For the sake of their sanity Fdev please. Throw Explorers a bone with this update.

[Jex =TE=]

http://i.imgur.com/Oz4iUHJ.jpg

LOLOLOLOL [haha] [haha] [haha]

"But Data, why can't our ship sensors do this!? We're all the way up here in this huge ship filled with all these blinking lights and screens and blinking and lights and we can't even scan a planet??"

 

[Mengy]

You're misrepresenting my argument completely. I'm saying Exploration has had more attention than other career paths since the beginning of season 2.... Crashed ships, formadine bases and alien ruins required quite a lot of development, as did the star changes and planet surface gameplay (not 100% exploration I admit). What about the others?

Trade? Nothing
Piracy? Hatch-breakers can go through shields, wooo..
Bounty Hunting? Wings are going to be able to share bounties, should have been that way all along.
Navy? So placeholder I can practically read 'hello world' in the game files
Smuggling? Probably the most with long-range missions, but still not as much as exploration or combat.

I would agree that trading and bounty hunting desperately need more mechanics and content too, and even piracy to a lesser degree. But all of those are currently more fun and interactive than exploration is. At least they all have missions to support gameplay, exploration still doesn’t have any missions whatsoever. Passenger sightseeing missions are great, but they are tourism, sending you to known and pre-determined locations, they aren’t exploration nor are they what would constitute an exploration mission mechanic. The fact that they have short time limits preclude exploration in general while doing them.

BUT, many of the new combat mechanics and features have also greatly benefitted both piracy and bounty hunting by virtue of being combat related professions. The greatest improvements for exploration over the past two years have been QoL stuff that impacted everyone, not specifically explorers.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

You're misrepresenting my argument completely. I'm saying Exploration has had more attention than other career paths since the beginning of season 2.... Crashed ships, formadine bases and alien ruins required quite a lot of development, as did the star changes and planet surface gameplay (not 100% exploration I admit).

Yes, not 100%, try 1%.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Why bother?
If we were content with the game play we'd be told we are wrong, or don't understand, or not a real explorer

So tired of the group think of this forum of "Well your not a real X, Y or Z" if you don't agree with a select core, and be told you are not playing the game right, as if you were there is not conceivable way you could ever disagree with them

That isn't it at all and if you had read the thread, you should have got this. I see people are throwing non-explorer content around as if it's exploration content.

One thing that needs to be done is set the meaning of explorer and it's quite obviously NOT a tourist or looking at planets or driving over them. Geysers are nice to look at but then what? What are you going to do with them? I think the issue can be resolved quickly enough by answering this challenge;

Name one thing explorers can interact with that isn't part of a scripted storyline?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

You're misrepresenting my argument completely. I'm saying Exploration has had more attention than other career paths since the beginning of season 2.... Crashed ships, formadine bases and alien ruins required quite a lot of development, as did the star changes and planet surface gameplay (not 100% exploration I admit). What about the others?

Trade? Nothing
Piracy? Hatch-breakers can go through shields, wooo..
Bounty Hunting? Wings are going to be able to share bounties, should have been that way all along.
Navy? So placeholder I can practically read 'hello world' in the game files
Smuggling? Probably the most with long-range missions, but still not as much as exploration or combat.

Dear FD,

please make up some trade/piracy/BH/smuggling related 'background' stories, and add a golden snitch type of commodity which one CMDR can find and trade for a lot of money.

That will bring it on par with exploration.

 

[Jex =TE=]

It seems that the main content for explorers is this forum. I'm currently making a 465,000 LS run to scan an ammonia world I have found. I fill the time on here, listening to my engines.

Could you explain to us how you're going to "scan" this planet?

- - - Updated - - -

Judging by the interest in another thread, the lack of long hair is more of a priority!



https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/329591-A-Final-Plea-to-Frontier-for-Longer-Hairstyles?p=5153833&viewfull=1#post5153833

Yeah well look at the people posting here. Missing quite a few vocal posters who are happy to talk about other topics yet the deepest one of all are oddly absent from.

