Elite: Dangerous

[potatojohn]

 

[Blaine]

Oh cool, let's whack off about "but there's no sound in space" some more.

I will say that I think an option to mute all external sound effects and play only cockpit noises, quiet in-helmet breathing sounds, weapon/obstacle impacts on your own ship, and the muted sounds of your own weapons firing would be pretty fantastic and easy to accomplish. Not to satisfy shitty whiners, mind you, but I for one would enjoy trying out such a mode.

 

[octavius]

Oh cool, let's whack off about "but there's no sound in space" some more.

I will say that I think an option to mute all external sound effects and play only cockpit noises, quiet in-helmet breathing sounds, weapon/obstacle impacts on your own ship, and the muted sounds of your own weapons firing would be pretty fantastic and easy to accomplish. Not to satisfy shitty whiners, mind you, but I for one would enjoy trying out such a mode.

In space, nobody can hear you LARP.

 

[DeepOcean]

I would love that people that complain about the sound in the space thing, to play a game where most things you do, don't make any sound and see how long it would take for them to get bored.

 

[DraQ]

Interface looks like an iphone

Comms sound worse than 1930 intercontinental phone lines

Sound propagates through space

Pre-school space physics

WW2 dogfighter combat

Space missiles that go 10m/s constant velocity, while thrusting.

great stuff

I'm not sure about missiles, but ships definitely move at constant v while thrusting.


tl;dr:

 

[DefJam101]

Suspiciously similar to

(skip to 2:00 and watch till end)

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Comms sound worse than 1930 intercontinental phone lines

Sound propagates through space

Pre-school space physics

WW2 dogfighter combat

Space missiles that go 10m/s constant velocity, while thrusting.

great stuff

same as for freespace 2.
are you going now to tell me freespace 2 is a crap game?

 

[DraQ]

 

[Severian Silk]

I love space sims, but I can never remember the keyboard bindings, so I don't play them.

Also, the big ship in the video looks like the Bentus from Homeworld 2.

 

[Jashiin]

Why don't you print out the kb bindings ?

 

[DraQ]

I love space sims, but I can never remember the keyboard bindings, so I don't play them.

Also, the big ship in the video looks like the Bentus from Homeworld 2.

Play Frontier.

All the binds you need to remember are shift (retros/lower set velocity) and enter (main thruster/increase set velocity). Everything else has shortcuts displayed on GUI and can be clicked with mouse as well.
Targets are locked by just clicking on them and you can rotate and aim with mouse as well.

Hmm... I wonder how Pioneer is progressing.

 

[J_C]

Sound propagates through space

Switch off your speakers. Problem solved. Now enjoy your boring ass game, because sound design is one of the most important aspect of a game.

Also summoning Infinitron to put this thread to the Sims topic, next to Star Citizen.

 

[bminorkey]

the kickstarter page written really badly

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Also summoning Infinitron to put this thread to the Sims topic, next to Star Citizen.

Infinitron has no power here *insert evil laughter here*.

 

[J_C]

Also summoning Infinitron to put this thread to the Sims topic, next to Star Citizen.

Infinitron has no power here *insert evil laughter here*.

But as I see, you have. Thanks.

 

[Space Satan]

Can't say no to the game with continous lasers instead of throwing "chunks of light" mechanics.

 

[Norfleet]

I don't see a game, just some fancy trailer. Obviously a fake.

 

[Nutmeg]

Sound propagates through space

Switch off your speakers. Problem solved. Now enjoy your boring ass game, because sound design is one of the most important aspect of a game.

I've always thought this could be done well. You just hear the pilot breathing, your radio, your engines, and really bad metallic sounds when your ship is hit. I'd imagine there would also be cockpit interface feedback for firing a weapon, locking on, being locked on. Also because space isn't completely empty, you'd hear the really big explosions. Ion beams cast over your head would also have some effect. It could be really intense.

It might not be too different from the sound model of some flight sims focused on the modern era.

 

[J_C]

Sound propagates through space

Switch off your speakers. Problem solved. Now enjoy your boring ass game, because sound design is one of the most important aspect of a game.

