Why is ship interiors something that is not planned to be included if at least half the player base wants it?

[Deadlift]

You still have a fade out when you enter/out your ship. So no Armstrong moment TM

Well I didnt say it promised that, but it got around the limitations the engine has, to deliver an experience previously not possible.

Thats how I like my engineering, providing solutions.

 

[Mohenjo]

I keep saying it, but they could easily throw us a bone by letting us move about the flight decks of our ships. Heck, even at a bare minimum they could unlock the camera from the back of the bridge and let us move IT around the flight deck.

 

[Murfelton]

I keep saying it, but they could easily throw us a bone by letting us move about the flight decks of our ships. Heck, even at a bare minimum they could unlock the camera from the back of the bridge and let us move IT around the flight deck.

It’s almost as if the engine does not support players walking on the bridge of their ships.

Moving the camera around can be done in VR.

 

[CMDR Nef]

I think they're well aware of it!

Dunno. I'd rather have atmospheric worlds (and gas giants, and lava worlds!) if they're prioritising things.

I think there's probably more gameplay to be had in that direction than via interiors.

If you want a taste of gas giants while you wait, next SC patch adds flyable gas giants and floating cities.

 

[CMDR Nef]

Cause half the playerbase does not exist for them. Easy

Its funny that half in here argue that "half the playerbase is rubbish" while the other half argues it may just not be technically feasible...

While the issue is none of that.

1. If it isn't technically feasible (now or ever), just say so and don't give "if there'd be enough demand for it" - it was promised once why do we need to muster up demand for it now?
2. There's an easy way to figure "half the playerbase" demand out, by just looking at actual data, if it doesn't exist, gather it.

I have a huge problem with this deflection communication method, at this point I don't even care so much if its feasible or ever comes, as that ship has sailed for me.

Star Citizen is a good pointer for sure, because that game has buckall else going for it, BUT being able to bunch your mates into your ship and just go someplace (yes singular) and weirdly it works for a lot of people.
Another great example would be warframe that SURELY didnt think about being able to take people inside a ship when they built their engine.
(Their solution technically is also quite smart)

At this point I don't as well. I would care a hell of a lot more if Elite was all that existed. However, anything I want of Elite, is in SC. So I just go there when I want to drive around an Earth-like in a tank, or take a hover bike to an ecumonopolis. Or go swimming, or have a drink at a bar on my personal cruise liner space yacht, or fly around a gas giant's atmo, etc. It's all there. I can EVA in space and harvest stuff from a derelict freighter, buy a flight jacket and hat from an expo, save a hostage'd crew from pirates by boarding a ship and doing FPS combat with the pirates. Go to prison and slave away in the mines. I can basically do anything I want.

The fact that exists, is why I've been so passive with Elite for the last few years. At one time SC was nothing more than an arena space ship shooter, but as Fdev laid quiet, and delivered half baked system after system, and abandoned them never to return, the systems I wanted more of, would eventually get fleshed out in SC, so I'd just go there for my fix with the mindset of "If Fdev don't do it, they don't do it. I can always go sun tanning in SC whenever I want, or drink my coffee on my Carrack in the lounge."

 

[Miko]

Can we please stop calling the devs “lazy” for not adding ship interiors? (Or anything else, for what it matters.)

I am pretty sure, they don’t sit at a bar sipping drinks instead of working and adding the feature you want. Pretty sure.
So whatever the reason is - its probably not laziness! (Why is this insult even a thing, in internet forums? Does anybody really believe this?)

Their "Armstrong moment" alone proves how lazy they are, no contest. They could easily have had us load into an airlock and come down a ladder or ramp, but no, they teleport you out. Ridiculous to even excuse this.

 

[23RD]

Well, at least they could add some minor animations to ships, add ladder's/lift's movement and so on. Even with their teleport, that would boost immersion greatly and l, who knows, even imitate this "Armstrong moment". Just a bunch of animations to cover. But no, we got some GTA 3 circles. It's a disgrace and shame.

 

[HawkeyePc]

Because what the players want isn't necessarily a good investment into the game. You were given the reason every single time the question came up: No enough game to be worth the investment. If you disagree with the statement, tough. Got to come up with enough ideas fitting to Elite Dangerous to make ship interiors worthwhile gameplay content. Just shouting "BUT I WANNA!" doesn't cut it.

Being on the level with you good sir their can be tons of things that can be added that are of value I won't generate a long winded list because last time that got picked apart as people do have differing opinions of what would be great for ship interiors, but their can be a whole host of reasons to have them, and if Frontier sat down with their customers and asked, "Hey, what could we do to make interiors awesome?" and listened to the suggestions they could easily develop a significant list of functions that interiors could do that they could code into the game. Ontop of that their public opinion would skyrocket as it would show they care about what the customers want rather than spoon feeding us content and hoping we like it. And very high public opinion means increased revenue as people are faaar more likely to recommend the game to their friends. Valheim is a perfect example of this and its why they went from indie to AA in the scope of 6 months. And why they have a product that has Universal Acclaim.

