Odyssey would be amazing if it had ship interiors.

[Pville_Piper]

Actually, I'm good with a fade to black on getting in the SRV from the ship and to the ship as that would take a lot of development to get it right. I was talking about on the surface.

As far as foot access to ship, I don't think that will take a lot, particularly since the ships are "designed" for commander access. That being said, my personal opinion is that it was true in the beginning, but somewhere along the way, they stopped development in that way and backtracking a bunch of ships will be a very difficult thing.

I actually have very little confidence that we will ever be able to walk in our ships.

 

[DemiserofD]

As long as they never intend there to be combat inside of ships, you wouldn't need to code it with nearly as much complexity. You wouldn't need to be able to jump, or figure out your position relative to the ground, or anything like that. Might make coding it a whole lot easier.

 

[Mika L]

It seems trivial but I think what makes it complicated is that the commander you see in the chair isn't the same type of asset as your on foot commander is. Cockpit guy is an extension of the ship asset and onfoot guy is onfoot guy asset. To allow getting up in your cockpit would require your onfoot asset to be inside the ship rather than be a part of the ship. Currently, leaving your chair is managed by the same way that the other get up from cockpit/driver's seat actions are handled, ie; fade to black and then switch to whichever; ship cockpit, SLF cockpit, SRV cockpit, on foot.

All the development that would need to go into being able to get up from your chair (apart from it being a non-interactive cutscene that replaces the fade to black) and select your destination from the cockpit door would effectively be the same as what is required for ship interiors to work as a whole.

Maybe it could work as an intermediary step to allow for your onfoot Commander to be anchored to the ship while in motion and then allow for a detach once the ship has landed so that one could get up and walk to the back of the cockpit and access the exit to foot/srv. Basically in the same way that your ship has to be properly landed/docked for the disembark options to show up. Though the caveats to that are that it wouldn't work for SLF as your ship is in motion when that's deployed, but people would still wonder why as they are seemingly the same action, and also that you would have to be landed to be able to get up - again, people would wonder why not while the ship is not in motion, but not landed etc..

So, even though I would say I would be as happy as you would be to see it happen. I don't think it is going to be a small addition in the way we think it could be done.

I can intuitively understand that making the avatar get up from the pilot's seat and walk in the cockpit would be a large part of the development needed for making the whole ship interiors to work. But I don't understand that how the avatar is a different thing when it's sitting in the pilot's seat than when it's standing on the ground. What things are "assets" in games? In my understanding they are 3D models, texture bitmaps, material parameters and sound effects, but probably a lot more, too.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

At present, I would just be happy if we could get up from our chairs, walk to the back of the cockpit, access the elevator and select front stairs or rear access elevator and the doors upon to the top of the stairs or the elevator at the back of the ship. That and we have an actual animation of entering and exiting the SRV... I know, I'm a dreamer...

Yes, in 2023, the expectation would have to be just cockpit interiors with various buttons, hooks and rp animations like coffee.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Also have to mention how much of a success carrier interiors are, and i don't think any deniers are allowed to deny what frontier made as a good example.

 

[DemiserofD]

Also have to mention how much of a success carrier interiors are, and i don't think any deniers are allowed to deny what frontier made as a good example.

Really? Most people I know of only use them when there's literally nothing else to do - IE, when waiting for a jump. Even then, they usually just go sit down in the captain's chair and wait for the jump, they don't actually walk around. That doesn't exactly scream success to me.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Really? Most people I know of only use them when there's literally nothing else to do - IE, when waiting for a jump. Even then, they usually just go sit down in the captain's chair and wait for the jump, they don't actually walk around. That doesn't exactly scream success to me.

Well they don't serve any system thats based on combat or health bars or system mechanic.. they're largely in the context of experience. The scenario you mentioned, and for many playstyles, the point of logging in and logging out would very much positively round out the activity mechanics in the sandbox. Because elite has zero definition, noone right or wrong in how they play, but yes this definitely more for the experience effect rather than increasing or decreasing a counter loops, which isn't for everyone.

