ship interiors - will they happen

[Coolgroove]

all kinds of shenanigans with passengers: calm down a riot, personally drag the imperial passenger or your useless fighter pilot into an airlock and hit the eject button. Say that no one would love to try that out

Spacing people could be fun

There could be even gameloops involving it, or after it.

 

[MUTILADOR]

Awesome post, really a pleasure to read
BUT:

View attachment 422143

Let's hope so

 

[Lukaz_Chrom]

Oh that's right, you said you don't play the game since Odyssey came out.

Hey, maybe this journey just isn't for you.

That's okay, fdev isn't forcing players to play what they have developed. Trying to please everyone won't work unfortunately.

If the game was a small number of curated star systems with ship interiors and getting in and out of bunks and commutes on trains and picking up plushies and decorating ship-lavatories ... I'd stop playing too but perhaps you would love it.

So I guess when they add Ship Interiors you will stop playing
You know what:
I don't believe you
And if you actually will. The ratio of ppl that will actually leave because of their sheer stuck-up-ness in contrast to the people that will return AND newly arrive ...
will likely be even more than 97 to 3 ... rather 99 to 1 XD
So I guess that's okay too ... it obviously won't be for everyone either it seems

Thing is, that's just the truth my dude.
You see I have 2.5k hours, I stoped playing Elite Dangerous because I simply felt betrayed by Odysseys horribleness and betrayl does not heal easily.
Ship Interiors however ... would MORE than do that.
And if you actually think otherwise:

Oh, sweet summer child ...

You should just accept the fact that Ship Interiors would be the best possible addition to the game.
That would be the logical thing to do.
OF COURSE you can also continue to opose it as if it was the black-plague XD
... Let's see how fast this thread reaches 100 pages
After all you are contributing ever readily

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

and more:

• your crew member can fly the captured or your own ship back to the station
• 'Hot drop off' your SRV into a settlement zone or into a mountainous area
• all kinds of shenanigans with passengers: calm down a riot, personally drag the imperial passenger or your useless fighter pilot into an airlock and hit the eject button. Say that no one would love to try that out

I'm not sure if capturing ships is going to be viable, as I have no idea how they would handle the in-game economy with that. Though if this also let us trade fully engineered ships to friends who don't have time for that grind, that would be great. However, given FDev's success with jumpstart ships and early access new ships, player trading ships might undercut that business model.

I would love to hot drop an SRV! I would also like to be able for my player crew members to be able to deploy my SRV and use it without it self destructing if I fly too far away.

As for the airlock bit... yeah, that's a no-brainer. In Voidcrew, the airlocks actually have a safety you can disable so you can open both the inner and outer doors and vent everything into space. There are many youtube videos of crewmembers yeeting themselves and their crewmates into the black for the fun of it. Functionally, the safety is there in case you want to vent the ship to rapidly cool it off.

 

[Jinx Chrome]

I'm not sure if capturing ships is going to be viable, as I have no idea how they would handle the in-game economy with that. Though if this also let us trade fully engineered ships to friends who don't have time for that grind, that would be great. However, given FDev's success with jumpstart ships and early access new ships, player trading ships might undercut that business model.

I would love to hot drop an SRV! I would also like to be able for my player crew members to be able to deploy my SRV and use it without it self destructing if I fly too far away.

As for the airlock bit... yeah, that's a no-brainer. In Voidcrew, the airlocks actually have a safety you can disable so you can open both the inner and outer doors and vent everything into space. There are many youtube videos of crewmembers yeeting themselves and their crewmates into the black for the fun of it. Functionally, the safety is there in case you want to vent the ship to rapidly cool it off.

Agreed! But let's say capturing a ship would be technically working, the mechanics could be designed that you can only hand over the ship to authorities in a port but not keep it. Or the kept ship is 'hot' and you won't have much fun with it because you will be the wanted one.

I also would say that there are dozens of possible game loops around interiors even without boarding mechanics which could make many of the players happy. I still don't get why those who don't find interiors enticing, are so vocal against them. Do it like the silent majority does: don't play the game loops in Elite which you don't like and enjoy your favourite time sinks in the game!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Seems like sometimes, but not always, a carrier will initially arrive in-system and its Frame Of Reference to the planet will be in a state of continuous adjustment. This appears to possibly have something to do with proximity to existing stations which are orbiting the same body

Ring systems were always fun for this one and probably still are - the station/carrier/installation ends up tied to the ring's (rapidly rotating) frame of reference, the player ends up tied to the non-rotating reference frame around the planet, the result is that the station runs away very quickly from the player's perspective.

