Will explorers need to buy food supplies? When planetary landing becomes available, that could give players a good reason to hunt/gather on a world with life.
Exploring for profit vs. exploring for the experience
- Thread starter Ushgarak
- Start date
"Take me out, too the black, tell em I ain't comin' back"
Gimme the ED equivalent of the Asp Explorer, fuel scoop etc and set me free. That's not to say I won't play in civilised space, but mostly that will be to repair and make enough money to fund my expeditions looking for new and interesting things and get away from trigger happy PC's.
Asp Explorer was my favourite ship, true multi-role, I could do many of the military missions, trade in reasonable quantities, hold my own in a fight, and still equip it well to go out in to the black. I hope there is an ED equivalent with the same versatility.
Gimme the ED equivalent of the Asp Explorer, fuel scoop etc and set me free. That's not to say I won't play in civilised space, but mostly that will be to repair and make enough money to fund my expeditions looking for new and interesting things and get away from trigger happy PC's.
Asp Explorer was my favourite ship, true multi-role, I could do many of the military missions, trade in reasonable quantities, hold my own in a fight, and still equip it well to go out in to the black. I hope there is an ED equivalent with the same versatility.
This is a good broad point- I can see planetary landings as offering huge opportunities for long-distance explorers to sustain themselves. Even if not food, there could be ways to scavenge stuff to keep your ship going.
I am planning on doing the one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, looking for a suitable system to help build a new colony .
Step 1 : Fuel up from an Imperial system on the edge of their border with the Alliance.
Step 2: Find a system within 2 jumps of both of those two factions that has a suitable planet around a suitable star that is uninhabited and uncharted.
Step3: Do a proper scan of the area unless interrupted by another explorer
Step 4: Go back to both imperial and alliance systems to sell map data and encourage both to set up a station there
Step 5: Do a few trade runs to help with supplies from both systems
Step 6: Hopefully this will give me a good base to set out on looking for more systems further out
Bonus outcome 1: Watch Alliance and Imperials fight over the system
Bonus outcome 2: I get preferential treatment as I helped with its foundation (either cheaper maintenance or just docking rights)
Step 1 : Fuel up from an Imperial system on the edge of their border with the Alliance.
Step 2: Find a system within 2 jumps of both of those two factions that has a suitable planet around a suitable star that is uninhabited and uncharted.
Step3: Do a proper scan of the area unless interrupted by another explorer
Step 4: Go back to both imperial and alliance systems to sell map data and encourage both to set up a station there
Step 5: Do a few trade runs to help with supplies from both systems
Step 6: Hopefully this will give me a good base to set out on looking for more systems further out
Bonus outcome 1: Watch Alliance and Imperials fight over the system
Bonus outcome 2: I get preferential treatment as I helped with its foundation (either cheaper maintenance or just docking rights)
The average US person eats 4.7 pounds of food a day (US eats better and wastes more so this may be a larger than required value). This is roughly 2 kilos of food a day, one metric ton is 1000 kilos, so 1 ton of food at the Elite average of 5CR will last an explorer 500 days. Personally, I'd have recycling and hydroponics on my ship so that 1T would go a lot further than ... initial value. You wouldn't need to do much hunting and gathering to supplement your supplies.
Exploring for the experience is all fine and dandy but a pilot's gotta eat. So if I can make 5CR every 500 days+fuel I should be OK. :smilie:
Greetings Commanders,
Well I hope you explorer types go out and discover some nice new shiney things I can add to my ship, exploring doesn't excite me, but I do the the possibility of an explorer finding a wreck and obtaining new tech from it, thus filling the market with something new to use
Kro
Well I hope you explorer types go out and discover some nice new shiney things I can add to my ship, exploring doesn't excite me, but I do the the possibility of an explorer finding a wreck and obtaining new tech from it, thus filling the market with something new to use
Kro
Agreed, it was a tremendous vessel.
If this can be done, it's great stuff. Puts you onto the area of pioneering alongside exploring, though getting both sides to fight over it also puts you into the area of 'politician'...
I actually seem to remember that the Asp was possibly TOO good. That doesn't matter so much in a single player game of the area, but here, there has to be a solid idea of what a good exploration vessel is giving up in return for what it does well. The Asp was a good mid-range cargo trader on top of everything else. We'd end up with a whole galaxy of Asps if it can do everything!
One of the things I like to do in any open world game, is to pick a direction and start travelling. In games like Skyrim, Fallout and Ultima Online this would often result in many surprising discoveries and emergent game play.
The way these games handle exploration is to create a vast world, populated by many things of interest. In Skyrim, I would randomly explore the lands, and discover abandoned houses, dungeons, caves, rare ore and minerals, tombs, ancient religious sites, treasure. I would also encounter NPC's that had interesting stories, or led me on amazing adventures. On occasion random things would happen, I would be walking down a road and be ambushed, or exploring near a stream only to find someone that was in need of help.
