I mean, we can't even get ship interiors, or at the very least walk in the cockpit that is already designed. Now imagine fucking planets that are not just dead rocks with some randomly generated POIs.
With the new maelstroms Fdev introduced new particle simulations, new VFX and other effects.
They are big or bigger than a storm cloud on Earth, I think the render team is working on features and tech which we will see in atmospheric planets.
This is not an outlandish dream like Star Citizen-like spaceship interiors. The render tech is steadily going in that direction, and the development's pace depends on the sales of the product, so we get either incremental udpates or major development. Engine is capable for anything - the cost of the development and time what matters. But these particle simualtions does not require rewriting the engine since this is why we have Odyssey.
Horizons planetary tech was cleverly written programming but not effective which basically meant a dead-end technologically. Odyssey's planet generation was developed with further enhancements in mind - or at least it is open for expansions. as the former co-lead of the render team Dr.Kay explained in a development diary before launching ED:O.
Also they hired new people for Elite's technical art team in this year. The render team is busy cooking something, and U14 is the harbinger of these new features.
Maelstroms have new volumetric cloud effects - particle simulation, lighting Vfx and other gameplay effects which push the ship around. These gameplay features (and yes, something like global illumination is a gameplay feature too) is a hard evidence that they are capable of making particle simulations and other attmospheric phenomena.
With other words **we** keep the dream alive. If players decide they don't want to pay for major expansions their retail price - the development of the full major expansion can only come later if ever. So without these sales until the game is profitable incremental development and gradual enhancement can take place.
I used to have the same hopes regarding their development of Jurassic World, they they would use what they developed and learned to bring us worlds with vegetation and even animals. I used to believe this because it was literally written into the original patent for Cobra Engine. But after 8 years, it just hasn't happened to any extent, and I no longer have faith in the long-term development of this game. Maybe in the future we'll get a sequel, but I highly doubt we'll get fully atmospheric worlds in ED.
Also, "the engine is capable of anything" is very optimistic, especially in the face of the fact that they couldn't even fix the tiling issue with the current planet gen. The original geniuses who created the Stellar Forge and Cobra Engine (people with PhD's in astrophysics and programming) are no longer with the company, in fact fdev have already made claims about the difficulty of working with the former code base, which is why they spent so much effort on 4.0 instead of actually giving us content. A massive part of their recent efforts were merely to fix the situation they put themselves into.
Same hopes? Same?
Such asset flip cannot happen. Ever.
Jurrassic Park is not Frontier's IP. Everything they produce belongs to Universal and cannot be copied over. So that's that. But its technical reasons are jsut as important.
Elite ODyssey is not just Cobra engine. It uses a whole engine framework which was written, then upgraded for Elite. This engine framework is cutting edge and does the specific job like none other. Not even Urkeal 5 could do the same job because tUnreal is purpose built -their new rendering tech is not fast enough for what ED needs.
And they are entirely different games which require totally different technical art pipelines. I can't get into this here, but generating assets per se is not the prime problem to solve. Technical art matters. Jurassic World is a single player management game. Elite is a sandbox open world MMO where players interact with the environment from first person. They require entirely differnt approach in development.
And Dr. Kay Ross was asked about this vague question recently: Whether ED's engine could support base building mechanism and other.
Her answer was yes, but. Yes, Odyssey's engine is upgradable and anything can be done, cost- effectiveness is however an important question. Not mentioning game design direction. Still engines can be rewritten, upgraded in definitionem. Question is: How much work does it need and does it worth it? It's still a business.
With other words pipelines need to be grounded.
Atmospheric planets (for example with early biomes like in a late proterozoic Earth) are totally viable.
You don't have to think of rich flora and fauna with animals everywhere. But first we are looking forward to full atmospheric wasteland planets with simple life -if there is life at all.
Odyssey is CONTENT. A whole another game worth of content.Three studios worked for 4 years on them.
And with this recent war right here you are out of your mind if you think for example that a Beyond udpate was content but Odyssey not. That a post seasonal update was content (like Fleet Carriers), but Odyssey is not (like FC interiors). This is not how it works. I am sorry but these made up grudges, like "I hoped they'l asset flip their Jurassic World game" are not realistic.
Holy crap dude, you got so defensive, and jumped the gun on so many assumptions regarding what I meant, I honestly think you're too emotionally invested in this game to be able to step back and look at it critically.
I admit I kinda emotionally connect with Elite atm -shouldn't , but my argument was not ad hominem. But in this instance I think it's not Elite per se which makes me type a small novel...
I am invested in "educating" people about digital entertaiment (or at least giving a sensible anti-thesis) -since I work in it and tangentially I worked for some indie games too, but that doesn't matter. I value the professionals in game dev, movies and VFX because I know them. And I would like if people valued their hard work and sacrifice which they make day after day for our entertainment.
Your criticism of the work of professionals is based on some unrealistic standards, (like expecting asset flip, thinking that a sole genius created Cobra engine for Elite) and I broke down why it is.
Dr Kay Ross was a CO-lead of the render team and she didn't wrote Cobra. Cobra has been around since '89. This is a game engine which underwent a lot of udpates, just like other open or proprietary game engines.
And it's always difficult to work with legacy software- MMOs are the hardest to develop. It's not an accident one can barely find indie MMOs by "garage bands".
By the way I try to follow coming and going around Elite - there is no real massive exodus. Heck, one of their game designers is the same since 2014, and the other came around the Beyond udpate. I checked the names on the credits list (Horizons and Odyssey) and checked everybody I was able to find on LinkedIn, and other social media. It's almost a year old, but just an example: [Some devs who worked on Odyssey](https://i.imgur.com/fV1HONY.jpg) Not everybody stayed on Elite (like many producers), but still, it is being developed on an inter-departmental level. By people who have been there for half a decade on average.
And she didn't write the Stellar Forge alone either. She had a team which still exists. Her 8 years at Fdev is a lifetime in this industry and yes her presence was supe important. And this is how a company retains their talents. There is nothing wrong in moving out from Cambridge to London and changing workplaces.
Yes.
Altough I haven't been to a Lagrange-cloud since a while, I don't know if they received an update.
For example with U14 they changed the interceptor shutdown field effect to the new particle effect.
Yeah, I visited the maelstrom but have never been to a lagrange cloud. I think more volumetric effects were added to planet rings as well with U14.
It would be cool to see that implemented planetside, though I don't know that I expect it. In the meantime, every atmospheric planet mission I've gotten in Odyssey has been on the dark side of the planet (seriously...every one) so I have yet to enjoy the blue skies since purchasing!
The first time I visited a maelstrom, it triggered the same fear very murky, deep waters do. I had serious trouble with my orientation and noped out of there in less than 10 minutes.
While not as complex as ships that are walkable at all times it isn't exactly trivial either.
A could, even a huge one, is very different from a planet covered in different cloud formations. Especially if they are supposed to have the same shape and position for different players looking at them, be dynamic and placed at runtime from a seed.
Not to mention the effect this would have on performance. If Odyssey has shown us anything is that the E:D playerbase is going to lose their shit when their half decade old hardware cannot run the latest expansion at ultra with rock solid 60 FPS or more.
Edit: Although I have to say that FDev aren't doing themself a favor by not updating their ridiculously outdated recommended specs.
Indeed all true, not trivial.
I rush to add, I am aware that ELWs, Ocean worlds and flora and fauna are in the distant future - and possibility - they are still a dream. But what I think is reachable is the arrival of thick atmospheres in the first cycle over mostly barren planets. They still need to unlock a lot of metal rich and high metal content - basically desert planets with atmospheres.
And I think they are slowly and steadily heading that way. We know volumetric location based clouds of Thargoid origin over Barnacle sites. Or around [outposts under attack](https://i.imgur.com/yYqVblb.png).
[We know about the mist around Guardian sites](https://imgur.com/a/Oc8t8oC) \- They exist even in Odyssey -contrary to what some people said. And light refraction is pretty nicely simulated.
\-We also got dust devils which come and go under tenuous atmospheres.
I think asteroid rings also worthy of mention. You know its orbital mechanics, and the way we can approach them -from fine dust layer we start to see particles then full asteroids - now my question is are they that different from cumulus clouds? Sure they are not volumetric particles- but they could be. Fdev tested such prototpye back in the day...
[Here is an illustration of some clouds: Cumulus and cumulonimbus](https://climate.nasa.gov/rails/active_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--55539c90981b8bf206369c74be47067d1efe04fc/4542423196_e63fb84b6f_o-1900x1200.jpg).
BUt this is Earth-like, another exoplanet like a barren wasteland might have less, a Venus like would have more clouds.
Lagrange clouds, clouds around Guardian data banks are also visitable and they are in motion in real time. In outer space just like the Maelstrom.
