Why Elite will always be better than Star Citizen: Gravity - or the lack there of.

I think we're pretty much saying the same thing. I'm sure you're correct that on low G planets you might be able to jump a little bit higher and it'll be more floaty than on 9G, like the difference between playing as Mario vs. Luigi in SMB2. My bet is you'll also be able to jump higher in 9.0G than a real life human can jump on Earth. And you'll be able to crouch and lie down and probably do baseball ground slides and get back up again at the same speed using the exact same animations. And then you'll John Wayne swinging-hips strut into a space saloon, and the plainclothes suitless bartender is gonna fix you a drink the exact same way, shifting his weight from leg to leg and leaning against the counter the same way in every gravity scenario. To me this is pretty much the same as ignoring gravity and handwaving it away with a goofy ad-hoc fantasy device and calling it sci-fi.

The variations in handling of the SRV between a 0.1G planet and a 9.0G planet are hilariously middle of the road. This is what I'm talking about. On a 0.1G planet you will still struggle to drive up inclines and your vehicle will still stall out, spin its wheels, tip over backwards, and go rolling uncontrollably downhill. When you thrust upwards you will not get anywhere nearly as high up as you should when you compare it to how far up you can go on a planet with much higher gravity. You go maybe 2-3 times as high as on a planet with 90 times the gravity, before your thruster cooldown timer bar depletes and then your SRV's secret-always-on-uncontrollable-downward-thrusting-gravity-simulator thrusters on the wheels start pushing you down. These amazing wheel-mounted thrusters can't be turned off even when they are to your detriment, and they never run out of power or thrust no matter what else happens. When you're on a 9.0G planet the wheel thrusters flip around and point at the ground giving you a base amount of constant upward thrust which produces no ground effect or scorching of the surrounding terrain or kicking up of dust despite outputting tremendous amounts of force at all times. They are all gimballed and superpowered and precision coordinated to flawlessly simulate the experience of driving a flimsy low-performance vehicle in a poorly designed driving game.

So yeah I think it's probably going to be, at best, a slightly more nuanced version of the way No Man's Sky handles gravity, which is by manipulating the depletion and cooldown timer on your jetpack and nothing else. The downward thrust on your jetpack will be always-on and have a limitless supply of godlike power to ensure that you accelerate downward and fall to your death on a 0.1G planet when your suit's "power" "runs" "out".

I don't see how it possibly can be anything more than this given what we've seen and heard so far, and I will be absolutely astonished if there's more to it than that.
You are aware the skilled SRV flyvers, when using drive assist off, have gotten SRVs to orbit low gravity planets, right?

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx1faamkU7Y
 
I play both, sad to say I actually like both of them for completely different reasons.

As for comparisons, there is none except they both contain pixel spaceships.

I have been tempted to try SC, but when I think about the bindings....I turn around. Lol.
 
I honestly think SC will NEVER be finished and properly released, just as ED will never be filled with content because that's not important today. people will pay for it, people will buy the meaningless dlc-s and while it pays, there is no reason making it good, its enough to just keep making it... the player's fantasy about what the game COULD be is just as much part of the marketing as its real shape is... sadly

I leaned towards Elite because I legitimately trusted David Braben more with my money. He is a legit nerd who has loved this genre from Elite's inception. That being said, while I am a patient man and understand that development takes time, I have not seen much of the original premise accomplished in a cohesive, worthwhile way. I still only want some of the ships from SC and some of the "scale" of those ships. Less cartoon.
 
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But you are in a ship, or SRV. You are not exposed to the gravity yourself, the ship/srv can have things in place to do with their construction that can mitigate it. Though if you don't have good enough thrusters, you might just be able to survive an impact on a high g planet, but you won't ever be able to leave because you can't break the pull of gravity.

To be fair to physics, it doesn't matter where you are standing/sitting/whatever, gravity is a field, you are in it regardless with everything else around you. You might have the mightiest anti-g suit ever to keep your blood from stagnating in your feet plants, but your bones will still be 9 times heavier, as well as your brain, your heart, lungs, liver, skin, etc....fine for a few seconds/minutes of exposition, not for going mission hunting on foot.

