Greetings all,
So back during gamma when I was last playing one of the simple things that was missing was and external camera. I argued strongly in favour of one for many reasons but the simplest is that it gives players the option to enjoy one of the game's main assets (the beauty of space and ships) more. There are lots of other reasons too but let's not get distracted by that now, the only reason argued against it was concern over PvP advantage. Something that was spectacularly unimportant to me but out of deference to those who did find it important I always advocated it being unavailable in open. Anyway I digress.
Upon returning to check the game out one of the things I was most interest in was the fact they gave us access to the external "debug" camera. I was pretty excited by the possibilities both as a video maker and as a means of extending the enjoyment of the game. However, as I'm sure you can tell I was far from impressed by what I found, to say it's gimped is understatement. Frankly its so utterly terribly implemented it would almost be better not to have it at all.
For arguments sake let's just assume for a moment that this is indeed a PvP centric game and therefore preventing PvP advantage is the paramount concern (which seems like the only possible reason for such a hobbled external camera). Yet even under these circumstances I fail to see why there is a massive invisible box around my ship preventing me from getting in close and another preventing me from getting far away. I mean would it really be so bad if I could clip through my ship? I can clip through stations and noone seems to mind. God forbid I might want to fly the camera on a close pass of my own ships, let alone get a shot from inside the bridge without being bolted to the chair.
If it's worth doing, then surely it's worth doing right? For a game that makes such a big thing of community youtube content you'd think they'd want to bend over backwards to help video makers make the game look as good as possible and if players where actually able to use it to enhance their experience than that can only be a good thing right? But I'm not just here to complain, so here's my suggested fixes
1 - Remove clipping box around ship.
2 - Remove confirmation box, or give a don't show again toggle.
3 - provide an auto track ship button (where the camera will remain pointing at the ship as you move it around)
4 - provide an untether button (to release the camera from moving with the ship. combined with above gives the classic flyby shot)
5 - Give us some different control modes in addition to the current "fly" mode. For example orbit, free, maybe even tween through waypoints.
6 - In Solo only (if you must) let us toggle ship control or camera control. Shots of the ship actually flying around, shooting guns, firing thrusters and so one are just better and when not making videos it's still nice to be able to watch from out side as you land/depart a station, blast away at an asteroid with your mining laser or whatever. Yes this is less immersive for some people than being in first person, but please understand that for other people its actually more immersive and enjoyable when you can soak up the environment more. Especially those of us without VR and/or head tracking.
7 - Solo again, save the position of the camera when you jump back into the cockpit so we can nip in and out without losing our shot/camera angle.
Anyway, I'll not hold my breath but it would be really nice to see a little love for the external camera. The return in terms of more and better community content as well as enriching the experience for many regular players would be more than worth the effort in my opinion.
So back during gamma when I was last playing one of the simple things that was missing was and external camera. I argued strongly in favour of one for many reasons but the simplest is that it gives players the option to enjoy one of the game's main assets (the beauty of space and ships) more. There are lots of other reasons too but let's not get distracted by that now, the only reason argued against it was concern over PvP advantage. Something that was spectacularly unimportant to me but out of deference to those who did find it important I always advocated it being unavailable in open. Anyway I digress.
Upon returning to check the game out one of the things I was most interest in was the fact they gave us access to the external "debug" camera. I was pretty excited by the possibilities both as a video maker and as a means of extending the enjoyment of the game. However, as I'm sure you can tell I was far from impressed by what I found, to say it's gimped is understatement. Frankly its so utterly terribly implemented it would almost be better not to have it at all.
For arguments sake let's just assume for a moment that this is indeed a PvP centric game and therefore preventing PvP advantage is the paramount concern (which seems like the only possible reason for such a hobbled external camera). Yet even under these circumstances I fail to see why there is a massive invisible box around my ship preventing me from getting in close and another preventing me from getting far away. I mean would it really be so bad if I could clip through my ship? I can clip through stations and noone seems to mind. God forbid I might want to fly the camera on a close pass of my own ships, let alone get a shot from inside the bridge without being bolted to the chair.
If it's worth doing, then surely it's worth doing right? For a game that makes such a big thing of community youtube content you'd think they'd want to bend over backwards to help video makers make the game look as good as possible and if players where actually able to use it to enhance their experience than that can only be a good thing right? But I'm not just here to complain, so here's my suggested fixes
1 - Remove clipping box around ship.
2 - Remove confirmation box, or give a don't show again toggle.
3 - provide an auto track ship button (where the camera will remain pointing at the ship as you move it around)
4 - provide an untether button (to release the camera from moving with the ship. combined with above gives the classic flyby shot)
5 - Give us some different control modes in addition to the current "fly" mode. For example orbit, free, maybe even tween through waypoints.
6 - In Solo only (if you must) let us toggle ship control or camera control. Shots of the ship actually flying around, shooting guns, firing thrusters and so one are just better and when not making videos it's still nice to be able to watch from out side as you land/depart a station, blast away at an asteroid with your mining laser or whatever. Yes this is less immersive for some people than being in first person, but please understand that for other people its actually more immersive and enjoyable when you can soak up the environment more. Especially those of us without VR and/or head tracking.
7 - Solo again, save the position of the camera when you jump back into the cockpit so we can nip in and out without losing our shot/camera angle.
Anyway, I'll not hold my breath but it would be really nice to see a little love for the external camera. The return in terms of more and better community content as well as enriching the experience for many regular players would be more than worth the effort in my opinion.
