About 3rd view in Rebirth (only "5%" uses 1st view)

[elexis]

I use first view 90% of the time. I only switch to external cameras when I am flying along a boring path or in the middle of a battle and just want to look at my ship and be like "OOOO PRETTY" =D

This is how everybody uses third person view, they just dont want to admit it.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I use first view 90% of the time. I only switch to external cameras when I am flying along a boring path or in the middle of a battle and just want to look at my ship and be like "OOOO PRETTY" =D

This is how everybody uses third person view, they just dont want to admit it.

I would not say that it is not a reason to use 3rd person view occasionally but it is not the primary reason for many of us wanting 3rd person view in addition to 1st person view.

Depending on how the game mechanics work in X-Rebirth 3rd person view may be only a curiosity. For drone flight and M6 class piloting 1st person view is essential IMO.

Third person view or some other way of viewing the battlefield in 3D is essential for fleet control though IMO even if it is in the form of a group of 1st person recon drones with decent pan+zoom control.

[Chris0132]

It makes sense for maybe a big carrier to have screens, but a moderate <10 man ship would do fine with windows. Not least because it stops people getting claustrophobic.

I don't think that blackness of the space is good against getting claustrophobic. I'm not a psychologist, but I think that it rather cause some other sort of phobia, like that one with fear of flying ("oh no! This glass is too weak, it's going to break!")

Well yeah some folks would, and sometimes the view would be a little dull, but that's when you put the blinds down

But otherwise windows are a good thing. Whenever you're near something worth looking at, people would want to have a look, and a window is much easier than a screen, to get a screen that gives you the same feeling as a window would be quite hard.

Yeah some folks would be creeped out by spaceflight in general, but you probably wouldn't let those people on a spaceship.

If you have window and you are moving, eventually you'll have sun blazing though this window. And what you'll do in that case?

Tape a sensor around the window that detects when the sun is going to hit it, and flicks a little visor over the window, like they have on spacesuits to filter out the horrible space-sun death rays.

And yes, we are talking about military grade spaceship now, not a bus or passenger shuttle. Reliability and functionality are top priority here. And reliability/functionality of bare glass without electronics is zero. But usability and functionality of screen (even unrealistic) is very high. Screen is hidden inside the ship, so probability of it being damaged is the same as you being killed (as you sit near it). And again, if your sensors are dead - you are dead too. Window won't help you.

Certainly reliability and functionality are important on a military ship, but what generally ensures reliability and functionality of the ship, is the reliability and functionality of the ships's crew.

And for that, good recreation and psychological support facilities are important. It's why submarines don't stay submerged all the time if they can help it. People like to get out in the fresh air and out of the tin can as much as possible. They put windows on the ISS though there's precious little point in doing so, other than to keep the crew happy.

The ISS is the product of almost the entire space budget of many countries across the entire planet. Making it relatively speaking much, much, MUCH more expensive than your average battleship.

If the ISS can afford to cut corners on structural stability for the mental stability of its crew, so can the future space-jeeps-with-guns-taped-to-them which is what most of the ships you're flying in X are comparable to. Mass produced, easily available, poorly regulated, privately designed space vehicles.

That's sort of the thing, this isn't even the space military all that much, it's the space wild west. Any idiot can buy a spaceship and strap guns to it because it's lawless out there. There's very little regulatory oversight you can have in a world where many races are building many ships in many styles.

[Night Nord]

But otherwise windows are a good thing. Whenever you're near something worth looking at, people would want to have a look, and a window is much easier than a screen, to get a screen that gives you the same feeling as a window would be quite hard.

That's the key difference in our opinions. You say "hey, screen that looks like a window is hard, so let's just screw holes in our armor and be happy" and I'm telling you "hey, that's a future!". We already have very-very cool screens with good depth immersion, timing and resolution. There are problems still, but I'm fairly confident that problems of FTL travel and reliable and cheap space engines is much complex then that one.

Tape a sensor around the window that detects when the sun is going to hit it, and flicks a little visor over the window, like they have on spacesuits to filter out the horrible space-sun death rays.

