Vrain Matari
Mikramurka Shock Troop
Minmatar Republic
1560
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Posted - 2014.02.12 17:34:00 -
[1] - Quote
Son-Of A-Gun wrote:Currently, every planet we fight on seems to be orbiting a yellow star at approximately one astronomical unit, has a mass resulting in approximately 1g gravitational pull, with a surface makeup consisting mostly of silicon particles consistent in size with those one would find in most earth desserts, and an atmospheric composition of air.
Why?
Can we get some red and blue stars?
Maybe a yellow star at 3 or 4 astronomical units or maybe .5?
How about a planet with .4g or maybe 3g gravitational pull?
Can we get some different compositional makeups for the crust of the planets we are on?
Can we get some atmospheric composition types other than air?
Is any of this being consider? If so, what is the timeframe on implementation of these types of things. What barriers are blocking the implementation of such things so far?
Thanx in advance for any blue or white tag responses that may follow.
Great questions Son-Of A-Gun, i've been thinking about this everyday for months. Haven't poked CCP on it since they've been busy treading water/swallowing ocean, but i'm glad you posted this.
My Biggest concern is this: does the game engine currently support variable gravity? CPP originally(i.e. years ago) said that they had the ability to control environmental variables. Today i'm not sure that's still true.
The primary reason for doubting is map technology. CCP originally said that maps would be procedurally generated based on planetary parameters. Afaik that is gone now, i assume the technical challenge of making that work was too much for DUST development team given the manpower constraints they are operating under.
Memory says the system was intended to work like this: The first match held on a district would cause the procedural map generation engine to create that megaterrain/district(not sure, tbh). After that first battle, all battles on that particular district would be on that particular procedurally generated map.
That procedural map generation is obviously not in-game now, but it was an important feature and part of what gave the original pitch of DUST such power: Battles on the real planets of New Eden, on real terrains. A real sense of location and home-terrain advantage for corps that had stake a claim to district ownership and were ready to defend against all comers.
That appears to be gone now and DUST is the poorer for it. Our current DUST is a lobby shooter on a fixed, but growing, number of megaterrains. As assets get added to the game the power of combinatorics will really star to work for us and there will be tremendous variety for battles. By any measure pretty damn fine for a lobby shooter on fixed hand-optimized maps.
But still a far, far cry from what we were originally sold, and to the best of my knowledge CCP has never spoken to us directly about this. I came here to fight in New Eden, not in a cleverly-implemented lobby shooter. The one thing cannot replace the other, imo. If what CCP is trying to accomplish is the creation of a virtual universe, the current system does not and cannot achieve that goal.
So at this point, i'm not convinced CCP even has the ability to vary gravity, let alone all those other variables.
Input from CCP would be appreciated - we deserve to know what universe we're fighting in.
I support SP rollover.
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