Is Exploration too easy? Galactic center reached already before launch

[Oppenheimer]

Well, I'm not Hook's Peter Pan, so if a feature is not there I'm not going to pretend it is. How should I even do that in this case, roll a dice until it tells me I'm allowed to jump? brilliant! absolutely brilliant, maybe a d12? You should be offered a job at FD! This is what I have worried about since Gamma launched. After release the majority of those DDA features can never be added, especially hyperspace route discovery, unless FD are willing to continuously wipe saves. It is too bad, because I was really looking forward to exploration being a progression, where players slowly expanded known space to reach farther and farther away from Sol. One person alone in a cobra just shouldn't be able to make that trip through patience and a little luck. This is a major issue!	There's two aspects to this, of course. The ease of almost unlimited travel, and the ease of the actual exploration mechanics. Zulu Romeo's successful voyage to Sagittarius A* is fantastic, but the scenario which allowed it is counter to the originally stated game design parameters that included wear and tear that could only be repaired at starports. Not wear and tear through interdictions, combat or overheating, but just plain mechanical failure over time, based on distance travelled. Exploration was clearly articulated by both David Braben and Michael Brooks as one in which deep space activity would only be possible for a group working in cooperation. They have not provided the mechanics to support that, and it's now just all too easy. What the game seriously needs is a limitation based on wear, that includes a gradually increasing chance of ship hull and engine failure over time. Personally I'd like to see the practical distance between full servicing as 2,000LY, with catastrophic failure practically guaranteed at 10,000LY. The second aspect, the process of scanning itself, has been simplified from the original design and has lost some of its early promise. It's an "OK" system at best, but not much more. Scanning desperately needs some sort of skill component to make it really interesting, but not so much that it becomes tedious. I agree with everything you said, however the placeholder mechanics we have now are extremely tedious.	Frontiere are smart enough not to hide the true surprise where people will want to fly first. The true surprises will be hidden somewhere anonymous and that doesn't look that interested, where players won't be immediately drawn to like Moth to a flame. Frontiere knew new players would want to fly to the nebulas first, center of the galaxy as soon as possible, the chances of the surprises being there were pretty much zero. The wear and tear mechanic which didn't make the cut to Gamma will probably be arriving early next year this will slow down exploration. I am sure that with a few dice, lots of imagination, wear and tear and those surprises (maybe a pizza planet?) the exploration mechanic will be as good as the mining mechanic.

 

[Avnas]

exploration involves not knowing what is around the corner. whilst we can see the star in game I think exploration should be more heavily dependant on the discover mechanics with a more in depth or defined game mechanic itself.(more than what it is at present).
.
. what does not make much sense is opening a map to go and discover something that has already been mapped, hence its MAPPED and given character via known star types etc. I forgive the astronomical knowledge implication here but don't extend it so far for in game gameplay. Not so un-discovered theoretically.
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.Let us "NOT" know what is out there at all beyond the already mapped game unverse . so all that non mapped or discovered areas are blank and not there until the game mechanic has been routinely played to manifest it as mapped.

a good idea would be for gameplay purposes to let users name star systems themselves. and only named and discovered areas get place on the map. that would be a great mechanic and give real meaning to buying the system data. not to forget to mention the rewards back from actual users paying for the info to make their route easier is wonderful too. Elite has a whole universe of missed opportunities gameplay wise. many of which exists in that DDA. the practical notion of what we have at launch is incomplete. rushed release at the end of the day. in the morning I hope its all there. and lest not forget it is testing phase apparently. but this is my last bastion of hope for it to be released with a completely different financial attainment curve at the core of the gameplay.
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It is to easy.

you go to explore a system because seeing something 1000+years ago isn't the same as seeing it now.

we know what's in our galaxy because we know what's in our galaxy. knowing about space is like a "cheat sheet" for the game.

 

[saviornt]

There needs to be wear and tear on the ships as well as an ability for players to create persistent outposts, which would then be "manned" by the AI to provide services. Upkeep would come from the player credits (people need to get paid!), however, if other people use the facility, then those proceeds to back into the outpost, with profits going to the player. These outposts would then become staging areas for explorers.

At some point, more and more AI would start building proper star ports, planets get inhabited, etc at the original outpost, leading to a functional economy..

