We (me, nozmajner and sturnclaw) had a discussion on 3D vs 2D inner stations the other day. My position can be summarized as so:
- making our current 3D orbital stations, scaled for "ship sized player interaction", takes 1-2 years for a very skilled 3D artist.
- making interior for 2D station takes a unskilled hack like me ~1 hour (after I've compiled some tile sets, that I now have), and work process can easily generalize so anyone else can add more such environments with similar time scales.
My purpose for wanting to leave the ship is not for providing the player with amazing stunning graphics of swaying grass, but to give the player more cool *stuff* to do. Assassinate, abduct, stun, bargan, fist-fight, at individual level.
Main reason for this post: to share my mockup map, where I've assembled tile sets and learned
tiled map editor:
Top left: the Bar, here the bartender will wisper rumours, and guests might offer you illegal missions, if you have the reputation for it.
Center bottom: lobby, where you enter/leave the station/your ship
Left bottom: market, walk to terminal and place order (for legal goods).
Right bottom shipmarket / repair-shop
center: Personal equpment shop, buy bulletproof vest, medi-kit, guns, stun-rod, smoke grenade,...
a bit to the right: Hospital, repair your fragile frame.
(in future, one can add the landing pads, with ship model rendered from suitable angle (above/isometric)).
So as far as I'm concerned, the 2D assets needed are already in place (as shown in picture), for all the game mechanics I'd like to see to be included. Tile sets can later very easily be updated, tile by tile, or/and shifted to isometric.