And what would be the difference between screen with imperfect (if it is imperfect) color resolution and filtered window? My point was - "there is no such thing as "real" view in space - real view is quite deadly".

And for that, good recreation and psychological support facilities are important. It's why submarines don't stay submerged all the time if they can help it. People like to get out in the fresh air and out of the tin can as much as possible. They put windows on the ISS though there's precious little point in doing so, other than to keep the crew happy.

Hate to tell you, but there is no much sense in walking out of the spaceship to enjoy fresh air

The ISS is the product of almost the entire space budget of many countries across the entire planet. Making it relatively speaking much, much, MUCH more expensive than your average battleship.

If the ISS can afford to cut corners on structural stability for the mental stability of its crew, so can the future space-jeeps-with-guns-taped-to-them which is what most of the ships you're flying in X are comparable to. Mass produced, easily available, poorly regulated, privately designed space vehicles.

ISS doesn't cost so much. There were a whole bunch of orbital space stations produced and launched solely by Soviet Union before it. And yes, it's not battle station - it has no armor or shield, it's not designed to survive the battle (only small asteroid hits) and therefore structural integrity is not much of the concern.

And for private production - I'd rather expect worse situation with overall ergonomics on these. That's not your ordinary luxury space yacht. That's more like a working truck - they don't have much of comfort there. No regulation almost always means "less comfort and ergonomics".

Finally, see above - there is no argue about importance of some external view for crew. That's an argue about implementation specifics.

[Attacker]

1st View is more reality, I like it

[Feuille]

I never played X series in other view than 1st.

[tatann]

If it still was the same "no cockpit" first person view like in previous X, I would choose 3rd person, but considering the effort they put in the cockpit view, which is one the best visual aspects of XR (IMHO) I vote for 1st person view
Plus I prefer FPV for immersion, I always play The Elder Scrolls in FPV, even if it means not seeing my new shiny armor

[Shootist]

I love to see my beautiful ship in front of me..

GRID2 has canceled 1st view, and focus on 3rd view. Cause only 5% players use 1st view.

I think egosoft really should think about improving 3rd view in Rebirth.

Insane on the face of it. Space ships are not flown from the right rear corner panel.

[Sam Redstone]

Why is this even a thread?

To argue for having both views available is fine, but why insist that 95% of gamers only want a 3rd person view?

What utter and complete nonsense.

I want to be IN my spaceship, thanks.

Why do you think both X:Rebirth and Star Citizen are so heavily focused on the cockpit experience when it's SO MUCH HARDER to create?

3rd person view was only ever implemented in a game like this because it's an easy, lazy cop-out. You build the exterior model of each ship (which you have to do anyway) and then you're done.

First person is where the work lies, and also where the immersion comes from.

5% my sweet fanny.

5% of nintendo DS users, maybe...

[softweir]

To add my 2 pence worth, I am one of the "1st person" fans. 3rd person was useful in some circumstances when doing clever things with seriously underpowered capships, but we won't be doing that in Rebirth, so why have 3rd person?

I also feel the O.P. was mistaken to compare two extremely different games played by two very different groups of people. Simulations can't compare with arcade games.

[Kai101m5]

with the kind of cockpit we can expect from Rebirth and Star Citizen, no doubt: First view by a LONG shot.

I've been playing Star Conflict. It's a very good game, but it's pretty much the definition of casual game. Reminds me of a 90s arcade machine.

These two (XR and SC) are proper sims. Even without an Occulus Rift, it'd be such a shame not to see the cockpit. However, as many people have said, it's also nice to see your ship after you've customised and upgraded it into a beast...

One key switching ftw

[Darkjedidisciple]

Hi devs.
There is nothing I am waiting for more then X Rebirth.
But I don't like the cockpit view. It simply takes up to much of the screen! I WANT TO SEE THE ACTION. Not the cockpit. Its fine it has to be there, but can't you please make it possible to make it smaller or have several cockpits to choose from?