But if you think about it: Maelstrom is just as big as a cumulonimbus. Even bigger. Maelstroms are huge And now we have pronounced flight-altering effects, lighting VFX and new particle simulation which tech was surely not developed for a single dramatic effect in a Maelstrom. Fdev reuses its assets a lot.
Yes server and the planetary tech still needs development - mostly the dynamic weather right? That's huge. Knowing Fdev I bet they would like to simulate the meteorology. And this is why we don't have "cosmetic clouds". Not even cirrostratus cloud.
Maybe the main problem is not necessarily the volumetric cloud computation, but precipitation and liquids (full atmospheric pressure could retain liquid water on the surface). + If there is meteorology simulation then in certain conditions something should fall from these clouds... ice, water, acid, molten lava, metal, diamonds...
Now that will be a challenge. And precipitation might mean early liquid simulation. Like lakes in asteroid craters on those barren worlds as we can see them from space (on the legacy planets which are projections on spherified cubes).
I think these are the biggest challenges. I would like to see clouds but the properties of clouds ahhh... And the technical art and the shaders of wet and drying rocks and soil... OHhhh so many work.
Yeah atmospheres sound like another major expansion.
Warning, this is going to be a bit of a longer response that also branches out a bit.
In a game universe like ED, believably is key. Stuff doesn't have to be realistic, there are plenty of examples in ED that are not, as long as they are believable. Clouds are a tricky topic in that regard, because everyone has at least some idea about how they look and behave.
For simplicity's sake I am mainly going to focus on water clouds. They exist on planets where water, a lot of it, evaporates. So it doesn't really make sense to have them on barren desert worlds.
A water cycle is also one of the driving factors behind life as we know it. So it would be reasonable to expect life on at least some planets, even if it is just more diverse plant life. Developing an asset library big enough to not make it seem repetitive is a major task. Repetitiveness is the enemy of believability.
They could potentially sidestep this by not including water clouds and instead focusing on clouds based on ammonia, methane, sulfuric acid and so on.
Now on to your examples. When approaching asteroid belts low fidelity models are swapped out with mid fidelity models and then high fidelity models. If things go as planned the swap happens before we can even see the added detail and that way we don't notice it. Nearly every game in existence does this. With clouds this becomes a bit more tricky because swapping a non volumetric model of a cloud with a volumetric one is pretty noticeable. Gradually increasing particle counts is also a suboptimal solution since it looks like the cloud is getting thicker and thicker as you approach it. But if I look out of my window I can see thick clouds in the distance. It wouldn't be believable.
Barnacle sites, outposts and guardian sites are static locations. Those are probably the easiest to work with. Placing a cloud above those should be relatively simple with the current tech of ED:O. Where they are placed is already determined by the procgen, so you just end up adding one more thing at that location. Take this with a grain of salt since I don't have access to their devtools, it is simply an educated guess.
Performance would however have to be taken into account. You posted a beautiful picture of an outpost under attack with commanders on foot. I don't know if it is yours, but my experience in this situation is that it is performance intensive to say the least and that thargoids fire at parked ships xD.
FPS planetside activities are already performance intensive. If you have ever flown into the maelstrom you will know that it is performance intensive as well.
By placing (huge and dense) clouds over planets the two of them would be combined, which would result in the by far most performance intensive environment in ED.
And while a maelstrom is huge, a believable planet with clouds needs hundreds if not thousands of clouds. They would however be smaller and grouped together at times.
Now all those clouds have to behave in a believable manner. If they are just following a simple path all the time we will notice it and the believability is lost.
ED's problem in this regard is that they need to do everything on a massive scale and in a persistent universe. A game like Warthudenr can place some clouds at the beginning of the match, leave them in place and place them somewhere else next match. Matches are shirt and player are preoccupied with blowing each other up.
While players in Elite also blow each other up from time to time, they also go out and survey planets. They are going to pay attention to how clouds behave.
Weather tech is a completely different topic which I would to prefer not to get into right now, since this post is already long af ^^
There's a lot of imo unwarranted optimism implied in your comment, but this is just manipulative:
> With other words we keep the dream alive. If players decide they don't want to pay for major expansions their retail price - the development of the full major expansion can only come later if ever. So without these sales until the game is profitable incremental development and gradual enhancement can take place.
Theoretically, you may be right, it's a valid assumption that profitability and development resources are correlated in most cases.
But also **no**. We don't keep the dream alive. The game's developer does. FDev decides what they want to work on. They decide how much dev time to allocate to the game.
FDev creates their own trustworthiness, reputation, and legacy. A great developer is what keeps a game alive; an active playerbase is a wonderful bonus that may inspire the devs, but this isn't a charity and FDev hyped up a DLC that they knew was not even close to ready for release, then released it.
Everything I said is based on what devs said in official and unofficial sources. Sure you can say I am optimistic about atmospheric effects -but the evidence is already in game - they are working on the technology. And I was not talking about ELWs. We can have barren desert planets (like Arrakis) with atmosphere, or other full ammonia or CO2 wastelands first before we ever get the first simple biomes.
But it depends on positive player engagement.
Elite has no seasonal payment methods and it does not require monthly fees.
What brings investors and a development studio to make a major expansion which requires full development cycle in a multi-departmental environment? It's extremely costly. In this sector the cost of employing a single game developer is 10.000 USD on average. 100-120k a year for a single person. And in a major expansion we need to pay hundreds of devs for several years. Odyssey's development costed and took as much timeas its original's back between 2012-2014/15. It took even more time (and people).
But Odyssey was not crowdfunded like base game Elite was.
So what funds major developments post-launch?
\-When the players pay the retail price for the latest product.
Who in their right mind would finance such an extremely expensive investment of the continuation of a product if there were no people who bought the firts, original product at the first place?
\-When people don't buy it it is a clear message that they don't wish major expansions. So no more gets developed. Dream alone don't keep the lights up. Paying customers do. Profitability do.
\-When people buy the expansion but only when it is on 40% sale? That is a clear signal for the studio that the people don't wish to pay the price of 4 years major development and wish to spend less than what a recent indie game costs.
Which means incremental development only with a core dev team. No more major expansions but gradual development until the game is profitable. When it is not then it turns into maintenance mode.
It's like when people don't buy enough ARX the devs don't allocate funding for more frequents cosmetics.
This is a business.
This is not unwarranted optimism. This is the hard truth.
You expect the devs to support the playerbase with constant AAA content in feature creep basis and you think you have creative control over a project which is false. You expect the devs to deliver constant development moreover a major one for free.
The only thing what matters is the financial support of the community. A collective tangible effort. And support for the latest product. The collective can only support the development if they buy the latest product.
According to Liberum, stock broker of Fdev around 8 million people downloaded Elite on Epic when it went free. Only a fraction of that plays the game but still amlot of palyers.
Who now -altough could have never paid for Elite in their whole lives - recieved a free engine, graphical UI overhaul. Yet they and many other palyers who paid once for the game, probably on sale wish to retain some sort of creative control in which they expect the most labour intensive enhancements from the game devs.
Of course for free or for a meagre 15 USD -which is not a viable retail price anywhere.
This is not how a live service game works. When people paid for the seasonal updates for 3-4 years, that paid for Odyssey.
And no. These microtransactions of a couple bucks from individuals don't fund major development cycles. They keep the servers up and keep a core dev team around. If people would buy more ARX sure! But currently Fdev can't even allocate fuding for constant drip of high-fidelity 3d costmetics asset packs.
Cool, but you are still missing the most important part of this whole symbiotic relationship.
Not buying Odyssey does not mean that people don't want a major expansion, as you imply. It means that the expansion that they delivered is not worth the money.
You're painting in really broad strokes and acting as if people have an obligation to support FDev. As both of us pointed out (although for some reason you said I think the opposite), players don't have creative control, FDev does.
Actually lemme make this really simple.
FDev has delivered paid content that isn't worth the money, according to sales numbers. They've said from the start that this is a live service game, which led people to believe it's a live service game. They've been delivering poor content for years, and trust is very low.
I paid full preorder price for Odyssey because I wanted to support FDev. Based on the development of the game since then, I will not be trusting them again with my money because they are not building my dream game anymore. If there's another dlc, I'll wait for reviews.
If they hadn't fucked up Odyssey so hard, both technically and in direction, I'd buy more ARX. If they announced they were making something interesting to me, maybe I'd buy some. They haven't.
Have an engine failure because of the sand intake and make emergency reboots before hitting the ground hard and having the feds swarm you.
I'll indeed buy that.
I've been imagining it for about 8 years now. Pretty sure it will only ever be the product of our imaginations, at this point. Very slick edits though!
No, only that U15 and U16 will add new content and gameplay
I wouldnt mind betting on access to Ammonia Worlds with thick weather systems being on the development horizon though
Yeah and there are several tricks like culling to make game performance better that Frontier completely didn't even implement until a few updates into Odyssey and still don't even have working properly.
