Odyssey features for explorers?

[Dziondziak]

Aside from the blue sky and being able to walk around without an srv, what features are planned for explorers?
Will there be new things to find for the codex? I would love to see that. Just by taking the current assets and giving them slight variations, you could make 1000s of different entries. I think its every explorers dream to have their name in the codex, and the way it was rolled out, everything was discovered pretty quickly.
Perhaps they will unlock some of those permit systems...but I doubt it. I think those are being saved for lore purposes.
Anything in particular you are hoping for?

 

[varonica]

Aside from the blue sky and being able to walk around without an srv, what features are planned for explorers?
Will there be new things to find for the codex? I would love to see that. Just by taking the current assets and giving them slight variations, you could make 1000s of different entries. I think its every explorers dream to have their name in the codex, and the way it was rolled out, everything was discovered pretty quickly.
Perhaps they will unlock some of those permit systems...but I doubt it. I think those are being saved for lore purposes.
Anything in particular you are hoping for?

The information is sparse, but there will be new life forms on atmospheric worlds, although I suspect they won't intersect our current crop of vacuum life forms. We will also get a sampling tool we can sample these new life forms with, and a system to analyse the samples and locations to turn these samples in for rewards, apart from that there wasn't much else, I was hoping volcanics might be improved to actually make them, well, volcanoes but I am guessing that would have been featured if they had.

 

[ECLIP5E]

I am hoping for caves and caverns, volcanos w running magma, clouds, and weather effects such as rain, wind, and dust storms on landable planets too! Make it dangerous!

 

[Linnunrata]

weather effects such as rain, wind, and dust storms on landable planets too! Make it dangerous!

Yeah, weather is definitely one of the most interesting features of Odyssey (if you count out the new planetary surface algorithm), though IRL for example dust storms are not very dangerous on tenuous atmo planets due lack of atmospheric pressure.

 

[dannysquid]

I think weather will be the NEXT thing we get (albeit probably in a couple of years alongside proper atmospheric worlds). I think "tenuous atmospheres" basically means no weather.

Although there is something that looks like a solitary cloud coming over the mountains around 1:50->2:00 in a couple of shots of the gameplay trailer.

As somebody who basically sees exploration as sight-seeing I'll be delighted just to have new things to look at, but I'd like to think on-foot gameplay vastly expands the opportunities for exploration missions -- "retrieve object X from temple Y", where temple Y is somewhere that's interesting to navigate or has environmental puzzles or Thargoids scuttling about. They could feasibly go a bit Tomb Raider with the systems they've already put in place.

 

[Linnunrata]

I think weather will be the NEXT thing we get (albeit probably in a couple of years alongside proper atmospheric worlds). I think "tenuous atmospheres" basically means no weather.

Frankly a martian planet without a proper dust storm sounds a bit lame.

 

[Nordmarken]

Frankly a martian planet without a proper dust storm sounds a bit lame.

Or a Hoth planet with furry muskox cangaroos that you can cut open to take shelter from the occasional blizzards.

 

[Deleted member 166264]

Or a desert planet with giant sandworms.

 

[Nordmarken]

Or a desert planet with giant sandworms.

Or perhaps in the future, jungle planets with cannibalistic teddy bears.

 

[varonica]

I am hoping for caves and caverns, volcanos w running magma, clouds, and weather effects such as rain, wind, and dust storms on landable planets too! Make it dangerous!

We already know some of that is not going to happen. The new planetary tech doesn't allow for overhangs so no caves or cavers, no overhanging ledges etc. The only screenshot I saw of vulcanism in the videos had the same features that are currently in game. Clouds? Hard to say, but dust storms yes, it depends on the density of the atmosphere, it needs to be a certain density to support water vapour, if it isn't that dense there won't be clouds.

I expect entry to a atmospheric planet to be hot event and I hope it will be hotter for ships without shields, that may be unpopular or some, in fact I fly with no shields most of the time, it should happen to be at all realistic.

 

[Orvidius]

I do hope we get some vision-obscuring conditions, such as haze or thick dust storms... as long as we also get a nice little scanner to use. I really need a tricorder.

But I'm keeping my expectations low until we know more.

 

[dannysquid]

We already know some of that is not going to happen. The new planetary tech doesn't allow for overhangs so no caves or cavers, no overhanging ledges etc. The only screenshot I saw of vulcanism in the videos had the same features that are currently in game. Clouds? Hard to say, but dust storms yes, it depends on the density of the atmosphere, it needs to be a certain density to support water vapour, if it isn't that dense there won't be clouds.

You could do caves/overhangs by building geometry on top of the existing landscapes. I think I see some of the surface texturing blended with the new settlements in the videos so you could probably do it pretty seamlessly.