 

[Wurz]

Having spent a lot of time on TS. with Zulu as he was making the trip I can say it wasn't in the least bit "easy"
The amount of mental effort he put in was awe inspiring. Not to mention the amount of actual game play data and tickets he has passed on to FD.
I for one can't thank him enough for his time and troubles. This game will be better thanks to him.
Today I am a proud member of the FGE and as we say "where we go, others can only follow"

 

[tomPhoenix]

exploration involves not knowing what is around the corner. whilst we can see the star in game I think exploration should be more heavily dependant on the discover mechanics with a more in depth or defined game mechanic itself.(more than what it is at present).
.
. what does not make much sense is opening a map to go and discover something that has already been mapped, hence its MAPPED and given character via known star types etc. I forgive the astronomical knowledge implication here but don't extend it so far for in game gameplay. Not so un-discovered theoretically.
.
.
.Let us "NOT" know what is out there at all beyond the already mapped game unverse . so all that non mapped or discovered areas are blank and not there until the game mechanic has been routinely played to manifest it as mapped.

a good idea would be for gameplay purposes to let users name star systems themselves. and only named and discovered areas get place on the map. that would be a great mechanic and give real meaning to buying the system data. not to forget to mention the rewards back from actual users paying for the info to make their route easier is wonderful too. Elite has a whole universe of missed opportunities gameplay wise. many of which exists in that DDA. the practical notion of what we have at launch is incomplete. rushed release at the end of the day. in the morning I hope its all there. and lest not forget it is testing phase apparently. but this is my last bastion of hope for it to be released with a completely different financial attainment curve at the core of the gameplay.
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It is to easy.

This was be awesome. It would provide explorers with a reward. Rewards don't always need to be in game currency or items... Being able to name stars would be great. Of course duplication checks should be made so if there was a "Bob" you could get "Bob-1" etc. Then of course you'd have to check for profanity.

400 Billion is a LOT. It's a lot for a server. Checking for duplicates might prove difficult over time. Not that all 400 billion stars would ever be discovered of course. In fact, I'm a bit curious how they do it now. Must be sharded and expensive.

Edit: Nope, now that I think about it...It's generated by an algorithm so it's not stored in a DB. Which is exactly why they won't name the systems anytime soon. That would then start putting things into a DB and increase their server overhead.

 

[dejadrew]

This doesn't make exploration easy. It just makes this guy determined. I'm sure he decked out a ship to get the max jump size possible and just went right at the center. I'm sure it still took a lot of hours and really didn't pay off in terms of credits so its more just for the fun of getting around. I'm far more interested in exploring the local nebula.

 

[Meritz]

Yeah, that would be good. Having some mechanism to jury-rig running repairs would be good too, so that you can partly service modules with an unpredictable chance of failure and therefore delay.

But for true cooperative exploration, being able to fit out a ship as a maintenance vessel would be great. Maybe modules that deploy one use repair and servicing drones which have to be built in a separate module out of specific mined resources. Having a chain of activities through a series of modules, potentially on different ships for efficiency, is definitely a good way to go to encourage cooperative exploration.

Heh, given the amount of thought we've put into the Expedition since April, and the fact that we actively want it to be as challenging as possible, maybe FD should consult with us on how to make this stuff work

Well, for reasons already stated by Alric, they better do it before launch. For starters, and I listed from easy-peasy to program in, to more difficult stuff:

• wear&tear should degrade ship modules gradually once it reaches a certain percentage.
• ship modules each need a fail state. Thrusters cut out, scoop jams, FSD misfires - I'm not saying that they need to implement random jumps or dark systems if that's too much work, but at least the thing could waste fuel
• ships need the ability to stock up on supplies in the cargo hold - consumables like heatsinks, ammo, autorepair charges, fuel. And reload modules directly from cargo hold.
• a docking umbilical can be fitted as a module that allows ship-to-ship trade - directly tied to the above, and I believe others would appreciate it.
• star-scooped fuel needs to be of lower quality than refined fuel. It'll make you go, but not as far as refined stuff.

