Will Elite Dangerous have Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs or Procedural Cities by 2019?

[Louis Calvert]

At Frontier Expo 2017 the highly anticipated features called Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs and full-scale Procedural Cities weren't announced for Elite Dangerous: Beyond.

The core-improvements that ED Beyond will bring sound awesome, but there wasn't really anything jaw-dropping. Personally I really like the Squadron (guilds), but we have to wait almost a year (Q4 2018).

Zac Antonaci seems to imply that Frontier hasn't even begun working on space legs "Spacelegs (as the community are dubbing them) is something that David B and the development team are very excited by and it’s certainly high on the list of features they would like to make. However, as we’ve mentioned before, “Spacelegs” is something further down the line." Yet in 2016 Braben said "Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."

David Braben's core vision for what Elite really is has always been about you're a person in a real futuristic setting, not just a ship.

An other upcoming space sim (which doesn't need to be named) showed live in-engine demonstrations of all these highly anticipated features. The thing is, we want to experience landing on atmospheric planets, space legs and full-scale procedural cities in Elite Dangerous too! We want to be fully immersed in the Elite universe.

On paper Frontier Developments is a bigger game developer. They recently got a major investment from Tencent, 17.7 million pounds ($23.2 million). However, they spread their resources across multiple franchises: Elite Dangerous, Planet Coaster, Jurassic World Evolution and another unannounced game (maybe Planet Safari).

This begs the question how long does Frontier want the Elite fans to wait for these features?

Can we expect to have either 1. Atmospheric Landings 2. Space Legs 3. Procedural Cities in any form in-game by 2019? I'm afraid that Frontier is putting Elite Dangerous on the back-burner and that it'll be just a dream.

Back in 1993 Frontier: Elite II had seamless atmospheric landings and full-scale procedural cities. So please Frontier: make our dreams come true in Elite Dangerous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqhP_e855C4

I think it's likely that well see some sort of "atmospheric planetary interaction" at some point soon. By that I mean flying 'inter atmo' above planets we can't land on and gas giants like cloud city. Probably along with that will come "cloud city" like stations and maybe cities seen from low orbit for earth-likes.

I imagine that'll form a phase 1, and later they'll add landable surfaces.

I imagine space legs will be the same, well get some small scale interaction area first, that will slowly expand. I can't see that happening for a while though.

 

[govny]

Wow, your answer is soooo original

I like Elite, what makes you think otherwise? I just believe that pointing the finger to a game because it's a mess of tech demos hastily mishmashed together to defend another mess of tech demos hastily mishmashed together is quite stupid and a little bit hypocritical, that's all.

so you like a mess of tech demos!
ok.

 

[LKx]

Exactly this. It's the huge amount of assets, design, AI and controls that would take the time. It would basically be a whole new game.

I wonder what people actually want the ability to walk around for. If it's just to shoot things, FPS style, then why not just go and play one of the many hundreds of FPS games out there... rather than try and turn Elite into something it's not?

Short of EVAs to repair ships (already handled with AFM and repair limpets), or a bar in a station (which might be 'fun' for all of 10 minutes), I honestly can't see the point.

But maybe I just lack imagination, or not interested in another way to pew-pew. One or both of those, maybe.

I think that a very limited amount of players here expect space legs to be focused on pew pew fps, probably for the reasons you mentioned (well, this doesn't mean it can't involve any shooting at all). About what it would be about, well, that's been already discussed in another (at least) thread.

However i agree that a good EVAs implementation would be a massive undertaking, and we won't see it anytime soon... If ever.
(Still if somebody here are right about not being that technical challenging for the current implementation, I'd like to see ship walking as a bonus in a mixed content expansion, for the fun of it)

 

[M00ka]

I think the biggest problem FD face in regard to space legs (I still prefer the term 'Elite Feet' lol) is whatever they do, it will never be enough.

Community begs FD for the ability to walk around the cockpit (logical since it is already fully modelled) - After 5 minutes of walking around, the average player is bored, goes back to what they were doing before

Community says to FD, hey we're bored in the cockpit, we want to walk around our ships in the outfitting bay - For the first week, the forum is flooded with selfies of Commanders in front of their ships, but even that gets old quickly

Hey FD, says the Community, we want to be able to walk around the station, we know you have modded it - Great rejoicing is heard, but then everyone realises that there is nothing to interact with, just lots of walking (and Commanders getting squished by landing ships)

Community cries out, 'FD, give us something to do in the station, give us a shopfront for Missions' - FD cave in, completely redo the Mission sub-routine, create Employment Agency shops in every station, back stories for the Agency. Players soon realise that it is exactly the same as using the Mission tab in the Station menu, and as time is a premium, ignore the shopfront because it is quicker and easier to do it the old way.