 

[Fizzatron]

I can intuitively understand that making the avatar get up from the pilot's seat and walk in the cockpit would be a large part of the development needed for making the whole ship interiors to work. But I don't understand that how the avatar is a different thing when it's sitting in the pilot's seat than when it's standing on the ground. What things are "assets" in games? In my understanding they are 3D models, texture bitmaps, material parameters and sound effects, but probably a lot more, too.

I could be completely wrong, but imagine that your cockpit commander is no different from the animated landing gear. There are aspects to the ship that can be modified, outfitting, ship kits, paintjobs etc.. but you can't remove a multicannon from the ship, it's stuck to it. Your cockpit commander is the same. For your commander to get up, they would have to be two distinct assets - all the things that encompass the ship and all thing things that encompass your onfoot avatar. If there were a way to seamless attach/detach those two things when motioning to get up or sit down in your cockpit chair, that could be an interim solution to the problem, with the restrictions on having to be docked/landed before you are allowed to get up and walk around.

It is the thing that those who go on about Star Citizen talk about, and it's true, when flying your ship in Star Citizen, it is your on foot avatar in the ship. However, it wouldn't surprise me that the animation of sitting down doesn't do exactly what I just outlined above. It's just that that game goes further in allowing you to get up at any time, even when the ship is moving. This is what people think about when talking about interiors, however, it's also one of the banes of Star Citizen in regards to lag/de-sync and why you see some of the crazy bugs in that game, and there's no real solution for it yet - it's what everyone wants but its computationally problematic, especially when bringing internet connectivity/synchronization into the equation. Empyrion acts in the exact same way, there is a heirarchy - on foot, hover vessel/small vessel and capital ship. In Empyrion, you can be in your small vessel and dock into the capital vessel, then get out of your small vessel, whilst in the capital vessel, then walk to the bridge, sit down and then fly the capital vessel with all hover/small vessels that are docked. But you can't dock a smaller capital vessel to a larger capital vessel. There are three distinct layers of object containers with rules that govern what they can or cannot do.

The tricky part is that everything in the capital ship has to be securely docked, which is the game's way of syncing all of the assets together so that when you fly, everything flies correctly with you. Anyone who's played Empyrion would tell you what would happen if someone who's in the captain's chair of a capital vessel started to move while a small vessel isn't properly docked to the capital vessel and also if anyone else, on foot, who's in the capital vessel isn't sat down. Because they are not docked/synced the ship moves but they don't move with it and thus go flying out of the ship. CIG have tried to solve this, with limited success, but having a ship that is moving and objects contained within it also moving independently along with the momentum of the ship, is prone to issues, which is why most games just use the dock/sync method.

I'm totally open to correction of the above or more accurate explanations from whoever has a better technical grasp on what is going on than me (not difficult).

 

[Star Wanderer]

With update 15, ive finally managed to have a good experience with odd for the first time. Nothing with the iq is checking minimum standards, and with directional shadows down to high and windows realtime security turned off on my cpu limited system, the tutorial mission is smooth as with ultra.

But there's absolutely nothing to do in the expansion.

I mean for me. The suit upgrade offer is laughable, not connected to why people play elite, and doesn't even trigger dopamine over progression like other games do. I've got enough credits to not need plants, and prefer trading anyway for that. Getting out of your spaceship and jumping is nice, but that only works for your top 5 ships and then its boring.

If only there was ship interiors offering alternate mechanics to access ui, or even better new cosmetics items with the grind loops integrated into the entire game.

I don't even care about the "opinion of the development team" having my first time 2 years later, i need ship interiors!!

Will even take carrier interiors extended as a "marketing trial".

Thank you and please come again.

Do you really want Ship Interiors in this game?
Take a serious look at Fleet Carrier Interiors. Its a gigantic Space ship - yet it's interiors is just few tiny rooms, and a hanger. There is nothing to do inside there.

Do you really want a few tiny rooms iside your ship? Ships don't even have any windows, outside the cockpit.

 

[varonica]

It seems trivial but I think what makes it complicated is that the commander you see in the chair isn't the same type of asset as your on foot commander is. Cockpit guy is an extension of the ship asset and onfoot guy is onfoot guy asset. To allow getting up in your cockpit would require your onfoot asset to be inside the ship rather than be a part of the ship. Currently, leaving your chair is managed by the same way that the other get up from cockpit/driver's seat actions are handled, ie; fade to black and then switch to whichever; ship cockpit, SLF cockpit, SRV cockpit, on foot.

