orbitor realization : also why we never see it fully?

[_Anise_]

So I was always used to think in loading screens etc the the orbiter was tiny and seemed way bigger on the inside #tardis

It's only with the new war that we get to see the orbiter is a 2 part ship, first the little front part which internally is basically just the cockpit part, externally the part you see in all the loading screens, the secondly a huge back end that houses everything else (helminth mods arsenal, companions etc) and is as big as a railjack! that you only ever see once you hit new war.

Firstly is this a recon to explain away how small the orbiter looks in all the scenes ? or was this always intended to be this way ?

Secondly if it isn't a retcon why do we never see the orbiter in it's entirely like this until new war ?

lastly is kind of an afterthought that if it was always this big couldn't we have just fitted turrets and shields maybe the thumbdrive to the orbiter and not had to farm for a railjack ?

anyway interested in hearing your thoughts

[ZeroX4]

6 minutes ago, _Anise_ said:

So I was always used to think in loading screens etc the the orbiter was tiny and seemed way bigger on the inside #tardis

It's only with the new war that we get to see the orbiter is a 2 part ship, first the little front part which internally is basically just the cockpit part, externally the part you see in all the loading screens, the secondly a huge back end that houses everything else (helminth mods arsenal, companions etc) and is as big as a railjack! that you only ever see once you hit new war.

Firstly is this a recon to explain away how small the orbiter looks in all the scenes ? or was this always intended to be this way ?

Secondly if it isn't a retcon why do we never see the orbiter in it's entirely like this until new war ?

lastly is kind of an afterthought that if it was always this big couldn't we have just fitted turrets and shields maybe the thumbdrive to the orbiter and not had to farm for a railjack ?

anyway interested in hearing your thoughts

As for orbiter vs landing craft confusion

1st question everyone should ask them selves is where are you when you look on any planet from inside of your ship and you see another ship doing circles around that planet

[trst]

It was always intended to be like this. There has been very old concept art of it (pretty sure it's in the Codex even) and an old unused cutscene of the liset docking with it was shown on a devstream before.

What reasons were there to show it previously since it's the landing craft that takes us into missions? IIRC the cutscene they made which shows it was left out because it didn't fit anywhere without breaking flow.

And the Orbiter is meant as a base of operations and is supposed to house the Tenno while on missions. So using it as a combat vessel would be dangerous and impractical with all the extra non-combat bulk that's strapped onto it.

[_Anise_]

edit ok the one orbiting the planet on the map is the landing craft not the orbiter but it should be ? it's confusing a bit that they never show the orbiter except at the camp where it is orbiting nothing.

[BahamutKaiser]

The Orbiter is the Orbiter, the Landing Craft is the Landing Craft, it was apparent to anyone listening closely. It would be nice if Orbiters were more clearly displayed and even customizable from the exterior. It could even dock the Railjack and the Necramech outside with the landing craft for aesthetic. 

[_Anise_]

8 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

it was apparent to anyone listening closely

can you quote any examples where the game tells the player the orbiter and the landing craft are 2 different things ?

I recall in the intro tutorial they don't call the part shown "the landing craft" they simply say "your (old) ship" tell you to "defend the ship" which is shown to be the landing craft.

 

9 minutes ago, BahamutKaiser said:

It would be nice if Orbiters were more clearly displayed and even customizable from the exterior

I would like this too, it would further cement the orbiter as a thing.

[Birdframe_Prime]

12 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

can you quote any examples where the game tells the player the orbiter and the landing craft are 2 different things ?

A few.

The first sign that they're two different things is this quote from the start of the Vor's Prize part of the opening quest where Lotus refers to it as the Orbiter and Ordis refers to the closed-off areas as the lower Orbiter:

• Lotus: “The Grineer are ravenous for this old technology, it is superior to theirs. Perhaps there are systems left in the Orbiter compartment?”

• Ordis: (when the Tenno enters the Orbiter compartment) “--Look at this mess. Those savages!-- Components have been removed. The lower Orbiter compartments have no life support. Why did the Operator abandon me?”

The next sign is that your customisation screens contain the Interior and the Landing Craft, the latter taking you to the outer view of the Liset, or any skin you've applied to it.

And then the biggest hint is in The War Within, where Ordis says this:

• Ordis: "Ex-Operator, if you get to the navigation console, I may be able to detach the landing craft before I... before I kill you."

Which leads to you being dropped off on a mountain by the Liset (or reskin of).

So yeah, there have been some pretty clear hints in game that there are two parts to the ship, all along.

A fun nod that isn't in the game anymore is that when we were first given the Orbiter as a space to walk around in, you could see the engine struts of the liset docking in along the beams above the Mod and Foundry benches. Since the visual overhaul, those went away, presumably so people who have the Mantis or Scimitar skins don't complain about the visuals for those ships not being there.