Suggestions start mounting up requesting a bar where all the cool Commanders can hang out and swap space stories - FD try really hard on this one, but since they still can't get the matchmaking system work to allow three Commanders to wing up, trying to work their system to allow an untold number of players to all be in the same instance in a bar proves to be umm problematic. Numerous posts from players complaining they never see any other players in the bar when they are playing Solo.

And we haven't even left the station yet ....

 

[Cosmo]

I think the biggest problem FD face in regard to space legs (I still prefer the term 'Elite Feet' lol) is whatever they do, it will never be enough.

Community begs FD for the ability to walk around the cockpit (logical since it is already fully modelled) - After 5 minutes of walking around, the average player is bored, goes back to what they were doing before

Community says to FD, hey we're bored in the cockpit, we want to walk around our ships in the outfitting bay - For the first week, the forum is flooded with selfies of Commanders in front of their ships, but even that gets old quickly

That's with everything they do. Some things are quite basic like mining and multicrew. So that deserves to be improved.

Basic features like walking + weapons + Holo-me in ships and maybe on planet surfaces will open new exciting ways to experience the game.

Being stuck in a seat has gotten old months ago. It seems we'll be stuck in our pilot seat for another year. :/

By the way, in this old video The Future of Elite: Dangerous most people say they want to walk around.

[video=youtube;8yd-m9AR7mY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yd-m9AR7mY[/video]

However i agree that a good EVAs implementation would be a massive undertaking, and we won't see it anytime soon... If ever.
(Still if somebody here are right about not being that technical challenging for the current implementation, I'd like to see ship walking as a bonus in a mixed content expansion, for the fun of it)

Space legs just means a free floating camera locked to a height of 1,8m and some collision checks. You can already walk around your ship using VR today. The challenge is to add meaningful interactions amd game mechanics, adding the ability to walk around would take less than a few hours.

A basic version isn't a massive project. It would satisfy a lot of people. Those who buy the DLC would expect more later on.

So a variation of the old 'Elite is a space game, we don't need legs ' argument. Just because, in your words, ED is currently a 'space /planetary simulator' , it doesn't preclude the possibility of ED evolving into something with a wider scope.

I don't see why NPCs and vehicular movement would require the different planet types. The best place to start with them is in a relatively controlled environment like a city. These things are more part of space legs than atmospheric landing. Once you've got legs sorted out you can start to consider the possibility of landing on Earth like planets.

Seconded.

As for the question, what meaningful gameplay is there for EVA. Well hundreds of games have already shown the possibilities like Mass Effect, GTA, Halo, Battlefront, Uncharted, Hellion etc.

 

[Johaunna]

END of 2019
1 completely new ship: Maybe, hard to say.
Simple atmospheric planets: NO!
Complex atmospheric planets: NO! ..lol
Space legs: NO! ...lolololol
Procedural generated cities: NO! ... you are kidding, right?!, stop it please.

Now, realistically:
New skins for your sidewinder: YES!
New powerplay faction THARGOIDS: YES!
New engineers: YES! YES! YES! plz, MORE!!!!111oneoneone
and finally...
CLOSE QUARTERS COASTER CHAMPIONSHIP PLANET 2 (with Dinosaurs!!!): YEEEEEES! NEEEED, NEEED!

 

[Cheapchips]

Blimey. Life really does find a way!

Since we are getting paid content next year I'm expecting atmospheric planets. It's top of the list of what the community want and they've had two years to build on their existing tech. Beige plague aside, Horizons planets are an amazing starting point.

Other than a cool landing sequence and sight seeing I'm not sure what landing will bring to the gameplay. The sight seeing is factor enough for me to go on another long distance explore so I'll be happy.

From a raw gameplay perspective, space legs is such a rich vain of possibilities. I can see them reasonably doing player size ships boarding/salvaging in the 2019 expansion. Megaships, stations, bases though? That's more than a GTA's worth of art, even with proc gen interiors.

I can't see planet side cities being a thing until earth likes are landable, possibly even after that. Well after 2019 then.