That's for starters. The DDA lists what else should be in there. Would that make it impossible to reach the core or circumnavigate the galaxy right now? Yes. Not a bad thing. Seems the galaxy is pretty much based on one template - Anarchy systems. You have pirates coming out of nowhere smack dab in the core! So the above would effectively give FD more time to populate the galaxy with things which would make long range exploration even more epic:

• alien civilizations or remains of
• deep space hazards
• new tech like better FSDs, fuel refineries or even new discovery mechanics
• new ships like executive command vessels that can serve as mobile bases or resupply ships

And so on. DDAs are pretty exhaustive on that, no need to list it all here. The point is, exploration is not very deep or challenging right now. It's not an ocean, it's a million puddles.

 

[Gibbonici]

Well, for reasons already stated by Alric, they better do it before launch. For starters, and I listed from easy-peasy to program in, to more difficult stuff:

• wear&tear should degrade ship modules gradually once it reaches a certain percentage.
• ship modules each need a fail state. Thrusters cut out, scoop jams, FSD misfires - I'm not saying that they need to implement random jumps or dark systems if that's too much work, but at least the thing could waste fuel
• ships need the ability to stock up on supplies in the cargo hold - consumables like heatsinks, ammo, autorepair charges, fuel. And reload modules directly from cargo hold.
• a docking umbilical can be fitted as a module that allows ship-to-ship trade - directly tied to the above, and I believe others would appreciate it.
• star-scooped fuel needs to be of lower quality than refined fuel. It'll make you go, but not as far as refined stuff.

That's for starters. The DDA lists what else should be in there. Would that make it impossible to reach the core or circumnavigate the galaxy right now? Yes. Not a bad thing. Seems the galaxy is pretty much based on one template - Anarchy systems. You have pirates coming out of nowhere smack dab in the core! So the above would effectively give FD more time to populate the galaxy with things which would make long range exploration even more epic:

• alien civilizations or remains of
• deep space hazards
• new tech like better FSDs, fuel refineries or even new discovery mechanics
• new ships like executive command vessels that can serve as mobile bases or resupply ships

And so on. DDAs are pretty exhaustive on that, no need to list it all here. The point is, exploration is not very deep or challenging right now. It's not an ocean, it's a million puddles.

No disagreement from me on any of this stuff. The FGE have put many months of planning into our Expedition based on the DDA and things said in interviews etc, and we're prepared for the kind of challenges that exploration should present. Things are a little bit up in the air at the moment due to how simplistic the exploration game is, and although the Expedition is obviously still going to go ahead, we have to consider the danger of having the rules changed while we're out there.

It would be good to get some kind of roadmap from FD for changes to exploration. We really don't want to be 10,000LYs and suddenly find we need supplies and maintenance gear that we've got no chance of acquiring in time. In the meantime we'll probably be taking it slowly until things become clearer.

I think it's fair to assume that exploration wil be what it is now come release. It's a shame because the scale of ED's galaxy should mean that exploration is its USP.

 

[Avnas]

i'd quite like different types of FSD that allowed you to travel in different ways

some examples:

slingshot FSD: requires you to be going at over 20c around a star or black hole as you jump, flings you to a random system over 100ly away in the general direction you're facing. better quality of this FSD not only improves range but makes the sector more predictable that you land in.

Spacefold FSD: uses a large amount of fuel so can only spacefold a craft a couple of times before needing a full tank of fuel, but will fold it to it's target destination as if it was just on thrusters, causes gravity distortions as it's activated.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well, for reasons already stated by Alric, they better do it before launch. For starters, and I listed from easy-peasy to program in, to more difficult stuff:

• wear&tear should degrade ship modules gradually once it reaches a certain percentage.
• ship modules each need a fail state. Thrusters cut out, scoop jams, FSD misfires - I'm not saying that they need to implement random jumps or dark systems if that's too much work, but at least the thing could waste fuel
• ships need the ability to stock up on supplies in the cargo hold - consumables like heatsinks, ammo, autorepair charges, fuel. And reload modules directly from cargo hold.
• a docking umbilical can be fitted as a module that allows ship-to-ship trade - directly tied to the above, and I believe others would appreciate it.
• star-scooped fuel needs to be of lower quality than refined fuel. It'll make you go, but not as far as refined stuff.

Hells bells! You know half of those would actually make long exploration trips no longer possible? Your suggestions would absolutely kill exploration. How can you get out of the local group knowing eventually your parts are going to fail?

