Walking around and other small ideas

[digitalscream]

You seem to presuppose that everybody will walk around their ships at stupid moments.
You also seem to presuppose that FD will not add interesting functionality to the ships that will be fun in FPA.

When is a "stupid moment"? Any time in SC, for example, where you can be interdicted while you're at the other end of your ship in the middle of a mini-game (which you will, presumably, lose as soon as you leg it back to the cockpit)?

So...in order to walk around your ship, you have to stop whatever it is you're doing and drop into normal space. No...I can't see that being complained about at all...

As for the whole "let an AI copilot look after the ship while you're toddling around" thing...no thanks. I've seen what happens to NPCs when they fight each other. I'd be amazed if there was a cockpit left by the time I got there.

 

[Iskariot]

Exactly, the same with planetary landing

Exactly.

Because why would people in spaceships ever want to land on a planet right?
Why have planets at all? We have no use for them.
They could also remove the stars from the game. Then we would have just a few stations in an endless sea of nothingness.
Why even buy the game at all.
If you do not buy the game and do not play it, you need nothing of this at all.
Would that not be much more fun?

 

[SongMinKi]

When is a "stupid moment"? Any time in SC, for example, where you can be interdicted while you're at the other end of your ship in the middle of a mini-game (which you will, presumably, lose as soon as you leg it back to the cockpit)?

So...in order to walk around your ship, you have to stop whatever it is you're doing and drop into normal space. No...I can't see that being complained about at all...

As for the whole "let an AI copilot look after the ship while you're toddling around" thing...no thanks. I've seen what happens to NPCs when they fight each other. I'd be amazed if there was a cockpit left by the time I got there.

this all depends on the size of the craft i imagine. With larger ships, you would have a crew that could do basic piloting for you so that you wouldnt be caught with your pants down when you went somewhere. On smaller crafts if you need to go check your engine why can't you just pull over for like two minutes? You wouldnt check your engine while driving in a car, so why would you do it on a space ship?

 

[777Driver]

When is a "stupid moment"? Any time in SC, for example, where you can be interdicted while you're at the other end of your ship in the middle of a mini-game (which you will, presumably, lose as soon as you leg it back to the cockpit)?

So...in order to walk around your ship, you have to stop whatever it is you're doing and drop into normal space. No...I can't see that being complained about at all...

As for the whole "let an AI copilot look after the ship while you're toddling around" thing...no thanks. I've seen what happens to NPCs when they fight each other. I'd be amazed if there was a cockpit left by the time I got there.

Haha, glad you have it figured out before the expansion is even released. You are approaching this whole topic with the mind set of a complete amateur.. Best to leave things to devs, sounds like you are bored at work.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Exactly, the same with planetary landing

Boring! Elite games have had planetary landings since 1993. They didn't do all that much then but they still made space more interesting. Watching the sun rise, trying to crash into roughly where my house would be, reading the time from the clock tower and trying to drive my ship along a road. I don't see why we now have to have gaming mechanics to be able to introduce part of the gaming scenery that has been a staple of the series for over 20 years?

If nothing else it gave a real sense of freedom because you can actually go to the planets instead of a station which added variety. Anyway, we know exactly what DB will add to planetary landings, he's going to add big game hunting. You know why he's going to add big game hunting? Because he's pretty much said he wants to do big game hunting in every interview about this game since the Kickstarter. Why he says that every-time, we don't know..but if that's what the man wants, that's what the man should do.

So yeah....Big game hunting is where it's at...apparently.

 

[Iskariot]

When is a "stupid moment"? Any time in SC, for example, where you can be interdicted while you're at the other end of your ship in the middle of a mini-game (which you will, presumably, lose as soon as you leg it back to the cockpit)?

Yes, you simply will have to be smart about it and make choices. That is a good thing for a game.

So...in order to walk around your ship, you have to stop whatever it is you're doing and drop into normal space. No...I can't see that being complained about at all...

There are a lot of incessant whiners on here. I don't care about them at all. They only poison the well. They will complain about everything whenever they feel like it.
Let them. FD should be used to that by now I think.

As for the whole "let an AI copilot look after the ship while you're toddling around" thing...no thanks. I've seen what happens to NPCs when they fight each other. I'd be amazed if there was a cockpit left by the time I got there.

I think that is a smart attitude and I feel the same. I would not trust an AI to save my ship when necessary.
That is why I would be very careful and choose wisely when to leave the captain's chair.
I am looking forward to being able to make that choice.