It would be nice to have some large scale volcanoes (rather than the little spouts we have at the moment). I would have thought this would be something they could manage if they put their minds to it. Maybe it makes sense to do that when you create proper Io style volcanic worlds. I'm guessing the main technical challenge is getting procedurally-generated lava flows to make visual sense.

 

[Deleted member 166264]

I was just thinking that this will likely have the most benefit to wars. If you do conflict zones you're either attacking a settlement or defending one, but all the action takes place in space. Now you can have the space battles, and follow-up missions where you actually raid the base (or defend it).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I am hoping for caves and caverns, volcanos w running magma, clouds, and weather effects such as rain, wind, and dust storms on landable planets too! Make it dangerous!

Ahem... not likely. They have already ruled out overhanging terrain so any caves would have to be modelled. Volcanoes - they haven't said anything about them and while they have talked about terrain updates, don't expect anything like this. Clouds - what part of tenuous atmospheres is unclear for you? Nope. Rain, nope, you need seas and lakes and a proper atmosphere. Wind? Nope, tenuous atmospheres. Dust storms? Nope, not without wind.

Most of what you want requires actual decent atmospheres and remember the old maxim, if FD havent explicitly said it is coming, then its safest to assume its not coming.

Alternately, manage your expectations.

 

[Linnunrata]

Wind? Nope, tenuous atmospheres. Dust storms? Nope, not without wind.

Hmm? Have they actually clarified how tenuous the tenuous is? I mean, Mars has less than 0.01 Earth atmo and has both wind and dust storms. If the atmosphere is even more neglible than that, it's gonna be basically just trace.

Mars also has wispy clouds of water ice and dust. Noctilucent ones can even look like something.

 

[Troopi]

I and a robot follower that can repair the ship while landed.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Hmm? Have they actually clarified how tenuous the tenuous is? I mean, Mars has less than 0.01 Earth atmo and has both wind and dust storms. If the atmosphere is even more neglible than that, it's gonna be basically just trace.

Mars also has wispy clouds of water ice and dust.

I don't think they gave any numbers, but for an indication, look at their videos. Do you see any clouds? Do you see any dust storms?

If you don't see it, then its not likely coming. Because if it was, they would probably already have shown it off.

Basically its enough to give them reason to colour the skybox and not have any effect on the flight model while at the same time allowing them to make more worlds landable.

 

[Linnunrata]

I don't think they gave any numbers, but for an indication, look at their videos. Do you see any clouds? Do you see any dust storms?

If you don't see it, then its not likely coming. Because if it was, they would probably already have shown it off.

That could very well be the case, but in that case it would be more accurate to blame their laziness than someone who is interpreting the term "tenuous".

"Yeah, we will have atmo planets, and you will be seeing like weeds growing there. Oh, but there won't be any dust storms because the atmospheric pressure is like 0.00000001"

 

[Agony_Aunt]

That could very well be the case, but in that case it would be more accurate to blame their laziness than someone who is interpreting the term "tenuous".

"Yeah, we will have atmo planets, and you will be seeing like weeds growing there. Oh, but there won't be any dust storms because the atmospheric pressure is like 0.00000001"

Based on what would you say they are lazy? You think they have been slacking off the last 2 years? Perhaps sitting at their desks playing GTA all day?

Safer to assume its all about the zots. You can only do so much stuff with each zot. Do you spend your zots on A or B? Tenuous atmosphers which don't require weather patterns, don't affect the flight model, don't have the other things mentioned, takes a lot less zots than with those features. Meaning there are more zots to spend on other things.

You might argue they are not competent, that they should be able to spend their zots more efficiently, so they could have added those things with the zots they have. You might argue the management didn't allocate enough zots to the project, perhaps allocating them to other projects instead.

But lazy? Sorry, that just doesn't scan. They go into work, they work full days, and they work hard, i'm pretty sure of that.

 

[Linnunrata]

But lazy? Sorry, that just doesn't scan. They go into work, they work full days, and they work hard, i'm pretty sure of that.

Fair enough, poor choice of words. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that the atmospheric cake is too big to eat as such and "atmosphere" will be a fog filter and some fantasy plants? I meant more that it's a seriously lazy take on the entire atmosphere thing, but can't say it's not what I expected and I guess it's unfair to call them lazy as the bets are obviously more in the pew pew.

I still think it is a tad bit unfair to berate @ECLIP5E for not understanding what "tenuous" means when it doesn't actually mean anything very specific, Mars having one as well.

E: And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they just tossed the science, slapped max pressure to something along the Martian lines and just skipped modeling any weather.