That, the carrier bug, and the Lantern Light weirdness are all part of the same problem, really:
- moving things around relative to their current frame of reference is really easy; indeed, you see the bugs because it works - the error is elsewhere
- handing things off between frames of reference moving relative to each other is really difficult (the maths remains fairly simple in principle, but doing it without generating an instant ultra-speed collision in the next frame is not straightforward)

 

[Staarlord]

Yes, there is no crucial need to have every tiny bit of interiors. It would be cool, but reasonably there is no need, anywhere in the game - ships, carriers, stations, other objects.

Carries have their version of modules in a form of services. Not all services, but some of them require a physical room for them to have a gameplay/interaction possible. The same way, at least some ship modules need to be accessible in Ship Interiors to have a gameplay/interaction with them.


As you've said - 'This is because on-foot is-interiors-is space...and you can do all three of these things at once.' - That game was from a person point of view from the start, so that 'different mode' perception doesn't exist.

In Elite, most of the time we are a ship, sometimes we can get out on a planet and be as a person. Because of that disconnect - we have this perception. That is one of the main reasons I personally want Ship Interiors, because that is the last interaction the game is missing to go towards the full - commander/person in space, and connect everything together.


But why disagree? To be truly seamless, or at least to fake it subtly enough, interiors need to have other functions - ability to go through them to get out of the ship and get in, access to vehicles one might have on their ship, etc - points 1 & 2. Otherwise it would be just a separate room that has no other use but to look at cosmetics, and it'll be out of the seamless interaction with the rest of the game.


Ohh, how I wish that mission boards and NPCs on-foot would offer all types of missions. As well as in-person access to menu services. That would add a lot of coherence to how the game plays overall.

No arguments from me here! We want the same thing. Save to say that I think other rooms could have other uses. As you know, we like to often use ships outside of their intended/ optimal uses. Even in that "other game" I may use the A2 has a hauler and not a bomber. Same as how in this game someone may choose to explore in a Chieftain or Mamba, despite the horrible fuel economy. Therefore? Who's to say you couldn't give those rooms uses by, say, using the Clipper as a drop ship? Just load it up with other commanders and drop them on a settlement. You could also give some of these rooms their own manual fuse/ breakers or emergency (manual) door levers, to seal rooms off from breaches. Kind of like Jumpship power mini-puzzle. Solo players could get around some of this by making use of NPC crewman, at the cost of perhaps a tiny hit to resolution times.

The problem is that to do all of this, a complete overhaul is needed.. and it may cause some people who do not like change to stop playing. However, there are plenty of customers out there looking for this seamlessness, and would also usher in a ton of new players. You'd either choose to evolve with the franchise, or not and rock Elite Legacy for the rest of your years, such as is happening now. Many people still play legacy.

One thing that would fundamentally need changed? Is the one thing I wish they would have overhauled a looooong time ago. With, or without interiors... And that is storage capacity metrics. We need to go by something a little more complex, like units... Not just weight/ mass. Each commodity would need assigned a more personalized metric, to account for space take up and mass. There's no reason a limpet should weigh 1 ton for example. Especially when the heaviest thing it will carry is a single chunk of platinum, where maybe 3-5 of those chunks amount to 1T of refined platinum. Then again? It is space, so even a single nano bot or two affixed with propulsors could carry those chunks, which is what repair limpets should have basically been away. It's frustrating when you're taking limpets in a combat vessel for intended use as decontamination or repair limpets because carrying even 16 of these is heavy and robs speed, depending on the ship. Especially in Thargoid combat. There needs to be a cargo capacity whereby 1 unit is not 1 ton. This would need to change because if we were ever to carry, on our person, a package containing some micro chips? Or medical supplies? With the intention of setting them in our hold? One little box couldn't possibly be 1 ton, unless it contained 1/16 of a tea spoon of neutron star, the densest known substance in the universe lol... and if it did? We'd need need some anti-gravity tool, or heavy loader gear to load something potentially the weight of a car into our hold.

