Elite: Dangerous

[octavius]

Maybe he needs Ian Bell?

 

[Mortmal]

Anyway with all the money he made with the raspberry pi, cant he just fund it all himself ?

 

[Runciter]

We've had a few more updates; among other things they posted renders of the space ships Viper and Anaconda. It's really nice that they have no wings, that they're quite big (the turrets and bridge windows give a sense of scale) and that even though they're stylised, function appears to dominate over form, at least compared to the usual banalshitboringfighterjet space ship designs. This stuff appeals to me much more than Star Citizen's flying fucking phallus, which might a rip-off of Serenity, but in any case is made to impress, rather than designed from an engineer's perspective. They even gave it air intakes... On the other hand, the textures on Braben's ships look like shit. But overall, I'd say


If they produce a few more good updates then I think I might even donate.

 

[Tzaero]

“Frontier regretfully has given a total of 14 people (from a staff of 233) from roles such as art (9), animation (3) and audio (2) disciplines

I wonder how many will be working on this.

 

[potatojohn]

and that even though they're stylised, function appears to dominate over form, at least compared to the usual banalshitboringfighterjet space ship designs.

I don't see it? It seem like the standard crap based 20th century naval designs.

A real space warship definitely won't have an external bridge. The command will be in the middle to protect it from things like radiation.

A real space warship definitely won't have windows. It will have a bunch of sensors and that's it.

etc

 

[Destroid]

and that even though they're stylised, function appears to dominate over form, at least compared to the usual banalshitboringfighterjet space ship designs.

I don't see it? It seem like the standard crap based 20th century naval designs.

A real space warship definitely won't have an external bridge. The command will be in the middle to protect it from things like radiation.

A real space warship definitely won't have windows. It will have a bunch of sensors and that's it.

etc

Real ships are controlled from the middle too, but they still have a prominent external bridge.

 

[Regvard]

and that even though they're stylised, function appears to dominate over form, at least compared to the usual banalshitboringfighterjet space ship designs.

I don't see it? It seem like the standard crap based 20th century naval designs.

A real space warship definitely won't have an external bridge. The command will be in the middle to protect it from things like radiation.

A real space warship definitely won't have windows. It will have a bunch of sensors and that's it.

etc

Spaceships won't get into dogfights either. If there ever is a spaceship-to-spaceship combat, unlikely as it is, it will be over very long distances.

That would be rather boring in a game though.

 

[Runciter]

Spaceships won't get into dogfights either. If there ever is a spaceship-to-spaceship combat, unlikely as it is, it will be over very long distances.
That would be rather boring in a game though.

You know, I hear many people repeating this, but you should realise that you're speaking out of your arse. You would have thought the same during WW2: fighters would no longer dogfight with smart missiles and all. But AAA is still here. The A-10C, the attack plane based around a machine gun cannon, is used by US forces in the middle east. All fighters still get equipped with machine guns. The A-6 didn't have a machine gun when it flew in Vietnam and, guess what, they've since reintroduced them in more modern planes.

Sure, there's been tremendous progress in guided missles, GPS-guided bombs, IR cluster bombs and the likes, but these have not replaced old fashioned guns, only supplemented them. For every missile type there are countermeasures. You still get into problems with beyond visual range identification and you have to realise that with airplanes flying so fast, long distances become short distances very quickly.

The truth is, neither you nor I know what space combat might look like, but you have no basis to claim that it will all happen at long ranges.

 

[Runciter]

Anyway, it seems that the ED campaign has gone over to the dark side: in an act of desperation, Braben is now selling starting ships for money as part of the pledge rewards. It seems to be working too; according to kicktraq, ED is now trending towards 90% funded, up from 88% earlier. It's not clear whether these will be permanent ships or not; it's not clear if you can lose your ship at all in the first place, but perhaps it won't matter in the long run, as opposed to SC where ships bought during the funding campaign are yours permanently. There's also a new concept art image with a derelict ship wreck.

 

[Kirtai]

You still get into problems with beyond visual range identification and you have to realise that with airplanes flying so fast, long distances become short distances very quickly.

Well, that doesn't really apply in space where there's no such thing as a short distance and you can identify targets at light months distance. Space is mindbogglingly bigger than you think, no matter how big you think it is
Project Rho is a nice place to read up on it

 

[Regvard]

things

You can't be in visual range of anything relatively small and moving fast enough to get anywhere in space for longer than a few milliseconds. Probably even shorter. Even if you did, the Gs missiles can pull vs Gs manned ships can pull (without killing the crew) just makes any comparison pointless.

Human brain, reaction times etc. are just too slow cope with such speeds and distances. It's not Vietnam technology. I bet, even on earth, human controlled aircraft will soon be obsolete due to such restrictions.

 

[Derek Larp]

Real ships are controlled from the middle too, but they still have a prominent external bridge.

Well the higher you are on a ship the farther you can see, also even at maximum visible range a guy with binoculars can identify targets. Both things are not given in space.

Also, why does everybody say "realistic" spaceship combat is boring? Should depend on the balance between (beam-)weapon range, thrust and deltaV, the effectiveness of missiles vs. point defense and heat buildup from weapons firing, no? Also time compression. I guess most people think naval sims like 'Dangerous Waters' are boring as shit, but there is definitly an audience for games like that.

 

[Regvard]

Also, why does everybody say "realistic" spaceship combat is boring?

Because AI would do the fighting. You can watch stuff on the radar screen though.

 

[Davaris]

Elite always been a huge solo game, mixing it with multiplayer seems questionable, no surprise even the old vets are reluctant to pledge.Theres a big difference in exploring space at your pace , when you want , where you want, and dealing with griefing, hacking, punk kids, and all the pleasant things player "interactions" brought. In this day and age multiplayer, for me at least, isnt a good thing , it was ok when pc gaming was a hobby of enthusiasts , an elite few .You wont be pleased when your hard earned transporter will be shot by invisible russian hackers, it will happen trust me .