Also it could be a big boon for them financially. as a properly implemented interior system would be another Sales vector for the ARX store. If they did a good job on interiors then I certainly wouldn't be beyond having custom themed corridors or interior segments of my ship.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I think personaly that having ship interiors is nearly impossible. Modelling, coding, designing, ... something that big for all the ships is like making a whole new game. They probably had to prioritise and chose on foot and athmospheric landing over ship interior. And that makes perfect sense. Like they previously said, modelling some of the ships is like modelling an entire level in a game. So bottom line, it's too hard. However I hope in the future we will be able to walk in our cockpits, cargo hold and use the tiny door on the back of the ship. Don't underestimate the size of some of those ships. I wanted ship interiors too, but I rather have on foot gameplay first.

Possibly don't model the entire ship interior? Like the stations, have e.g. a cabin, engine room, science lab, with a simple set up common to all ships. It would be a start.

 

[Murfelton]

Possibly don't model the entire ship interior? Like the stations, have e.g. a cabin, engine room, science lab, with a simple set up common to all ships. It would be a start.

The ships have bridges. VR players can “walk” on them already.

If the engine supports non-VR player avatars walking on the bridge, it would be straightforward to make the bridge walk-able: just slap a (temporary) curtain/wall at the limits of movement, with a “teleport hatch” that takes you to the SRV/exterior.

But if the engine does not support walking on the bridge, they can’t do that.

Ask yourself this: if the engine did support walking on the bridge, why didn’t they do it in Odyssey already? It’s a lot more plausible to believe that it does not. If it doesn’t, then the question is: how much effort does it take to add it to the engine?

 

[Deyangelo7]

The ships have bridges. VR players can “walk” on them already.

If the engine supports non-VR player avatars walking on the bridge, it would be straightforward to make the bridge walk-able: just slap a (temporary) curtain/wall at the limits of movement, with a “teleport hatch” that takes you to the SRV/exterior.

But if the engine does not support walking on the bridge, they can’t do that.

Ask yourself this: if the engine did support walking on the bridge, why didn’t they do it in Odyssey already? It’s a lot more plausible to believe that it does not. If it doesn’t, then the question is: how much effort does it take to add it to the engine?

I don't think it is a problem of them not being able to add the feature.

The problem is that they have ignored the player base's wishes and don't care.

The proof is in the pudding - Arthur said they are not even being considered.

Even worse - he gave a horrible reason to "back it up"

He said that in the stream, where he preached utter transparency and honesty. If it was too tough to implement Arthur would've said it, right?

Instead, he is going about it (supposedly with the truth) with the terrible gameplay excuse. The problem according to him is that 1. it is a bad idea and 2. that there wasn't enough player demand.

Even writing those two things makes me wanna punch through my PC.

So it's a problem of their ignorance and lack of creativity before it is about their inability to do it coding and animation-wise or whatever it takes.

Or did they lie through him again in the "honest" stream?

 

[Franc Kaos]

I'd like to see ship interiors but I can't say I blame FD for not putting them in. What's the point? Seriously: once you've wandered round a bit (and sniggered when finding the bog), what's the actual gameplay element? There isn't one, unless you own one of the bigger ships and can perhaps fight to repel boarders.

About three seconds after FD put ship interiors into the game, these forums would be melting down as people complained there was nothing to do so they're on a hiding to nothing if they ever decide to go down this route, not to mention the grind to unlock a new set of Engineers to "interior design" your ship...

Haven't you just described station concourses? and they're in the game. Sack the engineer idea and sell decs thru ARX and <redacted> the players who don't like it - some players don't like first person shooty shooty* but I'm sure they (mostly) don't begrudge the players that do.

* or powerplay / multiplayer / pirate attacks / grindy crafting / aliens locked off in instances...

 

[CMDR James Northstar]

I wish people understood. Implementing ship interiors would involve completely replacing the way the game currently thinks about ships.

Right now, when you're in space, you are not on the ship, you are the ship. Like, your ship is the player entity. The bridge is basically a fancy decoration that surrounds your camera. There's no zone in there to have your character be in.

Creating ship interiors would be a massive undertaking. Not from the standpoint of creating the art assets, that part is pretty straightforward, but from the the standpoint of changing the game logic, from your ship being your character to your ship being something your character is inside of and has control over.

 

[Deyangelo7]

I wish people understood. Implementing ship interiors would involve completely replacing the way the game currently thinks about ships.

