Will those earth like planets be landable in Odyssey?

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

FDev rarely invent something, then re-invent something else with a similar meaning. The Stellar Forge already assigns a thickness to the atmosphere type classification: they are "thin", "thick", or no adjective which is presumably equivalent to "normal". You can't see these classifications in-game but they're there in the journal files, so you can see them on EDSM. If Odyssey 1.0 is only getting "tenuous atmospheres", that probably equates to us just getting the atmospheres currently rated as "thin". On that basis, the only new world in Sol system that would become landable in Odyssey is Pluto, with it's "thin methane" atmosphere.

All Earth-like atmospheres are rated "normal", no matter how thick or thin they actually are in terms of atmospheric pressure, so if this theory is true, we won't be getting any Earth-likes in the first iteration.

Like i said, i dont expect earth-likes to be landable. Perhaps a better way to have said would be how fdev twists words.

 

[Jibroni Gibironi]

Well, one big difference between the bodies in Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous is all the ones in SC have been hand crafted and therefore are very detailed but there aren't very many of them. In ED the bodies have been procedurally generated and we have the entire Milky Way (400 Billion Systems). FD will have to decide if they're going to create programs to procedurally generate cities and if they do are they going to look good? (perhaps not) Are they going to all look pretty much the same? (perhaps) Are people on here going to be happy with that? (perhaps not)

They could hand craft a few cities and use them as templates, or baselines and procedurally generate them on different planets so they'll have some distinct variations. Only the planets in a star system that has an actual burning sun would generate a city, and the planet would of course have to be within the 'Goldilocks' zone. Like, just make a futuristic version of most or all of the major cities, like LA, Detroit, Miami, Paris, London, Dubai, Taiwan, Beijing, Tokyo, etc, and then throw them all into the procedural generator to create some small variations between them.. You can only make a city look so many ways, or so outlandish and "futuristic" before it starts to look ridiculous, so I think people would be satisfied with it.

 

[Vitalii Magnov]

How would Earth look like in ED at its present day? Is there any concept illustration available? I know there was a big war.
Wouldn't it be the case adding to the lore another big bada bum conlict in which aliens would vaporize all the big cities, so players don't go looking for their homes at 20 fps when this dlc arrives at some point?

 

[Sapyx]

They could hand craft a few cities and use them as templates, or baselines and procedurally generate them on different planets so they'll have some distinct variations. Only the planets in a star system that has an actual burning sun would generate a city, and the planet would of course have to be within the 'Goldilocks' zone. Like, just make a futuristic version of most or all of the major cities, like LA, Detroit, Miami, Paris, London, Dubai, Taiwan, Beijing, Tokyo, etc, and then throw them all into the procedural generator to create some small variations between them.. You can only make a city look so many ways, or so outlandish and "futuristic" before it starts to look ridiculous, so I think people would be satisfied with it.

I have always assumed that, even if landing on proc-genned Earth-likes became possible, that landing on Earth itself will be a "special case": that you'll have to request landing permission from orbit, be assigned a glidepath that you must follow or be destroyed by orbital god-guns, and arrive at the designated starport-city. Trying to leave the starport and explore the rest of the planet, either in your ship, in an SRV or on foot and you would also get you god-gun obliterated, or hit a magic impenetrable forcefield. It's the only way to get around the "rendering a realistic entire Earth" problem: this way, they only need to hand-craft a dozen or so starport-cities a few square km in area in high-res and don't need to worry about hand-crafting the rest of the planet to the degree that appeasing the "hey I can't find my hometown" crowd would require.

 

[Thatchinho]

There is absolutely no way ELWs generically are coming in Odyssey.

Can’t really believe it’s even being suggested that they might.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

There is absolutely no way ELWs generically are coming in Odyssey.

Can’t really believe it’s even being suggested that they might.

But, but, but ; they've only shown us a 'vertical slice' so far ...

 

[Jibroni Gibironi]

How would Earth look like in ED at its present day? Is there any concept illustration available? I know there was a big war.
Wouldn't it be the case adding to the lore another big bada bum conlict in which aliens would vaporize all the big cities, so players don't go looking for their homes at 20 fps when this dlc arrives at some point?

I don't think there is any concept art. But if they want to remain half way plausible with it, there wouldn't be any flying cars, or entire planets covered with a mega city, or some nonsense like what we've seen in other science fiction media like Star Wars and Fifth Element. The cities would just look more exotic if anything, totally recognizable but nothing too otherworldly looking.

I have always assumed that, even if landing on proc-genned Earth-likes became possible, that landing on Earth itself will be a "special case": that you'll have to request landing permission from orbit, be assigned a glidepath that you must follow or be destroyed by orbital god-guns, and arrive at the designated starport-city. Trying to leave the starport and explore the rest of the planet, either in your ship, in an SRV or on foot and you would also get you god-gun obliterated, or hit a magic impenetrable forcefield. It's the only way to get around the "rendering a realistic entire Earth" problem: this way, they only need to hand-craft a dozen or so starport-cities a few square km in area in high-res and don't need to worry about hand-crafting the rest of the planet to the degree that appeasing the "hey I can't find my hometown" crowd would require.

Well, we don't have to worry about landing on earth itself. We'll have plenty of other cities to land on anyway. Trying to make earth with its tons of cities, and being able to walk around in them would be a massive project all on its own, even more so than simply generating random cities for different planets, so that for sure ain't never happening. As far as there being ATC guidelines to follow, for that to be viable, practically the entire means by which we plan routes would have to be redesigned, so it likely wouldn't be worth the trouble. We're talking about selecting waypoint's, picking Standard Terminal Arrival Routes, Departure Procedure routes, having a scheduled arrival time to the airport or landing pad, etc. As much as I'd like to see them take it that far, its still a lot of work, and should only be left to games like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. Just adding simple no fly zones would suffice, no need to take it any further than that.

