no atmospheric flight in 2023 is a stupid feature so is sectioned off zones instead of true open world

[R2-D2]

its a very big suprise that we have 1000 large ass planets to explore but each time we are done with the section we land in we have to hop in our ship and "fly" to another area with a map and loading screen, i dont see why we dont have atmospheric flight other than they didnt wanna upgrade the game engine to include it. its a space rpg , this is probably the first space game ive seen that you can pilot a ship that doesnt have atmospheric flight

if you look at every other bethesda rpgs, fallout , elder scrolls etc the whole world is open and able to be travelled on foot so this mass effect 1 type landing zones is also a stupid thing , hell id even settle for being able to run the whole distance of the planet instead of having to hop back in my ship to go to a new area. but alas nope we are reduced to different sections and a silly loop of going back to the ship each time

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Wakkytabbaky:

silly loop of going back to the ship each time

You're always going to have to go back to the ship regardless.

[Mack]

Go play star citizen then. In 25 years it might be ready.

Or play a flight sim if you want to fly around doing nothing for hours. Atmospheric flight is BORING.

The space flight sections are the equivalent of travelling between towns on foot/horse in Skyrim etc.

[R2-D2]

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

Originally posted by Wakkytabbaky:

silly loop of going back to the ship each time

You're always going to have to go back to the ship regardless.

this coulda been worded better but was more in reference to the zoned areas , you think bethesda woulda stuck to their true open world and not zoned areas you have to go back to the ship just to travel to the next bit and keep exploring.

[Mack]

The game is procedural generating zones of interest when you get to a planet with no hand-built areas. If you had to do that while "atmospheric flying" you'd get bored after the first planet. Or they'd be empty.

[HiImTony]

Yeah... it is what it is though. I'm sure Starfield 2 will include it along with a brand new engine, otherwise we'll have to wait for modders to make it happen if it's even technically possible with their creation engine.

I personally imagine it being very buggy with how the game will try to load things in but maybe whoever mods it in will work their magic.

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Wakkytabbaky:

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

You're always going to have to go back to the ship regardless.

this coulda been worded better but was more in reference to the zoned areas , you think bethesda woulda stuck to their true open world and not zoned areas you have to go back to the ship just to travel to the next bit and keep exploring.

That's the thing though:

• If there is atmospheric flight, you fly to Area A, get out of your ship and explore and then go back to your ship to move it to Area B.
  
• If this "zoning" thing is real, you auto-land in Zone A, get out of your ship and explore and then go back to your ship before you auto-land in Zone B.

My point is that the repetitive "gotta go back to your ship after you are done exploring on foot" is going to be there regardless. Worst case is that the auto-land loop involves X amount of loading time.

As far as the "true open world" is concerned, a planet in space is considerably larger than any area they have had in previous games. It's no surprise that you can't traverse the whole thing on foot/vehicle without any loading.

[Dragon Master]

Originally posted by Wakkytabbaky:

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

You're always going to have to go back to the ship regardless.

this coulda been worded better but was more in reference to the zoned areas , you think bethesda woulda stuck to their true open world and not zoned areas you have to go back to the ship just to travel to the next bit and keep exploring.

Actually you can explore beyond the zone.

What happens is is that a zone is procedurally generated as you approach and land in a 1 kijometer circumference. Then hand crafted areas that fit the biome of the planet will be chosen to fit in to match the zone that we can then discover and explore.

We can explore beyond that 1 km zone and a new zone will be prodedurally generated as you approach that and then can explore that section with the unique hand crafted sections there.

Land vehicles or atmospheric flying would actually hurt this process because it seems the system wouldn't be able to generate it fast enough at those speeds but can generate it fast enough when on foot or when landing from space.

[Sifer2]

Originally posted by HiImTony:

Yeah... it is what it is though. I'm sure Starfield 2 will include it along with a brand new engine, otherwise we'll have to wait for modders to make it happen if it's even technically possible with their creation engine.

I personally imagine it being very buggy with how the game will try to load things in but maybe whoever mods it in will work their magic.

Starfield 2 is like 15 years away. Some of us will be retired by then. No point in mentioning it. Hell most of us have a better chance of playing a finished Star Citizen lol.

Honestly it sucks but that's the price of them building this game on the Ancient Creation Engine. You don't get features like atmospheric flight or vehicles but it does allow for complex interiors, and looting everything in sight. Notice that Star Citizen still hasn't managed to really solve doing that.

[Imperialist Eggplant]

Yeah remember in daggerfall when you had to go back to your horse and pick a new zone every time you reached the end of the one you were in? That sucked.
Oh wait no that's not how it worked, nor is that ever how bethesda does it's maps. You're just taking a huge assumption and declaring it as some sort of officially proven statement. Watch the starfield direct, they explain how they generate and wrap tiles together around the planets. There's absolutely no strong case to be made thus far that the limits you proposed will actually exist here.

[Ruin]

Responded to the OP querying this in another thread, so I'm just gonna quote myself from there...

Originally posted by Ruin:

Originally posted by Wakkytabbaky:

i really dont understand besthesda's choice to not have this as a gameplay feature other than the fact its in the creation engine and they would have to build the system for it. but lets make an exploration space game that most of the time you cant fly your space ship, makes total sense

Because it's honestly a gimmick that is really not necessary for an enjoyable experience... It's really not, an animation would do just as well...

There's zero skill required to land or launch in NMS... You can literally point your ship straight down at the planet, hit your thrusters until you literally faceplant into the surface, and not so much as suffer scorching on your paint, when you should have practically been vaporised from the heat buildup if too steep, or bounce off the atmosphere, and back into space, if too shallow...

