Explorer - anything worth discovering?
- Thread starter noodle
- Start date
Let's remember though, none of this will be in the game on release. It may be a good while until it is, if indeed ever. So there needs to be something in the initial release along these lines. To my mind that's space bases vistas (nebula, suns/pulsars, or odd objects).I don't think exploration would need get boring. We just need the procedural planet generation to be elaborate enough to make many different types of planets and especially procedurally generated alien wildlife. Then its very possible we could find rare places in the universe and still be amazed and have significant impact on ED's economy or viability for new colonies. In fact it would be a good source of income to find the most hospitable planets and sell the information back to human settlements back within the 250ly bubble. The more hospitable and mineral rich the habitable planets or moons, the more money earned.
I think if the FD team are going to dedicate an entire expansion to planetary landings and presumably the resources expended will almost be like time and energy spent on building ED, can you imagine how good and thorough the ED will be? I'm sure by then I will truly regret not joining the DDF
One of my earlier suggestions for example. An odd large cratered asteroid. One crater has an opening which infact is a long tunnel which can be navigated down. This tunnel opens up into a large interior cave which odd glow worm type "things" in it.
This is an example of something not worth a single credit, but instead something to discover, visit and see!
On a side note, we know a lot of real stars/planets are being rendered for us. eg: Mars and the moon. But what about famous remote objects like nebula? Can we go and see the crab nebula? This has a pulsar in it too which would be lovely to see! - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_Nebula
I hope there's numerous odd things like this for people to go and visit!
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After seeing the dev video about procedural generation I have been looking forward to deep space exploration. If they can build cloudscapes over gas giants, surely they will have massive nebulas to zoom around in, black holes sucking the fuel from giant stars, and more. There are so many possible places I would like to visit, but one must plan accordingly.
The Pleiades are almost 400 light years from Earth, and Polaris (northern star) is about 434 light years. Those will be long journeys I have no doubt. But vistas like the Crab Nebula (6500 ly) or the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (7000 ly) will require a lot more time and endurance to reach.
The Pleiades are almost 400 light years from Earth, and Polaris (northern star) is about 434 light years. Those will be long journeys I have no doubt. But vistas like the Crab Nebula (6500 ly) or the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula (7000 ly) will require a lot more time and endurance to reach.
I was thinking of another kind of "exploration"... point my ship at a specific direction, hit autopilot and keep on going.
I'm curious what the limits are for the game... how far away we can jump before we hit an "invisible wall". Will we see glitchy graphics? (like Skyrim when you go beyond the permanently locked gates).
In Evochron Mercenary, someone did precisely just that to test the limits of that game. He had his ship on autopilot jumps for 1 whole week, 24 hours every day real time.. and eventually he hit an invisible wall (limits of the game).
I'm curious what the limits are for the game... how far away we can jump before we hit an "invisible wall". Will we see glitchy graphics? (like Skyrim when you go beyond the permanently locked gates).
In Evochron Mercenary, someone did precisely just that to test the limits of that game. He had his ship on autopilot jumps for 1 whole week, 24 hours every day real time.. and eventually he hit an invisible wall (limits of the game).
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IF the game pans out like projected, the size of the model is our local galaxy. At over 100,000 ly in diameter, and a maximum of maybe 10ly per jump; you are looking at roughly 10,000 jumps to get to the edge. Assuming unlimited fuel and gear that do not break, and 5 minutes per jump, that's about 50,000 minutes or 34.7 days. Less if you start from the edges obviously.
Yup, exciting isn't it?
And that is only to "get out of our galaxy", which is probably taken into account during programming and should be already modeled.Once out of what we could assume to be known programmed parameters for the Universe, then the real exploration of the limits start
But, if we start at Sol, which is already near the edge... not too far to jump to get "out" of Milky Way
There should be some way of developing the game world outside of the inner core. I really do not see the point in visiting far flung systems unless there is something to do there, achieve, create etc...some way of leaving a mark on new territories.
Meaningful exploration means doing somehting meaningful with those empty systems. Sorry but just providing us with procedural generated planets to fly past and gaze at won't stimulate me for long.
If they exist? I've certainly not seen a single word of confirmation any such vistas are being rendered?
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I wonder if there will be missions where you take a group of people in your long range ship and you can identify currently empty planets which have potential for comfortable life and you can drop the people off and them make a small camp.
once you have done that you could set up a mine etc, and then the more you trade with them, perhaps the population would grow, into a town etc (not directly controlled by you) and this be uploaded to the PU in that way you could actively help the expansion of civilisation.
also with so many worlds it will make it easy to add content packs later down the road
Presumably being shot at while gazing will hold your attention?
But I see your point, and this is something FD have talked about regarding planetary landings. There has to be a point to these things unless of course it looks really really cool and then it is self serving! But given the size of a planet, and there may only be a few places that you can dock at, although I would hope you could land anywhere that was flat enough to accommodate you, that's an awful lot of real estate that is effectively empty.
