Why no 3rd person?

[Zelos1983]

... invested in a game that keeps getting longer and longer to launch every year.

are you in a hurry? I'm not.
It's nice to see how they make progress. The gaming industry is so far behind, they have to do years of R&D. But in the end, we might have something great.
It already looks and performs better than E with it's limiting Cobra engine that Frontier fails to fix time and again.

 

[Cybermykl]

are you in a hurry? I'm not.
It's nice to see how they make progress. The gaming industry is so far behind, they have to do years of R&D. But in the end, we might have something great.
It already looks and performs better than E with it's limiting Cobra engine that Frontier fails to fix time and again.

I'd like to play it before I die. Instead, all we're doing is providing a R&D team and a production team a paycheck. Not to mention Chris and Erin a whopping golden parachute.

 

[Infidel Deity]

Having a way to see behind you would be a good addition, though. Even a car has a rear view mirror.

Amen to that! [yesnod]

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It already looks and performs better than E with it's limiting Cobra engine that Frontier fails to fix time and again.

different strokes and all that,

I backed SC as well however personally for me i find the entire FPS part very "meh" and is just generic. I cant believe i am using this example as a standard to aim for after disliking it for so long now, but the new COD imo shows how to do FPS in space if that is the sort of thing they want.

personally i hope ED takes more of an Adr1ft approach to their first person stuff.

SC in space, also, whilst it looks great, imo it just does not "feel" as good to play as elite. its all subjective of course but i still feel the optimal way to play SC is KB/M and that in my view just aint right for a space sim. I am in no rush at all and am happy i will get my monies worth out of S42 alone, however I am not expecting the actual main SC meat of the game to match elite (but i hope to be wrong).

its all subjective of course and totally get that some do not feel this way.

As for the 3rd person.... back when i actually had faith that open would be the mode i wanted to play in I was very worried about 3rd person view - and i am sure my concerns are already voiced in this thread - however now, personally i do not care one way or the other, so long as the game is balanced so as not to NEED to use such an arcade mode, then I am not fussed if FD added it for those who want to play Elite "Afterburner / Warthunder"

but it would totally ruin the tactics of PvPers who like to use stealth imo, unless a cooldown between the views was added..

 

[JerryLove]

Aren't you being somewhat optimistic on your timeline? They said the same thing when they had a Spring 2015 launch time frame. SC is the biggest ponzi scheme I've ever seen. Talk about dangling the carrot in front of the horse. I had the Rear Admiral package for over 2 years before I got my refund. In that time, I had a hangar and a beautiful ship that I COULDN'T FLY. I feel sorry for the people with 5 - 10 thousand, yes thousands of dollars invested in a game that keeps getting longer and longer to launch every year.

I don't think you know what a Ponzi scheme is (it's where you pay old investors with money from new ones).
You can now fly. And land. And fight. And get out of your ship and explore. And fight there too. And run missions.

You are unaware of how much this game already does for people who own it.

 

[JerryLove]

You don't have a HUD, target indicator etc in outside [3rd person] view, but you have a much better awareness of your immediate surroundings, including your enemies / possible threats in that area.

No you don't. I cannot speak for planet-side, but for E, you do not.

You might have a case with FoV, but that's actually independent of 3rd person (and there's a FoV setting right now in E I don't see you complaining about, nor do I see you complaining about multi-monitors, head tracking, or VR which all effectively improve your FoV)

Yes, we do have a radar that shall help us with situational awareness from within the pit, and used correctly it does help.. But you, as a combat sim 'veteran', know as well as i do, that seeing things on radar doesn't compare to seeing things for real [as 'real' as seeing things on a computer screen can be, i guess].

Also, in order to look at the radar, you glance down and lose sight of whats actually behind your cockpit glass, so by gaining 'rough' situational awareness from the RDR, you give up possible knowledge about exact positions of enemies in your FoV from inside the pit..

Anytime you look somewhere you aren't looking somewhere else. 3rd person doesn't change that.