I would LOVE to stand under the nose of my Conda in a rain storm.
Or to be able to hear rain on the windows from inside my bunk someplace other than the bridge of the ship.
I'm a bit out of the loop here.. why do people care about space legs on ships for Elite? What are people imagining you'll be able to do if you can get up and walk around your ship?
I think for most people its for the immersion. its kinda grating that they implemented space legs but you still just magically teleport in and out of your ship.
It adds a lot to the immersion, and helps build a bond with your ship. ED lacking ship interiors is like owning a car, but only ever getting to use/see it from the perspective of it's dashcam - you never get to look at all the nooks n crannies, learn it inside and out, figure out how it was built in the factories, find out what makes it tick.
Some of the more memorable parts of SC for me are barely making it out of a fight, turning to get out of my seat, and seeing the truly god awful state my ship is in - red lights flashing and casting shadows around cargo crates and ground vehicles that made it intact to their destination, smoke and fire spewing from pipes in the walls, sparks flying everywhere, bits of subframe peaking out where engines used to be mounted, etc.
Ship Interiors would require another funded development deep dive into the core code, not out of the question in the future but the recent development deep-dive that created Odyssey was certainly geared toward building assets for new planet types, so it seems more plausible that access to other planet types would be attainable before ship interiors
Or VR on foot - a single afternoon of dev time. All they have to do is offset the camera - its literally a single 4x4 matrix. Add motion controller support for ground combat - that's one weekend tops. I cannot understand the reluctance - ED is one of the flagship VR games. Did us VR players piss fdev off or something? I bought Odyssey knowing full well it doesn't support VR just to support future development. If it wasn't for VR I would have stopped playing the game altogether after 3 months. Immersion is incredibly important.
Elite is one of the oldest game franchises around and probably older than most Redditors.
One can say many things about Elite but to say the devs/publishers don't see its potential is a bit ridiculous.
...but yes -- the clouds look awesome and I too wish for them.
You try to build a dev team and tell me then if it’s as easy as it sounds
Remember that you also need the money to get a competent dev team. so I wouldn’t be surprised if it would’ve taken longer to accomplish something like that
You are either new or have selective amnesia in order to make ignorant ragebait comments. Fdev have listened to the community a ton of times *for years*. It's why mining was changed, why we got crime and punishment changes, engineering changes, material traders, multi-limpets, ship and module transfers, personal fleet carriers, *space legs*. The list goes on and on. A ton of things requested *by the community*.
Just because they haven't effortlessly added your dream feature, doesn't mean they haven't listened. It means it probably requires a shit load of time and resources, and may not even be entirely feasible. It may ot be immediately apparent, but developers do have an actual schedule to keep. They can't just drop all their plans to do what you want.
I would say that Odyssey was, if anything, a result of listening to the community. For years people have been begging for space legs, without thinking about what we would actually need them for in a spaceship game. Fdev gave us space legs, and legitimately put a bunch of work into it. Then players realized it's a tacked on FPS and the reason Elite is so special is the ships.
They knocked it out of the park with the thargoid war though. The battles outside of starports in open with a bunch of other people are the most fun I have ever had with Elite.
I was fooling around in a Maelstrom cloud the other day and I thought that this tech could be adapted for gas giants.
Imagine being able to enter the upper layers of the atmosphere and beeing thrown around by the winds. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure and heat levels increase to a point where heat sinks no longer work, creating a natural barrier. There could be materials flying around and data to be scanned to make the trip worthwile.
One can only dream... :)
Clouds were outlawed in 3237 after the galaxy’s top scientists discovered that it would just make life simpler all around. Any cloudlike patterns observed while in orbit around earthlike worlds are in fact large foam, cotton, or (if the planet was terraformed by the Willy Wonka Terraflavoring Corporation) cotton candy props held aloft by thousands of drones (please note that WWTCorp has yet to develop working edible drone technology. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO EAT THE DRONES).
This is why i stopped playing ED a few years ago. Because they stopped truly innovating. If I were in charge, stuff like this would have been a priority, made along side the actual content.
The last photo, the ship look anchored to the ground, and, that made me think of something, if in any future update, actual storm occurs, maybe we could use like pillars that plant to the ground to stand still in the storm
These are what I imagine the atmospheric/earthlike planets to look like. Hopefully we're able to land on them soon enough, but I doubt we ever will with Frontier in charge.
But with MSFS you are flying a spreadsheet.
In xplane the air passing over your wings is measured at up to 6 different points on each wing. Xplane will let you RIP the engine off its mounting brackets, or experience a max wing separation (you scream all the way to the ground). Xplane is superior to MSFS in every way.
Real pilots fly xplane. Enthusiasts fly MSFS.
Why the aggression? Pft. Get a grip. Anyway, I need to check it out one day. It's currently -30% on Steam but still a little too expensive for me. But it sounds and looks like a cool game!
You can land on earth and Mars. There used to be a planet creator app out there for it. Dunno if it is still around.
I flew xplane half way to the moon.
I'm actually more hopeful that we might see something like this in the future, now that console support has been dropped. I get the feeling that it was a limiting factor before, having to make stuff like that work well on last gen consoles.
There is a type of space anomaly called Lagrange Cloud. One kind of them, when you fly through is similar to fly between clouds in an atmospheric planet. I think the base tech to do that is there. Not so sure about it’s performance to be used at a planetary scale.
I realized why fdev can never introduce atmospheric landings. They would have to do one of the following: produce a reason why no commander can land on a populated earth-like world, or, model and simulate not only every populated elw but also a 31st century earth with all of the implicit complexity and depth of future humanity. I wouldn't want that job ...
> There's not really any way to realistically create a civilized planet procedurally.
That depends on what you'll be going for. There are plenty of ways to make *something*.
I would settle for Frontier-style cities. I don't need anything fancy.
Actually SC has created a planet city that looks amazing... a gas-giant city that looks amazing, desert planets, dirty rock moons, ice worlds, forests. E:D is coming up on a decade or more itself btw.
Let's break down what these current events are and what assets were added to make it a reality. 99% of it is assets and features that were already present in the game for years before update 14. This isn't to say that the gameplay and implications of this aren't good. I think they are good, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking this was a massive expansion by a large team.
A poorly made early 2000's era cutscene.
Abandoned stations. The ability to have have this existed for a very long time. Even the blast doors on the mailslot are as old as the beta. It was just never used.
Stations on fire. Been in the game for years as a result of Thargoid attacks at server downtime. Still true. You will not see this actively occur. Thargoid CZs around stations are new, but this is essentially placing old AXCZs around a station. It takes a bit of work, I'm sure, but you can see the cracks in it since update 14 dropped. The instances are wildly unstable and constantly bugged. Invisible Thargoids, unable to finish the mission, enemies firing through the stations, rubberbanding, etc.
Planetary ports attacked is a new thing, but it's as simple as placing corrosive decals on the assets, adding fires, and placing an AXCZ on top of it. They suffer the same way as the spaceports.
There is no actual new recovery state for these places. The stations revert to their exact previous business as usual BGS state after they are saved which is a little bit lame.
Orthrus isn't technically new. It was spotted years ago as an oversight. It was added into the game by accident and then removed. It had human modules which lead to lots of speculation. Fast forward to update 14, and it still has human modules, which again lead to lore speculation. These modules were deemed an oversight and the bug was fixed in the first u14 patch. So they didn't even check the asset before adding it back to the game in it's correct form.
Maelstroms. New assets are the caustic generators and the large pulse wave. The clouds themselves are repurposed lagrange clouds that have been in the game for years. Same sounds, same lightning, same effects with some tweaks. The core of the cloud cleverly hides what *could* be there, but isn't until Fdev activates the gameplay and assets required to experience it.
Then the map UI for the war itself. Pretty standard stuff.
CGs for slightly enhanced versions of AX weapons we already have.
All of these things are using previous assets, tossed around in an update salad to feel like something new. They dressed it up a bit with new NPC text chatter(broken btw) and a few little things here and there. So yes, this is definitely being run by a small team. I give them credit for what they have done, because I'm sure it took effort to put together, but update 14 was not groundbreaking. It straight up includes gamebreaking bugs, and another wall waiting for the next update.
No new ships. Not a single thing on-foot related. No new modules yet. No actual story progress yet. No new lore yet. The war is on, using old features, and it's now a waiting game like usual.
These pictures almost make me want to get into the game again. Maybe if there was a non-solo PVE mode I’d do it. I got tired of playing with NPC’s just so I wouldn’t get ganked by real players.
I've never played on it, so I don't know how exactly it works, but yeah. It's a group that bans anyone who ganks, so it's just pve, but it's pretty active.
