Oh well. Thanks telling us 
[quote=âINovaeGene, post:37, topic:179â]
Fully modeled unique cockpits are the plan, up to a certain size ship. We do not plan on bridges for ships frigate sized or larger[/quote]
Use cockpits everywhere.
For practical reasons, all cockpits would have the ability to vary the opacity of the ship. In larger ships, cockpits would be fully-enclosed, and provide a virtual view of some ship location, including center of mass and various hull locations.
If you want to support multiple players in one ship, just add more cockpits.
If you want to allow players to walk their characters around inside ships, just include an animation for getting in or out of a cockpit. Players would realize that what theyâve been doing is sitting in cockpit modules inside a combat information center. Get out of the module and youâre in the CIC. From there, walk around the ship as you like.
If you want to include the anachronism of a bridge, just put a camera in a bridge area. When youâve implemented walking around, the bridge is accessible on foot as well.
The penultimate version of this is a large ship with an interior room (the CIC) containing a bunch of cockpit modules. The player character boards the ship, takes the turbo lift to the appropriate part of the ship, walks down the halls into the CIC, finds the right cockpit module, enters it and goes through the same sort of startup sequence as is seen in other games.
I think there is a balance of adopting the game to fit your ability and making the game the best you can to the intended vision.
I really donât believe that gameplay should be adjusted to such a degree where your whole game mutates according to your limited ability. Is it not better to follow your vision and leave the more complex features to a time when you do have that ability, than to reinvent the core game, itâs lore, setting and logic according to your current limitations.
JB, I totally agree with you but I think the art guys want external cockpits.
Itâs a cheap logical solution and they shouldnât use it unless they have no vision of their own for bridges. 
Why not? They want cockpits for external ship aesthetics but thatâs it I think.
iirc Cutterjohn proposed something similar a looong time ago. However, we will not be doing anything like this for I:B. Frigates & larger (if we allow players to control them at all, depends on funding ofc) will be 3rd person point & click etc.
Well you guys just get that engine working and provide an indie license. Iâm more interested in your technology than your gameplay vision.
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You know @hrobertson, you can also quote individual letters and make any sentence from a quote you want
IMO I expressed why that is a bad approach to game design.
The game will come first, as the crowd funding is for the game. Depending on how well that does, the tools can be further developed to the point where an indie release makes more sense. At this point in time, the tools are not end-user friendly.
However, Keith has mentioned the possibility of an early release of the engine/tools without support.
Oh you mean in post #47?
You talked about changing gameplay. IMO making cockpits internal has almost zero impact on gameplay, its basically an art decision.
Is that what you meant? I canât see what else you could be referring to.
I seriously donât want to get into arguments on semantics with you @hrobertson.
Please be kind in the future and at least quote an entire sentence 
I seriously donât want to get into an argument either. I genuinely have no idea what youâre talking about.
Please can you show me where you did this? Iâm genuinely asking, I scincerly have no belligerent intention.
Leave it at that then.
Well, I read the âargumentâ between you guys, and I think I understood it⌠JB47394 was promoting a âone size fits all/detachable cockpit/bridgeâ approach similar to what Cutterjohn suggested some years ago, as a means to reduce the art required. We will not do this, and if I read it correctly, critic was arguing against the proposed approach.
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Iâd suggest that you not repeat such things in public. âMentioned the possibilityâ is so speculative that the net effect is that the web will morph the statement into whatever suits their fancy. Somebody on the web is going to say that âINS is talking about an early release of their tools.â That will morph into âINS is talking about a 2015 release of their tools.â That will morph into âINS is gonna release their tools in 2015.â And so on. The statement wasnât precise, so it will be interpreted freely by the web. I have no idea what 'early" and âwithout supportâ mean. I can speculate, but I canât know your (or Keithâs) meaning.
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A company is treading on thin ice when they release crap but no non-crap already out in the wild. If Teslaâs first car had been a flop, nobody would have been particularly interested in their second (barring the cache of Elon Muskâs name from his other ventures). Because Teslaâs first car was successful - and because the company continues to do amazing things like provide free and dramatic performance upgrades, they can do risky things when interacting with their customers. Their customers view Tesla as a friend, and we all cut friends some slack. In contrast, how much slack are we prepared to cut Comcast or Verizon?
In short, get Battlescape out and make it a hit. Then you can think about making incomplete toolsets available. If you can get the toolset into production quality, then nobody will have to cut you any slack on it - itâll stand on its own merit, enhancing the company reputation,
We know how all that works⌠We have lived It for some time now.
Having said that, itâs still an option we are entertaining and one in which Keith talked about quite some time ago, on twitter I believe as well, so itâs already out there, repeated in public etc. Anyways, I guess a bit of a topic derailment.
Let me try again.
Donât speculate in public. It doesnât do anyone any good.
Generally that is a good stance yes, in this specific case, I think weâre ok. Thx for the concern though
So, now that weâve established weâre having cockpits, can we establish not having third person at all? Or taking the star citizen approach, no UI in third person so itâs only good for pretty screenshots and admiration of your ship.
After playing several first person only games iâve been very impressed at the benefits it has, namely the immersion it brings to the table, consistency, and of course preventing exploitation of the third person camera to see around objects. In elite dangerous, for instance, if you hide behind an asteroid you canât just go into third person and see around it. The two most recent mechwarrior games, MWLL and MWO (though they may have changed this at some point in their trainwreck of a dev cycle, i wouldnât know) also went with first person only to great effect. The added immersion and inability to see around corners was a fantastic addition. The artists im sure would love their ships to be seen in third person, but the same goes for the cockpit artists doesnt it. The cockpits in elite dangerous are nothing short of works of art, same goes for star citizen, and both of these games are mainly cockpit only. If you guys are already planning cockpits, you should go all the way, wouldnât want to be further left in the dust by SC and ED now would we.
Obviously in space, corner peaking isnt a big problem. But empty space is not the only battlefield planned for IBS. The most recent screenshots showed what appeared to be a city model with some vertical terrain, im obviously not informed of the plan but if dogfights are to take place in such a setting, third person could cheapen the experience significantly, same with asteroid belts depending on how sensors work.
My 60 cents anyway.
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