Inconsistent Internal Narrative

[John Xenir]

I've found my notes, so few of those that I forgot to mention earlier:
1) Every ship can be bought - yet there are no space docks to be seen anywhere - this part of industry doesn't exist so where are the ships being produced?
2) How come the entire universe is full of small rocks providing chunks of ore, but there are no nodes of such ore available anywhere? No mother-lodes, no ore veins - just 1T chunks of ore.
3) How come there are no large-scale mining operations utilizing industrial equipment to obtain resources at large scale?

 

[LazlowRave]

I love lore likely more than the other guy, and reading this thread really exposes a degree of demands from players. More so, addressing obvious stuff (autodock, I'm looking at you) and sadly opened the floodgates to many, many more ideas, compliants and gripes.

Lore vs Fun, I see FD just throwing a stack of papers in the air saying, "screw it." Cause to be honest, this games lore has more holes than a... uhm... Swiss cheese factory?

The FSD is my sci-fi complaint or something I'd like explained in detail. Enough detail to where it starts to make sense. Particles off a star, no matter how big of a fuel tank you have, couldn't be considered as fuel to power an Alcubierre Drive, or FSD. The Alcubierre Drive in theory requires more negative energy then what is thought to be in the observable universe. Not to mention Hawking Radiation, imbalance of the Casimir effect and an addition laundry list of questions.

Mass Effect quickly just came up with something that made sense and didn't tag in the term, "quantum mechanics" as its only explanation. My desk lamp can use quantum mechanics because light is a form of quantum physics be can't make it to go Vega on solor power.

 

[SavingPrincess]

I love lore likely more than the other guy, and reading this thread really exposes a degree of demands from players. More so, addressing obvious stuff (autodock, I'm looking at you) and sadly opened the floodgates to many, many more ideas, compliants and gripes.

Lore vs Fun, I see FD just throwing a stack of papers in the air saying, "screw it." Cause to be honest, this games lore has more holes than a... uhm... Swiss cheese factory?

The FSD is my sci-fi complaint or something I'd like explained in detail. Enough detail to where it starts to make sense. Particles off a star, no matter how big of a fuel tank you have, couldn't be considered as fuel to power an Alcubierre Drive, or FSD. The Alcubierre Drive in theory requires more negative energy then what is thought to be in the observable universe. Not to mention Hawking Radiation, imbalance of the Casimir effect and an addition laundry list of questions.

Mass Effect quickly just came up with something that made sense and didn't tag in the term, "quantum mechanics" as its only explanation. My desk lamp can use quantum mechanics because light is a form of quantum physics be can't make it to go Vega on solor power.

Lore Vs. Fun...

Interesting that you see that as the dichotomy... also that you think they are willing to sacrifice "Lore" for "Fun," which implies that the things they DO sacrifice "Lore-wise" end up being "Fun."

The fact we don't have 6-DOF in space, is a hit to both "Lore" AND "Fun"... for example.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The game has more logical and scientific inconsistencies than you can shake a Pantaa Prayer Stick at. It's fun to list them, and arguably fun to try to reconcile some of them, but if you try to rationalise the entire game in the same way you'll go nuts.

Besides, y'all mentioned the size of the docking computer, which is all I need as an excuse to post this again. I know it's poor form to laugh at your own material but I'm sorry, this makes me smile every time I see it.

http://ed.pubimg.co.uk/DOKR320.jpg​

"The DOCKR" spends all of it's time, thinking about how often it gets trashed on the forums..."

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I sometimes wonder about that. With all our advancements in nano-based material sciences (carbon fiber composites, for example), perhaps the Anaconda gets it right and all the rest of the ships are "wrong". Are we really using solid steel plates in 3304 as if these are WWII destroyers in space? I don't know enough about material science (or the official lore) to do anything more than speculate, but I am at peace with my Conda's low mass

It's WW 2 all right. Dogfighting.

