Starport interior designs

[Fenster]

I'm hoping for the day we see little guys moving around on the platforms, but I'd settle for control tower people initially. As long as they duck and/or point whenever a ship gets blown up just over their heads, and give a slow sarcastic clap animation for pilots who scrape their ship all over the docking pad before finally hitting the sweet spot.

Facepalm would be better..lol

 

[Elgered]

There are many things they can do about stations, some things would be easy to achieve (and not require new docking computer calculations. e.g. cool could be stations without light, etc...)

But we all know that we are all demanding / asking for improvements on every corner of the game. There is a priority to each and every improvement. And I fear the station design is on one of the last pages of this priority list.

 

[Alien]

Just another thing to add to the list of features Frontier said would be in the game and aren't while they do stuff like PowerPlay and Wings instead of adding real content .... in my opinion of course.

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

Little bit OT, but I'm still of the opinion adding the detritus of human civilization around certain starports/outposts would add immensely to the immersion factor. Fingers crossed for this type of content down the road.

 

[highpsiturbo]

And some nice potted plants would be good as well.

 

[W4rSkuLL]

They wouldn't need to vet everything, only the best of the best.

Make the "template files" they already have internally for creating station parts exteriors/interiors available to the public. For the interiors they probably have one for each slot size: small/medium/large. For the exterior there are probably "attachment points" on each end of the Orbis segments that follows a standard so that each part always will fit with the next one logically. Also put out a design bible when it comes to the style of the different factions and general look of the game. Also things like polycount, size and other limitations would be made clear in the documentation. These things already exist...otherwise they wouldn't be able to work on it anyway.

Then create a section in the forum where people can publish their creations. Every month or so people can vote on their favorites. The top 5 submissions can then be "vetted" by FD. Only if they find that these live up to their expectations they will move forward on them. They can then just check if they have been built to specs...if they haven't they simply give feedback and let the original creator fix it. When fixed they put it into the game. People who put their work into the game also need to sign a form where it's made clear that they from this point on will no longer own that asset. They WILL however be mentioned in the credits of the game. Always something to put on the CV. Who knows...if someone turns out to be exceptionally good over a long time FD might even hire them!

As I pointed out in my "Copy&Paste" above this would only apply to static "window dressing" in the game world and not dynamic objects like ships, weapons or people. Modules on the exteriors of stations is for example not something you will interact with in any other way than looking at it or, at most, crash in to.

Further down the line this could also be applied to variants of citybuildings, plants, potentially alien body parts (think Spore) and so on...

This way the FD devs could focus their artists on putting together the assets we will dynamically interact with (ships, planetary vehicles, weapons, equipment...) while the "crowd" could create the "windowdressing".

I like it. Its a good idea. Making the community create textures or decorating stations is a good way to introduce modding and let the fans add something to the game. This can even be done with skins and decals. Its not a good idea, its a fantastic idea. I hope Frontier looks into it and is open to it. But first things first I guess In a game with 400 billion star systems its not easy to get everything to look different But the share variety in star systems is remarkable. Its a fantastic achievement.

 

[Tinman]

Just another thing to add to the list of features Frontier said would be in the game and aren't while they do stuff like PowerPlay and Wings instead of adding real content .... in my opinion of course.

Wings and Powerplay is way more in the form of "content" than variations to stations.

Wings and Powerplay enables real gameplay, things to do and a reason to do them.
Station variations does nothing in this regard...it is certainly something I want them to work on (whcih I've made clear), but it IS very much "windowdressing".

Or are you talking about humans walking around? In that case they have never given a estimate when that would get implemented and from a development point of view it wouldn't make sense doing so until you got first person gameplay, NPC avatars, character creation tools and other things like this in paid expansions.

 

[Alien]

You know, I am surprised people ask what I mean when I talk about missing features. It was in my sig for a long time until recently.
But, because it's you ... how about this for starters ...

Reputation
Ship Naming
Passengers
Salvaging
Ship Crew

I can't be the only one to want these things, things Frontier suggested, in the game? It can't surely be me vs everyone else (who are happy with "Wings" and "PowerPlay" and whatever stuff Frontier think up next).

 

[Tinman]

You know, I am surprised people ask what I mean when I talk about missing features. It was in my sig for a long time until recently.
But, because it's you ... how about this for starters ...

Reputation
Ship Naming
Passengers
Salvaging
Ship Crew

I can't be the only one to want these things, things Frontier suggested, in the game? It can't surely be me vs everyone else (who are happy with "Wings" and "PowerPlay" and whatever stuff Frontier think up next).

That's not what I asked...I mean in reference to this threads topic.

Most of the stuff in regards to Reputations is already in the game BTW...

Keep in mind that...

Reputation values are hidden to the player; they just experience the effects on NPC behaviours

So how can you say that that isn't in the game?

As for Ship Crews:

Time for a slightly more speculative and lightweight topic: ship crews. I say speculative because it’s not a critical path feature that is also fairly modular; the backbone ships are all meant to be capable of being flown by a single pilot.

So these where never really "promised" even in the proposals to be in the first version of the game.


I'm very happy with Wings. That they launched a multiplayer game without it on the other hand...*cough cough*
I'm also very happy with what Powerplay seem to be and most people seem to agree with that based on everything I've read.

 

[W4rSkuLL]

Who says we are happy, but I am at least realistic that we must give Frontier time to implement these features. Wings added better MP to the game and Powerplay will add more interaction with the background simulation. And we can influence changes in it. Be part of Powers and alliances. Its great times for E.D and us the players. And if you look at it, stuff is being added, slow but in a steady flow. I think reputation, ship naming, passengers, salvaging and ship crew will come in due time. But I can see some people being frustrated over some of the missing features. Patience is important.