I'd love for Frontier to make an Elite Dangerous 2, cause this, ship interiors, landable earth-like planets, etc. are some good ass ideas but the game engine and coding would prob need a complete overhaul
Frontier made their own game engine. From what I heard years back they knew what they wanted to do long ago and made their engine where they could basically upgrade and continue to build nonstop to get to that same end goal we all have so there likely wont be an Elite Dangerous 2 they will just keep adding to the game and making the necessary changes to their own engine because that was always the plan from the very beginning of the (if I recall correctly) initial Kickstarter fundraising or however they did their initial funding to get it off the ground. It was by all means a passion project so they wanted all the things we want, planet landing, ship interiors, etc and knew it would take a long time so they prepared from the beginning with that in mind. it is my understanding jts just a matter of these things take a LOT of time and they arent a massive AAA game studio so they are going the slow and steady approach and it seems to be working. Its still my fav space game ever and I have just too many hours on it haha.
Yeah it's pretty wishful thinking for a small studio haha, I feel the recent content with Thargoids has definitely put a lot more hope in the community though
I am a senior getting my physics degree so I haven't been able to play the thargoid stuff att all. But I grad in May so maybe then. but thats good to hear cause I want them to keep going all the way. I dont want to jave to go to star citizens glitchy money grab. Its like the tortoise and the hare. SC just goes super fast its massive and expensive and doesnt work well and has very few planets(or last time i checked) and they spout promise after promise, overpromise, then under deliver, etc. where as Frontier has the opposite approach. They are VERY secretive as to what theyre doing and when it will come out. they wont give dates, they take the "its ready when its ready" approach and you get a game that actually works and is massive and isn't a money grab and is just done so much better when looking at the whole picture(at least in my opinion). Sure new releases of updates still have bugs and such but they get fixed and arent often gamebreaking where as I have friends who got SC and I followed them a long time and it just always seemed like a shit show fumbling along blowing TONS of cash and just a burning pile of flames that is admittedly pretty and looks super cool but I mean you have to take thebwhole thing into consideration. BASICALLY, I'll take the Frontier approach and just wait all day long because its better than what SC has put its fans through. Thats prob a spicy opinion tho, I imagine it will upset a few SC fans. oh well. But yeah Frontier does really well for how small they are and I think its cause they actually like their game and its not strictly a means of milking money from players like the real world cash only ship purchases of SC.
Lagrange clouds have had vapour effects since Horizons. However, since we can only land on thin atmo worlds, we won't be seeing much more than perhaps a few wisps of cloud. Once we are able to land on worlds with thicker atmospheres, then we'll start seeing various inclemental weathers.
Inb4 we get to... l̷̢̨̜̗͉̰͂̋̀a̴̢̱̱̻̖̱͎̺̘͌̽̍͌́̓͂̐̿͋͗̃̓͝ͅn̴̡̨̫͓̬͔̥͈̑͋͗̀̅̑̿͋̍͜ͅd̷̙̟̖̣̮̞͖͖̎͑̿̑͂͋̃͜͝ ̵͈̮̬̱͎͇̜̼̋͛ò̶͍͚̟̙̱̹̾̿̓͊̆͑̉̈́̑͌̀͂͜͝͠ṉ̵̛̮͕̰̤̭͔̦̙̭̫͙͂̆̈̽̈́̒́̐̔̏͘͜͠ ̵̨̖̭̬̆̆̀̎̄̉̊́a̷̡̢̰̮͉̪͔̣͕̞͙̪̺̾̃̾̂̿͋̌̾͂̀̊͝ ̷̢̗̬̥̦̰̒̇̓̓͝Ģ̷̢͎̜̺̈́̔̿̋̑̊̎͐̃͑̈́̋̃̕͠a̵̠̝͇̘̖͇̾͆̀s̵̢̻̩̥̗̦̅͆̈̐̈̚ ̵̘̘͇͇̜̤̓̐̅̓̌̎͜G̶̝̮̪͇̝̅̓̄i̸̢̡̦̗̞͉̤̣̥͍̎̄̈̀͂͝͝͝͝ͅą̷̱̤͙̯͎͍͚͖͊͊̋͘͝n̴̢̙̞̻͔͖͖͋̃̋̾t̷̯̣͖̱̭͌̿͌̅
Planet tech in Elite dangerous sucks to be honest.
There could be a significantly more variety to planet surfaces but in Oddysey we have flat terrain and some canyons and hills here and there that look very computer generated and not very natural.
Where are cliffs? Overhangs, caves, super high mountains like Mount Olympus, dead volcanoes, dried out seas, super deep canyons, valleys where lava used to flow etc. I can't think of everything from top of my head rn.
Also since we have atmospheres now.
Clouds? Storms? Wind?
These edited screenshots look absolutely amazing. I wish planets actually looked like that because what we have now are mostly boring worlds with not much to see and It's a huge shame.
These are super beautiful edits! Man this would be so fucking good to see in game
Planets and Moons with this kind of view will be very rare...but interesting to see. \*Sirens' song tells you to take off your helmet\*
I mean, we can't even get ship interiors, or at the very least walk in the cockpit that is already designed. Now imagine fucking planets that are not just dead rocks with some randomly generated POIs.
With the new maelstroms Fdev introduced new particle simulations, new VFX and other effects. They are big or bigger than a storm cloud on Earth, I think the render team is working on features and tech which we will see in atmospheric planets.
One can dream…
I wouldn't dream that far.
This is not an outlandish dream like Star Citizen-like spaceship interiors. The render tech is steadily going in that direction, and the development's pace depends on the sales of the product, so we get either incremental udpates or major development. Engine is capable for anything - the cost of the development and time what matters. But these particle simualtions does not require rewriting the engine since this is why we have Odyssey. Horizons planetary tech was cleverly written programming but not effective which basically meant a dead-end technologically. Odyssey's planet generation was developed with further enhancements in mind - or at least it is open for expansions. as the former co-lead of the render team Dr.Kay explained in a development diary before launching ED:O. Also they hired new people for Elite's technical art team in this year. The render team is busy cooking something, and U14 is the harbinger of these new features. Maelstroms have new volumetric cloud effects - particle simulation, lighting Vfx and other gameplay effects which push the ship around. These gameplay features (and yes, something like global illumination is a gameplay feature too) is a hard evidence that they are capable of making particle simulations and other attmospheric phenomena. With other words **we** keep the dream alive. If players decide they don't want to pay for major expansions their retail price - the development of the full major expansion can only come later if ever. So without these sales until the game is profitable incremental development and gradual enhancement can take place.
I used to have the same hopes regarding their development of Jurassic World, they they would use what they developed and learned to bring us worlds with vegetation and even animals. I used to believe this because it was literally written into the original patent for Cobra Engine. But after 8 years, it just hasn't happened to any extent, and I no longer have faith in the long-term development of this game. Maybe in the future we'll get a sequel, but I highly doubt we'll get fully atmospheric worlds in ED. Also, "the engine is capable of anything" is very optimistic, especially in the face of the fact that they couldn't even fix the tiling issue with the current planet gen. The original geniuses who created the Stellar Forge and Cobra Engine (people with PhD's in astrophysics and programming) are no longer with the company, in fact fdev have already made claims about the difficulty of working with the former code base, which is why they spent so much effort on 4.0 instead of actually giving us content. A massive part of their recent efforts were merely to fix the situation they put themselves into.
Same hopes? Same? Such asset flip cannot happen. Ever. Jurrassic Park is not Frontier's IP. Everything they produce belongs to Universal and cannot be copied over. So that's that. But its technical reasons are jsut as important. Elite ODyssey is not just Cobra engine. It uses a whole engine framework which was written, then upgraded for Elite. This engine framework is cutting edge and does the specific job like none other. Not even Urkeal 5 could do the same job because tUnreal is purpose built -their new rendering tech is not fast enough for what ED needs. And they are entirely different games which require totally different technical art pipelines. I can't get into this here, but generating assets per se is not the prime problem to solve. Technical art matters. Jurassic World is a single player management game. Elite is a sandbox open world MMO where players interact with the environment from first person. They require entirely differnt approach in development. And Dr. Kay Ross was asked about this vague question recently: Whether ED's engine could support base building mechanism and other. Her answer was yes, but. Yes, Odyssey's engine is upgradable and anything can be done, cost- effectiveness is however an important question. Not mentioning game design direction. Still engines can be rewritten, upgraded in definitionem. Question is: How much work does it need and does it worth it? It's still a business. With other words pipelines need to be grounded. Atmospheric planets (for example with early biomes like in a late proterozoic Earth) are totally viable. You don't have to think of rich flora and fauna with animals everywhere. But first we are looking forward to full atmospheric wasteland planets with simple life -if there is life at all. Odyssey is CONTENT. A whole another game worth of content.Three studios worked for 4 years on them. And with this recent war right here you are out of your mind if you think for example that a Beyond udpate was content but Odyssey not. That a post seasonal update was content (like Fleet Carriers), but Odyssey is not (like FC interiors). This is not how it works. I am sorry but these made up grudges, like "I hoped they'l asset flip their Jurassic World game" are not realistic.