And they say ED isn't going pew pew....

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Could you explain to us how you're going to "scan" this planet?

Nicely played

This could be a good thread: Explorers, share your methods of scanning planets

 

[Jex =TE=]

It still has been given more dev attention than most of you realise or acknowledge... Bounty Hunting, Naval & Piracy have hardly had any attention at all.

Putting in usueless "scanners" and rubbish like that no way on earth equate to major updates like CQC and Powerplay and RNGineers and SLF's and SRV Combat and now MC turrets.

But please go ahead and tell us how all of these tiny little scraps we were thrown equate to gameplay. Go out for a month, out the bubble and do some "exploration"

- - - Updated - - -

If the things added, (really not that much to be honest), are 'dull as dishwater' then those things have in fact added naff all in terms of the depth and expansion of the exploration mechanics. That would suggest that exploration indeed needs another, much more thought out and serious series of improvements. In my book at least that keeps exploration right at the top of what should be Frontier's priority list, sure, bounty hunting and piracy, (and others), are desperate for some love too but no more so than exploration in a lot of cases and considerable less in many others.

That's like adding dog poop onto your dinner plate and the host claiming you "have so much more food than everyone else, quit complaining!"

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Could you explain to us how you're going to "scan" this planet?

- - - Updated - - -



Yeah well look at the people posting here. Missing quite a few vocal posters who are happy to talk about other topics yet the deepest one of all are oddly absent from.

And they say ED isn't going pew pew....

Sure, having honked, I simply hit maximum throttle, point my ship at my destination then switch to these forums. Read a bit, post bit, maybe have a forum PvP battle..... Oh there's sound of my engines decelerating, switch back, adjust my heading. [Exciting stuff I know] Then if there is time, switch back to the forums for some more pew pew switching back in the nick of time to avoid the overshoot. Slow my engines as the surface scanner kicks in and then absorb the data. I imagine the mysteries this planet may host. Could there be civilization, how far advanced, or is it extinct. What exciting geological features there may be. Is it worth a special survey mission? You need imagination to be an explorer.

Hot stuff I know. But you get rewarded by the following.....

I am parking here on this moon so that I can try out the new camera on the ringed ammonia world that we are orbiting.

 

[Harley Quinn]

There are other areas of the game that are far more starved of attention than exploration:

Spoiler

* Not including any announced 2.3 features

Exploration

• Universal Cartographics market
• Explorer ships (Diamondback S, Diamond Back E, Asp S, Asp E)
• Exploration rank
• Discovery scanners
• Detailed surface scanner
• System first-discovery naming
• System scientific data (star, planet & nebula types)
• Wing-shared exploration data
• Purchasable exploration-data (galaxy map)
• Powerplay exploration bonus (Li Yong-Rui)
• Material discovery
• Data discovery (signal sources and base scans)
• All space-based alien items and mysteries
• *SRV (included as usage directly affects exploration rank)
• Planet surface Points of Interest
• Planet surface geology and volcanism
• Mysterious non-sentient planet life
• Crashed alien ships
• Alien ruins
• Formidine rift mystery
• 'The missing' mystery
• 'Raxxla' mystery

Combat

• Arena (CQC) and all associated features
• Combat ships (Imp. Fighter, Fed Condor, Eagle II, Viper III, Imp. Eagle, Vulture, FAS, FGS, FDL, Fed Corvette)
• All weapon-types
• Combat rank
• Arena Rank (the red Pilots Federation one that people want removed)
• Conflict zones
• Combat bonds
• Wing-split combat bonds
• Combat missions
• Background sim impact (through combat bonds)
• Security checkpoints (combat to lower system security)
• Military-strike zones
• Powerplay combat bonuses (Denton Patreus)
• Ship launched fighters
• NPC fighter crew
• All experimental weapons effects
• Ammo synthesis