Really, you should have to follow an entry path, otherwise your ship suffers damage, if not destruction and death, etc...

Had Bethesda actually introduced some sort of challenge when it came to landing, or taking off, people would have complained about it being too hard when they couldn't just faceroll it like in NMS...

Given Bethesda didn't even want to penalise people by having limited fuel, for example, the transition to and from space would be as facerollingly simple as it is in NMS, I have no doubt, were it a thing, making it virtually pointless...

Atmospheric flight became nothing more than leap-frogging from one point of interest, to another point of interest, by launching into low orbit, hitting your thrusters, twiddling your thumbs until you get there, curse and swear when your first 3 landing attempts fail because you can't see what ever crap on the ground is blocking you from landing whilst in the air, get out, and explore on foot...

Frankly, it's just as easy to skip all that and just go straight to points of interest via a cutscene if there's literally zero challenge, or even any real purpose to flying, other than flying for the sake of flying... Go buy Microsoft Flight Simulator if that's what you're looking for...

I will say I am disappointed about the lack of rovers, though...

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

In Starfield atmospheric flight would likely end up being a glorified method of vehicle transportation. Most of your planetside time is going to be spent scanning and exploring while on the surface from outside your vehicle. Mix that with sprinting and the jetpack and it's likely the player won't truly miss the fact that they can't technically get in their space ship and then fly a few hundred meters to a different location before getting out and repeating the process.

Yep, this is literally all it boiled down to in the end in NMS... It's a "feature" that's really not needed, and a mechanic that Bethesda could skip over shoe-horning into the engine, without any real legitimate loss to the overall experience...

[Ruin]

Originally posted by Imperialist Eggplant:

Yeah remember in daggerfall when you had to go back to your horse and pick a new zone every time you reached the end of the one you were in? That sucked.
Oh wait no that's not how it worked, nor is that ever how bethesda does it's maps. You're just taking a huge assumption and declaring it as some sort of officially proven statement. Watch the starfield direct, they explain how they generate and wrap tiles together around the planets. There's absolutely no strong case to be made thus far that the limits you proposed will actually exist here.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's mentioned that you can either walk back to your ship, or summon it to you...

[SophieSkyrim1984]

the mod open cities for SKYRIM , there might be a version called OPEN PLANETS. Where modders remove the loading part.

[wesnef]

Personally, I suspect that the Bethesda ground-map system (loading cells in a radius around you, the way all the objects are placed, how many physics-enabled entities exist in a cell, etc) may not lend itself to fast transitions across large distances.

i.e - I don't think their engine is suited for free atmospheric flight (or even fast ground vehicles).

Originally posted by t.kavanagh:

the mod open cities for SKYRIM , there might be a version called OPEN PLANETS. Where modders remove the loading part.

Adding the ~2 map cells that a city is, to the rest of the map (instead of being separated by a loading screen) is a bit different than opening up an entire thousands-to-millions-of-cells planetary surface.

----
Thinking about it, if the landing zones on the 'generic' planets are procedurally generated when you land, it likely isn't storing a lot of cells in memory/in save files - so getting in your ship to fly across a few dozen/hundred map cells would mean you'd lose all the detail of where you started, and wouldn't be able to return to exactly the same place. Depends on how the generation happens & what kind of random seeds they use.

[Meggie]

Originally posted by wesnef:

Personally, I suspect that the Bethesda ground-map system (loading cells in a radius around you, the way all the objects are placed, how many physics-enabled entities exist in a cell, etc) may not lend itself to fast transitions across large distances.

i.e - I don't think their engine is suited for free atmospheric flight (or even fast ground vehicles).

Originally posted by t.kavanagh:

the mod open cities for SKYRIM , there might be a version called OPEN PLANETS. Where modders remove the loading part.

Adding the ~2 map cells that a city is, to the rest of the map (instead of being separated by a loading screen) is a bit different than opening up an entire thousands-to-millions-of-cells planetary surface.

----
Thinking about it, if the landing zones on the 'generic' planets are procedurally generated when you land, it likely isn't storing a lot of cells in memory/in save files - so getting in your ship to fly across a few dozen/hundred map cells would mean you'd lose all the detail of where you started, and wouldn't be able to return to exactly the same place. Depends on how the generation happens & what kind of random seeds they use.

I highly doubt there will be many physics objects on a given planet surface by default. They will probably only be there as part of the procedurally generated areas.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by wesnef:

Personally, I suspect that the Bethesda ground-map system (loading cells in a radius around you, the way all the objects are placed, how many physics-enabled entities exist in a cell, etc) may not lend itself to fast transitions across large distances.

i.e - I don't think their engine is suited for free atmospheric flight (or even fast ground vehicles).

Originally posted by t.kavanagh:

the mod open cities for SKYRIM , there might be a version called OPEN PLANETS. Where modders remove the loading part.

Adding the ~2 map cells that a city is, to the rest of the map (instead of being separated by a loading screen) is a bit different than opening up an entire thousands-to-millions-of-cells planetary surface.

----
Thinking about it, if the landing zones on the 'generic' planets are procedurally generated when you land, it likely isn't storing a lot of cells in memory/in save files - so getting in your ship to fly across a few dozen/hundred map cells would mean you'd lose all the detail of where you started, and wouldn't be able to return to exactly the same place. Depends on how the generation happens & what kind of random seeds they use.

I think people also forget that Bethesda's games have thousands of loose physics objects. No other purely open world has that and keeping track that during vehicular travel would be a feat, especially atmospheric flight. Couple that with the obvious desire to have things like ship thrusters affect the physics objects, and it's a no-brainer why the opted to do what they did