Kickstarter

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

More I think more I see that a) most of trading will have to be made trough spaceports in space, it's just not practical to lift everything with rockets. I think space lift will have to be a realitty in this game; b) PL should be for special situations - exploration, special delivery, etc.

Creator Nats on December 27

My own feeling about SPL is that an Elite game without planetary landings after Frontier and FFE is only half a game or at least that is how it feels. Yes most of the combat and everything else will be done in space but without planetary landings the game will not feel complete or fully playable for me at least.
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And without them it would be a difficult choice betwen this and SC as to which game I will want to play the most. It really depends a lot on what else there will be in the game to 'carry it'. What other killer feature will there be in its place.
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So far we dont know much if anything. So far the whole game seems very much lessened by the lack of the landings announcement. I will still support it somehow but now with the vigour I was before. If we can hear more about the other aspects of the game it might change my mind and get me a bit more enthusiastic again. But I have played much of the space based gameplay before in other guises. I need more than just a bit of dogfighting etc. And I am not that interested in changing politics etc.
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I need something to 'latch onto'. So far there isnt much. What is now the main selling point of this game then?

Creator Drew Wagar on December 27

@Associat0r - And try doing that with something shaped like a brick, or perhaps an Anaconda... ;)

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Drew - http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/NASAMakesProgressInQuietSupersonicFlight_206511-1.html

Creator Kyle Symes on December 27

@ Joerg - That's some pretty cool thoughts

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Drew - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAI_Quiet_Supersonic_Transport

Creator B1gdeano [Elite:Dangerous - A Reality!] on December 27

Morning Commanders!

I haven't been around much recently with xmas and all, but have been lurking as much as possible to keep up!

So for today we have had another discussion about SPL, which needs no more discussion I think. It will come at a later date, better than anyone can imagine!

Someone mentioned a +£1 Thursday, well I think we should do a +£1 everyday now till the end! (on top of other jonty amounts) :-)

So I will raise my pledge by £1 right now, who is joining me?!

Creator Cmdr. Bond [DDF Member + Ship ID & Mug] on December 27

From Jades www.jades.org/shiprevs/eagle1.htm

Hull Mass: 5t
Mass (Fully Laden): 25t
Internal Capacity (No Drive): 20t
Retro Thruster Acceleration: 10 Earth G
Main Thruster Acceleration: 25 Earth G
Crew: 1
Gun Mountings: 1
Fuel Scoop: NO
Missile Pylons: 2
Hyperspace Ranges: Class 1: 12.00 Class 2: 48.00
Standard Drive: Class 1
Internal Capacity (With Class 1 Drive): 10
Typical Cost: 38,000
Designer: Faulcon deLacy
Manufacturer: Faulcon deLacy
Inservice Date: 3176
Allegiance: Federation, Empire

50 years ago, the Eagle Mk 1 was the most popular entry-level ship. It is a small single-seat fighter, and offers a lot of speed. While it is probably one of the best in its class, it is too small if you want to make reasonable profits from legal trade. It really does need the fitting of a military drive for it to be useful.

Rating: **

g = 9.81m/s^2

so 20g = 196.20 m/s^2

Creator Bil Irving [Juniper] on December 27

@Christian: If you up your pledge by more than your current reward level, FD will contact you some time after the KS ends and ask how you want that extra money spent.

Creator Drew Wagar on December 27

You'd have to keep spacecraft under the local speed of sound as they approached the port otherwise there'd be no glass left anywhere nearby. ;) You'd need flight paths, traffic control, stacking...

Far simpler to keep it all in space!

Creator Joerg Starkmuth on December 27

@David, Michael and everybody:

Yesterday I had an idea how the founders' system and the decal allowing us backers to access it could be realized. Here is a one-page description of my idea:

http://www.starkmuth.de/download/WASP.pdf

Creator Simeon Farquhar on December 27

@Christian if its not a supprise prezzie then transfer the pledge money into their account have them do it and they can set it up in there name and chat on here and be involved

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

@Christian Brumm choose "Manage your pledge", keep your tier intact, but just increase pledged sum by £25 (I think it was this way, please re-check)

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Ben - I agree

Creator Stephen Usher on December 27

Using Andrew Winter's most used words in the last day, this is what we've had to say for ourselves...

"Ship people space £20 tier universe. Money star extra great play support system ships. Backers find planetary digital."

