It's time for an offline version.

[VR SenseiMatty]

The issue with offline is that none of the systems would change unless you changed them.

Or you randomise every system you enter, which is also horrible as you would feel nothing matters.

If you did simulated NPC changes that would require serious CPU power and time. Look how long it takes for Civ to updates it's civilizations and that only has a few. In ED you would be looking at 50 odd thousand that need updating. I don't think that's properly achievable either.

It would get stale as nothing would change. I can't see that being subjective to be honest.

The position and the movement of planets can be calculated. It's purely coordinates and angular velocity calculations, I don't see it as high CPU effort.
When you play Solo, the NPC are generated everytime you enter an instance already (I can see this happening with the patrol ships around stations for example) so I would not be so much bothered with it.
Of course an Offline version of the game got some cons, but the pros would bring much more benefits.
The idea of having new ships (with interiors) or new atmospheric planets with handcrafted contents (even payware) is more more appealing than the current BGS or a shared (but almost empty) galaxy.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The position and the movement of planets can be calculated. It's purely coordinates and angular velocity calculations, I don't see it as high CPU effort.
When you play Solo, the NPC are generated everytime you enter an instance already (I can see this happening with the patrol ships around stations for example) so I would not be so much bothered with it.
Of course an Offline version of the game got some cons, but the pros would bring much more benefits.
The idea of having new ships (with interiors) or new atmospheric planets with handcrafted contents (even payware) is more more appealing than the current BGS or a shared (but almost empty) galaxy.

I'm talking about factions. Planets sure, no problem. Factions though would be utterly static. There would be no movement at all.

And if all you want to do is exploration without any actual "game" space engine is probably the way to go.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I'm talking about factions. Planets sure, no problem. Factions though would be utterly static. There would be no movement at all.

And if all you want to do is exploration without any actual "game" space engine is probably the way to go.

Ah well, for me who's asking for offline, like me, is not even interested in the BGS. I played ED for 5 years and I was never bothered with it. So yes that's one of the thing that the offline version would lose for sure.
Concerning exploration is quite the opposite. As I said above there is the full potential of the mods. We could have tonnes of handcrafted exploration contents including new planet types (water world for example) and new planetary vehicle (including submarines related to water worlds).
Consider that mods doesn't necessarily mean "free". There are a lof of developers which business is focused on producing high quality add-ons for existing games.
So an offline version would allow external producers to develop mission packages, detailed ships, new vehicles, customized bases, player owned bases....

 

[CMDR X]

Offline, Open Source and non-Steam.
I would definitely pay a reasonable "symbolic"
price for this. Horizons only version, of course.

 

[Salonica]

The issue with offline is that none of the systems would change unless you changed them.

Or you randomise every system you enter, which is also horrible as you would feel nothing matters.

If you did simulated NPC changes that would require serious CPU power and time. Look how long it takes for Civ to updates it's civilizations and that only has a few. In ED you would be looking at 50 odd thousand that need updating. I don't think that's properly achievable either.

It would get stale as nothing would change. I can't see that being subjective to be honest.

One wonders how many people would care whether the system state changed or not?

 

[Lone_star]

The issue with offline is that none of the systems would change unless you changed them.

Or you randomise every system you enter, which is also horrible as you would feel nothing matters.

If you did simulated NPC changes that would require serious CPU power and time. Look how long it takes for Civ to updates it's civilizations and that only has a few. In ED you would be looking at 50 odd thousand that need updating. I don't think that's properly achievable either.

It would get stale as nothing would change. I can't see that being subjective to be honest.

There are a lot of factions/systems in ED, but the simulation itself is pretty basic. It wouldn't require that much CPU time to do those calculations (Particularly if you only did them once a "day" in game (whatever amount of actual play time one day consistutes)

Granted - none of this is ever going to happen anyways..... but if they actually ever made an offline version they'd probably just make the bubble smaller anyways. It's much larger than it needs to be for a single player game.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

There are a lot of factions/systems in ED, but the simulation itself is pretty basic. It wouldn't require that much CPU time to do those calculations (Particularly if you only did them once a "day" in game (whatever amount of actual play time one day consistutes)

Granted - none of this is ever going to happen anyways..... but if they actually ever made an offline version they'd probably just make the bubble smaller anyways. It's much larger than it needs to be for a single player game.

I think it would be far more complex then you realise.

Civ 6 is pretty basic when it comes down to it, but that can take ages.

 

[Juniper]

During the kickstarter I vaguely recall FDEV made a statement if they abandoned the game, they would 'make it available' to the community, or something like that but for the life of me I cannot find that piece of information. Does anyone recall something like this ?

