The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

That's not true.

During Beta prior to them implementing fuel you could fly to another system but nothing was there - you needed to "tell" the game you had left the old system by means of supercruise. (Transition)

Even now there are transitions:

- Normal to/from Supercruise actually is a transition from local space to supercruise space.
- There is a system (not sure which) that is close enough to fly on with fuel tanks. Someone on the forums tried it and nothing was at the destination. They had to supercruise (ergo: transitions)

The galaxy is not 1 smooth large space that you fly about in .. it's huge boxes you supercruise between. (As it was in Elite)

Supercruise != hyperspace. A hyperspace jump is indeed a loading screen, but this has nothing to do with planetary landing.
 
As long as the flying around the planet is seamless, and driving down my ramp in m' scarab is seamless I am not bothered about exiting Sc and entering the planetary phase. After all its the year 2015 and my pants still have seams.....
 
It will be instanced of course. No other way to do it or else you would have to have the fully modeled surface planet in the big galaxy at all times which would be ridiculous given that there could be several in your instance, NASA grade PC anyone?

There will be a drop out point and it will do the SC dropout screen like it is now with RES and stations and anything else that is currently a drop out point in game, only you will be in very high orbit and you will fly down to the surface.

I just hope that they make the SC drop out screen better after horizons, its to me the worst applied graphic in the game. I would sooner see some swirling gaseous like plasma vortex ahead of me during the dropout that disperses like you're dropping through it and dragging it with you a little which when the smoke clears you see where you are. Currently seeing the destination as a still in front of you with crap blue lines down the sides which then all goes off altogether to then see the destination is proper ropy to say the least.

For planetary landings on inhabited worlds the dropout as a fiery occlusion in front of you as though hitting the upper atmosphere which then breaks to reveal lush greenery, cloud tops or vast oceans below would be awesome.

I don't think the transition mechanic would make or break the purchasing deal for me though. In fact it hasn't as I've pre-ordered!
 
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Supercruise != hyperspace. A hyperspace jump is indeed a loading screen, but this has nothing to do with planetary landing.

Yeah - I knew what I meant: corrected one, saw your post, corrected the other reference.

However my meaning still stands in reference to Tinman. The galaxy is not 1 large box but 400,000,000,000 boxes connected by Hyperspace.

SC --> Normal is a loading screen - it's not seemless; nor is Normal --> SC (you need to transition to another frame reference) They might have added some special FX whilst the game does some connections in the background but for me that's a transition.

Planetary landing might be seemless I don't know ... but if the rest of the game is anything to go by I doubt it.
 
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It didnt look seamless in the video. Cut scene.

That was just to make a short video - surely?

ETA - FWIW my money is on it being seamless - we'll hear this afternoon no doubt on the 1500 livestream - can't imagine this won't be asked..
 
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That was just to make a short video - surely?

Just like the promo video for ED .. 180 degree turns and high speed scoops :D

At any rate - I did like the video and I am looking forward to seeing how they do PL (the concept itself is not for me, but from a technical standpoint I am excited)
 
That's not true.

During Beta prior to them implementing fuel you could fly to another system but nothing was there - you needed to "tell" the game you had left the old system by means of supercruise. (Transition)

Even now there are transitions:

- Normal to/from Supercruise actually is a transition from local space to supercruise space.
- There is a system (not sure which) that is close enough to fly on with fuel tanks. Someone on the forums tried it via SC and nothing was at the destination. They had to hyperspace (ergo: transitions)

The galaxy is not 1 smooth large space that you fly about in .. it's huge boxes you hyperspace between. (As it was in Elite)

Ok, to be clear. The space inside a star system is "real". There is a loading screen when switching star systems (obviously). The same thing was true in Elite and Frontier/FFE.

When you enter supercruise you aren't "switching a level"...you are simply disconnecting from the players/NPCs in normal space and connecting to NPCs/players in supercruise. The gameworld itself is the same.
 
Just like the promo video for ED .. 180 degree turns and high speed scoops :D

At any rate - I did like the video and I am looking forward to seeing how they do PL (the concept itself is not for me, but from a technical standpoint I am excited)

You mean you can't do a 180 like that? Scoffs.

:D
 
Ok, to be clear. The space inside a star system is "real". There is a loading screen when switching star systems (obviously). The same thing was true in Elite and Frontier/FFE.

