EVE General Discussion

TL;DR ahead of time:
Can you share what the game engine CAN'T do or that is too difficult, so we can avoid suggestions that are impossible?


I am aware this will attract gag trolls, but please try to share what you know about the game engine.

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As everybody knows, EVE is evolving all the time, yet there are simply things that can't be done.
At many times, many of us are giving suggestions (for instances ideas at the feedback forum), yet do not know everything or forgot what the game can even realize.

- Yes, EVE/CCP can virtually do everything, but it costs most of a crapton of time, money and even more human resources - I suppose.

One of the sources of restrictions is the game's engine itself.

Most of the time, we, including me, suggest so many things that are actually impossible to do because of game engine restrictions we just forget or simply don't know about.


@Mods
This is actually for the Features and Idea Discussion zone, but there are no real "features or ideas" so I put it here.

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For instance,
WiS aka Ambulation was a big thing people been asking for ages. Incarna brought us a very detailed feature of walking around - but for many (and those part of all that Jita-Arab Spring moments from the last year or two), the feature was quite bulky and clumsy.

Others wondered why not make it a simple thing - even I wondered why not just use a seperate small engine of some sort to feature ambulation stuff.
(heck for me dated top-down/adventure game point of views or a simple 3d environment without the latest of graphics would have been enough.

But noh, this was impossible because the game engine has restrictions. I was told sometime ago that there were terrors of character models just falling through the ground etc and it takes a crapton of expert coding of programmers to fix that.

that's one thing.

Another big thing was the popular demand of "players docking on other player's Titans" with a station environment etc.
And somewhere, CCP just said impossible because of xyz, x=y etc.


So are there other things that CCP already stated or that people know of that we should avoid to add.

1. Line of sight.

I'd like to hide behind an object to avoid incoming damage.



2. The 'in a fishtank' feeling.

I wish when I tried to stop my ship, instead of such heavy resistance against space, I'd keep sliding in that direction. That there was a mechanic for reverse thrusters or thrusters were more part of maneuvering your ship.

3. The fact that ships are essentially 'balls' in space instead of being represented by more oblong objects.

For number 2 you can actually accelerate in the direction you came from to deaccelerate faster and then hit ctrl+space when your slowed down completly... this is faster on bigger ships

And I'm sure the lore is that the warp drive creates a drag on your ship, which is why you don't constantly accelerates and why your ship slows down when you stop your ship

Understood.

However, I keep hearing players who say "impossible" or "They must fix somethign else first" or just any other comment but without some sort of citation or plausible background to explain just why a suggested idea can't work.

I understand what you mean, but I still wonder if there are just little 'impossibilities' that CCP shared already. I know the question is rather elusive and misleading.

Of course, I could construct walls of ideas and just have everybody discuss/nitpick etc without any worries. I just remembered that one "Docking on Titan/Mothership players" idea years ago and CCP stating it was impossible (disregarding if it was impossible back then or ever)

Edit:
So in short, I'm just asking what is known to the playerbase. Afaik, CCP never would make things up in that case as they've always been truthful. I just want to save a bit of cluttering the forums with impossible ideas as everybody knows:
Knowing is half of the battle :)

True that. Just remember, I stated that in the OP that CCP can virtually do everything if they had time/money/resources.
But yeah, impossible is an ugly word in this case.

But then again, I'm sure there are a few who just heard of things from CCP that couldn't happen anytime soon - due to whatever reason.


Anyhow. I just remember that there are these One cannot lol into Mordor facts about Eve's engine. somewhere, sometime long ago.

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Many think Captain's Quarters became somewhat a liability.
All this time through, I was wondering why it was so hard not to just make a simple chatroom with avatar models walking around like in so many other games or just those social-chats with (I dare say) crappy 3d environments.

Or am I missing something and CCP just wanted to develop an AWESOME 3d Ambulation environment which is currently postponed, leaving us with a personal appartment with balkony view to our floating yacht?


I was told by somebody who was into engines was that there was some terror with avatars "falling/clipping" through the floor due to the fact that the engine simply has limitations.

I know I may be talking crap right there, but that is what I want to clear up - or at least get some comments from the "other side" before putting wild suggestions.
And also of course, if there's some proof in some form of citation I can look for.


A lot of people tend to deny just about everything but never seem to have any real material to give weight to their opinion. Even though the F&I zone has a rule about "don't just say the idea sucks, give more details", people ignore it.

Joystick flight, impossible due to the server "tick" (updating position of objects, etc) being permanently set to 1 Hz.

I don't think they like to talk about such capabilities and weaknesses so much.
Main reason being is that once one is aware of some kind of fault; it's easier to reverse engineer said fault and figure out what else might be vulnerable..