Trade

• Commodities Market
• Economy model
• Freighter ships (Hauler, T6, Keelback, T7, T9)
• Trade data (trade routes on galaxy map & commodities market)
• Trade missions
• Trade rank
• Wing trade dividends
• Background sim impact (boom/bust etc)
• Seeking x items points in supercruise
• Powerplay trade bonus (Edmund Mahon & Aisling Duval)

Bounty Hunting

• Wanted system
• Bounty claim vouchers
• RES sites
• Wing-split bounties
• Kill-warrant scanner
• System top 5 bounty board & bounty hunters report
• Bounty hunting missions
• Background sim impact (through bounty vouchers)
• Powerplay bounty bonuses (Arissa Lavigny-Duval, Zachery Hudson & Pranav Antal)

Mining

• Mineable asteroids & ice-roids (as of 2.1)
• Mining area reserve levels
• Mining lasers
• Refineries
• Prospector limpets
• Mining missions
• Mineable-only commodities
• Powerplay mining bonus (Zemina Torval)
• Material mining

Smuggling

• Black market
• Smuggling Missions (short, long-range & shadow)
• Cargo scan fails mission (NPCs & players)
• Illicit cargo
• Illegal salvage
• Fines for illicit cargo
• Unsanctioned Outposts
• Background sim impact (through missions - lockdown, system security etc)

Superpower Navy

• Federal navy ranks
• Imperial navy ranks
• Rank missions
• Unlockable faction ships (4x Empire, 4x Federation)
• Unlockable permit systems/planet landings
• Capital ships (1x Empire, 1x Federation)

Passenger Transport

• Passenger ships (Orca, Beluga)
• Passenger Lounge
• Passenger Cabins (4 quality levels)
• Dedicated Missions
• VIP Passengers (with demands and reactions)
• Tourism Beacons (With Info)

Piracy

• Hatch-breaker limpets
• Heist missions
• *Background sim impact (through NPC traders robbed? - not sure about this one)
• Pirate-faction liveries
• Powerplay piracy bonuses (Archon Delaine)

As you can see, it already has more dedicated features than any other part of the game (excluding Powerplay which is a whole game in its self).

Err, have you ever done planatery landings outside of the bubble? Unless a system with something placed on it you get no data discovery as there is nothing else. I could on for your whole list.

But let's just leave at the fact that apparently combat never needs the galaxy map and bounty hunting has nothing to do with combat rank, or how you've managed to split trade and combat into various subgroups but leave exploration as 1, which kind of imbalances a list if you split it up. Might as well say xenobiologists have received nothing other than a few bits of eye candy which is less than any of the subgroups you have created.

Let's also forget about things you missed such as who a systems report on biggest bounties will point to...oh yeah pirates so that's a pirate feature then as well as bounty hunting. After all it's as much use as a lot of what you have stated in exploration.

Of course if they do need these features and creating subgroups doesn't supply a fair assessment with xenobiologists only getting eye candy so obviously being the worst, it would mean this list is an unfair reflection of the truth to prove a point.

Now I won't deny other aspects are broke and need work. I have (as an explorer) even said elsewhere that piracy and bounty hunting need work more urgently than exploration as they have nothing of use specifically for them. But your list does not represent a fair assessment as if we reorder what you have listed to combat/exploration/trade only, add in the equivalent of what you consider as exploration features to the others and put in the functionality they all use on the list there will be 1 obvious winner compared to 2 losers, and 1 of those with mostly eye candy if you can find it.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Sure, having honked, I simply hit maximum throttle point my ship at my destination then switch to these forums. Read a bit, post bit, maybe have a forum PvP battle..... Oh there's sound of my engines decelerating, switch back, adjust my heading. [Exciting stuff I know] Then if there is time, switch back to the forums for some more pew pew then switch back in the nick of time to avoid the overshoot. Slow my engines as the surface scanner kicks in and then absorb the data. I imagine the mysteries this planet may host. Could there civilization, how far advanced, or is it extinct. What exciting geological features there may be. Is it worth a special survey mission?

