Interiors, why?

[Gunther_Bladderburst]

Just a few questions respectfully to you people.

Why exactly do you want to walk around in your ships? In what way will it make everything better? Why wouldn’t you rather have new ships to pilot than have huge amounts of work sunk into making Doom Eternal level sized ship interiors?

Because, yeah it is a gigantic amount of work. I modelled a few military vehicle interiors for work and it was a very long process. The longest I did took 6 months, it was a tank. It’s smaller than most cockpits in Elite.

Seriously just walking around will captivate your attention for a month and then you’ll stay glued to your seat like before, that’s my prediction because Ifail to see what it adds aside from a few wow moments.

geez I guess it’s more than a few questions but what the hell...

 

[Borko]

Because the bond between ship and pilot is what makes me come back to space sims. Elite could do much more to foster that. Walking inside my cutter and hanging out in the slave closet might help that.

 

[Jibroni Gibironi]

Just a few questions respectfully to you people.

Why exactly do you want to walk around in your ships? In what way will it make everything better? Why wouldn’t you rather have new ships to pilot than have huge amounts of work sunk into making Doom Eternal level sized ship interiors?

Because, yeah it is a gigantic amount of work. I modelled a few military vehicles for work and it was a very long process. The longest I did took 6 months, it was a tank. It’s smaller than most cockpits in Elite.

Seriously just walking around will captivate your attention for a month and then you’ll stay glued to your seat like before, that’s my prediction because Ifail to see what it adds aside from a few wow moments.

geez I guess it’s more than a few questions but what the hell...

Yeah, I don't think a lot of these people realize how much work it takes to create just one 3D model, especially the gigantic, elaborately designed ships that we see in Elite Dangerous. And its not just modeling them either, its also programming it to not be a buggy pile of dog feces like they are in Star Citizen. That process in of itself is very pain staking. I as well as Frontier shares in your sentiments, that it will be "immersive" the first few times you walk through them, some of them almost as big as a damn aircraft carrier, but it will wear thin after a while. Much of the gameplay elements I've seen people think of can mostly be done right in the cockpit, and apparently already are since you can have multi crews. Strapping down cargo would be one thing they could do beyond the cockpit, but that requires a major change in the way its done now. Maintenance? Meh, the primary job of the pilot is to fly the ship, not fix it. At best, they can expand on the multi-crew functions, WITHIN the cockpit area only, which is the pilots domain.

 

[Bridgehouse]

I’m a bit confused by the various threads about interiors.

There’s lots of talk of modules and configurations etc. but I think the reality is that the immersive bit will be the cockpit, the accommodation, and the linking corridors to your SRV, SLF, Lift etc.

For gameplay, in the accommodation it would be good to have a lab - take samples off a new world, and use various bits of kit to find even more info. Find random bits of stuff floating about in space - get them on board, get in the lab and analyse. Maybe that would lead to clues to more stuff to find, or mission based play.

Be nice to have a star map room somewhere or even maybe on the lounge table - 3D projected local map, galaxy map etc.

And yeah, I guess the actual space you call home being accessible and exploitable. I’d certainly make May way through all the ships again to have a good nosey around

 

[Eraden]

You know, there IS a compromise between completely fleshed out interiors and nothing at all. Why not just have the most pertinent locations within your ship modeled at the start and have the interface set up with an easy to use menu so that you could choose which location on your ship you wish to be in and then you simply load into that location by opening the door and stepping out into the corridor. This could be done as a stopgap until such time as greater detail could be incorporated. In terms of what people would get out of it.....SWTOR had detailed interiors of player ships and speaking as one of those players, I enjoyed being able to move about in my ship as it made my ship seem all the more personal to me. Little touches like this actually DO mean a lot to a lot of players.

 

[Gunther_Bladderburst]

You know, there IS a compromise between completely fleshed out interiors and nothing at all. Why not just have the most pertinent locations within your ship modeled at the start and have the interface set up with an easy to use menu so that you could choose which location on your ship you wish to be in and then you simply load into that location by opening the door and stepping out into the corridor. This could be done as a stopgap until such time as greater detail could be incorporated. In terms of what people would get out of it.....SWTOR had detailed interiors of player ships and speaking as one of those players, I enjoyed being able to move about in my ship as it made my ship seem all the more personal to me. Little touches like this actually DO mean a lot to a lot of players.

Yes I get that.

But currently there is no gameplay tied to that. And the few gameplays I see will become tedious really fast... you know like walking down a 150 meters corridor to fix something is fun the 5 first times...

