Explorers : would you consider giving up on the infinite honk for...?

[Omgzzwtf]

SO! I've had my three S's, and a cup of coffee and thought about this some more.

Probes are a bad idea, hands down. They can't do much because of the limited size they would have to be. They wouldn't be able to communicate very far since they'd have to be small enough to be able to synthesize them on every ship, nor would they have the ability to travel in SC.

Think about it, a standard limpet has a mass of 1 ton (currently, but this size may just be a place-holder until FD turns them into ammo, at which point the mass would be negligible). The absolute SMALLEST sensor array on a ship is a 1D, which has a mass of 0.5 and a range of 5 kilometers. Launching a limpet at a planet from orbit would be useless, since it would not be able to communicate back to the ship, and waiting around for it to return would take too long to be a viable gameplay mechanic.

I vote in favor of a more complex exploration array that can take readings from orbit around a planet, in which the CMDR would have to zero in on various frequencies through a mini-game of sorts to get accurate data about various resources, life forms, subsurface materials, etc.

The "game" could have multiple levels, each unlocking a portion of the data. Each stage would become more complicated than the last, with a total number of levels depending on the type of planet and various sets of data available.

For example, a rocky body might only have one or two levels, whereas an ammonia or ELW would have 7-10. Each set gathered would add a Cr amount to the total discovery data of that planet, increasing in Cr amount in respect to the level it was attained. Failure to finish a level would leave the CMDR with the data already recieved, and another scan would have to be done to get the rest.

This could be a nice addition to the system already in place because it would be optional, not devaluing the data already recieved through the advanced discovery and surface scans, but adding to them. It could also tell you if there were any anomalies detected on the surface, and provide coordinates to various strong signals/structures for explorers to investigate.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

First off, the Advanced Discovery Scanner is not really Infinite Range. If it was, one Honk would scan the entirety of the universe. It doesn't do that.
Even if it were a somewhat-less-than-infinite-range scanner, it should at least scan the entirety of the galaxy - it doesn't do that either.
It scans one solar-system, and with a limited effect - it merely tells you there is something there.

No, I would not give this up. I would give up exploration instead.

But I do want to see a lot more work put into Exploration.

Let's look at the real money-maker where Exploration is concerned: The Detailed Surface Scanner

It's a passive device - you merely select a target and wait while it scans. I'm actually OK with the mechanics.
What does it tell us? It tells us about the composition of the planet we're scanning - the material composition of a planet, its rings (if any), and fills in the Details on the the Detail View in the System Map.
Not quite so much "surface" information - there could be an entire thriving alien civilization down there, and we wouldn't know it until we flew around looking.
Perhaps this should be renamed the "Detailed Composition Scanner" instead.

Actual scanning of the planet's surface - it's topography, indications of power sources, points of interest, curiosities - we don't really have anything for that. But fear not! I have some thoughts:

The first thing that comes to mind are Planetary Probes - think Prospector Limpet, but on a planetary scale - launch one or more of these at a planet, from orbit, in normal space, and see if there's anything really fascinating down there before disembarking in an SRV to search for it.

A new SRV type vehicle, or outfitting for the existing SRV vehicle, to take core samples and collect specimens and conduct research that feels like research would be huge. Likewise, a new ship-launched small-craft, for either conducting aerial surveys or even a drop-ship/drop-pod type craft that carries its own SRV for conducting surface studies would be great.

But even more than just new mechanics and systems, new content is a must. All the tools in the universe are no good, if there's nothing to do with them.

 

[Mengy]

But even more than just new mechanics and systems, new content is a must. All the tools in the universe are no good, if there's nothing to do with them.

The opposite is also true though: new content without the mechanics to go with it is no good either. For example, geysers and fumeroles are currently in the game, but there are no tools to hunt them down short of the good old Mk I Eyeballs.

This is why I feel like Elite needs deeper and more interactive scanning mechanics. Planet surface heatmaps created by the DSS highlighting geysers and other features would go a long way to making surface searching much more practicle. It would also provide the means to make any future content implementation much more engaging to actually search for, not to mention providing mechanics for finding things much more spontaneously, rather than needing listening posts and GalNet articles to hold our hands.