It's the reason we don't have CMDR's being ejected from the ship randomly for trivial things, like in some other space ship games, with the pilot part of the ship there's no need to keep track of two separate entities while engaged in manoeuvres and combat. With two separate entities desync between the pilot and ship could be a problem, we actually had some of these problems in the beta when CMDR's would get ejected from the space stations and end up floating in space, and those are big slow moving things. I could possible see ship interiors being available while landed on planets or docked, but while moving in space it would be more sensible to have the player fixed in place, just like they are in FC's for instance just before a jump!

This of course wouldn't satisfy the purists who want to be able to walk around and manually repair complex systems while in Super Cruise to take away the "boredom" of extended SC jaunts, but maybe they could remove that boredom by, I don't know, not doing extended FC jaunts?

 

[Cosmo]

Do you really want Ship Interiors in this game?
Take a serious look at Fleet Carrier Interiors. Its a gigantic Space ship - yet it's interiors is just few tiny rooms, and a hanger. There is nothing to do inside there.

Do you really want a few tiny rooms iside your ship? Ships don't even have any windows, outside the cockpit.

ED has a lot of dull moments during long-distance travels so ship interiors would give players more to do. It should be like the Stinger Mantis of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and the SSV Normandy of Mass Effect. Fdev could sell a ton of cosmetics.

 

[xzanfr]

Ship interiors = pointless.

 

[varonica]

Do you really want Ship Interiors in this game?
Take a serious look at Fleet Carrier Interiors. Its a gigantic Space ship - yet it's interiors is just few tiny rooms, and a hanger. There is nothing to do inside there.

Do you really want a few tiny rooms iside your ship? Ships don't even have any windows, outside the cockpit.

Well there are a few windows, and the Conda actually has a lower deck viewing area. Also the passenger ships have large glass (well some sort of tranparent stuff anyway) viewing ports for the passengers. But matters of desync do arise as I said in my previous post, and I imagine the further you are from the centrepoint of the ship mass the more likely you would be to experience it.

It would be an update fraught with potential for disaster, desync when flying around at many thousands of light speed, ling boring corridors with nothing to do in them, having to run all the way back to the pilot seat when you are interdicted, good luck with that, and the absolute top crime, not satisfying the ship interior purists.

 

[varonica]

ED has a lot of dull moments during long-distance travels so ship interiors would give players more to do. It should be like the Stinger Mantis of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and the SSV Normandy of Mass Effect. Fdev could sell a ton of cosmetics.

Both of those, as far as I could tell from a quick look at some you tube videos, operated on the basis that the ships themselves were the "maps" as it were, like a quake level for instance and not independent objects maneuvering in 3d coordinate space with multiple degrees of movement, an entirely different and far easier thing to do than what is being discussed here.

 

[Aerodeon]

What would you actually DO in the ship interior other than walk around? I think it's got to be something that's going to make a difference to your ship.

The only reason to have ship interiors that I can think of would be to do engineering/upgrading by yourself without needing to visit an engineer.

Find the frame shift drive, shut it down, open a panel, add a few components here and there, reroute a few circuits, turn it back on and see what difference it's made. We could use those ship schematics that we've all sold by now because there's no use for them. Make them mini-games in the style of Dead Space.

Add some blueprints for experimental shield boosters and whatnot to the game as mission rewards, or in secret caches that we all love raiding.

I don't have a clue whether the current background database could accommodate this. I'm just trying to come up with stuff to do.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

ED has a lot of dull moments during long-distance travels so ship interiors would give players more to do. It should be like the Stinger Mantis of Star Wars Jedi Survivor and the SSV Normandy of Mass Effect. Fdev could sell a ton of cosmetics.

Neither of these ships moves in space. What you see outside their windows is a giant TV screen playing you an animation of a hyperspace jump. In ED, the ships constantly move in 3D space apart from the actual jump loading screen. Not remotely comparable, engine and physics wise.