That would be brilliant. Hopefully something along these lines would be included with planetary landings.
I guess, exploration is a huge challenge when you try to make it a senseful gameplay-feature. Even the most varied and beautiful galaxy has to imply some unique content, which can't be expected before.
For example very rare asteroid fields with a very rich amount of gems, metals, gases etc.
or something like artifacts, old ship wrecks, lost exploration ships, lost crews that could be rescued (which could be part of exploration-missions).
There are also many possibilities for dlcs and addons, unique handmade stuff - f.e. new civilizations, hundreds of light years away, which first of all have to be detected by scanning signals.
If the developers do it right, ED could be a game which can evolve for many years. New ships, new civilizations, new goods, new secrets to explore... the amount of possible stuff is nearly endless
For example very rare asteroid fields with a very rich amount of gems, metals, gases etc.
or something like artifacts, old ship wrecks, lost exploration ships, lost crews that could be rescued (which could be part of exploration-missions).
There are also many possibilities for dlcs and addons, unique handmade stuff - f.e. new civilizations, hundreds of light years away, which first of all have to be detected by scanning signals.
If the developers do it right, ED could be a game which can evolve for many years. New ships, new civilizations, new goods, new secrets to explore... the amount of possible stuff is nearly endless
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If the developers do it right, ED could be a game which can evolve for many years. New ships, new civilizations, new goods, new secrets to explore... the amount of possible stuff is nearly endless
I just love speculating on the Explorer concepts of this game!
I've just been looking at the link provided in this topic by "Norbert" (thanks Norbert btw.
), which is some revised info. from Dan Davies- Designer Elite Dangerous, (Revised Explorers in Elite). This list covers many ideas & features that might find their way into the final release, with probably the planet features taken into account and included in later 'editions'.I've recently read while browsing some topics that the idea of a limited operational function of engines/drives similar to a previous feature found in FE 2 and FFE (you have to have your ship drives and equipment 'serviced' every game 'year'), was not wholly welcomed?
You 'could' get away without one for a limited period after the 'year', but it was obviously a gamble situation.
This would obviously limit how far you could travel in 6 months (just as an arbitrary figure), as you would need to find somewhere where you could get your ship serviced should you wish to return back to the previous area . Also the quality of the service depended usually on the service price. If you paid a knockdown price offered at one service port/station for a years service for example, it might prove a bit more costly in the long run....for obvious reasons. Most players of the series will know this anyway, but I've included this as maybe 'new' potential players might not.
Anyway, this makes me think of a feature whereby, at least for electrical/software connected ships mechanical items, (not in this instance including main drives) you could buy these upgrades with a set warranty.
For example...Main 'Scanner', 1 year warranty for a Mk1, a Mk1 with better internal components with a 2 year warranty etc. etc.
Having to get your ship serviced will limit how far you can 'Explore' the universe initially, but as the Universe becomes gradually explored maybe 'service' areas onboard newly built stations will also start to pop up as a natural progression?
When I think of it, is the ability to travel vast distances from the get go such a good thing?
You could be canny and work out the most extreme distances you can travel fuel wise in conjunction with a particular Drive engine and available fuel supply's using Gas giants and even some stars/suns, but the distance would always have a finite limit because of your main Drive engine service requirements.
I personally think the obligatory 'service' for a ships drive should stay in the game, maybe a few 'tweaks' to upgrade that drive to a more reliable distance, or some other features not directly connected to total distance that drive is capable of, but the 'service' aspect would tend to make the Explorer part of the game more balanced for all players overall, do you think?
Jack
You could be canny and work out the most extreme distances you can travel fuel wise in conjunction with a particular Drive engine and available fuel supply's using Gas giants and even some stars/suns, but the distance would always have a finite limit because of your main Drive engine service requirements.
I personally think the obligatory 'service' for a ships drive should stay in the game, maybe a few 'tweaks' to upgrade that drive to a more reliable distance, or some other features not directly connected to total distance that drive is capable of, but the 'service' aspect would tend to make the Explorer part of the game more balanced for all players overall, do you think?
Jack
I hope not. I'd prefer if maintenance only had to occur for actual damage, not just regularly flying around. Especially when it comes to exploration, I'd love to become as self-sufficient as possible, going out into the unknown and only coming back if something really goes wrong.
/agree
On the other hand, a minimum required "service" would help in tempering expansion speed as well as simultaneously promoting "frontiers exploration" development. Remove the need to touch back and other than exploration for exploration shake you remove many of the development of the frontiers needs as it's no longer driven by exploration need.
It would also open up the possibility of equipment specifically designed for durability, so you'd have to equip a ship differently for long periods of exploration.
Good point, great avatar!