The infinite honk isn't a bad thing really, it's the lack of anything to do afterwards that is a large problem with exploration in Elite.

 

[Mephane]

I think the infinite range of the ADS is just fine. Now what I would like to see changed is what it tells you about the bodies. Imho the honk (with any discovery scanner) should only tell you the mass, position and velocity of an object, but nothing about its size, surface or other properties. On the system map, bodies discovered through honk would thus be show as grey circles of sizes corresponding to the discovered mass. Only an actual surface scan of the object would resolve what it is, how large it is, what its surface looks like etc.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Oh dear god... so many hours lost chasing part of the skybox.....

Me, too...

 

[Edith_The_Hutt]

What I'm after is a bit more Jump, Scoop, Honk, Oooooohhh.

The ADS and jump process is a fairly solid Skinner box mechanic: You jump to an unknown system, scoop, scan and look at the pseudo-random result to see if there's anything worth Surface Scanning, sometimes yay, othertimes nay. If you put thought into your analysis there's already a few decisions you can make to try and improve your odds of finding interesting stuff (e.g. trying to eyeball rocky bodies in the Goldilocks zone to find terraform candidates or looking for big maroon blotches on Gas Giants which indicate they probably have life-forms).

This is a fairly engrossing game mechanic if you have enough fun and interesting things to break up the cycle a little. Ideally what I want is more interesting things to pull me to a planet to explore, some things which were implied but not necessarily shown on the ADS results so you had to do a little digging to find them.

Note: I'm not talking Cannon-level puzzles in deep space here, I want to be looking for iridium deposits in asteroids a certain distance from G-class binaries, not locating secret bases from message fragments with non-orthogonal co-ordinate systems, one takes a few seconds thought, the other requires a sheet of paper and a calculator.

 

[Gully Foyle]

Me, too...

I thought it was
The Mote in God's Eye.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

my own opinion is based on my experience of my longest trip. i left the bubble because i was forced to after engineers. i couldnt make money in the bubble. my armed trader/explorer asp build couldnt survive with or without cargo. i was getting constant interdictions from combat build npcs all seemingly based on my trade or exploration rank rather than my combat rank - no competent npc interdictors for me, nothing less than expert and usually master or dangerous with the odd deadly or elite for variety. nothing i could fight and win against.

the interdiction game was broken. 7 times i had to throttle down because even keeping dead on the escape vector, the blue side remained as it was at the start, then suddenly the red side would climb. even throttling down i still got twice damaged and spinning as if i hadnt throttled down. one time i was supposed to choose between TWO escape vectors! and then when i tried to get to an engineer to mod my ship, i got destroyed with the loss of the cargo mats i needed upon jumping in the engineer system.

i left by sneaking through uninhabited systems and scooping only when i was forced to. i left so unprepared i had not had the chance to remove weapons, fit a hangar and srv, or mod the FSD for range. i left with 26 ly max range and a useless 64t cargo rack still installed. that meant that i was out there 14200LY from the bubble when the next updates dropped. but that isnt what took me so long to come back. what took so long is, tiny fuel scoop. so scooping was in the main a time spent hanging around waiting and bored. if i could scan nearby rockies i did but in the main it was just.... tedium. 26 ly range made the return worse, because i wound up returning down the colonia route and i kept jumping into systems that others had already partially or wholly first discovered. with only avg jump of about 25 ly at a time, and slooooow scoop time, it became such a boring grind coming back after commanders dropped (naming my ship was too tempting) that it actually deterred me from playing at all. so it took 6 months and i only managed it by forcing myself to do a week nothing else but jumping, no scanning apart from the primary when i was scooping.

so the idea of losing the disco range and having to manually fly not just around the closest but to the FURTHEST bodies just to get them on the sysmap with disco and see if any are possible ELW would just add more tedious grind. i would not find that rewarding. it would make me sell my asp and recommend to others not to bother exploring any more since its no longer worth it.

