Does the Cutter entrance still look like a Rolling Stones album cover?
ship interiors - will they happen
- Thread starter Woakes
- Start date
My impression is that all the experienced staff left ages ago, and the remaining staff has limited abilities with regards to a proprietary, aging, poorly maintained (and possibly documented?) and unwieldy game engine, which limits them in what kind of content they can churn out.
Elite Dangerous does feel pretty old and creaking at this point, perhaps in part due to the botched 4.0 rollout, and more so when comparing it to other games that have been around for quite a while but are still receiving regular tech and content updates.
This is the one thing that irritates me about Frontier the most, even though I'm used to it by now (and as such don't really pay as much attention now).
Either just tell me what you're working on, or if you're not confident enough yet to disclose details for fear of things not working out, stay silent and don't tease me with useless snippets.
What it seems they did was tweaking their dev tools for placing objects like settlements in systems for end user usage, slapped a UI and a new commodity grind on it and voila... "Colonisation", a major feature these days. I guess some people enjoy it so I won't rain on their parade any further.
Cynical take: They only came around to releasing the Clipper because now there's a commodity grind it'll be useful for, and since ships now cost money for a good few months, ka-ching.
I kind of envy your optimism - are you relatively new to the game? I lost mine a good while back (Odyssey being the turning point, and observing over the years since how the game has meandered along). The last couple of updates being PP and Colonisation feel distinctively similar in terms of approach, and looking at what's next I can't get excited anymore unfortunately. I still play, but ever more rarely now, and instead spend more time on other titles that are being supported far better (imo).
That's... a little better I guess.
Back when I was still a true Elite fanboy, fighting on these forums with people that complained about the game one way or the other (i.e. pre Odyssey release), I was a strong supporter of there being more ships in the game, even advocated for selling them outright like other games do (and no, I'm not talking about SC, but MSFS, DCS, Forza, GT, Assetto Corsa, plenty of examples around).
Funnily enough, back then certain individuals who some would've called 'forum dads' or 'white knights' took issue with this concept, with the argument that Frontier should focus on new gameplay loops first before releasing new ships. Those same people now changed their tune 180 degrees, but so did I.
I would've been over the moon with the release of the PC in particular... but now... see above response to Riks on the same topic. It is amusing how things went full circle over the years.
Perhaps Fdev has been waiting for better tech to implement Earth-like worlds and such. For example Unreal Engine 5 has nanite-geometry and nanite-foliage for super detailed flora. It enables modelling every leaf and pineneedle, with a voxel representation in nanite, volumetric, fully 3D and super fast to render. At a distance these dense clusters of triangles turn into cubes, while up close it's super detailed. If Fdev can integrate nanite-geometry and nanite foliage this would make Earth-like worlds easier to generate with photo-realistic graphics and good performance (60 FPS).
Is this nanite-foliage exclusive to Unreal Engine 5 or can Fdev implement this too in the Cobra engine? Maybe there's some middleware that does the same.
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Well, it's still a major undertaking to make new content despite that it leans on old core features of the game. As consumers we usually don't realise how difficult it is to work with code, especially so with a large in-production one like ED's.
You got me, I'm new here. Sorry if this isn't entirely on topic, but ever since last year I've played a ton of different space games (including 2D ones), and after getting burnt out with multiple of them and refunding one in particular, I found myself sticking long term with ED due to the sound design, the flight model and the atmosphere.
I've been pretty much obsessed with ED since last summer, seen a lot of history on ED's lifespan, including the kickstarter videos and lore stuff, and also the controversy around Odyssey's release so I'm not exactly beaming with optimism for interiors to be realised as an expansion or dlc, lol.
I admire you for coming back to check Elite now and then, it's quite relatable as I also periodically visit old games I've been burnt out on long ago.
I myself don't want Elite Dangerous to transform into an unrecognisable version of itself, I just think much of Odyssey's base content is a lot better than people give it crap for.
People who want to stick to pilot-only can do so- I just want to see Braben's full vision of ED to come to life. I've personally supported ED with arx last christmas as well because I want to see the game evolve. Ship interiors is one of those features the original team talked about, including boarding from what I understood...
Frankly I don't think it's a necessary game engine feature that ED need to make ELWs happen. For foliage there's way easier and still very cheap methods (performance-wise) to use like HLODs and "impostors" for distant trees or anything very far away.
