Sandro 2.3 Q&A Summary

[Viajero]

Wrong, it was clearly stated on their website, 2.1 2.2 2.3 and 2.4 to be realeased IN 2016.

The only assumption I've made was the release of 2.3 around october 2016.

FD changed the release dates when 2.1 was delayed a year ago.

Not sure if this was corrected or not yet in the thread, but 2.3 was slated to be released in the fall of 2016 (i.e. by most seasonal calendars that is up to 21st December of any given year).

And 2.4 never had a date estimated for it at all. I.e. it was not said it would be 2016. The timeline associated with 2.4 in their original road map (now updated) was simply "soon": https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ajor-patches?p=3531095&viewfull=1#post3531095

 

[Junky Juke]

Great job OP. This really helps the non native english like me to understand what's behind that wall of bla bla bla in the video!

Looking at Sammarco's replies it seems that MC is a very primitive release and more is going to come along development timeline. Good to know they do not consider it a finished feature and they are considering to add more flexibility and depth.

Have my today's rep for the effort.

 

[Eymerich]

Allow Solo players to switch to Gunner role? Not at the moment as would undermine MC experience. Have AI turrets and fighters for Solo for now.

Thanks OP for the summary: much appreciated.

The quote is truly a very big letdown.

You don't add something to solo not because it's not possible but only because otherwise there would be less player in Mc.

But did'nt FD always stated that solo, Group, open, are the same way to play the same game?

To me honestly it seems not! :x

 

[DustyArne]

Walking around ship dream scattered for season 3. Lol.

 

[Faybs]

Atmospheric landings are so much more important IMHO to a flight game. And, to do well, they are almost like bolting another game (a proper flight sim, along with lots of proc. gen. stuff for vegetation and cultural stuff (roads, cities etc.) ) into Elite. And I'm hoping that landings aren't going to fall by the wayside.

I don't think atmospheric flight is going to be a very popular feature, for the simple reason that FDev will try to implement it properly. Flying in dense atmospheres will feel different to flying in light ones, flying at low attitude will feel different to flying at high altitude, cross-winds and lightning will be something to worry about, and ships that fly well in space will be terrible in atmospheres and vice versa. Awesome right? Now look at the forums and read the complaints of people that say they refuse to drive the SRV because it's too hard - and that only handles differently depending on surface type and gravity; all you have to do is keep close control on the throttle and you won't fishtail all over the place. If players can't handle that, how are they going to do with everything I mentioned above?

 

[iFred]

I don't think atmospheric flight is going to be a very popular feature, for the simple reason that FDev will try to implement it properly. Flying in dense atmospheres will feel different to flying in light ones, flying at low attitude will feel different to flying at high altitude, cross-winds and lightning will be something to worry about, and ships that fly well in space will be terrible in atmospheres and vice versa. Awesome right? Now look at the forums and read the complaints of people that say they refuse to drive the SRV because it's too hard - and that only handles differently depending on surface type and gravity; all you have to do is keep close control on the throttle and you won't fishtail all over the place. If players can't handle that, how are they going to do with everything I mentioned above?

And that´s why we are on our way into a pewpew-PvP-3rdperson-hell right now.

When it´s too hard, people should play something different and they should NOT try to convince FD to change the scope of the game.

 

[Faybs]

Walking around ship dream scattered for season 3. Lol.

Well, season 3 is almost a year away (2.3 will be out in about a month, it will be about six months after 2.2 released, so it's fair to assume it will be another six months between 2.3 and 2.4/3.0). Assuming FDev have already started work and that the Cobra engine has some support (people in planet coaster have legs after all), I think it's quite possible.

 

[nexxo]

Thanks for the summary.

I can only conclude that the future for Elite looks bleak indeed.
The news that spacelegs might in fact never happen ('if we ever get there') is just mindblowing.

If you want to get an idea of Space Legs, see how Star Citizen is progressing (i.e. slowly).

It's not just a matter of making avatars walk around. They'd have to fully design multiple ship interiors and make them interactive in a logical fashion, and design significant chunks of station interiors (huge levels basically), with thousands of interactive spaces and assets with all the rules attached (else what would you do except just literally walk around), they'd have to generate NPC avatars walking around and interacting in a realistic manner, and also do the same with settlements, mega ships, planet surfaces. And they'd have to be procedurally generated just to fill the thousands of visitable locations in the bubble. It would indeed be, basically, an entirely new game dovetailed with the existing one.

 

[amigacooke]

I pity the Frontier devs that have to read these forums.

They get paid for it, sadly I have to expend the time trying to find something worth reading for free

 

[Faybs]

If you want to get an idea of Space Legs, see how Star Citizen is progressing (i.e. slowly).