 

[smiths121]

END of 2019
1 completely new ship: Maybe, hard to say.
Simple atmospheric planets: NO!
Complex atmospheric planets: NO! ..lol
Space legs: NO! ...lolololol
Procedural generated cities: NO! ... you are kidding, right?!, stop it please.

Now, realistically:
New skins for your sidewinder: YES!
New powerplay faction THARGOIDS: YES!
New engineers: YES! YES! YES! plz, MORE!!!!111oneoneone
and finally...
CLOSE QUARTERS COASTER CHAMPIONSHIP PLANET 2 (with Dinosaurs!!!): YEEEEEES! NEEEED, NEEED!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/240559493010817025/379504235768840192/hqdefault.jpg

Sarcasm was high in this one. But had to rpe for "CLOSE QUARTERS COASTER CHAMPIONSHIP PLANET 2"

I admit I would be tepted by Thargoid PP as well.

Agree with your top list though. We have 2 updates next year, and arguably 2 more in 2018. I think they would have announced some of the above if it was in 2018 (even paid for DLC at the XPO), so we might get one of the list in 2019, I am expecting has giant gameplay first though.

Simon

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I think the biggest problem FD face in regard to space legs (I still prefer the term 'Elite Feet' lol) is whatever they do, it will never be enough.

..

if its a paid expansion i agree "just" walking around our ship is not enough... but, as per earlier dev chat / ddf etc, walking around our ship and EVA is meant to incude adhoc repairs to our ship, boarding, salvage etc.

imagine us getting our asses kicked, we manage to jump away with catestrophic fauilure... we have to get to an asteroid belt or something to hide, at which point we then get to go eva and repair our ship.

OR

we see a USS and drop in, it is the aftermath of a thargoid attack, with the alien ships no where to be seen..... there is a clipper there with bad damage but a ships scan seems to show it has some engineered components inside, but we need to get to the ships controls to eject the part

OR

i have just been battling some npc*****, they escaped but their ship is in bad shape. I scanned their wake and followed. they are hiding somewhere, so i need to use a scanner to locate it, then i can board, kill the crew and steal the ship. ****

**** this last one is in the dev diaries, however logistically, the issue here is i suspect many players will not want other players boarding their ships and stealing their stuff..... so unless they make it npc only it is going to generate friction... however we all knew ship boarding and stealing was on the cards so FD must not let complainers stop this from happening imo.

TLDR

when people ask for walking around their ship, i very much doubt they mean JUST walking around there ship, it needs, and indeed FD have talked about, content to go with it.

 

[Fosdyke]

if its a paid expansion i agree "just" walking around our ship is not enough... but, as per earlier dev chat / ddf etc, walking around our ship and EVA is meant to incude adhoc repairs to our ship, boarding, salvage etc.

imagine us getting our asses kicked, we manage to jump away with catestrophic fauilure... we have to get to an asteroid belt or something to hide, at which point we then get to go eva and repair our ship.

OR

we see a USS and drop in, it is the aftermath of a thargoid attack, with the alien ships no where to be seen..... there is a clipper there with bad damage but a ships scan seems to show it has some engineered components inside, but we need to get to the ships controls to eject the part

OR

i have just been battling some npc*****, they escaped but their ship is in bad shape. I scanned their wake and followed. they are hiding somewhere, so i need to use a scanner to locate it, then i can board, kill the crew and steal the ship. ****

this last one is in the dev diaries, however logistically, the issue here is i suspect many players will not want other players boarding their ships and stealing their stuff..... so unless they make it npc only it is going to generate friction... however we all knew ship boarding and stealing was on the cards so FD must not let complainers stop this from happening imo.

TLDR

when people ask for walking around their ship, i very much doubt they mean JUST walking around there ship, it needs, and indeed FD have talked about, content to go with it.

With all the DDF stuff and all threads around space legs FDEV will have lots of ideas and concept to work with

 

[babelfisch]

if its a paid expansion i agree "just" walking around our ship is not enough... but, as per earlier dev chat / ddf etc, walking around our ship and EVA is meant to incude adhoc repairs to our ship, boarding, salvage etc.

imagine us getting our asses kicked, we manage to jump away with catestrophic fauilure... we have to get to an asteroid belt or something to hide, at which point we then get to go eva and repair our ship.

