The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

[Jenner]

It's definitely something I'm looking forward to as well, although I hope it adds plenty of new gameplay and content beyond just 'starports on the dirt.' There is a lot of potential in both this and the first person proposed add-ons and I hope they take ED to the next level. The foundation is certainly there already but I'm hungry for more content for sure.

 

[Gold Member]

I hope the core of the game is fleshed out first.

 

[Twelvefield]

I hope the core of the game is fleshed out first.

This is how I feel too. The 1984 game didn't land on planets. I'm not against having landings, but what game to this point has done them well? Mass Effect comes to mind, maybe Star Wars Battlefront? I know Frontier had landings and so does Evochron. I've never played EVE, but it's not my kind of game.

 

[Jenner]

This is how I feel too. The 1984 game didn't land on planets. I'm not against having landings, but what game to this point has done them well? Mass Effect comes to mind, maybe Star Wars Battlefront? I know Frontier had landings and so does Evochron. I've never played EVE, but it's not my kind of game.

For its day Frontier's planetary landings were quite impressive. Full space-to-surface flight, day/night cycles, even local clock towers with the correct time, lol. But no, it didn't add much to the gameplay besides having surface bases to trade at.

I agree the core of the game needs fleshing out, but I feel that having planetary landings (if done well and with a mind to adding interesting gamplay) would be very welcome by me at least.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I would not expect to see planetary landings happen until the end of the year at least but most likely next spring.

End of 2016 (for Christmas) would not be surprising. Because a new adventure on the planets is a huge development

 

[Zplintz]

It will also be a paid expansion afaik.

 

[WlLL0W]

It's definitely something I'm looking forward to as well, although I hope it adds plenty of new gameplay and content beyond just 'starports on the dirt.' There is a lot of potential in both this and the first person proposed add-ons and I hope they take ED to the next level. The foundation is certainly there already but I'm hungry for more content for sure.

i'd quite like to see mining operations. imagine that, take a load of heavy mining gear in a type 9,
explore the galaxy for mineral rich planets and rake in the creds.

not only that but i quite like the idea of finding an awesome looking planet to build a base on!.

 

[Hellhawk666]

The problem with planetary landing is the explosion of data. If you want to render something the same way for every visitor, that means that even if it uses PG for the initial planet, afterwards it needs to contain all the seed information for that procedural generation when the next visitor comes.

Not quite sure whether I'm not understanding you, or whether you don't quite get how PG works. The data won't explode once someone has been there - in fact there is no data to start with - just algorithms fed by seeds and some constants. The storage requirements are trivial, considering the number of places to render. Everything is done on the fly, every time.

Allowing you to actually interact with the environment would make the amount of data even larger, since now you would also need to track what each commander has done on which planet and add that to the engine whenever the next commander visits that planet.

Yes, it would add data in the form of overwrites to the algorithms, but depending on how it is implemented, and the range of things it is possible to do, the overhead would not have to be huge - a few kb per player per location probably.

Adding cities, let alone unique inhabitants would be nearly impossible. So my guess is it will probably be pretty landscapes (without player interaction) with a couple of starports, kind of like we already have a couple of different types of space stations.

Not at all, but we probably wouldn't get a full-sized city to explore in complete detail. I imagine it would comprise a starport area with shops etc that we can use, and maybe some hand-coded areas on some worlds, but we will be confined there for quarantine and immigration reasons. We'll see the rest of the cityscape from a distance and be able to fly over it at a minimum height, but not actually go there.

I have a feeling FD will amaze us with the planetscapes just as much as they have with the galaxy.

There's also no reason that inhabitants can't be generated, either, other than rendering limitations. Theoretically they could PG the entire NPC human population of the galaxy - why not? They've done 400 billion systems, probably containing a trillion objects - why not a trillion NPCs?

