Just dropped today.
I really really really really hope FD keeps VR support in the game.
Iâve not seen vr support at steam E:D dlc web page
Elite D does have VR support, so I also hope that will be the case for ED: Odyssey.
My concern is: How will they handle movement? Can I use my HOTAS? What about WASD keys and mouse or controllers (VR and standard)? Can I select those instead of HOTAS, but only when in first person mode? What about VR movement, will teleport be supported?
Also very curious to see how they choose to implement all this. I have to agree with Obsidian Ant, as FDev have a relatively small amount of resource compared to SC and CIG, they will probably not want to go the full hog and full FPS / VR everywhere - it would mean the same amount of time and bugs to bring hugely complicated, networked systems together. A smarter bet would be to limit the scope somewhat so they can focus on specific gameplay systems.
But, thatâs all speculative, and theyâve been working on this for a couple of years now so who knows. I hope it will all be as interesting, complex, and diverse as the text bumpf states
Not sure about VR controllers but keybord and X360 pad will be still supported. I played in VR on xbox controller and this way is pretty playable.
Sad to say i highly doubt it will have good VR implementation, if any at all, gamepad being the most likely IMO.
Possibly already âsupportedâ vr inputs like oculus controllers that are currently used as a split gamepad by the game currently.
True. I particularly noticed that they didnât mention walking around in ships, nor stations. I hope this new content will include ships, but I doubt it will include stations, at least in the initial offering.
The trailer actually doesnât show any first person footage.
I obviously hope very much that they will include VR support; at the same time a FPS addon may just be like a game-in-the-game so I would probably be okay-ish with it not being ported to VR. I would then likely just skip this DLC, disappointed for sure, but not completely devastated.
Yes true, but then walking around by itself doesnât create gameplay, so to me there would need to be some purpose to walk around ships or stations. Otherwise itâs just another sightseeing tour and Elite already has enough of that.
To meaningfully walk around ships would mean a proper overhaul to multicrew, much like SC so we could walk to turrets or use an engineering console. It would probably also need ships to be (re)modelled with separate components for damage or reliability etc.
As for stations, there would need to be functional zones, mission areas, things like that. Hopefully it will all come in time.
One really important thing was noted, and that this is paid DLC. That means there is nothing essential included (although the main game could see some tweaks to accommodate it), and everything in it is optional. Just as Horizons was, to land on surfaces.
So as you say, it will be treated as a game-within-a-game.
Space legs be ⌠I donât care.
Power Play open only would be a lot easier for FDev to flip a switch on, and I wish they would do that instead.
But hey, this is all scheduled for âEarly 2021â, and with FDevâs lackluster track recordâŚ
I can be pretty sure there will be a better VR multiplayer space sim experience before then.
âTo meaningfully walk around ships would mean a proper overhaul to multicrew, much like SC so we could walk to turretsâ
The âturret gunner positionâ was a huge disappointment IMO, way back FD said Elite would be a fully first person game to promote the sim bit of space flight, the way the gunnery position being third person was a complete concession to console plebs.
Imagine the SRV cockpit but replace the glass with a screen or holodisplay supplementing where you arent able to look through the ship windows to give a full 360 view, the firing arcs of weapons superimposed where they are able to shot, aiming and controls decoupled from the rotation of the ship just like the current ones.
The gunnery position ought to feel much like this, intense:
At least some ships (like the Anaconda) are modeled to show the internals when damaged. Many ships have at least some internal parts modeled. I think walking around ships would be far simpler than walking around stations.
Agreed. Many people want to walk around inside their ship; itâs been a frequent request on the ED forums. Even limited gameplay inside ships would be sufficient. However, there needs to be a good reason to walk around on a planet, something that you couldnât do in an SRV.
Long before you can get to the point that that sort of stuff is relevant, you have to have game mechanics that sensibly support it.
At the PvP meta, Elite Dangerous is all about Flying Darn pizza sLices (FDLs) with ineffective Painfully Atrocious (PAs) things exchanging snapshots in a jousting match pulled together by rubber band engine boosts.
Freespace, many years ago, did this right. Real fighters with logically distinct roles, real capital ships, reasonably high damage. It was built to work with the diversity one would expect from a quality flight sim, in the infinite all-directional freedom offered by the emptiness of zero gravity space.