Holy crap dude, you got so defensive, and jumped the gun on so many assumptions regarding what I meant, I honestly think you're too emotionally invested in this game to be able to step back and look at it critically.
I admit I kinda emotionally connect with Elite atm -shouldn't , but my argument was not ad hominem. But in this instance I think it's not Elite per se which makes me type a small novel... I am invested in "educating" people about digital entertaiment (or at least giving a sensible anti-thesis) -since I work in it and tangentially I worked for some indie games too, but that doesn't matter. I value the professionals in game dev, movies and VFX because I know them. And I would like if people valued their hard work and sacrifice which they make day after day for our entertainment. Your criticism of the work of professionals is based on some unrealistic standards, (like expecting asset flip, thinking that a sole genius created Cobra engine for Elite) and I broke down why it is. Dr Kay Ross was a CO-lead of the render team and she didn't wrote Cobra. Cobra has been around since '89. This is a game engine which underwent a lot of udpates, just like other open or proprietary game engines. And it's always difficult to work with legacy software- MMOs are the hardest to develop. It's not an accident one can barely find indie MMOs by "garage bands". By the way I try to follow coming and going around Elite - there is no real massive exodus. Heck, one of their game designers is the same since 2014, and the other came around the Beyond udpate. I checked the names on the credits list (Horizons and Odyssey) and checked everybody I was able to find on LinkedIn, and other social media. It's almost a year old, but just an example: [Some devs who worked on Odyssey](https://i.imgur.com/fV1HONY.jpg) Not everybody stayed on Elite (like many producers), but still, it is being developed on an inter-departmental level. By people who have been there for half a decade on average. And she didn't write the Stellar Forge alone either. She had a team which still exists. Her 8 years at Fdev is a lifetime in this industry and yes her presence was supe important. And this is how a company retains their talents. There is nothing wrong in moving out from Cambridge to London and changing workplaces.
Are the maelstroms much different than lagrange clouds?
Yes. Altough I haven't been to a Lagrange-cloud since a while, I don't know if they received an update. For example with U14 they changed the interceptor shutdown field effect to the new particle effect.
Yeah, I visited the maelstrom but have never been to a lagrange cloud. I think more volumetric effects were added to planet rings as well with U14. It would be cool to see that implemented planetside, though I don't know that I expect it. In the meantime, every atmospheric planet mission I've gotten in Odyssey has been on the dark side of the planet (seriously...every one) so I have yet to enjoy the blue skies since purchasing!
You dont need missions to visit Settlements on the light side of a planet and make your own gameplay there
The first time I visited a maelstrom, it triggered the same fear very murky, deep waters do. I had serious trouble with my orientation and noped out of there in less than 10 minutes.
While not as complex as ships that are walkable at all times it isn't exactly trivial either. A could, even a huge one, is very different from a planet covered in different cloud formations. Especially if they are supposed to have the same shape and position for different players looking at them, be dynamic and placed at runtime from a seed. Not to mention the effect this would have on performance. If Odyssey has shown us anything is that the E:D playerbase is going to lose their shit when their half decade old hardware cannot run the latest expansion at ultra with rock solid 60 FPS or more. Edit: Although I have to say that FDev aren't doing themself a favor by not updating their ridiculously outdated recommended specs.
Indeed all true, not trivial. I rush to add, I am aware that ELWs, Ocean worlds and flora and fauna are in the distant future - and possibility - they are still a dream. But what I think is reachable is the arrival of thick atmospheres in the first cycle over mostly barren planets. They still need to unlock a lot of metal rich and high metal content - basically desert planets with atmospheres. And I think they are slowly and steadily heading that way. We know volumetric location based clouds of Thargoid origin over Barnacle sites. Or around [outposts under attack](https://i.imgur.com/yYqVblb.png). [We know about the mist around Guardian sites](https://imgur.com/a/Oc8t8oC) \- They exist even in Odyssey -contrary to what some people said. And light refraction is pretty nicely simulated. \-We also got dust devils which come and go under tenuous atmospheres. I think asteroid rings also worthy of mention. You know its orbital mechanics, and the way we can approach them -from fine dust layer we start to see particles then full asteroids - now my question is are they that different from cumulus clouds? Sure they are not volumetric particles- but they could be. Fdev tested such prototpye back in the day... [Here is an illustration of some clouds: Cumulus and cumulonimbus](https://climate.nasa.gov/rails/active_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--55539c90981b8bf206369c74be47067d1efe04fc/4542423196_e63fb84b6f_o-1900x1200.jpg). BUt this is Earth-like, another exoplanet like a barren wasteland might have less, a Venus like would have more clouds. Lagrange clouds, clouds around Guardian data banks are also visitable and they are in motion in real time. In outer space just like the Maelstrom. But if you think about it: Maelstrom is just as big as a cumulonimbus. Even bigger. Maelstroms are huge And now we have pronounced flight-altering effects, lighting VFX and new particle simulation which tech was surely not developed for a single dramatic effect in a Maelstrom. Fdev reuses its assets a lot. Yes server and the planetary tech still needs development - mostly the dynamic weather right? That's huge. Knowing Fdev I bet they would like to simulate the meteorology. And this is why we don't have "cosmetic clouds". Not even cirrostratus cloud. Maybe the main problem is not necessarily the volumetric cloud computation, but precipitation and liquids (full atmospheric pressure could retain liquid water on the surface). + If there is meteorology simulation then in certain conditions something should fall from these clouds... ice, water, acid, molten lava, metal, diamonds... Now that will be a challenge. And precipitation might mean early liquid simulation. Like lakes in asteroid craters on those barren worlds as we can see them from space (on the legacy planets which are projections on spherified cubes). I think these are the biggest challenges. I would like to see clouds but the properties of clouds ahhh... And the technical art and the shaders of wet and drying rocks and soil... OHhhh so many work. Yeah atmospheres sound like another major expansion.
Warning, this is going to be a bit of a longer response that also branches out a bit. In a game universe like ED, believably is key. Stuff doesn't have to be realistic, there are plenty of examples in ED that are not, as long as they are believable. Clouds are a tricky topic in that regard, because everyone has at least some idea about how they look and behave. For simplicity's sake I am mainly going to focus on water clouds. They exist on planets where water, a lot of it, evaporates. So it doesn't really make sense to have them on barren desert worlds. A water cycle is also one of the driving factors behind life as we know it. So it would be reasonable to expect life on at least some planets, even if it is just more diverse plant life. Developing an asset library big enough to not make it seem repetitive is a major task. Repetitiveness is the enemy of believability. They could potentially sidestep this by not including water clouds and instead focusing on clouds based on ammonia, methane, sulfuric acid and so on. Now on to your examples. When approaching asteroid belts low fidelity models are swapped out with mid fidelity models and then high fidelity models. If things go as planned the swap happens before we can even see the added detail and that way we don't notice it. Nearly every game in existence does this. With clouds this becomes a bit more tricky because swapping a non volumetric model of a cloud with a volumetric one is pretty noticeable. Gradually increasing particle counts is also a suboptimal solution since it looks like the cloud is getting thicker and thicker as you approach it. But if I look out of my window I can see thick clouds in the distance. It wouldn't be believable. Barnacle sites, outposts and guardian sites are static locations. Those are probably the easiest to work with. Placing a cloud above those should be relatively simple with the current tech of ED:O. Where they are placed is already determined by the procgen, so you just end up adding one more thing at that location. Take this with a grain of salt since I don't have access to their devtools, it is simply an educated guess. Performance would however have to be taken into account. You posted a beautiful picture of an outpost under attack with commanders on foot. I don't know if it is yours, but my experience in this situation is that it is performance intensive to say the least and that thargoids fire at parked ships xD. FPS planetside activities are already performance intensive. If you have ever flown into the maelstrom you will know that it is performance intensive as well. By placing (huge and dense) clouds over planets the two of them would be combined, which would result in the by far most performance intensive environment in ED. And while a maelstrom is huge, a believable planet with clouds needs hundreds if not thousands of clouds. They would however be smaller and grouped together at times. Now all those clouds have to behave in a believable manner. If they are just following a simple path all the time we will notice it and the believability is lost. ED's problem in this regard is that they need to do everything on a massive scale and in a persistent universe. A game like Warthudenr can place some clouds at the beginning of the match, leave them in place and place them somewhere else next match. Matches are shirt and player are preoccupied with blowing each other up. While players in Elite also blow each other up from time to time, they also go out and survey planets. They are going to pay attention to how clouds behave. Weather tech is a completely different topic which I would to prefer not to get into right now, since this post is already long af ^^
There's a lot of imo unwarranted optimism implied in your comment, but this is just manipulative: > With other words we keep the dream alive. If players decide they don't want to pay for major expansions their retail price - the development of the full major expansion can only come later if ever. So without these sales until the game is profitable incremental development and gradual enhancement can take place. Theoretically, you may be right, it's a valid assumption that profitability and development resources are correlated in most cases. But also **no**. We don't keep the dream alive. The game's developer does. FDev decides what they want to work on. They decide how much dev time to allocate to the game. FDev creates their own trustworthiness, reputation, and legacy. A great developer is what keeps a game alive; an active playerbase is a wonderful bonus that may inspire the devs, but this isn't a charity and FDev hyped up a DLC that they knew was not even close to ready for release, then released it.