[Bobucles]

Wait, how is this thread a thing? GRID2 is a racing game. There has been no good 1st person view in any racing game, ever. Third person view is the only way to see the road, to have proper peripheral vision, and to spot the upcoming turns without having to stare at a 5 pixel wide horizon that is then blurred to all hell, because anything 200meters out is for some reason portrayed as a no-man's land fog of war. Anyone who used that kind of 1st person view for their eye exam would lose their driving license.

When it comes to dogfighting, first person view is the way to go. It's very difficult to aim at things when a gigantic 3d spaceship rear end keeps blocking the view.

[pigeonpigeon]

Yeah this is comparing apples to oranges. 1st person view in a racing game vs. in a space sim are two very different beasts, the the statistics for one are not going to translate well to the other.

I find combat in X to be practically impossible in 3rd person view, 1st person all the way! I only use 3rd person while I'm flying around and just want to admire my pretty spaceship

That said, sometimes cockpits bother me. I like them in general, but sometimes they use up far too much space, leaving you only with a small sliver a visibility. Not only does that not make much sense in a space environment where you still control your ship and weapons by sight, but it can be really disorienting. The narrower the view, for me, the easier I get dizzy...

[Wraith_Magus]

I use first person almost exclusively in an M3 or M5, and third person almost exclusively in cap ships, since that's the only way to get a good impression of where my ship is. (I ram things constantly in cap ships from first person.)

I pretty much only use M6s for towing asteroids, and I do that swapping between 3rd person cam around myself and the asteroid, since I need to avoid ramming as many mini-astroids as possible while extricating my mines.

It's great if people only want to use 1st person, especially with the fighter-like ships or the Skunk, but don't cut features that wouldn't take that much effort to keep and do have their uses and popularity just because not all that many people use it too often. It's a cost-benefit thing. It benefits some people, and doesn't cost the others to have.

A good portion of why most people didn't use 3rd person in X3 was because you couldn't see past your own ship, due to being fairly lazy programming of the camera. In other words, even if it was unpopular with most, it still cost basically nothing to have. With a tiny amount of extra buttons that would allow you to push the camera NOT directly up the tailpipe of your ship, you could have had a view more people would have liked without costing all that much more effort. (Even the "cockpit view" of X3 was basically just jamming the camera roughly cockpit-area on the model of the ship.)

With that said, I'm still waiting for full-on RTS controls, which would be 3rd person, and give us more control over cap ships than we're getting from out-of-the-box Rebirth.

[gbjbaanb]

you want 3rd person.. you can have it - just fly a drone behind the Skunk and interact with your co-pilot to steer

Of course, there's little point to having a big old glass screen if you are already flying drones - there's nothing wrong with a HUD using the same drone technology to get an uncluttered view of what you're doing - which would be great in combat and trade situations.

[Wraith_Magus]

Well, just plain offsetting where the "center" of the screen is to just above your ship, and zooming out a little would have made 3rd person much more useful, and it's not like changing where the camera is "set" on a ship (or the button to change views) really takes more than a tiny amount of coding time.

You want first person for personally firing your weapons, but third person is much better for evading incoming fire, which is a large portion of why I use third person for an M7 - I have turrets doing all my firing for me, so all I have to do is evade. Even using an M6 in combat using homing missiles instead of main guns can better use third person.

[Brachra]

If they removed 1st person view to "tailor to everyone else"
i would stop buying X games.
3rd person makes things more "Arcade" to me than anything

i guess i am part of the 5%.

[CutterJohn1]

I'd just be happy to be able to turn off the cockpit. Why they felt they had to integrate the HUD into the cockpit instead of a proper head mounted display I'll never understand. It forced them to only support a single ship, to only support a single view.

It strikes me as funny how they swung from one extreme to the other. The complaint in X3 was that there were no cockpits. And they listened to that complaint, took it to heart, and said haha, now you only get cockpits!

[Alci]

in ship yes. Drones are without cockpit in X3 style. So everyone is happy And my hopes are in Occulus. And OR is extremely unfriendly with 3rd person views