 

[Athum]

I guess some what is now called high metal content world may be accessible, those covered by deserts with martian-like atmosphere and minimum or no weather effects

 

[Sapyx]

How would Earth look like in ED at its present day? Is there any concept illustration available? I know there was a big war.

There was a big war: World War III, which killed billions, wreaked environmental havoc and wiped many cities and entire countries off the map. In the prequel games (which is all we really have to go off for conditions on 33rd century Earth), Earth had seven starports: London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, New Moscow, New San Francisco and Sydney. In FE2, there were cities in these locations and nowhere else on Earth. I strongly suspect the whole "WWIII" plotline was invented to explain why every other city on Earth were nowhere to be found.

We don't know if this seven-starports situation has been retconned in ED. All we "know" about the surface of Earth is the pattern of lights visible on Earth's dark side, which doesn't match up with 20th century patterns at all. For example, if the brightness of city lights are any indication, then the largest city in England in 3306 is Shrewsbury, with London reduced to a tiny barely-visible hamlet. But I suspect this too will be retconnned, once Earth and the other Earthlikes become landable (whenever that happens).

 

[Susanna]

Reported for having hope.

LoL... Nice one! You are as cynical as me! A man I can actually relate to! Who would have thought it possible. Most men just tell you what they think you want to hear. But that doesn't seem to be your way!

Even SC is more likely to be completed and actually published as a 'finished game' than ED get the same level of detail along with atmospherics and cities.

 

[Jibroni Gibironi]

LoL... Nice one! You are as cynical as me! A man I can actually relate to! Who would have thought it possible. Most men just tell you what they think you want to hear. But that doesn't seem to be your way!

Even SC is more likely to be completed and actually published as a 'finished game' than ED get the same level of detail along with atmospherics and cities.

With Chris Roberts at the helm, I don't think so. That dude is a sick JOKE, incompetence personified. Almost ten years later, and the game hasn't even been fine tuned at a basic level. Elite Dangerous even now is the more complete game, and if Odyssey works as planned, its game over for them, with or without cities.

 

[Susanna]

Landing on planets like Trenco would be fun

The planet Trenco

TRENCO excerpt from Galactic Patrol - 1937 Judged by any earthly standards the planet Trenco was—and is—a peculiar one indeed. I...

thelensuniverse.blogspot.com

You'll have to have read E. E. Doc Smiths amazing Lensmen series to really get it I think. Some of the best space opera I've ever read!

 

[Susanna]

With Chris Roberts at the helm, I don't think so. That dude is a sick JOKE, incompetence personified. Almost ten years later, and the game hasn't even been fine tuned at a basic level. Elite Dangerous even now is the more complete game, and if Odyssey works as planned, its game over for them, with or without cities.

I've bought the basic SC package (out of utter frustration after one of the particularly spectacular fails of ED, I can't remember which one now) but I haven't even updated it to the current version. I can't say I like Roberts vision in this game. Do I really need to spend 10 minutes of travelling across town so that I can get to my ship before I can even take off... Really? Fun the first time, but I really need a means of bypassing all of that too! Anyway, I agree with you re Chris, he is an almighty [REDACTED] that is just stupifying in scale. He has his own gravy train. Nice for him...

 

[Ayn Otori]

I would love this but probably no. I would even want EL's looking like Kerbal planets. Is that launches on Oddysee day, I'd be happy.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

I surely do hope this is the plan, if not in Odyssey then sometime afterward. It would make those missions where you have to collect water so much easier. I can scoop up all the water I'll ever need on on one of those planets. Considering that they are clearly colonized with cities, it doesn't make sense for us to not be able to land there.

here's a sneak peek to legs and the wonderful textured terrain they will create, sweeping valleys, towering mountains, geysers and massive volcanoes, you know like the stuff we were told we'd get on ice planets.......

 

[Arindor]

We already have barren planets to land on and we haven't seen those beautiful ice planets yet. So, based on that and the teaser vid I expect them to be wastelands of sand dunes with the odd settlement here and there. Not expecting much tbh but you never know if FD will draw an ace.

 

[Nadreck]

I'd be OK with not being able to land on inhabited planets. Saves the hassle of having to generate cities, roads etc (and the even greater hassle of having to replicate Earth itself), and easily justifiable in-game by "landing restrictions" because the locals don't want spaceships dropping onto them.

But I really hope they can sort out procgen terrain and life for uninhabited ELW's.

 

[Wasp0]

I don't care if it's years out, I will wait!

You won't !! Not FD's timescales you won't

 

[[VR] wi03016]

I surely do hope this is the plan, if not in Odyssey then sometime afterward. It would make those missions where you have to collect water so much easier. I can scoop up all the water I'll ever need on on one of those planets. Considering that they are clearly colonized with cities, it doesn't make sense for us to not be able to land there.

This will never happen for ED.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I surely do hope this is the plan, if not in Odyssey then sometime afterward. It would make those missions where you have to collect water so much easier. I can scoop up all the water I'll ever need on on one of those planets. Considering that they are clearly colonized with cities, it doesn't make sense for us to not be able to land there.

FWIW I suspect other planet types to appear after the Odyssey release as DLC that can be bought as individual packs or as one big pack.