:-)

Creator Thomas Pettersen [Alpha+Mug] on December 27

Just pledged another 20£ to back my statement. :) Hope many will do the same. As for planetary landings. Ive usually blew up trying to land in Elite 2 Frontier hehe. I dont know if the autopilot was bugged sometimes.
I bet it will be safer in Elite Dangerous :)

Creator TheMightyBoosh on December 27

Docking in a queue would be lovely for piwats! All those juicy targets stationary or in a holding pattern!

Creator Hektor on December 27

@synch. Love that idea, gives an impression that there's a "living" world out there - that other people are going about their business. Didn't the space stations get full in FFE?

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Drew - We can already fly through gas giants with high radiation and winds, no need to restrict spaceports in populated areas now either.

Creator KIlvenny on December 27

Hey folks its the Xmas Holidays lets have a little Xmas cheer on here. Although some of us (me) are working many of us will still have our feet up enjoying the break.
Surely what we pledge is our own choice and not for others to question. Pledging is a calculated gamble based on the balance of an individuals available funds, their perception of how far DB/FD will take this game and their desire for this to be built. If you think its only going to be the base game then £20 pledge makes sense. if like me you think there will be multiple payable expansions then it makes sense to go into the £80 plus and after that its about how much you want to be involved in the design and testing.

The key issue for me as to whether this KS makes it is articulating the vision so that people buy into the move from 20 to 80 and beyond. The value proposition is not really about physical rewards or starting positions although they are factors, the key part is the free expansions and establishing their value and potential scope.

Creator Christian Brumm on December 27

So how exactly do you "duplicate a reward"? I want to give the game to a friend as a gift, but also want to have it myself (obviously ;). I can increase the plege, but the interface doesn't seem to allow to add a second reward.

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

@Synchromesh don't we have that already?

Creator Andy Edgson on December 27

@Gaz. That's right. We need to sell "Pirate" as a career to 10,000 people.

Creator Bil Irving [Juniper] on December 27

@Drew: Haha, noise pollution... love it. :)
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[pepperpot voice] "Oh Ethel, my Dan moved closer to the space port so he could work, but it's just not the same as living out in the country. My begonias are completely ruined, and the dog is terrified all the time! I'm at me wits end I am..."

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

18.2k backers :)

Creator Samuel Bond Luxton on December 27

@ Bil Irving : I hope so, the idea of being invisible appeals to me so I can play peacefully if I want to. But, if I feel like a bit of excitement I could take my stealth ship on spying or espionage missions, perhaps working for some faction to gain information for them. Splinter Cell in space, how about that!

Creator Ben on December 27

I'm personally hoping that @David will be quite the dictator when it comes to final gameplay design decisions. I love the fact that we are being given the chance to influence the game development and contribute in the testing phase (actually saving FD a ton of cash - game testing is a significant part of a modern game development budget) but I also think this kind of ambitious open-world game does not lend itself to success with "Design by Committee".

Given that David and team have spent decades developing and thinking about this game, we should trust their judgement. If they decide that landing on planets is peripheral for the first release of the games, then fine by me.

This is an incredibly passionate and demanding community which is amazing and exciting but I do hope that @David and @Michael are autocratic, stubborn and dictatorial when needed!

Creator Synchromesh on December 27

I was thinking on docking in stations...Realism for me would be to request docking on arrival...then a message back from the station ....ie synchromesh / Cobra 4432...Docking clearence confirmed please make your approach......Or wait in a queue ....

Or would that be overdoing things ?

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

@Drew Wagar airports are miles away from actual people :) I don't see difference with spaceports.

However I agree they will have to balanse it, too much realism will kill it :)

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

@Chris Schultz 3D planet is real physical object - you can hide behind it, you can do a slingshot using it, it makes you plan flight around it If you think that doesn't impact anything.... It's huge difference. 2D backdrop will be there no matter how close you will try to fly. You can't fly around it. You can use it for navigation purposes.

Creator Bil Irving [Juniper] on December 27

@Samuel: It's a big galaxy. I think / hope if you stay away from the core systems you might get your wish.

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Bil Irving - The ships had G ratings for their thrusters

Creator Drew Wagar on December 27

@Freuyh - There's another problem with that though. NOISE! This might be taking the realism too far, but dozens of spacecraft taking of at even 1G through the atmosphere, let alone 20G, from a busy starport would just be utterly daft. You'd have to have the starport in some isolated zone miles away from actual people, which kind of defeats the point.

Creator Gaz Bailey [HappyMonday @FD Forum] on December 27

@Thomas We've established that people don't really care about the premise of Kickstarter,and that many tend to view it as a shopfront.