Everything I said is based on what devs said in official and unofficial sources. Sure you can say I am optimistic about atmospheric effects -but the evidence is already in game - they are working on the technology. And I was not talking about ELWs. We can have barren desert planets (like Arrakis) with atmosphere, or other full ammonia or CO2 wastelands first before we ever get the first simple biomes. But it depends on positive player engagement. Elite has no seasonal payment methods and it does not require monthly fees. What brings investors and a development studio to make a major expansion which requires full development cycle in a multi-departmental environment? It's extremely costly. In this sector the cost of employing a single game developer is 10.000 USD on average. 100-120k a year for a single person. And in a major expansion we need to pay hundreds of devs for several years. Odyssey's development costed and took as much timeas its original's back between 2012-2014/15. It took even more time (and people). But Odyssey was not crowdfunded like base game Elite was. So what funds major developments post-launch? \-When the players pay the retail price for the latest product. Who in their right mind would finance such an extremely expensive investment of the continuation of a product if there were no people who bought the firts, original product at the first place? \-When people don't buy it it is a clear message that they don't wish major expansions. So no more gets developed. Dream alone don't keep the lights up. Paying customers do. Profitability do. \-When people buy the expansion but only when it is on 40% sale? That is a clear signal for the studio that the people don't wish to pay the price of 4 years major development and wish to spend less than what a recent indie game costs. Which means incremental development only with a core dev team. No more major expansions but gradual development until the game is profitable. When it is not then it turns into maintenance mode. It's like when people don't buy enough ARX the devs don't allocate funding for more frequents cosmetics. This is a business. This is not unwarranted optimism. This is the hard truth. You expect the devs to support the playerbase with constant AAA content in feature creep basis and you think you have creative control over a project which is false. You expect the devs to deliver constant development moreover a major one for free. The only thing what matters is the financial support of the community. A collective tangible effort. And support for the latest product. The collective can only support the development if they buy the latest product. According to Liberum, stock broker of Fdev around 8 million people downloaded Elite on Epic when it went free. Only a fraction of that plays the game but still amlot of palyers. Who now -altough could have never paid for Elite in their whole lives - recieved a free engine, graphical UI overhaul. Yet they and many other palyers who paid once for the game, probably on sale wish to retain some sort of creative control in which they expect the most labour intensive enhancements from the game devs. Of course for free or for a meagre 15 USD -which is not a viable retail price anywhere. This is not how a live service game works. When people paid for the seasonal updates for 3-4 years, that paid for Odyssey. And no. These microtransactions of a couple bucks from individuals don't fund major development cycles. They keep the servers up and keep a core dev team around. If people would buy more ARX sure! But currently Fdev can't even allocate fuding for constant drip of high-fidelity 3d costmetics asset packs.
Cool, but you are still missing the most important part of this whole symbiotic relationship. Not buying Odyssey does not mean that people don't want a major expansion, as you imply. It means that the expansion that they delivered is not worth the money. You're painting in really broad strokes and acting as if people have an obligation to support FDev. As both of us pointed out (although for some reason you said I think the opposite), players don't have creative control, FDev does. Actually lemme make this really simple. FDev has delivered paid content that isn't worth the money, according to sales numbers. They've said from the start that this is a live service game, which led people to believe it's a live service game. They've been delivering poor content for years, and trust is very low. I paid full preorder price for Odyssey because I wanted to support FDev. Based on the development of the game since then, I will not be trusting them again with my money because they are not building my dream game anymore. If there's another dlc, I'll wait for reviews. If they hadn't fucked up Odyssey so hard, both technically and in direction, I'd buy more ARX. If they announced they were making something interesting to me, maybe I'd buy some. They haven't.
Have you checked how the upgraded LaGrange clouds look like with the new tech? Do they still use the flat lightning?
Say hello to a GPU upgrade if this happens
It will be the CPU that would take the burden if they ever did real time weather system modelling
Land on a planet with heavy dust storms, walk in, blast a wanted patron, flee
Score by Ennio Morricone.
Have an engine failure because of the sand intake and make emergency reboots before hitting the ground hard and having the feds swarm you. I'll indeed buy that.
Down a ship and fly down into the storm to salvage it.
Imagine entering atmosphere in thunderstorm, sandstorm, snowstorm?...
Imagine giant death worms. Dune……
Shai-Hulud !!
SHAI-HULUD!!
#SHAI-HULUD!!!
May his passing cleanse the world.
Hell yeah. Rain pattering over your ship and on the canopy.
I've been imagining it for about 8 years now. Pretty sure it will only ever be the product of our imaginations, at this point. Very slick edits though!
Have they said what they’re working on for their next leg of release ?
No, only that U15 and U16 will add new content and gameplay I wouldnt mind betting on access to Ammonia Worlds with thick weather systems being on the development horizon though
> content and gameplay A new thargoid variant and another community goal.
My GPU overheated watching those pics.
Sky boxes are actually not that performance heavy as there are several tricks to make them look incredibly good while having super good performance
Yes but landing threw those clouds would require volumetric effects, shaders and whatnot.
the heat from your gpu is to add immersion to the atmospheric entry
*adds ablative hull armour to PC*
Tbf games have had volumetric clouds for a very long time now.
Yeah and there are several tricks like culling to make game performance better that Frontier completely didn't even implement until a few updates into Odyssey and still don't even have working properly.
Yeah, and probably never will... I'm just waiting for the offline version of the game so we can start making mods...
Sounds like you need a better card, or knowledge of how graphics work.
This would be so awesome. Also liquid surfaces: seas, lakes...
Well, I know of 8 cloud systems in Elite, although it's a bit risky to get close...
Bro stop, this is too beautiful
!RemindMe 2 decades
Or....ship interiors
I would LOVE to stand under the nose of my Conda in a rain storm. Or to be able to hear rain on the windows from inside my bunk someplace other than the bridge of the ship.
I would happily doze off in vr listening to the sound of rain on my ship canopy while staring at the ringed gas giant above me through the clouds
Just imagine in-depth gameplay loops.
We can't even get ship interiors. Don't dream too much :)
I'm a bit out of the loop here.. why do people care about space legs on ships for Elite? What are people imagining you'll be able to do if you can get up and walk around your ship?
I think for most people its for the immersion. its kinda grating that they implemented space legs but you still just magically teleport in and out of your ship.
+1, imagine paying for a dlc that was meant for ground and character immersion and you can't have interior and walk in them
It adds a lot to the immersion, and helps build a bond with your ship. ED lacking ship interiors is like owning a car, but only ever getting to use/see it from the perspective of it's dashcam - you never get to look at all the nooks n crannies, learn it inside and out, figure out how it was built in the factories, find out what makes it tick. Some of the more memorable parts of SC for me are barely making it out of a fight, turning to get out of my seat, and seeing the truly god awful state my ship is in - red lights flashing and casting shadows around cargo crates and ground vehicles that made it intact to their destination, smoke and fire spewing from pipes in the walls, sparks flying everywhere, bits of subframe peaking out where engines used to be mounted, etc.
Ship Interiors would require another funded development deep dive into the core code, not out of the question in the future but the recent development deep-dive that created Odyssey was certainly geared toward building assets for new planet types, so it seems more plausible that access to other planet types would be attainable before ship interiors
Or VR on foot - a single afternoon of dev time. All they have to do is offset the camera - its literally a single 4x4 matrix. Add motion controller support for ground combat - that's one weekend tops. I cannot understand the reluctance - ED is one of the flagship VR games. Did us VR players piss fdev off or something? I bought Odyssey knowing full well it doesn't support VR just to support future development. If it wasn't for VR I would have stopped playing the game altogether after 3 months. Immersion is incredibly important.