There's a ton of optimization tricks any rudimentary game engine can use, look up such things as "world segmentation", "HLODs", "Impostors", "level streaming", "occlusion culling", "backface culling"...
I'm not an expert, but the game might also still have some old issues with bottlenecking. People did report Odyssey had issues with running 100% on 1-2 cores in the CPU while the other cores were underutilized.
I also remember seeing a post from reddit where a graphics engineer broke down how the game's renderer loads each frame from a hangar, showing much more outside the hangar than necessary- meaning ED didnt implement backface culling where it could've been.
And currently, I'm on an explorer's expedition to scan my way to Elite and I consistently crash out of game flying along the planet surface. Sometimes it takes a while before I crash, but it often happens when Im looking for a certain fauna.
Some people have also been worried Ship Interiors would tank the perfomance of the game- well, it would reduce performance if it was poorly optimized and was always showing inside of the ship, even when you're not inside of it.
Though tbh I think ED could still easily render less detailed avatars moving inside a ship's interior from windows (like the corridors on Imperial Cutter) like how you can see players inside a Concourse or FC, without it burning all the performance away.
These extra details could also be turned off completely if they had graphics options for it, in the end it's just a matter of commitment, effort, time and money on FDev's part...
This is slightly off topic. But the above post has prompted me too. Seeing how @Riks clearly knows his onions about graphics.
I've noticed in VR what l deem to be a memory hole for want of a better word.
I have an rtx 5080 overclocked, and rock solid stable. 7800x3d cpu 64 gig ddr5 ram. I know it's stable cos I play other fps games like doom etc with no issues at all.
No temperature issues.
And I've conducted this gameplay across 66% to 100% steam VR resolution slider, it's 100% repeated.
And only at the splash menu when your in a space station and about to select missions or commodities market. Once you select one of these 2 menus the Vram usage rocks from 11 gig to 14.5 or more (fpsVR monitors my usage) and the game goes into a stuttering mess. I quickly press escape and sit at the main menu, and go have a cigarette.
When l come back it's gone. The games stable again. And it might repeat this once perhaps twice in the next 30 minutes of gameplay.
Then it's no longer an issue and the vram usage drops to 11.1 gig or 12 gig at most.
This is a recent development. Not seen before last patch.
Getting a solid 90fps or higher at 120hz using a pimax crystal light .
As for ship interiors I have to 100% say that's it's absolutely nessesary. But l don't think the game engine is capable of it.
Any fix for my above VR rant is appreciated
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I've noticed in VR what l deem to be a memory hole for want of a better word.
I have an rtx 5080 overclocked, and rock solid stable. 7800x3d cpu 64 gig ddr5 ram. I know it's stable cos I play other fps games like doom etc with no issues at all.
No temperature issues.
And I've conducted this gameplay across 66% to 100% steam VR resolution slider, it's 100% repeated.
And only at the splash menu when your in a space station and about to select missions or commodities market. Once you select one of these 2 menus the Vram usage rocks from 11 gig to 14.5 or more (fpsVR monitors my usage) and the game goes into a stuttering mess. I quickly press escape and sit at the main menu, and go have a cigarette.
When l come back it's gone. The games stable again. And it might repeat this once perhaps twice in the next 30 minutes of gameplay.
Then it's no longer an issue and the vram usage drops to 11.1 gig or 12 gig at most.
This is a recent development. Not seen before last patch.
Getting a solid 90fps or higher at 120hz using a pimax crystal light .
As for ship interiors I have to 100% say that's it's absolutely nessesary. But l don't think the game engine is capable of it.
Any fix for my above VR rant is appreciated
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Hot take but I actually like Odyssey's FPS. It reminds me of Battlefield 2142, which coincidentally was the last time I actually enjoyed a multiplayer FPS in my life, and I've tried about 25 others since then. The only complaint I have about it - aside from the initial optimization, which was abhorrent - is the ballistic/thermal weapon swapping mechanic that makes combat in a Maverick suit cumbersome. I solved that with a L-6 and a Tormentor, though, so even that isn't a major issue for me personally. It's still a bad design but plasma weapons allow you to circumvent it so meh.
