Sure, I could go run a couple 5 minute miles and call it good, they'd be short and intense. But that just doesn't do it for me, I like to run 50 miles, yeah, it's all the same after an hour or 6 but that's the whole point of why I do it, to see if I can keep running for 7, much of the satisfaction comes from the emptiness. When I was out on a long exploration stint the "game" became the endurance, the fact that I was a few thousand jumps from home even if I decided to turn around and go back that second and even more if I kept going. The challenge was could I keep going further and further, despite the Spartan conditions? I'll tell you something, handcraft all the systems you want, after 4,000 of them there isn't any mechanic in the world that will still be fresh. Deep space exploration is an endurance run, not a sprint.
this vain illusion of endless space...
- Thread starter MatthiB
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Horizons will certainly add more content, but I am not convinced that it will improve the exploration gameplay. Very likely it will be the same passive point and wait, with text updates, just in a buggy instead of a spaceship. Human space will certainly be more interesting, but I suspect that deep space exploration won't be really compelling any time soon (possibly years from now).
Small potato shaped planets are fine, but I worry that even the large planets are now going to look lopsided and knobby. Which would be vastly inaccurate since gravity flattens all large earth-sized objects into very smooth spheres except when viewed from very low altitude.
I was referring to the tweaked evolutionary combat of the CQC experience, and not the now dated and imbalanced open galaxy combat experience. Frontier did an amazing job on the CQC small ship combat. Arguably, the open galaxy small ship combat is similarly fun, but less refined, and less focused. That is why I only fly small/med ships even in Open, even though I can afford a Python/Anaconda.
I think you need to wait for Star Citizen (it's likely to be more compact) and leave us poor souls alone, I'm sure we'll manage perfectly well without your "larger player base" thanks very much.
X-Terminator
Banned
As OP does not yet play ED then he is asking us why he should I believe but has described No Mans Sky instead. Yes this is a Galaxy Sim that is not procedurally generated but a model of the real 400billion stars known to man. Why play? Well there are about as many things to do in life but are they all on your bucket list? Does an alcoholic drink everything behind the bar before passing out? Then there's those Soapy Massage Spas in Thailand. Do you just go for the peak or take all 50 working girls with you?
Good point. I mean, the view ouside my front door is procedurally generated by a great Cosmic Engine, yes? I can assume the rest of the world is made up of random bits of the same building blocks, so why bother venturing any further?
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All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy Him.
You know basically every other space game except the last 3 Elite games and Space Engine has a limited playing space right?
Also you said you played FE2/FFE? If you didn't have a problem with their world map 20 years ago, it would be very strange indeed to start having issues now.
In fact ED makes it entertaining and worthwhile to go out into uncharted space as (unlike FE2/FFE) there is challenge going outside the Bubble, and also unlike FE2/FFE payment opportunities. And quite soon planetary landings as well; hopefully with some MB4 mining action for good measure at some point but for sure there will be brand new stuff like ship salvage fun and whatnot.
Only difference over how the Frontier games have handled it and ED is that you have something else you can do besides spamming van Maanen's Star with luxuries from Sol and get disgustingly rich in 15 minutes and then slam into the side of a planet with a Panther Clipper after unsuccessfully manipulating the quirks of time dilation.
Also you said you played FE2/FFE? If you didn't have a problem with their world map 20 years ago, it would be very strange indeed to start having issues now.
In fact ED makes it entertaining and worthwhile to go out into uncharted space as (unlike FE2/FFE) there is challenge going outside the Bubble, and also unlike FE2/FFE payment opportunities. And quite soon planetary landings as well; hopefully with some MB4 mining action for good measure at some point but for sure there will be brand new stuff like ship salvage fun and whatnot.
Only difference over how the Frontier games have handled it and ED is that you have something else you can do besides spamming van Maanen's Star with luxuries from Sol and get disgustingly rich in 15 minutes and then slam into the side of a planet with a Panther Clipper after unsuccessfully manipulating the quirks of time dilation.
This is still limited.
The limit is just way off the charts.
It could certainly be unlimited like minecraft. But what kind of an endless galaxy would that be ...
Suspiciously so.
Thing is, there are oblong planets in Elite Dangerous right now, that thread, 'around the galaxy in 80 days', has shots of 2 different ones she's come across so far, and they ARE quite possible by the rules of reality as we know them, it's not a mistake on the part of the procgen. No planet in our own Sol system is actually a perfect sphere, rotational forces actually prevent that from being the case. I don't expect we'll actually see much, if any, changes in planets, planetoids on the other hand, I actually look forward to seeing the various shapes that happen with those.
As to PvP and CQC, we're in agreement on both of those I see, PvP in Elite generally, yeah, not really fun, CQC a total blast! I was actually shocked to be honest, I didn't realize I'd find it as fun as I did, definitely an excellent job by FD with the CQC combat.