 

[Coolgroove]

No arguments from me here! We want the same thing. Save to say that I think other rooms could have other uses. As you know, we like to often use ships outside of their intended/ optimal uses. Even in that "other game" I may use the A2 has a hauler and not a bomber. Same as how in this game someone may choose to explore in a Chieftain or Mamba, despite the horrible fuel economy. Therefore? Who's to say you couldn't give those rooms uses by, say, using the Clipper as a drop ship? Just load it up with other commanders and drop them on a settlement.

Something like this could probably be versatile/adaptable enough to accommodate - a living quarters with terminals and equipment rack, a flexible cargo bay room with SRV / Fighter bay / Dropship hangar (or better if the function of dropship could do just regular cargo bay without any extra modules) that changes it's layout and available vehicles for interaction depending on modules fitted, a PP room, and 1-3 (depends on ship size and slots size/possible modules) extra rooms for other modules with possible gameplay / minigames. It could be enough space to put gameplay in and varied enough to give the feeling of actual interior for immersion.

I don't think we need to access actual cargo holds, or refineries, or controllers, etc. Cargo holds maybe someday way into the future, if there are ways to load them and a possibility for at least some form of extended contraband gameplay, but for initial implementation - no need.

Passengers are probably out of the realm of possibility, simply because it is possible to have a lot of them on some ships and to place and render that much would probably be hard. As much as I would love passengers gameplay, but without severe cut downs I don't think it's realistic. Maybe there could be only a limited number of interactable NPCs in a separate room (leaders of groups or something like that) with other passengers not visible, plus VIP/First class. But that also could be something for the future additions with specific gameplay for them.

You could also give some of these rooms their own manual fuse/ breakers or emergency (manual) door levers, to seal rooms off from breaches.

Something like that I would love to have. Could seal the rooms to make oxygen reserves last longer. Possibility to vent an atmosphere in specific rooms/sections for 'some' purposes. Yep, if there is a framework for something like that - the gameplay can follow.

The problem is that to do all of this, a complete overhaul is needed..

If for everything to be completely seamless, without faking anything - yes. But if there are some fakery involved, hidden loading screens behind animations, decreases and increases of details, etc - no overhauls are needed, Game Engine can do it, obviously it would require not a simple development process and quite a creative approach to designing this fakery to be subtle enough, but I think it could be done to be perceived as seamless without much disruption to the process of movement and play.

One thing that would fundamentally need changed? Is the one thing I wish they would have overhauled a looooong time ago. With, or without interiors... And that is storage capacity metrics. We need to go by something a little more complex, like units... Not just weight/ mass. Each commodity would need assigned a more personalized metric, to account for space take up and mass. There's no reason a limpet should weigh 1 ton for example. Especially when the heaviest thing it will carry is a single chunk of platinum, where maybe 3-5 of those chunks amount to 1T of refined platinum. Then again? It is space, so even a single nano bot or two affixed with propulsors could carry those chunks, which is what repair limpets should have basically been away. It's frustrating when you're taking limpets in a combat vessel for intended use as decontamination or repair limpets because carrying even 16 of these is heavy and robs speed, depending on the ship. Especially in Thargoid combat. There needs to be a cargo capacity whereby 1 unit is not 1 ton. This would need to change because if we were ever to carry, on our person, a package containing some micro chips? Or medical supplies? With the intention of setting them in our hold? One little box couldn't possibly be 1 ton, unless it contained 1/16 of a tea spoon of neutron star, the densest known substance in the universe lol... and if it did? We'd need need some anti-gravity tool, or heavy loader gear to load something potentially the weight of a car into our hold.

On that I can only say - Very Yes to limpets size/mass, never made sense to me, apart from - ok, they are of a similar volume so for the sake of simplicity we are going to count them as the same mass because that is how cargo holds are working in the game. Would be nice if that was looked at again, maybe make cargo in volume units and only items/commodities that have ~1 ton mass add to ship mass, or something like that. But apart from that - I'm not really qualified to talk about cargo, as hauling is very mind numbing to me and no amount of extra static details could change that, haha.

 

[thistle]

So I guess when they add Ship Interiors you will stop playing

No, I'd be delighted. I don't NOT want interiors, I just don't think it will happen and I would prefer other things like more planets

It's wasn't me who stopped playing because an update added things I didn't want ...