This sort of exploration answers both desires at once. It is exploring for the sake of the experience, it is also exploration for profit.
This sort of exploration doesn't rely on cheap game mechanics, immersion breaking 'mini-games' or HUDs. It simply occurs by means of creating a varied and interesting world.
With procedural generation this kind of universe is very much a possibility, and I hope that it is the direction that Elite is taken it.
The way these games handle exploration is to create a vast world, populated by many things of interest. In Skyrim, I would randomly explore the lands, and discover abandoned houses, dungeons, caves, rare ore and minerals, tombs, ancient religious sites, treasure. I would also encounter NPC's that had interesting stories, or led me on amazing adventures. On occasion random things would happen, I would be walking down a road and be ambushed, or exploring near a stream only to find someone that was in need of help.
This sort of exploration answers both desires at once. It is exploring for the sake of the experience, it is also exploration for profit.
This sort of exploration doesn't rely on cheap game mechanics, immersion breaking 'mini-games' or HUDs. It simply occurs by means of creating a varied and interesting world.
With procedural generation this kind of universe is very much a possibility, and I hope that it is the direction that Elite is taken it.
If it will be possible to just head out as far as possible and keep reaching, that's what I'll be doing. I can think of nothing I 'd rather do than spend months of real time exploring as far as I can, only returning when absolutely necessary.
I have a feeling, however, that true deep space exploration will only be possible by organizing with other players into a co-op. It will probably be necessary to co-ordinate supply exchanges and take turns exploring and returning for maintenance. If this does prove to be both necessary and viable I'll establish such a group myself.
Although it is not planned, it would be terrific if deep-space trade and repair stations could be established by players.
I have a feeling, however, that true deep space exploration will only be possible by organizing with other players into a co-op. It will probably be necessary to co-ordinate supply exchanges and take turns exploring and returning for maintenance. If this does prove to be both necessary and viable I'll establish such a group myself.
Although it is not planned, it would be terrific if deep-space trade and repair stations could be established by players.
This.
I understand that it may not be technically feasible. But it would be great if people could build these kind of mini stations (I don't really like to use the word station here. What I want doesn't have a crew or even life support. More like a floating warehouse where you can dock and load/unload cargo) so they can use them as base camps (or as a way to keep looted goods if you're a pirate). Maybe the devs can create some random abandoned mining outposts or asteroid caves or stuff like that that could be found during exploration.
Precisely what I had in mind. I agree with the game not including construction of large space stations by players, it's outside the scope, but small base camps or caches as you describe would be very useful. They could be sold as prefab units for assembly at any chosen location, either moved there in sections or by a team of players in one effort.
It's possible planetary landings would work well with that idea in theory- if not orbital constructions, then planetside supply dumps.
the only difficulty is the potential of thousands of players dropping what would have to be persistent stashes, I can't see it working that way.
You can trade player to player though so you could load up all your ships with any needed supplies such as food, fuel, ammo, repair bots and whatever else is needed and then when you are all down to just above minimum required to get back home, you fully restock one ship from your cargo holds and send that one off while the rest of you return to base, re stock and then go back and wait for your explorer to return with bis supplies exhausted.
I#t could take a while to do that though, even if it's possible.
You can trade player to player though so you could load up all your ships with any needed supplies such as food, fuel, ammo, repair bots and whatever else is needed and then when you are all down to just above minimum required to get back home, you fully restock one ship from your cargo holds and send that one off while the rest of you return to base, re stock and then go back and wait for your explorer to return with bis supplies exhausted.
I#t could take a while to do that though, even if it's possible.
I'm not quite sure how these "base camps" they also used when reaching the north/south pole work. I mean you transport supplies to a camp, drop what you haven't used (maybe 50% of initial load), then you go back.
Next time you go, you can pick up the 50% on half of the trip, and increase your journey by 50% (25%? You'll have a longer way back now..). Then you go back and make a trip to the first camp again to refill the first camp. Then on your third trip you can extend even further but only by 12.5% or something? Then do it all over again lol. Ok this is how it works I guess but it sounds so tedious lol
If you just venture out with a group, the overall reach will just be as far as the overall efficiency of needed resources per distance. Of course it would be more stable but not largely more effective.
The only idea that sounds like fun would be to set up a supply depot with an automatic supply ferry. A kind of drone that continually travels between depots and transports stuff outward.
Personally I'd love to have a kind of competition of who will first reach the center of the galaxy or the opposite side of the galaxy, but I think both distance are FAR too big to reach for a long time So I'll probably be an explorer of inhabited space first
Next time you go, you can pick up the 50% on half of the trip, and increase your journey by 50% (25%? You'll have a longer way back now..). Then you go back and make a trip to the first camp again to refill the first camp. Then on your third trip you can extend even further but only by 12.5% or something? Then do it all over again lol. Ok this is how it works I guess but it sounds so tedious lol
If you just venture out with a group, the overall reach will just be as far as the overall efficiency of needed resources per distance. Of course it would be more stable but not largely more effective.
