...as does the game.
Interiors Vs FDEV's Escape Argument
- Thread starter Mav359
- Start date
Cmdr, this is the game.
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Oh I knew
If you've brought a large ship to use as a quick escape vessel, surely you've planned incorrectly? This is what skiffs / SRVs are for.
First: Decouple SRV odyssey inventory from ship inventory (currently they seem to be one shared inventory space). The SRV should be smaller, the ship larger.
As for meaningful ship interiors - let's assume all ships have bunks and suit lockers, both of which are accessible by physical multicrew players. Each ship is likely to have these in its 'crew area', so we don't particularly need to worry about module layout and precise physical representation - lock it all off behind closed doors. Just have the interior as the bit you actually need. The rest could possibly be rolled out later, if and when systems support good gameplay in those sections.
Bunk: Respawn point for on foot if you are killed and not in a wanted state.
Suit locker: On foot loadout editing / changing. Sorry, I don't see how this should be possible in an SRV or other similar 'micro vehicle' - like fighters if they become landable.
These make the ship a useful addition to Odyssey's gamplay as it stands, and even more of a consideration if the AI is tweaked to be a bit more proactive in hunting down a player's ship if it's too close to the combat area. Land close and risk the ship but get back in the fight faster? Land further away and have the ship safe but have to trundle in with the SRV?
First: Decouple SRV odyssey inventory from ship inventory (currently they seem to be one shared inventory space). The SRV should be smaller, the ship larger.
As for meaningful ship interiors - let's assume all ships have bunks and suit lockers, both of which are accessible by physical multicrew players. Each ship is likely to have these in its 'crew area', so we don't particularly need to worry about module layout and precise physical representation - lock it all off behind closed doors. Just have the interior as the bit you actually need. The rest could possibly be rolled out later, if and when systems support good gameplay in those sections.
Bunk: Respawn point for on foot if you are killed and not in a wanted state.
Suit locker: On foot loadout editing / changing. Sorry, I don't see how this should be possible in an SRV or other similar 'micro vehicle' - like fighters if they become landable.
These make the ship a useful addition to Odyssey's gamplay as it stands, and even more of a consideration if the AI is tweaked to be a bit more proactive in hunting down a player's ship if it's too close to the combat area. Land close and risk the ship but get back in the fight faster? Land further away and have the ship safe but have to trundle in with the SRV?
A sci-fi lore not including artificial gravity sounds all hard, gritty and cool right until you find yourself in such a situation and it doesn't sound cool anymore. Run to your ship, board it and reach for the cockpit, while your 50 meters long ship propels upward of a couple dozen meters in under two seconds, then turn 90° vertical in another two, and then boosts away straight perpendicular going from a few m/s to supersonic speed in three to four seconds. Enjoy the meatgrinder!
They either wave away the "no artificial gravity" stuff completely, or if they want to even remotely stick to their lore, walking around in an accelerating ship won't be a thing, ever.
Now, if only they explained those magnetic cans and burger packages on zero-g outposts...
The expanse seems to make it work pretty good
It was an obvious PR blunder to use "it would get boring running through the ship"
Why? Because it was frankly insulting to the intelligence of the playerbase. Anyone with half a brain can come up with systems to work around that problem.
Stop treating the playerbase like mushrooms!
That being said....as much as I would love to see interiors in the game (honestly I find it unbelievable that they aren't already part of the game) I have recently changed my opinion. FDev need to stop adding in gameplay spaces and start putting some meaningful gameplay into the spaces they have already created.
Planet surfaces are a prime example. Billions of planets with full surfaces to explore and pretty much zero gameplay to be had.
Why? Because it was frankly insulting to the intelligence of the playerbase. Anyone with half a brain can come up with systems to work around that problem.
Stop treating the playerbase like mushrooms!
That being said....as much as I would love to see interiors in the game (honestly I find it unbelievable that they aren't already part of the game) I have recently changed my opinion. FDev need to stop adding in gameplay spaces and start putting some meaningful gameplay into the spaces they have already created.
Planet surfaces are a prime example. Billions of planets with full surfaces to explore and pretty much zero gameplay to be had.
In the Expanse they are all either strapped to their seats, pumped with anti-g juice and suffering horribly, or stuck to bulkheads with body weighing half a ton, hoping to survive the next change of direction (poor Amos during the assault on Thoth station).
The Expanse make it work pretty good by not making it work at all. You either walk with gravity under a constant linear acceleration (doesn't happen in Elite), or in zero g under uniform linear motion (FA Off on a straight line or in a totally still ship, that technically amounts to the same thing).
The expanse has ships under ballistic (gravity bend) trajectories, with days-to-weeks long travel times. Acceleration is handwaved away, a lot (as is reaction mass). There's a magic 'don't crush my eyeballs into the bulkhead through the back of my head' drug. It 'feels' realistic, but it really isn't.
