Personal Space/Land Vehiclces

You've shown us the vehicle that you can keep in your ship's garage. But is there a possibility to have personal vehicles (be it space, land, air, sea, submersibles)? And in the case of space, suits for space walks to, say, repair exterior damage?

Firstly space suits and a personal star-fighter are in the games GDC (game design document) And it is definitely something that we have discusser at great length and had debates about.

Space walking is something that we would defiantly like to include and are currently looking into ways we could make that possible. The hanger bay is also the place where the suits would be stored.

However although initially we were all up for the idea of having a smaller fighter that could be deployed from the hanger it would create situations when playing multilayer where the crew would be splitting up into different directions and getting separated.

This is not something we wish to encourage as it is really important that you stick together and work as a team, it can be easy to get lost or be killed in the stoddarian sector and if your team mates aren't around to drag you back to your ship all your items will drop and you will re-spawn at last watch (the space station that acts as the players hub)

Well you could limit the distance of a fighter or shuttle by giving it fuel and making it a small amount of fuel that way the fighter or shuttle will have no choice but to stay near the main ship at all times so as not to get stranded drifting and in case this happens you put a beacon on the ship the alerts the larger one to the current location of the ship

ahhh man.  4 player that can separate could be cool.  2 leave the ship to scout a planet instead of taking the entire ship down.  Also with space suit,  are  there goign to be uninhabitable planet where you need a suit to go out and gather supplies?

Jclark919 wrote:ahhh man.  4 player that can separate could be cool.  2 leave the ship to scout a planet instead of taking the entire ship down.  Also with space suit,  are  there goign to be uninhabitable planet where you need a suit to go out and gather supplies?

a planet called vath has been mentioned that has acid lakes and rains acid. i'd imagine the atmosphere there isn't too nice either so i wouldn't go without a suit.

I would love to have a very large ship and have a smaller shuttle that can fit on a flight deck and that shuttle can hold the rover from the videos.  I would learn to model just to build that type of ship.

Maybe a a flying claw that can pick up the vehicle then fly down let it go then fly back up or it could carry supplies or something like a small wreckage from a hazardous area to a safer one

For no there isn't gonna be shuttles in the game. It would take away from the sticking together kinda theme that the game has. But its a subject to change as the game is in very early development.

And welcome Jclark and fireobe to the forums. Glad that the project is getting more fans

I kind of like the idea of shuttles. To either get players to abandoned, potentially dangerous, ships, stations, planets. I like the idea of splitting up, but not splitting up, where one keeps watch over the others. Especially in high risk situations, one false move could break the entire expedition.

Personally i don't like the idea of shuttles or smaller crafts. But i would really like to see some space suits like the ones from Dead Space. Robust and powerful. I think it would be perfect for situations in orbit or planetsidewhere. It would be able to withstand extreme envronments.
It would have an integrated gas mask, tempeture thingy, oxygen, minijets and some fuel, it would be upgradeable and so on.
It could work a bit like the suit does in Dead Space 3.
But it it would'nt fly in atmo. Only jump high and break falls.

What are you guys thoughts on this idea?

So instead of going into the lower orbit and then shoving off a small shuttle, you could go a bit lower and shoot someone out of an airlock while wearing this suit? Landing unharmed?

I really like the idea of individual vehicles that allow for individual customization. For example 4 futuristic dirt bikes that can each be outfitted with gear based on the team members role. I don't know if this would go against the stick together theme though

No. We have already discussed droppods, and i think we came to the conclusion that it weren't a good idea.
It would only be able to break falls from small cliffs and so on. Not from high atmosphere.

the thing that does keep coming up is that shuttles, fighters, or one man vehicles would be splitting up the team but that really isn't the case. If you were to make a fighter with maybe limited fuel so it could go to a planet and back to the ship or be able to fly around the larger ship and assist in combat you limit it so a person could not go off on their own. You will always have a division of tasks in many crews things each member has to do to keep the ship running as an example you don't always see the crew of the serenity (which this games has a lot of similarities in scenario to the movie serenity and the show firefly in which the movie serenity was based from what I have read) always staying together depending on the situation they have to split up to take command of any situation and a shuttle most times comes in handy for when you cant bring a big ship now I am not saying they should be overly easy to obtain and take care of but I honestly believe in a game like this it would be a shame not to have them.

I think it may feel a bit limited, you know, you've been given a little cool fighter jet, but it only has a drop of fuel. I would feel a little dissapointed.
But that's just my personal opinion.

The main player ships really aren't that large, it doesn't really make sense to offer a shuttle that suffers from slow speeds, low fuel capacity, and lacks all the facilities you have on board your main ship. It's also another thing to fuel and maintain and I feel people would end up not using it and just set the main ship down instead...if you came across a planet, your going to want to explore it with your friends, your not going to stand on the ship and wait for them to come back.

