The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[Kiblams]

Believe me, there's a bunch of good software to do this, so it not necessarily must by implemented from scratch, just look at this wonder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsNP8-S5ygE

That's pretty cool, I am mostly concerned about the texturing variations for the buildings though. Or at least I was until I realised a moment ago that they can handle that with surface types e.g. smooth shiny for glass towers and even bump mapping for stone/brick structures etc. I seem to be resolving my own concerns

Are we already at the point where we must demand that "planetary landing need to be buffed?" or, should that be nerfed?

*whispers to self* Don't feed the trolls... don't feed the trolls... don't feed the trolls *hits self on head*

 

[Doolittle]

My concern for landings is lack of game play.

In Elite: Frontier one of the originals, the gameplay brought by planetary landings increased dramatically. Depending on how FD implements it I'm hoping it will bring more than the original. Without PL ED is just another space game. Until planetary landings are added I doubt I'll be playing much, it is the reason for the game IMO. Not just a space shooter.

 

[Ancipital]

I know, but there is alot that doesnt "make sense" in ED so I see no issue why atmospheric flight couldnt be required to land on planets.
It would give the game much needed variety as well.

Oh don't get me wrong, it'd probably be fun- but the handwavium rationale might be a bit of a stretch

 

[Lobstris]

Whilst the Introversion City Generator is fun, it also takes a fair bit of time to generate the city - that would need doing in the background. I'd imaging the approach they would take is pretty much the same as the stations (and what was done in the previous games). Have a number of pre-fab blocks that are then scattered around the starports in accordance to the proc-gen algorithm. The 'autogen' system in the later MS flight simulators also worked pretty well (I thought) for its time. See: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/cc526979.aspx
.
To be honest, I'm more concerned about how they are going to handle the transition from super-cruise to normal flight, and make that seemless. And to be even more honest, I'm just hoping that, by the time we get to planetary landings anyone is still playing. And to be even, even more honest, there is soooooo much stuff regarding spaceflight, NPCs, comms, mission overhaul etc. that I'd like to see added first.

 

[Albadaran]

Are we already at the point where we must demand that "planetary landing need to be buffed?" or, should that be nerfed?

Once we have plantary landing, no doubt players will ask for things to do. So yes, the next questions would probably be about more useful content. But this is a space game, I don't expect much more than some sightseeing. Action will always take place in space.

 

[Vasea Azure]

My only concern is that PL will be scrapped like SP mode.

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Planetary landings will be nothing more than a space station, on the ground. You will still hit your "safe to disengage" button, but instead of popping out in front of a space station, you will pop out 9 or 10km up in the air above a ground based landing pad. That's it. Maybe they will introduce a new effect that surrounds your cockpit... but it will be generic, the same for each planet, and like the space stations.. there will only be 2 or 3 different types of cities you will see when you land. They will be procedurally generated just like everything else.

Yes.. I am painfully pessimistic about it's implementation. But I would bet real money what I typed here will be what we see when released.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Planetary landings will be nothing more than a space station, on the ground. You will still hit your "safe to disengage" button, but instead of popping out in front of a space station, you will pop out 9 or 10km up in the air above a ground based landing pad. That's it. Maybe they will introduce a new effect that surrounds your cockpit... but it will be generic, the same for each planet, and like the space stations.. there will only be 2 or 3 different types of cities you will see when you land. They will be procedurally generated just like everything else.

Yes.. I am painfully pessimistic about it's implementation. But I would bet real money what I typed here will be what we see when released.

And this, pretty much... yea

 

[Vasious]

My concern for landings is lack of game play.

I on the other side of the coin would be happy if Planetary landings was scenery as I piloted (ie not cut scene) my ship to a Star Port, or back water landing pad.
No need to get out the ship, just the same as FE2 really.

Planetary landings will be nothing more than a space station, on the ground. You will still hit your "safe to disengage" button, but instead of popping out in front of a space station, you will pop out 9 or 10km up in the air above a ground based landing pad. That's it. Maybe they will introduce a new effect that surrounds your cockpit... but it will be generic, the same for each planet, and like the space stations.. there will only be 2 or 3 different types of cities you will see when you land. They will be procedurally generated just like everything else.

Yes.. I am painfully pessimistic about it's implementation. But I would bet real money what I typed here will be what we see when released.

Just saw you post, but even if it was that I would be happy.
Ideally the exit would be 100 km up so we have to enter the atmosphere, and the market might have been prices to account for the land of time taken to lift the goods into orbit, and off set the additional time the player needs to land (I miss the 20 km arrivals), but yeah, scenery and the experience.

 

[Fost]

I think it needs to be split into more than one expansion pack so the F D team can do it some justice.

* Moons with no atmosphere.
* Gas giants / high pressure planets with floating stations / cities
* Earth-like planets with atmosphere and large cities.
* Under water cities.


Yet I share your concern. I'd presently pick better missions / more object variety in space.