No need to be like that, I have both SC and Elite Dangerous, and I enjoy both, and I enjoy them for both the same reasons and vastly different reasons. I actually preferred the PvP combat in SC prior to CQC, and that's really why I got it and why my teammates in SRM are into SC, the PvP aspects. I love Elite for the space and exploration, as SC has nothing to compare to that. SC is stunning visually when it comes to the hangers, ships and ArcCorp(the social mod), but the space setting in SC is just..bullocks I think sums it up best, extremely comicbookish, not at all realistic looking, not even remotely. Combine that with the 130 total systems they'll have(that's the LATEST count, it keeps getting lowered mind you) and I don't see exploration as being something that will be a thing, since everything will be explored inside a week. I literally visited more systems than that in Elite Dangerous in my first 3 days playing, I was just looking for a station that had higher than a B class shield! As I said though, I didn't get SC for the exploration, so I'm not disappointed in that, I got it for the PvP/multicrew stuff, and currently, thanks to CQC, I AM disappointed in SC at the moment. However CIG has stated the current flight model they are using isn't what they want and they are going to redo it, so I'm hopeful they'll get it so that I play SC for the PvP and I play ED for the exploration. Both games are, in my opinion, visually stunning, albeit in different ways, and the premise behind each game is unique enough that I'm quite happy to fund BOTH of them and play BOTH of them for as long as I can.
So, to the OP and everyone else, get em both, there's no reason not to if you really are into space sim style games, as each offers something unique and both are planning on offering something we've never had before, in any game, much less a space sim game.
I'm sure they could add more galaxies with a little effort, if necessary. Certainly Andromeda, the Magellanic Clouds...CMa Dwarf...those all come immediately to mind.
However there's still rather a lot to find in the one we have now...
I know all that.
I'm just saying, even with such additions (which wouldn't work on the fly) and already being stupidly large in the first place it is not technically limitless - unlike minecraft, which generates unlimited terrain from a seed on the fly.
And it really doesn't have to be.
I'm just saying, even with such additions (which wouldn't work on the fly) and already being stupidly large in the first place it is not technically limitless - unlike minecraft, which generates unlimited terrain from a seed on the fly.
And it really doesn't have to be.
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It doesn't play any card.
It just is....Because it can be.
It just is....Because it can be.
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Smooth doesn't mean spherical. It means that highest peaks and lowest valleys only have visible 3D quality when you are very close. Large astronomical rocky planets are NOT held together by chemical bonds. They're essentially giant piles of loose sand and rocks, and assume the most spherical shape they can. Thus they can only be appreciably lumpy if they are very very small, and gravity is weaker than any chemical binding force.
The recent screen shot of binary moons in the where's waldo "guess this moon" contest showed a potato like "sphere" orbiting its twin. If moons that are the size of Earth's Moon all look that lumpy from far away, then the game will have gone off the deep end and landed squarely in the bogus NMS of astronomical surrealism.
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Man ... you are far too black and white with that judgement.
Also have you checked out the radius of said moon from the screenshot?
Context is important. If that planet is a little bigger than Phobos then it is fine. However, if it is as large as the moon, then it should look fairly smooth unless you have a telescope or are standing on the surface.
I suspect that Frontiers PG for planet surface height maps is more than a little exaggerated which tends to make the planet look like this:
instead of this:
You mean the 2 very small planetoids in that screenshot, with a 402km radius? Those aren't even remotely close to the size of Luna, I'm not sure where you are getting that idea from at all. Pilatock 3 c a is the planetoid that shot was taken on if you missed that, the On The Horizon thread gives the name and someone went there and got a screen of the info. Yeah, something that small, I expect it to be oddly shaped. Something the size of Luna, I expect to be spherical, lets not get the two confused, ok?
I did miss the conclusion to that thread. I'll check it out to congratulate the winner. And am much relieved to hear the small size of the planetoid!
I did miss the conclusion to that thread. I'll check it out to congratulate the winner. And am much relieved to hear the small size of the planetoid!
That's the funny part, the winner didn't guess the right location, no one did, he was just the closest with his guess! 400 billion stars out there, figuring out your location from such a limited view, yeah
FD should approach exploring as PvU, Player vs Unknown. Where players interdict the unexplored and shoot it with scans while making pew pew sounds.
I want a "map this planet" scanner, which activates at really low altitudes so you'd have to weave and bob through valleys and around mountains. Highlighting interesting areas where you could land and investigate. This could be sample drilling, soil collection, simple photography of noteworthy places. We've been talking about minigames, when the thing Elite really shines is the ship mechanics in normal space. Add the gravity of a planet and the excellent flight mechanic itself becomes the minigame. The skill of the pilot determines the worth of the scan.
Oh well, and maybe we can discover pies in the skies.