The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

Insomnia

Insomnia
Tinman said:
According to people who talked to devs on the release party we will probably get the first version of planetary landings first (still from the cockpit) since it's "easier" to get done in terms of development. Planetary landings won't be a single thing BTW:



If we are suppose to be able to stand up from our seat in the cockpit and get out of the ship there is LOTS of things that needs to get done. Things that goes beyond the mechanics we have in the game currently where we are always seated inside our ships.

  • Interiors of ships needs to get modeled. These also need to be modular since we can change out our internal modules. Making a system that works across all current/future ships and all the modelling work required for this is immense and will take a long time.
  • Character models and animations of players and NPCs needs to be made. A character creator is also needed unless we all want to look like identical clones. This is also a huge undertaking.
  • Actual gameplay to for these enviroments and meaningful things to do there needs to be created.
  • If we are suppose to get out of our ships then these environments (stations) needs to be fleshed out and also be given a purpose in terms of gameplay.
  • Equipment/weapons needs to be modeled/rigged

The list could go on forever basically and of course not everything needs to be there from day one, but this type of gameplay still requires completely new game system to be developed by the devs. A first expansion with planetary landings in some form could still take place from inside the cockpit as now though, thus making it possible to reuse a lot of the current ways of interacting with the world.

To get a rough planet they need to take the already existing code that generates the heightfields and instead of applying them as normalmaps as they do now they will instead use these as displacement maps on top of a dynamically subdivided mesh. That will get them the rough terrain. Then there is of course a whole bunch of other stuff to do obviously, but this is still less work compared to "walking around". Interesting things could still be experienced while still "stuck" in the ship while being able to visit airless moons/planets as David described above:

You could fly over craters, volcanoes on Io, ice fields on fronzen moons with water geyser spewing out organic matter for you to scoop up. Bombing runs or spy missions (taking photos) on pirate moon bases. Placing mining rigs or firing off probes into the ground for measurements. You would also be able to land on pressurized outposts/bases on these worlds.

But...this is of course just me speculating! :)
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Oh man that sounds so amazing! I'm sitting with a smile on me face now lol. Think of what the 1.3 drones can do on planets surfaces. :)

I'm aware that the ships interiors has not been modeled yet, only the cockpit areas.

Yeah I agree it's a HUGE job for creating gameplay for DLC that is compelling and interesting. Just go out to just.....go out kinda ruins the idea. But Brabens words are comforting.

"You could fly over craters, volcanoes on Io, ice fields on fronzen moons with water geyser spewing out organic matter for you to scoop up. Bombing runs or spy missions (taking photos) on pirate moon bases. Placing mining rigs or firing off probes into the ground for measurements. You would also be able to land on pressurized outposts/bases on these worlds."
I'm gonna frame this lol. :D

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Mad Mike said:
maybe I missunderstood the point then, but it seemed to me that he was saying IF SC is already out then Elite releasing content then would be too late (presumably because no one would want to play elite once SC is out?)

either way, time will tell, but I am actually not expecting star citizen PU to be out for a good while yet anyhow. (S42 is coming 1st i think)
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SC is a pretty big game with what it seems to be a more complete content than ED. But Chris Roberts also needs to get everything together so it actually works. I think SC also has a potentially larger croud. But I dont really know.
But I really think that ED's real threat still is SC.
 

Comintern1919

C
Mad Mike said:
maybe I missunderstood the point then, but it seemed to me that he was saying IF SC is already out then Elite releasing content then would be too late (presumably because no one would want to play elite once SC is out?)

either way, time will tell, but I am actually not expecting star citizen PU to be out for a good while yet anyhow. (S42 is coming 1st i think)
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I understood him that he meant if ED waits too long with those features, SC and No Man's Sky will beat them to it. ED would lose much of it's appeal. It will still be good, but I can imagine quite some people wondering why they should buy ED instead of SC or No Man's Sky, if those have much more (interesting) features. Mind you, I will also be playing all 3 games for a long time, and I am sure ED will stay my favorite, but I think many will only buy one or maybe at most two of those.
 

xyphic

X
The biggest driving force for getting expansions out is money. Frontier can only sell so many copies of the base game, and while there are still a couple of untapped user bases (Xbox, Playstation), sales are finite. Without any additional guaranteed source of income, focus *has* to be on where the next big influx of cash comes from. The most obvious is to make and sell expansions. You already have your target market captive, and the trick is to make them at regular intervals to keep your existing players on the hook. They'll be aiming at getting them out every 12 months, possibly sooner by selling them as work-in-progress (e.g. selling the planetary landings expansion with just airless moons at release, then adding "free" updates over time). This, like the main game, brings in a wodge of cash up front which guarantees the next development cycle.
 

Arithon

Arithon
From a conversation my son had at the Premiere event with David Braben (who was very patient with a twelve-year-old) he said ship interiors were modelled.