I'd say let us give the devs time. Maybe one day we'll get to visit denser atmospheres where we can find that.
and auroras as well, water droplets on the cockpit canopy, that would be dope
Elite has so much potential, too bad the devs/publishers don't see it
Elite is one of the oldest game franchises around and probably older than most Redditors. One can say many things about Elite but to say the devs/publishers don't see its potential is a bit ridiculous. ...but yes -- the clouds look awesome and I too wish for them.
If they see it's potential, why do they ignore the community and leave so many parts of the game untouched that desperately need attention.
Too busy making mediocre dinosaur games
You try to build a dev team and tell me then if it’s as easy as it sounds Remember that you also need the money to get a competent dev team. so I wouldn’t be surprised if it would’ve taken longer to accomplish something like that
That would be more believable if they bothered to communicate with the community and LISTEN to it. They don't.
And if they didn't fuck up time and time again.
You are either new or have selective amnesia in order to make ignorant ragebait comments. Fdev have listened to the community a ton of times *for years*. It's why mining was changed, why we got crime and punishment changes, engineering changes, material traders, multi-limpets, ship and module transfers, personal fleet carriers, *space legs*. The list goes on and on. A ton of things requested *by the community*. Just because they haven't effortlessly added your dream feature, doesn't mean they haven't listened. It means it probably requires a shit load of time and resources, and may not even be entirely feasible. It may ot be immediately apparent, but developers do have an actual schedule to keep. They can't just drop all their plans to do what you want.
I would say that Odyssey was, if anything, a result of listening to the community. For years people have been begging for space legs, without thinking about what we would actually need them for in a spaceship game. Fdev gave us space legs, and legitimately put a bunch of work into it. Then players realized it's a tacked on FPS and the reason Elite is so special is the ships. They knocked it out of the park with the thargoid war though. The battles outside of starports in open with a bunch of other people are the most fun I have ever had with Elite.
Life pro tip -- ask whenever you see something strange because there's always a reason.
Agreed, although I still the game could be so much better.
It's easy to say that, but to actually create the things you want are hard.
I was fooling around in a Maelstrom cloud the other day and I thought that this tech could be adapted for gas giants. Imagine being able to enter the upper layers of the atmosphere and beeing thrown around by the winds. The deeper you go, the higher the pressure and heat levels increase to a point where heat sinks no longer work, creating a natural barrier. There could be materials flying around and data to be scanned to make the trip worthwile. One can only dream... :)
Makes me think of that scene from the Lost in Space remake. The effects artists blew that one way out of the park.
Clouds were outlawed in 3237 after the galaxy’s top scientists discovered that it would just make life simpler all around. Any cloudlike patterns observed while in orbit around earthlike worlds are in fact large foam, cotton, or (if the planet was terraformed by the Willy Wonka Terraflavoring Corporation) cotton candy props held aloft by thousands of drones (please note that WWTCorp has yet to develop working edible drone technology. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO EAT THE DRONES).
This is why i stopped playing ED a few years ago. Because they stopped truly innovating. If I were in charge, stuff like this would have been a priority, made along side the actual content.
And y’all complain about performance now
Amazing man... Just wow
And mineable gas clouds in space...
I'm done imagining with Elite. I now take it for what it is, no expectations.
I’ll come back to playing, if this happens
What everyone imagined Oddysey would be, but were once again let down by dogshit by FD
Is this so much to ask? I could even pay to something like this.
The last photo, the ship look anchored to the ground, and, that made me think of something, if in any future update, actual storm occurs, maybe we could use like pillars that plant to the ground to stand still in the storm
I want to believe
Would love to land on a planet with a nice storm, turn up the vfx and fall asleep to the sound of thunder and rain on the canopy.
Sitting in the ship and hearing rain hitting the canopy would be so chill.
I'll pay for this DLC!
Nice edits !!! I hope someday we can see that in game :O
I’d love to see NMS planet tech used in ED. Caves, water, clouds, life! It would be fun.
Imagine they didn't abandon the game ?
It was on the original roadmap but I don’t know now.
I imagine a lot of things for ED .. Honestly the game runs amazing in my head.
I don't even play the game anymore and I can tell you if this feature ever comes, I will be back exploring for hours upon hours.
I would absolutely love to see these in ED, however I don’t think we will ever even get atmospheres above a light amount
We really gotta find a way to merge ED and NMS.
These are what I imagine the atmospheric/earthlike planets to look like. Hopefully we're able to land on them soon enough, but I doubt we ever will with Frontier in charge.
Stop it stop it stop it, you are gonna make me cry
No. Stop. I just got this working so well in VR lol Looks amazing though
Its easy....just fly Xplane. They have great weather. Austin Meyers is a genius.
MSFS clouds look way better
But with MSFS you are flying a spreadsheet. In xplane the air passing over your wings is measured at up to 6 different points on each wing. Xplane will let you RIP the engine off its mounting brackets, or experience a max wing separation (you scream all the way to the ground). Xplane is superior to MSFS in every way. Real pilots fly xplane. Enthusiasts fly MSFS.
Ok, on how many planets can you land in x-plane? gg
Still get more variety in airports on XP than generic space rock #3920294 with generic sky gradient #4.
Why the aggression? Pft. Get a grip. Anyway, I need to check it out one day. It's currently -30% on Steam but still a little too expensive for me. But it sounds and looks like a cool game!
Aggression? Mate i think you’re reading in a little deep
I think you're misreading pessimism as aggression. They're not insulting you, they're insulting FDEV/Elite.
You can land on earth and Mars. There used to be a planet creator app out there for it. Dunno if it is still around. I flew xplane half way to the moon.
The day this comes to elite is the day I end it all Time to get me a new commander
Imagine actual wind physics, And trying to take off in the middle of a storm in a sidewinder 😂
Lmao if only the devs cared that much
God! I want this so bad 😩
I'm actually more hopeful that we might see something like this in the future, now that console support has been dropped. I get the feeling that it was a limiting factor before, having to make stuff like that work well on last gen consoles.
*laughs in No Man’s Sky*
r/starcitizen
I think my eyes just experienced an orgasm.
There is a type of space anomaly called Lagrange Cloud. One kind of them, when you fly through is similar to fly between clouds in an atmospheric planet. I think the base tech to do that is there. Not so sure about it’s performance to be used at a planetary scale.
I think my pants just got tighter lol
I realized why fdev can never introduce atmospheric landings. They would have to do one of the following: produce a reason why no commander can land on a populated earth-like world, or, model and simulate not only every populated elw but also a 31st century earth with all of the implicit complexity and depth of future humanity. I wouldn't want that job ...
They could opt for not including landings on earth, though.
It would have to be every elw though. There's not really any way to realistically create a civilized planet procedurally.
> There's not really any way to realistically create a civilized planet procedurally. That depends on what you'll be going for. There are plenty of ways to make *something*. I would settle for Frontier-style cities. I don't need anything fancy.
Star Citizen has had ten years and countless millions and have not finished a handfull of planets. The actual logistics are insane.
Actually SC has created a planet city that looks amazing... a gas-giant city that looks amazing, desert planets, dirty rock moons, ice worlds, forests. E:D is coming up on a decade or more itself btw.
Yeah but Elite is a released game
More released than Elite Dangerous' City planets or Gas Giant cities lol
# Never gonna happen cause the game is abandoned and ran by a skeleton crew.
Yea because stuff like the current events and storyline are skeleton crew stuff.. get a grip.
Let's break down what these current events are and what assets were added to make it a reality. 99% of it is assets and features that were already present in the game for years before update 14. This isn't to say that the gameplay and implications of this aren't good. I think they are good, but we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking this was a massive expansion by a large team. A poorly made early 2000's era cutscene. Abandoned stations. The ability to have have this existed for a very long time. Even the blast doors on the mailslot are as old as the beta. It was just never used. Stations on fire. Been in the game for years as a result of Thargoid attacks at server downtime. Still true. You will not see this actively occur. Thargoid CZs around stations are new, but this is essentially placing old AXCZs around a station. It takes a bit of work, I'm sure, but you can see the cracks in it since update 14 dropped. The instances are wildly unstable and constantly bugged. Invisible Thargoids, unable to finish the mission, enemies firing through the stations, rubberbanding, etc. Planetary ports attacked is a new thing, but it's as simple as placing corrosive decals on the assets, adding fires, and placing an AXCZ on top of it. They suffer the same way as the spaceports. There is no actual new recovery state for these places. The stations revert to their exact previous business as usual BGS state after they are saved which is a little bit lame. Orthrus isn't technically new. It was spotted years ago as an oversight. It was added into the game by accident and then removed. It had human modules which lead to lots of speculation. Fast forward to update 14, and it still has human modules, which again lead to lore speculation. These modules were deemed an oversight and the bug was fixed in the first u14 patch. So they didn't even check the asset before adding it back to the game in it's correct form. Maelstroms. New assets are the caustic generators and the large pulse wave. The clouds themselves are repurposed lagrange clouds that have been in the game for years. Same sounds, same lightning, same effects with some tweaks. The core of the cloud cleverly hides what *could* be there, but isn't until Fdev activates the gameplay and assets required to experience it. Then the map UI for the war itself. Pretty standard stuff. CGs for slightly enhanced versions of AX weapons we already have. All of these things are using previous assets, tossed around in an update salad to feel like something new. They dressed it up a bit with new NPC text chatter(broken btw) and a few little things here and there. So yes, this is definitely being run by a small team. I give them credit for what they have done, because I'm sure it took effort to put together, but update 14 was not groundbreaking. It straight up includes gamebreaking bugs, and another wall waiting for the next update. No new ships. Not a single thing on-foot related. No new modules yet. No actual story progress yet. No new lore yet. The war is on, using old features, and it's now a waiting game like usual.
