How will space legs handle ship interiors for large ships?

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

(Assuming space legs actually will include ship interiors)........

Im out stripmining tags in my cutter at the moment, and it made me wonder a guess at how frontier will be handling ship interiors for the larger ships. Specifically with so much more interior volume in effectively a single player game, how will the interiors be handled to both not come across as a desolate ghost ship and to maintain some kinda of plausibility.

Will there be npc crew roaming around the big ships? Can you interact with them? Would they say more than 'hi cmdr' which would be even freakier than nothing out in the black.

For smaller ships, you can imagine them being run by one or very minimal crew so some form of status quo could work.. but really curious on what would be done for the larger ships. Anyone got any ideas? The forumish thought is be very quickly it all starts turning into function well beyond anything frontier has delivered to elite in the last x years.

Maybe just specific rooms for all ships, like the cockpit interior and maybe one other room? Sinking feeling....

 

[Riverside]

Same as small ships - fade to black transitions.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Same as small ships - fade to black transitions.

Yeah that would be very practical and flexible wouldn't it. They could keep adding ship areas as they saw fit in the future.

Better than nothing though, good idea.

Can you imagine a cutter where you can walk around with just you in it, as it currently is? You'd basically be the last person on your own personal generation ship.. no thanks!

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Same as small ships - fade to black transitions.

Nah, it's all minigames now, so expect a quick round of MarioKart as you drive from the cockpit to the SRV bay.

 

[Riverside]

I'm thinking an FPS addition to the game is going to be effectively a smaller, slower SRV in terms of how any associated gameplay pans out.

Instead of selecting SRV or SLF from your crotch you'll choose to leave the ship on foot, and you'll magically appear at the top of the stairs or lift, then a canned animation will take you to the ground. From there you will be able to run around with WASD + mouse shooting & scanning things at 1-4m/s, or use a jet pack to jump over walls & stuff.

I think hoping for zero-G fluid movement around fully resolved, immersive ship interiors is probably just a pipe dream, it'd be cool but too time consuming. We might get a CCTV camera feed that shows various animated pictures of unhappy passengers or a damaged cargo door & canisters falling out.

 

[Maur]

Ships appear to have a lot of automation... but I'm hoping to be able to see and talk to my NPC pilot, and being able to talk to passengers would be good.

 

[PaxtonNewt]

Yeah that would be very practical and flexible wouldn't it. They could keep adding ship areas as they saw fit in the future.

Better than nothing though, good idea.

Can you imagine a cutter where you can walk around with just you in it, as it currently is? You'd basically be the last person on your own personal generation ship.. no thanks!

Will you be able to sprint.. let's say your at the back of your cutter admiring the view of your engine trails like one does when on a ship to Ireland.. you see a fleet of crazy killers approaching with guns blazing.. you forgot to switch your shields back on messing with the power management.. you have to get back to the cockpit.. can you run to the helm or could you have a transporter like star trek and transfer you to the helm I instantly

 

[Ian Skippy]

Will you be able to sprint.. let's say your at the back of your cutter admiring the view of your engine trails like one does when on a ship to Ireland.. you see a fleet of crazy killers approaching with guns blazing.. you forgot to switch your shields back on messing with the power management.. you have to get back to the cockpit.. can you run to the helm or could you have a transporter like star trek and transfer you to the helm I instantly

We don't even know if space legs will ever come. We do know there aint any artificial gravity, so running in deep space would be odd.

 

[xzanfr]

The whole mechanic of hiring crew and seeing them in your ship has sadly been ignored, so I imagine you won't see anyone.

Unless you can somehow get in to the magic area where the active NPC crew live (without an escape pod), and the inactive ones seem to be stored so that they can follow you around (but seem to have an escape pod).

In short, FD have messed up NPC crew to such an extent that it is unlikely that anything meaningful will arise if spacelegs is to come.

 

[Ian Skippy]

The whole mechanic of hiring crew and seeing them in your ship has sadly been ignored, so I imagine you won't see anyone.

Unless you can somehow get in to the magic area where the active NPC crew live (without an escape pod), and the inactive ones seem to be stored so that they can follow you around (but seem to have an escape pod).

In short, FD have messed up NPC crew to such an extent that it is unlikely that anything meaningful will arise if spacelegs is to come.

Or they could simply have NPC's walk about in modelled interiors as is normal in games.

Things are underdeveloped until they are developed. That is kinda how the words are used. We don't know what they are developing, but whatever it is must be underdeveloped right now, by definition. Despairing that they can't develop something that is underdeveloped now is just weird.

Topics like these are basically tests measuring neuroticism.

 

[S. Belmont]

I'm thinking an FPS addition to the game is going to be effectively a smaller, slower SRV in terms of how any associated gameplay pans out.

Instead of selecting SRV or SLF from your crotch you'll choose to leave the ship on foot, and you'll magically appear at the top of the stairs or lift, then a canned animation will take you to the ground. From there you will be able to run around with WASD + mouse shooting & scanning things at 1-4m/s, or use a jet pack to jump over walls & stuff.

I think hoping for zero-G fluid movement around fully resolved, immersive ship interiors is probably just a pipe dream, it'd be cool but too time consuming. We might get a CCTV camera feed that shows various animated pictures of unhappy passengers or a damaged cargo door & canisters falling out.

I too think that this is sadly the most plausible outcome.

