Spacelegs is a pipe dream.

[Cosmo]

That's right people get hung up on the space legs feature without focussing on what added gameplay it will bring.

As you say X4 has limited space legs but honestly other than getting off the ship at a dock to access a console I'm not sure what value it adds, roaming round a station is frankly an annoyance.

I'm not opposed to a good space legs implementation its just going to take a herculean effort to make it work well and not some 5min wonder the last thing Elite needs is more features with naff all or superficial things to do.

X4 has shown that even a basic iteration of EVA gives a significant feeling of immersion and freedom that ED doesn't provide, because we're glued to our pilot seats.

They only need to deliver some basic features for the first version. They can improve it with future updates.

 

[Ca$hback]

Could space legs be crowd funded?

 

[Valorin]

Frontier will never tell until it's time to tell.
And just for the records: I want atmospheric landings! I can walk around and shoot things in plenty other games.

 

[Stamford Rider]

Frontier will never tell until it's time to tell.
And just for the records: I want atmospheric landings! I can walk around and shoot things in plenty other games.

I can fly around and land in atmosphere in a bunch of other games, too.

Jus' sayin'.

 

[Julio Montega]

That's right people get hung up on the space legs feature without focussing on what added gameplay it will bring.

As you say X4 has limited space legs but honestly other than getting off the ship at a dock to access a console I'm not sure what value it adds, roaming round a station is frankly an annoyance.

I'm not opposed to a good space legs implementation its just going to take a herculean effort to make it work well and not some 5min wonder the last thing Elite needs is more features with naff all or superficial things to do.

X4 has:
-ship boarding via Marines
-EVA to hack satellites and investigate stuff close up
-EVA to hack and seize control of ships
-Spacelegs on station minigame to gather micro materials and secrets
- AI Pilots that can pilot the ship for you while you stand next to them managing your empie


Since X4 is revolving around fighters, transports and capships
there is a ton of more activities and cool sights to have in X4,
than in Elite.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have real salvage and stuff,
but since we don't even have a criminal ranking and i am not seeing
progress in that direction, why hamper the game with another rushed out feature
that is halfbaked.

Either do it right, or leave it be.
Make powerplay, squadrons, criminal gameplay and Multicrew
fully fledged features before starting off the next stone.

 

[Ozram]

https://youtu.be/Fyh7LETQ4w4


Skip in about 2 minutes. The first bit is a menu layout mock-up.
But the last part is a thoughtful 3D walkthrough of a potential internal layout for a Cobra iii.
It demonstrates some of the problems that Frontier will have to face and some possible solutions.
Ten year plan.
Space Legs is not impossible. But I don’t feel like it’s coming soon.

This vid shows precisely what is missing from the designs. It’s rather obvious from how they’ve thrown things in, that no such thought has been given (and therefore no such plans) to the internal layout of the ships. I can’t find the quote, but zi too remember (years ago) that having thought out the internal space of the ships for future space legs was part of the original ship design ethos. From my vid i think it’s pretty clear this is not the case. Even if we do end up with some form of space legs, it will have to be through cutscenes to impossible internal layouts and this is what I have a bit of a problem with. Nice vid and awesome find! I’m going to amend it to the OP.

 

[SupraOptimo]

What would "spacelegs" even add to the game? I really don't understand the appeal.

 

[Ozram]

What would "spacelegs" even add to the game? I really don't understand the appeal.

Not the point of this thread, however for me, I’d just like to walk around inside my ship for immersion purposes.

 

[thistle]

What would "spacelegs" even add to the game? I really don't understand the appeal.

Basic implementation would give the majority of players who dont play in VR an eye-opening view of the scale of the game, size of ships, stations etc. I personally think that's a good reason for doing a basic in ship/landing pad implementation, similar to x4.

Also - it's what the devs including D.Braben, Sandy etc all talked about as one of the things they were most looking forward to doing. Getting out the chair. Probably for the reason above.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

What would "spacelegs" even add to the game? I really don't understand the appeal.

Well it's in the design plan of the game you bought so the question is kind of moot. For me personally I am more interested in EVA and exploring space wrecks than legs per se (ie think helion but NPC based is my dream)

 

[Old Duck]

I want atmospheric landings! I can walk around and shoot things in plenty other games.

FWIW, I personally don't want space legs for "shooting things", as I already feel I'm forced to shoot things way too much in my SRV. In some respects, I want space HANDS as much as I want legs.

 

[M00ka]

FWIW, I personally don't want space legs for "shooting things", as I already feel I'm forced to shoot things way too much in my SRV. In some respects, I want space HANDS as much as I want legs.

Old Duck, like you I don't want space legs to end up being a poor man's version of CoD in Space. But I think we both know that as soon as we can wriggle our toes, there will be overwhelming, constant calls for FPS. People will come up with all the usual requests, shootouts in the stations, low gee combat on planets and of course boarding ships. The last one always cracks me up because it is plainly evident that those requesting that haven't the foggiest clue how it would work. Like anyone would just sit there and let their ship get boarded, heck the first thing I would be doing is hitting the big self destruct button. What, I am going to lose my ship anyway, might as well take the idiots with me

 

[CMDR Beltane]

X4 has sort of space legs, and it shows what clearly is missing in Elite
to make it a part of gameplay, rather than just a update
with nearly no added value:

NPC ai coding
Management of ships
allowing NPCs to autopilot
EVA with fitting scenarios
Something to do planetside
Something to do in stations
Real salvage and ship boarding

This all works in a singleplayer game,
but i don't think it will fit Elite or add anything to the game.

