Recently, I had the opportunity to compare Vendetta™ Online and Vega Strike ( see http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/ ), a free, open-source, single-player space simulator, and discovered what seemed some extremely useful ideas for improving VO.

As a disclaimer, let me note that I am simply comparing the two to give new ideas that seem extremely useful for VO. Vega Strike is not multi-player, and is just a free, open-source space sim, so it doesn't really compete directly with VO. It is also much harder to learn initially than VO. Unlike VO, it doesn't allow direct strafing (although it does allow a limited version of strafing known as the "Shelton Slide"). However, it does incorporate what seem to be some useful ideas for improving VO.

Specifically, two of the main problems, as I see it, with VO currently are the lack of ability to dock with planets and the lack of anything that looks like a human face in any station. The universe, as is, consists of ships, asteroids, and stations, together with the accessories/cargo that ships carry, and undockable planets. Since planets are not dockable, they serve no useful purpose other than as scenery, and since there are no human faces anywhere, the overall mood can get extremely lonely after a while.

Comparing Vega Strike with VO, I discovered that in the former, attempting to dock with a planet causes the planet initially to zoom until it fills the screen, and then the user can send a message requesting docking permission with the planet. This causes a rectangular section of the planet to become highlighted in green. Pressing the docking key at this stage then shifts the view to that of still shot of a station on the planet, with the planet's scenery behind the open door of the docking bay, and the ship's lights blinking on and off to add a feeling of immediacy.

From the docking bay, the player can then click on a number of text labels on the screen to navigate to other parts of the station.

For an oceanic planet, some links can lead to other still screens showing tunnels, immersed in the ocean, each leading to a different dome containing a different facility. Clicking on a labelled dome for, say, trading leads to the trading screen. Similar, clicking on a different dome for, say, ship upgrades leads to the ship upgrade screen.

For a mining station, some links can lead to still screens of other bays, perhaps with boxes of cargo lying around, or of futuristic rooms with arrays of monitors in the center, optionally with still representations of robots or human beings in them.

There is also a screen for news, which allows for a different BGM (BackGround Music) tune to be played while reading news.

There is also a still screen for the bar, which shows a robot bartender and human traders and/or security personnel sitting at different tables. Clicking on different people or the robot displays interactive dialogs, which allow the player to click on "Yes/No" options to accept/decline invitations to various kinds of missions.

Most of these changes require only still screens and clickable links. They don't require re-engineering the graphics engine, or doing any 3D modelling. They would seem quite feasible to incorporate into VO as it is designed right now.

Even the dockable planet requires just letting it zoom until the player reaches about 430 miles from it, letting the player hail it to request docking permission, and then just displaying a highlighted green rectangle before switching to a still docking bay screen. It does not require atmospheric entry. It does not require walking on planets, or flying around on the planet, either. It just requires switching to a docking bay with a static view of the outside behind and links to other static screens, each of which displays a static view of a room or a static view of domes on a planetary landscape.

Introducing still screens for different areas of stations, either in space or on surfaces of hailable, zoomable, dockable planets, would seem a low-work, feasible solution to add a much greater feeling of realism to VO. Adding other still screens for dialogs with robots or human beings as bartenders/traders/security personnel in each station would help decrease the overall feeling of loneliness in a vast space universe.

-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier

the only problem with this is "how do you initially attempt to dock with a planet in VO?

The above method of having planets availible has been discussed before, (eg the its just another station interface idea) however no-one has yet come up with a feasable way to start the process yet.
Due to the fact that our planets are merely images on the skybox, you can never get "closer" to them.
designating a point in space as a 'orbital entry' has been suggested, but the problem is that it would have to be set up so you cant get "behind" it, otherwise you would have to fly away from the planet to dock with it.
to do this it would either need to be so significantly far from the center of the sector to be not worth flying to; in other words, near the "edge" of the sector, (which incidentally is a developer created boundary to preserve the octree, i cant remember what its set at atm) or it would have to be a giant plane of entry points with all points "behind" the plane also counting as entry points.

the problem with the second solution is that you then have a huge number of objects that the server/client has to keep track of, (i'm not sure if the devs can change the radius of effect of a docking point, if they can maybe they could make one with an absolutely HUGE docking radius (several hundred million meters maybe) to represent the planet, but then how far away from that point do you have to get to engage the warp jump?