Outside of the game, for longer term players, and for newer players to find when looking up the topic, there have been DevStreams and Tennocon panels that featured concept art that DE wanted to make into a real thing. The problem is that they've never found a reason to actually put the Orbiter itself into the game. It's a stealth ship used to hide from the massed forces of our enemies. The only time we really would be able to see it is if either the stealth system failed, or if we had to dock it for whatever reason.

The Drifter camp is the latter, where we've put it in a hidden dock.

[Tsukinoki]

16 hours ago, _Anise_ said:

Firstly is this a recon to explain away how small the orbiter looks in all the scenes ? or was this always intended to be this way ?

Secondly if it isn't a retcon why do we never see the orbiter in it's entirely like this until new war ?

lastly is kind of an afterthought that if it was always this big couldn't we have just fitted turrets and shields maybe the thumbdrive to the orbiter and not had to farm for a railjack ?

First: as other people have said: seperate landing craft (liset/scimatar/whatever) and orbiter (everything else).  Multiple lines have alluded to this.

Second: Ordis has a few lines in the intro quest where he mentions void cloaks and such which hide the orbiter from view so that you can land on planets without being intercepted.  There would be absolutely no reason to turn off the void clock unless you were docked somewhere safe (such as the drifter camp) as otherwise your ship is going to be blown up pretty quickly.

Third: There have been a few lines in the game where ordis says something to the effects of "this is a stealth craft, not a fighting craft".  It's not meant to have shields and a gun, it's meant to use its void cloak to sit undetected so that the landing craft can get the tenno into and out of the mission safely.  You would have to do more than just slap on shields and a gun or two to make a vessel fight-worthy.
Further it is our homebase with everything (including our warframes) in it.  What do you think would happen if that got severely damaged at any point?

[Hayrack]

Because DE has no damn clue. 

I would love to start the game in my own Dojo, aka "The Orbiter V2", that I build myself, but now we have Relays, where you can navigate, interact with NPCs, work on modding and have access to Arsenal; we have Dojos, where you can navigate, trade, and have access to Arsenal; we have Orbiter, where you can do all sorts of things, except trading; and we have Railjack, where you can't do s***.

Do you see the problem here?

Railjack should have unified everything, but coffin-tight Orbiter's interior got HD rework first, Arsenal was removed from Railjack and Dojo's still are a random pre-beta version mess (Why every organization room has to be a garden?? Why Tenno interior decorations don't use same custom color shaders that rooms use?? Why I can't recolor Dojo floors?? Why old Orokin style Dojo rooms look x10 000 more beautiful than current rooms??).

 

"-Maybe we should make mothership for Warframe players, which they could customize and make truly their own?""

"- NAH!!! M-O-R-E BUTTFRAMES!!!1!"

 

 

[(PSN)Jacobivan]

On 2022-01-02 at 10:43 PM, trst said:

It was always intended to be like this. There has been very old concept art of it (pretty sure it's in the Codex even) and an old unused cutscene of the liset docking with it was shown on a devstream before.

Do you by any chance know how fo find that video? 

[Birdframe_Prime]

14 hours ago, (PSN)Jacobivan said:

Do you by any chance know how fo find that video? 

Got a gif of it, at least, from the old 2018 thread on the topic.

Spoiler

[(PSN)Jacobivan]

7 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Got a gif of it, at least, from the old 2018 thread on the topic.

  Hide contents

Thx m8:-)

[nslay]

5 hours ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Got a gif of it, at least, from the old 2018 thread on the topic.

  Hide contents

It's too small relative to the orbiter. The landing craft is much larger in the Drifter's camp.

[Kaotyke]

 

[Birdframe_Prime]

2 hours ago, nslay said:

It's too small relative to the orbiter. The landing craft is much larger in the Drifter's camp.

Heh, I think you're underestimating that.

If you look at the image posted by the lovely @Kaotyke just before me, you'll see the actual original concept art of the Orbiter, as seen in game, and the liset is actually a tiny little detail on the nose there (with blue glowing bits along the edge of it). Now, the actual in-game model is slightly different, but it's definitely meant to be larger than the bit we see.

And the weird bit is that there's even arms and a gantry that (if I remember correctly from an off-hand comment that DESteve made) was meant to be a larger, fighter-type craft that our Liset docked to, that was in turn docked to the larger engines of the Orbiter. I believe this idea was replaced by the Railjack ship since this concept was made.

The gif I posted is based off that scale of model.

However, the Drifter Camp does seem to feature a much smaller-looking ship... with the exception that we can't see the entire thing, even if we clip out of bounds.

Here's some out-of-bounds images that you might be interested in from the Drifter camp:

Spoiler

As you can see, the modelled area of the ship is literally only large enough to fit the specific rooms we go into.

While if you look at the concept of it, there's engines, a core, and outrider sections on there.

We can even match specific things up to the concept:

The external shot shows that there are a triangular cluster of ports on the left and right of the outside, which look remarkably similar to the concept's triangular cluster of blue lights on the forward edge of the 'shoulder' sections. Notice the patterning and the cleft-out area on the central front of the grounded Orbiter's external section too, it's all matched up to the front of the concept Orbiter.

