What he said. Not only does it need to be something we can scan and find. It could be something you can see with your eyes once you got close to the surface. Discoloration in the soil. A unique looking rock that has unusual properties that couldn't have been formed naturally in that solar system. High concentrations of some curious minerals. A man made plaque but no other debris around. Which could lead you to find all the pieces to put the puzzle together and find the origin of the object. Return all of this unique information back for a reward.
What would make exploration process more fun?
- Thread starter Droid_orat
- Start date
What he said. Not only does it need to be something we can scan and find. It could be something you can see with your eyes once you got close to the surface. Discoloration in the soil. A unique looking rock that has unusual properties that couldn't have been formed naturally in that solar system. High concentrations of some curious minerals. A man made plaque but no other debris around. Which could lead you to find all the pieces to put the puzzle together and find the origin of the object. Return all of this unique information back for a reward.
this + meteors. asteroids, accretion discs, more effects from heat COMETS! impacts - natural stuff happening - persistence
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Just thinking along the lines of the community building an outpost.
Maybe having it act as an explorers quest hub would be cool.
Commanders could be sent out to scan sectors and planets looking for possible Thargoid incursions and having a friend come along in a tooled up gunboat would be good for making a good first impression for any Thargoid that shows up.
Maybe having it act as an explorers quest hub would be cool.
Commanders could be sent out to scan sectors and planets looking for possible Thargoid incursions and having a friend come along in a tooled up gunboat would be good for making a good first impression for any Thargoid that shows up.
We did that, now got two bases in the pleiades.
I'm not sure exploration needs to be exciting.
Many people seem to do it, just as it is. In fact many people, myself included, come back from a few weeks out in the black to the excitement of the bubble with its pirates and RES sites and its trading and its missions, the shooting of things, the chatter of the comms systems, station PA's saying how you will die if you loiter etc etc and quickly get totally bored of it all and go shooting off into the black again.
While I can see that more things to see is appealing, there is always going to be a limit on the number of them and so just adding more things is always going to get repetitive at some point.
For me, exploration isn't about building a station somewhere (in fact, getting away from everyone who isn't an explorer is part of the charm) or doing studies of the rocks I am looking at, it's about seeing what is over the next hill, even it looks exactly like this hill.
Having said that, I like the idea of caves to go exploring in or being able to travel underwater or right to the core of a gas giant.
To those of you who answered they want to build stations or economies outside of the bubble, that's not exploring. The explorers have all left before the pioneers come in to claim the land.
Many people seem to do it, just as it is. In fact many people, myself included, come back from a few weeks out in the black to the excitement of the bubble with its pirates and RES sites and its trading and its missions, the shooting of things, the chatter of the comms systems, station PA's saying how you will die if you loiter etc etc and quickly get totally bored of it all and go shooting off into the black again.
While I can see that more things to see is appealing, there is always going to be a limit on the number of them and so just adding more things is always going to get repetitive at some point.
For me, exploration isn't about building a station somewhere (in fact, getting away from everyone who isn't an explorer is part of the charm) or doing studies of the rocks I am looking at, it's about seeing what is over the next hill, even it looks exactly like this hill.
Having said that, I like the idea of caves to go exploring in or being able to travel underwater or right to the core of a gas giant.
To those of you who answered they want to build stations or economies outside of the bubble, that's not exploring. The explorers have all left before the pioneers come in to claim the land.
Signal sources for explorers would be nice. Right now I ignore them when exploring. I usually fly shieldless and weaponless outside the bubble so I'm not going to risk getting shot at. I would love to be able to find something unique in signal sources outside the bubble. Expensive alien tech, rare materials, things like that.
The ability to take home samples of alien soil to sell to universal cartographics could be an interesting game mechanic too. It would make landing while exploring more interesting.
The ability to take home samples of alien soil to sell to universal cartographics could be an interesting game mechanic too. It would make landing while exploring more interesting.
If they just scaled the scan time and distance to sensor class and rating it would do a lot for me.
the downtime is what kills it for me. Just sitting there staring at pool balls isn't doing it for me.
another ting would be taking scientific samples of planets with the srv. Landing and drilling a core sample and basing the worth and rank gain of that core sample on the distance from sol.
the downtime is what kills it for me. Just sitting there staring at pool balls isn't doing it for me.
another ting would be taking scientific samples of planets with the srv. Landing and drilling a core sample and basing the worth and rank gain of that core sample on the distance from sol.
+2 on soil samples/someformofplanetarydatatakenfromtheSRVonaplanetssurface
A few suggestions strike a note with me, mapping options, seeing where I've been and what I've discovered, those are great ideas.