Additionally in most of the discussions we've had about this in the past, its kind of been looked at in the following manner.

"if landing on the planet boils down to nothing more than another station interface with no real 'planet; content, its probably not worth the effort. It will be interesting for a few days but overall wont add anything significant."

Why not have a litle docking bay hole that can be entered from one side only, near a station and when the player goes in and presses the activate button they zoom towards the pic of the planet and goto the screen like the guy above does? I can elaborate more if the idea sound good. Also if its liked can i get some Kudos since im a newb?

Although I currently see no point to having planets other than an "Oh wow factor" I thought I'd throw out an idea as to how to implement them.

Rather than deal with complicated "points in space" instead place a station with the function of "Launching and recovering atmospheric landing/launching vehicles"
Basically you dock at the station. And select "Land on planet" go to a little cut scene of your ship with some addition to it that would look like it is allowing your ship to land heading towards the planet and then bring you to a new "station" screen with some portion of the planets surface (or just have a slightly closer view of what we can see in space of the planet). Then when you request to leave again it cuts to your ship heading back from the planet into the "station". However in doing so you would eliminate large ships from using such a facility (landing anything larger than a moth would be impractical as it is).

EDIT: Sorry AVP13, I just read your post :/

It should be for Sol II and the Itani homeworld since UIT doesn't have a main base planet.

silentsuicide its no biggie. Personaly your idea sounds better. Can i still get some kudos?

One of the main problems is that planets are huge. You think the frigate looks big? It's a speck of dust compared to a planet.

silent: maybe just have it so that jumping to a planet sector means that you automatically land on that sector of the planet. So if a planet lies in 4 sectors, there are 4 possible places where you can land. If the planet is in only 1 sector, then there is only 1 place where you can land. If your standing with the faction associated with the planet is too low (ie, below 600), then you get stopped in one of the sectors around the planet, and cannot proceed any further.

The best thing would be to have an actual planet object in-system that would be low-detail but an actual huge physical object with gravity. Only skilled pilots would be able to enter into / through the atmosphere without burning up. However...
This might be WAY too much for the servers to handle, though. So...
Just have a transition screen of your ship descending on a space elevator, or on some kind of "barge" ship that ferries your ship through the atmosphere and onto the planet surface, where you can fly around as if in an airplane.
Although I don't know what you would want to do on-planet. Crash into a mountain?
Oh, and 1/2 kudo to AVP13... :)

how can you possibly have a low detail object 6000km in diameter?

And while pilots may be able to enter the atmosphere, we'd never be able to get out. No ship in Vendetta goes fast enough to hit escape velocity. Not from an Earth-sided planet, at least.

How do you make start to dock with a planet? Take a look at one sometime in game. You'll never get any closer than you are now. How do you initiate the dock with planet sequence? Hmm.. silent has a way.

As I wrote this tired post, I thought of a way. It's arbitrary and contrived, but it would work, same principle I guess.

In each sector surrounding next to a planet, there would be a set point that would represent the start of a "landing vector". If you go beyond it, you wouldn't be allowed to dock because you'd come in too steep or shallow and burn up. So you would have to come back to the spot to get in the proper descent pathway. When you do get there (it would look like a wormhole, except have an extra variable that gave a heading), and initiated a dock, the ship would warp off toward the planet on the heading assigned by the spot.

Cue planet interface.

Leaving the planet would be tough. I suppose have a fixed camera in the sector that would watch your ship as it warped in towards you and away from the planet, to make it look like you came from there.

Voila! Docking on planets! Huzzah!

I don't really think it's worth it :/ I'd rather they got story driven missions in there and ... hell, more missions period. Then a little later on you could give me more glorified stations.

