He alone knows it.
No, the Next Era is not space legs... But I think I know what it is.
- Thread starter Dimplebeard
- Start date
Yes it would be already a good evolution.
If you look at the Freighters in NMS, they are huge, but you walk from the hangar to the bridge in easily under a minute. They’ve kept everything close together for the ambulatory bits, so ships still feel big, but actually you’re only bimbling around a tiny bit of the vessel.
I could well imagine ED achieving the same sort of thing by using turbolifts.
I think expecting a Legs expansion to include the ability to walk everywhere is unrealistic - I’d expect plenty of “Restricted Area” / “Out Of Order” signs, as well as the traditional video game “red light” locked doors, but while still letting you see other areas (the Mass Effect games do this very well).
I can't see that as being the next "era" of ED. I cant see many paying money just to be able to send their fleet carriers 1000's of light years away (which we would already be able to do) just to do some strategic attacks.Now, I know a lot of us want space legs. I admit it, I think it would be very cool, and if they had space legs ready to go I would be ecstatic, because I don't think they would do it in half measures. With that being said, nothing leads me to believe that the Next Era is going to be the one. Let me explain this thought process.
Back when Frontier first announced Fleet Carriers, I had a thought. Look at the story of Elite so far. What has been the biggest focus for the plot? Unknown artefacts, strange alien attacks, structures made by a long-dead precursor race leaving the last remnants of their technology to whomever comes next; Humanity is at war. Whatever it is that we did to annoy them, we stirred a hornet's nest and then they stirred one right back. And what does man do in war? What do we do with Thargoid Interceptors, in this war? You find the still-beating heart of the enemy, and you rip it out. The heart of the Thargoid race is their home, and I expect Fleet Carriers will be the vanguard against the Thargoid homeworlds. I said it back then, but I don't expect I was the first person to say so. Now, this prospect sounds pretty exciting. Often when I talk to people about Elite they ask, "But what's the endgame like? What do you do with all those credits you've just earned?" How about attacking an alien homeworld on the other side of the galaxy? Using player-controlled capital ships to stage strikes on powerful, well reinforced enemy positions. Sound like an end-game to you? It does to me.
Recently, though, I got to thinking, "What if there's more to it than that?" There's a of couple things that keep nagging at me. The first is the community update posted on March 1st of this year. In particular, the section titled "Development supported events," a section conspicuously under the Next Era information, which leads me to believe the update to community goals will be related. For your convenience, I will post the relevant text here.
Combine this with the aforementioned, and we have event-supported war campaigns across the entire galaxy. That sounds pretty exciting, I think. But then there's the other thing that's nagging at me... Now, bear with me here, because I admit this part is a stretch.
I realize that decals don't necessarily mean anything, and maybe they only got added to appease some players, but there is a sizable and/or loud enough portion of the player base that would absolutely love to try their hand at making friends with the unknowable horrors from beyond space. What if these "ongoing, engaging, and varied sets of content that are supported by the development team" are community goals that can actually shape the future of the game in a very real, very meaningful way? There is a significant possibility that our Fleet Carriers won't just be the vanguard against the thargoids, but also against each other. Because I guarantee you that for every person fighting the thargoids, there is a player asking, "But what did they ever do to us that we didn't do to them first?" What if the Next Era is one where the players can work to impact the story in such a powerful way that I can't think of any precedent from a commercially successful game, save maybe EVE if you count Nullsec shenanigans. What if the Next Era puts players with opposing viewpoints on opposite sides, some scurrying off to the far reaches of traversable space to create their own small bubble of civilization, safe from the prying eyes of their enemies, only to return in force to help determine the outcome of an entire civilization? It sounds like a tall glass, but when you think about it, the mechanics are all already there. Colonia, Canonn and the Gnosis (as a conceptual touchstone for the impact of Fleet Carriers), the background simulation... It all exists, and that's before considering what the development team will have been working on for two years when the Next Era drops. The Next Era could be Our Era.
Well, here's hoping anyway. Fly dangerous, Commanders.
No, I think it will have to be something substantial like Atmospheric planets or space legs or even both in some capacity to get people to part with their well earned cash. I certainly wouldn't fork out money for what you have described which sounds like it could easily be implemented with existing mechanic (or mechanics that are soon to arrive).
They may well add something like this, but I doub't we would have to pay for it.
Last edited:
Yeah, this is exactly how I imagine space legs in stations, planetary bases, Generation ships etc to be like. You may get mission keys to open specific areas for mission objectives to change things up a bit, but thats about it.
Actually, we don't...
Nothing has been confirmed about the'New Era' apart from Late 2020 - anything else, currently, is speculation - 'wishful thinking'.
That would be a good way of incentivising on-foot missions - do this and see a cool new area (and probably decorate it with bullet impacts).