OR

we see a USS and drop in, it is the aftermath of a thargoid attack, with the alien ships no where to be seen..... there is a clipper there with bad damage but a ships scan seems to show it has some engineered components inside, but we need to get to the ships controls to eject the part

OR

i have just been battling some npc*****, they escaped but their ship is in bad shape. I scanned their wake and followed. they are hiding somewhere, so i need to use a scanner to locate it, then i can board, kill the crew and steal the ship. ****

this last one is in the dev diaries, however logistically, the issue here is i suspect many players will not want other players boarding their ships and stealing their stuff..... so unless they make it npc only it is going to generate friction... however we all knew ship boarding and stealing was on the cards so FD must not let complainers stop this from happening imo.

TLDR

when people ask for walking around their ship, i very much doubt they mean JUST walking around there ship, it needs, and indeed FD have talked about, content to go with it.

Personally I would be fine with basic space legs 2018 (walk around you ship, visit station contacts, commodity markets, etc) and content updates for the next few years to fully flesh it out. Same for more planet types. Wouldn't work well with the naysayers though:

"I told you they can't add real space legs"
"Is that all? Is that meant to be a joke?"
"You are kidding us, aren't you"?
"Another half baked feature, well done FDEV, well done!"
"This isn't what you promised us during kickstarter! I want to kill dinosaurs!"
"3 years for adding what is basically just a different camera mode... You reached a new low FDEV"
"Do you honestly expect people to pay for that?"
"Stop adding shallow new features, flesh out what we have instead!"
"Space legs is just like the game, a mile wide, an inch deep..."
And my favourite: "Nobody asked for space legs."

 

[InlineSix]

They also showed nothing of space legs.

Which is either 100% secrecy or 100% lack of interest in Elite's further development. Why? Because they got the tech for it. How did they call it? Cobra Engine? Don't remember, I clearly remember the tech demonstration in GTA style, though...

 

[Vasea Azure]

Which is either 100% secrecy or 100% lack of interest in Elite's further development. Why? Because they got the tech for it. How did they call it? Cobra Engine? Don't remember, I clearly remember the tech demonstration in GTA style, though...

I think it was Project Outsider:

[video=youtube;Glr71X-cr84]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glr71X-cr84[/video]

 

[Whitehair]

Which is either 100% secrecy or 100% lack of interest in Elite's further development. Why? Because they got the tech for it. How did they call it? Cobra Engine? Don't remember, I clearly remember the tech demonstration in GTA style, though...

How does the announced 'No atmospheric planets, No space legs' and then showing nothing about 'atmospheric planets or space legs' (see previous announcement), become '100% secrecy or 100% lack of interest in Elite's further development'?

And for a more up to date version of Frontiers 'legs' tech, just watch anything from Planet Coaster:
[video=youtube;c2ue1Ksv3yE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ue1Ksv3yE[/video]

 

[AbsinthSvK]

Personally I would be fine with basic space legs 2018 (walk around you ship, visit station contacts, commodity markets, etc) and content updates for the next few years to fully flash it out. Same for more planet types. Wouldn't work well with the naysayers though.

this is exactly what i want. I want to feel small compare to ships, stations. I want to running around ship interior and panic when ship taking hits. Yes i want human camera on feet.

I dont care about atmospheric planets because it will be the same as no-atmospheric with some effects.
I dont care about aliens, because its basically existing npcs with new ships.
I dont care about new ships, already plenty in game and countless combinations with engineering.
I dont care about procedural cities. Because they will be empty and without life. When you want cities, wait for star citizen they have plenty of resources make it.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Personally I would be fine with basic space legs 2018 (walk around you ship, visit station contacts, commodity markets, etc) and content updates for the next few years to fully flesh it out. Same for more planet types. Wouldn't work well with the naysayers though:

"I told you they can't add real space legs"
"Is that all? Is that meant to be a joke?"
"You are kidding us, aren't you"?
"Another half baked feature, well done FDEV, well done!"
"This isn't what you promised us during kickstarter! I want to kill dinosaurs!"
"3 years for adding what is basically just a different camera mode... You reached a new low FDEV"
"Do you honestly expect people to pay for that?"
"Stop adding shallow new features, flesh out what we have instead!"
"Space legs is just like the game, a mile wide, an inch deep..."
And my favourite: "Nobody asked for space legs."

Considering how burnt FD got with Horizons - "just empty planets with nothing to do" - yeah, space legs just for space legs won't cut it anymore. I want space legs when a) NPCs will have their voices via voice synth b) mission system will be matured to the point it feel so natural we will forget about it b) ED base game requirements are upped by several notches.

Everybody asking for space legs sooner - I understand you, and I wouldn't mind too. But FD have game to sell, and unfortunately it will mean another Horizons early sales disaster.