Man then why the hell did you sugest it? All they have to do to make me believe it is the they have the space station and you can select an option called goto planet. And then they show a ship that really big moving towards the planet. Now the player can think whatever they want, But YOUR on the ship, YOur ship stays in the docking bay. ANd you can have extra things down on planet and make it so that the player has to spend 10-20 credits? and the pic of a ship could be the capship.:( :| :)

It would be cool in the future, but as something to do right now, I don't think it will be worth it. What good is landing on planets if you still have a mission system that consists of.. five missions? You get the two second eye-candy "oo I'm landing on a planet" factor, which wears off the second time you land, versus the desperately needed gameplay addition of more, and more meaningful, missions.

Re: Starfisher

> What good is landing on planets if you still have a mission system that consists
> of.. five missions? You get the two second eye-candy "oo I'm landing on a
> planet" factor, which wears off the second time you land, versus the desperately
> needed gameplay addition of more, and more meaningful, missions.

It's not just "two second eye-candy." The main reason to have planets is to give Vendetta™ Online more immersiveness. After all, since VO is officially an MMORPG, not an MMOFPS, the general realism and believability of the universe are just as important as the gameplay.

IMHO, it doesn't really matter how they're implemented. What really matters is simply that they be believable.

As to how to approach planets, I would suggest the following solution: Overlay a wormhole on part of the planet in each of the four sectors which each planet occupies, and label it "atmospheric entrance point." Modify the graphics so that, instead of starting the wormhole effect, the planetary wormhole activates a short "planet-entrance" jump-scene, which simply shows the ship zooming into the planet in the distance. It should be appear just like the current sector-jumps (as opposed to the wormhole warps), except that the looming planet would appear ahead of the ship, and the ship wouldn't pop out of the sector.

This jump-scene would be followed by a still shot of the ship in a landing bay of a station on the planet in question. The still shots would be different for each planet, as would some of the available goods and, possibly, some of the options. However, all four planetary wormholes for each planet should lead to the same location.

As to how to leave the planet, I would suggest simply keeping track of which sector the ship approached from, and placing the ship directly in front of the "atmospheric entrance point" leading to the planet in that sector, but with the "entrance point" behind, instead of in front of, the ship. This method is actually very similar to that used in Vega Strike. If that isn't immersive enough, then initially showing a short "jump-away" effect, with the ship zooming (jumping) away toward space with the planet behind it, viewed from an angle behind the ship, should suffice.

Both Vega Strike and EVE Online feature planets in one manner or another. In fact, if I remember correctly, so do most 3D space simulators that I have played in the past. Immersive planets don't require realistic physics; they just need to be interactive, believable places that remind players of planets. Immersiveness is essential for the "RP" aspect of an "MMORPG."

-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier

Eventually, I do want to see an option to land on planets. But, in the meantime I don't think the fact that we can't hurts the immersiveness of the game too much. I think of it not as that we can't land on planets, but rather as everything done planetside doesn't have much pertinance on what we (space pilots) do in our everyday lives. So we don't need to land on planets.

We do already have several orbital stations. Think of it this way: you're an ultra-cool space pilot, shuttling stuff to & from the ground is beneath you, the bots handle that.

Re: Beolach

> I think of it not as that we can't land on planets, but rather as everything done
> planetside doesn't have much pertinance on what we (space pilots) do in our
> everyday lives. So we don't need to land on planets.

> We do already have several orbital stations. Think of it this way: you're an
> ultra-cool space pilot, shuttling stuff to & from the ground is beneath you, the
> bots handle that.

However, this still leaves the problem that space, by itself, can feel incredibly lonely. Where are the human faces? Where are the warm expressions? Where is everybody?

As is, there is nothing that looks human in VO. There is no water, sand, or air. There are no oceans or mountains, and there is no rain, snow, or wind. There are no cities, towns, villages, buildings, houses, cars, people, or pets. There is nothing to relieve the tedium of outer space. It is like being trapped in a racecourse, with no way to take a break.

And this is the main reason that VO feels more like an FPS, instead of an RPG. It needs more immersiveness to feel like a true RPG.

Even in the "Bar" of each station, there is nothing to see. There is only a chat screen. There are no faces.

Even "ultra-cool space pilot[s]" need to take a break now and then. No pilot spends his/her entire life in the cockpit. To the extent that the pilot has no life (within VO), VO doesn't feel real. Something is missing. What is missing is some hint of life. Planets and interactive bars with faces in them would provide a hint of life.