 

[zimms]

Yup, as has been said the technical requirements are completely different for these examples.

But also design wise I don't think the best options for gameplay for ship interiors exist when the ship is in motion. Probably not a good idea to not be in your seat when your ship gets interdicted for example.

Repair, maintenance, crafting, science would be better options imho.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

I could be completely wrong, but imagine that your cockpit commander is no different from the animated landing gear. There are aspects to the ship that can be modified, outfitting, ship kits, paintjobs etc.. but you can't remove a multicannon from the ship, it's stuck to it. Your cockpit commander is the same. For your commander to get up, they would have to be two distinct assets - all the things that encompass the ship and all thing things that encompass your onfoot avatar. If there were a way to seamless attach/detach those two things when motioning to get up or sit down in your cockpit chair, that could be an interim solution to the problem, with the restrictions on having to be docked/landed before you are allowed to get up and walk around.

It is the thing that those who go on about Star Citizen talk about, and it's true, when flying your ship in Star Citizen, it is your on foot avatar in the ship. However, it wouldn't surprise me that the animation of sitting down doesn't do exactly what I just outlined above. It's just that that game goes further in allowing you to get up at any time, even when the ship is moving. This is what people think about when talking about interiors, however, it's also one of the banes of Star Citizen in regards to lag/de-sync and why you see some of the crazy bugs in that game, and there's no real solution for it yet - it's what everyone wants but its computationally problematic, especially when bringing internet connectivity/synchronization into the equation. Empyrion acts in the exact same way, there is a heirarchy - on foot, hover vessel/small vessel and capital ship. In Empyrion, you can be in your small vessel and dock into the capital vessel, then get out of your small vessel, whilst in the capital vessel, then walk to the bridge, sit down and then fly the capital vessel with all hover/small vessels that are docked. But you can't dock a smaller capital vessel to a larger capital vessel. There are three distinct layers of object containers with rules that govern what they can or cannot do.

The tricky part is that everything in the capital ship has to be securely docked, which is the game's way of syncing all of the assets together so that when you fly, everything flies correctly with you. Anyone who's played Empyrion would tell you what would happen if someone who's in the captain's chair of a capital vessel started to move while a small vessel isn't properly docked to the capital vessel and also if anyone else, on foot, who's in the capital vessel isn't sat down. Because they are not docked/synced the ship moves but they don't move with it and thus go flying out of the ship. CIG have tried to solve this, with limited success, but having a ship that is moving and objects contained within it also moving independently along with the momentum of the ship, is prone to issues, which is why most games just use the dock/sync method.

I'm totally open to correction of the above or more accurate explanations from whoever has a better technical grasp on what is going on than me (not difficult).

Good post.

I also cannot fully explain it since I am not fully informed on this, but, IIRC, it has to do with referenciais. More specifically, as you mentioned, with each of the different containers' referencials.

For proper motion without weird things happening, the on-foot referencial must be synchronised with the ships' one.

If they are not well synced, your get Scam Citizen's weird bugs.

Therefore, FDevs' approach to loading specific versions of the CMDR, for Ship Flight, SRV Driving (both making part of each vehicle's container and referencial) and on-foot (it's own container and referencial).

Someone more tech savvy will provide a better explanation.

 

[Uiros Ueramos]

Both of those, as far as I could tell from a quick look at some you tube videos, operated on the basis that the ships themselves were the "maps" as it were, like a quake level for instance and not independent objects maneuvering in 3d coordinate space with multiple degrees of movement, an entirely different and far easier thing to do than what is being discussed here.

Exactly. Those games are RPGs with no space simulation physics involved. The travel is a pre-animated sequence. The ship is just a static map level.

 

[Greybeard Seawolf]

I love my FC but I haven't been in the Captains ready room in months because there is sod all to do in there except for a wall panel and a seat. Interiors would be great only as long as there was enough engaging activities to do in them, I love the idea but the truth is that now apart from the odd time I mostly set up and wait out the jump in my ship. Adding meaningful interiors that have enduring use is far more difficult then many people seem to think. Devs have to balance the time and cost to develop them against the number of players that will actually use them on a long term basis.