 

[neXib]

I have to say that when I saw Guardians of the Galaxy, the intro part where Star Lord is on a planet and finds the orb pretty much describes how I could see planetary landings work in ED. So pretty much:

- Landscape type decided by planet type, then procedurally created landscape except perhaps a certain set of things that revolve around objectives / mining / shops etc. Perhaps once generated they'll save a string that can be used to regenerate that exact landscape since it should be similar for the next person. As I see it you can make sure parts of your generated content has rooms to slot in pre-made stuff.

- Fog / atmosphere / haze / clouds for landings and takeoff to avoid having to render a million miles. Obviously way different feel of a methane planet than an earth-like.

- Dangers and enemies based on system security, planet type and location in the galaxy

- Missions such as retrieving items, delivering items, assassinations, killing an entire clan, protecting people, mining, find or buy something, driving a dune buggy, buying a property etc.

 

[Shadowma]

So are they still shooting for the end of this year for FPS ground combat & planet landings?

Shadowma

P.S. Hope mulit crew as well, would be cool to get up & look around these great ships!

 

[W0OCQCK]

I would think we would get stations first. But who knows really. I feel pretty sure they all might be separate paid upgrades.

I'm looking forward to it.

I think it would be cool if when you approach a strange planet, it requires significant scanning and study before a landing is attempted. So if you miss something like maybe an intensely hot plasma atmosphere, and your not paying attention everything could go boom.

 

[Shadowma]

Well unless you paid for the additional content (such as yours truly), which was $50 so would hope they aren't going to charge us again for same thing. But I have faith they seem to be fairly forthcoming in regards to what is & is not.

Shadowma

 

[AsukaZ]

i'd quite like to see mining operations. imagine that, take a load of heavy mining gear in a type 9,
explore the galaxy for mineral rich planets and rake in the creds.
...

I like the idea of an autonomous resource extractor, something you drop off on a planet somewhere and come back later to load up on the resources it has extracted/refined.

 

[Armour]

I like the idea of an autonomous resource extractor, something you drop off on a planet somewhere and come back later to find that it's disappeared because the only persistent objects in the game other than your ship are planets, stars and stations.

FTFY...that is, unless your temporary instance (or "island" in Elite-speak) could contain an object that persists beyond the island's destruction and if the game could somehow know to move that object into the first new island that is created when someone else visits the location, in which case it would probably be

an autonomous resource extractor, something you drop off on a planet somewhere and come back later to find that some other crafty git has flown off with all your freshly-mined unobtanium.

 

[AsukaZ]

FTFY...that is, unless your temporary instance (or "island" in Elite-speak) could contain an object that persists beyond the island's destruction and if the game could somehow know to move that object into the first new island that is created when someone else visits the location, in which case it would probably be

True, the idea might be technically problematic to implement.

I'm not adverse to the idea of being robbed, as I could stumble across someone else's mining machine and help myself to the goodies as well !

 

[Camino Archer]

I just want to drop my mining drone and maybe do a little Hunting while I wait for my Drone to fill up.

 

[Kittyhawke]

Thinking of planet landings reminds me of Dune. Crazy weather, some kind of ominous monsters and highly valuable Spice (or whatever you want to call it)....profit, risk, adventure.

 

[NeilF]

So are they still shooting for the end of this year for FPS ground combat & planet landings?

I cannot see that happening personally.

P.S. Hope mulit crew as well, would be cool to get up & look around these great ships!

So you'd divide up an already somewhat thin gaming experience (flying a ship) between a number of people? And once you've looked around these "great ships," then what would you do?

 

[Shadowma]

Well to be honest that is what they had offered in the original pitch & have commented more than once that this is where the game is going, unless you are privy to something that the rest of us don't know?
Thanks for any info.

Shadowma

 

[Space Sniper]

So how is this going to work though, I have never played the original Elite, but by my guess I am assuming planet landings will be very limiting in options. I doubt there will be planet landings on every planet, considering there is so many. Im guessing select landings on a few of the human populated areas. Will the whole planet be available for exploration, or just certain locations? This sounds like a real tricky thing to balance, not enough things to do will just make the option pointless, and too much will make it take ages to complete.