You know what:
I don't believe you
And if you actually will. The ratio of ppl that will actually leave because of their sheer stuck-up-ness in contrast to the people that will return AND newly arrive ...
will likely be even more than 97 to 3 ... rather 99 to 1 XD

Again, who said I would stop playing? Only you have suggested it.

You see I have 2.5k hours, I stoped playing Elite Dangerous because I simply felt betrayed by Odysseys horribleness and betrayl does not heal easily.

I didn't stop playing. I like Odyssey

But on that note, what might stop me playing, is if the game were ruined trying to do something that rather than ADDING actually took AWAY from the game. I think that's very unlikely, fdev aren't stupid.

You should just accept the fact that Ship Interiors would be the best possible addition to the game.

Why should I "just accept" your preference over mine? It's just your preference, your subjective opinion, not mine, not objective truth.

OF COURSE you can also continue to opose it as if it was the black-plague XD

There's only a couple of posters in this whole thread who are so black and white in their thinking, and I'm not one of them. I'll happily take whatever fdev develop.

That doesn't mean I am obliged to agree with your preferred first choice addition. For a game you don't play (which is fine, but amusing)

 

[Lukaz_Chrom]

Why should I "just accept" your preference over mine? It's just your preference, your subjective opinion, not mine, not objective truth.

You know, I'm cool with everything you said but this.
Because Ship Interiors being the best possible addition to Elite with all factors taken into consideration,
that IS objective truth :/
The only thing debatable is on how Ship Interiors should be.
There are some that desire a castle, and even I would describe them as "naive".
There are some that would be fine with merely walking inside their cockpits, and that on the other hand would not even be deserving of the term "Ship Interiors".
Then there's EVA, To-Scale, Boarding, Ship Repair ... etc. etc. etc. ... the list of topics to debate is (obviously) long.

But anyone that claims for there to be ANY other major feature that would be better for current Elite other than Ship Interiors?
Well, these people are objectively wrong.

If not, please, tell me what feature it could be?
(And we are not talking about a new bobblehead-variant obviously XD)

 

[heathenlamb]

But anyone that claims for there to be ANY other major feature that would be better for current Elite other than Ship Interiors?
Well, these people are objectively wrong.


If not, please, tell me what feature it could be?

Atmospheric landings and planets for a start ... also I don't think you understand what objective means.

 

[thistle]

You know, I'm cool with everything you said but this.
Because Ship Interiors being the best possible addition to Elite with all factors taken into consideration,
that IS objective truth :/

No, that's a subjective opinion.

The only thing debatable is on how Ship Interiors should be.

Everything is debatable. The only thing that isn't debatable is what fdev have decided to do, after the fact.

But anyone that claims for there to be ANY other major feature that would be better for current Elite other than Ship Interiors?
Well, these people are objectively wrong.

Nope, subjective opinion. Nothing objective about it.

If not, please, tell me what feature it could be?

If I did, it would be my subjective opinion. My entirely subjective opinion is more planets, more atmospheres, more exploration content. That would be better for ED than interiors. But like yours, my opinion is just my opinion.

 

[thistle]

Subjective, not objective.

 

[Lukaz_Chrom]

Atmospheric landings and planerts for a start ... also I don't think you understand what objective means.

AH YES!
The good old actual atmo. Planets
They are INDEED the No.1 answer to this question, and as was stated countless times before;
SHOULD FDev decide to do them instead of Ship Interiors, FINE! No complaints!
Thing is: They would be SIGNIFICANTLY more work while simultaneously SIGNIFICANTLY harder to monetize.
Simple as. That makes them the OBJECTIVELY less logial step to take.

Subjective, not objective.

Yeah yeah. The good old "It's just your opinion." - card.
Everything is "subjective" according to that logic.

But in reallity it really isn't.
I know the difference between the two well enough my dude
You see, there are such things as "arguments".
Arguments are the core basis for any form of discussion.
If for example, someone is in favor of Stance A, and his only argument is "It wOuLd bE AwEsOmE!"
And then someone else is in favor of Stance B, and he lists a plethora of logical arguments covering every potential field,
while simultaneously debunking essentially any and all counter-arguments, well then Stance B can 100% be described as OBJECTIVELY better!