I've always thought this could be done well. You just hear the pilot breathing, your radio, your engines, and really bad metallic sounds when your ship is hit. I'd imagine there would also be cockpit interface feedback for firing a weapon, locking on, being locked on. Also because space isn't completely empty, you'd hear the really big explosions. Ion beams cast over your head would also have some effect. It could be really intense.

It might not be too different from the sound model of some flight sims focused on the modern era.

True, but I think not hearing sound in space is the least important thing in a space sim, and I love spacesims. If the game is great, I will be a happy person, sound in space or not.

 

[DraQ]

Ok, Frontier staff has always been mighty fine and level headed so far and I would *really* love it if it stayed that way (not only because a lot of really cool users there got their moderator status recently), but I'm mirroring (part of) my post on their official forum here just in case, because I have this creeping suspicion of massive bullshit, and wouldn't like it lost if it comes to damage control:

It has been answered. It is down to tracking where each player is accurately.

At much higher speeds the location of the ship is harder to track

Except it doesn't. Make. Any. Sense.

If the game does have Newtonian physics then the max distance between expected position in the next tick (one assuming that ships won't use its thrusters) and its actual position will be exactly the same whether it's traveling at 10m/s or 10,000km/s, and the expected position can be simply calculated from current position, velocity and gravity fields in the area.

If your engines allow you to only deviate maximum 10m from expected position in the next tick then you will never be more than 10m from expected position, no matter how fast you move.

Actually, surprisingly few things make sense in tFD's communications regarding short distance flight system.

On one hand it's supposed to have some flight assist in place using ship's thrusters to prevent 'sliding', on the other, the maneuvering thrusters are supposedly too weak to be useful in combat.
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.
If you want to be able to make a controlled hi-G (let's say 6G) turns similar to an atmospheric, then your belly thruster has to be able to to pull off 6Gs of acceleration to allow you to turn just as tightly as an atmospheric fighter would in the atmosphere using forces acting on its wings. 6Gs is, of course, *perfectly* suited for combat maneuvering.

OTOH, if your maneuvering thrusters are indeed just weak, then there will be *no* flight assist to speak of. If you change your attitude by less than 90 degrees, then the only thrusters in position to correct your flight path will be those piddling maneuvering thrusters so good luck with controlling the slide if you're not skilled in Newtonian maneuvering. If you change it by more the main thruster will propel you to ludicrous speed forward before it manages to kill your lateral momentum.

Furthermore, the 500 m/s limit is supposed to not really impact the underlying Newtonian mechanics - guess what, if you're going at or near 500m/s or if the maneuvering thrusters are indeed that weak, speed limit will be not only visible but the *MAIN* mechanics you will use to control your flight direction. Why? Because if you already move at 500m/s or build-up velocity by being unable to cancel out lateral slides with piddling lateral thrusters, accelerating at less than 90 degree angle from your current heading will necessarily cancel out lateral momentum in order to keep your combined velocity.

If it didn't hit you already let me put it this way:
Probably your best way to steer in ED will be to stay at 500m/s velocity and abuse completely artificial and off-the-wall metagame mechanics supposedly introduced to manage position errors that are bigger for high velocities for no discernible reason.

And that, my friends, is the *true* frog shaving moment.

I'm really sad to say it, everything else about this game is pretty awesome - procedural generation, ship design, star systems, even SC is probably the best compromise physically possible in a mixed MP/SP game that uses the same mechanics for both modes and will probably be awesome and fun to use - but everything we've heard so far about in-combat flight and maneuvering, has been huge, stinking, at best unintentionally misleading, mess.

Dat thread:
forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=175701&postcount=227

 

[DraQ]

Everything seems ok, so far.

Guess I wasn't off mark when judging FD guys as level headed.

 

[Totallity]

Guys check out: http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/1mee0a/what_is_elite
for detailed information about the game.

 

[potatojohn]

Fuck this shit. Just like with Thi4f, the true "Elite 4" will come to us in the form of a community effort - Pioneer.

 

[tindrli]

Fuck this shit. Just like with Thi4f, the true "Elite 4" will come to us in the form of a community effort - Pioneer.

when?? in 2202????

 

[potatojohn]

When? How about right now? You can land on planets in Pioneer, something that won't be in Elit4 at all.