The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[vulkman]

Back in Frontier: Elite II one difference between stations and ground-level landing pads was, that you could take off without requesting permission, yet back then you also had to pay your outstanding fines to get that permission, so this wouldn't really make sense anymore...

Also: If it's like F:E2 there won't be a loading screen, back then it was a seamless transition, unlike hyperspace jumps.

And yes, you can leave your ship, you just can't go very far or do anything really... just try pressing Ctrl + Alt while docked, that should put you in "debug camera" mode where you can move around your ship in a limited radius. Quite nice actually, I wonder why they won't let us do it without this workaround...

Also what you could do in F:E2 was place mining drones on surfaces that would autonomously mine and wait for your return to pick up the results. Maybe that's going to come back? Who knows...

 

[deathmagnet]

I like the idea of having to approach at the correct trajectory sadly I think there is utterly ZERO chance of that being added as the moans of people who destroyed their ship entering the atmosphere would melt the forums. So it's going to have to be dumbed down so you just fly at the planet I guess.

Most certainly. You will be able to approach at the worst possible angle so long as your going under 1mm/s. You probably can still exceed that speed but just end up with the same result as you do now...FSD cool down but still planet side.

 

[ozrix84]

But if you must know... what I really want is something gut-wrenching like this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn45pl8yXzk

I think turbulence is a possibility. The point that loads a new instance will be at re-entry, imo

 

[deathmagnet]

I also think planetary landings is a lot further away than people think. In the latest "answers from the devs" it was stated that walking around your ship is a long way away. I think it will come before planetary landings for the reasons the OP stated. Once you can walk around your ship the next logical step is leaving your ship for.....planetary landings.

 

[Cruel_R]

It won't, that's why it's a probable candidate for the feature reveal at Gamescom.

If you read the 'Answers From The Devs Part 2' thread, it's been pretty much ruled out as the Gamescom reveal. Damn shame, it would have been the logical next step, if you ask me.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[LeetNoob]

I like the idea of having to approach at the correct trajectory sadly I think there is utterly ZERO chance of that being added as the moans of people who destroyed their ship entering the atmosphere would melt the forums. So it's going to have to be dumbed down so you just fly at the planet I guess.

You only need to enter an atmosphere at the correct trajectory if you're in a re-entry vehicle that can't slow down. If your ship can slow down to a reasonable speed (sub sonic) it doesn't matter what angle you enter at.....I think

I assume you could never enter an atmosphere in supercuise.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Back in Frontier: Elite II one difference between stations and ground-level landing pads was, that you could take off without requesting permission, yet back then you also had to pay your outstanding fines to get that permission, so this wouldn't really make sense anymore...

Also: If it's like F:E2 there won't be a loading screen, back then it was a seamless transition, unlike hyperspace jumps.

And yes, you can leave your ship, you just can't go very far or do anything really... just try pressing Ctrl + Alt while docked, that should put you in "debug camera" mode where you can move around your ship in a limited radius. Quite nice actually, I wonder why they won't let us do it without this workaround...

Also what you could do in F:E2 was place mining drones on surfaces that would autonomously mine and wait for your return to pick up the results. Maybe that's going to come back? Who knows...

There were also planets with gravity - some of them with too much gravity but with a docking port lol - SPLAT!

 

[Io_Sys]

Aerobraking a T9 through Earth's atmosphere and severely damaging the ecosystem sounds pretty fun.
I wonder if it would ever be able to lift off again after it set down and loaded up on cargo.
I think you're right on that part anyway, instead of the slow down to exit SC I'd expect some kind of atmospheric re-entry minigame or something, although I hope they wouldn't add the same effects to planets/planetoids without atmosphere.


I think it's mainly been a thing that sci-fi space gamers have wanted for a long while.
Many games have tried to do it and failed pretty badly. Don't get me wrong, I mean, there's some out there. Enter atmosphere, dock at a city and trade or something but the things you can do there tends to be extremely sparse, after that, no different from just docking at a space station.

Photo realistic scenery would be nice-- you could just chill while exploring the scenery-- Find famous landmarks like the olympus mountain of mars, or stooge through earth's atmosphere or a planetary surface on the far side of the galaxy etc. Maybe you could take scientific scans or soil samples as missions and add profit to exploration, since the exploration players want something more and a terraforming company could always use samples of the current ecology or what have you.