The only idea that sounds like fun would be to set up a supply depot with an automatic supply ferry. A kind of drone that continually travels between depots and transports stuff outward.
Personally I'd love to have a kind of competition of who will first reach the center of the galaxy or the opposite side of the galaxy, but I think both distance are FAR too big to reach for a long time
So I'll probably be an explorer of inhabited space first 
Not sure why one view is functional and the other isn't? If anything, I would think the view of going out to explore, then coming back often, is going to limit your function, if you are returning to the same planet, especially if it is near the core. It puts a lot of travel time on the further you branch out (if you really are exploring new systems.)
I think and hope the options to sell will come along as we explore, or at least will be within reach as the universe expands. My idea of exploring is to continually push further, and come back to sell as needed, but not as often as you seem to plan on it. If I'm not pushing past areas I have already explored, then I won't have as valuable data to sell. I want to push as far as I can, while maintaining a viable market in range.
For those planning on a super-long range exploration, they will certainly gather loads of data that will be of more benefit to them, and possibly be the first to scan things and earn more. It's just a different approach, neither is wrong, and both offer a different strategy to the player. I like the fact that there will be different benefits to each view, and both should be functional.
I think and hope the options to sell will come along as we explore, or at least will be within reach as the universe expands. My idea of exploring is to continually push further, and come back to sell as needed, but not as often as you seem to plan on it. If I'm not pushing past areas I have already explored, then I won't have as valuable data to sell. I want to push as far as I can, while maintaining a viable market in range.
For those planning on a super-long range exploration, they will certainly gather loads of data that will be of more benefit to them, and possibly be the first to scan things and earn more. It's just a different approach, neither is wrong, and both offer a different strategy to the player. I like the fact that there will be different benefits to each view, and both should be functional.
I don't think it would be a problem if the caches were treated as ships by the game engine. I'm starting another thread to discuss this at length.
The option to go back to the core to trade depends on if there are extreem efficnt deep space vessel of exploring class.
First of there zfTL drives should be the most powerfull and also tuned for efficenty and the fuel storage is huge part of the ship. And als warehouse and decent cargo space.
As exploring it got heavy and more extreem sensor equipment. These ships would be large.
With decent sublight speed. The drawback is less weapons and especialy not those big onces.
A other option is using a supercruiser with more deepspace capabilities .
Or more high FTL battle cruiser but with a suply ship.
Also like in air warfare to extend range in space, there are resuply ships you can rendevous with on specific locations and time. They could resuply but also unload the artifact for trade.
Third option is having a mothership or mobile base or station.
The difference is how mobile it is ship or station. It could hang out at border or bit beyond with established trade route vessel to core station. And has this uniek feature of FTL and impulse engines but is slow ship or very slow mobile station or base. Having some of these you could easaly extend into deep space .
Mobile station at the border, a mobile base to extend into exploring drection a mothership to extend even much further. A mobile fortress .
Its a game carreer move to become more a exploring huge corporation with large specalised assets to be much more effective at deepspace exploring.
I also rather see much more specialisation and deversity in many kind of vessel and avoid extreem following of classes
But I don't expect any of this implemented. So the option that wil be there is to choose whatever ship comes closest to deepspace exploring capabilities and upgrade these feature maxed out.
First of there zfTL drives should be the most powerfull and also tuned for efficenty and the fuel storage is huge part of the ship. And als warehouse and decent cargo space.
As exploring it got heavy and more extreem sensor equipment. These ships would be large.
With decent sublight speed. The drawback is less weapons and especialy not those big onces.
A other option is using a supercruiser with more deepspace capabilities .
Or more high FTL battle cruiser but with a suply ship.
Also like in air warfare to extend range in space, there are resuply ships you can rendevous with on specific locations and time. They could resuply but also unload the artifact for trade.
Third option is having a mothership or mobile base or station.
The difference is how mobile it is ship or station. It could hang out at border or bit beyond with established trade route vessel to core station. And has this uniek feature of FTL and impulse engines but is slow ship or very slow mobile station or base. Having some of these you could easaly extend into deep space .
Mobile station at the border, a mobile base to extend into exploring drection a mothership to extend even much further. A mobile fortress .
Its a game carreer move to become more a exploring huge corporation with large specalised assets to be much more effective at deepspace exploring.
I also rather see much more specialisation and deversity in many kind of vessel and avoid extreem following of classes
But I don't expect any of this implemented. So the option that wil be there is to choose whatever ship comes closest to deepspace exploring capabilities and upgrade these feature maxed out.