 

[digitalscream]

this all depends on the size of the craft i imagine. With larger ships, you would have a crew that could do basic piloting for you so that you wouldnt be caught with your pants down when you went somewhere. On smaller crafts if you need to go check your engine why can't you just pull over for like two minutes? You wouldnt check your engine while driving in a car, so why would you do it on a space ship?

Why would you need to check your engines, when you have the automated repair modules?

Unless, of course, they nerf them...which is then effectively a nerf on the explorer crowd. Scragging an entire profession for the sake of an extra feature that most people think they want but will turn out to be whine-fodder in reality isn't going to win them any more support from the community.

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Yes, you simply will have to be smart about it and make choices. That is a good thing for a game.

You're missing my point - there aren't any times when it's really safe to do so. We now have AI stalkers, who will make the assumption that you're the guy who spilled their pint at the bar three years ago and hunt you down both in SC and normal space. This is a surprisingly rare occurrence.

Frankly, if a macguffin needs wrangling anywhere on my ship, I want my computers to take care of it so I can keep an eye out for psychotic AI fragments. At the very least, if I haven't got a subservient robot to do it, I suppose an NPC crew member might be sufficient, as long as they don't have to rank up to stop being a liability.

 

[digitalscream]

Haha, glad you have it figured out before the expansion is even released. You are approaching this whole topic with the mind set of a complete amateur.. Best to leave things to devs, sounds like you are bored at work.

Excellent. If you actually bothered to read my OP, it's about asking the question: "What's the point?". So far, nobody has managed to give me any confidence that it's going to add anything worthwhile to the game (or even a single good reason for it).

Thanks for being a about it, though. I'm glad we have pros like you on the forum (if you knew what I actually do very successfully for a living, you'd probably be a bit embarrassed right now).

 

[SongMinKi]

Why would you need to check your engines, when you have the automated repair modules?

Unless, of course, they nerf them...which is then effectively a nerf on the explorer crowd. Scragging an entire profession for the sake of an extra feature that most people think they want but will turn out to be whine-fodder in reality isn't going to win them any more support from the community.

i don't suppose you remember the refueling beacon? The automatic repairs right now could be a convenient placeholder for all we know. Just because the devs are currently basically babysitting our needs does not mean it would be doing the same in the future. Whats wrong with stopping your exploration a couple minutes to carry out repairs on your ship? put some duct tape on that canopy when it got cracks when you got too close to a star? I find that these features could be really interesting than a mindless button to press.

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Excellent. If you actually bothered to read my OP, it's about asking the question: "What's the point?". So far, nobody has managed to give me any confidence that it's going to add anything worthwhile to the game (or even a single good reason for it).

Thanks for being a about it, though. I'm glad we have pros like you on the forum (if you knew what I actually do very successfully for a living, you'd probably be a bit embarrassed right now).

Problem is, while the rest of us are pointing out possible features, all you're doing is basically saying "yeah but i dont need that" or "thats too much work for me". You have to realize that this game doesnt cater to a single crowd of gamers, i respect your way of gaming,but it would be beneficial to think of every crowd from the RPers to the Hardcore gamers as well as casuals, sure, retain the button repair for the casuals, but perhaps include manual repair that is more effective in repairing for the crowd that like to actually think they are commanding a ship (you know, like a simulator)

 

[veryinky]

When is a "stupid moment"? Any time in SC, for example, where you can be interdicted while you're at the other end of your ship in the middle of a mini-game (which you will, presumably, lose as soon as you leg it back to the cockpit)?

So...in order to walk around your ship, you have to stop whatever it is you're doing and drop into normal space. No...I can't see that being complained about at all...

Do people complain about having to turn off the engines so the auto-repair module can fix them? And why are YOU, the pilot, getting out of your seat to fix the engines instead of sending an NPC engineer to fix it?

 

[Iskariot]

If you actually bothered to read my OP, it's about asking the question: "What's the point?". So far, nobody has managed to give me any confidence that it's going to add anything worthwhile to the game (or even a single good reason for it).

That is not true. Many people have given reasons that are very good for them.
You just do not want to hear or accept them.
That is fine.
Obviously you do not want this expansion.
You are in luck.
The solution is simple: Do not buy the expansion.

I will have fun without you, I can assure you.
I already dream about being able to view all the detail in my ship, or even being able to spacewalk and stand on the hull watching a beautiful sunset.

 

[digitalscream]

Problem is, while the rest of us are pointing out possible features, all you're doing is basically saying "yeah but i dont need that" or "thats too much work for me". You have to realize that this game doesnt cater to a single crowd of gamers, i respect your way of gaming,but it would be beneficial to think of every crowd from the RPers to the Hardcore gamers as well as casuals, sure, retain the button repair for the casuals, but perhaps include manual repair that is more effective in repairing for the crowd that like to actually think they are commanding a ship (you know, like a simulator)

Finally...somebody with a realistic answer.

