Emergent Gameplay
One of the best aspects of Elite is how activities have developed over time by Cmdr's in order to breath our own life into the game, especially in the "end game" when we have lots of credits and all the ships we could want.
On occasion FDEV put some weight behind these activities when they can; providing that the circumstances are right:
Anyway please take a minute to read this post and make sure you comment and leave your thoughts, the more people involved in the conversation the better, positive and negative.
RACING!!!!!
One of the most popular past times not supported directly is racing, this applies to both racing in ships and SRV's. Although nothing stops us racing we have to find a method of timing ourselves, imagining the track and providing proof to our fellow racers that we totally smashed them, e.g buckyball racers "screenshotting" (that's totally a word) the time of departure and arrival, also the start/finish lines and tracks are simply in our heads. There is no direct mechanism in the game, Even when i ws watching Adam Woods and Ed racing last night you could see the difficulty of figuring out where to start from and how far to go, but we all know it could be so Awesome with a bit of structure...
So i got to thinking, "how could FDev help?"
Firstly we need something that is already in the game which could be modified for the purpose, and I feel it is important that it remain part of the main game, we don't want another CQC.. I am thinking -
Beacons
Simply by placing beacons in a sequential circuit you can create a "track".
This is the first step, a basic track. Even this would make a massive difference to player organised racing. If Fdev felt that it would be worth going further they could do something a bit more in depth:
In order to start a race you would scan the start beacon which would open a menu (or get close to it and open your right hand panel a bit like entering a cz). Options could be:
Possibilities
Race Results -
Implementation issues/choices -
These are all just ideas and obviously without knowing what code is involved its near impossible to know what is possible and what is not, everything is always more complex than it first appears, but here are some general suggestions:
Who gets to place beacons and design tracks? I would love for players to be able to design their own but it may be best if initially limited either by FDev doing it themselves or by allowing player groups to place a limited number of tracks when they introduce Squadrons. For groups/cmdrs to be able to lay their own tracks FDev would need to introduce some kind of "deployable beacon" toolkit which would require more work. Perhaps for cmdrs to make tracks they are only able to deploy one track each, however the beacons can be collected back up after the race if needed and re-deployed somewhere else, like a travelling circus.
New racing vehicles - think of the possibility FDev, would i buy a cool paintjob for my new racing vehicle.... you bet i would! TAKE MY MONEY [heart]
It would also be an idea that the timer would stop or you are disqualified from an SRV race if you board your ship to stop cmdrs cheating by getting in their ship and flying to further waypoints.
The general idea is around the implementation of some kind of "tool kit" for the Cmdrs or groups to use in order to design tracks. Some ideas provided by Becky:
"What we need is a planetary sandbox race-track construction kit.
With barriers, beacons, direction signs and interactive start/finish line - and a spline editor which defines the area the ships must stay in."
When players get to use their creativity games always get huge amounts of support/longevity, this is a kind of built in workshop and allows Elite to develop organically and tap the huge wealth of talent in the community. By allowing new tracks to be created, this game mode will remain fresh and fun. I would suggest in an ideal world a few mega tracks made by fdev with many checkpoints and custom assets, these would serve a bit like national stadiums, but players/groups being able to place simple tracks with beacons will keep the mode new and interesting indefinitely.
Anyway my hope is that this thread will get some support and draw on the ideas of the community to show FDEV how awesome racing would be in Elite, and how hopefully they can support it by building on many of the features already present in the game.
Show some support to those trying to make the best of racing as it is :
The Buckyball Racers offer racing across the stars whilst the Elite Racers offer fast paced eagle racing:
Our current race is on until the end of Sunday, as Alec pointed out (then the next race will be 24th Feb - 1st March); for live Eagle racing, the next Elite Racers race takes place next Sunday (11th Feb) at 1800 GMT - keep an eye on their reddit page for signups starting a week in advance.
One of the best aspects of Elite is how activities have developed over time by Cmdr's in order to breath our own life into the game, especially in the "end game" when we have lots of credits and all the ships we could want.
On occasion FDEV put some weight behind these activities when they can; providing that the circumstances are right:
- Primarily that it wont use up too much programming time
- That there is allot of interest from cmdrs to make it worth their effort
Anyway please take a minute to read this post and make sure you comment and leave your thoughts, the more people involved in the conversation the better, positive and negative.
RACING!!!!!
One of the most popular past times not supported directly is racing, this applies to both racing in ships and SRV's. Although nothing stops us racing we have to find a method of timing ourselves, imagining the track and providing proof to our fellow racers that we totally smashed them, e.g buckyball racers "screenshotting" (that's totally a word) the time of departure and arrival, also the start/finish lines and tracks are simply in our heads. There is no direct mechanism in the game, Even when i ws watching Adam Woods and Ed racing last night you could see the difficulty of figuring out where to start from and how far to go, but we all know it could be so Awesome with a bit of structure...
So i got to thinking, "how could FDev help?"
Firstly we need something that is already in the game which could be modified for the purpose, and I feel it is important that it remain part of the main game, we don't want another CQC.. I am thinking -
Beacons
Simply by placing beacons in a sequential circuit you can create a "track".