increased rewards would also disincentivise people from flying anywhere and scanning with the ADS alos. if an ELW or something else worth money appears on the first scan they will detail it and then jump - its earning them more money. they dont need to find out if there are any other stars the disco cannot reach. those who dont do it for the money will also be finding it too grindy to fly 500000 ls to get close enough to scan that star they see on the off chance its not just planets they cannot land on with no resources and nothing interesting. i have flown into systems where i suspected the original discoverer may not have had an advanced disco or may have but not noticed the possible elw around a star which would take 10 minutes or whatever to SC and detail scan - whatever the reason, i flew there and scanned it and got first discovery. i wouldnt have bothered had it not appeared when i did my disco.

so no. from my view, more grindy but higher cr exploration wont work. someone else said its the lack of things to discover - now if it brought up POI when you detail scan planets that are landable, that would be a reason to go fly to them all - but then i wonder. maybe there would have to be an anomalous readings message when you honk and boing so you know one or more planets has something interesting to go look for. but it would have to appear on the planet map on sysmap so you can drop right onto it, from oribital cruise. flying your ship at 4k over the surface randomly looking for the blue circle to land wont work. people just wont bother.

and another issue with the 'lets have interesting things to find' argument is, you cant have alien ruins on every single planet or system, or on a majority, or even an minority. our bubble is tiny. and the closest its come to expanding is some asteroid bases and colonia. i havent been to colonia. i would have but someone said the shipyard facilities just werent up to scratch and very limited. if i couldnt base my fleet there and come back from exploring to do missions and CZ and buy new ships when i got the money, i didnt see the point. it would have been great otherwise as an explorer hub - but without a lot of systems and missions to do when i need a break, it was not viable. to have alien ruins dotted around on many planets in many systems, even if limited to certain star types or world types - it would be the same as driving around in the srv mining for mat. oh ANOTHER alien crashed ship. ANOTHER ruin. big deal seen 20 this week. i still havent been to the thargoid base. not that im not interested, but im not carrying anything that requires a special cargo rack so it doesnt eat my ship on the way out there, and apparently you need to do it in open which means basically i dont get to experience it. the issues with a high traffic area in open are just too much.

and then we have the argument about people being used to the current mechanic, how angry people will be who are out there being forced to abort a trip early to come back and refit and re-engineer, the rage-flaming and rage-quit will be enormous yes from many of them. others of course who want to explore the old fashioned way without technology at all will disagree, and will want even the lines in the hud showing the orbit of all major bodies removed so you had to find that distant star by travelling for hours in SC and looking for a star that moves... thank god we dont have to do that.

would i like more things to find on planets in deep space. sure! but what would they be? no clue. it doesnt strike me as feasible to keep finding abandoned cargo containers on a planet 20000ly from the nearest inhabited system. what the hell would a cargo ship be doing out there? how did it get there?

finding the hulks of dead cobras from the old games would be cool. seeing the ship of a long dead commander like the generation ships, and scanning for their stories. according to the old lore (dont know if its still canon) the early 7ly drives were known to (rarely) malfunction and travel far further than 7y randomly. seeing some ancient cobra mk iii - or a mk ii one of the banned ship types - stranded and out of fuel and power thanks to a hyperdrive glitch hundreds of years before would be interesting. seeing an abandoned and badly damaged but perhaps still powered galactic naval capital ship from the old thargoid war in a system would also be fun. maybe finding abandoned listening posts from that war while scanning, and landing and scanning in a special high value intel package which you can sell...

anyway, im not for anything that adds manual grind to exploring. i got my asp ex spirit of discovery all set up properly with the 140 million cr i earned from my long trip. it now has nearly 45ly range. i may indeed take the trip i keep starting out to sag A but not if exploring turns into a SC cruising dull grind.

 

[Red Anders]

I'll read this thread fully when I get home from work but as an interim reply:

Yes, if it was replaced or augmented with genuinely compelling gameplay

No, if it just makes everything take three times as long for half the money.

