Why Space Legs?

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Ganogati said:
I had been laboring under the impression that they would be starting fresh, or relying on some underlying components of whatever engine they built ED on... if they can pull animations and reuse code from something else, that would change the scope of the project immensely.
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Yeah it’s all in their own engine (Cobra). So on the downside, no huge pre-existing ‘AAA character tech’ libraries to dive into as such, as they’ve never actually published something quite like that ;)

But on the plus side, the canned Outsider project was in dev for a long time, does fit that bill, and was intended to supplement ‘Elite 4’ (as it was then), seemingly.

I think there’s obviously a ton still to do. (That they spent ‘way over a year‘ on the Cmdr creator probably speaks well enough to that). Animation has doubtless moved on, zero-G combat wasn’t a staple of their police procedural, etc etc ;)

But yeah, they’re not starting completely from scratch on the Legs front. And in theory they’ve left some gaps for them to walk into (on the tech and the gameplay front).

Now we just have to wait for the grand entrance, to see if they get stuck in the door ;)
 

[VR] Dr Gentech

[VR] Dr Gentech
Space Legs are a great idea and I'm ecstatic the evidence is like 95% certain that they're coming in New Era. I bought this game to try and experience what it was like to live in an exciting, "realistic", far-future sci-fi galaxy because that excites me to no end, and it was disappointing when I couldn't figure out how to get out of my seat after docking at the station and a Google search told me that wasn't even possible and you literally never leave the (a) cockpit. A big part of the reason I stayed with the game past hour 2 was because that Google search also told me space legs was coming, according to the original Kickstarter. Now, I love this game and I'm no longer so dead set on space legs that I won't play it otherwise (obviously, I'm still here!) and I understand and appreciate it for what it is, but the fact remains that it's what a normal modern gamer not coming from flight simulators would expect, especially when they see No Man's Sky, Star Citizen, and Elite: Dangerous always grouped together. The SRV was cool because at least you can get behind the metaphorical wheel, but my biggest issue with it was that while I thought the Mako had poor handling boy howdy you ain't seen nothing yet, and I hope space legs is a much more "normal" walking experience than the SRV was a driving experience (please no QWOP for verisimilitude Fdev). I learned to use it though and it is quite a fun break from just constantly driving a ship (instead you're driving a rover! :p)

I don't particularly mind how they implement it, I'll still be "happy" enough to play the game occasionally if I can get out of my seat, but I would love it if they took cues from Fallout 4/Deus Ex/Subnautica in terms of mechanics, and added things to do like boarding ships, talking to voiced NPCs, firefights in stations and against Thargoids/Guardians, and some narrative set pieces associated with a story (I would love caves and better planet generation leading to exploring natural structures on foot, but I don't think they'll do that until they add atmospherics and there's no evidence that will come in New Era). That would be an amazing experience and I don't think it's at all beyond their capabilities, especially given how long they've been working on this and how totally the game is prepped for space legs and has been since the start.

I'd love for an assassination mission to send me after a pirate lord that I find in a bar on a station, I'm allied with the local faction so I can just unload on him as long as he's wanted (you get deputised and you get deputised, everyone gets deputised!), unfortunately his buddies distract me before I can drop his shield and he escapes to his ship and tries to flee the station, I follow him with a wake scanner and kill him before his minions show up (or more likely die because I'm a bad pilot lmao). There are so many great ways they could do content for space legs in this game that use existing mechanics and lore + FPS gameplay, I don't think "why?" is a good question. I think a better question is "Can", as in "Can Fdev do this thing justice?", which we won't know until it's released and we get to play with it.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Dr Gentech said:
I think a better question is "Can", as in "Can Fdev do this thing justice?", which we won't know until it's released and we get to play with it.
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Yep I think that’s where we’re at now :D

I’d love to have all the stuff you’re describing there. (The use of missions like assassinations extending into the character realm, NPC interaction, minor factions rolling the dice different ways. All that good stuff :))

When I try and bring myself back to pragmatism on what they might actually put out, I do sum up all the tech in Horizons though (a comparable timeframe, just with a dev-compromising delivery model). And, it’s not that impactful. Not as impactful as we’d like I suspect, on the Legs front ;)

I think character interaction is one area they’ll particularly struggle to match expectations. The proc gen gods will play some cruel games there, I’m fairly sure.

But on the plus side, there are some reasonable signs that stations will be opened up to some degree. And that does bring a lot of potential :)

I know many people fear just menu replication and long walks, but I think there’s room in there for FDev to throw us a curveball ;)

Will be intriguing to see what they do...
 

[VR] Dr Gentech

[VR] Dr Gentech
Golgot said:
Yep I think that’s where we’re at now :D

I’d love to have all the stuff you’re describing there. (The use of missions like assassinations extending into the character realm, NPC interaction, minor factions rolling the dice different ways. All that good stuff :))

When I try and bring myself back to pragmatism on what they might actually put out, I do sum up all the tech in Horizons though (a comparable timeframe, just with a dev-compromising delivery model). And, it’s not that impactful. Not as impactful as we’d like I suspect, on the Legs front ;)

I think character interaction is one area they’ll particularly struggle to match expectations. The proc gen gods will play some cruel games there, I’m fairly sure.

