Elite: Dangerous

[DraQ]

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????

3000 something.
It will be a documentary then.

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

They say there will be landings in an expanshun.

I'm more concerned about MP focus and design decisions apparently fucking up priorities and resulting in a compromise that blows for everyone involved.

 

[Totallity]

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

Pioneer isn't gonna be a complete game yet for a very long time and Elite: Dangerous will have seamless landing on planets, check my previous link and the FAQ
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Elite:_Dangerous_FAQ

 

[Space Satan]

Pioneer is like a Grimoire of spacesims?

 

[Baron]

Like a submarine movie or game, removing a lot of the external sounds, and leaving the pilot's breathing, computer alerts going off, air leaks, metallic thuds etc, would go a long way to conveying the claustrophobia of being a tiny cramped fighter ship in cold vast space. Would also contrast the silence of donning a spacesuit and going for a space walk too. Good sound design really makes a game.

But then, it won't kill me if rival ships emit dopler effects as they race overhead and if capital ships explode with a meaty satisfying boom through my subwoofer. Silent explosions of my species' enemy don't do much for me.

 

[Spectacle]

Like a submarine movie or game, removing a lot of the external sounds, and leaving the pilot's breathing, computer alerts going off, air leaks, metallic thuds etc, would go a long way to conveying the claustrophobia of being a tiny cramped fighter ship in cold vast space. Would also contrast the silence of donning a spacesuit and going for a space walk too. Good sound design really makes a game.

But then, it won't kill me if rival ships emit dopler effects as they race overhead and if capital ships explode with a meaty satisfying boom through my subwoofer. Silent explosions of my species' enemy don't do much for me.

I wonder how much dev effort it would take to have "realistic" sound as an optional setting for space games?

 

[DraQ]

I wonder how much dev effort it would take to have "realistic" sound as an optional setting for space games?

A single if() in the resource loader.

Something slightly more elaborate if the game allows dipping into atmospheres and you really WANT external sounds there, but coding external sound for very fast observers at very long range, and possibly in different atmospheres would be rather complex as standalone problem, an extra condition check doesn't change much in this case.

 

[Totallity]

Like a submarine movie or game, removing a lot of the external sounds, and leaving the pilot's breathing, computer alerts going off, air leaks, metallic thuds etc, would go a long way to conveying the claustrophobia of being a tiny cramped fighter ship in cold vast space. Would also contrast the silence of donning a spacesuit and going for a space walk too. Good sound design really makes a game.

But then, it won't kill me if rival ships emit dopler effects as they race overhead and if capital ships explode with a meaty satisfying boom through my subwoofer. Silent explosions of my species' enemy don't do much for me.

I wonder how much dev effort it would take to have "realistic" sound as an optional setting for space games?

ED will have realistic sound, check out the "Sound HUD" in the following link:
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wi...re_be_detailed_ship_managment_and_avionics.3F

 

[Raapys]

Wow



Looks like SC will have some competition after all.

 

[AstroZombie]

I'm not following the game's development and pretty much everything I've heard on that video made me want to buy it. Any reason to be worried?

 

[Kalin]

Well, from a pure and probably insignificant role-playing perspective they did cave in to the filthy political correctness crowd by going all faggit on the slavery issue. Apparently, they will push some silly new distinction between Imperial and non-Imperial slaves, the former being more akin to the Israelite variety (citizens being able to sell themselves into slavery to pay off debts, excessive mistreatment being outlawed etc.) and the latter being absurdely classified as illegal within Imperial space. This is nothing other than tasteless rape of the good old glorious realm which used to be described as thoroughly capitalist without any social safegards, and basically only outlawed nerve gas and radioactives.

(But other than this pandering to libruhal scumbags and the unfortunate loss of the journals, I am actually extremely excited, they have plenty of cool ideas and it will be fun to see how it all turns out)

 

[Raapys]

That's stupid, but I can't say it really makes any difference to me enjoying or not enjoying the game.

SC is looking great, but my thinking is that the singleplayer mode will suffer. I don't mind multiplayer per se, but I foresee lag, poor performance and grinding, which could ruin my enjoyment of the game even should the rest of it turn out great. That's why I'm more inclined towards Elite, since I believe their focus on SP could end up with them surpassing SC in that area.

That said, ideally they'll both turn out great. I certainly won't complain if we suddenly get two good space sims.

 

[AstroZombie]

Well, from a pure and probably insignificant role-playing perspective they did cave in to the filthy political correctness crowd by going all faggit on the slavery issue. Apparently, they will push some silly new distinction between Imperial and non-Imperial slaves, the former being more akin to the Israelite variety (citizens being able to sell themselves into slavery to pay off debts, excessive mistreatment being outlawed etc.) and the latter being absurdely classified as illegal within Imperial space. This is nothing other than tasteless rape of the good old glorious realm which used to be described as thoroughly capitalist without any social safegards, and basically only outlawed nerve gas and radioactives.

(But other than this pandering to libruhal scumbags and the unfortunate loss of the journals, I am actually extremely excited, they have plenty of cool ideas and it will be fun to see how it all turns out)

That's unfortunate because I like playing games as a ruthless dickbag whenever possible, but I'll live.

That's stupid, but I can't say it really makes any difference to me enjoying or not enjoying the game.

SC is looking great, but my thinking is that the singleplayer mode will suffer. I don't mind multiplayer per se, but I foresee lag, poor performance and grinding, which could ruin my enjoyment of the game even should the rest of it turn out great. That's why I'm more inclined towards Elite, since I believe their focus on SP could end up with them surpassing SC in that area.

That said, ideally they'll both turn out great. I certainly won't complain if we suddenly get two good space sims.