Indeed: 3rd person does a lot to distort locations. Though there's very little you can actually see that isn't already in front of you (it must be very close to get in your FoV), what you can see you can't necessarily tell the position of. Is that ship above and in front, direct above, or above and slightly behind?

Indeed: without the HUD, your situational awareness is heavily reduced. That's the reason I don't use 3rd person mode. It's harder.

Yea, some virtual aviators know how to use 'Pilot Vision' [1 eye constantly scanning the instruments], but the cluttered and messy radar in E.D doesn't make it easy on us.. Don't get me wrong, in theory the 360degree + vertical deviation indication is great stuff, and works as long as you have only 5 contacts popping up.. but when the radar gets cluttered with contacts upon contacts upon stellar bodies, the radar actually is of very little help, especially when trying to fly 'Pilots Vision'...

Same with real vision; which is made worse by its longer range.

Time has no influence on physics, i completely agree.. yet i believe that in the year 3301 technology will have advanced a bit from now, maybe even to a point at which E.D like space flight is possible [maybe not].
Why are you trying to find points to 'prove me wrong'? As it stands, "it's all fiction anyways"... So, um.. Yea, Sorry!

E has little to no resemblance to actual space flight.

And if you think the issue is "advanced"... wow.

The shuttle orbits at 7,766 m/s. What's the top speed of a Cobra Mk III in real space again?
A Phoneix missile (one from the 60s, but one I know off the top of my head) has an effective range of about 200km. What's the effective range of a missile in E again?
A current rail gun fires in excess of 3,000 m/s. Fired munitions can be course-correcting and have an engagement range of 56km. What's the rail gun in E like?
Current tech could locate an ion drive at a distance of several AU. How far can E sensors see ships?

E then proceeds to ignore about every bit of physics you like, from how heat radiates to how radiation affects materials (hint: glass = bad), to what even the most efficient engines could manage for specific impulse.
The ships have crap-all in the way of proper interface. I'm serious: a 3rd-person view is more likely to be realistic than that window ever will be. The idea of massive engines in multiple directions, regardless of tech, is wasteful and would lose to a properly designed ship. There is not even a tip of the hat to the effects of acceleration (nor how to design a ship for it) despite the clear lack of artificial gravity. The list goes on and on.

I agree on the point saying E.D flies rather like IL2 than KSP, but that was the whole point of the game in the first place, wasn't it?
After all, fights in Star Wars look more like IL2 as well than they look like KSP [besides the space setting ofc]..

Funny you should bring that up. Lucas quite literally spliced together the entire Falcon-vs-Tie battle using footage from WWII movies. They then re-created it move-for-move with models.

*Citation needed* - really?
Tell me a proper combat sim that allows combat capable 3rd person view.. I'm sure you can't, because you stated yourself that you 'fight better from 1st person cockpit view' - which is very true in terms of lining up for the shots etc... There is a reason you don't have a pitch ladder in 3rd person in BMS or no crosshair in 3rd person in IL2 - as well as no instruments whatsoever.. the only flight sim i remember giving basic flight parameters while actively in 3rd person view is FSX, ad we all know that isn't a combat sim by any means [yes attempts have been made and there is good stuff available, but that's 3rd party content only]...

Freespace.

 

[n4p0l3on]

You are unaware of how much this game already does for people who own it.

lmao I have near 400 hours in ED and probably not even 30 hours in SC, because SC don't give me any substantial gameplay, and this is ED that is being criticized as mile wide and an inch deep game, add that I backed SC first and didn't even know about ED before late 2014, and I played WC/Freelancer while never played the previous Elite...

SC atm is a vaporware, and in comparison with ED it's a meter wide and a centimeter deep; the worst of all? it plays more like fps than space sim, BDSSE my ass.

 

[JerryLove]

lmao I have near 400 hours in ED and probably not even 30 hours in SC, because SC don't give me any substantial gameplay, and this is ED that is being criticized as mile wide and an inch deep game, add that I backed SC first and didn't even know about ED before late 2014, and I played WC/Freelancer while never played the previous Elite...

SC atm is a vaporware, and in comparison with ED it's a meter wide and a centimeter deep; the worst of all? it plays more like fps than space sim, BDSSE my ass.