As for the original topic, ship interiors are basically mandatory. I don't care about them personally (and dear god FDev, when you do them, make sure you leave an option on the cockpit/bridge door that allows us to bypass them and teleport outside still because that's what I'll use 95% of the time) but let's be real for a second. Star Citizen, whatever you think of it, has made a billion dollars by making a buggy mess of a tech demo that is for all intents and purposes a clone of Elite with slightly improved graphics and a single major difference in features, and that difference is ship interiors. So even though I don't care about them personally, there's clearly a LOT of people with a LOT of money who DO. As long as it doesn't take FDev too much in the way of resources to implement it (and it really shouldn't) they'd be negligent not to. The influx of players and their wallets would cover whatever it costs a thousand times over. And that's why I want them in the game - because it'll be good for the game.
Plus, it's worth pointing out that the modularity of Elite's ships means that the interiors could be customized. Imagine you slot a passenger cabin and now you can actually walk down to it. The VIP there gives you a quest for a bottle of Lavian Brandy. You could go buy one from a bartender or if you have some in cargo, just go swipe one from the cargo bay. And if the passenger cabin is unoccupied, you could sleep in the bed to logout. Or maybe a Luxury passenger cabin's bed gives you some sort of short term "well rested" buff that increases your oxygen in on-foot content by 20% for an hour. Sure, this is small, silly stuff, but it's this kind of worldbuilding that makes a game feel alive.
Anyhow that's my two cents. Either way I don't think FDev has a choice here. Space Flight Sims are a niche genre and it's clear this feature is something the people want. If for no other reason, it has to be done for the money.
As for the original topic, ship interiors are basically mandatory. I don't care about them personally (and dear god FDev, when you do them, make sure you leave an option on the cockpit/bridge door that allows us to bypass them and teleport outside still because that's what I'll use 95% of the time) but let's be real for a second. Star Citizen, whatever you think of it, has made a billion dollars by making a buggy mess of a tech demo that is for all intents and purposes a clone of Elite with slightly improved graphics and a single major difference in features, and that difference is ship interiors. So even though I don't care about them personally, there's clearly a LOT of people with a LOT of money who DO. As long as it doesn't take FDev too much in the way of resources to implement it (and it really shouldn't) they'd be negligent not to. The influx of players and their wallets would cover whatever it costs a thousand times over. And that's why I want them in the game - because it'll be good for the game.
Plus, it's worth pointing out that the modularity of Elite's ships means that the interiors could be customized. Imagine you slot a passenger cabin and now you can actually walk down to it. The VIP there gives you a quest for a bottle of Lavian Brandy. You could go buy one from a bartender or if you have some in cargo, just go swipe one from the cargo bay. And if the passenger cabin is unoccupied, you could sleep in the bed to logout. Or maybe a Luxury passenger cabin's bed gives you some sort of short term "well rested" buff that increases your oxygen in on-foot content by 20% for an hour. Sure, this is small, silly stuff, but it's this kind of worldbuilding that makes a game feel alive.
Anyhow that's my two cents. Either way I don't think FDev has a choice here. Space Flight Sims are a niche genre and it's clear this feature is something the people want. If for no other reason, it has to be done for the money.
The truth is, I've been hearing about ship interiors for a while, and it would be great, but I also always comment on how incredible an atmospheric system would be in Elite... I have multiple posts and comments on youTube talking about this. Honestly, seeing our ship flying through a layer of clouds, or emerging from a planet under a strong storm, would be incredibly immersive. People comment, "If only Frontier had the financial means, like another tech demo that funded millions," but we also have to remember the much, much smaller and "humble" companies that are implementing improvements of this type to their titles, and improving graphical details of their titles . Personally, I would obviously prefer both requests to arrive, in my case giving priority to the atmospheric system, or at least an improvement and incorporation of clouds, fog, etc. Either way, if either of the two arrives, I would be more than satisfied.
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I reckon the game probably leaves a quite different impression on someone who doesn't carry all that legacy baggage from the last decade (good and bad, mind) and sees it for what it is at face value, which is why I was curious. One key change in the game was indeed Odyssey, but not just because they tacked on on-foot gameplay (which doesn't integrate all that well with the rest of the game, in line with Frontier's well-established 'theme park' game design approach), but also the underlying tech. I personally think that from a lighting, colour tone, effects and overall 'smoothness' perspective 4.0 has been a downgrade (sort of 2 steps forward, 3 back).
You can still sample the old client version (3.8) if you install the legacy version from the launcher (15-20GB install iirc). If you're used to 4.0 (current version) you might end up prefer it as parts of 3.8 can look a bit dated now (marginally imo), but one system in particular I'd recommend visiting is Taygeta due to the colour its star is emitting (yes, that used to be a thing in 3.8, no longer in 4.0, at least not planetside). Genuinely curious how you find it in comparison... as that's the game version I 'grew up' with and fell in love with over the years.
