Mission Playthrough Q&A - Quick Notes

[Vorxian]

Tactics we thoroughly enjoyed playing something like Tom Clancy Wildlands was to tackle a hostile base by setting up a perimeter and silently take out all the guards in watch towers with snipers, then sneak in to the base hiding around corners to take out patrolling guards at concealed moments. You then slip in and take out the alarm systems and then systematically co-ordinate an attack on groups of guards before then scouting building to building and take out any further threats.

These tactics become obsolete if you just get perpetual base spawns. I'd want to go find this magical wizard that's able to keep conjuring an indefinite amount of troops at us.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Tactics we thoroughly enjoyed playing something like Tom Clancy Wildlands was to tackle a hostile base by setting up a perimeter and silently take out all the guards in watch towers with snipers, then sneak in to the base hiding around corners to take out patrolling guards at concealed moments. You then slip in and take out the alarm systems and then systematically co-ordinate an attack on groups of guards before then scouting building to building and take out any further threats.

These tactics become obsolete if you just get perpetual base spawns. I'd want to go find this magical wizard that's able to keep conjuring an indefinite amount of troops at us.

Thankfully that won't be an issue. You can remove all the inhabitants. Yes, it won't remain empty for ever though, as either bandit/pirates will move in or it will be repopulated by the local faction. Sounds fine to me.

 

[lysan]

Umm, no one slightly concerned by the chilled out AI base defenders?

One of the things that put me off FPS shooters was the dumb AI doing the same stupid thing time and again until you’d killed them all.

Im still going to enjoy flying around those planets though - because I’m easily pleased!

AI coding is very challenging, however as we have seen in other games it's possible to make a good AI, the problem is when you add hit count as a part of the challenge. There should never be a hit count grade to attached to you equipment of rank, the NPC's should be the same difficult no matter who you are and what equipment you're carrying. An NPC should go down if it receive a face shot, no matte what weapon propels the shot if the armor and shields are down. Anything else is just annoying and very unsatisfying.

As I understand you could do the heist mission without firing a single shot, and that is a good thing, and it's good game design, setup the rules and make enough room so the players can accomplish the task as they want.

 

[Vorxian]

Thankfully that won't be an issue. You can remove all the inhabitants. Yes, it won't remain empty for ever though, as either bandit/pirates will move in or it will be repopulated by the local faction. Sounds fine to me.

Nah that's fine for me. I was having visions of guards spawning in like some crazy transport mission where you get perma interdicted.

Nope other than this slight niggle, I think they have done a spectacular job from what seen so far.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Thankfully that won't be an issue. You can remove all the inhabitants. Yes, it won't remain empty for ever though, as either bandit/pirates will move in or it will be repopulated by the local faction. Sounds fine to me.

I suspect any depopulation would be per-instance only, or the natural state of a ground base in any moderately-busy system will be permanently depopulated, which will admittedly make these missions a lot easier.

Players galaxy-wide kill hundreds of millions of NPCs a week already - to the extent that for the galactic population to be stable, "being shot by a player" must basically be the only cause of death for NPCs - actually tracking that in any meaningful way is therefore impossible.

 

[Sublime]

One thing I was a bit disappointed with was that there was no airlock cycling. I wish they would add depressurization effects, especially when you’re forcing the door open. They kind of cheated with that magic blue wall.

It even stayed up when they completely cut power to the place.

 

[zimms]

That magic blue wall is not a new thing though. You pass it every time you dock at a station.

 

[Rubbernuke]

A system that is life critical would not be powered on the same circuit though- it would either have backup power or have separate generators.

 

[varonica]

I think this may be a misunderstanding. At the beginning of the mission, they were actually landing on a pad, with landing clearance and everything. It just looks very different from the ones we know in Horizons. But check the ship UI after landing, it shows the refuel option.

This also explains the passive Skimmers. They were just landing at the settlement, in a non-wanted state, so no particular cause for alarm. The sneaking around was mostly for show in the demo I guess.

At 3:46 of the video when he was far from the base a message came up on the HUD "Lower landing gear for auto-landing", this is probably what this is referring to and does indeed seem to be in indication that planetary auto-landing is now possible!

 

[djadjok]

Settlement Variation:

• 27 unique settlements
• 6 different themes: Agriculture, Industrial, Extraction, Tourism, Research, Military
• Latter have unique building types, that can facilitate unique mission types.
• More generic missions work across all types.

As "Mapping" being traditionally in the scope of my interests here are my thoughts on this:
So, from the "FPS" point of view we'll be provided with 27 unique "maps" to conquer from the start. Ok (counting that same maps can have quite a bunch of scenarios attached)
In Elite Dangerous universe that will be probably translated into something like this - If speaking exclusively about "human" space (not Thargoid/Guardian)
There will be 6 themes mentioned above (or more) with one or two "difficulty" multipliers (size/security grading) plus may be some special.
This content will be present exclusively on new "atmospheric" planets
There will be no similar content for "legs" on non-atmospheric planets. All those "old" settlements/POIs there will remain as they are now - too low-poly to be of interest for walks. Same exclusively SRV/ship bombing/scan type of gameplay.
Probably I must mention here that initially with Horizons there were introduced about 90 types of POI's if I do remember well, and that have extended along all those years.
(54 settlements, 12 planetary ports/outposts - and - later -unique bases for some Engineers, all those randomly encountered POI/structures, search zones, abandoned/INRA bases, crashed ship sites - noticeably more than hundred of assembled layouts - and that's in "Human" space)
So for non-atmospheric planets I do not count on updates in that domain - except, of cause, the new reworked generation engine for surfaces (with possible relocation of already prospected bio/geo). Btw, that is a quite straight approach to separate two gameplays with different "ratings"/age restrictions
Also, the number of "new" maps - 27 - fells good to proportion with already existing appliances (>100) and the announced "20%" more of planets becoming landable.