Most of the rest, well, I'm on my way out across the galaxy right now, left out last night and already hit undiscovered systems within 400ly of Sol, which blew ME away, just goes to show you, you never can tell. I've already been to Sag A* once, 2 months of travel time, 70k LY distance traveled, thousands of systems visited, and almost every single other suggestion has me shaking my head because of one little fact...
After you've done something literally 1000 times, it's tedious, it's boring, it's NOT going to make the game any more fun or enjoyable or make you feel like you are really there. I explore because I love to see what's out there, 400 billion systems, 99%+ of which NO LIVING HUMAN BEING HAS EVER SEEN! That's what why I go out into the Black, to see what no one else has ever seen. Odds are extremely high that no other living being will ever see them again, which doesn't matter, because I saw them, and I saw them first, and we humans, we're weird about being first, doesn't matter the context, we like to be first, I'm no exception that to and this allows me to get that in a tangible way, my name gets put on those things I saw first.
I love the scenery, the awesome views and visuals that I find out there in the Black, but if I had to spend an hour or two every single time I went to explore a star or planet or moon or asteroid belt(yes, I scan those as well quite often, I know it's worth nothing, it's just a RP thing for me), I MIGHT be 400k LY from Sol right now, maybe, there's a lot of systems in that short distance you know, including ones not yet discovered. Another few years and I MIGHT make Sag A*, maybe, if I hadn't already gotten fed up with the game and stopped playing because there's only SO much repetition I'll put up with, and my limit for that is pretty damn high in video games, still, that's beyond my limits and then some.
Taking soil samples, atmo samples, flora and fauna samples, detailed scans of this and that and the other, all sounds awesome. But stop and think for a minute, how awesome will it be after you've done it a thousand times....remember folks, 400 billion systems out there, impossible to see them all in the human lifetime, but still quite possible to visit thousands upon thousands of them, and doing the same little tasks every single time, eating up minutes to hours every single time...it's not fun after a very short time, it's boring, it's work, it's enough to drive you to head into a sun and see what's at the core just so you don't have to look at that damn scanner ONE MORE TIME!
Most of the rest, well, I'm on my way out across the galaxy right now, left out last night and already hit undiscovered systems within 400ly of Sol, which blew ME away, just goes to show you, you never can tell. I've already been to Sag A* once, 2 months of travel time, 70k LY distance traveled, thousands of systems visited, and almost every single other suggestion has me shaking my head because of one little fact...
After you've done something literally 1000 times, it's tedious, it's boring, it's NOT going to make the game any more fun or enjoyable or make you feel like you are really there. I explore because I love to see what's out there, 400 billion systems, 99%+ of which NO LIVING HUMAN BEING HAS EVER SEEN! That's what why I go out into the Black, to see what no one else has ever seen. Odds are extremely high that no other living being will ever see them again, which doesn't matter, because I saw them, and I saw them first, and we humans, we're weird about being first, doesn't matter the context, we like to be first, I'm no exception that to and this allows me to get that in a tangible way, my name gets put on those things I saw first.
I love the scenery, the awesome views and visuals that I find out there in the Black, but if I had to spend an hour or two every single time I went to explore a star or planet or moon or asteroid belt(yes, I scan those as well quite often, I know it's worth nothing, it's just a RP thing for me), I MIGHT be 400k LY from Sol right now, maybe, there's a lot of systems in that short distance you know, including ones not yet discovered. Another few years and I MIGHT make Sag A*, maybe, if I hadn't already gotten fed up with the game and stopped playing because there's only SO much repetition I'll put up with, and my limit for that is pretty damn high in video games, still, that's beyond my limits and then some.
Taking soil samples, atmo samples, flora and fauna samples, detailed scans of this and that and the other, all sounds awesome. But stop and think for a minute, how awesome will it be after you've done it a thousand times....remember folks, 400 billion systems out there, impossible to see them all in the human lifetime, but still quite possible to visit thousands upon thousands of them, and doing the same little tasks every single time, eating up minutes to hours every single time...it's not fun after a very short time, it's boring, it's work, it's enough to drive you to head into a sun and see what's at the core just so you don't have to look at that damn scanner ONE MORE TIME!
Galaxy map only shows what you can jump to or that you have visited or bought data for. System map shows only what you have bought data for or discovered, but tells you how many things to find in the system, planets, stations, asteroid belts . In system scanner is a display that shows anomalies, that you need to get a certain distance to, in order to identify. Better scanner registers further away. Increase rewards for in system scanning and give a bonus when everything is found.
Stop the arbitrary 1 Minute waiting time while scanning planets.
What use is it? It's just throttling to zero and - waiting. Doing nothing.