I hope as a last act they up the sophistication of the AI flight model.

Yep, it came from Lord Braben himself, but I can't find the post either.

I did try and push them on it at the time... there's a legal name for it which I forget, but it came down to a written declaration that should FD ever go bust, or they turned off the servers, that the E: D code would be placed in trust to a nominated group of players who were unconnected to the company. This was before the company went public of course, and FD was a much smaller company who were taking a big risk by self-publishing a game like E: D.

If the company was liquidated, E: D would go into a vault as an IP asset never to be seen again. Unless they committed to this legal written declaration. So I wrote to them, via a lawyer, asking them to do this.

They never even replied.

 

[Lone_star]

I think it would be far more complex then you realise.

Civ 6 is pretty basic when it comes down to it, but that can take ages.

Civ 6 of course has way less factions - but each one of those are WAY more complex. A paradox grand strategy game like EU is probably a better comparison anyways as those have a ton of nations/factions, emergent factions/nations, etc.

The main problem with BGS is the amount of data/factions - what is actually simulated is pretty basic. (which is fine for ED purposes...... they have no reason to make it more complex than this)

For reference:

Remlok Industries » The Background Simulation Guide – Elite: Dangerous

remlok-industries.fr

 

[Ian Doncaster]

One wonders how many people would care whether the system state changed or not?

State affects:
- trade/mining profits
- what signal sources appear
- the existence of CZs
- the status of Odyssey bases
- mission availability
- quite a bit of AX gameplay
- a bunch of more subtle stuff

Explorers and RES bounty hunters could probably manage absolutely fine with no BGS states at all (though would have to cross-trade for a few engineering materials) ... most other professions would very definitely notice. The primary purpose of it is still to provide a low-key dynamic background, even if most of the talk about it is the secondary (and to me less interesting) purpose of "how do we deliberately make it do stuff"



Provided that you're not concerned about letting the player influence the simulation in offline mode, a "random walk" political BGS combined with Elite/FE2/FFE-style market randomisation on the economic side would be absolutely trivial compared with what Frontier have actually implemented, and could definitely run on a desktop PC. The amounts of data involved - excluding the huge amount of player input to the current online version - to represent the current state are actually pretty small.

 

[Juniper]

Provided that you're not concerned about letting the player influence the simulation in offline mode, a "random walk" political BGS combined with Elite/FE2/FFE-style market randomisation on the economic side would be absolutely trivial compared with what Frontier have actually implemented, and could definitely run on a desktop PC. The amounts of data involved - excluding the huge amount of player input to the current online version - to represent the current state are actually pretty small.

You just have to look at what Egosoft have achieved with the X series to know that a complex BGS could absolutely be run on a modern desktop PC.

Of course, you would probably have to sacrifice things like VR etc if you were doing anything close to that, but it would probably be a price worth paying for many people.

 

[Red Rocket]

i would buy Horizons with full VR support, no full VR for Odyssey…..Odyssey is dead to me.
Frontier is taking a DUMP on its loyal VR community.

 

[Miko]

During the kickstarter I vaguely recall FDEV made a statement if they abandoned the game, they would 'make it available' to the community, or something like that but for the life of me I cannot find that piece of information. Does anyone recall something like this ?

I hope as a last act they up the sophistication of the AI flight model.

100%. I remember it well.

 

[here_it_comes]

The issue with offline is that none of the systems would change unless you changed them. . . . It would get stale as nothing would change. I can't see that being subjective to be honest.

Imagine you didn't care at all about BGS, or don't care about other players effecting BGS.

tuh-dah

It is now subjective.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Imagine you didn't care at all about BGS, or don't care about other players effecting BGS.

tuh-dah

It is now subjective.

That's fine. But then all of the systems are completely static. If you find that enjoyable, great. But I'd be surprised if anyone will find enjoyable.

I think people would care much more then you think. The beauty of the BGS is that a lot of people don't notice it working, but it also creates opportunities for gameplay and systems changing. I think people would seriously miss the changes that happens in the background.

It's not just about whether you "play" the BGS, it's the feel that it's a living and breathing galaxy. Having these unmoving factions that all remain the same all the time would completely ruin that illusion.

I would be very surprised if people actually didn't care. People may say they don't, but I bet when they start playing it like that, then it would get boring very very quickly.

And if they only want to play to explore, well there are better games/software out there, such as space engine.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Civ 6 of course has way less factions - but each one of those are WAY more complex. A paradox grand strategy game like EU is probably a better comparison anyways as those have a ton of nations/factions, emergent factions/nations, etc.