Best argument against multiplayer I have read.

I was going to ask about the hardware requirements, as someone said they are rather high, but as single player is going to be an afterthought, I guess there is no point. Shame, because the game has an almost painterly style which I like and the combat looks like fun.

 

[Kirtai]

Also, why does everybody say "realistic" spaceship combat is boring?

Because AI would do the fighting. You can watch stuff on the radar screen though.

Sounds a bit like a strategy game then

 

[potatojohn]

Space combat will probably never happen. Just cleaning up the orbital debris would be more expensive than anything either side could get from fighting.

 

[Runciter]

You can't be in visual range of anything relatively small and moving fast enough to get anywhere in space for longer than a few milliseconds. Probably even shorter.

You could say the same thing about today's fighter jets. You can easily get relative speeds of more than Mach 3. Therefore no air dogfighting can happen, right?

Even if you did, the Gs missiles can pull vs Gs manned ships can pull (without killing the crew) just makes any comparison pointless.

Again, the same is true of today's missiles. Fighters will be limited to around 9G and missiles can do 30G or more. Again, by your logic, dogfights will never happen.

Essentially, you are arguing by making tight assumptions and then saying that given those assumptions dogfights don't make sense. Of course they don't, but that doesn't mean that there won't be other circumstances where they do. High relative speeds won't always be the case.

There are important unknowns, like propulsion technology. So what if your missile can pull high Gs if it runs out of fuel very quickly? Even with advanced, efficient forms of propulsion, the engines may be too expensive, too big or otherwise impractical for use in missiles. Some of today's high-G missiles run out of fuel in seconds.

Essentially the arguments you're using are shallow and narrow-minded. The ultimate answer is that it all depends. But I'm sure that you can come up with a consistent and largely realistic fictional universe where space dogfighting is justified. I don't think that Braben cares that much about realism, and he'll probably implement the other extreme in the form of only dogfighting, but I don't think it's right to dismiss the whole idea outright.

 

[Kirtai]

You can't be in visual range of anything relatively small and moving fast enough to get anywhere in space for longer than a few milliseconds. Probably even shorter.

You could say the same thing about today's fighter jets. You can easily get relative speeds of more than Mach 3. Therefore no air dogfighting can happen, right?

Todays fighter jets don't travel at 30000+ km/s with sensors that can identify targets light hours (or even light years) away.

Also, a spacecrafts deltaV limits its manoeuvring severely. Run out of deltaV and you are, quite literally, dead in space.

 

[Raapys]

But how are you going to prevent your target from just shooting down your missile long before it reaches him? Lasers work really well in space, and powerful ones should easily be able to take care of a missile once inside a certain range, given some time( which it would have). Even some sort of shotgun-type kinetic weapons would work really well against them because of the high relative velocity with which they would collide.

 

[almondblight]

Interstellar human civilization is also pretty unlikely. I imagine space battles will probably be either small skirmishes designed to take out and defend satellites, or some completely alien event involving AI or post-human civilizations.

 

[Kirtai]

But how are you going to prevent your target from just shooting down your missile long before it reaches him? Lasers work really well in space, and powerful ones should easily be able to take care of a missile once inside a certain range, given some time( which it would have). Even some sort of shotgun-type kinetic weapons would work really well against them because of the high relative velocity with which they would collide.

Well, lasers have the big problem of heat buildup. Not much use shooting down incoming missiles if you fry your ship after all
But seriously, heat is a big problem for spacecraft since the only way to get rid of it is radiators. Big, fragile, easily targeted radiators. And energy weapons generate heat. Lots of it.

As for projectile weapons, you'd be shooting at things that can move multiple kilometres in the time it takes the projectile to travel the length of the barrel. They are amazing at predictable targets like satellites, statites or planets but moving targets are a much bigger problem.

That's not to say space combat can't be interesting, it's just more likely to be careful strategic manoeuvring rather than dogfighting.

I personally think that long range spacecraft will be more like mobile habitats or even islands in space than like aircraft or ships. That has an interesting set of strategic implications too.

 

[Raapys]

That depends on the efficiency of the process though. Future technology could see us generating lasers without much energy loss, in which case their heat buildup would be a problem no bigger than anything else. Besides, I'd argue engines generate a lot more heat.

As for projectiles, any such would likely have been fired using railguns, spinning them up in a magnetic chamber to near-light speeds and hurling them out. There might not be enough time for the missiles to react, by the time the light from the projectiles reached them and the projectiles almost immediately after. Especially given a shotgun-type spread of tiny bullet-like objects.

Anyway, I agree that we'll likely never see human-controlled dogfights( *if* we end up having speeds in excess of 1% light speed, which I doubt). But I doubt it would be boring. It might just not be the type of combat we've come to expect from 'space sims'.

 

[Haba]

Long stretches of boredom spiced with brief moments of extreme terror.

 

[Raapys]

Basically, yeah. Might be able to make that fun in a game though, where time is highly relative, both ways.

 

[Blaine]

It certainly is entertaining when people whose entire knowledge of physical science has been gleaned from magazines, Reddit and the Discovery Channel issue bold proclamations and present them as credible fact. Soon to come in a future ridiculous exchange: Everyone at RPG Codex suddenly turns into an expert on martial arts, medieval armor and medieval weaponry!

In other news, Elite: Dangerous will have to rack up approximately $54,000 per day to meet its goal... this in the wake of a generic fantasy game filled with generic races, items, scenery and game mechanics reaching nearly $4,000,000 in funding. In fairness, BioWare and Obsidian Order autists, furries and womyn aren't interested in space trading and combat sims.