As for the rest, please read about thirty years of the Traveller Mailing list.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30Ua5JFPdio

He's not wrong though. ED is a mash-up of Elite elements and FFE elements, and sometimes it feels like it's the worst elements of both. Some of that is driven by technical limitations, but a lot of it is just lazy design. It hasn't helped that much of the new stuff unique to ED seems to have been made up on the fly with little effort to tie it all together in a way that makes sense.

It's fun to play, arguably as much fun to pick apart and try to explain if you're in the mood. But at some point the rationale always has to fall back on "it's just a game." Which is fine, but it's a shame. While limited by the technical restrictions of their day, the Elite games were always more than "just" games. There are far fewer technical restrictions in the late 2010s; many of ED's flaws are just down to poor and/or rushed design.

Please remember that Traveller, written ca 1977, used eldritch technology to rip off all of Elite from 1984.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Please note that I hold *two* engineering degrees.

There is a way to skip all that:

Master GURPS Vehicles.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

- Detail scanner cannot scan Planet X at 21ls away. Detail scanner can scan Planet X at 20ls away, with a star completely obscuring it.

- refitting components costs nothing, and takes no time.

- Stations & station patrols are piloted by either extremely forgiving people, or goldfish. If you anger them, simply enter super cruise, loop back around, and have another go.

- Hyperspace travel takes longer at 7-9pm [GMT], than it does at 2-4am [GMT].

- Offering jobs for Assassination, Piracy, Smuggling, Illegal Salvage, and transport of fugitives on public bulletin boards is A-OK.

- Space stations can store infinite numbers of ships.

 

[SavingPrincess]

Please note that I hold *two* engineering degrees.

There is a way to skip all that:

Master GURPS Vehicles.

Well please note that I was a music composition major and I have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Well please note that I was a music composition major and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Apologies, Your Highness.

GURPS Vehicles was a supplement to the Steve Jackson Games GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System).

It contained the design sequences to produce *any* kind of vehicle, real, or imaginary.

It is, to this day, the hallmark of obscene complexity in pen-and-paper roleplaying game supplements. Only a trained engineer could follow it all.

I got thrown off of the project, because I pointed out many flaws, and inconsistencies, and an ability to back up my claims in demonstrable fact. Sound familiar?

If you could get through designing a vehicle, in GURPS Vehicles, the joke was that you didn't need to go to CalTech, or MIT to be an engineer. You already were one.

Needless to say, simpler systems prevailed. Only the True Gearheads used it. I plead the Fifth.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Please remember that Traveller, written ca 1977, used eldritch technology to rip off all of Elite from 1984.

In my naive youth I wondered for a long time why Braben and Bell steadfastly refused to acknowledge that Traveller was an influence on Elite. Even without the Jameson/Jamison thing it was obvious to anyone who'd played both that there were similarities, both in the gameplay (limited though Elite's was) and the style of the documentation and background material. It was clearly an homage, at least in part.

Years later I learned about Marc Miller's lawsuit against Edu-Ware, and it all fell into place. Jameson is named for the whiskey. Just the whiskey. Nothing more to see here...

 

[Louis Calvert]

Any other fun internal inconsistencies you can think of?

FTL Comms allow us to beam real-time holograms of ourselves across the entire galaxy to appear seamlessly in the cockpit or fighter of a friends ship... Yet I still have to dock to turn in data missions, or check the local bulletin boards and accept jobs that require no physical item to be picked up at the originating starport (like a kill mission).

My interstellar starship has no zoom function on the HUD - in fact lacks any sort of enhanced view options (like tactical tracking and target data, sensory analysis).

Despite FSD being a new invention (released in the late 3290's) there's no non-FSD ships seem docking at starports or just sort of floating through space. Where are all the old ships zooming around using the 2B because the owners can't afford the FSD upgrade or just don't want it, or don't trust it?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

In my naive youth I wondered for a long time why Braben and Bell steadfastly refused to acknowledge that Traveller was an influence on Elite. Even without the Jameson/Jamison thing it was obvious to anyone who'd played both that there were similarities, both in the gameplay (limited though Elite's was) and the style of the documentation and background material. It was clearly an homage, at least in part.

