Live chat with David Braben on Frontier
So, the ability to hack the game could threaten to significantly impact peoples' enjoyment of the game and the credibility of the game itself. How difficult do you think it is to combat, and how is this to be done in ED?
This is always a problem. Server moderation is our first line of defence, but sadly some hacking will inevitably go on. Some hacks are easy to detect, some much harder. Deciding what to do is also tricky too - either forcing single player, or ultimately banning depending on what it is seem like sensible options.
You've talked before about how "great hero" type stories don't work in a MMO environment, but will there be galaxy-wide events that are triggered/altered by single players discovering the right artefact/completing particularly important missions/barging into the Thargoid homeworld and blowing up everything they see?
Yes, there will. We have already discussed gold rushes - those will be triggered by specific players. Other events too.
Certain notorious players may get named on the news feeds if they have particularly high bounties too!
How will finding friends work with the multiple server connections we have at present? Will we have to just reconnect and track what server we are on or what?
It should be automatic. If your friends are on your friends list, then you should meet them. This is one of the features coming for Beta 1 on 29th July.
How will procedural generation manage to create a 1:1 Earth, populated by billions of people and animals, with huge urban cities in many different styles, and all this meanwhile being believable, immersive and high quality? In many ways, i would find such a 1:1 seamless recreation of Earth where we can walk around an even bigger achievement than a 1:1 galaxy.
True. That's one of the reasons we want to phase the deliveries of such things. Having said that we also have quite a few things working in our favour. In the fiction we already have the Earth of 3300 having changed quite significantly - just imagine travelling back to the year 700 - ie the 'Dark Ages' - that is the same distance away in time...
The coastlines will be similar, but significantly changed due to rising sea levels. Many coastal cities will have long gone and some new cities with similar names (in Frontier "New San Francisco" was a few hundred miles inland of where San Francisco is today) popped up on the higher land nearby.
So we will not recreate today's cities or today's Earth, but something that might be possible in 1300 years time.
Will there be a "Solar Radiation" mechanic? e.g. Losing your shields close to a high radiation star could kill the human occupant. The canopy doesn't look like it would offer much protection!
Your shields should stop such radiation - but it may well drain them...
Do you think that the game will require in game player admins to be a source of help and support. or would you prefer to avoid this scenario.
We may well do this as a way to police griefing.
I backed to the Imperial Bounty Hunter level starting with the Imperial Eagle Mk2. Just wondering what ship I'll be likely starting with since it seems the Eagle is now a Federation ship?
The Eagle was a ship that was made by both the Federation and Empire in Frontier: Elite 2 and it is the same with the Mk 2. We haven't shown the Imperial variant yet.
Will people who have named stations, planets and systems have a way of finding them? In particular will stations and planets be searchable in the galaxy map?
That's a good point. System names are currently searchable, but this doesn't cover stations or planets. We'll work out a way.
Will there be star systems where the stars radiation perhaps interferes with the ship radar and communication systems?
Yes - I think I mentioned this during the Kickstarter - including the results of weather in the atmosphere of gas giants.
Will unidentified signal sources be permanent locations as they are in the current version, or will they be randomly generated in some way?
They will come and go, and each will have a mini-story or mission behind them. What we have now is static to test the system.
The ships Huds layout will we see other layouts of huds?
We wanted to standardise the HUD layout for ease of switching between ships, but this is something we will look at for the much larger ships.
Hyper jumping will we see the approach to a system like in the battle video? Instead of just going through hyperspace.. Then just appearing in a system without seeing it in the distance.. Then it getting closer.. Etc.. Would be better if this was put in later..
There are changes being made to this, but it will be different to that. The effect in the video at the time was a prototype.
Is there any chance of larger ships swapping out cargo space for some 'fighter bays' which small ships could dock at and be launched from? This would be especially interesting when we get multi crew ships as well as having NPC pilots... Not only this but will there be add ons to the ships like in frontier which take up cargo space such as better shield generators, engines ect ect so making your load out a decision and leading to 100's of individual styled ships?
Yes. The very large ships will be able to carry the smaller ships in the game, by sacrificing cargo space. Similarly we will have the ability to fit shield generators, larger engines etc out of cargo space. This should indeed lead to a good deal of variation.
Their has been debate on whether ED will be on a single shard or multiple shards/instances. Are you able to confirm if ED will be on single shard or multiple.
There is a single world - all trade data, world changes etc affect everyone. Some of the more crowded areas of the game are split into islands, where only a subset of players can see each other. For Beta 1 we have friends lists coming, which will mean that friends get to go into the same island.
As a clan /Guild leader what scope will their be for groups like us in ED as a number of us like to play in groups from your original concept?
That is coming soon (ie friend's groups)... ;-)
Will people that play in single player and private groups be able to influence the world in the same way as people in the all group? For example, a blockade in the all group could stop players delivering goods, but the blockade could be avoided by going into a private group.
They are all working together. The blockades will be largely AIs, and that will still exist.
There's been a lot of discussion regarding the effectiveness of gimballed weapons on the forum, with some players wanting them less effective, and others saying they preferred the way they worked in the first beta 2.00 What's your own view on this, and do you use them ?
Gimballed weapons are great I think - but mustn't unbalance the game. I think their powers were too high, but the principle is sound - trading some power for those who don't have quite the same pin-sharp aiming ability.
What's your favourite ship in ED? (Bonus points if it's one we haven't seen yet!)
I'm afraid it has to be the Cobra...
Inevitable question has to be then: what about turret control? Gunner control was done really well in Rowan's Battle of Britain game...
Not seen that. We have auto-turrets in the game now, but manual turret control only really makes sense on the larger ships.
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