It's not so much "that's too much work for me" - it's more that introducing this is very likely to get in the way of other gameplay mechanics. In a perfect world...no, it won't get in the way at all. However, this isn't a perfect world; this is game development on a huge scale, and if you look at the history of this game there has rarely been any change in isolated areas which hasn't caused problems for large proportions of the player base. That's not knocking FDev at all - the simple fact is that there are hundreds of thousands of people playing (I think...can't remember the numbers, I must be getting old), and so many combinations of play styles that it's essentially impossible to keep changes to isolated use cases.

What you've presented is a function which is entirely optional; that's a best-case scenario, I think.

However, should they do what people seem to really be asking for, which is hostile boarding parties etc, that's not going to be optional at all - you're going to have to deal with it. Effectively, you've bought a space flight game and ended up with a FPS. That's going to put an awful lot of people off the game; yes, I know lots of people have been asking for it, but...given how many people are complaining about the frequency of interdictions, imagine how annoying it's going to be when each of those has a good chance of boarding your ship...? That turns a minor 2-minute interruption to whatever you were doing into a much longer encounter.

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That is not true. Many people have given reasons that are very good for them.
You just do not want to hear or accept them.
That is fine.
Obviously you do not want this expansion.
You are in luck.
The solution is simple: Do not buy the expansion.
I will have fun without you, I can assure you.

Is it definitely going to be an optional expansion?

(genuine question)

 

[Iskariot]

Is it definitely going to be an optional expansion?

(genuine question)

That is what I understood.
But if they decide to implement it for free then you still have no reason to get upset.

If anything you can trust these accomplished devs to make it into something worthwhile and engaging.
It will be a great experience.

 

[SongMinKi]

Finally...somebody with a realistic answer.

It's not so much "that's too much work for me" - it's more that introducing this is very likely to get in the way of other gameplay mechanics. In a perfect world...no, it won't get in the way at all. However, this isn't a perfect world; this is game development on a huge scale, and if you look at the history of this game there has rarely been any change in isolated areas which hasn't caused problems for large proportions of the player base. That's not knocking FDev at all - the simple fact is that there are hundreds of thousands of people playing (I think...can't remember the numbers, I must be getting old), and so many combinations of play styles that it's essentially impossible to keep changes to isolated use cases.

What you've presented is a function which is entirely optional; that's a best-case scenario, I think.

However, should they do what people seem to really be asking for, which is hostile boarding parties etc, that's not going to be optional at all - you're going to have to deal with it. Effectively, you've bought a space flight game and ended up with a FPS. That's going to put an awful lot of people off the game; yes, I know lots of people have been asking for it, but...given how many people are complaining about the frequency of interdictions, imagine how annoying it's going to be when each of those has a good chance of boarding your ship...? That turns a minor 2-minute interruption to whatever you were doing into a much longer encounter.

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Is it definitely going to be an optional expansion?

(genuine question)

hm, i can definitely see where you're coming from with the being boarded portion. I admit that the occasional pirate boarding is okay but if im incessantly being boarded by NPC pirates it would get rather agitating. Though it begs the question of the prerequisites of being boarded. Perhaps it would require that your shields are knocked out and the cargo hatch is blown off? Or perhaps the enemy ship has to get withing a certain distance and align his ship with yours? The devs said there wont be tractor beams involved in ED but maybe we could have a throw back to the age of sail and have actual hooks to attach in order to board? In a nutshell, there has to be sufficient counter methods to prevent a boarding from even happening to deter frequent boarding events. If the devs made it so that on ship destruction, half of the cargo is lost, it would be incentive for dedicated pirates to put in the extra effort in boarding while npcs usually just give up? Essentially, if it is to be a universal feature (and it has to be, otherwise pirates will complain that players arent opting in for boarding and they bought the expansion for nothing), there must be enough of a difficulty barrier to prevent it from happening all the time

 

[digitalscream]

That is what I understood.
But if they decide to implement it for free then you still have no reason to get upset.

If anything you can trust these accomplished devs to make it into something worthwhile and engaging.
It will be a great experience.

I'm not sure it could be a paid expansion, to be honest - that would mean either fragmenting the galaxy into two (those with the expansion and those without), or simply not being able to board someone's ship because they haven't paid for it. That'd probably be too much of a break of immersion for FDev to be comfortable with.

