I'll add: Identification and cataloguing of new species, both plants and animals. Archaeological, um, things. The ability to trade with native species for rare items, possibly establish reputation and business contacts. Repopulating new plants with new species.
The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread
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I'll add: Identification and cataloguing of new species, both plants and animals. Archaeological, um, things. The ability to trade with native species for rare items, possibly establish reputation and business contacts. Repopulating new plants with new species.
I think you have to realise there are limits to what is remotely possible. I doubt FD have the resources to make planetary roaming a possibility.
My own opinion is that is will be limited to ground based "areas of interest" much the same as the signal sources in space. In other words when you scan a planet you get two or three interest areas popping up. These could be mineral desposits, crashed ships, possible mission locations etc. When you land there you are "instanced" in the same way as SS's are.
Other possibilities could be mining for hydrogen in gas giant atmospheres. Collecting life form specimens for missions and so on.
If they pull full roaming off - I will be mightily impressed.
My own opinion is that is will be limited to ground based "areas of interest" much the same as the signal sources in space. In other words when you scan a planet you get two or three interest areas popping up. These could be mineral desposits, crashed ships, possible mission locations etc. When you land there you are "instanced" in the same way as SS's are.
Other possibilities could be mining for hydrogen in gas giant atmospheres. Collecting life form specimens for missions and so on.
If they pull full roaming off - I will be mightily impressed.
Ok awesome, I was hoping it would be every planet, but due to the scope I didn't think it would feasible. If done right, yes, procedurally generated will work. I can't wait for this feature, will make exploration a lot more interesting and dangerous ;-)
nonsense. there are game engines right now doing this developed by very small team.
If it was just done like Frontier but with updated graphics, I'd be happy.
I just want it to be totally in my control like Frontier, no set path, no cutscenes and definitely no loading screen.
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I suggest you go look up No Man's Sky on YouTube that's done by like 2-3 people
I just want it to be totally in my control like Frontier, no set path, no cutscenes and definitely no loading screen.
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I suggest you go look up No Man's Sky on YouTube that's done by like 2-3 people
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You should play Pioneer then - it's free to download and has exactly what you want.
Here is a link.
I agree that they have done sterling work on procedural generation and it all looks lovely, but let's wait and see what you can actually do in that game once it is released before holding it up as a benchmark for the future of this one.
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Same here! Although I do understand why the team want to do it right. I really hope we get a sniff of what's being worked on sometime soon, because their absolutely must be working on it in the background. It was such an integral part of the FE2 experience, even if there wasn't really anything on the populated planets
I used to love watching IX-259 taking off from the surface getting to space and hyperspacing away.
Yea, you might be right here. Maybe Sol would need to be a stand alone.
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You're asking me? Did you read the OP? (Or rather second post now since it has been merged)
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There are ways and means to augment handcrafted stuff with procedural content to flesh it out and add detail. You could probably get away with low res maps for Earth, and just put all differences down to whatever will have happened during the future World War mentioned in the Elite lore timeline, as well as whatever climate changes might have occurred in the intervening period. As long as the continental boundaries are roughly similar and the contour map isn't too drastically different there's no issue. In fact, if something like the Yellowstone Caldera went boom, things might look a lot different, so there's plenty of artistic licence to allow Earth to look very unfamiliar.
Some Random Thoughts on planetary landing...
One of the things I would really like to see coming with planetary landing is a change in exploration. Instead of waiting for the scan to finish, which is the most boring part of exploration, you search in some kind of minigame for points of interest on the planets surface or atmosphere (depending on the type of planet). Once you found one, you can land there and search for ore-/plant-/ice-/whatever-samples. Of course these samples have to be worth the afford.
The landing on a planet without a spaceport I imagine as follows:
- You approach a planet, choose "landing on surface" on the navigation tab and get a navigation mark like when you approach a station or a USS.
- You leave supercruise into a geosynchronous orbit, resulting in a free fall towards the surface.
- New gauges appear, showing the "airspeed" of the ship, the altitude above ground, the pressure and tempreture of the hull and so on.
- You have to use your main or maneuvering engines to control the descent speed.
This were just some of my thoughts to the topic. Sorry for my sloppyness, but I was to lazy to write a proper wall of text.
One of the things I would really like to see coming with planetary landing is a change in exploration. Instead of waiting for the scan to finish, which is the most boring part of exploration, you search in some kind of minigame for points of interest on the planets surface or atmosphere (depending on the type of planet). Once you found one, you can land there and search for ore-/plant-/ice-/whatever-samples. Of course these samples have to be worth the afford.