It's not just a matter of making avatars walk around. They'd have to fully design multiple ship interiors and make them interactive in a logical fashion, and design significant chunks of station interiors (huge levels basically), with thousands of interactive spaces and assets with all the rules attached (else what would you do except just literally walk around), they'd have to generate NPC avatars walking around and interacting in a realistic manner, and also do the same with settlements, mega ships, planet surfaces. And they'd have to be procedurally generated just to fill the thousands of visitable locations in the bubble. It would indeed be, basically, an entirely new game dovetailed with the existing one.

On the other hand, Hellion is in roughly the same state as SC is, and that took only about a year - their code is based on Unity, which is an all-purpose engine like Cobra. CIG took ages because they were trying to shoehorn a spaceship game into an FPS engine.

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They get paid for it, sadly I have to expend the time trying to find something worth reading for free

As someone who works for a company that got some bad press, I can tell you it's not fun to read this stuff. It feels unbelievably unfair, because the decisions that result in the bad press are made way above your pay grade, but the internet blames everyone.

 

[amigacooke]

Sorry, forget to thank the OP for all their work.

Surprised Sandy didn't think that the camera suite was available for macOS (1.8), unless they are intending on removing it in the final release.

 

[Moritasgus]

If you want to get an idea of Space Legs, see how Star Citizen is progressing (i.e. slowly).

It's not just a matter of making avatars walk around. They'd have to fully design multiple ship interiors and make them interactive in a logical fashion, and design significant chunks of station interiors (huge levels basically), with thousands of interactive spaces and assets with all the rules attached (else what would you do except just literally walk around), they'd have to generate NPC avatars walking around and interacting in a realistic manner, and also do the same with settlements, mega ships, planet surfaces. And they'd have to be procedurally generated just to fill the thousands of visitable locations in the bubble. It would indeed be, basically, an entirely new game dovetailed with the existing one.

Thing with Space Legs... The moment they arrive queue thousands of posts from players complaining that it takes too long to walk anywhere and can we have everything in one place like i dunno a station menu?
I'm happy for space legs but people can't even deal with Super Cruise and jump times, let alone having to walk out your ship into a station to meet npcs to get missions or do trading.
You are right if they do it they will need to do it properly and not just a placeholder.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Hi Everyone!

Just a few things I want to say then you can all go on your merry way:

1) Thanks for the summary Golgot!
2) The Q&A thread is still live so extra questions, add them here
3) There should be another Q&A in a week or two

4) Something I cannot stress enough: Sandro answered questions in order top to bottom. As a result the sections he did were:
Multicrew General
Multicrew Mechanics
Multicrew & SRV
Multicrew Gunner Capabilities
Multicrew Gunner Balance
Multicrew Gunner Lore & Immersion
Multicrew Gunner Future
Multicrew Fighter
Multicrew Roles, activity & Future
Multicrew Profit and Loss
Multicrew Accountability
Multicrew Bridge/Holo-Mes/Visual & Audio

Then he moved to the Holo-Me section as the other big part of 2.3:

Holo-Me General
Holo-Me Content
Holo-Me Lore and immersion

Then he moved to the 3rd major section which was the other 2.3 content bits:

Camera Creator
Ship Naming
Dolphin
Megaships


Sections left to answer:
Some Megaship questions
Asteroid bases
General 2.3
Bugs and balance
Exploration and Visual
Bookmarks
Ships, weapons & Storage + Livery
BGS & NPCs
Missions
Horizons Season & Updates Questions
Hardware/Software support
Future Plans
General Content Progress Update requests
Misc

So within those remaining 14 sections are pretty much all the "future" questions. I put the 2.3 ones first expecting they would pick the top 3 or maybe top 5 from each section instead of working 100% top to bottom. Take a look at the thread and many things may make sense.

Thanks, peace everyone.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I give kudos to FD for making the Galaxy, but they seem to be a bit aimless atm and it feels like ED is not a priority. The thing is this genre is becoming more active, with the likes of Hellion already proving more in depth game mechanics in relation to ship interaction etc. All this in a relatively short time and small budget. Time waits for no man and definitely not for Sandro and the rest of the devs, the clock is ticking and unless they get serious with their job they`ll be yesterdays story.

Emmm....Hellion is not ED, and ED is not Hellion. Fact Hellion got their gameplay right - considering very specific scale of the game - really doesn't tell you much.

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Thanks for the summary.

I can only conclude that the future for Elite looks bleak indeed.
The news that spacelegs might in fact never happen ('if we ever get there') is just mindblowing.

FD has always said that.