Elite still manages to scratch a very particular itch for me, but it's been kicked off the space game throne in my library (close to 5k hours played over 10 years) by X4 Foundations (closer to 1,300 hours over perhaps 3 years or so). I do like the concept of ship interiors, and I love how Egosoft (X4 dev) implemented them in their game. A few Youtubes probably convey that better than me rambling on about it here, check it out if not familar with it yet.
My problem with ship interiors in Elite isn't their addition per se as a result, but how I imagine Frontier would implement them. This is not based on me being overly pessimistic, but am judging it purely on Frontier's track record.
A look at how Fleet Carrier and Station interiors are designed doesn't bode well for ship interiors... little variation with overreliance on modular asset reuse and minimal customisation options. And with that blue ring of transition between ship exterior and interior most likely as opposed to seamless transition of accessing the cockpit via a ramp, lift or ladder (back when Odyssey released people thought the blue ring was just a placeholder, and surely it'd be replaced with something more immersive... now 4 years later and ... well). One could of course always suggest Frontier might kick it out of the ballpark in the future, but they've been quite consistent over the years in terms of the type and quality of content they do eventually release, in all fairness.
And getting disappointed several times over the years when Frontier overpromised and underdelivered one feature after the other. I've tempered my expectations now to the extent that it comes across as overly negative, which is a shame and not intentional but I try to be realistic to avoid that same disappointment. What's funny though is I see similar grumpy comments on X4 forums whereas I'm one of the happy happy people who enjoy the game as is, despite some of the jank. So swings and roundabouts.
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Though conversely, X4 has ship interiors, similar features to Elite Dangerous, and conventional video game levels of sales and income.
Dual Universe has ship interiors (and a bunch of other "ED definitely needs this" regular suggestions) and basically no sales.
NMS doesn't have ship interiors and has more income than ED, X4 and DU combined - and more unit sales than those three and SC combined.
KSP (the original, not the failed sequel) doesn't have ship interiors (well, no more than ED does), similarly outclasses all the ship interiors games combined on unit sales, has the most positive reviews by far of any space game, and continues to sell well despite not having had any significant updates since around the time Odyssey released.
I don't think there's evidence here that ship interiors are the killer feature for any of income or unit sales or popularity (the correlation goes very much the other way on unit sales and popularity, though I don't think that's evidence that ship interiors harm sales or reviews!), or that they're the specific reason that SC has its highly anomalous business model somehow work.
It's quite interesting how well Egosoft (a pretty small developer still) are doing with a rather old school sales model. Sell base game for close to full price (last time I checked it's still ~50 Euros for the base game, though it's on sale often enough), develop several DLCs sold at very reasonable prices (less than some of the Arx store offerings), but also release numerous free updates including changes to flight model, ship model updates, new ships, extensions to the in-game galaxy, graphical/performance improvements, and so on. No microtransactions at all. It's quite refreshing I have to say... and I realise it's not a multiplayer game and the effort/cost that goes with that, but still.
To keep this post back to topic, the game's ship interiors are part of the core game since its inception - and their next update is a Diplomacy one, I'll definitely buy that on release, but if it was just interiors, not so sure... what I'm saying is, Egosoft have had a coherent development strategy from the beginning, while Elite has been all over the shop in comparison.
I would certainly not pay for interiors as a standalone expansion for Elite, and am probably not the only one with that mindset - which is then a problem for Frontier because development costs money. They could (and should) go down the Arx customisation route but they left a lot of cash on the table with Fleet Carrier interiors, or heck, even further cockpit customisation options. Plus, based on your prior posts on their income from Arx not even sure that would be enough to fund this kind of development.
The monetization potential of ship interiors via cosmetics is far higher than anything else. Because everyone has a ship and spends lots of time inside it. Many people want to walk inside and customize it. The new ship models are temporarily behind a paywall (3 months) before it's available for credits. Ship interior Cosmetics would always be behind a paywall so more revenue would be made.
More Drake Fleet Carrier cosmetics is good, but only a small percentage of the player base owns a DFC. Interior cosmetics per ship manufacturer is far more lucrative. For example: buy the Core Dynamics Habs Pack 1 (DLC) for ARX. These Habitat modules are compatible with all Core Dynamics ships. The player can place these modules inside the ship. Fdev could sell furniture and decoration packs / items for additional customization of the Habs.