I mean the closest thing I can think of with an actual intresting planetary landing mechanic was KSP, but that's more of a rocket/lander simulator than space trucking.

 

[ozrix84]

If you read the 'Answers From The Devs Part 2' thread, it's been pretty much ruled out as the Gamescom reveal. Damn shame, it would have been the logical next step, if you ask me.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

I meant planetary landings. It makes sense for it to come before walking, when you think about it - the fundamental features around it are in place already. For walking, you'd need other stuff that needs to be built from the ground up, making it more expensive, development wise.

 

[BigFW]

As a starter I'd be happy with the potential variation in landing environment, preferably with seemless transition. Maybe some mission variety with better reward for cutting out a station middleman (saw this mentioned elsewhere as well).

I'm not sure seemless will happen but I could live with instancing into atmosphere for a final approach.

But it also just feels right even if it it doesn't produce huge gameplay mechanics. It increases atmosphere and immersion (in my opinion).

 

[ZeeWolf]

Planetary landings. So, in my head, it will go like this -

We approach the planet we wish to land on. Undoubtedly there will some mechanic where we have to approach at the right trajectory to avoid smearing our ships across the upper atmosphere. Then there will be some kind of loading screen thinly veiled as something else, a fiery 're-entry' sequence or something similar. Like hyperspace, but with more orange. Then we are flying our ships in the atmosphere of the planet, which will be awesome. We select a a city or port or something, then we land at our chosen destination, all very cool.

Then what?

We can't get out our ships. How will it be different from being docked at a station? What will be the point?

With the current game mechanics, and given that walking about and leaving our ship is officially 'a very long way off', I just don't get why people are so hyped about planetary landings. I am in no way knocking the idea, it does sound cool. But I am having trouble envisioning where FD are going with it.

Am I missing something? I guess it will make exploration a damn sight more rewarding, but other than that...I don't know. Is it just a stepping-stone to greater things?

Really, it isn't hard to go back and look at the previous 2 games in the series. Look at some videos on YouTube. Being able to have a close nosey around the planets added a sense of freedom. It had some simple extra mechanics such as the mining machines and being able to land on outposts and cities. Really these mechanics weren't done all that well, but it didn't matter.

I don't understand why people have a hard time understanding why building the engine to encompass more planetary detail is an odd thing to do. It isn't actually that hard to implement (when compared to the horrendous complexity that dealing with FPS mechanics would add) remember that Space Engine is built by one guy and is hugely impressive (really try and find a decent first person shooter built by one guy). I don't see a reason why Frontier couldn't expand the simulation into this kind of detail which would open it up to new mechanics.

Currently the nearest thing we have to a modern game with Frontier Elite 2 scenery is Pioneer or Evochron Mercenary. Why can't Elite expand into that level of detail? It's part of the series, it's part of our heritage damn it. I certainly wanted it to move into that direction when I backed the Kickstarter. Would you back a new Mario game and wonder why it was offering mushroom kingdoms?

What we have to do on the planets is simply irrelevant, it opens up a vast amount of possibilities. It's the framework first for me, the engine. Being able to see those sun rises, those gas giants as a back drop to some rocky barron wasteland. The possibilities are endless after that; basic mining features, exploration and cartography of actual landscapes, outposts, cities and of course big game hunting.

Never ever forget big game hunting

 

[tetra]

It's one of the proposed content additions I am actually the most excited for, not because I envision sprawling cities or huge detail or anything of that nature, because lets face it that will never be the case, but the one thing I am attracted to it most for, aside from vastly expanding exploration potential and giving us a whole new set of environments to play within, is the potential for relatable scale, something that is sorely missing in ED at the moment. For the overwhelmingly vast majority of the human population there is nothing in space (or in ED) that has any sense of scale that we can relate to. Stations, asteroids, ships, outposts, even the junk sitting on the dock is all to a scale that makes no sense to us. However given the ability to get a sense of scale by flying through a valley or canyon or over and around mountains would truly be something that as humans we can relate to. Sadly the only other major thing that would assist in this is being able to get out and walk around the ships and stations. Seeing videos on YouTube of the actual scale of the ships in ED I still find it next to impossible to get that sense of scale in the game (outside of using VR which gives you the proper depth cues) and I honestly think having a backdrop of more conventional sized objects (such as mountains) would very much help this.