 

[OldSchoolPlayer]

I've calculated that some stars I wanted to go to is about 6,500 LY away from my current location.
Assuming that your FSD can do 20 LY per jump, that is 325 Jumps!

That was quite some serious jumping that guy did to get to the centre.

Glad that it was fun for them.

- OldSchoolPlayer

 

[Meritz]

Hells bells! You know half of those would actually make long exploration trips no longer possible? Your suggestions would absolutely kill exploration. How can you get out of the local group knowing eventually your parts are going to fail?

You don't. Not by yourself. Not in a frikkin' Sidewinder. A big, expensive, properly stocked and equipped ship would have a much greater range than a Cobra with a scoop. A group of ships that help each other out as needed, could go even further. A fleet, with organization, supply lines and so on, even further.

But not forever. You would need organized groups to reach far away places. The other side of the galaxy would remain this mythical place that you can go to theoretically, but no one has made it because it's so difficult. The core, pretty much the same. And in time, as FD adds new toys for us to play with, even solo players could attempt to get that far.

As it stands, I expect circumnavigation of the galaxy within two months of the launch, with reports of pirate Eagles on the other side of galaxy accosting explorers for cargo.

The key point of exploration is not only new horizons, but the challenge to get there. The more difficult, but theoretically obtainable, a goal is, the more attractive it is. So what I listed would not kill exploration, it would keep it alive for a long time.

You know what WILL kill exploration? People going to the core in 60 hours, and finding nothing there. People going to the other side of the galaxy, and finding nothing there either.

But... if the other side of the galaxy is there... just out of reach... well, imagination is a wonderful thing. Reality often shatters it. FD obviously needs more time to populate the galaxy with interesting, challenging stuff. It doesn't need to be aliens or whatnot - the universe is full of strange phenomena FD could go wild with.

Walling us off in some artificial bubble would be wrong.

Dangling the carrot out of physical reach, however, makes the donkey pull all the harder.

 

[hiasakite]

I see many people lamenting the lack of wear and tear.

Have to say,having tried a little exploration, and got to the point where systems with stations are very thin on the ground, and suddenly in a cluster of brown dwarves, found fuel starting to get scarily low, started scooping at the first 'scoopable star',momentary lapse of attention and I was down to 90% hull from heat damage, still with only a 1/4 of a tank, with no idea where the nearest station was.. (last saw one 5 jumps back- but could I get that far..)
P
This is 'barely beyond the core systems' (8 jumps or so towards the horse head from Puppis, beyond Basi)...

Even without an additional wear, once you're several hundred LY from the last station, things will become pretty fraught as the slightest slip becomes v. dangerous in the cumulative sense

 

[Kernel Kwatz!]

You don't. Not by yourself. Not in a frikkin' Sidewinder. A big, expensive, properly stocked and equipped ship would have a much greater range than a Cobra with a scoop. A group of ships that help each other out as needed, could go even further. A fleet, with organization, supply lines and so on, even further.

But not forever. You would need organized groups to reach far away places. The other side of the galaxy would remain this mythical place that you can go to theoretically, but no one has made it because it's so difficult. The core, pretty much the same. And in time, as FD adds new toys for us to play with, even solo players could attempt to get that far.

As it stands, I expect circumnavigation of the galaxy within two months of the launch, with reports of pirate Eagles on the other side of galaxy accosting explorers for cargo.

The key point of exploration is not only new horizons, but the challenge to get there. The more difficult, but theoretically obtainable, a goal is, the more attractive it is. So what I listed would not kill exploration, it would keep it alive for a long time.

You know what WILL kill exploration? People going to the core in 60 hours, and finding nothing there. People going to the other side of the galaxy, and finding nothing there either.

But... if the other side of the galaxy is there... just out of reach... well, imagination is a wonderful thing. Reality often shatters it. FD obviously needs more time to populate the galaxy with interesting, challenging stuff. It doesn't need to be aliens or whatnot - the universe is full of strange phenomena FD could go wild with.

Walling us off in some artificial bubble would be wrong.

Dangling the carrot out of physical reach, however, makes the donkey pull all the harder.

Excellent response.

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I see many people lamenting the lack of wear and tear.

