Things Elite Dangerous can learn from No Man's Sky

[-VR- Max Factor]

I'm a bit sad that NMS bombed as hard as it did. Elite Dangerous needs proper competition, and competition is healthy. Frontier keeps getting away with content-free patches and ignoring bugs. Someone needs to kick their butts into gear so they start delivering new mechanics.

This statement makes no sense. Patches are for fixing bugs which they have done a lot of. Not all the bugs are fixed though.

Updates though do have content. Really looking forward to 2.2 which is looking good.

But back to original topic, I see NMS as what not to do. Not something they can learn from as virtually everything they have got is better already, and when we do get atmospheric planets with life, I expect it to be far superior to NMS.

 

[Devari]

I agree with some of your post but, gravity has a lot more to do in the game than you make it out to be.

It doesn't affect the ships as you think it should in supercruise because supercruise is bending space-time. It's not normal space flight with ludicrous speeds.

Near planetary bodies in normal space flight though, oh boy. Is gravity ever simulated in normal flight...

You probably never flew near a planet with more than .6 G if you are saying this because especially from 1G and up, gravity affects the hell out of how the ship handles. Try to find planet with higher gravity than 3G and land there, or don't even land, just bank your ship sideways and see what happens.

The issue here isn't that gravity has no effect but the effects outside of supercruise are greatly reduced. Mostly this is because ships generally have more than enough thrust from their maneuvering thrusters to stay stationary above the planet's surface if desired and maintain any position they want, meaning that the maneuvering thrusters "cancel out" most of the gravitational effects. The only time this really doesn't happen is during glide (as you have to maintain forward movement to continue gliding and can't just "stop" during the glide) or when the planet's gravity is strong enough to overcome your maneuvering thrusters (2.5-3 G or higher depending on the ship). That's just the limited effects we see on planets, it's even worse when you're close to a star or black hole. There is no gravity modelled at all despite being next to massive stellar objects. So aside from gravity slowing you down in supercruise and having a minor effect on planetary landings on high gravity planets there is really no gravitational effects that have been included, and we certainly don't have anything close to an accurate "modelling" of gravitational effects in the game.

I
You are right about how they'll distirbute biomes and life around the planets but they'll surely model atmospheres as realistically as they can. They'll probably won't make re-entry a hassle for gameplay purposes, but use the glide mechanic as a workaround, I'll give you that; however, I won't be even surprised when a wind which you see shaking the trees hit your ship and push it around.

If they couldn't be bothered to model basic gravitational effect accurately (and they have ignored this completely for most stellar objects) then I doubt they will spend much time modelling atmospheric effects. It really isn't something they need to model in any detail if they're typically ignoring gravity. It will almost certainly be a "handling" penalty much like what we see on high-G planets rather than any accurately modelling physical property.

 

[Artemis Zodiac]

I got a refund on NMS......but I downloaded it last night out of boredom.....didn't pay for it this time though lol.....games industry....big disappointment in modern times....games like that deserve to be non economical imo.....only thing ED can take from that game is the non loading of planet entry.....it's once you get close and see all the neon and lsd induced logo aliens zoo animals it goes to crap....whole game is just find the next mineral.....get a trainer lads aswell...it's to highly recommended.....he'll I gave myself 9 billion just for fun with my own knowledge.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The issue here isn't that gravity has no effect but the effects outside of supercruise are greatly reduced. Mostly this is because ships generally have more than enough thrust from their maneuvering thrusters to stay stationary above the planet's surface if desired and maintain any position they want, meaning that the maneuvering thrusters "cancel out" most of the gravitational effects. The only time this really doesn't happen is during glide (as you have to maintain forward movement to continue gliding and can't just "stop" during the glide) or when the planet's gravity is strong enough to overcome your maneuvering thrusters (2.5-3 G or higher depending on the ship). That's just the limited effects we see on planets, it's even worse when you're close to a star or black hole. There is no gravity modelled at all despite being next to massive stellar objects. So aside from gravity slowing you down in supercruise and having a minor effect on planetary landings on high gravity planets there is really no gravitational effects that have been included, and we certainly don't have anything close to an accurate "modelling" of gravitational effects in the game.



