Lets bring up the age old question of Ship Interiors.
This is long awaited addition is something that everyone (aside from a select few) have been asking for and would add significant immersion to every aspect of the game. Players would form new, deeper connections to their ships, Odyssey activities would be instantly improved by this small section of gameplay and the experience of a "multicrew" scenario would be significantly elevated.
Internal additions:
While ship interiors would be awesome, there isn't much point if there is going to be nothing within them. Especially on larger ships you don't want players to be walking around a football field that's seemingly empty with nothing to do.
1. Interactive SRV & Fighter Bays are a must.
2. Various airlocks/doors throughout the ship that other players can breach. This would allow for some very interesting situations with PVP/PVE hijacking being a new possibility.
3. Interactive Rooms/Hatches for various ship compartments. E.g. Ammo storage, Cargo racks, Data servers, Powerplant, FSD, Weapon Turrets, etc...
4. Filler rooms which could help to fill out the space in those larger ships. E.g. Cafeteria, crew quarters, science labs, offices, etc... Even if these rooms don't serve much functionality they'll at least make the ship feel more fleshed out along with the rooms listed in #3.
Solutions to the "constantly walking to the bridge" issue:
Whilst walking to the bridge would be extremely immersive and enjoyable, I can see how many players would quickly get sick of it. E.g. when doing exobiology.
However, two solutions immediately come to mind.
1. Keep the blue tube at the bottom of the stair case:
This is a quick and simple solution that would allow players to quickly access their ship.
2. Elevators in larger ships:
As the issue would generally only present itself in larger vessels, it wouldn't be surprising for them to house elevators to the bridge, similar to those in star ports. Just keep them relatively close to the entrance and you're good to go.
Issues with players interacting with your ship whilst in motion:
I can definitely see a potential issue with multiplayer inside your ship while the ship is moving and constantly changing direction. You could pick the easy way out and force players to be seated before the ship is launched. However, if feasible it would be much better to allow players to walk around the ship as it moves.
Having to render all the extra detail:
To try an solve some of the performance issues that would inevitably come with having such fidelity in every ship you could:
1. Never render the internals of ships that you are not in. To have a seamless transition when boarding ships, begin loading the interiors when within a certain distance (e.g. 100m) and only of ships that are on the ground.
2. Have anyone flying the ship/in the cockpit only load the cockpit.
3. When on the ground the fighter hanger is locked/doesn't exist, when in flight the SRV hanger is locked/doesn't exist.
Now, I am not an expert in any of this. I have no experience with game design and only slight knowledge of 3d modelling so I really have no idea what's possible. Treat this only as a concept that I believe would be awesome to see and that "THINK" is possible. I understand this would be a big undertaking and require a lot of development, optimisation and networking. I just hope Frontier sees this and understands how much this would mean to the community and maybe some day it becomes a reality.
This is long awaited addition is something that everyone (aside from a select few) have been asking for and would add significant immersion to every aspect of the game. Players would form new, deeper connections to their ships, Odyssey activities would be instantly improved by this small section of gameplay and the experience of a "multicrew" scenario would be significantly elevated.
Internal additions:
While ship interiors would be awesome, there isn't much point if there is going to be nothing within them. Especially on larger ships you don't want players to be walking around a football field that's seemingly empty with nothing to do.
1. Interactive SRV & Fighter Bays are a must.
2. Various airlocks/doors throughout the ship that other players can breach. This would allow for some very interesting situations with PVP/PVE hijacking being a new possibility.
3. Interactive Rooms/Hatches for various ship compartments. E.g. Ammo storage, Cargo racks, Data servers, Powerplant, FSD, Weapon Turrets, etc...
4. Filler rooms which could help to fill out the space in those larger ships. E.g. Cafeteria, crew quarters, science labs, offices, etc... Even if these rooms don't serve much functionality they'll at least make the ship feel more fleshed out along with the rooms listed in #3.
Solutions to the "constantly walking to the bridge" issue:
Whilst walking to the bridge would be extremely immersive and enjoyable, I can see how many players would quickly get sick of it. E.g. when doing exobiology.
However, two solutions immediately come to mind.
1. Keep the blue tube at the bottom of the stair case:
This is a quick and simple solution that would allow players to quickly access their ship.
2. Elevators in larger ships:
As the issue would generally only present itself in larger vessels, it wouldn't be surprising for them to house elevators to the bridge, similar to those in star ports. Just keep them relatively close to the entrance and you're good to go.
Issues with players interacting with your ship whilst in motion:
I can definitely see a potential issue with multiplayer inside your ship while the ship is moving and constantly changing direction. You could pick the easy way out and force players to be seated before the ship is launched. However, if feasible it would be much better to allow players to walk around the ship as it moves.
Having to render all the extra detail:
To try an solve some of the performance issues that would inevitably come with having such fidelity in every ship you could:
1. Never render the internals of ships that you are not in. To have a seamless transition when boarding ships, begin loading the interiors when within a certain distance (e.g. 100m) and only of ships that are on the ground.
2. Have anyone flying the ship/in the cockpit only load the cockpit.
3. When on the ground the fighter hanger is locked/doesn't exist, when in flight the SRV hanger is locked/doesn't exist.
Now, I am not an expert in any of this. I have no experience with game design and only slight knowledge of 3d modelling so I really have no idea what's possible. Treat this only as a concept that I believe would be awesome to see and that "THINK" is possible. I understand this would be a big undertaking and require a lot of development, optimisation and networking. I just hope Frontier sees this and understands how much this would mean to the community and maybe some day it becomes a reality.
...)