It's getting people off that £20 tier which concerns me now.

Creator Andrew Dickson [Smug mode 'ON' :o)] on December 27

hear hear @ Thomas Pettersen

Creator Your average joe shmoe on December 27

...we shall pledge, with growing confidence, and growing strength on the internet, we shall defend our game, whatever, the cost may be. We shall jonty on the beaches, we shall jonty on the landing pads, we shall jonty in the asteroid fields and in the space stations, we shall jonty in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Creator Chris Stabler on December 27

@Peteris some good points thats why i know if i had a large ship i would just dock at space stations its just nice to have the option to be able to have a go at landing on a plant without smashing it too pieces.

Creator freuyh (deleted) on December 27

Taking off from pretty much any planet that isn't a gas giant shouldn't be a problem considering the ridiculous amounts of G's that the ships were able to pull off in Frontier...

In fact if the game was realistic most of those ships should have broken down due to re-entry heat... during *launch*

I actually tried that in Orbiter once - I gave some ship 20G thrusters so I could try a Frontier style direct take-off from Earth. The flames were pretty glorious.

Creator Bil Irving [Juniper] on December 27

@Associat0r: Were they though, or is it just that when you're in a bigger ship the acceleration is slower & it's more noticeable when trying to escape from a planet?

Creator Chris Schultz on December 27

@Pēteris Krišjānis Personally I think that's a bit 'grasping at straws'. If you couldn't do anything with a fully 3 dimensional planet as opposed to a 2d backdrop, what's the point ? You may as well save some development time and just draw a bitmap ala X3. But Elite will have 3d placeholders until they implement seamless landings, I'm not sure what your point is mate?

Creator Synchromesh on December 27

@Peteris..Thats a good point...I wonder if ships will need different handling skills.....Like a big ship may be a pig to park compared to a little one.....That would be cool :)

Creator Samuel Bond Luxton on December 27

Will it be possible just to explore deep space and enjoy adventuring, exploring and scavenging or is it likely that fighting will be impossible to avoid? I guess if there was a way of creating a stealth ship then the player could do that if they wanted, even if hostiles are otherwise unavoidable.

Creator Drew Wagar on December 27

@Rob Pearse - Disagree. Breaks the realism, IMHO. Some ships were designed for space alone. Infact, I'd argue that most ships would be. Cargo haulers would be designed for maximum interior space, not for landing on planets. Purpose made surface-to-space shuttles would take the supplies down, or maybe space elevators.

Creator Cmdr. Bond [DDF Member + Ship ID & Mug] on December 27

@ Rob Pearse less than a minute ago

I think you should be able to outfit any ship for planetary landing, maybe some sort of specific shield system to protect the ship from heat on entry.

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that was the FE2/FFE way - atmospheric shielding.

Although some planets and moons had not atmosphere so you could land on them eithout the AS.

Creator Thomas Pettersen [Alpha+Mug] on December 27

Kickstarter is a system to get people to pledge money for something being made. Whats the point of having people donate 20£ for a game which isnt made. To raise a pledge up from 20£-40/50£ to make this game happen is not very far from what u will pay for a new game. And with tiers u get bonuses out from how much u pledge. And all who has pledged here want to see the game made, and we will if people throw a little more quid into the pan. Ive already pledged 100£ and thats over average, and I will gladly give that to see the follower to some of the best spacesims games ever made being realized. And I know we will get one of the best spacesims out there and we will get continous uppdates and addons later. This game will be huge and I think planetary landings is a huge undertaking with all the details going into the game. Its all about time and programing and resources. We have to be patient and give DB and his team the time to get the basics into the game first then add the awesome stuff later :) I think we will see planetary landins and more in the years to come. Just now I will be happy to get my Cobra MK 3 and blow someone out of the sky and sell my stolen cargo to the highest price ;) We can make this game happen guys by adding a little more to our pledge. We can do it. 270000 diveded by 18200 is 14,83 quid per snoute. For me its like 130kr. A cinema ticket in Norway. I gladly offer one cinema ticket for the best spacesim in the world. And years of entertainment. And I think planetary landings will be a part of this game at some time in the future. Thx :)

Creator Associat0r [Space is Blue] on December 27

@Drew Wagar - IIRC the book Physics of Star Trek said it was impossible.

Creator Pēteris Krišjānis on December 27

@Rob Pearse problem isn't with landing - altough landing very heavy ship would be nightmare too - but with take off. How do you take off from planet with greater than Earth gravity well? How much fuel will you need to land properly? How much to take off?