When can we actually expect some real gameplay content?

I'd rather want the opposite. I'm pretty tired of the game constantly spawning Elite ships to attack me just because my combat rating is Elite. It's as if Elite pilots are super common.

Poor design. No thought behind it.

Yup, because that seems to be the only way that FD know how to make the game hard... Rather than looking at the game holistically and seeing there is more than one way to skin a cat.
 
This is the problem, it is not, because the original gritty universe that "they said" they want the galaxy to be is nowhere to be seen.

For example;

Fuel scoops - Potentially could have scooped dirty fuel from the Suns, cleaner fuel from gas giants and finally clean fuel from stations, thus the dirtier the fuel the quicker the engine wear and tear. This could have given explorer ships unique modules (like the luxury modules for the passenger liners) that made them more efficient for scooping and enabled to travel deeper into the galaxy. Of course eventually they would have to go back to the core to get real repairs or blow up losing everything.

This could tie in the likes of the Hutton Truckers, who would haul equipment along supply lines to to help the explorers go even further into the unknown, seeing as we have fuel and collector limpets, why not basic repair limpets that partially repair engines and the ship integrity. What about if war breaks out between an alien civilisation... the same mechanic, reloading and repairing ships, fuel lines need to be maintains, explorers become scouts... It adds mechanics to the game that enable players to play together to achieve a goal etc... OR if they want to solo, fine, you can do it, but don't expect to do it better than a group working together, like exploring.

This means and explorer could put himself in serious trouble if he gets to greedy, and the best explorers can it take as close to the limit as possible and know when to return.

Trade - One of the original ideas for trade was that the best trade routes would be between the rim and core systems. Slaves, machines, tools etc would transported to the rim systems resource extraction sites, whilst the raw materials and precious metals would be transported to the core systems.

This however would be dangerous, as the rim system would also be pirate territory as the core systems would have high security and be far far safer for the trader. Giving the player a choice between smaller profits, but far safer trade routes or richer more profitable trade runs that are far more dangerous.

Alliances - Alliances should mean something and have pro's and con's, you are not in a million years ever be able to rank to King and Rear Admiral at the same time. It would never happen. If anything, if you are a king of the empire, you would be highly unliked by the Federation/Alliance and maybe some independent systems.

This also means it would have a direct impact on engineers as Imperial engineers would never give high ranking Fed/Alliance/Some independent players the best module mods if any at all... This bringing real consequence to the game and the choices the players make.

Pirates - Pirates should be forced to make more use of the pirate bases through out the galaxy, in some cases, secret bases that are only known to high ranking pirates (yes pirates should have ranks too). Obviously, if you are a well known Pirate and depending on where you operate, you maybe been banned from docking at or all Fed/Alliance/Imperial stations, because you have a reputation. This would make it harder for you to get ships and upgrades, sitting in with the notion that pirates are bottom feeders, feeding off the riches of the trade routes etc.

It also means proper C&P and missions specifically for pirates given out at earned locations (I.e. hidden pirate bases)...

Even bounty hunters could be catered for.

Ranking - Ranking needs to be proper structured military careers, with some rewards being access to specific engineers, whilst actually earning your rank and really taking part in military missions and wars.

It may even be the case that it will involve piracy in enemy faction territory, so privateers, just like the old Royal Navy privateers that hampered French boats hundreds of years ago. Fed pilots doing pirating in Alliance systems to undermine them, for example.


It just goes without saying so much can be added to the game, but they refuse to do it, because of this philosophy that a player should be able to do what ever he wants when he wants with no consequences, that ultimately leaving game feeling shallow and baron of perceived game play, because of this wishy washy mentality they have that has left game feeling so incoherent, unbalanced and broken.

It is really sad to see the decisions the game designers have taken, from what was originally sold to the player that got the game started to what we have now. They are just very lucky that they have no real competition at the moment and that business men pushed for an early release of no mans sky, when it was clear that the game was clearly not finished.

Good post. Some good ideas in it.

When it comes to the last paragropgh though, don't forget Frontier's constraint, in the order they have to bring in features; the (developing) game architecture .. For instance, they couldn't introduce different grades of fuel unless they have a (modular) way to add a modifier to the engines that the fuel grade can act on. That modifier / variable came in with 2.2 for which the headline was, Engineers. [Now you can RNG, or just add 1, to the thruster values].

Yes, the update added engineers but it also added floating values on module stats, which Frontier might also use for things like (say) cascading damage models, as well as plain old fuel grades which is why I believe they use a modular approach to building the game. Frontier are keeping their options open, as far as they can, and what people see as design 'choices' seem largely to be first drafts of 'some' of the things each new addition to the architecture enables, game-wise and as each next feature has to be built on the last, these aren't always choices as such;

Powerplay came really early and the reaction to that 'decision' was like, "huh?" .. BUT PP added a way to mirror the main BGS, as powerplay also reads and writes to the main galaxy map, which is THE most fundamental system in the game. So powerplay gave FD options for adding variations to the main BGS but critically without having to mess about with the main BGS (and risk killing it). Some genius programmers in Cambridge that's a promise, and the game? .. Is what you make it.
 
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Good post. Some good ideas in it.