The main problem with BGS is the amount of data/factions - what is actually simulated is pretty basic. (which is fine for ED purposes...... they have no reason to make it more complex than this)

For reference:

Remlok Industries » The Background Simulation Guide – Elite: Dangerous

remlok-industries.fr

Yeah, the main issue is the amount of factions. There is probably well over 100,000 factions. While it is less complex then Civ 6, it's still a lot to do.

If the game became single player, we really don't need all those systems and factions. We could probably cut it down to 5000 inhabited systems and it would still be plenty and much easier to control some kind of automated BGS.

 

[simulacrae]

Would be interesting if it could be opened up to modders with keeping the procedural galaxy and maybe a limited BGS. ….. but with added tools and abilities to create and add assets as well as scenarios… essentially an ARMA like Zeus interface.

 

[here_it_comes]

I would be very surprised if people actually didn't care.

You have a very solipsistic perspective. I mean that as no insult in the slightest, just an observation.

I engage in system flipping here and there, but couldn't care less about the macro dynamics. For me, it is a sidegoal to make combat a little more focused instead of just going to the same HazRes repeatedly.

And if they only want to play to explore, well there are better games/software out there, such as space engine.

If you want to fly sim-ish spaceships, there is no alternative. If you want sim-ish spaceship combat, like me, there are no absolutely no alternatives. I do mainly combat and have an alt exploration account, and I have yet to see a game besides ED that can do this.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't appreciate how BGS works with all the CMDRs out there. That being said, I would take single player EDH over multiplayer EDO.

I would normally never care about having single player ED. I just don't want anything from EDO downgrading EDH for me. So I, and many others demonstrably, want either a single player EDH or a legacy EDH server.

Keep in mind that I am very open about my use of rhetoric and hyperbole. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that, for me, literally everything EDO brings, besides atmosphere colors, is just a worse version of what EDH has. It is nearly a cross-the-board degradation for me, and clearly many others feel the same way.

We don't want EDO to change to fit us, we just don't want to lose the game that we love and paid for.

So we have two options. Either an EDH legacy server is kept up, or an EDH legacy single player version is released. I'd rather a legacy server so we can have full BGS, but would settle for single player.

I hope that helps you understand where others are coming from. We just want off the bus as we don't like where it's headed, and don't want to lose the game we love, paid for, built out cockpits IRL for, and poured thousands of hours into.

Were FD to accommodate us, they would stand to lose nothing. In fact, they would gain a lot of trust and respect. It's possible they'd take a blow to their pride, but that is a matter of their perspective, and up to them.

Would be interesting if it could be opened up to modders...

FD wouldn't do it. Why buy Arx when you can get free paintjobs that are far superior to the ones FD sells?

We do need to keep the dumpsterfire raging in order to have a chance at having our demands satisfied, but we must also not demand unreasonable things for it to be possible.

 

[Zed]

I'm actually really curious how many people who play today are unaware that an offline mode was literally promised as part of the kickstarter and reneged on at the 11th hour.

It was never in the original plan, people kept moaning about there not being one so FDEV said they'd deliver it but I was really surprised when they said that because the stellar forge isn't the sort of thing you want to go putting out on people machines.

 

[simulacrae]

FD wouldn't do it. Why buy Arx when you can get free paintjobs that are far superior to the ones FD sells?

We do need to keep the dumpsterfire raging in order to have a chance at having our demands satisfied, but we must also not demand unreasonable things for it to be possible.

FD wont do any of it. This is just a dream thread anyway. Which is why i would like to see a fully modable version people could run off their own servers to actually Add Content. Something FD is loathe to do. And yes my dream standalone would include odyssey.

The sim side is a base layer to a game and they almost have it complete with oddysee. Horizons started out as grey and brown pretty boring terrain - it was exciting to land but it was Ugly. They made great improvements over the years i im half thinking when they say a three year development for odyasee they forked it three years ago and didnt bother carying over any of the updates - which is why we seeing so many old bugs. But i digress…

The game i want has actual content: orbital grave yards, large scale capitol ship battles with destructible parts, explorable wrecks… Crafted missions …. The galaxy is your oyster. If FD dont want to do it - im pretty sure modders would have a field day with an open sandbox like the ED galaxy.

Frames per second be damned.. and that also goes for all this wishy washy “ i want to fly around in a stale horizon client” NO - give me content. Only reason to create a standalone would be an open sandbox for modding and storytelling through DM / zeus-like mechanics.