And as I said, doing this Is a looooootttt of work. These are huge ships... and yeah I saw that fanmade viper thing... but anybody noticed it wasn’t polished or nice? It’s easy to do a rough, but then you have to polish it.

And again, what are we going to do walking around? What does it matter? After a year will you still walk in awe?

 

[Drelthar]

Probably because it's a fairly reasonable expectation due to Frontier talking about it quite a lot during the early development of the game.

But even if that wasn't the case, it's still a reasonable and logical expectation simply because it make intuitive sense.

You are going to leave your ship, so you'r probably going to get up out of your chair and walk to a door to leave it.

Weather those reasons are good reasons, I leave to the reader...

 

[Gunther_Bladderburst]

I’m a bit confused by the various threads about interiors.

There’s lots of talk of modules and configurations etc. but I think the reality is that the immersive bit will be the cockpit, the accommodation, and the linking corridors to your SRV, SLF, Lift etc.

For gameplay, in the accommodation it would be good to have a lab - take samples off a new world, and use various bits of kit to find even more info. Find random bits of stuff floating about in space - get them on board, get in the lab and analyse. Maybe that would lead to clues to more stuff to find, or mission based play.

Be nice to have a star map room somewhere or even maybe on the lounge table - 3D projected local map, galaxy map etc.

And yeah, I guess the actual space you call home being accessible and exploitable. I’d certainly make May way through all the ships again to have a good nosey around

Will you still be content when you have to do long walks for nothing each time? Do you enjoy drving that buggy on generic worlds? It sounds great on paper but in the end is there really a lot of fun to be had there?

 

[zaikoji]

I’ve pondered the OP’s question myself.
Aside from experiencing initial feelings of pleasure, I expect the joy of interiors to wear thin pretty fast.
Rather than spending time on a series of one-shot “Neil Armstrong Moments”, why not (as the OP says), spend time and resources on something like ships, missions and gameplay mechanics?

 

[Comandante]

If FDev doesn't want us to walk around our ships, they SHOULD NOT have drawn the passage ways on the T9 behind the pilot seat.

First time I saw it was in VR - I thought, "wonder what the rear of the pilot seat looks like", turned around and saw the different levels and warren-like passages.

From there. the mind attempts - but fails - to fill in the blanks. They're teasing us without doubt.

In the long run walking around ships is a natural progression but probably one that won't come immediately with EDO. But by ye gads, the medium to large ship interiors are going to be breathtaking without doubt. T9 is the only large ship I own - more of a medium-size ship pilot. Would love to see the interior of the Beluga or what ever the big-fishy ship is called.

Technically speaking there's much room to suggest that interiors will not be useful. On the other hand, if you let the mind wander, there are many possibilities. Perhaps you have a bio-lab installed; explore the planet, take samples back to the ship to the lab and analyse/store the results; likewise, store samples in the cargo area. There are many more possibilities.

As an old git I look forward to seeing the interior of a MkIII on the grounds I spent most of my younger years there!

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

To promote the space game you love from being comparable to low budget indie cockpit simulators to something with full integrity.

Wishing the best for it, wanting it to finally grow up and shine.

 

[gorankar]

I honestly thought there was going to be game play attached to ship interiors. It seemed an obvious choice to put a boarding mechanic in the game. Disable then board a ship to steal it's cargo, assassinate/ransom passengers, steal the whole ship and fence it off at a pirate outpost. And of course defending your own ship against the same thing. It does not appear they are going that route. Currently, there does not seem to be any game play tied to interiors, but there could be some very compelling game play tied to it.

Also, a sense of scale. Players that do not play ED in VR really don't experience the scale of the ships we pilot in this game. Being able to walk around in the interior would show just how big your 167 meter long Corvette really is.

Even without game play, I wanted ship interiors, for the same reason I wanted player homes in Fall Out / Elder Scrolls games. Immersion.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Also while it might not be that pleasant for us, frontier could do very well out of it.. with ship and station interiors done the star citizen nutters would probably come over, making the current white knights seem like kittens and asking frontier to release $30000 worth of paid exclusive ships.

 

[CMDR Maxus]

Well it's because it's been an expected feature since kickstarter so most assumed it was being worked on over the last 8 years. You claim it's an enormous amount of work so 8 years would of comfortably cut it if they were serious about it.

