David Braben. Q&A on frontier forum
Daffan, Vikinger, Sterlino: Why P2P and not central server?
It is neither of these – it is a hybrid. The important elements are moderated by the server and are slightly less time-critical, but much of the traffic goes peer to peer to reduce ping times. We will tune the emphasis throughout beta.
Wolf: Do I code? When was the last game?
Hi Wolf, sadly no, but I do miss it. I think there may still be a little bit of code left in some of the Cobra tool chain, but nothing for a good few years
Riedquat: Will I play E once released? What aspect will I play?
Absolutely! I think the exploration is probably the biggest appeal to me.
Darkman: plans for the centre of the galaxy
The plan is to make it as realistic as we can. There is still quite a lot of uncertainty, but the stellar density is pretty well known, as is the evidence for a super-massive black hole – the X ray source Sagittarius A, so we will implement that.
Having said that, the galactic centre is not a very interesting place as there will be very few (if any) planets.
"Has any (more) thought been put into Crafting within Elite Dangerous?I"d love to mine the required resources and then deposit it them into a rented factory along with a blueprint and make my own missiles etc"
There is already a sort of crafting loop in Premium Beta 1 – for example coltan is mined, then taken to be refined into tantalum, then turned into high-tech goods. Down the line mining machines (as featured in Frontier) and similar elements will be introduced, but that will most likely be after the first release.
"Can I be found in the Premium Beta, and what is my commander name?"
My commander name is Commander Braben, and yes – I am there from time to time.
irrstern: "Does the solution architecture of the game as a whole take into account a later upgrade of parts (e.g. the engine itself) to make use of the upcoming new hardware/software possibilities?"
Yes – we are planning for things that many don"t have yet – Oculus, 3D, 4k etc etc – but yes we will also build in flexibility for the future too.
RobFisher: "Some of the proposals on the DDF are just awesome -- and very ambitious. But doesn"t that mean there is soooooo much still to do? Or have you got a lot more in the bag that we haven"t seen yet? Can it really be done?"
They are indeed – and the DDF has been great!
I suspect this game will never be completely finished, but that is a good thing. The world will continually move on as we add new content.
Frank: "
Well, there is already a tribute that went into Alpha 4 (and is in PB1 too), to the excellent late Colin Pillinger and his Beagle 2 spacecraft – with the station "Beagle 2 Landing".
In Frontier there were plenty of tributes too – for example to the wonderful late Richard Feynman – the planet "Feynman" as the nearest exoplanet to Earth.
Ibastavd: "Two Questions for you:1. Will there be a rear view added to the game at any point?2. Will you consider adding a padlock view to the game?Keep up the fantastic work – we love you! (but not in a man sort of way!)"
We are looking at how best to include a rear view, and certainly it is being considered, especially for the larger ships – but we wanted to see how much it was really needed (oh, and I"m too stupid to know what you mean by a padlock view...).
teamkill: "Talking of exploration, do you envisage finding a new system and instantly knowing what planets/moons etc are there or will it remain "dark" until someone finds them. Also will the discoverer be known throughout the universe. (news feed possibly)?"
Stellar systems that have not been explored will simply show the star or star(s) that can be seen there from a distance, and have a systematic name. Someone will have to explore them AND RETURN for them to become more generally known. They will also be able to stake a claim and name such a system.
Some "dark" systems will not be shown at all, until someone actively scans that area of space, and makes that information available – and without that information (which will be tradable) it will not be possible to travel through hyperspace to it.
Sloma: "Are you focused atm on Federal / Independent side? Why are we not seeing any Imperial ship designs or any content related to Imperial faction?"
The area of space we chose happens to be a long way from Imperial space, hence the focus of PB1 etc. We have Imperial content too (as in the "Damocles" video and the Imperial cruiser and Imperial fighters), but that will come as we open up space.
Colonel Kenney: "One interesting question I have. Much of the galaxy will take us a very long time to get to. Are there any plans of implementing any sort of "shortcuts" to different parts of the galaxy such as wormholes? Like something extremely rare but there are some hidden around for us to discover etc? Like how can we explore the center of the galaxy if it would take a year of gameplay to get there etc?"
No, we"re not planning to implement shortcuts. For me, one of the attractions is it IS a big achievement to travel a long distance. I like the idea of the occasional meeting of a player far far out in the galaxy as a chance encounter. We do plan to seed things of interest out there too.
Ben Ryder: "Will there be a competition and a trophy for the first people to reach Elite?"
Nice idea! Yes, we certainly should do something – though this would be post-release.