Yes gravity can be a very ugly can of worms for gameplay, honestly I'd be just fine with them handwaving it as with much of the stuff we do in the game already. The secret is in the word "game". :D

P.S: a human body cannot sustain prolonged exposition to g's higher than 3-5 as mentioned, can tolerate up to 9-10 g's for brief moments (depending on training and body strength), but can indeed survive instantaneous accelerations of several dozens g's. The US military officer that did researches on seatbelts and ejection seats exposed himself to more than 40 g of deceleration on rocket sleds. The F1 car of Romain Grosjean registered a deceleration of 53 g from the orrific crash he jumped away from last Sunday. We just can't weight 4 tons for more than a split second, or our back might have something to say on the matter. 😅
 

Craith

Volunteer Moderator
To be fair to physics, it doesn't matter where you are standing/sitting/whatever, gravity is a field, you are in it regardless with everything else around you. You might have the mightiest anti-g suit ever to keep your blood from stagnating in your feet plants, but your bones will still be 9 times heavier, as well as your brain, your heart, lungs, liver, skin, etc....fine for a few seconds/minutes of exposition, not for going mission hunting on foot.

Yes gravity can be a very ugly can of worms for gameplay, honestly I'd be just fine with them handwaving it as with much of the stuff we do in the game already. The secret is in the word "game". :D

P.S: a human body cannot sustain prolonged exposition to g's higher than 3-5 as mentioned, can tolerate up to 9-10 g's for brief moments (depending on training and body strength), but can indeed survive instantaneous accelerations of several dozens g's. The US military officer that did researches on seatbelts and ejection seats exposed himself to more than 40 g of deceleration on rocket sleds. The F1 car of Romain Grosjean registered a deceleration of 53 g from the orrific crash he jumped away from last Sunday. We just can't weight 4 tons for more than a split second, or our back might have something to say on the matter. 😅

IIRC according to lore our CMDRs are physically a cut above the humans from the 21st century. They survive higher G-forces (that's why we only blackout when experiencing in excess of 28G, redout at 25G), by genetical engineering and drugs like performance enhancers.

I'd be actually fine with some planets having a gravity that you could not survive - but if you take the 28G blackout levels above that would probably be around 9G anyhow.
I do hope that we will have different effects from gravity apart from how high we can jump. Try aiming a huge railgun at 3G - maybe switch to lighter weapons there. Better make sure you are braced for the kickback of your weapon on low G planets, and don't aim down from a slope.
 
I have been tempted to try SC, but when I think about the bindings....I turn around. Lol.
I couldn't honestly recommend anyone buy into SC unless they're desperately curious, borderline insane and then only at the lowest possible level. I've backed it since 2015, around the same time as I started Elite. It's development is glacial and tortuous, Ci¬G is ridden with gross incompetence at a managerial level, the marketing is both predatory and little more than a borderline fraudulent ponzi scheme...apart from all that, it has it's moments :)
 
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I'm big on verisimilitude (not precisely the same as realism) and internal consistency. I also like moderately detailed explanations that don't have many holes in them, even if I carefully ponder them for a while. I have no problem with unrealistic mechanisms, just implausible ones.

Our CMDRs are clearly not normal humans and there are several contextually plausible ways they could have been bestowed with their overtly superhuman attributes.

So, I will not find it immersion defying if my CMDR can stand up and walk, with some difficulty, on a 9g planet. However, I will find it very immersion defying if something like anti-gravity fields are introduced to explain this.
 
I'm big on verisimilitude (not precisely the same as realism) and internal consistency. I also like moderately detailed explanations that don't have many holes in them, even if I carefully ponder them for a while. I have no problem with unrealistic mechanisms, just implausible ones.

Our CMDRs are clearly not normal humans and there are several contextually plausible ways they could have been bestowed with their overtly superhuman attributes.