I think the odds of Elite's single player being better than SC's are high(assuming the Elite devs will deliver). Squadron 42 will be similar to the main Wing Commander games where you go into missions, shoot stuff and that's basically it.

 

[Raapys]

Yah, that's what I'm thinking. Granted, a well-done mission-based game can be tons of fun(i.e. WC, Freespace, etc.), but I'm really looking forward to the free form that Elite offers. Especially when done with what appears to be extremely high quality. Just hope the rest of the game, the actual game content and gameplay options, will keep the same level.

 

[mikaelis]

But, as far as I know, there will be a possibility to play Star Citizen in offline mode as well (aside from Squadron 42 which is going to be mission-based story focused SP game). You just set your own server client to private and off you go flying in the universe with NPCs only.

 

[Raapys]

Oh, hadn't heard that. Thought it was just gonna be a MMO-server thingy. Even so though, won't it be rather odd playing a game designed as an MMO in singleplayer? I mean, (most of) the gameplay will surely be built around actually having multiple human players there.

 

[AstroZombie]

But, as far as I know, there will be a possibility to play Star Citizen in offline mode as well (aside from Squadron 42 which is going to be mission-based story focused SP game). You just set your own server client to private and off you go flying in the universe with NPCs only.

I hope it works like that, but I'm not sure. I'll ask Blaine later :p

 

[DraQ]

I'm terribly disappointed that for all its supposedly excellent representation of planetary systems and stuff E4's flight model is going to be fudged with unphysical shit, and there are supposedly going to be nonsensical visual gimmincks (like contrails) included.

Barf.

 

[Volrath]

But, as far as I know, there will be a possibility to play Star Citizen in offline mode as well (aside from Squadron 42 which is going to be mission-based story focused SP game). You just set your own server client to private and off you go flying in the universe with NPCs only.

Whoah so it'll basically be like the X series?

 

[mikaelis]

Well, I am not sure if it was said explicitly, but it was confirmed several times that private servers will exist, so people can start their game on their own pc. For example here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByCKMsEBOMo&feature=youtu.be (around 26 min).

I think it was also mentioned that in such case, the universe will not have all the features of the persistent one.

ps. Anyway, we got a bit off-topic, so enough from me on SC in this thread.

 

[Runciter]

I think the odds of Elite's single player being better than SC's are high

Why do you think the odds are high? Elite: Dangerous devs are trashing the "science first" philosophy which made the Frontier games exceptional; they are going back to a more arcade traditional Elite model. It appears to me that they are aiming to make pretty much the same game as SC and they're less competent, both technically and in terms of backer relations, judging by what the two games have shown so far.

 

[AstroZombie]

I think the odds of Elite's single player being better than SC's are high

Why do you think the odds are high? Elite: Dangerous devs are trashing the "science first" philosophy which made the Frontier games exceptional; they are going back to a more arcade traditional Elite model. It appears to me that they are aiming to make pretty much the same game as SC and they're less competent, both technically and in terms of backer relations, judging by what the two games have shown so far.

Because, for me, a well done sandbox space trading game will always be better than a linear, mission-driven game. But what you've said did diminish my excitement for this.

 

[DraQ]

Elite: Dangerous devs are trashing the "science first" philosophy which made the Frontier games exceptional; they are going back to a more arcade traditional Elite model

The subgenre of spacesims trying to position themselves somewhere between traditional pewpewfests and the likes of KSP or Orbiter (you know, the place where the interesting Sci-Fi lies) is tragically pretty much nonexistent.

BTW, regarding SC - what do we know already about flight model and space itself?

 

[Runciter]

BTW, regarding SC - what do we know already about flight model and space itself?

Blaine's post has some information on the flight model, I find the following bit the most interesting:

So in the Star Citizen universe you can go very fast (much faster than during a dogfight) but the faster you go the less maneuvering you can do. During dogfighting the IFCS limits your top velocity for safety reasons (if you start going too fast it will fire retro thrusters to slow you down). I am toying with the idea of a pilot being able to turn this "safety" off to a certain extent (at large magnitudes the physics system breaks down as there isn't enough precision in a 32 bit float). At faster speeds it may either limit how much you can turn (not very helpful if you have a missile on your tail!) or would cause you to back out / die if you told the IFCS to adjust your velocity vector quicker than your body could take.

It's not entirely clear to me whether there are any fictional forces involved, but I'm getting the impression that Roberts cares more about making his game appear realistic than Braben.

 

[Raapys]

Huh, aren't both games using a newtonian system at their base? And both also have optional assists activated by default?

 

[DraQ]

Huh, aren't both games using a newtonian system at their base? And both also have optional assists activated by default?

You can use Newtonian physics to emulate pretty much any kind of arcade non-physics if you pile a sufficient number of non-physical forces and arbitrary limitations on it.

ED will apparently enforce maximum speed of 500m/s (relative to the current reference mass), less for bigger ships. Such a speed limit in space is a joke, more so in a game featuring realistic planetary distances and orbits - even if you travel around using exotic space drive, the bottom line is still that you can't even do with your XXXIII century ship what ruskies could do with 1961 firecracker - put your ass in low Earth orbit.

ED will also apparently tweak stuff like your rotation rate depending on your speed (for no adequate reason) and may use fake forces to tune turning rate (lateral thrusters are apparently too weak to allow for meaningful 'strafing', yet they are simultaneously strong enough for combat worthy rotation and pushing the ship in tight, multi-G turns - make of it what you will).

Finally, ED is apparently going to limit player's ability to switch off flight assist - any attempt at directional thrust will automagically switch the assist back on.
If anyone knows of any case of a game achieving superior gameplay through purposefully broken interface, let me know.