My son had asked him about the ability to board and commandeer a ship (as he had seen in Assassin's Creed 4 reviews on YouTube) but David replied that in order to do this, the ship exploration expansion would be needed and while the interiors were modelled, the expansion was a while off. In addition to that he said that unless they could make the docking process between ships workable and believable, then it wouldn't be added to the game, but it was something they had on the drawing board and wanted to include.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
well there is 1 thing which is certain..... we will find out 1 way or another eventually. :)

IF FD delivers the stuff that the devs of chatted about over the last 2 years, and if even half of the stuff in the DDF makes it into the game ED is going to be outstanding.

That being said, it is one hell of a big ask, and I must admit, I do worry that FD simply may not have the funds to pull it off.

Just got to keep the faith I guess.

Sometimes I wonder..... if FD are lacking in staff to produce some of the actual eye candy stuff - things which do not need balancing and we do not technically interact with, so the space stations and interior, and orbital platforms.... if they could not just have "competitions" where fans submit their own content, which is made to certain specifications which fit into the game engine well.

I am not certain, but I would guess that many fans would submit their work for free, with the only payment needed that they get to name a station / what ever they created.

just 1 idea to maybe help FD get more content out... and of course they keep creative control to can anything they do not likle.
 

Tinman

Tinman
xyphic said:
The biggest driving force for getting expansions out is money. Frontier can only sell so many copies of the base game, and while there are still a couple of untapped user bases (Xbox, Playstation), sales are finite. Without any additional guaranteed source of income, focus *has* to be on where the next big influx of cash comes from. The most obvious is to make and sell expansions. You already have your target market captive, and the trick is to make them at regular intervals to keep your existing players on the hook. They'll be aiming at getting them out every 12 months, possibly sooner by selling them as work-in-progress (e.g. selling the planetary landings expansion with just airless moons at release, then adding "free" updates over time). This, like the main game, brings in a wodge of cash up front which guarantees the next development cycle.
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Yes, expansions is certainly going to be a way to keep money rolling in and players hooked, but saying that sales for the core game is "finite" isn't as true in todays climate compared to previous when devs built it, shipped it and then stopped development to focus on their next project instead. Look at something like Minecraft. They are still selling over 10.000 copies of the game every day and have been doing this for years now. This is of course an extreme example, but the principle still applies. As long as the game is actively developed and improved upon across the board there is really no reason for sales to completely dry up. It's really no different than something like Assassins Creed 1/2/3/4/5...except games like Elite will simply be called Elite, have no numbering/sequels (other than build numbers). This also allows them to keep the price up since it will instead work as an "admission fee" to the gameworld. I do expect it to drop when the first paid expansion comes along though so they can do bundle deals and also bring in people who aren't ready to pay the current prices. After that I expect the price for the core to stay pretty much the same going forward.

Mad Mike said:
well there is 1 thing which is certain..... we will find out 1 way or another eventually. :)

IF FD delivers the stuff that the devs of chatted about over the last 2 years, and if even half of the stuff in the DDF makes it into the game ED is going to be outstanding.

That being said, it is one hell of a big ask, and I must admit, I do worry that FD simply may not have the funds to pull it off.

Just got to keep the faith I guess.
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I've been following their financials and sales numbers rather closely for a while now. I could give you a long version, but the bottom line is this. They are in a very good position right now and unless an asteroid drops on Cambridge we can expect further content at the current pace (or faster) for years to come. Also keep in mind that what we have seen so far since release is only parts of what they have been up to behind the scenes since work on expansions is being done at the same time.

Mad Mike said:
Sometimes I wonder..... if FD are lacking in staff to produce some of the actual eye candy stuff - things which do not need balancing and we do not technically interact with, so the space stations and interior, and orbital platforms.... if they could not just have "competitions" where fans submit their own content, which is made to certain specifications which fit into the game engine well.

I am not certain, but I would guess that many fans would submit their work for free, with the only payment needed that they get to name a station / what ever they created.

just 1 idea to maybe help FD get more content out... and of course they keep creative control to can anything they do not likle.
Click to expand...

Copy and Paste time! :D

Tinman said:
Hi Michael!

I sent this to Chris Gregory too, but since he haven't been on the forum for a while I'll thought you should could get a copy too.

--

I've been meaning to send this PM for some time so here it goes.

I think we all understand that one of the most challenging aspects of making Elite feel alive in terms of visuals is to have enough variation in the gameworld. Having a galaxy of 400 Billion stars with close to a 100.000 inhabited star systems (in some form) feel varied enough and not "samey" is no small feat. To put it mildly...