And guess what: Stance B is 100% the case for Ship Interiors

 

[thistle]

AH YES!
The good old actual atmo. Planets
They are INDEED the No.1 answer to this question, and as was stated countless times before;
SHOULD FDev decide to do them instead of Ship Interiors, FINE! No complaints!
Thing is: They would be SIGNIFICANTLY more work while simultaneously SIGNIFICANTLY harder to monetize.
Simple as. That makes them the OBJECTIVELY less logial step to take.


Yeah yeah. The good old "It's just your opinion." - card.
Everything is "subjective" according to that logic.

But in reallity it really isn't.
I know the difference between the two well enough my dude
You see, there are such things as "arguments".
Arguments are the core basis for any form of discussion.
If for example, someone is in favor of Stance A, and his only argument is "It wOuLd bE AwEsOmE!"
And then someone else is in favor of Stance B, and he lists a plethora of logical arguments covering every potential field,
while simultaneously debunking essentially any and all counter-arguments, well then Stance B can 100% be described as OBJECTIVELY better!

And guess what: Stance B is 100% the case for Ship Interiors

Yeah, no. You don't understand the difference between subjective and objective. Your subjective opinion is just that.

 

[Coolgroove]

During my involvement in this thread, there were I think 2 threads in relation to Atmospheric planets / ELW / etc. Both died with less then 10 pages, (no where near a 100 pages). Now there is a third thread, in time this ONE and the SAME thread got around 10 pages, that new got only 2.

There either were no separate threads about extended/complete Alien Civilisations, or they were so fleeting that they didn't even pop on a radar. The closest thematically was about unlocking Thargoids space to take the fight to them.

Main posters in this thread are players who are in favor of Ship Interiors, players who are at least somewhat interested in constructive discussions about possibility/probability/etc, and an opposition with players who are completely against Ship Interiors and those who are against but pretending like they are not.

• There are more players who are at the very least publicly support Ship Interiors than other features. Some of them want other features too. The main points discussed/argued are how (features) to implement them.
• Players who are against also quite heavily contribute to the discussion going, but it looks more and more like there is an understanding that out of all big features Interiors are the most realistic and beneficial for the game simply because - the same players are NOT posting with the same effort and dedication about how possible/good/interesting/business-smart/etc features they want are in their respective threads, yet they are always feel compelled to come to this thread and try to dissuade and discourage.

One might propose something along the lines - that it is because the other features are so highly desirable that they don't need any extra discussions, or that the is no need and everybody knows, or some other non-sense - but that is not how desires, popularity, discussions work.

Proof of that - all the messages in this thread and other threads on these very forums.

Majority of comments on videos about future big additions to Elite are about Ship Interiors. Highest liked comments on those videos are in Favor of Ship Interiors. Ship Interiors and EVA are the two most often discussed topics in various videos and podcasts about Elite in the last half a year (recent) and overall over the years.

One might want to try and say how 'bad' youtubers or podcasters or other content creators are in hopes that it'll somehow invalidate all that inconvenient popularity - it won't.

Elite has content/gameplay for planets, has lots of content/gameplay for ships, content/gameplay for SRV/Fighters, now the biggest of them all - Hauling/Colonisation. The only part of the game that is a complete void of anything - in space gameplay player is a ship, not a person. It may or may not be a problem for you, me, anybody else who is already playing Elite, but it is a factor for attracting new players (and old to return), as there are players who would love to fly a ship but do not want to play as a ship. Frontier knows it, otherwise there won't be a possibility to play Odyssey without a ship (Odyssey ≠ bad, let's not repeat the same, it was implementation not the idea).

If Ship Interiors were to be added to the game - that will be a HUGE boost in popularity simply because it'll be picked up even outside the usual media space of Elite Dangerous.

• Ship Interiors are not easy to do, and implementation needs to be good, but it is the easiest out of all desirable big features to design/develop.
• Ship Interiors have the biggest pool of possibilities for monetization.
• Ship Interiors features/available options can be comfortably cut in parts and delivered one after another quicker, making development less risky and with less investments, and at steady pace.

Out of all big features, only Ship Interiors have this ^ beneficial combination.

If you feel that urge to say that all of that is just an opinion - you are the one who looks at it only through the lenses of your own subjective wants and desires. And it is completely fine, don't want them = no problem, just be honest about it, faking won't do any good and won't matter anyway.

