DevTracker. About the game

Bindings

It's important to note that although using the cockpit interface shares standard game menu interface elements, navigating it is part and parcel of game play.

So, whilst still being an incredibly important aspect, making it as easy to use and invisible as possible is not the *only* goal. There are elements of player skill and drama (basically, game play) that we feel sometimes justify interactions that can validly conflict with ease of use, at least to a degree.

Just because we could bind every command to its own button doesn't mean that we feel it's the right thing to do.

Now, that's not to say that we get such choices right first time every time. Sometimes ideas sound great on paper and turn out awful in practice. When this happens, we make changes. The alpha process will allow folk to see us making them, and add their observations into the mix.

Dumbing Down

We want to support many different control options. As far as I'm concerned this has nothing to do with porting the game, by the way – we just want people to be able to use mice, keyboards, flight sticks, gamepads and combinations of the above. This makes plain sense to me: the more options there are, the wider appeal there can be.

Now, the *game* that we're making has its set of interface requirements, which always come first.

We want the interface to support the game above all else. So sometimes, a particular control method will be slightly less suitable for a particular interaction, other times it will be better suited. We try to make choices in this regard that are best for the game as opposed to best for a particular input device.

We're definitely not "dumbing down" (one look at the bindings screen should make that clear), we're trying to do what we believe will create the best experience.

Dog Fighting

We're aiming for an interesting dog fighting experience with Elite: Dangerous; one that will "feel" credible, be exciting and offer legible game play options, but not necessarily be completely analogous to contemporary or historic real life combat.

For one thing, there simply is no real-life analogous experience, but equally importantly, we are not creating a true flight simulator – we want the player to feel like they are in full and effective control of a futuristic, combat-capable space ship, without requiring them to be a qualified astronaut or air force fighter pilot.

Headlook

Visibility is important.

The ability to look around the sidewinder cockpit does alter your potential combat effectiveness and their are various control inputs and bindings that make this possible to different degrees.

For example, using an Oculus Rift allows you to most easily utilise the full area of canopy, which is actually quite considerable compared to just the forward facing view. Mouse look is reasonably easy to use if you are using keyboard and mouse controls. Flight stick hat or mouse nipples are generally speaking the most difficult to employ effectively.

Of course, these different control methods have other pros and cons, which might make them more or less suitable overall. One of the things we're looking at with the Alpha will be how different control methods stack up against each other.

Cockpit Views

We've made no bones about our desire to "place" you in the cockpit with the restrictions inherent to this concept – we believe this creates the best experience for the game.

However, this does not preclude the use of cockpit interface elements being cameras, allowing you to look directly behind (or down etc.)

Importantly, the way that you access these views and what you can do whilst using them will have restrictions logical to the notion that you are a pilot looking at a screen (you may not have access to some controls and interface).

Rift Support

We are supporting the Oculus Rift. This will ultimately include interface changes that are enabled when a Rift is detected to overcome issues such as not being able to see your keyboard.