 

[Backelaer]

Although that 'leak' has been pretty accurate so far, I still think space legs doesn't make much sense as the next big thing in Elite.

I ask myself what does elite do best (aside from audio)? What are it's core strenghths? Flying cool ships, with an elaborate and varied flight model, in a pretty realistic and beautiful galaxy.
Wouldn't atmospheric landing be the most logical evolution that plays on those strengths?
Within the current design, wouldn't it be way easier to add gameplay to that, instead of legs? You would have to add loads of textures, and think of a way to incorporate interesting things to do. Some ships are the size of sports stadiums. Moving around those in 0g doesn't look like much fun. You can put in the option to fast travel, but that would result in people trying it only once.
Aside from that, almost every gameplayfeature would have to be designed from scratch.

Maybe I lack imagination, and if they get really creative and pull it off, creating a vast amount of meaningful gameplay for legs I'd be the first to sing their praise.
I just fear it's gonna end up feeling like a bolted on feature that's not going to be very intertwined with the gameworld as it is.
Atmo landings just feels like a more natural expansion of this game.

Ah well, it's all speculation anyway.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Atmo landings just feels like a more natural expansion of this game.

The problem with that though is how many years have we been eating horizons now? Since early 16? If frontier after disappearing for another 2 years come back and say, 'all we have now is another version of what you've already been doing', thats going to be a much harder sell in my opinion. Landing on another kind of planet.. not much yay.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

(Assuming space legs actually will include ship interiors)........

Im out stripmining tags in my cutter at the moment, and it made me wonder a guess at how frontier will be handling ship interiors for the larger ships. Specifically with so much more interior volume in effectively a single player game, how will the interiors be handled to both not come across as a desolate ghost ship and to maintain some kinda of plausibility.

Will there be npc crew roaming around the big ships? Can you interact with them? Would they say more than 'hi cmdr' which would be even freakier than nothing out in the black.

For smaller ships, you can imagine them being run by one or very minimal crew so some form of status quo could work.. but really curious on what would be done for the larger ships. Anyone got any ideas? The forumish thought is be very quickly it all starts turning into function well beyond anything frontier has delivered to elite in the last x years.

Maybe just specific rooms for all ships, like the cockpit interior and maybe one other room? Sinking feeling....

I believe that the largest ships have lifts. Surely these lifts wouldn't just go up and down, but along and sideways. So maybe you can get the lift all the way to the SRV bay. If they are to add space legs, I would expect them to add in ship interiors. When looking how they produced the Krait, it looks like they have them semi-mapped out already.

They may introduce a proper NPC system too.

 

[Hacker#451563]

Can you imagine a cutter where you can walk around with just you in it, as it currently is? You'd basically be the last person on your own personal generation ship.. no thanks!

I'd love that.

Looking around my T-9, empty if it had no cargo, a huge bay that stretches away and up...lonely, cold, and waiting to be filled with...PROFIT!

 

[Vardaugas]

Wouldn't surprise me if spacelegs will also bring NPC crew requirements for our ships. Who will then walk about at their stations and leisure areas when you go for a walkabout in your ship.

 

[LordFerret]

Will there be npc crew roaming around the big ships? Can you interact with them? Would they say more than 'hi cmdr' which would be even freakier than nothing out in the black.

Mine had best snap to attention and salute, calling out "COMMANDER ON DECK!" as they do, otherwise it's off to the airlock with them.

 

[Riverside]

I'd love that.

Looking around my T-9, empty if it had no cargo, a huge bay that stretches away and up...lonely, cold, and waiting to be filled with...PROFIT!

I think that would be awesome for maybe the first week or so then I'd probably never use it again unless there was a need to (and some automation to manage the ship while I'm out of my seat).

I think it would have to be an upgrade to the base game for this kind of thing to work (rather than optional DLC) so that stuff took the same time for everyone. Imagine trying to board a ship to steal their stuff only to be blocked at the door because that pilot hadn't bought the DLC

That's why I'm thinking loading screens like we currently have with the SRV & SLF.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Wouldn't surprise me if spacelegs will also bring NPC crew requirements for our ships. Who will then walk about at their stations and leisure areas when you go for a walkabout in your ship.

I hope not! I like flying my ship by myself.

 

[Lightspeed]

Although that 'leak' has been pretty accurate so far, I still think space legs doesn't make much sense as the next big thing in Elite.

I ask myself what does elite do best (aside from audio)? What are it's core strenghths? Flying cool ships, with an elaborate and varied flight model, in a pretty realistic and beautiful galaxy.
Wouldn't atmospheric landing be the most logical evolution that plays on those strengths?
Within the current design, wouldn't it be way easier to add gameplay to that, instead of legs? You would have to add loads of textures, and think of a way to incorporate interesting things to do. Some ships are the size of sports stadiums. Moving around those in 0g doesn't look like much fun. You can put in the option to fast travel, but that would result in people trying it only once.
Aside from that, almost every gameplayfeature would have to be designed from scratch.

Maybe I lack imagination, and if they get really creative and pull it off, creating a vast amount of meaningful gameplay for legs I'd be the first to sing their praise.
I just fear it's gonna end up feeling like a bolted on feature that's not going to be very intertwined with the gameworld as it is.
Atmo landings just feels like a more natural expansion of this game.

Ah well, it's all speculation anyway.

Yes, what you say is all true, and yet how the devs danced around the great big two-footed elephant in the room and didn't mention Legs is quite amazing !