Personally I gave up on it and just assumed frontier spouted it out during the kickstarter to get more funding. That's what a kickstarter is, selling a dream, not a final product. Over the years it became blatently obvious that it was never coming and looking at development of other space games, it's a very difficult thing to accomplish, much more than frontier are capable of obviously. People really need to resign to the fact that when they say "not at launch" it echoes what they said about space legs over 8years ago, which is essentially "never but keep dreaming".

Regardless I'm not too butthurt about it even though its literally the feature I've been eagerly anticipating and promised for the entire existence of elite dangerous, I'm still really looking forward to odyssey and the features that are coming sound absolutley awesome. What I dont understand is why you wouldnt want such a feature if it was offered...which it isnt so the point is moot.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Well I think many wants to explore their ships they have explored the galaxy in, and with possibility of walking around inside your ship, comes the possibility of new things todo, not all of these are well thought through, but nonetheless what we learn from other games, people have desires to put their own choice on things, just look at paintjobs and ship kits. That personal touch. So it is not so far fetched for people wanting to be able to decorate the insides of their ship, even if it would only be the captains quarters.Just like how player housing works in many MMO's today.

Just consider how close you have to fly another CMDR to take a look at their choosen paintjob, and if you in pew-pew encounter, you are very unlikely to notice much details of the paintjob of the other CMDR. despite this, many players enjoy this customization, as it is mostly for themselves. And this desire can be transfered to a possibility to having some choices on the interior on their ships, ie the captains quarter.

I have put a suggestion before to have a trophy case display in the cockpit, where you could display stuff you could collect in the game, like rare commodities, like the hutton mug, etc. And this would basically only be visible to the owner of the ship. but we are many players who like this sort of optional customization.


Some players are really looking forward for the whole walking around everywhere, dock at a station, leave pilot chair, walk through your ship, exit ship by stair/lift/etc walk across landing pad, take internal train to the community hub, interact with NPC's etc,. etc. Like how Star Citizen works. This will be fun a few times, and then people will revert back to sitting in their cockpit and do things the "normal" way. And with people complaining about wasted time in super cruise for example, this would be on a whole new level.

I know some people are excited about being able to board another players ship, which with the current game rules would be absolutely bonkers, because if you leave your pilot chair to invade my ship, how does it take you to walk7run/float through your ship to airlock and the get over to my ship to do the boarding part. Now my friend arrive and start shooting at your ship, how does your ship survive this? and hwo long would it take you to get back on your ship? With time to kill as low as they are today, this is a bad scenario. So lets do the next thing, boarding a derelict ship,we still hjave the ingame ship travel time, and then you are on the other ship, oh crap, someone started shooingt at your ship... can you get back in time to save it?

Many players are excited about space legs, but very few have thought about what this means. Do we really want an Elite Dangerous version on Star Citizen? Some absolutely do. and some absolutely don't.
I am in the camp of would be cool with Space legs, but I cannot figure out how to create good space game play that fits with the existing game mechanics. adding stuff todo on planets and stations is doable, and seems to be the path FDev is taking, but how does all these new things connect with the existing game play? Would we be required to walk into the station to turn in missions? pay fines etc? ie spending alot more time doing things that used to only take a couple of seconds.

 

[Comandante]

I honestly thought there was going to be game play attached to ship interiors. It seemed an obvious choice to put a boarding mechanic in the game. Disable then board a ship to steal it's cargo, assassinate/ransom passengers, steal the whole ship and fence it off at a pirate outpost. And of course defending your own ship against the same thing. It does not appear they are going that route. Currently, there does not seem to be any game play tied to interiors, but there could be some very compelling game play tied to it.

Also, a sense of scale. Players that do not play ED in VR really don't experience the scale of the ships we pilot in this game. Being able to walk around in the interior would show just how big your 167 meter long Corvette really is.

Even without game play, I wanted ship interiors, for the same reason I wanted player homes in Fall Out / Elder Scrolls games. Immersion.

In all honesty I think that boarding will be a 'thing'. Within 2 years drop of EDO dropping this will be possible - it's a great game-play mechanic, and one (I think was originally hinted at by DBOBE) that was hinted at in the early days of KS funding. Crikey, imagine boarding a 'vette or 'conda with the amount of troops it could have on it. Or a Feet Carrier.

Either way, if interiors happen, it will be because of game play. Until then, keep looking behind yourself in the pilot seat and thinking, "what's back there?..."