 

[varonica]

Interesting stats on that body, very fast death from suit puncture I should think, 100% sulpher dioxide atmosphere;

Villae C 4
Atmosphere: Thin Sulphur dioxide
Atmosphere composition: 100.00% Sulphur dioxide

 

[djadjok]

Also, I quite curios how absolutely different gameplay scenarios/missions could be "blended" together in Open mode, like say
1) one group arriving at a settlement to restore power/repair - i.e. the power must be already "OFF", no air and some marauders as opposition
2) another group arriving in a fully functional settlement with quite opposite objective - to sabotage fully functional power generator.
Are this will be always on different maps (different settlements), or are this will be realized via instance-dependent mechanics (i.e. those settlements will be kind of search zone targets, mission-instance generated "on the fly", not a permanent POIs)? Hmmm

 

[Winterwalker]

Interesting stats on that body, very fast death from suit puncture I should think, 100% sulpher dioxide atmosphere;

Villae C 4
Atmosphere: Thin Sulphur dioxide
Atmosphere composition: 100.00% Sulphur dioxide

I saw a little snippet on youtube re: that. What colour should the sky be with an SO2 atmos?

(Or is it a simple case of shorter blue wavelengths tending to scatter back - off most molecules eg. CO2 roughly equivalent to SO2 size wise - and vapours/clouds are more likely to be odd hues??)

 

[Arioch]

Interesting stats on that body, very fast death from suit puncture I should think, 100% sulpher dioxide atmosphere

Just enough time to choke out “OhMaGerg, that smells like Satan’s own farts...”

What a way to go!

 

[lysan]

I thought you can melee with your weapon, so sneak up and pop them in the noggin?

Nope not planned, I would like to be able to take people down like a choke or neck snap.

 

[VR Golgot]

I saw a little snippet on youtube re: that. What colour should the sky be with an SO2 atmos?

(Or is it a simple case of shorter blue wavelengths tending to scatter back - off most molecules eg. CO2 roughly equivalent to SO2 size wise - and vapours/clouds are more likely to be odd hues??)

Yeah the little I've read on 'why is the sky blue' is due to blue light's propensity to scatter. So in theory it might be pretty common. It seems that what mainly changes it is particulate in the air that absorbs wavelengths (as with Mars etc).

I think sunsets should be more varied in different atmospheres in theory, and they've mentioned putting in some work there I believe.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Nope not planned, I would like to be able to take people down like a choke or neck snap.

It was mentioned that there were no 'dedicated' melee weapons, but that melee combat was possible - I'll try to find where it was...

 

[lysan]

Tactics we thoroughly enjoyed playing something like Tom Clancy Wildlands was to tackle a hostile base by setting up a perimeter and silently take out all the guards in watch towers with snipers, then sneak in to the base hiding around corners to take out patrolling guards at concealed moments. You then slip in and take out the alarm systems and then systematically co-ordinate an attack on groups of guards before then scouting building to building and take out any further threats.

These tactics become obsolete if you just get perpetual base spawns. I'd want to go find this magical wizard that's able to keep conjuring an indefinite amount of troops at us.

They said that the numbers of NPC’s is not infinite.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Here we go: Melee comment:

Q: Will there be melee weapons?
Players will be able to attack with melee when close but there are no specific melee weapons.

 

[Sublime]

That magic blue wall is not a new thing though. You pass it every time you dock at a station.

A system that is life critical would not be powered on the same circuit though- it would either have backup power or have separate generators.

Yes, but the way it was shown in the video, the fact that they were on an inhospitable (and apparently quite deadly - SO2 Atmo) planet did not seem to play into consideration at all, it just seemed like an afterthought in the whole scenario.

The way they had that fire fight in and out of the building’s main airlock just seemed like an old western saloon shootout. Beyond a timer you seem to have that limits your time outside, there doesn’t seem anything else to indicate you’re not in earth.

IMO there are some missed opportunities with this. If you choose to force breach the airlock, there could be a depressurization event, and anyone inside of the first room of that building would die.

The consequences of that action would be that the rest of the building would get sealed with pressure doors to container the depressurization which would then make it harder for you to access the rest of the building, requiring more brute force actions to do it possibly.

The other way is you can choose the less brute force but more complicated approach, finding the right person with the access and cloning their pass, etc. This will let you enter the building properly with the right access, airlock cycling, etc, and would allow you to more easily access the rest of the building as well so long as you avoid getting scanned by security people/systems.