Elite Dangerous still has every opportunity to do it right. FDev refuses even to make Power Play open-only, and continue to push out ships that do nothing for the imbalance of the FDL (which by the way, has a horrible interior in VR).
To be honest I donât see much engaging gameplay in Elite anywhere. For me it was always about the immersion. I was already walking before around my ship/buggy as much as my room-scale space allowed me, just for the immersion of walking on some other world, sitting down close to the geyser etc⌠So being able to walk further would be good in itself.
I also tried to walk in ship behind the door but rest of the ship interior was missing⌠In station I got outside ship once but there I could not get anywhere because of room-space limit.
But this probably makes sense only in VR which is mostly ignored by E:D, so for actual game I doubt they would implement walking just for the sake of walking.
Yep gotta agree, mc was extremely disappointing in Elite and I barely touched it in the end. Both the implementation and the stability is poor.
What you are describing and referencing with the Star Wars scene, thatâs exactly what SC turret gunnery is like (no doubt Star Wars was a reference when they designed it). Some turrets have horizontal or vertical arcs, others are 360 ball turrets, depends on the ship design. They got it right. Perhaps itâs because itâs client-server vs p-t-p, I donât know, but it works great.
Personally Iâm slightly more into a wing of fighters than mc of a large ship, but they did it well and Iâve enjoyed quite a few crew sessions.
For example, jumping in a bomber against large ships - 1 pilot and 3 gunners. Pilot focus is on torpedoes against the large ships, while the gunners keep off the fighter defence. Similarly, I joined a large ship (not quite cap but big), and we had 1 pilot, 4 turret gunners, and 2 fighter pilots. Took on a dozen enemy ships and orbital sentry turrets, and won the mission. âWWII sci fiâ I guessâŚ
Thatâs how it should be! Thereâs plenty of criticism to be aimed at SC, but multiplayer / multicrew is superb.
Unfortunately, I have to agree. They probably couldnât help it, but they have an over-reliance on their instancing and proc gen setup that leads to a lot of gameplay being overly simplistic and repetitive, in my opinion.
That leaves a large part of its appeal in galactic sightseeing, boosted by VR. But now even the planets and moons seem disappointing, they are too simple and uninteresting. A trillion variations doesnât solve that, they all fundamentally lack variation.
So theyâve talked about an overhaul in the new text, but Iâll believe it when I see it. Iâve seen a lot of patches come and go, without these fundamental gameplay aspects being addressed.
Sure, after time you encounter limits of current proc-gen words (not just Elite but also other games/experiences like NMS or Space engine). I hope in future some AI world generation will offer more diversity and interesting features (real-life you could explore our Earth for lifetime).
Elite might be adding atmospheric planets though and this in itself would increase variety a lot, especially in lighting & colour patterns. If they also add some weather (at least clouds, maybe rain/snow etc.) then the scenery can change lot more compared to what we have now. In Space engine or NMS I like to wait (or travel) for dusk or sunrise, in Elite currently there is no point.
Yes indeed, thatâs what I thought interesting about the SC development. They pulled back from over-reliance on proc gen because the art and gameplay teams had a lot of trouble of getting interesting environments and mechanics to sit well.
So they went more hand-crafted, but this meant creating a huge amount of new tools in order for them to do this efficiently. Which is OK when they have huge amounts of crowdfunded money and only internal time limits to work to Others cannot afford to do this.
However, imo it paid off massively, because the new v4 environments, weather effects etc are truly stunning and a joy to explore, and still improving. I prefer the one system to the 400 billion now unfortunately.
Yes atmosphere, weather, impact on player choice, time effects like sunrise / sunset, night etc all add massively, so letâs hope FDev do it well. The stellar simulation underneath was great, so I hope they can do surface modelling to the same level.
I know everyone is raving about the snow and blizzard effects on Microtech, which are fantastic, but one of my favourites is the âVenusianâ moon Arial, with its heavy yellow sulphurous atmosphere. Aberdeen is another.
This is actually an old video of a previous patch, but the best I could find. There has probably been a few further tweaks in 3.9.x. For sure, it is a hot world (average 80C) and this now has an impact on the player and choice of suit, if you wish to remain there for a while.