 

[Comandante]

Imagine a scenario(player-versus-computer): Interdiction. Currently, you are interdicted, then drop. Then a battle ensues. Now imagine the next step: you're ship is either crippled. or you are victorious - next step: a ship (yours or theirs) is boarded. Another level of game play emerges. Perhaps you are overrun - quick, to the escape pod to live another day. Perhaps your ship is disabled but you manage to overcome the victors and disable their ship against all odds, repair your ship and again, live to fight another day.

 

[varonica]

Imagine a scenario(player-versus-computer): Interdiction. Currently, you are interdicted, then drop. Then a battle ensues. Now imagine the next step: you're ship is either crippled. or you are victorious - next step: a ship (yours or theirs) is boarded. Another level of game play emerges. Perhaps you are overrun - quick, to the escape pod to live another day. Perhaps your ship is disabled but you manage to overcome the victors and disable their ship against all odds, repair your ship and again, live to fight another day.

As long as self destruct is non-cancelable takes out the enemy ship, because that's what I would do every time the moment I was boarded by the enemy, make them pay the ultimate price! No fighting here, just die. All you are doing it making being attacked much longer and more tedious and annoying for the beginners and non-PvP players. Now you get interdicted and escape or be destroyed. Then...interdicted, damaged, boarded, have to fight, yeah right, then run for the escape pod. Are you trying to encourage Clogging?

 

[Jibroni Gibironi]

To promote the space game you love from being comparable to low budget indie cockpit simulators to something with full integrity.

Wishing the best for it, wanting it to finally grow up and shine.

Define "integrity". And what does a flight game not having fully interactive interiors have to do with it? Does Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 lack integrity because you want to walk around in an airplane?

I honestly thought there was going to be game play attached to ship interiors. It seemed an obvious choice to put a boarding mechanic in the game. Disable then board a ship to steal it's cargo, assassinate/ransom passengers, steal the whole ship and fence it off at a pirate outpost. And of course defending your own ship against the same thing. It does not appear they are going that route. Currently, there does not seem to be any game play tied to interiors, but there could be some very compelling game play tied to it.

Also, a sense of scale. Players that do not play ED in VR really don't experience the scale of the ships we pilot in this game. Being able to walk around in the interior would show just how big your 167 meter long Corvette really is.

Even without game play, I wanted ship interiors, for the same reason I wanted player homes in Fall Out / Elder Scrolls games. Immersion.

Capturing passengers and holding them for ransom, stealing peoples ship, and arresting wanted criminals the authorities may need alive are about the only legitimate reasons for having full interiors. But stealing cargo and assassinations? If I just want to steal your cargo, I can use a hatch breaker. If I want to kill you, I can just get straight to the point, blow your ship up and call it a day. And really, even with stealing ships, if the point is to turn a quick profit, fine. But if you are doing it just to hurt the player in some way, well, you are wasting your time, since the ship is insured and I'll get it right back anyway, like I can right now. And you are stealing the ship assuming its actually worth that much to start with, and that its a ship the pirates even want.

Imagine a scenario(player-versus-computer): Interdiction. Currently, you are interdicted, then drop. Then a battle ensues. Now imagine the next step: you're ship is either crippled. or you are victorious - next step: a ship (yours or theirs) is boarded. Another level of game play emerges. Perhaps you are overrun - quick, to the escape pod to live another day. Perhaps your ship is disabled but you manage to overcome the victors and disable their ship against all odds, repair your ship and again, live to fight another day.

If I don't stand to lose anything by dying, then why would I care about an escape pod? What am I losing by dying?

 

[Stealthie]

Just a few questions respectfully to you people.

Why exactly do you want to walk around in your ships? In what way will it make everything better? Why wouldn’t you rather have new ships to pilot than have huge amounts of work sunk into making Doom Eternal level sized ship interiors?

Because, yeah it is a gigantic amount of work. I modelled a few military vehicles for work and it was a very long process. The longest I did took 6 months, it was a tank. It’s smaller than most cockpits in Elite.

Seriously just walking around will captivate your attention for a month and then you’ll stay glued to your seat like before, that’s my prediction because Ifail to see what it adds aside from a few wow moments.

geez I guess it’s more than a few questions but what the hell...

People want it because it's something new and that's interesting.

Yes, it's possible that people will spend half an hour walking around their ship and then never do it again.
I guess it'll be up to FDev to find ways to incorporate the new content into the game in a way that's enjoyable and interesting without being busy-work.

Also, new ships aren't a great alternative.
There's two ways it goes with new ships; they're either worse than what we already have and most people ignore them or they're better and we end up with yet more escalation, which only serves to reduce the usefulness of other ships even further, thus making more of those ships redundant.
In either case, effort is wasted.