Have to say,having tried a little exploration, and got to the point where systems with stations are very thin on the ground, and suddenly in a cluster of brown dwarves, found fuel starting to get scarily low, started scooping at the first 'scoopable star',momentary lapse of attention and I was down to 90% hull from heat damage, still with only a 1/4 of a tank, with no idea where the nearest station was.. (last saw one 5 jumps back- but could I get that far..)
P
This is 'barely beyond the core systems' (8 jumps or so towards the horse head from Puppis, beyond Basi)...

Even without an additional wear, once you're several hundred LY from the last station, things will become pretty fraught as the slightest slip becomes v. dangerous in the cumulative sense

Yet here we are with somebody already having already reached the centre. They found a lot beige

 

[Jeeves]

This is exactly the point i was making in my reply earlier on in this thread. there seems to be zero challenge other than patience. its not the epic exploration/expedition i expected. like i said, i took a keen interest in what the FGE was planning but its lost its lustre for me now.

The thing is, provided FD are still going to implement caps on jump drive ranges, the big, vast expedition would widen out naturally due to the need to build up supporting systems. This is still, ultimately the goal though, because, like has already been said, a straight shot to the core misses most of what's out there.

Other explorers in the FGE group have found incredible diversity in planets, and a whole lot of Earth-like worlds out there. The systems are fascinating and engrossing, there's so much cool stuff out there, truly. You guys on the FD forum may not see all of it, but we do in our group and it's very promising.

Probes would never have worked due to the price. Realistically if a ship has the ability to manipulate and bend gravity, its sensors should be able to pick up large gravitational anomalies from a very far distance away, so to me pinpointing a star can't be that difficult. Of course not knowing jump ranges would be a problem, (unless your ship computer is perpetually doing triangulation, let's say for gameplay that it does).

If you've already noticed, there's very little about ED that rewards skill, besides obviously in combat, and to a much lesser extent with predicting economics and finding mining sites.

The only part of the game that isn't a credit and math grind is the fighting. While exploration, that can't be said about, there are important tricks you have to follow and it is moderately harder than just trading alone.

But if you want a challenge, you need to play as a fighter. Everything else is just economics. But economics always win in the end anyways.

 

[Gibbonici]

Hells bells! You know half of those would actually make long exploration trips no longer possible? Your suggestions would absolutely kill exploration. How can you get out of the local group knowing eventually your parts are going to fail?

I disagree. It's what long-range exploration should be. It should require planning, organisation and teamwork to do successfully, while closer exploration (within say 3000LYs, still a vast, vast area) should be doable with less planning and risk. As the frontier expands due to closer exploration, the more distant regions would become available for the less intensive kind of exploration.

The problem is that even with ED's 400 billions star systems, unless more depth and challenge is brought to the exploration game very soon after launch, the exploration game will be dead within a year as everything worth discovering will have been discovered.

 

[Erimus Kamzel]

Its far too easy to travel vast distances at the moment to be honest. The only challenge is to overcome the repetitiveness and tedium.

This is from the DDF, once its been implemented we will have the beginnings of a more interesting and challenging exploration. One that actually makes your discoveries something to be proud of.

Add wear and tear, lower the range of the advanced scanner so pressing a button no longer reveals all, and lower the effectiveness of the best fuels scoops and all that will begin to mold exploration into a worthy feature.

EXPLORATION:

Players can use scanning equipment and probes to detect systems and record new hyperspace routes

• Scanners are used to detect any nearby systems that are within the players jump range
  
  • Scanners will give the player a vague indication of the direction of a system
  • High end scanners can give the player a better details of the system they have detected (is it a star, an asteroid field etc.)
• Players can then launch hyperspace probes that will give the player more information on the part of space they are looking at
  
  • Probes will give the player heat-map style data to help guide the player to the correct co-ordinates for a jump
  • Different probe ammo can provide different information, or react based on objects in the target system
• Using the data they have gathered the player must align their ship as best they can with the target system and activate the hyperdrive to jump to the system
  
  • The player’s ship records data of any successful jumps the player makes
  • The pilots federation will always pay players for the first successful jump they make using the exploration method (If the player bought the map data for the jump they cannot sell the data), even if the player is not the first person ever to make the jump (the pilots federation use the data to improve their telemetry and keep maps up to date)
  • If the player is the first person to ever make the journey they receive a bonus for discovering the hyperspace route
  • The closer the player lines up their jump to the target system, the higher quality the data the players ship will gather on the jump. Higher quality data is worth more money when sold to authorities
• If a player’s jump is not accurate enough they may suffer a miss jump
  