Due to the instanced nature of the game, I think tubolifts/airlocks/security checkpoints will be hidden loading screens.
everything in the leak has turned out to be true. It not wishful thinking at all. The only thing we don't know is what else other than walking and base building will involve.
So the developers confirmed the contents of the 'leak' as accurate? I appear to have missed this...
It is only the 'community' that appears to have decided that a 'leak' without source must be true.
That's not what he said:
This is true.
There's a thread somewhere summarising stuff from the leak - you should look it up before judging - doesn't seem like it was just a good guess as some initially thought. (Though the ED predictions were admittedly vaguer than for the other games).
No? He sadi:
I did quote directly from his post
I followed that particular topic since its inception.
Having a 'leak' confirmed by events in the short term doesn't confirm anything in the long term (I assume you also read the topic) so deciding it must be factual for ED's future content will either lead to jubilation or disappointment, but to insist for it to be factual without any real evidence is surely wishful thinking.
I wasn't criticising the poster, just stating the fact that nothing has been confirmed by the actual people developing the game.
Last edited:
I’ve seen that before, I’m always massively impressed with the creativity of other players, and not at all base-shamed by them...
<looks at own basic four room base and the disappointed looks on the faces of the aliens therein>
...maybe if the base building in the 3.0 leak is true we can have a slice of that?
I’ve always hoped we’ll end up with procedural cities, akin to the city generator demo from an unreleased game called Subversion (2011-ish, I think) but I reckon that & Earth-likes will be the last things for the game (if they happen) once computing power can do them justice.
For the Topic at hand, although it’s good, I don’t think the suggestion is big enough - a major DLC pack will have to be headline worthy stuff, and I think it was Adam Woods in a vid who gave a bit of a “phew” look and said 3.0 was masses of work, so the Legs rumour has erm...legs, to my eyes.
There are many of us who simply don't give a crap about the Thargoids also.
Nay, a majority of players not interested,according to some 'well informed' posts in this thread! I've not seen the official polling on this yet however.
It's important to note that not all players would need to be over there to support a war effort. A war-time economy affects everyone, even those not on the front lines. You don't need to be actively fighting thargoids to participate. It's all a matter of how it's implemented. Besides, the big point I was trying to make is that a system to support this kind of thing could incorporate wildly different goals, not just a war with the aliens. Colonia is a perfect example.
Yeah, but it needs to be sellable and marketable. I can't see many people spending money on it. Space legs and atmospherics though could be major money earners if done well.
I used Thargoid Scouts to go from Novice to Expert, cost a few rebuys but was achievable, even for me.
With the info posted by those who do fight them a lot, even having a go with the bigger ships is probably possible too, I'll have to try sometime
I think something has been glossed over - based on game lore as best I know it, and not really being one to steep myself in it, I may be missing some bits, but...
To my understanding the original conflict between humans and aliens was the byproduct of a conflict between aliens and aliens, specifically between two different kinds of “Thargoids”, one was not particularly concerned with humans, the other felt humans to be a threat, or a pest, or whatever. But these two had already been at it with each other before we got swept up in the mix.
And there appears to be some measure of support for this position in game already:
Encounters with the Cyclops-variants, the “hyper diction” that was our first confirmation that there was something other than us out there, were relatively peaceful occurrences. We’d be stopped, scanned, and left alone.
Even now, though it has been quite some time since I’ve seen any manner of space artichoke, as I recall, the Cyclops-variants remain somewhat uninterested in us, outside of a Scan, so long as we keep a respectable distance and don’t shoot first.
The other varieties seem much more aggressive, and will attack with the only provocation of us being there.
So it may be viable to fork in two directions here, with the bug-huggers making peace with this less-aggressive lot and the bug-squashers taking the fight to the home world.
To my understanding the original conflict between humans and aliens was the byproduct of a conflict between aliens and aliens, specifically between two different kinds of “Thargoids”, one was not particularly concerned with humans, the other felt humans to be a threat, or a pest, or whatever. But these two had already been at it with each other before we got swept up in the mix.
And there appears to be some measure of support for this position in game already:
Encounters with the Cyclops-variants, the “hyper diction” that was our first confirmation that there was something other than us out there, were relatively peaceful occurrences. We’d be stopped, scanned, and left alone.
Even now, though it has been quite some time since I’ve seen any manner of space artichoke, as I recall, the Cyclops-variants remain somewhat uninterested in us, outside of a Scan, so long as we keep a respectable distance and don’t shoot first.
The other varieties seem much more aggressive, and will attack with the only provocation of us being there.
So it may be viable to fork in two directions here, with the bug-huggers making peace with this less-aggressive lot and the bug-squashers taking the fight to the home world.