The only difference appears to be the angle.

Where the concept and the gif has the Liset docking in the very nose of the Orbiter, with the leading edge angled up from it like a fore-plate, this one has it almost level with where the Liset will fit.

The change was likely made with the changes to the Orbiter Interior in mind (the new skylight that's only existed for about a year) and so we would need to have a much more flattened Orbiter profile to account for that.

With that said, though, I do think the scale for the Orbiter in the Drifter Camp is much reduced from the concept art. I definitely don't think that the engine section could fit through that cave opening, and... maybe... when it comes down to it, the reason that the Drifter even has it parked in that cave is because the New War damaged it, removing its stealth systems, which is why we have to steal Grineer and Corpus ships to get around.

Then again... what can I say about objects in pictures seeming larger than in real life that hasn't been said by a lot of men?

All I can say for certain is that the concept, and the gif, were exactly what DE actually intended.

[nslay]

2 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Then again... what can I say about objects in pictures seeming larger than in real life that hasn't been said by a lot of men?

I'm not sure what this is supposed to imply, but it ruined your otherwise amazing post! No like for you.

[Birdframe_Prime]

Just now, nslay said:

I'm not sure what this is supposed to imply, but it ruined your otherwise amazing post! No like for you.

Hah. So mean.

[Kaotyke]

33 minutes ago, Birdframe_Prime said:

Then again... what can I say about objects in pictures seeming larger than in real life that hasn't been said by a lot of men?

I don't know why that reminded me of an old joke...

Woman1: I can't wait to grab that magazine. HE will be fully naked there!

Woman2: You mean the actor of the last soap opera?

W1: Yes! He is a hunk, well muscled from the shirtless scenes in the TV. I can't wait.

*Next day*

W2: Hey! ... What's with the dour look? Were you not able to buy the magazine?

W1: ... I bought it.

W2: So? How was it? Was it big?

W1: Only the price.

[Felsagger]

3 hours ago, Kaotyke said:

 

I blame you for the lack of incompleteness in your information Kaotyke, how could you be called a Tenno of culture?!!!

The 3D model exists. It seems that maybe, just maybe we will see it in Duviri paradox. 

 

This is the latest model. It exists in 3D and is already done. This is the full rework of the Liset and the Orbiter. Maybe we will see this in future updates. The work is complete. 

[-Krism-]

As to why the animation was most likely scrapped, it must be because the other landing crafts don't physically fit into the orbiter, like the scimitar for example

[Birdframe_Prime]

Thank you @Felsagger very cool ^^

I like it when other players show up and verify discussions like this. I especially love it when the verification comes with handy annotations by the creators like 'docking bay' for the Liset.

And especially when they show things like the Orbiter actually being 3 parts, to show that my poor memory served me well.

The way it's been done, though...

Really does make me wonder whether the Drifter Camp only features the frontal ship of the Orbiter (the larger ship that's also detachable), and doesn't include the engine segment for a reason...

Maybe the engine segment is actually an upgrade we get later that allows us access to new areas...

[bad4youLT]

On 2022-01-02 at 11:31 PM, _Anise_ said:

Firstly is this a recon to explain away how small the orbiter looks in all the scenes ? or was this always intended to be this way ?

Secondly if it isn't a retcon why do we never see the orbiter in it's entirely like this until new war ?

This has been in game for years 

 

 

You can also see Orbiter in Relays skybox for years too

 

[Megalomaniakaal]

On 2022-01-02 at 11:43 PM, trst said:

What reasons were there to show it previously since it's the landing craft that takes us into missions? IIRC the cutscene they made which shows it was left out because it didn't fit anywhere without breaking flow.

I may be wrong but I suspect it was meant to be used for the second dream when the warframe carries the spoiler back in. But showing that cutscene would tip off the player that it's not just one fo the normal returns from a mission and they'd know to expect something so the *ahem* surprise visitor wouldn't be as surprising, so they decided to cut it.

On 2022-01-02 at 11:46 PM, _Anise_ said:

edit ok the one orbiting the planet on the map is the landing craft not the orbiter but it should be ? it's confusing a bit that they never show the orbiter except at the camp where it is orbiting nothing.

If you go to a relay it's orbiting a tenno relay. Or used to be.

[Felsagger]

I've seen that image too but is not that clear, Bad4youLT. 

 

The new orbiter seems to have four rooms. Looks like and I hope so, that DE is working in a new interface for our arsenal and our Warframe repertoire. Seeing all our warframes would be cool but it will provide loading times. Either way it must happen so the player knows what he has and what he needs looking at all the inventory at once. 

I want better customization for the infested lab part of the ship. I bit more organized instead of being all splattered similar to one of those Giger drawings. Scorn may provide a good idea. 

[Megalomaniakaal]

19 hours ago, nslay said:

It's too small relative to the orbiter. The landing craft is much larger in the Drifter's camp.

No it's not. You just still don't see most of the orbiter in there, it's mostly submerged in the cave-pool of water.