Make the Railjack and Orbiter available at all times, no matter which hub or mission you are in

[SteveCutler]

(Copying and pasting my post from the sticky thread, as I didn't initially realize this was an entire new subforum. Probably better to post my idea as its own thread instead.)

I would love to see Railjack more integrated with everything else. So basically, I want to see Railjack and Orbiter be the core components that are always there. No matter whether you're in a relay, visiting Cetus, doing a Sabotage mission, hanging out in your orbiter, hanging out in your dojo — the Railjack and Orbiter are both the core that is always there. Let me explain.

Let's say you've just logged in and you're in your Orbiter. Your Orbiter is connected to your Railjack, and you can just walk back and forth between the two with no loading screens. If you're in somebody else's squad, your Orbiter is connected to their Railjack, but again, you just walk back and forth between the two.

Now let's say you want to visit Cetus. Using the navigation screen in your Railjack, you select Cetus, and the Railjack flies there (doing the "Railjack loading screen" thing). But at this point you're still in your Railjack. You need to move to your Railjack door and press the Interact button, at which point you instantly teleport/beam down to Cetus, or some cool landing craft cutscene plays, whatever. So now you're walking around Cetus just like normal — but your Railjack and Orbiter are still loaded, up in the sky. At any point in time, you can go to the landing point of Cetus, and beam up / fly up in the landing craft, to go back to your Railjack and Orbiter without a loading screen.

The same is true if you're in a relay, or at your dojo. Your Railjack and Orbiter are always there, loaded, docked at the appropriate location.

Not only would this just make it feel more integrated, like you're actually flying around between locations seamlessly, but it would have some extra benefits too:

1. For one, you'd have access to your navigation menu no matter where you are. Some hub locations, like Maroo's Bazaar, Iron Wake, Cetus, Fortuna, or Necralisk, do not have any navigation menu, and so you currently need to leave the hub entirely if you want to navigate anywhere else. Not only is this a hassle, but it also forces you to leave your squad too!
2. You'd also have access to your Foundry, Arsenal, etc. no matter where you are, as your Orbiter would be connected and accessible as well.

Now let's say you want to do a mission. Let's say a Sabotage mission, but it doesn't really matter what type it is. Again, using the Railjack navigation menu, you select the mission node. Again, the Railjack flies there, doing the normal Railjack loading thing. Again, at this point, you're still in your Railjack. You move to the Railjack door and press the Interact button. At this point, we'd either get to fly manually to the enemy ship using our archwings like we do in Railjack missions, or you could just play a cool cutscene of us breaking into the ship. For implementation simplicity, the latter would probably be better for the devs. We already have the opening cutscenes in missions, where we break in through a vent or something, so maybe just flesh that out a bit more and you're done. After completing the objective and sabotaging the enemy ship, you have to escape, exiting via the extraction point to return to your Railjack. Maybe we could even watch the enemy ship blow up entirely once we're out.

Everything seamless, no jarring loading screens, and the Railjack and Orbiter always available no matter where you are.

[Crizyal]

A great Thanks buddy, u just put stars in my eyes ! fck YES, that's what I want in a space MMO. That  would be awesome and I totally agree, despite I'm pretty sure we won't have such an upgrade anytime soon ^^''

[EvilClover]

I greatly dislike how the Railjack currently floats above and behind the Orbiter, I can't imagine one ship flying to different locations while the other one is "tethered" to it.
-I like all your ideas, I just wish instead of being able to walk (up and down that weird tube) back and forth between the two ships seamlessly, there was a more cohesive option. (At least in regards to their size) Like, maybe the Orbiter can dock under/above/behind the Railjack. Going back and forth seamlessly, would involve a more realistic hatch or airlock.

[Crizyal]

/\  This :)

[Petroklos]

On 2021-01-30 at 2:47 AM, EvilClover said:

I can't imagine one ship flying to different locations while the other one is "tethered" to it.

It doesn't though. The Orbiter clearly flies us on its own to and from Missions, and the Railjack is clearly untethered during its Missions.

Not to mention that, assuming it's still canon, the "Orbiter" is so much larger than what we see and what takes us in and out of Missions.

On 2021-01-30 at 2:47 AM, EvilClover said:

I just wish instead of being able to walk (up and down that weird tube) back and forth between the two ships seamlessly

I don't see how we could "walk" between them, but us getting vacuumed through the tube that connects them, as a way to hide the loading, would be pretty neat.

Imagine if the "tube" had some see-through parts and as we zoom through it we get glimpses of the skybox, that could be neat.

 

As for the Main Post, these are some very cool ideas that I'd love to see in-game in some form, but they'd take lots of work to implement and in the end they're not much more than "window dressing", hiding the actual Loading Screens. I'm not sure if putting development time in these over regular content would be worth it.

[EvilClover]

 

9 minutes ago, Petroklos said:

It doesn't though. The Orbiter clearly flies us on its own to and from Missions, and the Railjack is clearly untethered during its Missions.

 

You misunderstand. We weren't talking about how things currently work. It was a discussion, on how they could work in the future. Where your Railjack will be going with you to a lot of places (See the Stream for Details) and in this topic specifically, we were discussing, how it would be nice to move between the two ships seamlessly. But regardless of how it's all done, I don't like that our RJ is tethered to our Orbiter like a giant umbilical cord.

Also, "It does though." You fail to notice, when you fly to different star systems / planets, your RJ is there with you. They don't magically teleport. So whether you see this as an animation or not, your ships move together in one way or another. At the moment it's left up to our imagination, so you could imagine, they teleport. But, the fact is, they're tethered before they leave and they're tethered when they arrive. Who cares if you detach to enter a mission or not, that's not even a big topic here. But what will be a big topic, is when there is an animation for it. When RJ is completely integrated with the rest of the map, what will we see? I'd like our ships docking together vs a space mother & baby ship attached at the belly. 

I really can't explain it anymore than that. So if you don't get the picture after this, then there's nothing more to be said.