 

[Faybs]

Thing with Space Legs... The moment they arrive queue thousands of posts from players complaining that it takes too long to walk anywhere and can we have everything in one place like i dunno a station menu?
I'm happy for space legs but people can't even deal with Super Cruise and jump times, let alone having to walk out your ship into a station to meet npcs to get missions or do trading.
You are right if they do it they will need to do it properly and not just a placeholder.

I'm pretty sure that if FDev dares to put in interesting content like seedy bars to meet with contacts, and trading floors where players can go to buy and sell commodities, there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the nerfs to missions and cr/t/hr. Don't worry, the instant trading and mission menus are there to stay.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

On the other hand, Hellion is in roughly the same state as SC is, and that took only about a year - their code is based on Unity, which is an all-purpose engine like Cobra. CIG took ages because they were trying to shoehorn a spaceship game into an FPS engine.

edit: totally misunderstood you. Must be Sunday lol

 

[Lobstris]

And that´s why we are on our way into a pewpew-PvP-3rdperson-hell right now.

When it´s too hard, people should play something different and they should NOT try to convince FD to change the scope of the game.

What iFred guy said. (What iFred said is right, so Right said iFred) - unless of course FDev have already changed the scope of the game when no one was looking.

I expect that things such as 500km/h winds on planets, or hyper dense atmospheres, will have to be turned down (gameplay > realism ) or just those worlds are off limits. Heck, I know DBOBE said that 'they want to take the time to do things right' and that 'just having barren, lifeless worlds' would be a shame, but I'd take some form of implementation of atmospheric worlds, over stuff like PowerPlay, Multicrew or Wings in a heartbeat. I may be in a minority, it may not be popular, but shouldn't the heart of the game still be the FLIGHT experience? Plus I'll add my perennial, repetitive battlecry... "They were in FFE!"

 

[Winterwalker]

As to space legs, I really wish they spent no time on that at all (sorry guys!). Atmospheric landings are so much more important IMHO to a flight game. And, to do well, they are almost like bolting another game (a proper flight sim, along with lots of proc. gen. stuff for vegetation and cultural stuff (roads, cities etc.) ) into Elite. And I'm hoping that landings aren't going to fall by the wayside.

It would be kind of ironic, if the call for 'exploring needs love too' suddenly fell by the wayside, with explorers suddenly feeling bereft of 'mah elite feet'.

 

[Faybs]

What?

FD has confirmed manytimes Cobra supports walking around.

That's not an issue. Designing multi level, balanced gameplay mechanic is. Let's see how Hellion gets to 'stable' state if ever.

The walking around part of Hellion actually works pretty well, the problems are mostly around spaceflight and lag - I can only dock when I use a dedicated server that has single-digit ping times. What I was saying is that both Unity and Cobra are multi-purpose engines so they can be used for anything, as opposed to CryEngine which is a dedicated FPS engine with LAN multiplayer support. It's a lot easier to write an FPS game with Cobra than it its to write a space sim MMO with CryEngine (as CIG is very slowly discovering). Also, this: https://www.frontier.co.uk/games/outsider/

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

There are very practical reasons why FD will add new planet types, primitive atmospheres in Season 3 - but most likely no space legs yet.

For space legs they need more content fleshed out. They need NPC comms/dialog trees. They need more persistence. They need avatar tech worked out with all kinks and issues. They will have to move away from unsupported hardware (DX11 cards only and then might be even upgraded to DX11.3/DX12/Vulkan ones). There's huge list of dependencies just to make walking look visually awesome. But then you need gameplay too. People mention Hellion - but that game has very specific scale, it is comparingly simplistic visually and concentrates on it's gameplay - and does it great. Scales and development goals differ heavily however.

For atmospheric planets/new type of planets/big improvements for airless moons however they don't need that much work - they have foundations to which they add new and new layers. That's why primitive atmospheres or gas giants might be closer than walking around. Because of way development works.

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The walking around part of Hellion actually works pretty well, the problems are mostly around spaceflight and lag - I can only dock when I use a dedicated server that has single-digit ping times. What I was saying is that both Unity and Cobra are multi-purpose engines so they can be used for anything, as opposed to CryEngine which is a dedicated FPS engine with LAN multiplayer support. It's a lot easier to write an FPS game with Cobra than it its to write a space sim MMO with CryEngine (as CIG is very slowly discovering). Also, this: https://www.frontier.co.uk/games/outsider/

Ok, sorry then I misunderstood you.

Hellion looks amazing and I applaud dev efforts done right - they knew what they go for, and they nailed it. Just let's not go overboard saying that FD can do the same for walking...because obviously they want scale to be bigger. Also remember moans when SRV where added first and there were like almost nothing to do on planets? I expect FD really want to avoid such situation for space legs, because it won't sell then.