If they couldn't be bothered to model basic gravitational effect accurately (and they have ignored this completely for most stellar objects) then I doubt they will spend much time modelling atmospheric effects. It really isn't something they need to model in any detail if they're typically ignoring gravity. It will almost certainly be a "handling" penalty much like what we see on high-G planets rather than any accurately modelling physical property.

Gravity on planets are pretty accurate I believe. Try flying on planets with flight assist off, when you need to keep the up thrust going yourself or you will plung to the surface.

When it comes to stars we are not near enough to feel the gravitational effects in normal space. You would need to get a lot closer for that, but we can't as we would burn up.

Black holes do need to be looked at and made more dangerous, that I can agree with.

 

[Cynaqq]

The issue here isn't that gravity has no effect but the effects outside of supercruise are greatly reduced. Mostly this is because ships generally have more than enough thrust from their maneuvering thrusters to stay stationary above the planet's surface if desired and maintain any position they want, meaning that the maneuvering thrusters "cancel out" most of the gravitational effects. The only time this really doesn't happen is during glide (as you have to maintain forward movement to continue gliding and can't just "stop" during the glide) or when the planet's gravity is strong enough to overcome your maneuvering thrusters (2.5-3 G or higher depending on the ship). That's just the limited effects we see on planets, it's even worse when you're close to a star or black hole. There is no gravity modelled at all despite being next to massive stellar objects. So aside from gravity slowing you down in supercruise and having a minor effect on planetary landings on high gravity planets there is really no gravitational effects that have been included, and we certainly don't have anything close to an accurate "modelling" of gravitational effects in the game.



If they couldn't be bothered to model basic gravitational effect accurately (and they have ignored this completely for most stellar objects) then I doubt they will spend much time modelling atmospheric effects. It really isn't something they need to model in any detail if they're typically ignoring gravity. It will almost certainly be a "handling" penalty much like what we see on high-G planets rather than any accurately modelling physical property.

We don't ever move in the game in a manner to have gravitational effects such as a slingshot maneuver to happen. There's simply no situation to warrant that.

However, in planetary flight, gravity is simulated to the full extent. It's just that your flight assist computer uses the thrusters to help you. Fly assist off near a planet with low g, then do the same thing in high g, and then once again in deep space. Then tell me again if gravity is simulated or not. Nothing could be far from the truth than what you wrote other than they ignored black holes for gameplay purposes.

Ninja'd apparently

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Me and a colleague were both pretty interested in NMS. We both knew it wasn't going to be what some people expected. We pretty much guessed that the gameplay would be limited. We understood that it was going to be more of a pick up and casually play type of game.

I haven't got it yet, i'd still like to get it. My colleague got it already.

He started the first few hours saying how great it was. A nice casual game to play. He was really enjoying it.

Then, he came to me, after playing for 6 hours and said "Its got boring".

So, someone who went into the game, eyes wide open, knowing what to expect, treating it as something to casually enjoy, still got bored after just 6 hours. What's that? 10 dollars/hour of play? And people say ED is expensive!!!

I don't really see anthing FD can learn from NMS, except for cautionary tales.

Having said that, i'll still probably get it. But only on a sale. Maybe after a few patches it will be more interesting as well.

Anyway, aren't we in the wrong forum here? Hmm... will let another mod decide.

 

[Atebits]

NMS didn't get my support because I tried SC. I always didn't buy this game for the same reason. A lot of people came too much and then don't deliver on a few critical things. I heard today NMS doesn't have Multiplayer. This was pretty much the critical selling point of the game. "A whole universe for you and your friends." ...dropped.

I think there's a lot FD can learn just from watching the fallout. But I've also gained a tremendous amount of respect and faith in FD since they're the ONLY company I have seen since Dark Age of Camelot to go, "Uuuuu, this isn't working out. Let's fix this." More importantly, these posts by the devs from time to time ...the actives stories and mysteries. Eh... if the game died tomorrow I'd still dedicate some sort of gaming shrine to it if I ever found the money. FD's log with the words, "Gaming done right". Ya, from me... who complains in TL;DRs.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Meh. I'll probably get some sort of infraction for this, but I'm bored;

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

 

[ThatFuzzyTiger]

I would disagree with your reaction h347h. Fuzzy did present some points that may be worth considering if the initial thoughts would be explored.