 

[AndyC77]

I also think planetary landings is a lot further away than people think. In the latest "answers from the devs" it was stated that walking around your ship is a long way away. I think it will come before planetary landings for the reasons the OP stated. Once you can walk around your ship the next logical step is leaving your ship for.....planetary landings.[/QUOT

Personally I think it would be more logical to release planetary landings first. I firmly believe planetary landings will be the first dlc especially as the first person dlc has been described as a very long way away.

 

[Cruel_R]

Really, it isn't hard to go back and look at the previous 2 games in the series. Look at some videos on YouTube. Being able to have a close nosey around the planets added a sense of freedom. It had some simple extra mechanics such as the mining machines and being able to land on outposts and cities. Really these mechanics weren't done all that well, but it didn't matter.

I don't understand why people have a hard time understanding why building the engine to encompass more planetary detail is an odd thing to do. It isn't actually that hard to implement (when compared to the horrendous complexity that dealing with FPS mechanics would add) remember that Space Engine is built by one guy and is hugely impressive (really try and find a decent first person shooter built by one guy). I don't see a reason why Frontier couldn't expand the simulation into this kind of detail which would open it up to new mechanics.

Currently the nearest thing we have to a modern game with Frontier Elite 2 scenery is Pioneer or Evochron Mercenary. Why can't Elite expand into that level of detail? It's part of the series, it's part of our heritage damn it. I certainly wanted it to move into that direction when I backed the Kickstarter. Would you back a new Mario game and wonder why it was offering mushroom kingdoms?

What we have to do on the planets is simply irrelevant, it opens up a vast amount of possibilities. It's the framework first for me, the engine. Being able to see those sun rises, those gas giants as a back drop to some rocky barron wasteland. The possibilities are endless after that; basic mining features, exploration and cartography of actual landscapes, outposts, cities and of course big game hunting.

Never ever forget big game hunting

Actually I did play the previous 2 games. And for me landing on planets got old pretty quick. Like I said, it was no different from being on a station. 10/10 for eye-candy, 0/10 for meaningful gameplay.

 

[ozrix84]

...is the potential for relatable scale, something that is sorely missing in ED at the moment.

That's why walking around ships is important; even if it wouldn't add any real content around it per se, it would definitely help getting a better idea of the scale of the ships. That said, planetary landings are more useful in that regard, short term wise.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Actually I did play the previous 2 games. And for me landing on planets got old pretty quick. Like I said, it was no different from being on a station. 10/10 for eye-candy, 0/10 for meaningful gameplay.

Well I'm sure nobody will make you go to the planets if you don't want to.

 

[Cruel_R]

Well I'm sure nobody will make you go to the planets if you don't want to.

All I'm really concerned about is that FD don't waste the opportunity to do something really special.

 

[ZeeWolf]

All I'm really concerned about is that FD don't waste the opportunity to do something really special.

If they are intending to announce a planetary landing expansion at Gamescon that they have been working on for a long time I doubt they will stop at this point. If they announce something else, I would imagine they are still working on planets anyway.

Not surprised they said FPS is some way off. The ships in this game are massive (entire FPS game levels), the complexities involved with building first person assets as well as completely new game/control logic was never going to be just around the corner from the first release. I'd imagine they are approaching anything like that with a huge amount of caution.

 

[Cruel_R]

If they are intending to announce a planetary landing expansion at Gamescon that they have been working on for a long time I doubt they will stop at this point. If they announce something else, I would imagine they are still working on planets anyway.

Not surprised they said FPS is some way off. The ships in this game are massive (entire FPS game levels), the complexities involved with building first person assets as well as completely new game/control logic was never going to be just around the corner from the first release. I'd imagine they are approaching anything like that with a huge amount of caution.

Don't I remember reading that when FD model a ship, they also do the interior as well, as a form of 'future proofing'? Or did I dream it?

 

[Kris]

Don't I remember reading that when FD model a ship, they also do the interior as well, as a form of 'future proofing'? Or did I dream it?

I think they design the interiors, but they don't model them.