 

[thistle]

and an opposition with players who are completely against Ship Interiors and those who are against but pretending like they are not.

To act like those who happen to disagree with you are "pretending", ie lying for some reason, says far more about you than them. Why would people be pretending? Some people seem to be taking potential features in a video game somewhat overly serious.

You do know people have different opinions without being deceptive?

....

If you feel that urge to say that all of that is just an opinion - you are the one who looks at it only through the lenses of your own subjective wants and desires.

I mean, there's nothing objective there in your list of claims re interiors, there can't be. It's all opinion. Some of which I happen to agree with, eg high probability for monetisation. You simply cannot claim that if your opinion and mine (for example) differ, then it's only my opinion that is somehow tainted or even "pretend".

It's very odd.

And it is completely fine, don't want them = no problem, just be honest about it, faking won't do any good and won't matter anyway.

So weird to claim dishonesty when we are just talking about different people having different opinions.

 

[ꝁestrel]

Ship interiors would be a tremendous waste of time.

The only way it gets released is as a barebones set of rooms you can walk around. Adding anything else (EVA, boarding, etc) would be off the charts in complexity. Adding things like stealing ships would be even worse because it would require rebalancing of ship acquisition and have a lot of other knock-on effects. Adding things like ship repair etc would require a whole resource management system that currently doesn't exist.

Worst of all it would be added in lieu of adding more depth to existing systems.

I can't fathom how anyone could want this instead of:

• More stellar phenomena that we can discover while exploring
• Cave systems to explore on planets and other planetary diversity
• Expanding colonization with new ways to influence and profit from systems
• Fixing/improving lighting, anti-aliasing, and shadows
• More stuff to do on planets (more facilities, places to fight, FPS combat mechanics, etc, etc)
• And much more I'm not thinking of right now

Elite already has enough dimensions (space stuff, powerplay stuff, FPS stuff, colonization stuff). Odyssey/FPS was arguably already not needed. We don't need more.

What we need, more than anything, is more depth in existing systems. And fixing lighting/graphics/bugs.

 

[Coolgroove]

To act like those who happen to disagree with you are "pretending", ie lying for some reason, says far more about you than them. Why would people be pretending? Some people seem to be taking potential features in a video game somewhat overly serious.

You do know people have different opinions without being deceptive?

When someone says they are not against, but everything they say apart from that is against - that is pretending.

When someone is against, and their opinions / arguments are the opposite of mine, and / or they disagree - never a problem for me, could be a reason for an interesting discussion.

I mean, there's nothing objective there in your list of claims re interiors, there can't be. It's all opinion. Some of which I happen to agree with, eg high probability for monetisation. You simply cannot claim that if your opinion and mine (for example) differ, then it's only my opinion that is somehow tainted or even "pretend".

Blatant dismissal won't do. You either can provide reasonable counter arguments, or it's just the lenses of own subjective wants and desires.

So weird to claim dishonesty when we are just talking about different people having different opinions.

So weird that you somehow applied that statement to yourself (by saying 'we').

 

[ꝁestrel]

After recently watching this video "update" about $tar Citizen which shows pretty much everything featured over there in SC ( full ship interiors, space walks, atmospheric planets w/ fauna & flora, base-building, hostile boarding takeovers ^ , etc. etc. ) that most players would probably like/want here in our Elite Dangerous game , i'm now beginning to wonder/worry that SC could potentially umm eclipse ( sorry pun! ) Elite Dangerous completely soon?
Or would that never happen since SC won't ever have what EliteD has, in terms of patented 1-to-1 replication of known universe & such?
Or because, well, SC won't ever actually "release" ?

SC is a cool project that I've backed for a long time. I have a lot of love for the vision. But SC is a bottomless pit of development. You have to follow the project closely and play it to really see how far away it still is. The marketing and YT videos hide a lot of it.

Both games were announced as kickstarters around the same time (2012). Elite has been released so long that it's pretty much completed a full lifecycle of a video game. And it's still adding features. Meanwhile SC is at least 3 years away from anywhere close to a completed game. Probably more like 5-6 years.

Only last year (after 12 years!) has SC even started to talk (not implement, just talk) about the "game" part of the game. What I mean is things like progression, careers, etc and how it'll actually be implemented and played. Before that it's only been focused on the technology side of things and that stuff is still many years away from being finished.

In short: no risk