Where are gas giants ?

[Grazumba]

:(

[japp_02]

There are no gas giants in the game currently, it would be nice to add some, maybe further away from planets. You would be able at big risk to go in atmosphere and mining ressources, but you would die if losing control when flying and be 'sucked' by the gravity.

This would be a lot of work for HG to add, but it would be nice, no question.

[MechWarden]

That would be neat, but also would add in a bunch of new game mechanics and features. Great for us, more content and stuff to do! But more work for them.

As nice as that would be, I'd rather HG work detailing what they have now. Their scope is already a bit large for them to handle as it is.

[Masked]

Would be impossible to land in them, but would be nice to deploy some atmospheric harvester drones from your ship to get a bunch of gas from them.

[Maestro Rugosa]

Totally agree. It would be great to have a wider variety of elements to encounter in space...

[GreatJob4You]

I wish there were suns also...

[japp_02]

GreatJob4You lähetti viestin:

I wish there were suns also...

This, instead of gas giants, is NOT possible without completly changing the space drawing system around planets to simulate day/night. So this will not be done.

[PancakeWizard]

Gas giants are one of those thats that would look cool, but a lot has to be considered to make them worth having other than aesthetic.


1. Do they replace existing planets in the system or are they added as an additional one?

2. They'd have to always be the largest planet in a system, which means standard planets being moderate-sized max, no more super-earths. Otherwise, you won't get the effect you're going for. You can't add planets EVEN BIGGER than the current largest because otherwise visually it's going to be far too dominant. Also, you don't want them even larger because you're going to have a lost less to do on a gas giant than an ordinary planet so players might feel cheated if every system has a massive gas giant and not much else.

3. Clearly you can't land on them, so perhaps you can only safely skim the atmosphere and that's enough to start getting a gas resource in your ship? Perhaps that should require a tech upgrade module ie. 'scoop'. Getting too close and it starts hammering your shield (say, below what would be the lower cloud level on an ordinary planet).

4. Building floating bases might be fun, but it's going to require a new initial base module that can be placed from within your own ship (deployable like the freighter call/warp) otherwise you have nothing to stand on. Perhaps an enclosed docking bay that opens and closes similar to the freighter dock? Then you have to build from within using normal base parts (but only those applicable to an airtight space.

5. Aside from looking awesome, what would be a good reason to have a base in the atmosphere in a gas giant? Well perhaps we can have a level 2 atmosphere processor, one that floats and is linked by cable to base modules, unusable on the ground.

6. While it's OK to have the same gas elements we have, more trade items that use them need to be added to make 'gas farms' a thing.

Do all that, and I think gas giants would be worth it.

[Maestro Rugosa]

OK, OK, those are all really good points, but it would still be cool...! C'mon HG! Make more cool things!

[goldengoose7]

Unless you could actually fly down into the upper cloud bands and see some cool atmospheric effects like like 10 mile high thunder storms with lightning and other intense weather effects, I really don't see the point.

Elite Dangerous has tons of Gas Giants in the game. Pretty much every system has at least one. But no one really pays any attention to them since there is no way to interface with them.

Only part that involves gameplay are the ring systems which look pretty damned realistic.

That would be something HG could add to their ring systems. But considering all the complaints HG is already getting about frame rates from mid to low end PC and console owners, I wouldn't hold my breath.

[japp_02]

goldengoose7 lähetti viestin:

Elite Dangerous has tons of Gas Giants in the game. Pretty much every system has at least one. But no one really pays any attention to them since there is no way to interface with them.

Can you at least sling-shot around them? This was possible in Frontier II / First Encounters.

[Mageee]

PancakeWizard lähetti viestin:

Gas giants are one of those thats that would look cool, but a lot has to be considered to make them worth having other than aesthetic.


1. Do they replace existing planets in the system or are they added as an additional one?

2. They'd have to always be the largest planet in a system, which means standard planets being moderate-sized max, no more super-earths. Otherwise, you won't get the effect you're going for. You can't add planets EVEN BIGGER than the current largest because otherwise visually it's going to be far too dominant. Also, you don't want them even larger because you're going to have a lost less to do on a gas giant than an ordinary planet so players might feel cheated if every system has a massive gas giant and not much else.

3. Clearly you can't land on them, so perhaps you can only safely skim the atmosphere and that's enough to start getting a gas resource in your ship? Perhaps that should require a tech upgrade module ie. 'scoop'. Getting too close and it starts hammering your shield (say, below what would be the lower cloud level on an ordinary planet).

4. Building floating bases might be fun, but it's going to require a new initial base module that can be placed from within your own ship (deployable like the freighter call/warp) otherwise you have nothing to stand on. Perhaps an enclosed docking bay that opens and closes similar to the freighter dock? Then you have to build from within using normal base parts (but only those applicable to an airtight space.

5. Aside from looking awesome, what would be a good reason to have a base in the atmosphere in a gas giant? Well perhaps we can have a level 2 atmosphere processor, one that floats and is linked by cable to base modules, unusable on the ground.

6. While it's OK to have the same gas elements we have, more trade items that use them need to be added to make 'gas farms' a thing.

Do all that, and I think gas giants would be worth it.

You are rigth. But there is another main reason: Rigth now, planets and biomes are very repetitive, so HG should focus on creating more variety instead of creating gas giants planets that are not very interesting for exploration.

[tkwoods]

Maestro Rugosa lähetti viestin:

OK, OK, those are all really good points, but it would still be cool...! C'mon HG! Make more cool things!

There are things I am still finding after 3000 hours... Maybe explore rather than complain.

[Malathor Runegard]

I came looking for a thread like that and found nice coments. I agree that they should focus on improving. So, yeah, ,gas giants would be nice but should not be a priority. And that about the size was a really good point.

The only thing I have to add to the discussion (I'm sorry if anyone else did, I skipped some answers) is that for me, the gas giant could be only "decorative" or, lets say, for imersion. If anything should be the moons. Oh, I'd love the sightings of a moon having the giant on the horizont. Maybe a Pandora from James Cameron's Avatar. Hahaha

So, maybe they could ignore the size of planet and only give some moons. Would it be easier?

[Asmosis]

I'd prefer discoverable locations in space, give us more reason to use our ships.

Gas giants, IDK. if implemented realistically "as is" they would be pretty boring. HG might be able to come up with something interesting to do with them though.

[Lindy Bomber]

You want to make gas Giants interesting? Google "leviathan movie trailer 2015". Imagine hunting creatures the size of capital freighters for fun and resources.

It's not a real movie just a really good animation someone did.

Or maybe giant flying turtles with whole eco systems on their backs to explore.