As for UIT alternatives to planets, I suggest adding a few space colonies. Outside, they would appear like enormous ships with rotating sections to provide artificial gravity, but inside, they would be indistinguishable from planets.

An RPG, in order to provide the "RP" element, needs to function as an immersive universe, not just a shooting arena. It is precisely this immersive universe that is missing. As is, it is basically just a fancy shooting arena, with a few missions here and there, and some non-interactive scenery. It is like a closed racecourse, without anything but the race. But that's not really an RPG.

-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier

but this is a space sim...it simulates space.. i never thought it was serposed to simulate weather. and allso frankly i fail to see how having basicly the exact same thing as a staion but slower to get in and out of with trees in the back ground is going to help the imersion much, it's a nice idea for when the devs have nothing else to do i think but for now i whould have thought it whould be better to carry on doing more interesting stuff like the leviation nests and player controled cap ships.

Re: xava

> but this is a space sim...it simulates space.. i never thought it was serposed to
> simulate weather.

It's not the weather that's important, but the realism. Space includes planets. Both Vega Strike and EVE Online include (albeit very limited) interaction with planets in one form or another. It's not simulating weather per se that's important; it's reminding players, in one way or another, that the planets are actual places that resemble planets (even if only through still photos of scenes on planets).

IMHO, the term "space sim" means a simulation of everything significant in space, including interacting with space ships, space stations, asteroids, and, at least to some extent, planets. It doesn't need to be an atmospheric sim, but it does need to include at least enough interaction with planets to make them feel like places, and not just revolving unreachable ornaments in the sky.

> and allso frankly i fail to see how having basicly the exact same thing as a
> staion but slower to get in and out of with trees in the back ground is going to
> help the imersion much,

My apologies in advance for being direct, but it seems that you're ignoring the role-play part of the RPG. Having similar functionality is not the same thing as having a similar role. By your reasoning, we should probably also eliminate all trade goods with identical prices, and we might as well also make all the planets look identical, too, since they all function the same. Why don't we also make all the stations look identical, since they also function the same, too?

There is a reason that they don't look the same. Making them look identical would destroy the believability of the universe.

This issue is about believability, not functionality. We have stations that look different even though they have the same functionality, and revolving planet-ornaments that look different, even though they function the same, and asteroids with different shapes, even though they have the same ores. Making the planets interactive, in at least a limited manner, would greatly increase the believability of the universe, especially for newcomers to Vendetta™ Online.

Planets are not the same as stations, even though they may function very similarly, because they have a very different role. They are necessary to break the monotonous, frigid cold of outer space, and to distinguish between an FPS and a true RPG.

> it's a nice idea for when the devs have nothing else to
> do i think but for now i whould have thought it whould be better to carry on
> doing more interesting stuff like the leviation nests and player controled cap
> ships.

Those are also essential, but they are not enough. They simply add more breadth, but not depth. Depth is also vital to any RPG. Depth is necessary to keep VO from becoming just an FPS. Correct me if I'm incorrect, but based on its latest official description ( see the new WiKi at http://design.vendetta-online.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ), VO is an "MMORPG," not just an MMOFPS. The implied "RP" aspect requires a universe that, IMHO, needs to be believable, not just functional. This dimension of greater believability is what truly distinguishes an RPG.

-- DekuDekuplex Ornitier

I agree with Deku that having planets is a GOOD idea. Being able to interact with the planets, even in a limited way, is a good idea. Especially when you consider that Role-Playing is supposed to be more than just a Forum category with this game.

I just don't know about the "bridge" -- How to bridge the interface from 3-D space with point-based models to terrain models. That's the devs' problem.

I think that another solution should be found in the short-term for this kind of thing. Leber and Deku are both right about this, but it's a lot of work to make this possible. Now, if we were to add something else, like the ability to knock out ship subsystems and thereby board them (Yes, I know it's in the DO NOT POST ABOUT THIS thread thingy) would itself add a lot of depth to the game in the short term.

Perhaps another short term solution is to have player avatars to give us individuality? Perhaps a few different backround pictures for the station interface which show people lounging in a bar or something? Even if they don't do anything or even move, it would still be an improvement.