When you enter supercruise you aren't "switching a level"...you are simply disconnecting from the players/NPCs in normal space and connecting to NPCs/players in supercruise. The gameworld itself is the same.

a) Agreed
b) Sooo ... it's a transition then. The frame of reference changes so you transitioned from normal to SC and back. You can do this without an obvious loading screen (like Hyperspace) but there's still a transition screen (the countdown is a change screen; the blueish SFX tint as you come to normal is a change screen)*

Symantics maybe .. but at least we agree on the first part :)




*To give you specific examples:
When you watch someone supercruise away you see them warp off & when you warp to a station and supercriuse to normal you see it expand before you : that's a transition FX screen for you using reference points from the new space to draw it for you. Why do I think this ? Watch when you have someone in front of you and you hit supercruise - you don't see them suddenly shoot behind you ... it's not seamless .. it's a fudge (one which I like I add - this is not meant to be a "its bad" post but rather "this is behind the curtain" post .. I still like the transition)
 
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Dropping out of cruise speed to a planet or station is actually a loading screen currently. So my best guess is, dropping out to a planet may take a few seconds longer (or not) could include the time it would take to load the textures and data required for close up and landing on it.

Hopefully they work on that loading screen a bit more in this of the CQC update. There's so much effort to make the entry into Supercruise nice, but exiting it the rings disappear and pop the station is just there- just a little bit of animation or something to come back out of it (as space folds back etc) would add to the illusion IMO
 
I hope they will clear up whether it is seamless or a cutscene before it goes on sale because a cutscene imho drastically reduces the immersion and quality of the entire experience.

Now luckily in previous Elites' Braben went for seamless. I do remember in Frontier 2 landing on planets and taking off and basically just going full thrusters until you broke the atmosphere.


So just to be clear ill be pretty * off if it is a cutscene because that to my opinion is a massive cop-out and cheap way to do planetary landings.

I am hoping that there will be gravitational forces that exert their power on the ship and pull it into the atmosphere (the effect and power varying depending on your ship size and power etc) I also hope each planet will have its own different atmospheric effects based on the type of planet so each landing feels unique

[video=youtube;vAnVlDeFYNs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAnVlDeFYNs[/video]

[video=youtube;3Y3XG0Shdhw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3XG0Shdhw[/video]

^ just a couple of ideas of what im hoping for... landing and taking off from a planet should be an experience not a cutscene :)
 
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- You scan the moon with the new surface scanner.
- You get a list of 'landable' POIs on the surface.
- You select a POI.
- You start the landing procedure with a new landing module.
- You land on the selected POI.

That's it.
 
It will be instanced of course. No other way to do it or else you would have to have the fully modeled surface planet in the big galaxy at all times which would be ridiculous given that there could be several in your instance, NASA grade PC anyone?

No Man's Sky seems to do it. You can fake a lot of things with LOS and other magicks.
 
It will be instanced of course. No other way to do it or else you would have to have the fully modeled surface planet in the big galaxy at all times which would be ridiculous given that there could be several in your instance, NASA grade PC anyone?

This is VERY incorrect, procedurally generated planets can LOD in as you get closer , look at the Infinity stuff from 5 years ago to see how possible seamless planetary landings are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrcEUO7TC28

If FD can't pull off something at least as good as this 5 year old tech that was done by one guy I'll be pretty disappointed.
 
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Yeah - I knew what I meant: corrected one, saw your post, corrected the other reference.

However my meaning still stands in reference to Tinman. The galaxy is not 1 large box but 400,000,000,000 boxes connected by Hyperspace.

SC --> Normal is a loading screen - it's not seemless; nor is Normal --> SC (you need to transition to another frame reference) They might have added some special FX whilst the game does some connections in the background but for me that's a transition.

Planetary landing might be seemless I don't know ... but if the rest of the game is anything to go by I doubt it.
It is hard to see how it could be more simple than dropping out of supercruise for a spaceport: and that has a seam. Indeed, for an airrless moon, I see no reason why it would be different from dropping at a spaceport, other than how far away from the surface you drop: obviously you don't want a 30 minute normal flight to the surface.

However, it is possible they could hide this by doing some sort of 'look ahead' to do the handshaking in advance in anticipation. But if we are able to fight over depots on the ground and in flight, then there must be multiple players in something reasonably similar to an instance. And you must be able to join an existing instance, if there is a player on the ground, and you fly down.

- - - Updated - - -

If FD can't pull off something at least as good as this 5 year old tech that was done by one guy I'll be pretty disappointed.

Seamless STILL makes no sense when you are transitioning flight modes between things as different as normal flight and 'faffing about with space time'. It's like saying you want a seamless transition between a plane and a train.
 
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