My involvement with the writing of Elite Dangerous stopped at the beginning of May this year. v2.4 is entirely in house with FDev.
Cheers,
Drew.
System map overhaul needed
- Thread starter Darkslayer
- Start date
My involvement with the writing of Elite Dangerous stopped at the beginning of May this year. v2.4 is entirely in house with FDev.
Cheers,
Drew.
Hard? How hard can it be - really? We had one in the original Elite. And that whole game was squeezed into a very small memory space. What we are asking for here is really just the same thing but with nicer graphics. (Sorry if this was mentioned already - too lazy to read through 17 pages).
When developers talk about Elite Dangerous they say everything in this game is hard to develop. [haha]
And at some point I belive them, otherwise we wouldn't have a mediocre game.
2018 looks brighter but so did 2015-2016-2017 and we know how it ended.
Hi,
as it seems this is not coming any time soon. However I want to raise another point (haven't read the whole thread, so if this came up before just ignore it)
How about just including just a little 2D information into the System Map showing only the relative position of the bodies? It could look as simple as this:
This would it make much easier to find the fastest order of scanning the bodies when exploring, no further features needed.
as it seems this is not coming any time soon. However I want to raise another point (haven't read the whole thread, so if this came up before just ignore it)
How about just including just a little 2D information into the System Map showing only the relative position of the bodies? It could look as simple as this:
This would it make much easier to find the fastest order of scanning the bodies when exploring, no further features needed.
And here I was expecting someone to have pointed out the developer/debug we saw of the Sol system on Ant Ross's presentation on the stream last night.
Ed and Ant then went to great pains to point out that it would take a whole lot of UI, UX and Art work to get that up to spec to be a part of the main game. Anyone else feel a petition coming on
?
I've definitely felt the lack of a 3D (not all systems are as 'flat' as Sol) Orrery in ED. Every time I have multiple destinations to visit within a single system, be that due to scanning them for exploration, or as part of delivering multiple missions.
Ed and Ant then went to great pains to point out that it would take a whole lot of UI, UX and Art work to get that up to spec to be a part of the main game. Anyone else feel a petition coming on
?I've definitely felt the lack of a 3D (not all systems are as 'flat' as Sol) Orrery in ED. Every time I have multiple destinations to visit within a single system, be that due to scanning them for exploration, or as part of delivering multiple missions.
And here I was expecting someone to have pointed out the developer/debug we saw of the Sol system on Ant Ross's presentation on the stream last night.
Ed and Ant then went to great pains to point out that it would take a whole lot of UI, UX and Art work to get that up to spec to be a part of the main game. Anyone else feel a petition coming on
I've definitely felt the lack of a 3D (not all systems are as 'flat' as Sol) Orrery in ED. Every time I have multiple destinations to visit within a single system, be that due to scanning them for exploration, or as part of delivering multiple missions.
Maybe they could just give us access to a "debug" version of an orrery map? Similar to how we had access to the external debug cam for so long, which wasn't anything official nor polished but still allowed us to take external pics, like that they could quickly throw together a rough unpolished debug orrery? It wouldn't look great nor have any features, but it would give us access to viewing orbital paths in a 3D map view, which is all a lot of us are after anyway.
Altho the picture is rather crude, a system map of that sort would be many-fold better than the current!
Not to mention the immersion factor. You are a human sitting in a spaceship looking out a window.......You want to see a map of the system And SUDDENLY(loading time varies!)you are blind and can't see out your ship!!! ALL you see is directly forced into your visual cortex...NOT safe if you are a pilot! Want to pilot your ship while looking at a map?? Sorry.
I was looking through my Elite Dangerous screenshot directory this morning for a picture of one of the DWE basecamps when I came across this meme pic I made a year ago for another thread somewhere on the forums. It's on topic and it made me chuckle, so I figured I'd post it here just for the lols!
They have all the assets, it's just a matter of reorganizing them. This is all I would want:
This would be so useful combined with the current map, it would be enough for me.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
It would take a hell of a lot of mousewheel scrolling to zoom that out to a level where you can see the entirety of Alpha Centauri.
Plus, it only works for systems that are on a single plane. Any system where you have multiple stars orbiting and wildly different angles is not going to work.
It's really easy to produce a screenshot for a simple system (FDev did it years ago) but it always falls down when you start to get complex.
Yeah I know. But it's better then nothing. As it is in the current map I have to zoom out and it doesn't need to be completely to scale. It just needs to be usable.
Yeah, I see your point, but look at it from FDev's perspective - pretty much every day on the forums somebody is complaining about 'placeholder' functionality and incomplete implementations of features. If they put out a version of the system map that's only 'usable' then the complaints will start immediately. The attitude of the forum makes it impossible to release something that's not fully featured.
Very true.
The overwhelming majority of systems are not as large as Alpha Centauri, and for those that are there's nothing complicated about exponential zoom speeds.
And..why would it only work for systems on a single plane? Again it's not too hard ot imagine chase manhattan's map can be rotated in 3d by holding the RMB. Just like the FE2 map.
They seem to have managed to do just that so far and not worry
Whatever they do some will complain, that is just the way of forums. They should not let that stop them improving the game incrementallyThe simplistic example I replied to only works in a single plane - not that it wouldn't be possible to generate a 3D version.
Log scales make it harder to judge absolute distance - which is the commonly stated need for an orrery map - especially when your log scale is 'double-ended'. For Alpha Centauri you'd need to have large distances covered by short scale in the 'middle' of the map, then go smaller around each star.
You could scale it equivalent to the supercruise speeds (on a log) but you're losing the easy relative distance evaluation.
[Edit]
Sorry, you were talking about exponential zoom speed, not scaling - I misread.
However, my point is still relevant to the overall point.
It's all within the realm of the possible, but that's a long way from saying it's easy.
[Edit]
Also, 3D rotation is going to get tricky where you have strung out systems the A Cen, since the second star will end up offscreen somewhere and you would have to scroll all tge way out to find it again.
They seem to have managed to do just that so far and not worry
True, but I don't blame them for fighting the easy battles first
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The simplistic example I replied to only works in a single plane - not that it wouldn't be possible to generate a 3D version.
Log scales make it harder to judge absolute distance - which is the commonly stated need for an orrery map - especially when your log scale is 'double-ended'. For Alpha Centauri you'd need to have large distances covered by short scale in the 'middle' of the map, then go smaller around each star.
You could scale it equivalent to the supercruise speeds (on a log) but you're losing the easy relative distance evaluation.
[Edit]
Sorry, you were talking about exponential zoom speed, not scaling - I misread.
However, my point is still relevant to the overall point.
It's all within the realm of the possible, but that's a long way from saying it's easy.
[Edit]
Also, 3D rotation is going to get tricky where you have strung out systems the A Cen, since the second star will end up offscreen somewhere and you would have to scroll all tge way out to find it again.
True, but I don't blame them for fighting the easy battles first
Two buttons solve all of your concerns: ZOOM All, and ZOOM to Selection.