Or what if we wanted to add our own ships in the Elite universe? Let us add in the panther clipper ourselves, or simply rebalance the ships and weapons already in the game. The possibilities here are endless.

3. We should still be able to play this mode multiplayer so let us host the servers for it ourselves. For example someone could make a Star Wars mod and host their own server as a Star Wars specific galaxy for people to play multiplayer with.

A few things I think this version does not need to have:

1. 4.5 billion star systems. We just don't need that for this stripped down version. Find a reasonable limit that keeps the database down to a good size. Players should be able to rename systems and planets however.

2. On foot. We don't need Odyssey for this, just keep it strictly a space game. I am not even sure we need to land on planets at all. Or if anything could be an add-on for later but I would focus on strictly the space game aspects of Elite for this version.

I think just about everything else could translate well to a offline/moddable version of the game but this is open for debate.

This project is suggested as a separate entity and does not at all replace the current Elite client. This is meant to put the game in the hands of the players so we can continue work on it ourselves.
 

varonica

varonica
teeth_03 said:
1. 4.5 billion star systems. We just don't need that for this stripped down version. Find a reasonable limit that keeps the database down to a good size. Players should be able to rename systems and planets however.
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So a game that's advertised as a having a full scale realistic galaxy (to the standards of the period when it was implemented) should remove that part entirely and become "just another space game with a relative handful of systems." I have news, even many of the players who want a offline version actually also want the full galaxy simulation, that's the very reason a lot of people play ED and not some other space game.

Again the royal "we", you can say "I don't need" as many times as you like, but the moment you say "we don't need" you are speaking for people whose opinion may drastically diverge from yours and you are just putting unwanted words in their mouths.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
I approve of all the love X4 is getting in this thread. To the OP's point, I do wish that Frontier had, at the very least, "loosened the reigns" on Elite Legacy. For example, they could have removed all the permit locks around the cool nebula that supposedly is reserving those systems for future content, since there is no future content coming to Legacy. Legacy could have, in theory, been the "offline mode" game that allowed mods the OP is requesting. It might indeed be more work than the OP assumes, though the easiest way to open up Legacy would be to deobfuscate the data files so that we could edit things like NPC text, various textures and 3D models, etc, like what I can do with Space Engineers today. Unfortunately I think Legacy still has enough in common with Live that they need to keep all that locked down so not to "give away secrets".

teeth_03 said:
A few things I think this version does not need to have:

1. 4.5 billion star systems. We just don't need that for this stripped down version. Find a reasonable limit that keeps the database down to a good size. Players should be able to rename systems and planets however.
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This is a common misconception. Space Engine (not to be confused with the aforementioned Space Engineers) simulates the entire UNIVERSE, and it does it using under 20 GBs of storage. The size of Elite's database is based on the BGS rather than the Stellar Forge. I do agree that the Bubble in an offline version could be a tiny fraction of the size of the current Bubble, which IMO is too big even for an MMO. Better yet, if this is an offline moddable version, let the user define their own systems inside the Bubble. I'd start really small and then mod the BGS to allow the Bubble to slowly expand over time based on realistic supply chains, population growth, etc.

Anyway, I'd love to have a crack at modding the current Legacy code, even if it's just simple things like NPC comms and the Bubble / BGS. I might even be able introduce my own atmospheric worlds using the original planet tech, though I'd probably need the source code for that, and I doubt Frontier is releasing the source anytime soon.
 
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teeth_03

T
varonica said:
So a game that's advertised as a having a full scale realistic galaxy (to the standards of the period when it was implemented) should remove that part entirely and become "just another space game with a relative handful of systems." I have news, even many of the players who want a offline version actually also want the full galaxy simulation, that's the very reason a lot of people play ED and not some other space game.

Again the royal "we", you can say "I don't need" as many times as you like, but the moment you say "we don't need" you are speaking for people whose opinion may drastically diverge from yours and you are just putting unwanted words in their mouths.
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Re-read the last, very bold statement. I'm not suggesting to take away your 4.5 billion stars.
 

varonica

varonica
teeth_03 said:
Re-read the last, very bold statement. I'm not suggesting to take away your 4.5 billion stars.
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Re-read my statement, people play the game BECAUSE of the galaxy simulation, take away the stars and you don't have a galaxy simulation, if it's a different game then why not make a game yourself that fits your criteria instead of trying to remake an existing one. Even players who want on offline game still want the galaxy simulation.

But in fact I suspect it won't work, FDEV releasing a "cut down" version without the galaxy simulation isn't going to work because the galaxy simulation is the actual base simulation the game is built on, without that there isn't anything to build the game on, the stellar forge, I suggest, probably can't simulate a "little bit" of the galaxy, it's not designed to work that way. Sure play with the details all you want as Old Duck says, but I doubt if a cut down galaxy is even possible with the Stellar Forge.
 