Steam and other places are full of 'space leg games' which excels at some of features, but fails at others. However, to make them integral of ED, huge work is required.

If anything can be silver lining here, then I still think EVA in space and in ships will be first thing that it will arrive.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Considering how burnt FD got with Horizons - just empty planets with nothing to do - yeah, space legs just for space legs won't cut it. I want space legs when a) NPCs will have their voices via voice synth b) mission system will be matured to the point it feel so natural we will forget about it b) ED base game requirements are upped by several notches.

Everybody asking for space legs sooner - I understand you, and I wouldn't mind too. But FD have game to sell, and unfortunately it will mean another Horizons sales disaster.

I agree on the whole. I don't expect spacelegs/elite feet for at least another couple of years, so around 2020 time at best. It needs to have some compelling gameplay attached to it, otherwise nobody will use it and it will not get developed any further.

I am not bothered about voice synth, I am happy to read stuff like other MMO's out there, but I would like to see some dialogue trees with a number of options and a barter system when getting missions, so that it is not just a a rinse and repeat of the mission board. It is something different.

Black markets could be expanded with missions and a rep system with the buying of illegal goods instead of just getting someone to remove the stuff in your cargo hold. Basically Elite Feet needs to give you more options then what is currently available at the station services otherwise there will be not point in using it in stations.

Then there are the mission objectives that could be much better then what we have now, which others have already mentioned.

The repair of ships: I would change how repair limpets and the AMFU works. I would have them as band aids, which are useful to have when exploring and in combat, but they degrade much faster then a full on repair, which you would need to do physically with maybe an EVA trip around the hull to fix the hull properly, a trip to engineering to fix your powerplant, maybe using synthesis to synthesize component for you ships at the syntheis station. You may need to find some and/or have some on your ship allready to create the replacement parts.

I may change the repair and reboot mechanic so that if something can only be fixed up to 25% max, anything above that doesn't get touched (I am not sure how it works as it is). So you can either limp back to a station with multiple malfunctions (SC will keep malfuntioning, so you may be coming out of SC at times) or do the repairs yourself.

 

[Hator.Lethos]

I agree on the whole. I don't expect spacelegs/elite feet for at least another couple of years, so around 2020 time at best. It needs to have some compelling gameplay attached to it, otherwise nobody will use it and it will not get developed any further.

I am not bothered about voice synth, I am happy to read stuff like other MMO's out there, but I would like to see some dialogue trees with a number of options and a barter system when getting missions, so that it is not just a a rinse and repeat of the mission board. It is something different.

Black markets could be expanded with missions and a rep system with the buying of illegal goods instead of just getting someone to remove the stuff in your cargo hold. Basically Elite Feet needs to give you more options then what is currently available at the station services otherwise there will be not point in using it in stations.

Then there are the mission objectives that could be much better then what we have now, which others have already mentioned.

The repair of ships: I would change how repair limpets and the AMFU works. I would have them as bad aids, which are useful to have when exploring and in combat, but they degrade much faster then a full on repair, which you would need to do physically with maybe an EVA trip around the hull to fix the hull properly, a trip to engineering to fix your powerplant, maybe using synthesis to synthesize component for you ships at the syntheis station. You may need to find some and/or have some on your ship allready to create the replacement parts.

I may change the repair and reboot mechanic so that if something can only be fixed up to 25% max, anything above that doesn't get touched (I am not sure how it works as it is). So you can either limp back to a station with multiple malfunctions (SC will keep malfuntioning, so you may be coming out of SC at times) or do the repairs yourself.

I really like your ideas with the Black Market Mission. Metinks it would greatly improve gameplay and add to variety of missions and if Fdev can manage to flesh it out with some barter system I would be hyped. o7

 

[AbsinthSvK]

Considering how burnt FD got with Horizons - "just empty planets with nothing to do" - yeah, space legs just for space legs won't cut it anymore.

Wait what? Planets, SRV and engineering are best things in past few years. Burnt? No way. Every other features are burnt. CqC, multicrew, holo-me, aliens.

 

[govny]

this is exactly what i want. I want to feel small compare to ships, stations. I want to running around ship interior and panic when ship taking hits. Yes i want human camera on feet.

if you want to feel small I suggest you to buy a VR headset. You will have the feeling of the real dimension of ships and stations and you can even walk around in your cockpit and with the camera mode you can use it to have the feeling to walk around in stations.
obviously it would be better to also have space legs.