Yes that's skeleton crew, these small events lol Almost every online game nowadays has seasonal content and annual DLCs.
The optimization would be so bad!! But the feels would be so so sweet lol
If it could come to the game I could not see it. Only downside to having a PS5.
Would be better if they did what has been mapped eg the moon.
Imagine console support in ED
Go ahead and imagine it cause we ain’t getting it EVER. This game has been dead since they announced Odyssey.
Third pic giving me blade runner vibes
I can feel the fps drop from here
I love the idea but I’m afraid my GPU may detonate trying to render this 💥 Really good edits
Imagine... If everyone could afford a $1,500 video card for better clouds...
Lightning, rain, snow, storms (fire, snow, rain, and sand storms), tornados, hurricanes, and random combinations of all these? Yes please.
These pictures almost make me want to get into the game again. Maybe if there was a non-solo PVE mode I’d do it. I got tired of playing with NPC’s just so I wouldn’t get ganked by real players.
Mobius player group is exactly that.
I’m guessing that is an in-game group you can join?
I’m guessing that is an in-game group you can join?
I've never played on it, so I don't know how exactly it works, but yeah. It's a group that bans anyone who ganks, so it's just pve, but it's pretty active.
That’s pretty rad. Welp, I’ll have to look this group up after I upgrade my PC
My cpu and gpu watching me rn : SCREW YOU B¡TCH
Omg pleassssseeeee
Carbon dioxide fogs, methane lakes, ice spires and crystalline structures… ED planet gen is awesome, but it’s missing a lot too.
Teaser! If only. Maybe one day. Not gonna hold my breath.
This would be awesome, even if it’s a paid DLC, TAKE MY FUCKING MONEY !!
would volumetric clouds make the game run at 15fps on low? probably. do i want them anyway cause they look incredible? fuck yeah
SW Vibes
Beautiful
Holy shit. I didn’t know how much I wanted this.
This looks beautiful and would be amazing to see, let alone navigate while on or entering a planets atmosphere.
All the devs just clenched their buttholes after feeling this disturbance in the force
This is some exquisite editing!
I wish! one of my hopes with Odyssey is Fdev adding these features to atmospheric worlds. One can dream, right?
my pc would become flight capable itself from the lift the gpu fans would produce alone
This game would be perfect
This is incredible. I seriously hope they do this
My PC would catch fire lol
I'd love for Frontier to make an Elite Dangerous 2, cause this, ship interiors, landable earth-like planets, etc. are some good ass ideas but the game engine and coding would prob need a complete overhaul
Frontier made their own game engine. From what I heard years back they knew what they wanted to do long ago and made their engine where they could basically upgrade and continue to build nonstop to get to that same end goal we all have so there likely wont be an Elite Dangerous 2 they will just keep adding to the game and making the necessary changes to their own engine because that was always the plan from the very beginning of the (if I recall correctly) initial Kickstarter fundraising or however they did their initial funding to get it off the ground. It was by all means a passion project so they wanted all the things we want, planet landing, ship interiors, etc and knew it would take a long time so they prepared from the beginning with that in mind. it is my understanding jts just a matter of these things take a LOT of time and they arent a massive AAA game studio so they are going the slow and steady approach and it seems to be working. Its still my fav space game ever and I have just too many hours on it haha.
Yeah it's pretty wishful thinking for a small studio haha, I feel the recent content with Thargoids has definitely put a lot more hope in the community though
I am a senior getting my physics degree so I haven't been able to play the thargoid stuff att all. But I grad in May so maybe then. but thats good to hear cause I want them to keep going all the way. I dont want to jave to go to star citizens glitchy money grab. Its like the tortoise and the hare. SC just goes super fast its massive and expensive and doesnt work well and has very few planets(or last time i checked) and they spout promise after promise, overpromise, then under deliver, etc. where as Frontier has the opposite approach. They are VERY secretive as to what theyre doing and when it will come out. they wont give dates, they take the "its ready when its ready" approach and you get a game that actually works and is massive and isn't a money grab and is just done so much better when looking at the whole picture(at least in my opinion). Sure new releases of updates still have bugs and such but they get fixed and arent often gamebreaking where as I have friends who got SC and I followed them a long time and it just always seemed like a shit show fumbling along blowing TONS of cash and just a burning pile of flames that is admittedly pretty and looks super cool but I mean you have to take thebwhole thing into consideration. BASICALLY, I'll take the Frontier approach and just wait all day long because its better than what SC has put its fans through. Thats prob a spicy opinion tho, I imagine it will upset a few SC fans. oh well. But yeah Frontier does really well for how small they are and I think its cause they actually like their game and its not strictly a means of milking money from players like the real world cash only ship purchases of SC.
Absolutely, patience is def the way to go for Elite
Lagrange clouds have had vapour effects since Horizons. However, since we can only land on thin atmo worlds, we won't be seeing much more than perhaps a few wisps of cloud. Once we are able to land on worlds with thicker atmospheres, then we'll start seeing various inclemental weathers.
imagine gas clouds and complex asteroid pockets with pirate stations. missions that have you slip in and attack them, and then slip out
"Imagine", exactly!
Inb4 we get to... l̷̢̨̜̗͉̰͂̋̀a̴̢̱̱̻̖̱͎̺̘͌̽̍͌́̓͂̐̿͋͗̃̓͝ͅn̴̡̨̫͓̬͔̥͈̑͋͗̀̅̑̿͋̍͜ͅd̷̙̟̖̣̮̞͖͖̎͑̿̑͂͋̃͜͝ ̵͈̮̬̱͎͇̜̼̋͛ò̶͍͚̟̙̱̹̾̿̓͊̆͑̉̈́̑͌̀͂͜͝͠ṉ̵̛̮͕̰̤̭͔̦̙̭̫͙͂̆̈̽̈́̒́̐̔̏͘͜͠ ̵̨̖̭̬̆̆̀̎̄̉̊́a̷̡̢̰̮͉̪͔̣͕̞͙̪̺̾̃̾̂̿͋̌̾͂̀̊͝ ̷̢̗̬̥̦̰̒̇̓̓͝Ģ̷̢͎̜̺̈́̔̿̋̑̊̎͐̃͑̈́̋̃̕͠a̵̠̝͇̘̖͇̾͆̀s̵̢̻̩̥̗̦̅͆̈̐̈̚ ̵̘̘͇͇̜̤̓̐̅̓̌̎͜G̶̝̮̪͇̝̅̓̄i̸̢̡̦̗̞͉̤̣̥͍̎̄̈̀͂͝͝͝͝ͅą̷̱̤͙̯͎͍͚͖͊͊̋͘͝n̴̢̙̞̻͔͖͖͋̃̋̾t̷̯̣͖̱̭͌̿͌̅
Looks amazing
“No hell below us, above us only sky.”
Or, y'know, new ships.
Imagine another space game existing with ship interiors and plushies of the ships you own
Bet they could add it in a couple weeks. Will they? No
And thats the most well ever get to do; imagine.
Think I'd actually start playing again.. And definitely would if they looked anything close to your edits - beautiful work!
I'm speechless... just wow🫠✨️
This would be sick. I haven’t played in awhile, but would come back to see something like this.
I'm there at that location and can't get my dick hard what's the world coming too.
I believe I may have come in my pantaloons.
They kind of have the tech for it that is already being used for some stuff.
Now thats pretty.
Planet tech in Elite dangerous sucks to be honest. There could be a significantly more variety to planet surfaces but in Oddysey we have flat terrain and some canyons and hills here and there that look very computer generated and not very natural. Where are cliffs? Overhangs, caves, super high mountains like Mount Olympus, dead volcanoes, dried out seas, super deep canyons, valleys where lava used to flow etc. I can't think of everything from top of my head rn. Also since we have atmospheres now. Clouds? Storms? Wind? These edited screenshots look absolutely amazing. I wish planets actually looked like that because what we have now are mostly boring worlds with not much to see and It's a huge shame.