You need imagination to be an explorer.

Hot stuff I know. But you get rewarded by the following.....

http://oi64.tinypic.com/14lowmu.jpg


I am parking here on this moon so that I can try out the new camera on the ringed ammonia world that we are orbiting.

Can't rep you again.

Except you can find those views everywhere. Yes they change as you get closer to the center but you know what I mean. There's nothing to do - not even a solar wave to hit you and knock your ship off course or anything else for that matter. In RL, deepest space is dangerous but in ED, it's the safest place in the galaxy and you have infinite beer!

- - - Updated - - -

Err, have you ever done planatery landings outside of the bubble? Unless a system with something placed on it you get no data discovery as there is nothing else. I could on for your whole list.

But let's just leave at the fact that apparently combat never needs the galaxy map and bounty hunting has nothing to do with combat rank, or how you've managed to split trade and combat into various subgroups but leave exploration as 1, which kind of imbalances a list if you split it up. Might as well say xenobiologists have received nothing other than a few bits of eye candy which is less than any of the subgroups you have created.

Let's also forget about things you missed such as who a systems report on biggest bounties will point to...oh yeah pirates so that's a pirate feature then as well as bounty hunting. After all it's as much use as a lot of what you have stated in exploration.

Of course if they do need these features and creating subgroups doesn't supply a fair assessment with xenobiologists only getting eye candy so obviously being the worst, it would mean this list is an unfair reflection of the truth to prove a point.

Now I won't deny other aspects are broke and need work. I have (as an explorer) even said elsewhere that piracy and bounty hunting need work more urgently than exploration as they have nothing of use specifically for them. But your list does not represent a fair assessment as if we reorder what you have listed to combat/exploration/trade only, add in the equivalent of what you consider as exploration features to the others and put in the functionality they all use on the list there will be 1 obvious winner compared to 2 losers, and 1 of those with mostly eye candy if you can find it.

If anything, Trade probably needs more work than anything else LOL - has it changed AT ALL since launch?

 

[verminstar]

You're misrepresenting my argument completely. I'm saying Exploration has had more attention than other career paths since the beginning of season 2.... Crashed ships, formadine bases and alien ruins required quite a lot of development, as did the star changes and planet surface gameplay (not 100% exploration I admit). What about the others?

Trade? Nothing
Piracy? Hatch-breakers can go through shields, wooo..
Bounty Hunting? Wings are going to be able to share bounties, should have been that way all along.
Navy? So placeholder I can practically read 'hello world' in the game files
Smuggling? Probably the most with long-range missions, but still not as much as exploration or combat.

I almost hate doing this, but nobody else has pointed out the obvious yet I dont think...if they have then Im snookered and apologies in advance.

Of those 5 examples, at least 4 of them involve some aspect of pew pew which has been a fairly consistant developent direction, so claiming they got nothing isnt entirely accurate. Even the slf and engineers dont actually benefit explorers that much...cool to have both but certainly not a profound effect on the profession itself. More like fun to fly and longer range which is arguable as to just how useful or effective that is fer explorers.

Fairly sure that whatever the case, engineers were a helluva lot more useful to every other career path and were not specifically aimed at any career. Naturally some benefit more than others, and fer some, its vital to have...exploration gets higher range which means we cover more distance and thats it. Hell, those who use heat sinks cant even synth more ammo fer them, although I personally never use them...just saying.

The alien ruins were found...and then what? How many ruins are there? Those arent general discoveries, those are one off pr stunts set close enough to the bubble to be easily found...notice too when they were found...convenient timing one might say...little bit too convenient imo but let the role players play their little games. And thats just te point...thats not a part of exploration as a career...thats just stuff they put in to build up a hype train to a new update. Those discoveries were highly unlikely to have been a lucky random discovery...hence the notion of devs flicking switches to turn stuff on when they choose.