Years later I learned about Marc Miller's lawsuit against Edu-Ware, and it all fell into place. Jameson is named for the whiskey. Just the whiskey. Nothing more to see here...

Whiskey probably *was* involved at some point...in reading Book 2's construction system, and Bill Keith's illustration of the Type S.

 

[zinzaemon]

Apologies, Your Highness.

GURPS Vehicles was a supplement to the Steve Jackson Games GURPS (Generic Universal Roleplaying System).

It contained the design sequences to produce *any* kind of vehicle, real, or imaginary.

It is, to this day, the hallmark of obscene complexity in pen-and-paper roleplaying game supplements. Only a trained engineer could follow it all.

I got thrown off of the project, because I pointed out many flaws, and inconsistencies, and an ability to back up my claims in demonstrable fact. Sound familiar?

If you could get through designing a vehicle, in GURPS Vehicles, the joke was that you didn't need to go to CalTech, or MIT to be an engineer. You already were one.

Needless to say, simpler systems prevailed. Only the True Gearheads used it. I plead the Fifth.

You worked on GURPS? Damn, I still have those books someplace along with Traveller (High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron springs to mind), Spacemaster, many more... Even Space Opera might have survived (off to check).

Good times.

Kudos to you, Mr Vargr, and I totally agree about Elite owing it's debt to Traveller.

 

[Iskariot]

In fiction writing, there are three types of consistencies:

External Consistency - Consistency with the "real" world (science biology,etc.)
Internal Consistency - Following a universes "established" rules (think Magic, the Force, etc.)
Genre Consistency - Consistency with other, similar works of fiction

Elite, almost to the point of being adorably charming, faceplants on all three of these concepts.

Here are a couple fun examples:

How are you going to market yourself as a "luxury liner" and not include basic features like that?

A lot of SciFi is guilty of this one, it falls under the "working cell phones would ruin all movies" trope.

Docking modules should just be a toggle in the functions panel... it's silly to have them as a separate 1t module.


Anything larger than a medium ship should have a full NPC bridge crew that chatters at you through your comms panel (or voice acted, that'd be neat).

Someone on the Dev must really hate people who take too long to leave their parking spot.

And thank god they do.

Any other fun internal inconsistencies you can think of?

You make excellent and funny points.
I have noticed some of those too and made proposals to address them. For example:

One I hope will soon be addressed is the lacking npc crew mechanic.
Just like in the old games ships of a certain size should have a minimum skeleton crew requirement. FDev should really get on with that so people can adjust to the fact that they will no longer be allowed to fly ships like the python, T9, T10, Anaconda, Cutter etc. without a minimum crew.

I think stuff like the docking module should be a software expansion for our ship computer. We should be able to buy different types of software upgrades to enhance our ship. This would add a nice and logical money sink and would also add a bit of depth to the ED universe. FDev could add software dealers to the ED universe. FDev would also be free to expand on this without us having to fill our ship slots with all kinds of computers. A similar problem we now see clearly emerging with all the different types of limpet drones. I already saw this coming long ago and proposed a much more flexible and fun limpet drone system from the get go.

Another point that irks me is the fact that a hired pilot dies when your ship is destroyed, even though you clearly have escape pods (Anaconda), and even though passengers can escape just fine. This is very bad for the crew mechanic and together with the impossibility to stop payments, when you temporarily do not use your crew, this has caused many cmdrs to use pilots as throwaway items. They don't even upgrade them anymore, but fire them before they cash in, or when they switch to crewless ships.

I would also like a good explanation for the death mechanic in the ED universe. When the game was not even released yet I proposed that FDev have a look at the way memory storage and cloning is used in the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Morgan. I think that would be awesome for the ED universe and would add a shipload of cool new gameplay to the game that would also work extremely well when we get FPA/FPS.

