How will space legs handle ship interiors for large ships?

[Morbad]

Frankly, I don't see any point to space legs if they aren't going to accurately model the interiors of ships in some significant detail. I know they've given at least cursory thought to internal layouts and given how modular ships are, I don't think a fully interactive interior is asking too much.

If individual hobbyist modlers can do vague justice to even smaller ships, Frontier should damn well be able to do better, for all of them.

I don't think so no. Because without these "magical" gravity generators over light speed travel would not (or is not by today's standards) be possible. You cannot create a Sci-Fi game without magic and/or possible future inventions in mind.

While other aspects of the game such as shields and FTL travel are certainly fantasy, a sci-fi game does not automatically require such leaps, and Elite does not require artifical gravity (other than simulated gravity caused by acceleration). Any problem that artifical gravity would solve is solvable via far less fantastic means, whether that's velcro, mag boots, good drugs, or a bit of gene therapy.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If I had to hypothesize - I’d think Ship interiors would be handled much like Multicrew - your ship would vanish to Raxxla while you’re wandering inside an instance. It wouldn’t matter the size of the ship at that point.

 

[Iskariot]

(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....

We need a solid npc crew mechanic. Have been saying it for years.
I think it is absurd that we can take off in an Anaconda or Cutter on our own.
FDev should have added a simple placeholder system right from the start, because, like with so many mechanics, people are now used to the current absurd situation: total absence of any mechanic.
A lot of whining will ensue when they do implement requirements for crew now. But it has to happen. In the old games you needed 7 crew to get even a Python of the ground.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

We need a solid npc crew mechanic. Have been saying it for years.
I think it is absurd that we can take off in an Anaconda or Cutter on our own.
FDev should have added a simple placeholder system right from the start, because, like with so many mechanics, people are now used to the current absurd situation.
A lot of whining will ensue when they do implement requirements for crew now. But it has to happen. In the old games you needed 7 crew to get even a Python of the ground.

Old game mechanics aside, and throwing a dash of reality out here, I’ve taken 42 meter yachts out, off a boathouse lift, out of the dock, cruised them several hundred knots, brought them back, docked them and lifted them by myself, more than once.

So flying something like an Anaconda alone isn’t outside the realm of conceivable.

But both benefit in efficiency tremendously from having other helping hands around! Docking a big yacht without someone or several someones to grab mooring lines and tie you off... huge pain., scary even, but doable.

Also pretty sure this Elite takes place quite some time after the old one, so system automation has probably progressed quite a bit since then.

 

[Stealthie]

If I had to hypothesize - I’d think Ship interiors would be handled much like Multicrew - your ship would vanish to Raxxla while you’re wandering inside an instance. It wouldn’t matter the size of the ship at that point.

See, that's another thing that's going to be a "litmus test" of space-legs for me; persistence.

I always thought the most obvious possibility for some kind of "vanilla FPS" in ED would be via the habitation-rings in stations... which have transparent ceilings.
In use, one of the most interesting possibilities in that scenario would be to launch a ship, outside the station, and use it as a "spotter" for a team within the ring.
For that to work a ship would have to be able to see what players were doing inside the habitation ring and, equally, players in the ring should be able to look up and see ships flying around outside.

More mundanely, if space-legs allows us to wander around surface outposts then I'd hope that we could look through windows and see ships arriving and departing outside.
At it's most basic level, if my ship has portholes, I'd expect to be able to look out of them and see whatever ships also appear when I'm sat in my cockpit.

Having interiors as a separate instance would be a quick & dirty solution but it's going to create a lot of glaring shortcomings.

 

[Iskariot]

Old game mechanics aside, and throwing a dash of reality out here, I’ve taken 42 meter yachts out, off a boathouse lift, out of the dock, cruised them several hundred knots, brought them back, docked them and lifted them by myself, more than once.

So flying something like an Anaconda alone isn’t outside the realm of conceivable.

But both benefit in efficiency tremendously from having other helping hands around! Docking a big yacht without someone or several someones to grab mooring lines and tie you off... huge pain., scary even, but doable.

Also pretty sure this Elite takes place quite some time after the old one, so system automation has probably progressed quite a bit since then.

I agree with your points, and in my proposals concerning an npc crew mechanic I never said that FDev should return to the numbers of crew in the old games, but the current total absence of crew feels wrong too.

My original proposal/outline was something like the following:


I proposed a rather simple form of npc crew, because I think the mechanic might get implemented sooner that way.
I think NPC crew should be a priority so people can get used to the fact that flying a Cutter or a Conda on your own is not possible anymore. The longer FDev takes to get this going, the more difficult it will be to implement a fundamental change like this.

