Can we please have some aliens we don't actually 'have' to shoot? Yes, we have Thargoids and Guardians but can we have some that are 'friendly'? I'm thinking about races like the Minbari, Ferengi, The Narn and aliens from District 9. I think that many other players would like this feature and it would, clearly, widen the playability from its current footing.
Not so hostile aliens please.
- Thread starter Tarl72
- Start date
Hmm, cut-throat galaxy 
I guess they could add face-huggers - hugging is friendly, right?
I guess they could add face-huggers - hugging is friendly, right?
To be fair, we don't have the tools to communicate with other aliens. We've only really communicated with Thargoids (in game) with the pointy end of a hardpoint, or made them angry by shoving guardian tech into their bases.
I think in the Elite galaxy the only sentient species that exist at this time are us and the 'goids. Guardians sound like they might have been friendlier but they went extinct a bajillion years ago.
Maybe there'll be another first encounter situation at some point, but you know we'll just end up shooting at them again
I think in the Elite galaxy the only sentient species that exist at this time are us and the 'goids. Guardians sound like they might have been friendlier but they went extinct a bajillion years ago.
Maybe there'll be another first encounter situation at some point, but you know we'll just end up shooting at them again
You don't have to shoot the Thargoids, if you drop and let them scan you you can observe them for a bit from a safe distance.
I understand you're probably talking about 'lore', but from a game development standpoint you can see why they go for combat encounters first and foremost. Elite's flight model is robust and universally praised, combat flying is demanding and enjoyable: it's an easy win in terms of gameplay. As the exobiology minigame showed, when Frontier try to add alternative non-combat activities they can be... hit and miss, let's say. Mining is a good use of the flight model without it being about murder, and it's baffling still that they haven't added some structure and support for racing... but I'm not sure how popular a 2D hugging minigame would be.
I understand you're probably talking about 'lore', but from a game development standpoint you can see why they go for combat encounters first and foremost. Elite's flight model is robust and universally praised, combat flying is demanding and enjoyable: it's an easy win in terms of gameplay. As the exobiology minigame showed, when Frontier try to add alternative non-combat activities they can be... hit and miss, let's say. Mining is a good use of the flight model without it being about murder, and it's baffling still that they haven't added some structure and support for racing... but I'm not sure how popular a 2D hugging minigame would be.
I feel with you. Space is dangerous, but it doesn't have to be always hostile. If you are a bit to late stopping for a guard he or she shoot to kill. Always everywhere.
Nice to have some diverse interaction.
Do you know how small the odds are that there would be 3 space faring races in a galaxy at the same time. Let alone one that had some how managed to avoid all detection.
Doing this would break the universe Elite has set up.
The only way to do this would be to "uplift" a sapient species and give them the tech to do so. But this would realistically take decades at the least and the game runs in real time.
Doing this would break the universe Elite has set up.
The only way to do this would be to "uplift" a sapient species and give them the tech to do so. But this would realistically take decades at the least and the game runs in real time.
There should be more alien species using spaceflight and colonizing other planets in the galaxy. Alas, this will unlikely fit in the story: we would have met them by now.
Perhaps some smexy green skinned aliens?
not just the story but the universe as a whole. ED is built to be as realistic as plausible and advanced races aren't very likely to exist at the same time as one another.
If you speak of realism, we should clarify:
ED Fiction:
We have Superlightspeed and fast acceleration. As a result, we are all over the place in „our“ galaxy. So would be any other intelligent life with access to interstellar spaceflight. Clearly, we would have met them by now, right?
Reality:
Sublight speed only. The more objects you have out in space between the stars, the slower your spaceship will need to go. There is no fast acceleration with humans on board. Just ask a moskito which hit a car front window with 120km/h about that one, if in doubt. So other life forms with access to interstellar spaceflight won‘t be all over the place in no time, right? There could be many of them, and it might take a very long time, until we meet them.
ED Fiction:
We have Superlightspeed and fast acceleration. As a result, we are all over the place in „our“ galaxy. So would be any other intelligent life with access to interstellar spaceflight. Clearly, we would have met them by now, right?
Reality:
Sublight speed only. The more objects you have out in space between the stars, the slower your spaceship will need to go. There is no fast acceleration with humans on board. Just ask a moskito which hit a car front window with 120km/h about that one, if in doubt. So other life forms with access to interstellar spaceflight won‘t be all over the place in no time, right? There could be many of them, and it might take a very long time, until we meet them.