But fer exploration in general...that any random explorer can find on any normal day...what do we have? Rare as hens teeth geysers which are found with the classic mk1 eyeball...meh whatever...eye candy nothing more. Can we get very rare gems or materials frm them? No..they just look cool.

Im really not intentionally being salty or even lay on the thickest sarcasm here...Im just saying it like I see it and when I see players claiming we have had lots of attention compared to others, I start to wonder what they smoking. When examples are given that have nothing to do with exploration, or are tenuous at best, I do feel like just banging my head off a wall.

 

[Harley Quinn]

If anything, Trade probably needs more work than anything else LOL - has it changed AT ALL since launch?

Well I know others will disagree but for me passengers, mining, markets, black markets, smuggling, salvage, courier jobs, goods sourcing, outbreaks, famines and shipping jobs are all trade with 7 specialist ships so there is a fair amount of content for selling economic goods and services. Trade data has kind of been nerfed by external tools and those kind of limit the need for an in game one.

It definitely needs more love, but it has more options to follow than jump,honk and eyeball Mrk1 as an high level area with a rank.

Each sub trade does need more though to flesh out though, but I have to admit I think piracy/bounty hunting and a proper crime & punishment system would be of more advantage to the businessmen of ED, whether legal trades and services or not.

It's why I think those areas should get some work first before exploration even though that's what I personally want yesterday. A better pirate system and tools alongside ability to bounty hunt properly including tracking wanted players and C&P that works would help a greater number of players of different styles and aims, as well as helping separate PVP from griefing.

It would also benefit us explorers returning in worn out ships with months worth of data onboard. As it stands now the best option for traders and explorers returning is solo or PG which for me limits the risks too much thereby removing the edge of a bit of fear. But open as it stands is too 1 sided, if you don't fit for PVP and learn how to do it most players are just sitting ducks for bored PVP players, and that includes me.

 

[Jenner]

The alien ruins were found...and then what? How many ruins are there? Those arent general discoveries, those are one off pr stunts set close enough to the bubble to be easily found...notice too when they were found...convenient timing one might say...little bit too convenient imo but let the role players play their little games. And thats just te point...thats not a part of exploration as a career...thats just stuff they put in to build up a hype train to a new update. Those discoveries were highly unlikely to have been a lucky random discovery...hence the notion of devs flicking switches to turn stuff on when they choose.

I'm not an explorer, but what about the Formaldine Rift discoveries? Those really did appear to have been around just waiting to be discovered, no?

I often wonder about this kind of stuff, though.... just how much of it is already seeded and 'ready' and how much is, as you say, 'flicked on' at an opportune time.

 

[verminstar]

I'm not an explorer, but what about the Formaldine Rift discoveries? Those really did appear to have been around just waiting to be discovered, no?

I often wonder about this kind of stuff, though.... just how much of it is already seeded and 'ready' and how much is, as you say, 'flicked on' at an opportune time.

Fer a minute there I thought ye were on about the time when dev flew a freighter which was carrying a clue in a certain location...thats the one who got ganked along with several other explorers before the message could be delivered? Those are, yet again a part of the canon in that a small group of super intelligent geniuses and oxford professors solve puzzles with out of game resources and role play threads.

I actually helped search a little arount heart and soul nebula at the time...after a dev turned up which was the apparent content, I lost all interest and moved several nebula over. If anything else has been found, then I have no idea either what it was or how relevant it is to every other explorer in every other part of the universe.

Maybe its just me, but I dont consider anything thats connected with the joke of a background story to be exploration content or gameplay...thats something else played by a select few while the rest of us read about it when theres nothing else to read.

Actual content fer actual exploration...the formidine rift stuff is fer publicity and einsteins with the only actual content Im aware of being a scripted event. By all means if Im wrong, then point out what can be discovered outside the rift which is a comparatively tiny portion of the 400 billion other systems ^

There was a time I used to think along the lines of a major discovery could so easily have been missed, even after an entire system gets scanned. One could scan every ball of rock, but without spending hours eyeballing every single rock, one could well have flown right past something without the faintest clue. The mk1 eyeball needs a serious buff methinks...but it does make one wonder ^

 

[Leper Messiah]

Holy cow batman!