When it comes to the last paragropgh though, don't forget Frontier's constraint, in the order they have to bring in features, the (developing) game architecture .. for instance, they couldn't introduce different grades of fuel unless they have a (modular) way to add a modifier to the engines that the fuel grade can act on. That modifier / variable came in with 2.2 for which the 'headline' was Engineers.

Yes, the update added engineers but it also added floating values on module stats, which Frontier might ALSO use for things like (say) cascading damage models, as well as plain old fuel grades. Frontier are keeping their options open as far as they can from what I can tell, and what people see as design 'choices' seem largely to be first drafts of 'some' of the ways each new addition to the architecture enables .. and as each next feature has to be built on the last these aren't always choices as such;

Powerplay came really early and the reaction to that 'decision' was like, "huh?" .. BUT PP added a way to mirror the main BGS as powerplay also reads on the galaxy map, which is THE most fundamental system in the game. So powerplay gave FD options on adding variations of the main BGS but without having to mess with it.

It is also about philosophy of the direction they want to take the game and most of the problems of game come down to the philosophy.
 
Try an engineered Cobra Mk III.

But the problem with that engineer is that it may be Federal aligned, but any high ranking Imperial player can come along and get the upgrade, when in all realms of continuity and common sense the Federal engineer would tell him to get lost and maybe send some fireworks to see him off.

Of course, this will never happen, because the philosophy of what they are introducing is all wrong.

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The freedom of allowing players to do what they want when they want with no consequences. Hence why you can pirate one second and bounty hunt the next with almost no consequence to your game. Hence why players pirating in systems have never been banned from docking at the stations.
 
But the problem with that engineer is that it may be Federal aligned, but any high ranking Imperial player can come along and get the upgrade, when in all realms of continuity and common sense the Federal engineer would tell him to get lost and maybe send some fireworks to see him off..

You see this kind of things is great but here's nothing in the way Engineers are designed that PREVENTS (the station) from reading your faction rep .. it's just that isn't a priority, when the fundamental 2.2 build is about adding floating module variables, I think?

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The freedom of allowing players to do what they want when they want with no consequences. Hence why you can pirate one second and bounty hunt the next with almost no consequence to your game. Hence why players pirating in systems have never been banned from docking at the stations.

It's good. But again there's nothing in the design that stops one faction from reading your rep with a different faction, it already reads in your right panel. Frontier's priority though, has been to get the game up and running and to give ways to earn rep (that another faction can frown on later) in the first place?
 
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It is also about philosophy of the direction they want to take the game and most of the problems of game come down to the philosophy.

Most problems come down to budget and time constraints. Anyone can write a forum post listing out their dream features. Actually building and shipping a product is an entirely different thing.
 
Most problems come down to budget and time constraints. Anyone can write a forum post listing out their dream features. Actually building and shipping a product is an entirely different thing.

Egosoft has roundabout 20 people working there, yet their games have a lot more content. Sounds like mismanagement to me.
Tim Schafer involved somewhere at FD? :D
 
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http://imgur.com/a/rMKSZ

courtesty of tosoco over on reddit, shows a possible science based expansion, using extension of existing mechanics let us know what u think folks

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Couresty of ToSoCo on reddit here is some ideas from a few months back the devs could pickup and run with if they wanted to actually add the off quoted missing depth in the game especially in the exploration area of the game.

http://imgur.com/a/rMKSZ

Feel free to discuss folks
 
I'll stick up for the game. Basically what we have is a supercharged version of Elite / Frontier Elite 2, single player games where you were given the tools to 'live the life' of a jobbing pilot. (A dead uncle left you a Sidewinder + 100 credits. End of introduction).

You're right, that's pretty much what it is, but there's a difference. A very important (imo) difference. The rate of progression (as in new ships) is a fraction of what it was in FE2. One of the things that kept me hooked in FE2 was the vast array of ships available and the fact that there weren't hundreds of millions of credits seperating them.

Every time you hit a milestone (your first million, your first two million etc...) there was something new to play with in terms of ships. Upgrading from one ship to the next felt like a constant, but gradual process. In ED you're stuck in the same ship for days/weeks/months depending on how hard you grind credits. If you play the game like a "normal" person (say an hour or so a day during the week, a few hours a day at weekend) you can find yourself stuck in a mid tier (6 - 7 mil ship) for a long long time. This takes away any feeling of you actually moving forward in the game and gives it the feeling of a f2p mmo. Tons of effort with minimal reward.

I'm not even going to talk about RNGineers and grinding their requirements, that truly lies in the realm of f2p.
 
They do not have a lot more content.

The X games have a faecal ton more content than ED, I don't know how you can say that with a straight face (font?). ED has billions of systems, that all look pretty much the same and all have nothing in them other than randomly generated bodies. That's not "content", that's the canvas. The content is the painting, not the canvas itself.
 
People excusing the game for bad design/mechanics seems to be really common. Just a few hours ago I posted a thread about how broken combat zones are right now. The responses I got were abominable.

Stop excusing FD. You like the game, I get it. But that doesn't prevent it from being bad.
 
I've just started playing, so take that for what it is, but I hardly notice a difference between playing in Open and playing in Single Player. I think that is the biggest shame for me. The only draw to open: "Oooh I can get inderdicted by some jerk and blown up because I have no cargo to even give him". I think I'll go play SP from now on. Hmmm.
 
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