Thargoids have not always been fair game. At some point during their introduction phase, when it wasn't possible to take any of them down, and even later on, it's been speculated a lot about possible thargoid factions. Now, apparently, all of this has been washed away since those theories don't have any ground, at least in terms of game mecanisms. It could have been an interesting twist, having some "friendlier" thargoids, not actual ally, but curious about us and ready to "trade" some knowledge and items (about the guardians maybe, giving rise to joint investigations here and there).
I could imagine a puzzle game about deciphering communications with them to understand some basic intentions. But I guess such an idea was not worth the investment and it was easier to just use the dogfight system already in place, and simply make the thargoids just a variation of the PVE experience. I feel what we need is an evolution of the core gameplay, with new interactions and new activities, that would go past shooting and scanning, before we can imagine the introduction of a sentient alien race with which we could have friendlier interactions.
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About the possibility of other sentient species with interstellar travel capacity without us being aware of it already, at first I felt it wouldn't be plausible and I guess simply because I get to see the whole galaxy in our galaxy map and thus have the illusion of basically knowing pretty much anything of interest there is to know (which in a way seems to be the case in the current state of the game).
But we have to remember that less than 1% of that galaxy has been actually visited yet. So there very well could be another sentient race just starting to expand, more or less advanced, not necessarily curious in the same way as we are, nor in need of expansion as us, driven by other needs and feelings, that we haven't yet encountered. They may be stuck in their own bubble because of their overall philosophy and/or biologicial constraints. Maybe they can only survive in the proximity of brown dwarves and they're surrounded by their worst fear : F, G, K, and neutron stars. ^^
3 sentient races within a 400 billions stars universe which 99% of them haven't yet been visited? I'm pretty sure it would still count as "very rare", like the lore states.
That other specie could or could not have advanced interstellar travel capabilities. It could reside in one fully colonized system, and have very crude colonies in neighboring systems with no direction communication (and we could be the ones helping them restoring a link... and clumsily creating conflicts in their societies)
They could be more or less as advanced as the 22nd century human civilization, and yet still have valuable things to trade, because their technology and knowledge would be of a different nature than human evolution. So I definitely wouldn't dismiss the possibility, nor would I reject the idea was it introduced in the game in a proper way.
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The only real question to me is: what kind of gameplay are we talking of with the possibiliy of friendly alien species?
I could imagine a puzzle game about deciphering communications with them to understand some basic intentions. But I guess such an idea was not worth the investment and it was easier to just use the dogfight system already in place, and simply make the thargoids just a variation of the PVE experience. I feel what we need is an evolution of the core gameplay, with new interactions and new activities, that would go past shooting and scanning, before we can imagine the introduction of a sentient alien race with which we could have friendlier interactions.
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About the possibility of other sentient species with interstellar travel capacity without us being aware of it already, at first I felt it wouldn't be plausible and I guess simply because I get to see the whole galaxy in our galaxy map and thus have the illusion of basically knowing pretty much anything of interest there is to know (which in a way seems to be the case in the current state of the game).
But we have to remember that less than 1% of that galaxy has been actually visited yet. So there very well could be another sentient race just starting to expand, more or less advanced, not necessarily curious in the same way as we are, nor in need of expansion as us, driven by other needs and feelings, that we haven't yet encountered. They may be stuck in their own bubble because of their overall philosophy and/or biologicial constraints. Maybe they can only survive in the proximity of brown dwarves and they're surrounded by their worst fear : F, G, K, and neutron stars. ^^
3 sentient races within a 400 billions stars universe which 99% of them haven't yet been visited? I'm pretty sure it would still count as "very rare", like the lore states.
That other specie could or could not have advanced interstellar travel capabilities. It could reside in one fully colonized system, and have very crude colonies in neighboring systems with no direction communication (and we could be the ones helping them restoring a link... and clumsily creating conflicts in their societies)
They could be more or less as advanced as the 22nd century human civilization, and yet still have valuable things to trade, because their technology and knowledge would be of a different nature than human evolution. So I definitely wouldn't dismiss the possibility, nor would I reject the idea was it introduced in the game in a proper way.
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The only real question to me is: what kind of gameplay are we talking of with the possibiliy of friendly alien species?
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Aggressive behaviour to unknown lifeforms that potentially pose a threat to them is instinctually conditioned, evolutionarily sound and natural. Moreso if the unknown lifeform has proven its malevolence, as had happened against the Thargoids (we not only attacked them, we committed genocide against them. Remember JJ-386.)
It's fight of flee, buddy. Be predator or prey. Life is worth fighting for.
It's fight of flee, buddy. Be predator or prey. Life is worth fighting for.