You must be the only person in the universe who doesn't know why NMS failed....

LOL I'd give you rep for this if I could.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Can't rep you again.

Except you can find those views everywhere. Yes they change as you get closer to the center but you know what I mean. There's nothing to do - not even a solar wave to hit you and knock your ship off course or anything else for that matter. In RL, deepest space is dangerous but in ED, it's the safest place in the galaxy and you have infinite beer!

And beer is where the danger comes in, particularly when landing. Up the stakes with some whisky, a Balvenie, Macallan or something like that. It's the reason I carry shields, boosters and a HRP.

So this is exploration content folks... Imagination, Forum Fighting and Whisky.

 

[Greyza Badger]

And beer is where the danger comes in, particularly when landing. Up the stakes with some whisky, a Balvenie, Macallan or something like that. It's the reason I carry shields, boosters and a HRP.

So this is exploration content folks... Imagination, Forum Fighting and Whisky.

None of which are provided by FDEV.
Why, exactly, are we continuing to boot up ED?

(OK, the fact it is still awesome and promises so much more might be something to do with it)

 

[Dbrn47]

I'm not an explorer, but what about the Formaldine Rift discoveries? Those really did appear to have been around just waiting to be discovered, no?

I often wonder about this kind of stuff, though.... just how much of it is already seeded and 'ready' and how much is, as you say, 'flicked on' at an opportune time.

My cynical nature tells me that it doesn't exist until they are ready for you to see it. I find it doubtful that things are just laying around when suddenly things pop up after people have pretty much fully explored the areas already. What went on in Pleiades as an example. It was pretty much the first major stop for a lot of explorers, including myself, but no one found anything until they decided to post story info? There are systems outside of the bubble that have permits with no way to earn them, could it be possible that's where things are hiding? If so, what's the point. Hey, you haven't found stuff yet, but it's locked so don't worry? Then again, if they do have stuff like the abandoned sites in the Rift sitting there waiting, how are we expected to just stumble upon it when even when we're given information it still takes people quite a while to find it. Much like finding not only needles, but specific looking hay in the haystack.

Might as well not be there if we're seriously expected to explore every inch of every planet in hopes of finding something. I'd like to make the assumption that the likelihood of people doing that regularly is zero. If this is really how exploration was meant to be, I don't get it... We have drives that can manipulate space itself and scanners that can find celestial bodies at an infinite range, but nothing to help find sites, treasures, or similar curiosities other than cryptic hints and coordinates that are only thrown when we aren't finding it? I don't consider that Exploration content, I feel it's just developer injected lore to advance the story toward new things, like Thargoids, that just happens to need Explorers to discuss and search these things out. Even if it wasn't, 99% of Exploration is still jump, honk, detail scan, MAYBE catch a couple screenshots, and move on. Some people enjoy it, but I know I sure don't, I need a bit more than that and the near 0% chance I'll find something special or even interesting.

 

[Dbrn47]

The last game with a heavy emphasis on exploration did not do so well (No Man's Sky). Turns out exploration does not suit a short attention span.

I liked NMS' exploration. Even though the game lacked depth overall and became samey, it still had more than ED's exploration. You actually found things, you scanned things, there was at least some dangers. It at least felt more engaging than jump, honk, detailed scan. I feel that someone needs to marry the ideas from Elite, NMS, Eve, and Mass Effect or even TV shows like The Expanse and turn it into something that fits Elite. It's not a matter of attention span, it's about creating something that's worth giving your attention to in the first place. When you can watch Netflix while you do something in a game, that something isn't engaging enough.

I see your ideas and that's what we need, just pointing out that it has nothing to do with attention span.