* Some kind of inventory management or storage has been a thing the community has requested ever since the engineers first came out (hell even before? With things like FSD boosts?) However, I don't expect us to just teleport things to our ship from our SRV the way NMS does that between your exosuit and ship. That's not consistent with the universe AFAIK. Also, NMS is also at fault with inventory management, it's, paltry at best and a constant frustration. So to summarize, in both games, people want to get and keep more loot.

Inventory space can be expanded pretty readily in NMS, far LESS readily in ED, you need to really grind to get over the ship hump in ED (and the prevailing forum attitude isn't helpful in this regard). Station asset storage would drastically help in this regard but apparently that's too tricky for Frontier to implement.

* NMS does do space stations, but poorly. Very very poorly. This whole UNIVERSE with unstructured formless galaxies has space stations in every system? What? For what it is, I would love to be able to romp around space stations in Elite some day, I know it's on the road map and I'm sure they'll do something great with it. So the lesson to be learned from NMS is, do space stations, but do them well. Not just have them be a drop-in replacement for what can be already be done in the services menu.

To some extent I do agree, but they're still AN improvement over the services menu we have right now, it's all fine and well saying "some day" in Elite Dangerous, but you have to play with what you have, not with some imaginary game three or five years in the future. Thus, lesson to be learned number two. See, we're getting there aren't we?

* NMS has atmospheric planets. ONLY atmospheric planets. The clever guys at FDev are taking their time to do things right and are most likely trying to make sure they follow through on what they promised. It's called having a plan, a realistic one and keeping your mouth shut otherwise. So far they're doing well, I'm a patient person and will wait for something done right and most importantly FUN. NMS did planets and has some variety if you don't analyze it too much. Just keep the horse blinders on a bit and let imagination fill in the spots they under delivered on. </delusion> Also, ED's texture work is leaps and bounds above NMS's odd and occasional N64-level low-res textures. So they can learn from this mistake. Do atmospheric planets right, because if you intend players to spend any significant amount of time on them and have fun, the implementation better be up to the original spec doc or what was promised.

And again, we've had barren planets, and nothing BUT barren planets, SC is moving towards atmo, NMS did a very low grade version of atmo, even Evochron Legacy did atmo. Fumaroles are simply new doodads to plant on barren planets by the looks of it, as opposed to the introduction of lava planets and tectonics, which will be a crying shame if so, because there's a need for new planet types to roll around on. I stand by what I said, if we do not have some level of atmo planets by 3.0, then we have real problems to worry about, because the competition WON'T be waiting around, and NMS is currently 1.0, do you think THAT will remain the case?

* I have an always on Internet connection. Playing offline is not a big thing for me so my voice on this is biased. I enjoy that what myself and other players do in ED in single player or open play all have an effect on everyone's galaxy. Persistence is a wonderful thing. NMS's galaxy (I used the term loosely for a psychedelic amorphous cloud of stars and dust) is more or less static. Nothing moves, nothing ever changes. What was generated by the seed and RNG is what will always be. Pausing, while a great thing, it's not that hard to drop out of SC and log out. If you get blow'd up in a fight. Pick your battles or be that guy and Combat Log. :|

Anyway, I really just wanted to address ThatFuzzyTiger's post without just dismissing it.

And it's just as easy to seperate the game into having two saves. One for online, one for offline. See what I did there? I solved a problem, one that's been hounding Elite for a long time, how to ensure people with flaky internet connections can play the game at their own pace. Not everyone CAN play with a reliable connection, not everyone would like to be forced into tight mission timers without a pause, more options are good for everyone.

Instead of being dismissive, be constructive. It's better for everyone.

 

[sirius42]

So far i tried SC and 10 hours of NMS but both of these game couldnt really get me hyped. NMS is funny for a bit of time but completely unrealistic means no sense to go for exploration for me. SC feels so far a little bit underdeveloped.

In my eyes both of this games can only learn from ED.

 

[Cosmo]

We should get all those things with Atmospheric planets.

- caves, rivers, dunes, plains, seasons, biomes.

 

[Parmo]

Looking at NMS on YT I feel if I was born with eyes that could see from the near infra-red to the UV then the games visuals would not present an unacceptable canvas.
Perhaps a bee or a wasp would find it normal.

 

[ToveriJuri]

There is so much NMS can learn from Elite. Elite's planetary exploration and resource gathering is more tedious though. You drive around kilometers to find a small rock that maybe contains the material you need. That's just silly. Other than that. There's nothing else in elite NMS does better. Atmospheric planets don't count since elite doesn't even have them yet so you don't know how well or badly they will be done.