By far the simplest (for both 'explanation' and implementation), and most sensible thing to do is handwavium inertial dampers* (perhaps 'newly engineered from alien technology'). Which is precisely what they did with the FSD as opposed to the old Stardreamer to get things working in a multiplayer / shared galaxy environment.
*: This can be separate to 'artificial gravity' - it's possible (within some constraints - such as 'drag' and/or inelastic collisions to damp motion) to have floaty gameplay inside the ship, you just can't take the acceleration or rotation of the ship into account. Simulation of that on all the potentially loose bodies in a ship would be prohibitively intensive.
Those who are looking for a 'physics based' space simulation are really playing the wrong game here, and have been for a long, long while.
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The "lore trick" with the FSD (actually coherent with current theoretical principles of warp drives) is that the ship isn't going nowhere, it just sits inside a bubble of normal space while space around it gets squished in front and re-inflated on the back, so they could make with waving away the need for dampeners (there's so much waving to be done to come out with an actually enjoyable game anyway).
I shamely didn't get around to read The Expanse books yet, but I seem to remember having read that that "juice" purpose was to coat the inside of blood vessels to make them fare more resistant to surges in pressure and rupturing, with the "minor downside" of exponentially increasing the risk of stroking out.
I shamely didn't get around to read The Expanse books yet, but I seem to remember having read that that "juice" purpose was to coat the inside of blood vessels to make them fare more resistant to surges in pressure and rupturing, with the "minor downside" of exponentially increasing the risk of stroking out.
Yeah but see, all you're saying here is that game design requires game design.
We also have APEX taxi so actually our ships could bring us everywhere without being in the cockpit...
Yeah I reckon they could've easily limited explorable stations to the the spinning ones – for example until they'd pushed through some lore explanation on how the FSD bubble can now be used to create artificial gravity.
Forgive me for not reading the whole thread up to this point, so if it's already been said in this thread, feel free to point me to which post ...
Something I've suggested before is having 3 boarding options, long, medium and short.
Long: You walk all the way through the ship
Medium: The blue circle teleports you to the door at the back of the cockpit, and you move to your seat and click to sit in it. The reverse of this is an option when selecting Disembark, you get up, walk to the door at the back of the cockpit and that teleports you to blue circle spot.
Short: What we currently have now in Odyssey, Disembark teleports you from your seat to the blue circle spot, and vice versa.
In my opinion, this negates any "it would get old" or "you would want to get out of there as quick as you can" argument.
Right, and mag boots when they 'move about the cabin' and some kind of artificial gravity while running. It's not entirely consistent but suspension of disbelief is already a requirement in video games so
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If you’re in a proximity alert situation (interdiction or some such) then for safety’s sake you’re not allowed out of the chair.
I can still think of plenty of gameplay things to do within those restrictions.
It’s how I’d hope Elite would do space-legs (if they ever do, of course) - if you’re in the pilot seat then it’s not a problem, you’re strapped in. If you’re out and floating, the ship isn’t going to be changing direction. If you’re using SuperCruise Assist, you’re in make-believe gravity so you can float or walk around again while out of the seat. Having watched a few Star Citizen videos about all the problems they’ve had trying to get different frames of reference to play together (the inside of the ships vs the ships flying around), this might be a way of sidestepping those sort of code head-scratchers.
If you’re in a proximity alert situation (interdiction or some such) then for safety’s sake you’re not allowed out of the chair.
I can still think of plenty of gameplay things to do within those restrictions.
But you might be walking/floating around your ship while in supercruise already, when you get interdicted, then you'll get slammed with a few tons of force against whatever surface when the ship tumbles and stops back again in normal space.
Then, if you are out and floating, the ship isn't going to change direction if you are the one piloting the ship. But you might be multicrewing.
SC doesn't even have to think about these "gameplay stoppers", since they went the sensible Sci-Fi way of having pretend gravity. They fact they aren't pulling working physics grid for different frames of references is down to an entirely different can of coding worms.
Right, and mag boots when they 'move about the cabin' and some kind of artificial gravity while running. It's not entirely consistent but suspension of disbelief is already a requirement in video games so
Right, but then your feet will stay conveniently locked to the ground while the rest of your body gets dislodged from your ankles under a lateral-negative 18 g boost-turn.
It requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, as you say.
That is the issue with your simplified presentation of a complex problem. Why aren't you the CEO of google, you just have to get done to get the job.
Just to put you in perspective. Look at all the addons FDev have developed for ED, especially take a look at how they are interlinked with each other. Do you really expect FDev to rework most of the core mechanics of ED, when they are unable to deliver even coop missions at launch of their self-proclaimed 'MMO'?
I think for multicrew - and I’m assuming you’re not talking about holo-me multicrew - if the pilot’s out of the chair then anyone can move around, if they’re strapped in, everybody else must be too.
For interdictions where the pilot is out of the chair, you could always make the concession “it’s a game” and hey presto! you’re back in the chair.