Brodie: "Hello David, Walking around your ship and stations is something many of us are eager to see, but what practical in game function will the ability to move around your ship add to the game (beyond, of course, the awesome sense of immersion it will add). I understand that Station & Ship exploration is planned for an expansion, is this expansion a certainty or is it dependant upon the profitability of the initial Elite Dangerous release? You recently tweeted a picture of yourself playing Elite: Dangerous whilst wearing the Oculus DK2, can you please describe this experience, especially in comparison to playing Elite: Dangerous using the Oculus DK1. "
Moving around your ship feels a little pointless on its own, but when it comes to getting out of your ship, boarding other ships, having other players on board your ship, it becomes a lot more interesting – and this feeds in to Station and Ship exploration.
E on Oculus DK2 is great. The resolution is a big step to help with the immersion, as is the extra frame rate. The head-tracking also gives that little extra – you can lean forwards and down to see around the hull of your Lakon Type 9 for example, or lean beyond your chair to look back into the giant bridge deck.
Kroenen: "David: Is there any timescale on when we might start expanding past the 5 systems we have now? I"m sure many if not all are eager to start testing more procedural generated aspects."
This expansion will be gradual. More are coming, but we don"t want to go too far too quickly, as we test out the systems.
Trying to answer all the questions is like drinking form a fire hose...
On the padlock view – no, I think it interferes with too many things – but that"s not to say something like it couldn"t be on a sub-screen (which is how we"d do a rear view anyway).
I am very interested to hear more about the planetary landing. What is planned? How much detail will there be on the planets? Are they going to be limited in any way?
Planetary landings won"t be a single thing. I think I"ve said before – it is what is down there that makes planetary landings compelling – and please remember all of this will be after first release of the game.
I imagine we will start with landings on airless moons. You would be able to see heavy industry, craters up close, and ultimately be able to deposit things on the surface (stash cargo or mining machines). Atmospheric worlds are a bigger challenge – whether rocky or gas giant in nature – and a key element there is the atmosphere. They should have rich cloudscapes with lightning, turbulence etc.
The biggest challenge is with what we call "outdoor worlds". I would want rich and varied vegetation, wildlife, and so on.
He"s there been any thought to having a loot system similar to Diablos, where you can salvage guns of varying stats from destroyed or abandoned ships? So say some skilled mechanic has invested a lot of time in improving their lasers and now they have a slightly more efficient cooling system, but consequently lower range (you get the point).
It does a lot of good for increasing the longevity of a game by making the random generation slightly more significant, so I hope something like that is on the cards? Thanks for the great game though!
Yes – we have considered that. We are trying to balance the game, and want to be careful about introducing potentially destabilising elements, and one problem is that weapons are very valuable. The current plan is that damaged (and stolen) weaponry would have a much lower resale value, but that once we had that we could introduce such things into debris from time to time.
David, I am lucky enough to have been able to pledge at a level which gives me invites to the Launch Party, I will need several months notice however in order to book the time off work. Do you foresee that we will get a firm date with sufficient notice?Oh and will you sign my wife"s bo00bs? :P
Yes – that is a good point. We will make sure that we do.
Err – and fortunately I missed that last bit... ;-)
Since there seems to be a big disinformation campaign against Elite, claiming that Elite IV (Dangerous) has been in development since 2005. Can we get, from the horses mouth, the head honcho, the big kahoonah, exactly what has been developed, when, and for how long? My understanding is that most of the development took place after the kickstarter and it was only skunkworks up until then. Can you end the debate, once and for all?
No problem!
I have wanted to do a sequel for a long time, and there has been "skunk-works" development, on and off for quite some time, but full on development is mostly since (and somewhat during) the Kickstarter campaign. So you are correct.
How much has the industry changed since, in your opinion? Are we shifting that paradigm yet? Any shining examples?
Games are gradually changing from this. We are starting to see some more thoughtful elements and true emotion in story-based games. Games like "The Last of Us" for example. Construction games like "Minecraft" are outside this too.
As it"s currently not noticable in premium beta, will the gravity model in supercruise that allows things like slingshot-maneuvers around massive bodies still be implemented, as proposed in the DDF-thread on In-System-Travel? That bit was what hooked me to the game initially, and I would be kinda sad if that"s something you decided to throw out.I think that feature could be key to make supercruise more than the linear travel it kinda is right now, assuming you don"t turn flight assist off. I saw a number of posts feeling bored when supercruising, I guess those would be satisfied if you would elaborate on gravity.I also see this as huge potential towards immersion, as many of us probably always feel somewhat uncomfortable linearly traveling through space, when all of today"s space travel is nothing but using gravity of our planets as efficiently as possible. There just needs to be one hint of it, nothing complicated, so we don"t accidentally scare off the other bigger part of the community.
Yes – that was something I like too. I think it does do this a little, but it needs to be accentuated.
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