These are just some outlines:

As far as having NPC crew is concerned I would already be happy if they were just a basic requirement for certain ships to be able to fly. A minimal sceleton crew to get certain ships of the ground and more crew for certain functions if you want/need them.
I just want them on board. I don't want huge special advantages and I don't want control taken away from me as a cmdr anyway.

- Perhaps having an ENGINEER might enable a slow auto repair for internal modules, or perhaps the use of fuel might be reduced with 5% Percent. Or perhaps you get a 5% better jump range. Or shields might reboot just a little bit faster.

- Perhaps having a MEDIC might come in handy when first person action (FPA) is introduced and cmdrs can get wounded. Or perhaps your life support systems function 10% better.

- Perhaps having a CO PILOT would be required to fly SLF yourself (just like it is now) and the copilot might also enable auto jumping when you have plotted a jump route, and auto approach to a station in a system, and also auto docking.

- Perhaps having an npc WEAPONS OFFICER would simply improve turret targeting speed by 5%, and/or let weapons run 3% cooler and give you a 5% faster Kill Warrant scanner.

- Perhaps a MINING SUPERVISOR might increase your ore yields by 20% and increase limpet lifetime.

- In the future we might hire a SCIENCE OFFICER and have a scientific module on board (cool for explorers). A science officer might improve your speed of system and planetary scans etc.and we might take soil, flora and fauna samples and analyze them and sell the data for money.

As I said nothing fancy or complicated, or overpowered.
I don't need my ship to become a powerhouse.
Most important thing is that I just would like to have npc crew.
Being a soloist at heart I will never play ED with others. I just do not want the social interaction.

PAYMENT
---------
Of course the current percentages crew get wouldn't work that well as they would eat into our profits far too much.
And we also need the ability to put our crew on hold when we want to fly smaller ships for a while. Because if you want to fly an Eagle for a few weeks and do a bit of fighter combat then you can't have 4 crew members eating into your profits for doing nothing at all.
Otherwise we would either get bankrupt very soon, or we would have to fire them all the time (which is already happening now with the hireable pilots).

CREW SURVIVAL
----------------
Also: Give crew the same survival option as the humans.
Possible alternatives to killing them off:
Perhaps if your ship is blown up you can not use your crew member for 3 days, because he is on sick leave, or perhaps you need to pay medical costs, or perhaps there is a 10% chance he dies, but... do not kill him off by default. That makes no sense at all and is counter productive. People do get attached to crew. Use that to enhance the game. Work with that. Build mechanics around that.

 

[dubsdj]

If they ever actually pull off spacelegs and it is fun and engrossing then I will take my hat off to them.
Honestly though, I think it would be a technical mine field to implement something like that in the current Elite Universe, without it being totally underwhelming. Sure "Other games" have managed it but lets be honest, they aren't very good! The "Other game" that isn't released is a glorified demo and probably will always be just that.
I would vote for atmospheric planets that can be explored and keep the legs to moving around parts of your ship (To begin with) and perhaps the ability to walk the footpaths on the space stations and admire the scenery. EVA on planets would just be way too difficult to make good.

 

[Iskariot]

If they ever actually pull off spacelegs and it is fun and engrossing then I will take my hat off to them.
Honestly though, I think it would be a technical mine field to implement something like that in the current Elite Universe, without it being totally underwhelming. Sure "Other games" have managed it but lets be honest, they aren't very good! The "Other game" that isn't released is a glorified demo and probably will always be just that.
I would vote for atmospheric planets that can be explored and keep the legs to moving around parts of your ship (To begin with) and perhaps the ability to walk the footpaths on the space stations and admire the scenery. EVA on planets would just be way too difficult to make good.

I agree. It seems a daunting undertaking to add FPA gameplay to the Elite universe. I think they will start small, perhaps only with the option to walk around your ship. The danger of this is of course that it will add very little to the game in general, even if it is a lot of work top add to the game. Just imagine how much work it must be to add fully developed interiors to all the ships. I am afraid it will only be interesting to us for a short while, but then the lack of true engaging and useful gameplay will turn us off again.

I would rather like to see access to new planets added to ED: volcanic planets, upper atmospheres of gas giants, planets with atmospheres, but limited biotopes. Planets with toxic seas and rivers.
I even would strongly prefer to see more variation in station exteriors as opposed to walking around, or true planetary mining would be awesome too.

Walking around is definitely last on my list for a spacesim like Elite.