Shabine

Shabine
The galaxy, as it is right now in ED, is the most attractive backdrop to a space sim that is possible beyond expanding to multiple scale galaxies that are interconnected. It isn't the nothingness of it all, but rather what it represents to people, that makes it so important.

That said, we're talking about modded private servers. I'm a big fan of them. They allow people to enjoy games in remarkable new ways. They go far beyond what could be achieved in vanilla environments, and they've given me some of my best experiences. Obviously, I love it when the vanilla game persists in maintenance mode or whatever, but once the modders get involved, you get these very specialized communities that start to crop up. Full overhauls yield the most interesting ones.

Anyway, I'm always in favor of giving code out to people who want to play around with it and tailor it. It's more in keeping with what the spirit of gaming should be, because it removes corporations and their brands from the equation when it comes to crafting experiences, particularly roleplaying and activity-focused ones.
 

varonica

varonica
Shabine said:
Anyway, I'm always in favor of giving code out to people who want to play around with it and tailor it. It's more in keeping with what the spirit of gaming should be, because it removes corporations and their brands from the equation when it comes to crafting experiences, particularly roleplaying and activity-focused ones.
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That's nice, except when it contains proprietary information and code of course. It's highly unlikley FDEV would release anything that would let people infringe on their stuff, but I am sure what Old Duck wants would be possible with the current setup, after all I doubt a lot of what happens in the galaxy re: player interactions are hard coded into the base engine.

But the thing is, a smaller number of systems with an offline mode is essentially identical to many games coming up for release, in fact Starfield fulfils most of the requirements of the OP, smaller galaxy, planetary atmospheres, lots of life, exploration, trading, ship building, so I can't see anyone actually putting any time into anything like this proposal, let alone FDEV doing any work to release it. (ok some people will, but on a purely personal level just for themselves.)
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Shabine said:
A shockingly complex, detailed and overall outstanding game... with an almost vertical learning curve.
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The problem is, FD has made ED really too easy once you know how things work (i.e. the curve rapidly flattens out) and I'd dearly love for FD to have this curve instead continually rise. If they can't do that I'd love to see someone flip all the switches and let NPCs really shine (rather than artificially hobble them like now).

Because of this, other games like X4 will always eat at least some of EDs chips because the skill ceiling is constantly rewarding you.
 

Northpin

Northpin
teeth_03 said:
I think being able to play offline, install mods and letting players host their own servers for the game would be the best course of action for Elite right now
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You mean... best course for action for you, not for Elite.

What would FDev gain out of it? They're not a charity, you know.
And what Elite would gain out of it? Star Wars ships? :unsure: 😂
IMO that would be detrimental to both Elite and StarWars universes...

They will not sell enough copies to be worth the development costs because let's face it, people would want this kind of stripped, offline Elite for free...
 

MickyG1982

M
Northpin said:
You mean... best course for action for you, not for Elite.

What would FDev gain out of it? They're not a charity, you know.
And what Elite would gain out of it? Star Wars ships? :unsure: 😂
IMO that would be detrimental to both Elite and StarWars universes...

They will not sell enough copies to be worth the development costs because let's face it, people would want this kind of stripped, offline Elite for free...
Click to expand...

Not to mention that there is already a lot of games that fill the "itch" of an offline Elite game on Steam now.
Plus several remakes / mods of older games in the Elite series that can be obtained legally & for free.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Yuri John said:
Hust...Starfield...Hust:sleep:
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If you look closely at one of the previous teaser videos (where it cycles through ship customisation) one looks very like a T-6

1680849292408.png


I wonder how long before you see Cobra parts? :D
 

Shabine

Shabine
Northpin said:
What would FDev gain out of it? They're not a charity, you know.
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The fascinating thing about Bethesda is that, despite their lies and laziness, their lack of attention to polish, and their complete inability to tell a compelling story without it sounding like it was written on the back of a napkin for people who clearly aren't good actors to read, the one thing we owe them gratitude for is how open they have always been about allowing people to mod their games extensively. People still play Skyrim, and with 250+ mods that make the game look like it came out in 2026.

On the multiplayer side, companies like GSC and Bohemia Interactive have extended the lives of games like Stalker and DayZ, and sold may more copies than they would have with a purely vanilla experience, simply by allowing people to create their own experiences and communities with them. Ancient titles experience resurgence after resurgence thanks to this openness, and the money and the good will flows in.

Companies that cling to proprietary intellectual property too tightly watch their work wither and die. Not always, but far too often.

It's just a different approach to marketing an experience. I'm all for modding and private servers pretty much anywhere I go.
 
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