From a survival point of view, leaving your ship in orbit with all its gear and facilities to take a shuttle down....doesn't sound smart...It's a bit like putting a shuttle on the Ebon Hawk....you just.....wouldn't...you'd just land the ebon hawk ahah.

my reasoning behind shuttles would be that it is an early and respectively expensive version of a quarantine. You would select a crew member (cannon fodder) to go to the surface to spend a while to scout of the area and check for viruses and such. If he get infected and decide to be "that guy" and try to return to the ship and infect the crew you can shoot him down.

my take on this is that put simply, shuttles are a good idea when you have big ships, however if you have a small ship then having a shuttle is superfluous as you would need the main ship to deploy any ground vehicles...

however, once ships start increasing in size, then shuttles and fighters become an interesting asset, particularly for away missions (quoting star trek), these shuttles and fighters will however suffer from the simple fact that they cannot bring with them reactors that could equal even smaller ships thereby limiting their effectiveness (efficiency of scale)... and bringing large capital ships to the surface can be troublesome...

i am all for having shuttles but only for larger ships, with limited fuel or reactor capacity, these can be great for smaller missions where you perhaps only want to take a couple of players or crew to the surface to check out something while the rest of the crew manage the main ship, keep it repaired, scan the system, provide cover if needed...

Shuttles
Pro;
-allows for away missions
-can resupply/rescue ground expeditions
-adds flexibility to the ship
Con;
-limited fuel/reactor
-limited survivability/shields
-limited carrying capacity including ammunition
-server has to maintain more than 1 active area at a time

Fighters;
Pro;
allows for ground strikes
some people love carrier fighters

con;
Limited fuel/reactor (energy)
Limited survivability
splits the crew up
needs crew rescue if pilot survives a crash or similar

If we EVER start looking into ships of a scale large enough that you can't land them without a specially designed landing strip/pad then, it would probably require a massive rethink of the entire game. You'd need a lot more than 4 players to occupy such a large ship. And you'd need far more systems in place just to keep track of what your crew is doing with the ship. It's not really what were aiming for.

If your hoping for star destroyers....ahah don't hold your breath. We'll see how things go. We're always pushing boundaries...within reason....

what if some of the station orbiting planets contained shuttles and fighters, so the players wouldn't actually own a fighter or shuttle, and so running off with them would be an illegal activity, and since the shuttle is slow, and the fighter short range, it would be a really bad idea to steal one. Especially with no way for your own ship to carry them, other than a tractor beam or a rope. and you could use the shuttle and the fighter in side-quests or tutorials, maybe so you don't actually get your ship right off the bat, but you have to "earn" the ship or something. Plus, pirates landing on planets from stations and attacking you, and fighters defending the stations, instead of just turrets, would be pretty awesome I think.

Not to steer things away from shuttles because personally I would love to have one for larger ships...but as for a GROUND vehicle I think would be awesome ....perhaps some kind of battle walker? Perhaps with a 2 seat version (pilot and gunner) would be great....and as for a vehicle that only a large ship could carry...something like the "elephant" from halo...would be great to use as a mobile command platform or even to use to siege a planetary colony or military base?

well there is a great idea for shuttles...

start out with a small rented shuttle, go explore the solar system, do some mining and exploration, earn some cash to make a down payment for a larger ship... run some mail runs to other stations, transport some people or goods...

and also there will always be good reasons why to take a shuttle somewhere, say you want to surprise a pirate base... well sneak in a shuttle and land close by to sneak in your 'commando' team

That's very clever. Having shuttles in the game, but they are not yours, unless you bought one. But then you wouldn't be able to carry it in your ship, but only have it stashed at a station.
That'd be cool, really cool.

Welcome PB-DK to the forums. I can see i have a fellow dane in here

I have to agree with Marrowmatt that a shuttle makes little sense with the scales and the premises involved; given the size of the ships involved (with the one shown in the alpha vid seemingly being on the upper end of the scale). They're not required as landing craft, as your regular ship is small enough to land comfortably on the planet, and seems to be capable of atmospheric flight to boot.

Splitting the crew up during space travel also seems problematic, technically as well as from a game point of view. Losing your ship seems to be pretty much akin to game over (or at the very least, the point where a respawn is in order), so stranding half your crew in a shuttle while your main ship moves away for whatever reason doesn't sound like a valid approach to any encounter. I understand the appeal of having a fighter bay, but the technical implementation sounds like a nightmare. I understand that there are capable small one-man ships with the basic amenities, why not simply use that instead, if you intend to go solo?
At the end of the day, you can only fly one ship at a time, anyways. And having a shuttle thats leaps and bounds behind the capabilities of your main craft sounds like wasted development time.

Now, for the planetary craft...
Given the size of the main ship, I assume there would be places where having a smaller vehicle would make sense, as well as the ability to get around with less fuel consumption. However, it would be interesting to know how large the planetary areas end up; no use in having a hovercar when you can reach every point of interest within 2 minutes on foot, or simply set down the main ship besides it, anyways.

Does the game engine support smaller fliers? In that case, personal jetpacks (c'mon, you know you'd want one ) could be an interesting addition, and the much desired fightercraft could be implemented as an atmospheric VTOL without orbital capacity. Again, this stuff only makes sense if the terrain is large and varied enough.

Being able to use vehicles is one thing. Having a reason to do so, now that's where things get interesting.

EDIT: From another thread:

To give you a rough idea of the size of the planets, the Stoddaria playable area is currently 9km squared.

Using this as an estimate and not taking the actual terrain shape into account, that means that under standard FPS conditions* you can probably reach any point on the map within ~5-10 Minutes while on foot, barring getting blocked by the terrain. So, the main appeal of vehicles is likely to be that they can haul more inventory than your average player avatar, or are more capable of traversing rough terrain.

* = While a normal human walks at a pace of roughly 6 km/h, and a long distance runner is capable of reaching a respectable 20 km/h, the average FPS avatar moves closer to about 50 km/h. Even good old Steve from Minecraft, who isn't the fastest of avatars, walks at 15 km/h and runs at about 20 km/h.