Sorry, but nearly spilled my coffee reading that, or maybe i am just misunderstanding you. X4, to me, is a perfect example for spacelegs where they should have rather invested that time and money on other things. If you do spacelegs, you have to make it right. An interesting part of the game that really adds something to your gameplay experience. And when it comes to X4 they could have left the whole stations walking part out of it and i would not even mind. What good is spacelegs if you look at generic, bland environments with no really interesting activity inside?

So yea, i am all in for spacelegs in ED. But please and for whatevers sake, do it slowly, carefully, and always with a purpose behind it. Spacelegs just for spacelegs sake does not help anyone.

 

[Muzz UK]

You’re not really planning on it, are you, FD? You’ve built no assets for it. There is no consistency in ship builds to suggest they were built with that in mind. Behind the doorways, there’s just an empty hull with the exception of things we can all see, like the SRV and SLF bays, and hardpoints. On the Hauler you even have the landing gear clipping through the cockpit, near the doorway. The stairways into the ships end up in different places. In the cobra 4, it leads directly to the srv bay. In others, it leads part way up or down or whatever, because there’s clearly no defined plan. I thought this was part of the Kickstarter.... pray tell, will we ever even walk around inside our ships? It doesn’t look like it to me:
Edit: Thanks, DNA-Decay, for linking this vid of Nebohtes. It shows precisely the sort of thing I had imagined they’d be going for with ship designs, but from the looks of it, no such plans were ever carried through, no such foundations were ever created. The ships look as though they were never designed for the future implementation of space legs.

OP I think you're wrong.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...e-to-support-Space-Legs?p=7269113#post7269113

 

[Cosmo]

Basic implementation would give the majority of players who dont play in VR an eye-opening view of the scale of the game, size of ships, stations etc. I personally think that's a good reason for doing a basic in ship/landing pad implementation, similar to x4.

Also - it's what the devs including D.Braben, Sandy etc all talked about as one of the things they were most looking forward to doing. Getting out the chair. Probably for the reason above.

Yep.

9 out of 10 developers in this video said they're most looking forward to space legs. That was on Nov 7, 2014. Four years later we still don't have EVA so it's overdue.

[video=youtube;8yd-m9AR7mY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yd-m9AR7mY[/video]

 

[S3B4ST13N]

OP, it's not uncommon for development teams to work in parallel with branched code.
There are things I am working on that our clients won't see for months and there is no evidence in the application itself that what I'm making will happen.
Bear in mind that what you see and what Frontier sees are two completely different things; just because the ships might not look like they have not been designed with interiors in mind doesn't mean they have not. You only see what Frontier want you to see; and it doesn't make sense to release unused assets that would only serve to bloat the installation (plus the cost of the download servers come update time).

I believe the ships are designed with interiors in mind, but since they aren't being used, the dev-team only make and implement what is needed, that is, a cockpit, or a hanger for example. Come release of legs/interiors, the ships will be updated to include the full design. Hell, for all we know, they have ship assets with interiors (albeit missing all the goodies like ducts and vents and pipes and all that).

That said though, isn't this rather a moot discussion?

 

[Old Duck]

That said though, isn't this rather a moot discussion?

Only 2.8% of discussions in this forum are not moot discussions, and you'll find those in the bug reports section.

BTW, the mootness of this discussion didn't stop you from joining in, so it can't be that bad.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Only 2.8% of discussions in this forum are not moot discussions, and you'll find those in the bug reports section.

BTW, the mootness of this discussion didn't stop you from joining in, so it can't be that bad.

One can still contribute to a discussion; even if one considers said discussion to be moot.

 

[DNA-Decay]

This vid shows precisely what is missing from the designs. It’s rather obvious from how they’ve thrown things in, that no such thought has been given (and therefore no such plans) to the internal layout of the ships. I can’t find the quote, but zi too remember (years ago) that having thought out the internal space of the ships for future space legs was part of the original ship design ethos. From my vid i think it’s pretty clear this is not the case. Even if we do end up with some form of space legs, it will have to be through cutscenes to impossible internal layouts and this is what I have a bit of a problem with. Nice vid and awesome find! I’m going to amend it to the OP.

He started by doing one for the Sidewinder.

You should watch that one too.

Because his design principle denies your logic.

He designs these interiors based on the premise (and he talks about this in the Sidewinder vid):
“Frontier have a plan, and have dessigned the ships with interiors.”

He takes that as his foundation principle for proposing these layouts.
“The interiors exist already.”
If not as fully rendered environments - then as concept art, and design sketches. “These things are this big and will go here”

Elite Feet may not be coming in 2019.
But your argument that “there is no internal structure in game now - therefore there can never be internal structure” is invalid.

I’m assuming that someone has already pointed out that rendering interiors will be taxing on the current engine.
I don’t want an FPS drop in combat because there are placeholder textures in case some VR dude walks through walls.

The environments will have dozens of iterations when they get the green light. Everything will move, shuffle and shift, but you can bet there are folks with plans that have yet to suffer the slings and arrows of design by committee.

 

[John Xenir]

I'll just say this - there were no assets for planetary landings until planetary landings were a thing. SRV included.
Which means that the lack of existence of assets for space legs is no evidence of space legs not being developed / in plan.

As to whether ships were designed or not to be walked inside - let's burn that bridge when we come to it.
Until any means of actually navigating interior of ships is presented - and claims of design being bad can be put to test - we're all just debating possibilities, at best.