Let's take the current stations as an example. They look great, but the amount of variation isn't where it needs to be to make the world come alive. We should be able to tell if we are in the Empire/Alliance/Federation by just looking at a station for example. The purpose for each station should also be even more clear than what it currently is, both on the actual station and also with supporting structures around it. These two concept images comes to mind:

DG31JTNl.jpg

0tFn7Lul.jpg


Outposts are better off in terms of variation, but the number or building blocks the large stations are made of are to low to make them stand out. Right now these consist of the docking cylinder, large ring, smaller ring, "cargo units", heat vents, "solar panels" and that is pretty much it unless I missed something. When it comes to the Coriolis station I still hoping to see these at some point to mix things up a bit:

7aVFaCd.jpg


Wouldn't it be possible to crowd source this and let all the modders out there loose on these? Why not create a template file, give out the "design bible" for the different factions and see what people out there can come up with? Then have us players vote on what we like to see put into the game and you can then select your top choices every month or so and put them into the asset library the stations are generated from to increase variation. Only if they meet your standards of course and under the clear understanding that the creators later can lay no claim on the assets and demand payment. If you want this could involve prices (real or digital) for the winning contributors, but that's up to you.

Same thing could possibly be done to the interior slots that are populated by prefabs. Let modders create more for the game to choose from. This might be a bigger issue though due to future plans when it comes to being able to move around these stations so it might be wiser to hold this off until later. I DO think there is a very simply way of making these rather "samey" interiors feel a little bit more varied with very little work. Simply create a "empty" prefab for the different slotsizes where nothing has been built and use that to mix up the interiors a bit more. Presumably these interiors aren't built in on go...rather a station would slowly fill out all the slots over time as the population and traffic increased to the system. Visiting a large station close to the frontier would therefore mean that many of the slots haven't been populated yet and based on population numbers they are filled out more and more. I always loved the ambience of this image due to the emptiness of the station and that the entire station was basically just a "empty" floor.

liyXXqyl.jpg


Seeing things like this out close to the frontier would be great! You can also look at that image and imagine that only some of those slots are populated by the prefab buildings you already have in the game. Preferably placed in clusters like "mini cities". :cool:

But let's get back to crowdsourcing assets shall we? ;)

Later when you start to open up planets modders could help in the same way when it comes to creating (morphable) parts for plants/vegetation, body parts for aliens (presumably you are going to do something similar to what can be seen in Spore and No Man's Sky), buildings, ancient ruins, rocks, landmarks...basically everything.

So...what do you think? Any chance this might happen?
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Sadly the answer at that time was no...so I'm going to keep on pushing this at every opportunity I get! ;)
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Tinman said:
Sadly the answer at that time was no...so I'm going to keep on pushing this at every opportunity I get! ;)
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The answer was "no"? Really? Unfortunately you didn't include the ID of your original post so I couldn't follow it up to it's original thread and see the dev answer for myself. Could you please just post a link or something to your original post?
 

Puppie

Puppie
Planetary Landings

When they do planetary landings, this is what i want to be able to see

[video]https://player.vimeo.com/video/22439234[/video]
 

Tinman

Tinman
Arubeto said:
The answer was "no"? Really? Unfortunately you didn't include the ID of your original post so I couldn't follow it up to it's original thread and see the dev answer for myself. Could you please just post a link or something to your original post?
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It was a PM and to be fair the real answer was a bit longer:

Thanks for the suggestion - however I don't think it likely that we'd source game assets like this. Modding may be a possibility for the future but isn't currently supported.

Michael
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In practice that is still "no" though. :p
 
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Tinman

Tinman
aws357 said:
The technology is there. Not in Cambridge though. In Guildford.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLtmEjqzg7M
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Sorry...I didn't see any timelapse photography in that video...

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Insomnia said:
LOL

This video basically sums up what I wanna see in all the DLC packages. ;)
https://vimeo.com/108650530

https://vimeo.com/108650530
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Love that video! :)

01:53 is what I'm hoping the first planetary landing expansions will give us among other things. Airless moons and planets can be awesome if done right! :cool:
 

slashgoh

slashgoh
And players that will not bought the DLC what will do?
When they will attempt to land, an invisible barrier will bounch thir ship away? Or they will be destroyed by a surface based class 8 beam laser? Or they will think to land but their ship will pass through the surface like today?

Sometimes ago, FD bought the WWW domain Elite Deadly... I think that there will be a totally new game.
 
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aws357

A
Tinman said:
Sorry...I didn't see any timelapse photography in that video...

Come on... they build a complete universe and planetary landscape. All you have to do is download a timelapse apps or press "printscreen" every now and then :)

... oh and wait for the game to be released obviously.
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PhazonAran

PhazonAran
slashgoh said:
And players that will not bought the DLC what will do?
When they will attempt to land, an invisible barrier will bounch thir ship away? Or they will be destroyed by a surface based class 8 beam laser? Or they will think to land but their ship will pass through the surface like today?

Sometimes ago, FD bought the WWW domain Elite Deadly... I think that there will be a totally new game.
Click to expand...

Or they won't be able to buy the atmospheric gear.
 
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