 

[Karunamon]

Patched in 3.0 beta 2

I just got something very similar to this and just as nonsensical. The Sovereign Justice Collective (hereafter: SJC) paid me 1.5M to go scan a data point on a planetary outpost a couple of systems over. The owner of the outpost? SJC. So I go do the scan, the base turns hostile, I get a 1000cr bounty, and the nearby authority ship at the base starts launching PAs at my SRV, and between my frantic attempts to get away over rough terrain and a few PA hits, my SRV pops. However, the mission is marked complete the moment I did the scan! Glad to see the instantaneous communication working in my favor for a change.

The damn SJC system security ship gets the shields on my ship down to the last ring before I'm able to FSD out.

I can just imagine the conversation with the mission giver.

Okay. Tell ya what. We're allied. We trust you implicitly, so I've got a hot mission for ya - I'll pay you a decent amount of money to go hack the computers at one of the places we own, but if you get caught, I'm gonna put a tiny bounty on your head and send all my buddies after you. You can keep the million five though, just remember to sneak back into the station to get the money, because the authority ships will fall over themselves trying to claim that 1K bounty.

How does that sound?

[wacko]

FD logic.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

I just got something very similar to this and just as nonsensical. The Sovereign Justice Collective (hereafter: SJC) paid me 1.5M to go scan a data point on a planetary outpost a couple of systems over. The owner of the outpost? SJC. So I go do the scan, the base turns hostile, I get a 1000cr bounty, and the nearby authority ship at the base starts launching PAs at my SRV, and between my frantic attempts to get away over rough terrain and a few PA hits, my SRV pops. However, the mission is marked complete the moment I did the scan! Glad to see the instantaneous communication working in my favor for a change.

The damn SJC system security ship gets the shields on my ship down to the last ring before I'm able to FSD out.

I can just imagine the conversation with the mission giver.


[wacko]

FD logic.

This issue is very specifically fixed in 3.0 beta 2, so it was less inconsistent narrative and more of a bug.

From the patch notes:
"Factions will no longer send you to scan their own Data Points for a Planetary Scan mission"

 

[Old Duck]

I just stripped out all the expensive exploration gear from my DBX and replaced it with hull and module reenforcement so I can do some bounty hunting in Colonia. So how is it something that strengthens the hull and modules take up the volume inside my ship where tons of cargo might normally go? Then again, why were my various scanners inside my ship to begin with? Let's not forget my giant fuel scoop that was inside my ship.

TL;DR - the optional module slots make no sense at all.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

I just stripped out all the expensive exploration gear from my DBX and replaced it with hull and module reenforcement so I can do some bounty hunting in Colonia. So how is it something that strengthens the hull and modules take up the volume inside my ship where tons of cargo might normally go? Then again, why were my various scanners inside my ship to begin with? Let's not forget my giant fuel scoop that was inside my ship.

TL;DR - the optional module slots make no sense at all.

The scanner thing always baffled me. Every other scanner type (manifest, wake, kill warrant) are utility-mounted items. And it's not like the utility mounts can't handle the weight, shield boosters are heavier (especially if engineered for heavy duty).

And shields are inside the ship...but shield boosters are on the outside? I never understood that one either.

It'd make more sense to have shield boosters internal, and maybe in a class 1/2/3 availability, so less space is wasted.

Just a thought...

 

[Blackcompany]

I just got something very similar to this and just as nonsensical. The Sovereign Justice Collective (hereafter: SJC) paid me 1.5M to go scan a data point on a planetary outpost a couple of systems over. The owner of the outpost? SJC. So I go do the scan, the base turns hostile, I get a 1000cr bounty, and the nearby authority ship at the base starts launching PAs at my SRV, and between my frantic attempts to get away over rough terrain and a few PA hits, my SRV pops. However, the mission is marked complete the moment I did the scan! Glad to see the instantaneous communication working in my favor for a change.

The damn SJC system security ship gets the shields on my ship down to the last ring before I'm able to FSD out.

I can just imagine the conversation with the mission giver.


[wacko]

FD logic.

Trust me, mate. Logic's got nothing to do with it...