But on the plus side, there are some reasonable signs that stations will be opened up to some degree. And that does bring a lot of potential :)

I know many people fear just menu replication and long walks, but I think there’s room in there for FDev to throw us a curveball ;)

Will be intriguing to see what they do...
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Was Horizons in development for a similar timescale? I'd heard it wasn't that long but I wasn't around back then
 

[VR] Goooost

[VR] Goooost
Layne Vakarian said:
There's a lot of debate about when or if space legs are going to be a thing and that has raised an enormous question in my mind. Why? As in why are so many people so focussed on the apparent need for the ability to walk around. Whether it be your ship, on stations, on outposts, on planetary surfaces...

It sure sounds cool enough and without stopping to think about it, my initial reaction is always 'oh yes, I'll take it'.

Then however I do stop to think about it and it all just goes south:

What happens if the legs are mandatory? Do I suddenly need to walk from my cabin to the flight deck and take my seat before I can leave the station? How long before that gets old? Do I have to walk to damage control to repair my ship? To the cargo hold to repair the cargo hatch? To the 'limpet control centre' to program limpets?...

Or how about commodity trading? Do I have to walk to the market office? Walk back?

On planets. Do I have to leave the SRV to collect materials? Interact with biological features?

A lot of the dissatisfaction with ED seems to stem from just how long things take to achieve. Whether it be planetary scanning, ordinary mundane travel, supercruise, you-name-it. How does having legs do anything other than make matters even worse in that regard? Sure, it's immersive, but immersion for is own sake?

Then there's the FPS aspect (if it is there). How does that even begin to work? I don't mean to suggest that some players wouldn't love the ability to show off their Halo skills. Or their Battlefield 'n' skills. I didn't buy Elite to play Halo or Battlefield 'n' and I'm sure most others didn't either, so why? Isn't that going to be just another distraction from whatever it was you set out to do. Sure, I can stay in PGs or Solo to avoid other players, but you just know there'll be an NPC vs player version or otherwise the Solo/PG crowd would be up in arms complaining they are missing out.

I'm sorry, but the more I think about it the less attractive the idea becomes. Space legs in Elite is one of those options that ticks all the right boxes right up to the point where you start to think of the impact it would have on the game's unique selling point: It's a space-flight game. Legs, for immersion? Sure! For practicality and without adding way too much busywork in the form of 'walk here, pick up that, walk back' and variations thereof? Not so much.

So.

How do you see legs being implemented, and immersion aside, what will legs add without taking anything away?
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New and interesting game mechanics. I'm talking about boarding disabled ships, incapacitating the crew with projectile weapons, stripping the vessel for parts, and selling them on the black market.
In-flight repair and engineering could be a thing. Players could upgrade their component first-hand instead of using the spaceport services. There could be a lot of unique features to explore. One of the things I was thinking about was advanced ship tweaking. Say you want to route more power from your main engines to your pitch thrusters. Go to the back and unplug some tubes. Say you want your sheilds to be stronger in the front and weaker in the back. Go to electrical and switch some wires. These would basically be engineering blueprints for the ship itself, and would modify the values of any module that you had installed on board.

And lets not forget just how awesome it would just be for VR in general.
 

M_72

M_72
Layne Vakarian said:
There's a lot of debate about when or if space legs are going to be a thing and that has raised an enormous question in my mind. Why? As in why are so many people so focussed on the apparent need for the ability to walk around. Whether it be your ship, on stations, on outposts, on planetary surfaces...
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Anything that adds a new perspective is good in my onion. Imagine walking on a planet or moon, seeing the scale of things from that perspective. But there really needs to be interesting things to do in 'leg-mode' otherwise what's the point. I hope it isn't all just combat related, but also has exploration involved too. like finding things on planets that can only be discovered in leg mode.
 

[VR] Dr Gentech

[VR] Dr Gentech
M_72 said:
Anything that adds a new perspective is good in my onion. Imagine walking on a planet or moon, seeing the scale of things from that perspective. But there really needs to be interesting things to do in 'leg-mode' otherwise what's the point. I hope it isn't all just combat related, but also has exploration involved too. like finding things on planets that can only be discovered in leg mode.
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Do you have any ideas about what sort of things you could find on planets in leg mode?
 

Garel

Garel
Though my hope for space legs is that it will allow for new, interesting types of gameplay such as ship boarding, hostage taking and on planet assassination missions, an oft overlooked factor that legs would be a huge boon to, is game feel.

I've got plenty of mates who are hesitant to get into elite because they found the concept of being glued to the pilot chair extremely unappealing. And while I realise that this is a non- issue for most of us here, I think an influx of new players would do wonders for the game.

So mostly, I hope legs signal a slight shift in direction for elite, catering to a wider audience, and moving away from appealing mostly to grind obsessed "hardcore" crowd.
 

Augusta

Augusta
I can imagine what the cantinas would be like. We will sing songs in camaraderie and share tales of big booties and adventures.

...Or talk about politics, furries, and ganker-brags.

...whatever's cool.
 
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