So, I will not find it immersion defying if my CMDR can stand up and walk, with some difficulty, on a 9g planet. However, I will find it very immersion defying if something like anti-gravity fields are introduced to explain this.

Something suit related I am sure. Made of unobtainium alloys and the like.
Though it would be fun if your suit gets damaged enough that it can't protect you and you implode... But it would have to be well done.

Does that make me psychotic? Has 2020 finally pushed me too far?
 
As far as we are concerned, the suits of 3300 might as well include a thin layer of synthetic muscle fibers decuplicating the strength of the wearer, while superior genetical modifications make sure that internal tissues can keep bowels from settling around the ankles. After all, a 10 kg Manticore portable autocannon won't holster on itself under a 10 g sky. 😅
 
Or just magnetic boots on outposts ofc
People mention these but the only instance i've seen magnetic boots correctly represented was in The Expanse. In Star Citizen the backers claim we have mag boots in ships and non-rotating outposts, but player characters run and jump, and actually move like the Doom Guy... Sorry, but no. Moving with mag boots is a slow and ponderous affair, and one definitely cannot jump with these on (unless they turn both off at the same time in which case they float away).
ED has rotating stations so this problem is avoided there. Low G planets should definitely be a floaty affair, and high G one should probably be no-go zones on foot.
 
As far as we are concerned, the suits of 3300 might as well include a thin layer of synthetic muscle fibers decuplicating the strength of the wearer, while superior genetical modifications make sure that internal tissues can keep bowels from settling around the ankles. After all, a 10 kg Manticore portable autocannon won't holster on itself under a 10 g sky. 😅
Duclipica...wat? I thing I'll just suspend my disbelief with ignorance. Now about that autocannon...
 
People mention these but the only instance i've seen magnetic boots correctly represented was in The Expanse. In Star Citizen the backers claim we have mag boots in ships and non-rotating outposts, but player characters run and jump, and actually move like the Doom Guy... Sorry, but no. Moving with mag boots is a slow and ponderous affair, and one definitely cannot jump with these on (unless they turn both off at the same time in which case they float away).
ED has rotating stations so this problem is avoided there. Low G planets should definitely be a floaty affair, and high G one should probably be no-go zones on foot.

"Walk like are wearing heels"

"What would you know about wearing heels?"

One of the best discussions in the Expanse... LMAO 🤣
 
Unless FD adds some EVA gameplay outside of your ship or station there is nothing a lack of gravity would provide to enhance gameplay. If your response is "realism" or "muh immersion!" may I remind you of "tele-presence" anf the god like power to project your mind accross the galaxy. FD's opportunity to develop a game with realism in mind sailed some time ago.

Given FD's staggering lack of "new" content (not content added to existing features) over 8 years of development. Perhaps they should stick to the "KISS" principle rather than program enviroments under multiple different states of gravity.
 
I was tempted to jump in on the gravity discussion but I fear the un-conditioned people "outside" the SC threadnaut are not used to the scope of my posts plus there have been some excellent insights on the topic right here. Enjoyed reading this very much, thanks to the people who showed an interest in this ^^
 
I'm big on verisimilitude (not precisely the same as realism) and internal consistency. I also like moderately detailed explanations that don't have many holes in them, even if I carefully ponder them for a while. I have no problem with unrealistic mechanisms, just implausible ones.

Our CMDRs are clearly not normal humans and there are several contextually plausible ways they could have been bestowed with their overtly superhuman attributes.

So, I will not find it immersion defying if my CMDR can stand up and walk, with some difficulty, on a 9g planet. However, I will find it very immersion defying if something like anti-gravity fields are introduced to explain this.

As long as it's fun and not too ridiculous I suspend my belief quite generously. I don't usually question stuff in games very much. You need to toss me a reaper humen metal skeleton made from organic goo that somehow conserves the essence of humanity in a robot to make me say "Nollocks" and then I can still say it was a decent game.
ED is believable in how it presents gravity. I can feel it and work with it. I can understand it and know there are limits. That is pretty sufficient, even if it's not realistic.
 
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