 

[Maro-Val]

Oh my God. You guys should be careful what you wish for. If they start changing those things, it will take 6 to 12 months to balance the new mechanics and fix the newly introduced bugs. Exploration needs SO many things to trully shine in this game and it really has massive potential. But first of all the devs have to create new stuff for us to find and i mean LOTS OF IT, not just a new type of poi. Then they need to make it happen using procedural generation to spawn them (duh) and give us advanced and lots of tools for us to use and find them. In the rate we see them releasing stuff, i would say we need a whole year of development for it to happen properly. Only then the extra year of balancing would be worth the trouble.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

Hello Commanders!

For what it's worth, I personally wouldn't mind removing the infinite honk, just as I'd like to see the removal of the basic stellar scan that forces you to fly close to get any data. I would like to see processes that were a little more involved (and cool looking/feeling) with regards to Commanders actually having to do something, whilst minimising uncessessary super cruise travel time. But this is just me musing. Like the karma system, exploration (and extraction) is something that we'll hopefully be getting into in some more depth in the forums.

Just walk in tomorrow and tell them to get on it, anybody who disagrees beat down with the loach

 

[Schmack]

I'd like the ability to take core samples in the SRV and transfer them to a research vessel (mine) where I can process them and store the data which could be sold or used for scientific missions.

I'm not a fan of being able to scan a planet and knowing the % of each mineral or metal on the planet. That seems like magic in comparison to the way much of the game runs otherwise, like the inability to disperse heat on weapons without dropping space junk.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

I'll read this thread fully when I get home from work but as an interim reply:

Yes, if it was replaced or augmented with genuinely compelling gameplay

No, if it just makes everything take three times as long for half the money.

what if it takes 10 times as long for 5 times the money? i would still say, no i am not aiming for that 200000ls away star the disco cannot see any longer, on the very tiny chance there might be something valuable to scan around it meaning its one out of 110 times that it was worth wasting my time.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

Ok, at this point I'd like to say that as far as I'd like to have many more things to discover, this has been on the table for quite a long time and things are actually added. To avoid the feeling of repetition one feels (same POIs, same wrecks, same canisters, same beacons on the surfaces) you'd have to create many, many more handcrafted assets.
And even with that, you'd reach a point where, well, you've pretty much seen it all and here goes the boredom again.

Guardian ruins, alien bases and generation ships are really cool, but take time to build. They're added in slow stages.
How do you build that much handcrafted content as to make you feel like you've got a galaxy to discover? That looks like quite an achievement...


This is why I wished to stress the gameplay mechanic part only - because if the mechanics are good, you basically don't get tired of them (well, you do as for everything but you come back to it one day) and you just enjoy playing the thing.
Some are satisfied with the honk, some want it developped. By developped, I don't mean turning it into a grind. First off it's an overused word that can apply to any repetitive thing you do in a braindead mode in order to achieve something and sorry, the jumping mechanic can be quite the grind when you explore. As is the ADS. As is fighting 500 000 ennemies in a row. Everything can be turned into a grind. At its core, don't confuse grinding with time sinks.

On topic, I don't want the basic scanning to become a time sink, effectively making you lose your precious time for the same effect. I'd like to see possibilities for upgraded effect.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

Ok, at this point I'd like to say that as far as I'd like to have many more things to discover, this has been on the table for quite a long time and things are actually added. To avoid the feeling of repetition one feels (same POIs, same wrecks, same canisters, same beacons on the surfaces) you'd have to create many, many more handcrafted assets.
And even with that, you'd reach a point where, well, you've pretty much seen it all and here goes the boredom again.

Guardian ruins, alien bases and generation ships are really cool, but take time to build. They're added in slow stages.
How do you build that much handcrafted content as to make you feel like you've got a galaxy to discover? That looks like quite an achievement...


This is why I wished to stress the gameplay mechanic part only - because if the mechanics are good, you basically don't get tired of them (well, you do as for everything but you come back to it one day) and you just enjoy playing the thing.
Some are satisfied with the honk, some want it developped. By developped, I don't mean turning it into a grind. First off it's an overused word that can apply to any repetitive thing you do in a braindead mode in order to achieve something and sorry, the jumping mechanic can be quite the grind when you explore. As is the ADS. As is fighting 500 000 ennemies in a row. As is pushing buttons. At its core, don't confuse grinding with time sinks.