SC, ATM, is a playable but unfinished game. You don't seem to know what "vaporware" is.

 

[Obi0914]

Well SC sounds awsome on paper but my buddy who bought one them "packages" was trying to play a bit of the game and boy it look really unfinished.

As for the Third Person view IMO i think they should leave it out, no sense on reducing the Sim immersion.

 

[JerryLove]

Well SC sounds awsome on paper but my buddy who bought one them "packages" was trying to play a bit of the game and boy it look really unfinished.

As for the Third Person view IMO i think they should leave it out, no sense on reducing the Sim immersion.

If you don't use it, it doesn't hurt your immersion.

Why do you think you should deny other people something they want because you aren't interested in using it?

 

[n4p0l3on]

SC, ATM, is a playable but unfinished game. You don't seem to know what "vaporware" is.

software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed.

you know they insist on SC not yet released and you only donate money to them right?

secondly, do you actually play games like SC and other flight sims in 3rd person while they have no assisting UI while in 3rd person mode? playing right? not just admiring the views or for taking screenshots? you do know they aren't playable that way right?

 

[JerryLove]

you know they insist on SC not yet released and you only donate money to them right?

I don't think that sentence make sense.

secondly, do you actually play games like SC and other flight sims in 3rd person while they have no assisting UI while in 3rd person mode? playing right? not just admiring the views or for taking screenshots? you do know they aren't playable that way right?

No. That's not a question. No. I disagree.

 

[Calebe]

I am ok with an external camera with the stipulation all weapons are inactive, and puts a 60 second count down on deploying weapons once you turn off the external camera. That way any tactical advantage is gone and we get some nice screen shots and enjoy the view. As for immersion people, don't like it don't use it.
.
Calebe

 

[lysan]

Because you're a pilot in a ship, not a pilot dragged by a tow rope outside the ship.

I agree with that statement...

 

[salad]

we would probably be blinded by the lens flares.

 

[Nuvey]

I understand the whole immersion factor playing from the cockpit, but why is there no 3rd person view option?

I doubt it's because of a design flaw, or the inability to provide a playable 3rd person perspective(seeing as there is an option to view your ship from that angle while in flight). I just don't understand why I can't play in 3rd person. Other than it would make fighting and landing a lot easier. We wouldn't want that, now would we...

This is why we need some sort of testing before people are allowed to post ideas to the internet.

 

[DaggerSnake]

So many hostile responses on this forum. I get it. You're extremely passionate about your game, but chill out.

Every flight sim I've ever played used 1st and 3rd person perspectives. Being able to view your entire ship does have it's advantages, but so does flying from the cockpit. I would prefer 3rd person if I had the choice, unless I was in VR.

Yea you'll find snarkiness and sarcastic comments on every forum. We all have thick skins by this point in the digital age though.

I love the idea of flying 3rd person. I think it would need to only be allowed in SOLO play though as it can influence sight lines on player in combat with players.

You're right about it being in all the flight sims. Another thing that would be great is a real time recording that we can play back and view from different angles. Most flight sims have that also.

These are all nice to have items though. Maybe sometime down the road. I would love third person once we can walk. First person games have a field of view like tunnel vision.

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Wait a min, third person in Elite would just put a camera right behind the seat of the pilot inside the cockpit. That would not be an easy way to fly!

 

[JerryLove]

I wouldn't mind seeing an option to use the same system used on the F-35 to give the pilot 360-degree vision. Getting rid of the canopy (and its proneness to getting shot) would be bonus.

 

[SanguisDiabolus]

I just want the external camera system to function better in order to take better screenshots and more diverse recording opportunities. It seems to me though that playing the game entirely from third person just wouldn't feel right. Think of the current set up, with all the useful info your holographic panels give you. Now think how foolish it would look to have all of that outside​ the ship.

 

[Khelder]

I would really like to have a 3rd person camera view that still allowed ship control. Not as a gameplay feature, but as a video production tool. This would enable better manoeuvring shots or even use of a secondary account as a "cameraman".