  • Longer distance jumps require a higher level of accuracy
  • A systems contents may also affect how accurate a players jump must be to avoid mis-jumping

 

[Toscaner]

very good posts here, thank you guys for your input!

i once again have to emphasize that the thread title is misleading
what Zulu did was an achievment and i'm sure it was not easy

this thread is mainly about it being too fast and the involved mechanics being too simplistic

also i kinda hope FD would immediately change something, because at this rate every major nebula within a few thousand LY will be explored even before the launch

and i'm interested to know what's FD's stance on this is. i mean either the have underestimated what a gamer can do, which seems kinda unbelievable concerning how easy it is to estimate the travel time, if you have all the info about mechanics as they have it
or they have so many nice surprises and special places within the galaxy, that they just don't care about the core and few nebulae being explored. which i don't even dare to hope.

 

[Jeeves]

Excellent response.

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Yet here we are with somebody already having already reached the centre. They found a lot beige

But a couple of failed interdictions and some poorly timed hull damage left him with a cracked canopy (which apparently scared the crap out of him the whole rest of the trip) and about 78% health. He was basically on a knuckle rider all the way to the core, only taking the smallest sips off of stars with his fuel scoop, before he ran away at the nearest sign of another ship. Apparently it was action and suspense all the way to the core.

 

[Meritz]

and i'm interested to know what's FD's stance on this is. i mean either the have underestimated what a gamer can do, which seems kinda unbelievable concerning how easy it is to estimate the travel time, if you have all the info about mechanics as they have it
or they have so many nice surprises and special places within the galaxy, that they just don't care about the core and few nebulae being explored. which i don't even dare to hope.

Looks to me they just placed a minimum playable amount of features in the whole exploration mechanic. I mean, even the fuel mechanic is less than it was in FFE. We can't refuel at gas giants. There are no types of fuel - imagine how much more complex the entire exploration activity would be if they just fleshed out fuel mechanics?

-refuel at gas giants; safer, but lower quality hydrogen with impurities. Not all gas giant types are suitable.
-refuel at stars, but at your own peril. None of this "oooh, is it getting hot in here?" - you're skimming the surface of a giant ball of thermonuclear fire! Those are nuclear explosions, trillions of them, going off right there! Sure, nice clean fuel, but do you even dare to contemplate such a thing? That's what refueling at stars should be like. At the very least, make it so you have to chase ejecta (that's actually already there, your scoop ratio goes up if you fly into a prominence).
-fuel refineries; hey, why not. Then give the players the ability to sell purified fuel, or transfer it to other players. There, an extra mining mechanic plus logistics.

Anyone remember military drives? You used to power them with military grade fuel, which was some sort of radioactive material. You know, like the ones you can mine? And refine? How about making it possible to fit powerful military drives that run on beryllium or some such, then you need to actually mine and refine that stuff to power your ship. You get longer ranges, but the fuel source is harder to come by. Choices, choices.

And that's just fuel. And it's not even that hard to code in, aside from gas giant refueling visuals. The rest is literally just changing text strings, conditions and adding a few UI tweaks, mostly based off the existing refinery modules.

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But a couple of failed interdictions and some poorly timed hull damage left him with a cracked canopy (which apparently scared the crap out of him the whole rest of the trip) and about 78% health. He was basically on a knuckle rider all the way to the core, only taking the smallest sips off of stars with his fuel scoop, before he ran away at the nearest sign of another ship. Apparently it was action and suspense all the way to the core.

First, he was not in a proper long range explorer ship. A Cobra is not it. A Cobra with no auto-repair system to boot (he said he forgot to pack one and took the docking computer instead). An Anaconda would shrug off those interdictions and use the bounty credits to light its cigar.

Second, interdictions far beyond inhabited space are a problem in themselves. What are pirates doing in the core, exactly? Waiting for that one exploration ship to come by every hundred years? Not to mention that finding other ships that far out takes the excitement out of the whole experience. It's like exploring a new planet and finding it teeming with bandits... well. I guess you're not really exploring the unknown, are you? Not only is the system obviously already explored, it's actually plagued by pirates.