On topic, I don't want the basic scanning to become a time sink, effectively making you lose your precious time for the same effect. I'd like to see possibilities for upgraded effect.

yes jump scoop CAN be a grind - it put me off playing entirely trying to come back from 14200ly with a tiny scoop and unmodded FSD with 25ly being the average jump distance it was making. i just didnt want to log in to play at all - because there were no other options and im not interested in multipew. i couldnt say 'oh i cant face doing another jump after the 4th one and long scooping of an already discovered system today - lets log into my FAS and finish building it and do missions for a bit' because... i was 14200ly away from my FAS. it wasnt possible. but now i have learned and i have a ginormous fuel scoop which fills the tanks literally in seconds and my FSD modded for 44ly max range - i can get out there faster, explore and get back faster. i wouldnt mind as i said before some tweaks, like the advanced disco flagging some planets as having anomalous readings - then i would fly to them and scan with detailed scanner to get POI on the planet map and then i might even go down on the POI and look in the srv. but that would mean making a lot more things to discover, from natural wonders like geysers or astonishingly deep canyons, or maybe fossilised plant and animal remains from when it had an atmosphere, the ruins of a primitive sentient race that didnt get to high tech and space travel before the sun wiped the life in the system out... to an unually large diamond or something the size of your ship sticking out of a rock...or just the crashed remains of an early explorer.

 

[RandomGun]

Would you be ready to give up on your infinite scanner range and exhaustive galaxy map for more rewarding probing / navigation gameplay?

Well, yes. I think that planet and moon discovery should involve more game play. However, I do think that using ADS should remain fairly quick and easy. The problem with discovery scanners is that they offer practically no game play and the ADS is really the only viable option -- BDS and IDS are simply too limited.

My suggestions

Omnidirectional scan

• Make current *DS "Honk" passive and automatic. When you jump into a new system *DS automatically performs omnidirectional scan. No click or long press is needed. Scan time would be the same as it is now. (Optionally omnidirectional scan could be performed by a single click.)
• Make the omnidirectional scan find all stars in the system and all nearby planets and moons. What is "nearby" depends on *DS type and planet / moon mass.
• Omnidirectional scan should report "faint echoes" of distant objects that couldn't be located.
• Information of far away scanned objects could be limited. Scan would reveal just their type and no picture in the system map.
• Remove honk sound. Preferably replace it with a dynamic sound that is based on found objects. (Not necessary if the scan is performed by a single click.)
• ADS should find practically all objects that are around the main star up to 10,000 ls (or even farther) and all their details.

Directional scan

• Make *DS have a directional scan too. Point the scanner (i.e. ship) to a distant star or a gas giant. Perform scan and you will find stuff around that object (or actually stuff in that direction in general).
• Make directional scan adjustable. Short press gives wide scan cone but less powerful scan. Long press gives a narrow scan cone but very powerful scan. Visualize decreasing cone width as the pilot presses the scan button. This way even BDS is useful. BDS narrow cone scan will probably reveal moons of that distant gas giant or gas giants of that distant star.
• Make directional scan reveal more information of those annoying far away objects that omnidirectional scan just couldn't see clearly.
• Directional scan should report "faint echoes" of distant objects in that general direction that couldn't be located. "Faith echoes" should be visualized so that the pilot can use either very narrow cone scan (very long press) to study them or can fly towards them.
• Add similar sound that omnidirectional scan uses.
• ADS using directional scan should practically find all objects that are around a secondary star up to, say, 200,000 ls (or even farther) and all their details.

Changes to scanners

• Improve ship, BDS and IDS scan ranges. Make them detect stars (always?) and gas giants much farther away.
• Make ADS much more expensive like 10M.
• Add IDS2 between IDS and ADS. It could be 1,5M like now. One added step of equipment path for aspiring explorers.