 

[CMDR Cillian Raynor]

I find it very optimistic some of you expect cities at all. I'll be glad to be proven wrong but...unlikely. Right now i even find it fairly unlikely we're even getting PL.

 

[Armour]

I can see quite a few stages to this:

Airless bodies (mining machines, detailed scanning, land vehicles, possibly domed surface outposts)
Gas giants and lifeless planets with an atmosphere (advanced fuel scooping, climate modelling, atmospheric flight and fighting)
Planets with surface liquid (undersea travel, undersea outposts, Moray Starboats?)
Planets with flora and fauna (lots of off-ship gameplay - hunting, botany, survival)
Low-population settled planets (small towns dotted about - basic commodities trading and a bit of "wild west" type gameplay)
Med-population settled planets (larger towns and possibly one or two small cities, planets based on agriculture or industrial activity - sabotage, worker revolts, theft, industrial espionage)
High-population settled planets (high tech democracies and dictatorships, old worlds - political subterfuge, assassination)

 

[DidierDrbois]

My only concern re planetary landing is stutter. If it stutters like it does close to planets now with no fix in sight (since launch, no less) what are we going to see when landings are in?

I have enough Powerpoint at work thank you very much.

 

[Alatar]

I think people are somewhat missing OP's point.

How I read it was: How can we in any way get believable planetary environments when even for the simple space ones frontier only has an extremely limited amount of assets?

And it's a fair question. One that cool procedural generation doesn't really solve at all, those just help create in a massive scale, but the assets (textures, meshes, etc) are still the same.

 

[ankhorion]

And let's not forget we'll also be able to get out of our spaceships and wander around. It's a pretty huge challenge.

Why? it are different games. like on my C=64 I had to load another part of the game, it can be done so here to. The only thing will be diskspace.
So before you land they load the new game and when you leave the planet they load the old game.

 

[lolanon]

I on the other side of the coin would be happy if Planetary landings was scenery as I piloted (ie not cut scene) my ship to a Star Port, or back water landing pad.
No need to get out the ship, just the same as FE2 really.



Just saw you post, but even if it was that I would be happy.
Ideally the exit would be 100 km up so we have to enter the atmosphere, and the market might have been prices to account for the land of time taken to lift the goods into orbit, and off set the additional time the player needs to land (I miss the 20 km arrivals), but yeah, scenery and the experience.

Even as a paid dlc?

 

[Luniticisi]

Something else to remember about planetary landings is that outside of "Inhabited" Space, we are going to have earth like planets not settled by any faction, what are they going to do there.. are there going to be civilizations millennia behind (or indeed ahead) .. which raises the point, how many variations will be needed to simulate the entire milky way in a believable way ? ..

It's not just about the City's on planets that have been settled, but more about the ones that haven't to me .. it's possibly too big a task to get it right.

 

[Hellhawk666]

It's certainly a fair question, but the whole planetary landing/planetscape thing is one part of ED for which I have great optimism.

Yes, stations are a bit cookie-cutter, but to be fair that makes sense. In lore terms, building one of these suckers would be a HUGE undertaking that would involve potential catastrophic results if not done well. It's reasonable that having developed a few standard types the major factions would not vary from those implementations. In practical game terms having a few basic designs means lower overhead of assets and loading times.

Planets, however, will be a different thing entirely because unlike stations that need to be seen more or less in their entirety at one time and appear to comprise a set of modular components, organic worlds will be procedurally "grown" and only the details required for the immediately visible FOV will need to be rendered at one time. That means the whole emphasis of design can be put into 1) Complexity, realism and accuracy 2) Efficient real-time rendering.

I'm sure FD are right on top of all of this and just as the planets evolved during alpha, beta, gamma and the current release (and are still evolving) the close-up FP view of planetary surfaces will also receive the same on-going polish over a long time.

The actual landing mechanic I expect to be seamless. I can't see any reason why a loading screen should be needed and I'm sure it will look very convincing.

The only really difficult part will be planet-side structures, and doubtless there will be lore solutions to that (limited flight paths for the distant views, limited access areas for crew-in-transit, etc.).

The FP walking around expansion gives me much more concern than the planetary landings. It will involve a lot of stuff that will be compared directly to every FP shooter out there, and will have to be exceptionally good not to draw hate.

 

[Varrag]

Procedurally generated terrains can look incredibly awesome nowadays, take a look at the Space Engine or Outerra. I believe that FDEV is capable to deliver same quality, however, making a game on that (based on David's talk, it is supposed to be a game within the game) is whole different subject and, in this sense, I remain very sceptical.

 

[Salvatory]

What people expect is probably this:-
Land anywhere.
It to be simulated right down to the ants crawling around on the ground.
You can engage in conversation with npc and be convinced it's human.
Everything is destructible.
The AI so clever and absorbing that you end up falling in love and settling down with a nice girl from Lave. Your emaciated corpse is eventually disconnected from your Oculus Rift consumer edition.

What we will get:-
Zoo Tycoon port.