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hm, i can definitely see where you're coming from with the being boarded portion. I admit that the occasional pirate boarding is okay but if im incessantly being boarded by NPC pirates it would get rather agitating. Though it begs the question of the prerequisites of being boarded. Perhaps it would require that your shields are knocked out and the cargo hatch is blown off? Or perhaps the enemy ship has to get withing a certain distance and align his ship with yours? The devs said there wont be tractor beams involved in ED but maybe we could have a throw back to the age of sail and have actual hooks to attach in order to board? In a nutshell, there has to be sufficient counter methods to prevent a boarding from even happening to deter frequent boarding events. If the devs made it so that on ship destruction, half of the cargo is lost, it would be incentive for dedicated pirates to put in the extra effort in boarding while npcs usually just give up? Essentially, if it is to be a universal feature (and it has to be, otherwise pirates will complain that players arent opting in for boarding and they bought the expansion for nothing), there must be enough of a difficulty barrier to prevent it from happening all the time

Yep. The thing is, there *has* to be a significant risk of it happening, otherwise having the expansion is pointless in itself - if you never get boarded, why have it? Just so you can...do what, exactly? Grab some cargo from other ships? You can already do that...

Interesting that you mentioned the old days of chucking a hook over; that's essentially what you do when you interdict someone.

If this does ever get implemented, I'm very very curious as to what happens when somebody shoots you in the head. Not exactly an applicable context for an insurance claim, that's for sure If nothing else, it'll give us a whole new flavour of whining threads on the forum - "I got boarded by an NPC, he shot me and now I've lost my entire save! REFUNDDDDDD!!!!!!"

 

[SongMinKi]

I'm not sure it could be a paid expansion, to be honest - that would mean either fragmenting the galaxy into two (those with the expansion and those without), or simply not being able to board someone's ship because they haven't paid for it. That'd probably be too much of a break of immersion for FDev to be comfortable with.

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Yep. The thing is, there *has* to be a significant risk of it happening, otherwise having the expansion is pointless in itself - if you never get boarded, why have it? Just so you can...do what, exactly? Grab some cargo from other ships? You can already do that...

Interesting that you mentioned the old days of chucking a hook over; that's essentially what you do when you interdict someone.

If this does ever get implemented, I'm very very curious as to what happens when somebody shoots you in the head. Not exactly an applicable context for an insurance claim, that's for sure If nothing else, it'll give us a whole new flavour of whining threads on the forum - "I got boarded by an NPC, he shot me and now I've lost my entire save! REFUNDDDDDD!!!!!!"

Well im sure if you can survive your ship exploding, you can somehow survive a measly bullet to the head.

hm, perhaps only allowing players to initiate boarding? That would be a solution of sorts. Though i imagine the folks at FD already have some brilliant solution that our meager minds cant comprehend

 

[Achilles Maelstrom]

Walking around in stations and/or planets will be awesome! IF...

Please share your thoughts/wishes/hopes. Try to keep this thread POSITIVE.

Here are my hopes and wishes:

1. There should be plenty of NPCs as in the GTA franchise. You may not be able to interact but it will make it feel alive.
2. Buildings should be accessible. At least bars or shops where you can actually buy something and interact/chat with other players. (Shipyards, Clothing, Beer, etc.)
3. Many parts of a station might be off limits to the public/tourists unless you have the right permissions. (like the system permits which are already in game)
4. There should also be some kind of a police/security force. Automated (non lethal) turrets that incapacitate players who tend to believe they are John Wayne so the security guys can come and pick them up for a night or two in jail.
5. There could also be missions set on stations. (Bounty Hunting, Smuggling, etc.)


Post your ideas here and hopefully the Devs will take notice of this thread. M.I.B. = Massive Internet Brainstorming

Let's do this!

 

[Sandmann]

Sims in spaaaaaace!

 

[dree]

You should at least have to go to some office to do your commodities market business.
Maybe also something like that for fuel and ammo..

Dree

 

[Crimson Kaim]

- Unlimited range of walking/driving/flying (if you wish to explore the planet/station with a buggy, do it!)
- Shops, mission stations, bars, etc. have their own location (if available on the station)
- Everything is connected and one system, no "walking through the door teleports you in another instance/map"
- More than walking "i.e. hand waving, dancing, maybe a first person shooter? And my favourite: Jetpacks!)

In addition:

- Ability to eject in space and getting rescued if ship is destroyed
- Ability to take over other ships aka steal them.
- Ability to float around your ship to do repair stuff
- Walking around the ship should also be connected with having access to the modules for example reactor bay, cargo (you should be able to see the cargo)
- Multiple players on one ship (person transport)
- Being able to sit on chairs, lean against the wall, eating and drinking, general human behavior instead of just "standing at one point breathing 24/7"


My wishlist