- In its most simplistic form you would simply scan the "starting beacon" which would automatically target the "finish beacon/gate" on your scanner for you to race towards. You win the race by scanning this second beacon or passing through a "gate".
- from this principle you can see how it could be easily built upon, you could then have "checkpoint beacons", I would suggest over sizing the powerup Rings used in CQC matches to serve as waypoints, each time you reach the next beacon in the circuit or get within a set distance it automatically targets the following beacon in the sequence, until you reach the Finish line.
This is the first step, a basic track. Even this would make a massive difference to player organised racing. If Fdev felt that it would be worth going further they could do something a bit more in depth:
In order to start a race you would scan the start beacon which would open a menu (or get close to it and open your right hand panel a bit like entering a cz). Options could be:
- Start a time trial - put simply you race against the clock to get to the Finish line - ideally these times are saved on the beacon for others to view, with ability to filter by ship type
- Sign up to live race - once more than 2 cmdrs have selected this option a timer would start (say 2 mins) and during this time more cmdrs can enter the race, once the timer stops you get the Red and then the Green light / Siren or whatever to start the race. If easier it could create a separate lobby like in CQC, but i would prefer not to see it done with a seperate CQC style lobby as this is partly why i believe CQC is not popular. It is too isolated from the normal game. people cant jump in and interact, griefers wont be able to target race events etc.. which although might seem annoying its a choice to allow it (and spectators) by remaining in open.
Possibilities
- This could be used not only for SRV racing, but also ship racing in space or above a planets surface (think Red Bull air race), imagine racing your friends across the surface of your favourite moon in racing eagles like a baby Darth Vader.
- In fact you could even have races using the Large CQC stations etc that are now in the game, its crying out for it
- The SRV races could also involve the need to "jump" over obstacles, or through rings in the air - or maybe across canyons!
- Space station races could weave in an out of rotating parts like currently done without this new mechanism.
- Imagine a Galactic race CG, everyone to go and record times at say 3 race tracks, the top times recorded could represent you reward (fastest 5% get X credits, top 20% get Y credits etc... I WOULD LOVE to see new CG types of this nature
- These same tracks could then be used as the targets for "racing & wing missions", "go to this famous track in system blahblah and record a time".... or better yet; win a race against AI racers... ok that might need some work from AI programmers but as a long term goal... (i bet they would love to get stuck into it). As a mission type i am sure it would be extremely popular, how much more fun is racing for money than delivering cargo? lots!
Race Results -
- Live races - could post the results and times to the cmdrs involved using the messaging system just like a round in multi crew, or perhaps a pop up screen like in cqc... Fdev to do decide what is best
- Time Trial - I would love to see time trial results "saved" to the beacon, so when you are next to the beacon or if you scan it you can look at the names of the fastest 20 cmdrs to have ever completed this circuit.
Implementation issues/choices -
These are all just ideas and obviously without knowing what code is involved its near impossible to know what is possible and what is not, everything is always more complex than it first appears, but here are some general suggestions:
Who gets to place beacons and design tracks? I would love for players to be able to design their own but it may be best if initially limited either by FDev doing it themselves or by allowing player groups to place a limited number of tracks when they introduce Squadrons. For groups/cmdrs to be able to lay their own tracks FDev would need to introduce some kind of "deployable beacon" toolkit which would require more work. Perhaps for cmdrs to make tracks they are only able to deploy one track each, however the beacons can be collected back up after the race if needed and re-deployed somewhere else, like a travelling circus.
New racing vehicles - think of the possibility FDev, would i buy a cool paintjob for my new racing vehicle.... you bet i would! TAKE MY MONEY [heart]
It would also be an idea that the timer would stop or you are disqualified from an SRV race if you board your ship to stop cmdrs cheating by getting in their ship and flying to further waypoints.
The general idea is around the implementation of some kind of "tool kit" for the Cmdrs or groups to use in order to design tracks. Some ideas provided by Becky:
"What we need is a planetary sandbox race-track construction kit.
With barriers, beacons, direction signs and interactive start/finish line - and a spline editor which defines the area the ships must stay in."
When players get to use their creativity games always get huge amounts of support/longevity, this is a kind of built in workshop and allows Elite to develop organically and tap the huge wealth of talent in the community. By allowing new tracks to be created, this game mode will remain fresh and fun. I would suggest in an ideal world a few mega tracks made by fdev with many checkpoints and custom assets, these would serve a bit like national stadiums, but players/groups being able to place simple tracks with beacons will keep the mode new and interesting indefinitely.
Anyway my hope is that this thread will get some support and draw on the ideas of the community to show FDEV how awesome racing would be in Elite, and how hopefully they can support it by building on many of the features already present in the game.
Show some support to those trying to make the best of racing as it is :
The Buckyball Racers offer racing across the stars whilst the Elite Racers offer fast paced eagle racing:
Our current race is on until the end of Sunday, as Alec pointed out (then the next race will be 24th Feb - 1st March); for live Eagle racing, the next Elite Racers race takes place next Sunday (11th Feb) at 1800 GMT - keep an eye on their reddit page for signups starting a week in advance.
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keep it coming let show fdev we would love them to implement something