Granted, contemplation is a nice thing. But surely not with headphones on and sitting there holding a mouse button.
Sometimes I think Frontier gets paid for a social experiment.
What use is it? It's just throttling to zero and - waiting. Doing nothing.
Granted, contemplation is a nice thing. But surely not with headphones on and sitting there holding a mouse button.
Sometimes I think Frontier gets paid for a social experiment.
My thoughts:
- Increased FSD acceleration in SC once past say 100C up to max speed 2001C to reduce long distance journey times, whilst still keeping the feeling of scale.
- Missions from factions that require certain information (x number of earthlikes, pristine metallic rings, data on specific areas of the galaxy whatever) with no time requirement, or at least long timer, would need to be picked up before leaving to avoid potential BB exploits on return.
- When scanning some systems to get a message that the information gained there is valuable to a specific faction, but may be difficult to get to them as others will try and stop you on your return within 100ly of destination (dunno how you would work that into lore)
- Ability to see where you have been on galaxy map and bookmark systems/planets plus waypoint routing
- Personal records shown(lowest/highest G planet landed on, largest planet scanned)
- Using SRV scanner to find data from specific points on planet as a level 4 area scan (mining info such as area with high concentration of certain mineral found) with some sensible way to be able to point you towards the area (maybe DSS would show info that a region in the Northern latitude is showing up as an ore hotspot and then you see a particular canyon/crater that appears different on the planet you land in and follow srv signal source to pinpoint a good area for a future mining colony)
- Finally some milk cannisters to go with the Tea
Right on commander!
Waypoints should have been in the game from day one, it's a pretty glaring omission in a game which allows you to plot up to 1,000 LY of jumps at once. Rather than telling the game I want to go from A to B and letting it plot the closest it can to a straight line course for 999 LY, I want to tell it I want to go from A to B via C and D.
The game would still calculate the routes between waypoints in exactly the same way as it does now but instead of having to look at the map first, make a note on a bit of paper (in 2016!) of maybe four systems I want to travel through on my way to my final destination, then plot a course to the first one only before searching the map for the next one after I get done there and repeating the whole process, just let me enter my course all at once up to whatever cumulative distance limit the game can handle comfortably - presumably the current 1,000 LY limit.
It would be especially useful when you're exploring a particular area and want to visit multiple systems, when you want to divert from a straight path to call in at a particular system en route, or inside the bubble for plotting A > B > C > D trade routes.
Being able to save a few favourite routes would be an added bonus but just the waypoints would be a very useful addition without any other aspect. It would also probably make plotting courses faster since if you make a four waypoint jump over a total of 1,000 LY, it's probably faster to calculate 4 separate 250 LY jumps than a single 1,000 LY jump because the game is checking less potential forks at once - a particular issue when plotting courses through areas that are densely populated with stars.
Going in a slightly different direction..
On my last adventure into the great unknown, I complied every RP story that had a decent amount of story associated with it (found in the Lore & Roleplay sub forum) into TTS files and played these stories as I went along.
On my last adventure into the great unknown, I complied every RP story that had a decent amount of story associated with it (found in the Lore & Roleplay sub forum) into TTS files and played these stories as I went along.
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I think it depends on what you like about exploring. Some people go for the vista's while others go for other things. They already cover the vista's, why not add other aspects that benefit others. The vista explorers can jump through, leaving the micro scanning to those that like that aspect. Keep the system discovered and add a second achievement for system completely scanned.
I think we won't see the best of exploration until the full planetary landings experience is in, with atmosphere and life and all that.
Thinking of cataloguing new life forms, finding points of interest like massive geysers, volcanos, huge mountain ranges, varied oceans; planets with strange magnetic fields that give off weird effects like auroras, or strange colored skies; but all of these things will need the full landings experience plus way more POIs added, some kind of auto-journal feature to catalog the findings, new probes or limpets that can be sent off to investigate anomalies (in addition to different types of SRVs - maybe flyable drones that can fit into tight places that our ships can't).
I think getting rid of the POI minimum distance thing would be a great start. It's an unnecessary thing that does nothing but block or at least delay enjoyment.
Thinking of cataloguing new life forms, finding points of interest like massive geysers, volcanos, huge mountain ranges, varied oceans; planets with strange magnetic fields that give off weird effects like auroras, or strange colored skies; but all of these things will need the full landings experience plus way more POIs added, some kind of auto-journal feature to catalog the findings, new probes or limpets that can be sent off to investigate anomalies (in addition to different types of SRVs - maybe flyable drones that can fit into tight places that our ships can't).
I think getting rid of the POI minimum distance thing would be a great start. It's an unnecessary thing that does nothing but block or at least delay enjoyment.