 

[fademist]

We should get all those things with Atmospheric planets.

- caves, rivers, dunes, plains, seasons, biomes.

the win win will be to throw away the taxes

 

[Devari]

Gravity on planets are pretty accurate I believe. Try flying on planets with flight assist off, when you need to keep the up thrust going yourself or you will plung to the surface.

That's my point, there's no reason to ever fly around a planet with FA off. Unless there is a high-G planet you will not have to deal with any real effects of gravity because your ship's thrusters effectively cancel them out for most type of maneuvering.

When it comes to stars we are not near enough to feel the gravitational effects in normal space. You would need to get a lot closer for that, but we can't as we would burn up. Black holes do need to be looked at and made more dangerous, that I can agree with.

We can get close enough to stars and other stellar objects (black holes, etc.) that we should definitely feel their effects in normal space. The surface gravity on the sun is around 28 g, similar to the surface gravity of most gas giants, and when you're close enough to enter the star's corona you should definitely notice a gravitational effect in normal space. We see none of the expected gravitational effects at all, you can get sit right next to a star or even fly right up to the event horizon in a black hole in normal space with zero gravitational effects whatsoever.

We don't ever move in the game in a manner to have gravitational effects such as a slingshot maneuver to happen. There's simply no situation to warrant that.

However, in planetary flight, gravity is simulated to the full extent. It's just that your flight assist computer uses the thrusters to help you. Fly assist off near a planet with low g, then do the same thing in high g, and then once again in deep space. Then tell me again if gravity is simulated or not.

There is no reason to ever use FA off when landing on a planet. It's "simulated" only to the extent that you can choose to crash your ship by using FA off and flying into the planet's surface. You can also counteract almost all of these effects by simply using the normal flight model. This is also true when driving the SRV, the thrusters provide "downforce" that allows your SRV to drive around even on very low-g planets (0.03 g) where it should not be able to "drive" at all. They effectively added a basic gravitational effect and then canceled out most of the consequences of this by allow your ship's thrusters or SRV thrusters to "stabilize" your ship so that you don't have to actively deal with compensating for this the vast majority of the time.

Nothing could be far from the truth than what you wrote other than they ignored black holes for gameplay purposes.

Not just black holes, ALL large stellar objects that you can't land on have no gravitational effects modeled in normal space. The orbits are pre-programmed circular paths that are just simple circles and aren't calculated or modelled based on actual elliptical orbits. Stars, black holes, gas giants, and so on, it's like they don't generate any gravity in normal space at all. Anything that you can't go into landing mode when you approach it has zero gravitational effects outside of the supercruise "breaking" effect. In fact even being next to a massive planet (but not close enough to enter orbital flight) has zero gravitation effects, your ship and nearby objects (cargo containers, etc) do not not fall towards the planet. "Gravity" is only "modelled" as something that has a minimal effect on planetary landings and SRV driving unless you make a nearly incomprehensible decision to try to land with FA off (which no one has any reason to ever do).

 

[damtired]

One thing thats really nice about nms is exploring is fairly dynamic. Keeps it interesting.
If we could end up with dynamic interactable exploration gameplay in elite, that would be amazing.

 

[Euklides Diophant]

I have not played NMS only watched videos so far.
But they way mining looks seems a bit more interactive, perhaps not as big of a chunk each time you destroy a part with your laser, but the fact that the rocks break down. Perhaps add that when you are digging through you are looking for veins of the valuables, so that there is more than just holding a button until it breaks/depletes

 

[KellyR]

What Elite Dangerous can learn from No Man's Sky? Don't promise multi-player unless you can deliver it. Don't force people to gather resources to launch their ship. don't force people to actually build a hyperdrive. Don't force people to gather resources just to explore. From what I can see, FD already knows all this stuff. I haven't purchased NMS and I don't plan to because I prefer a more realistic experience. Not too real, mind you. But Elite Dangerous got that right too.

 

[Patrick_68000]

We should get all those things with Atmospheric planets.

- caves, rivers, dunes, plains, seasons, biomes.

With the talent of FDEV

 

[milligna]

Reading through this thread it really strikes me how much MORE a lot of us are appreciating Frontier's work ethic and development style since NMS launched.