Fdev could start with 1 Habs Pack for 1 ship manufacturer and see how much it sells. Then release more down the line.
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if they did that would be a tough pill for me to swallow i must admit......... because i have been hoping for ships interiors since KSer days and indeed it was the waxing lyrical about the future updates which encouraged me to "jonty up" to the level i did (beyond the lifetime pass level).............. so in effect in my mind i already paid for ship interiors. if locked in the ARX store however then looking at current form that would mean it would not be a life time pass qualifying DLC so all i would likely get would be an absolute barebones implementation.
I am reminded of that black mirror episode common people
I guess this would be included for Lifetime Expansion Pass holders. For everyone else who wants interiors... buy the DLC, Hab packs.
Not quoting any post in particular but generally speaking, I get the impression these days that any design decision Frontier make is based on Arx-exploitation first and foremost, and sensible game design and balancing being a second thought if at all. I sense short termism, as opposed to planning for the long haul.
Elite used to strike a pretty fair balance between micro (now macro) transactions and free content, given its MMO(ish) nature. As such I had no problem spending some money (well, quite a lot over the years - deep into 3 figures) on their store for some cosmetics as they didn't affect the actual game itself.
At this point I think Frontier jumped the shark, and as a result I'm out in terms of spending more money on this game. Six Euros to name just a single station compared to 12-20 Euros for an entire DLC expansion with rich new gameplay content for any of the other games in my library? Easy decision who gets my money.
And to those who argue "well they need to make money somehow" - if a game, even a dated one, is attractive enough to players it'll continue to sell. I think some tend to forget the base game is still for sale and Arx isn't the only source of income.
Elite used to strike a pretty fair balance between micro (now macro) transactions and free content, given its MMO(ish) nature. As such I had no problem spending some money (well, quite a lot over the years - deep into 3 figures) on their store for some cosmetics as they didn't affect the actual game itself.
At this point I think Frontier jumped the shark, and as a result I'm out in terms of spending more money on this game. Six Euros to name just a single station compared to 12-20 Euros for an entire DLC expansion with rich new gameplay content for any of the other games in my library? Easy decision who gets my money.
And to those who argue "well they need to make money somehow" - if a game, even a dated one, is attractive enough to players it'll continue to sell. I think some tend to forget the base game is still for sale and Arx isn't the only source of income.
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Surely a bizzare conclusion from the obvious evidence of the past 2 years, the free content updates have all been long-term pivots for the game even if not fully realised yet you can see the overall trajectory, dynamic war campaigns, more tangiable BGS and role-playing in PowerPlay 2.0, player system expansion and Settlement building and around the corner is a revamp and enlargement in scope of player-led factions and increased multi-play accessibliity. Seems somewhat churlish to ignore all that and focus on some pragmatic short term financial gain regarding increasing costs and frequency of optional Arx opportunities when the company was on the path to financial collapse! Clearly they are not ready for going all in on a new large Paid DLC.
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I was thinking more along the lines of a Led Zeppelin classic...
I got at least a couple of years out of focussing on its exclusive gameplay, I felt the full price I paid for the Odyssey expansion was worthwhile and would be happy to spend a smiliar amount on more Planet type access and ground mission variety.
I agreed with Braben at the time about the tangiable thrill the onfoot experience made to the scale of the game and found the art direction of the Settlements/inhabitants very evocative, so I get the feeling that ship interiors would have a similiar postive impact to the overall experience of the scope and immersion in the game world.
I am frustrated that they took a step back from the onfoot side of the game but can see the external practical reasons so hope that this is jsut a relative short term blip. It felt like an obvious thing to expand the Settlement types and variety NPC routines over time (particularly getting the NPCs out of the strict boundary of the Settlement and have a bit more emergent properties for NPC patrol routines e.g. NPC visitors on the landing ships dependent on Settlement type and attacks. Some of the missions were evolved and there was talk about the "new mission engine" but then it all went quiet after a couple of faily basic mission updates.
Certainly a lot more potential for the onfoot combat and Settlement/terrain interactions side of things, particualrly in terms of marketing, realising the more tactical sphere of combat that was theorised before the release, it would surely go down a storm in the world of online multiplay, which is a strong engagement feature for Star Citizen.
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I played it tightly for about 2 years too. Collected all the costumes and weapons and that was it. Now I only go down for one reason - to go to the bartender and sell materials so there's room for PP2 gifts.