What happens to players without the expansions?

[DangerMouse81]

Just wondering, what will happen to players without the expansions?

I guess with the planetary landings they wont be able to buy the atmosphere shielding... but what about the others?


•Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
•Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
•Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
•Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
•Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

 

[chris5281]

Well the slightly glib answer is 'the content won't be available'. How that content is made unavailable is really irrelevant, although I'm sure an effort will be made not to break immersion by having a 'not available' message come up.

A slightly less glib series of guesses is as follows:

•Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids

They won't be able to land

•Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships

They won't be able to get out of their chair

•Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports

They won't be able to get out of their chair

•Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces

They won't be able to land / get out of their chair

•Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

The ships won't be available

 

[Tinman]

Well the slightly glib answer is 'the content won't be available'. How that content is made unavailable is really irrelevant, although I'm sure an effort will be made not to break immersion by having a 'not available' message come up.

A slightly less glib series of guesses is as follows:



They won't be able to land



They won't be able to get out of their chair



They won't be able to get out of their chair



They won't be able to land / get out of their chair



The ships won't be available

A shorter answer would be:

Nothing happens.

They just keep on playing the original game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Only case what would be interesting is boarding (how to defend yourself if you can't walk around, interesting question). Other than that - what Tinman said

 

[duffbeeeer]

Id imagine for planetary landings on rich planets as an expansion owner you will be able to buy the atmospheric shielding for your ship. People without it can try to land but their ships will just burn like meteorites before reaching the ground

 

[BBcokeley]

Only case what would be interesting is boarding (how to defend yourself if you can't walk around, interesting question). Other than that - what Tinman said

They would be in separate instance on game launch is my guess...

 

[Robert Maynard]

Only case what would be interesting is boarding (how to defend yourself if you can't walk around, interesting question). Other than that - what Tinman said

The ability to move about your own ship would best serve Frontier by being given free to all players when EVA comes about, as a taster and as a method of ensuring that all player vessels would be able to be boarded.

That is not to say that players without the expansion would be able to leave their ship though....

 

[Razorwire]

I reckon they'll still get access to the basic mechanic of the expansion, but they will not get offered the extra mechanics that make the basic mechanic fun.

Give 'em a taste of what's behind the paywall and they may pay up, deny them the whole lot and they won't bother.

So:

• They will be able to get out and wander around a station, but they'll never get offered missions there or build contacts they can see in person.
• They will be able to land on planets, but not go game hunting, rent a dune buggy or buy a sidearm.
• They'll be able to wander around their ship, but have no way of boarding others', nor be able to do physical repairs on their own ship.

That's how I see it going, anyway.
All pure speculation, of course.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

The ability to move about your own ship would best serve Frontier by being given free to all players when EVA comes about, as a taster and as a method of ensuring that all player vessels would be able to be boarded.

That is not to say that players without the expansion would be able to leave their ship though....

This is exactly what I thought. Hopefully it will make business sense for FD to do that.

That would be also good "taster" for people to buy in into expansions, like, walking around your ship would be sort of "demonstration" and wetting appetite for more.

 

[Daeron]

This is exactly what I thought. Hopefully it will make business sense for FD to do that.

That would be also good "taster" for people to buy in into expansions, like, walking around your ship would be sort of "demonstration" and wetting appetite for more.

Just be sure to close the compartments. Would not have anyone go around plundering the Captain's little Bar Globe now!

 

[jabokai]

The ability to move about your own ship would best serve Frontier by being given free to all players when EVA comes about, as a taster and as a method of ensuring that all player vessels would be able to be boarded.

That is not to say that players without the expansion would be able to leave their ship though....

I don't think that would be a popular idea for those that don't want to play the FPS game! Forcing them into accepting boardings as their only real taste of that expansion?!

I have innumerable FPS games and don't want that side of the expansions. I accept (and even agree) that it should happen, but it should be entirely optional IMHO, including boardings.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I don't think that would be a popular idea for those that don't want to play the FPS game! Forcing them into accepting boardings as their only real taste of that expansion?!

I have innumerable FPS games and don't want that side of the expansions. I accept (and even agree) that it should happen, but it should be entirely optional IMHO, including boardings.

I suppose that any vessels where the player had switched in-vessel movement off would simply be impervious to boarding.

 

[duffbeeeer]

That doesnt make any sense as all players would just deactivate their expansions to be immune to boarding. Which makes the whole expansion pointless. Im pretty sure FD will handle this a different way.

 

[jabokai]

That doesnt make any sense as all players would just deactivate their expansions to be immune to boarding. Which makes the whole expansion pointless. Im pretty sure FD will handle this a different way.

That's true, if it was easily switchable. But likewise, you shouldn't (IMHO) force people to play FPS elements in what is primarily a flying game!

 

[duffbeeeer]

That's true, if it was easily switchable. But likewise, you shouldn't (IMHO) force people to play FPS elements in what is primarily a flying game!

Well you could always offer some benefit for opening up your ship for boarding like having more cargo space due to some lore background stuff. This way people would be encouraged to open it up but not forced.

 

[jabokai]

Well you could always offer some benefit for opening up your ship for boarding like having more cargo space due to some lore background stuff. This way people would be encouraged to open it up but not forced.

Fine by me, although that is some powerful handwavium going on there!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

That's true, if it was easily switchable. But likewise, you shouldn't (IMHO) force people to play FPS elements in what is primarily a flying game!

ED is a space game, not only a flying game (what a trading doing in there then?). Boarding space ship is space sim classic and done right, it can be interesting concept.

Still, interesting how FD will handle this.

 

[duffbeeeer]

Fine by me, although that is some powerful handwavium going on there!

This game needs alot of handwavium anyway, a bit more wont hurt anyone In the end its about finding the right balance for all kinds of players. FD seems to aim for realism/immersion but gameplay is appearently the key thing here. Im not too worried about them finding good lore excuses for this mechanics.

 

[Tinman]

Way back I proposed a possible solution how to handle the "boarding issue".

There is always a solution.

Since boarding a ship only really becomes possible if the ship in question has been disabled (so the ship in question doesn't flee while the other player tries to dock with it) you can introduce a chance that the airlock has been damaged in the firefight. There will always be a chance this happens even if you have the EVA expansion, but if you don't have it your airlock always gets damaged. Thus making it impossible to enter the ship by others. Yes, this means that the players who doesn't have the expansion is "safe" from boarding, but on the other hand they can't board other players either. In-game this should be relatively seamless for the attacking player since he or she will not know if the boarding was unsuccessful due to truly damaged airlock or a "damaged" airlock.

This of course is based on the assumption that all boarding must happen through the airlock...

 

[jabokai]

Way back I proposed a possible solution how to handle the "boarding issue".

This of course is based on the assumption that all boarding must happen through the airlock...

Your handwavium is fine by me. Basically as long as I can play without the FPS elements at all I will be happy. I don't mind walking about, I just don't want to interrupt what I see as core gameplay (for me) with some FPS side game.

Although it might be fun to play a boarder-griefer... so you seek out people engaged in boarding action, knowing they're playing an FPS sub-game, and you just blow them all up!