The landing on a planet without a spaceport I imagine as follows:
- You approach a planet, choose "landing on surface" on the navigation tab and get a navigation mark like when you approach a station or a USS.
- You leave supercruise into a geosynchronous orbit, resulting in a free fall towards the surface.
- New gauges appear, showing the "airspeed" of the ship, the altitude above ground, the pressure and tempreture of the hull and so on.
- You have to use your main or maneuvering engines to control the descent speed.
This were just some of my thoughts to the topic. Sorry for my sloppyness, but I was to lazy to write a proper wall of text.
Yeah there are. However No Man's Sky was developed entirely using procedural generation. Elite's engine wasn't - that's why I would be impressed if they can make it work. For instance, making the engine mesh seamlessly with non procedural and procedural content that's already been created in the game without messing up.
Also call me old fashioned but the graphics in NMS look a bit naff. Especially the ship graphics.
It will be supercruising into the atmosphere... what else?
I'd rather have that than a velocity boost in atmospheres for conventional drives (if anything it should be lowered because of friction). How else are atmospheric battles realizeable? It will likely be a form of "atmospheric supercruising" below velocities of 30 km/s that comes with the gear required for planetary landings (something like an "atmospheric module" for the FSD). I don't have a problem with that, but i would have a big, big problem with absurd solutions that break with the established logic of the game mechanics.
Supercruising in atmospheres could be linked to all kinds of problems, like severe turbulents that require dexterity and good reflexes from the player, especially from whale pilots, acidic rain that requires a shield, flying creatures smashed against the hull/shield (blood & guts on canopy?), and other such masochistic pleasures.
And of course we won't be able to land everywhere or fly over cities with futuristic skyscrapers and arcologies and pulsating city live, there will be spots we can lock on when supercruising and approach after disengaging FSD, akin to supercruising to stations. However i think it's possible to create seamlessly accessible surfaces on planets (at least for surface vehicles, or feet) without atmospheres and without large structures, that would already be awesome.
I'd rather have that than a velocity boost in atmospheres for conventional drives (if anything it should be lowered because of friction). How else are atmospheric battles realizeable? It will likely be a form of "atmospheric supercruising" below velocities of 30 km/s that comes with the gear required for planetary landings (something like an "atmospheric module" for the FSD). I don't have a problem with that, but i would have a big, big problem with absurd solutions that break with the established logic of the game mechanics.
Supercruising in atmospheres could be linked to all kinds of problems, like severe turbulents that require dexterity and good reflexes from the player, especially from whale pilots, acidic rain that requires a shield, flying creatures smashed against the hull/shield (blood & guts on canopy?), and other such masochistic pleasures.
And of course we won't be able to land everywhere or fly over cities with futuristic skyscrapers and arcologies and pulsating city live, there will be spots we can lock on when supercruising and approach after disengaging FSD, akin to supercruising to stations. However i think it's possible to create seamlessly accessible surfaces on planets (at least for surface vehicles, or feet) without atmospheres and without large structures, that would already be awesome.
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It all sounds amazing but I just don't know how Frontier is going to pull any of that off. How much money and how many staff does this game have to work with?!
They Have a small team. It is my opinion that some times smaller is better. They are focused, and I personally think it's a team like this that will actually make it happen. Shouldn't be too much of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
As for NMS they don't even have a beta yet, ED was pretty rough looking in the beginning.
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I would assume that the initial development will be funded from the revenues from the current release (including the forthcoming Xbox release). Those costs can then be recuperated by the revenue generated from the paid expansion. Judging by the recent financial reports their financial state is positive so I don't think there's any cause for concern just yet (though of course new sales need to continue to remain healthy). And to answer your question directly, last I heard they have around 250 staff with at least 100 people working directly on the game (though those numbers may be slightly higher now as they have been recruiting).
I agree 100%. I started a thread some time ago about Earth, and how it should be made differently than all the other bodies. IMO they should limit where we can land on Earth to some pre-defined areas. They can't use PG for Earth, except for clouds and mountains. It would be a waste of time/monumental task to do it all by hand.
1300 years is nothing for the Earth. Rocky mountains will move like one meter during that time. They could say that a war or global catastrophe destoyed cities but geological sites should remain mostly intact.