About ADS: ADS would perform almost the same as currently but require one quick step (directional scan) for each distant (>10,000 ls) secondary star. Only some systems (~5-10 %) would require further tracing of "faint echoes" to perform a system complete discovery scan.

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

i like the beep beep brRRRRRMM BONG! sound of the disco i like they fixed it. i dont want that changed. nor do i want anything that doesnt discover things and force you to just move on to avoid a long tedious (grind) SC journey to scan again and again and again before you even see if anything interesting worth detailed scan or landing on is found. i certainly wouldnt bother even if it meant first discovering an ELW if it just became more of a time sink even, just to find out there isnt anything interesting worth scanning .

 

[Lobstris]

So basically people ask for adding more grind to the game? Why? How about adding some fun instead?

This is a problem though. Any more 'in-depth' gameplay is going to take longer, so some will see it as 'a grind' and to the detriment of their credits/hour. Others, (like me) who enjoy complexity for complexities' sake would actually like some more systems to play with (e.g. firing off multiple probes and watching the telemetry and scan data come back on an in-ship UI screen, or the scanner 'honk' producing a visible heatmap overlay on the canopy, with 'hot-spots' for potential high-value/good mineral composition targets). Both would take more time to 'discover' stuff than just 'honk and look at the system map', but would at least be more involving for the player. Another one? Would we be happy with time-saving micro-jumps between stars, if there was some skill involved in the plotting of courses? And yet another potential time sink/gameplay element? Remember the original idea that (outside of the bubble) hyperspace routes had to be discovered and charted properly somehow, before being available to the player. Would something like that ever get past the currently-conditioned player base now?

My concern with what Sandro said, is that he mentioned 'removing' things, which, in the absence of a proposal for what the replacements might be. This could be interpreted as 'you fly into the system and have perfect knowledge instantly of its contents to 'cut down on 'unnecessary' super-cruise travel. At the extreme that would potentially kill both system exploration and the need for travel in a game based on flight simulation - which strikes me as somewhat alarming. But I'm heartened by the 'more complex' statement.

 

[MatYNWA]

To be fair, i dont really want to change how ADS works, i really like to have those basic information about system very quick.

Where i see the most oportunities is in detailed surface scanner, and its practical use, it should point to interestic surface structures, that are worth to visit, like cannyons, mountains, geyser, or even where is the higher chance to find one type of materials, things like that, maybe for even more POI with adition of atmosperic planets and gas giants in the future.

Right now it is everything up to eyeball mkI, that is the first thing i would like to see implemented, and for now leave ADS as it is, changing it would add just more frustration for some type of explorers.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

This is a problem though. Any more 'in-depth' gameplay is going to take longer, so some will see it as 'a grind' and to the detriment of their credits/hour. Others, (like me) who enjoy complexity for complexities' sake would actually like some more systems to play with (e.g. firing off multiple probes and watching the telemetry and scan data come back on an in-ship UI screen, or the scanner 'honk' producing a visible heatmap overlay on the canopy, with 'hot-spots' for potential high-value/good mineral composition targets). Both would take more time to 'discover' stuff than just 'honk and look at the system map', but would at least be more involving for the player. Another one? Would we be happy with time-saving micro-jumps between stars, if there was some skill involved in the plotting of courses? And yet another potential time sink/gameplay element? Remember the original idea that (outside of the bubble) hyperspace routes had to be discovered and charted properly somehow, before being available to the player. Would something like that ever get past the currently-conditioned player base now?

My concern with what Sandro said, is that he mentioned 'removing' things, which, in the absence of a proposal for what the replacements might be. This could be interpreted as 'you fly into the system and have perfect knowledge instantly of its contents to 'cut down on 'unnecessary' super-cruise travel. At the extreme that would potentially kill both system exploration and the need for travel in a game based on flight simulation - which strikes me as somewhat alarming. But I'm heartened by the 'more complex' statement.

Personally, I'd be very happy for more in-depth/complex/boring gameplay to be added on top of what we already have, with increased rewards for the increased effort.
I don't like the idea of removing the stuff we already have and replacing it with something either more complex OR even simpler.