Planet Landings?

[ninjitsumonk]

Well I guess you've got a point, I suppose Boron planets could potentially have much higher gravity due to the fact that they are aquatic beings and the water(in normal physics) reduces the effect of gravity significantly

[biggeorge]

Hi, I am a noob, well sort of. If anyone is working on a MOD, then I would appreciate the planets being part of the game. As in; to trade with them, perhaps purchase space docks or factories on the plane itself. In X2 I built up an Empire, only to find the universe becoming saturated with certain wares. Selling to planets could be a solution.

[alexduke]

Landing on Planets? Performance problems?

Procedural programming is the keyword!

"Elite 2 - Frontier", "Elite 3 - First Encounter".......(and soon, I hope, "Infinity - The Quest for Earth".)

The Planets in Elite2&3 are a little bit ugly...k..., but the feeling to land (and mining) nearby where ever you want is more than great!

So, why not in X? Does it needs a new Engine? Can't Egosoft modify the actual one? Go on, make a new one! I will pay 100€ and more for X4 with the possibilities of Elite 2 and X3!


edit:

I turn your attentions toward Infinity. You can flt straight through a planets atmosphere, fly anywhere you want on a planet, land in the cities and all without load screens. Now I know, it's a different game and a different engine and all of that, but it is a wonderful example of what is possible.

http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/ Just if you want proof of what I say, go to the media page and watch the videos XD

Infinity is also an MMO, where all the massive amounts of data calculations for planets and everything else are kept on the huge server(s) it uses. Unlike our poor little PC's that must do everything themselves.

False, the server just calculates the players in game and economics etc. ALL THE GRAPHIC ENGINE is loaded inside the player's PC. It works becouse it procedurally generates models and texture's combination (base textures are the same but very light), the trick it is makes the same rendering in all pc about the same planet.

Just try to play ELITE and see how light it is even for a program of that age, if you consider the many planets/systems it has to genereate. Download the PC adaptation here: http://www.tomatarium.pwp.blueyonder.co ... ntier.html

Yes! You're right! This is what I mean...but my english is too bad to explain what I mean.

(But better try to play Elite 2 or 3!)

[alexduke]

Let's summarise the options:

1. Basic planet "landings" which are effectively just cutscenes or jumps to a static environment.

Advantages: Relatively little work.
Disadvantages: Adds nothing to the gameplay that could not be achieved in space.

2. Planets with a simplified or generated environment.

Advantages: Potentially more new gameplay opportunities.
Disadvantages: Lots of work, planets likely to be boring and repetetive, and the result is something that doesn't really "fit" with the rest of the game.

3. Proper planets with high quality, realistic environments.

Advantages: Really cool and lots of gameplay opportunities.
Disadvantages: Utterly insane amount of work, to the point of being impossible within any sensible budget.

4. No planet landings.

Advantages: All available time and resources can be spent developing gameplay opportunities in space (this being a space game after all).
Disadvantages: We'd all like to be able to land on planets.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why option 4 is likely to remain the chosen one for the foreseeable future.

Option 1: Boring...Freelancer has it....boring!!! This is no "real" Planet landing. Similar to land on Stations in the Space, but just on a Planet. Again, boring!

Option 2: Why boring? They should not be as "empty" as in Elite 2 and 3. Building Fabs on it or advanced Mining. Enough!
But it feels much more better to be able to land and interact on/with a Planet. More freedom!!!

And I believe that this is a major feature for many non-X players to get X-player! Egosoft would be the first Publisher/Producer (whatever), who brings out a Game with that kind of freedom(in a singleplayer space-sim, and for the moment also in multiplayer).

Option 3: I don't need so much "detail". Option 2 is enough! I would have the fear that there will lost too much of the features we have in X3 today, if you spend too much ressources on Planets.

Option 4: This is no Option, this is what it is today. For 13 or 14 years now, this is the "option" that Publishers or Software-producer choose......BORING!!!!!! Really BORING!!!!!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why option 4 is likely to remain the chosen one for the foreseeable future.

Let me think...fear? (fear to lose money)

You have to bring new futures, or others will do it!(sooner or later...better to be the one who is sooner)
And after all, this is an awesome future!

Better this feature then releasing a Game full of bugs....this will cost a lots of more money...I hope!

(I again hope you understand what I mean...Online Translator is my friend. )

[Realspace]

... so ninjitsumonk, what's the state of art of your project?

[Scram_UK]

Yeah 'Infinity's The Quest for Earth's' engine looks beautiful. But if X4 was to feature a similar sort of engine you could say good-bye to a smooth 20-30fps... Hell you can say bye to 10 fps because once hundreads of ships get loaded into the universe all traversing space and entering planets atmosphere, trading / fighting, and driving around on ground.... Doing what X's AI does best.
Your now stressed and sweaty CPU will want to start screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - NO MORE .... HAVE MERCY !!!! I CAN'T TAKE THE SSSTRRRAAAIIN!"

*Blue screen of death*

CPU - "Ahhhh":)

[Realspace]

Actually there are several ways to make big space and big planets and Infinity's is just the more complex one ... and the best, of course (that's for sure, it will be a revolution in space games after 20 years!!!)

There are many "light" ways that X3 could use to improve its space simulation. there are games such as Starwraith Evochron serie that have big sistems, planet landing (veeeery UGLY there!) and stay inside 25 MB size and run very smothly!

The point is X3 probably needs sectors connected with gates to manage all that traffic, trading etc....now, cosidering that also other space games have complex economy and don't use gates, but let's assume it is necessary for X3, well, there's a lot to implement.

Instead of using gates a script can transfer you automatically, so the illusion of one big space is safe, the sectors are now too small and claustrophobic, I think 4000 km in space is realy not enough. (it's less than the diameter to have an earth-like planet inside of it!)

You don't even need a real planetary landing, at least I agree that either you do it in a nice way or better not to have (the Freelacer way is just a trick and spoils the game of "credibility"

So, I suppose EGO will have to implement some kind of planet simulation soon or later. As now, a X4 would be a very poor game. Mean, considered the actual play system as a good arrive point, there's no excuse in refusing to improve other aspects of the simulation, and planet can be done in several ways.

As you saw, PROCEDURALLY GENERATED planets is the best (it makes possible thousands of unexpected models but requires a lot of new software implementation), but you can also only work on modelling, by creating different models for different distances.

Actually, they did it a bit in X3, if you noticed that planets here have 3 different sizes. You only need to amke them, let's say, in 10 sizes and make a smooth transiction via some script. thats actually the principle of what we wanted to do here, but of course the results can not be the same.

sorry for a so long post!

as asked above: ... so ninjitsumonk, what's the state of art of your project?

[Vitez]

For me, planetary landing would ruin the X-series.....Well, ok. Not ruin, because I will buy X4 wether or not it has plan. landing.
But the point is that X has always been a space (S-P-A-C-E) game for me, without even the idea of plan. landing. And I like it the way it is. It gives me somekind of a strange feeling (in a pleasent kinda way ).
But if there will be plan. landing, I hope they will make it like in X2. I mean, like when we had to go for the Boron scientist, and docked in a modified TL. That would even be reasonable, because plan. landing requiers more skills the going from A to B in space.