Right now, when you're in space, you are not on the ship, you are the ship. Like, your ship is the player entity. The bridge is basically a fancy decoration that surrounds your camera. There's no zone in there to have your character be in.

Creating ship interiors would be a massive undertaking. Not from the standpoint of creating the art assets, that part is pretty straightforward, but from the the standpoint of changing the game logic, from your ship being your character to your ship being something your character is inside of and has control over.

We won't really find out if it's going to be easy or hard for them, will we, now? They are not even considering it.

 

[CMDR James Northstar]

We won't really find out if it's going to be easy or hard for them, will we, now? They are not even considering it.

Indeed. Probably for the reasons I mentioned. That would be a nightmare task, it'd probably be easier to just make a whole new game.

 

[Deyangelo7]

Indeed. Probably for the reasons I mentioned. That would be a nightmare task, it'd probably be easier to just make a whole new game.

So, AGAIN,

If the reasons are the ones you mentioned (nightmare task, what not) why don't they just say that instead of them giving all of the stupid reasons they gave?

This is exactly what I wrote several messages ago. The question was asked on a stream where Arthur was being all-out honest (judging by his words).

If the problem was the "nightmare task" why didn't he say "We know so many of you want it, we want to have it, but it is just too difficult"

He didn't say that, did he? He gave the demand and gameplay reasons, a.k.a, we are too creatively bankrupt and careless of the community to be bothered with it.

"Nightmare task" as you put it, is a perfectly valid reason. I, as a consumer, won't have anything against that, I'm not a programmer, not an animator, I will understand. But it's not the reason given unless they lied.

Again.

 

[Franc Kaos]

Good point.. i think they would have to make everyone strapped in for normal flight and only allow wandering in supercruise or docked/landed

Or only docked / landed since any interdiction would mean: Splat! instant death / rebuy screen

I wish people understood. Implementing ship interiors would involve completely replacing the way the game currently thinks about ships.

Right now, when you're in space, you are not on the ship, you are the ship. Like, your ship is the player entity. The bridge is basically a fancy decoration that surrounds your camera. There's no zone in there to have your character be in.

Creating ship interiors would be a massive undertaking. Not from the standpoint of creating the art assets, that part is pretty straightforward, but from the the standpoint of changing the game logic, from your ship being your character to your ship being something your character is inside of and has control over.

I think a bigger problem is specifying what's meant by Ship Interiors, the naysayers all seem to think it's every ship fully mapped out with new gameplay loops required and able to control your ship in flight; whereas with the pro group, many would be happy with just a bridge, crew quarters, warehouse<?> bay and SRV / SLF stations and yet other players would be content with just the bridge and turbolift to top of stairs / ladder.

Say we have the most basic implementation, no freedom to move around in flight so all it would require is a freecam (which would be like VR view which the game can accomodate) on the bridge, and a pressable button at the turbolift (I'd be happy with that but would prefer the middle option).

But yea, hoping for fully mapped out internals is probably a bit wishy...

 

[Pigletslastand]

TBH i just want Braben to come good on that video he made in 2012.. that's what I'm hopin for.. I know though that Elite is a huge an unwieldy technical beast so it could take as long as SC but dear goodness I hope not!

 

[Murfelton]

So, AGAIN,

If the reasons are the ones you mentioned (nightmare task, what not) why don't they just say that instead of them giving all of the stupid reasons they gave?

This is exactly what I wrote several messages ago. The question was asked on a stream where Arthur was being all-out honest (judging by his words).

If the problem was the "nightmare task" why didn't he say "We know so many of you want it, we want to have it, but it is just too difficult"

He didn't say that, did he? He gave the demand and gameplay reasons, a.k.a, we are too creatively bankrupt and careless of the community to be bothered with it.

"Nightmare task" as you put it, is a perfectly valid reason. I, as a consumer, won't have anything against that, I'm not a programmer, not an animator, I will understand. But it's not the reason given unless they lied.

Again.

The honest answer is almost certainly: the development effort for interiors is large, and not comparable to the gameplay value that they potentially provide. There is absolutely no need to go into the details of why this is the case.

They said something to that effect a long time ago.

Ship interior fans refused to believe this. Why should repeating that statement make any difference to the outcome of ship interior fans refusing to listen?

 

[Deyangelo7]

The honest answer is almost certainly: the development effort for interiors is large, and not comparable to the gameplay value that they potentially provide. There is absolutely no need to go into the details of why this is the case.

They said something to that effect a long time ago.

Ship interior fans refused to believe this. Why should repeating that statement make any difference to the outcome of ship interior fans refusing to listen?

So, I am going to take them at their final word, not the word of the people who are against Ship Interiors and don't support the idea.
So far, all we have is the fact that they don't care about the community's wishes and they don't think it will contribute to the game. And that's more than bad enough.