Aliens you can Eat
Over the past while I've become really curious about the 'explorer' potential of Elite and what would really do it for me in terms of long term interest and playability. The game is set in a period of great expansion, we are heading off into the great unknown.. it really sounds terrific. But what's the main thrust, the zeitgiest of the time?
The obvious answer would be the continuing search for new types of life.
Minerals and materials would be readily abundant in just the core systems. Sure there would be some prospecting going on for the explorer, and potential riches to be made, but the crown jewel would surely be in the discovery of new species of plants and animals, and perhaps once in a while, the Grand Jackpot- an alien civilisation or two.
Without getting into the civ stuff at all... what could we look forward to? Well, new food sources, new compounds to aid medical and scientific research (new drugs), new stuff to sell on the market!! In fact, that's where I'm getting at with this post. I'd like to open up discussion about the possibility of entering new types of items into the market for sale, since I haven't found anything about this possibility at all so far in the various threads.
A very simple category of newly discovered alien would be the 'foodstuff' variety. I referred to them on another recent thread as 'Poppler' aliens (like the Popplers from Futurama- think chicken nuggets with eyes).
Poppler aliens (whether animal or vegetable) could take on a range of attributes including:
A jackpot find for the trader/explorer might be to locate a planet teeming with tasty and very addictive aliens, which he/she could sell on the black market for an outrageous sum. The attraction here is that the whereabouts of the market item would be known only to the player who discovered it- unless they tell others, or another player happens upon the same species. It would be a 'set for life' discovery, as long as you decided to exploit it, or until you ran the species to extinction.
But perhaps you don't want to sell your new friends as food to space tourists.. well there are other options you could pursue...
Etc...
Of course, some of the stuff you'd find would be worthless to everyone. They might just taste horrible.
This kind of thing could help to tie together and bring added meaning to a lot of the kinds of things already in or planned for the game. Planetary landings, enhanced trading, moral choices, new (sub) factions (the Greens, Big Pharma, Fast Food Corps, Bioweapons Corps), etc. For the player, there would be the sense of real discovery, of making an impact on the game by revealing something new about it to the community.
I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do.
Thanks for reading.
Over the past while I've become really curious about the 'explorer' potential of Elite and what would really do it for me in terms of long term interest and playability. The game is set in a period of great expansion, we are heading off into the great unknown.. it really sounds terrific. But what's the main thrust, the zeitgiest of the time?
The obvious answer would be the continuing search for new types of life.
Minerals and materials would be readily abundant in just the core systems. Sure there would be some prospecting going on for the explorer, and potential riches to be made, but the crown jewel would surely be in the discovery of new species of plants and animals, and perhaps once in a while, the Grand Jackpot- an alien civilisation or two.
Without getting into the civ stuff at all... what could we look forward to? Well, new food sources, new compounds to aid medical and scientific research (new drugs), new stuff to sell on the market!! In fact, that's where I'm getting at with this post. I'd like to open up discussion about the possibility of entering new types of items into the market for sale, since I haven't found anything about this possibility at all so far in the various threads.
A very simple category of newly discovered alien would be the 'foodstuff' variety. I referred to them on another recent thread as 'Poppler' aliens (like the Popplers from Futurama- think chicken nuggets with eyes).
Poppler aliens (whether animal or vegetable) could take on a range of attributes including:
- Nutrition (more people are fed as nutrition increases, higher prices per ton)
- Addictiveness (desire, but highly addictive would be classed as an illegal drug)
- Medicinal potential (sell to relevant factions)
- Toxicity (sell to relevant factions- black market - toxicity would be inversely related to nutrition)
- Abundance (how common or rare the species)
A jackpot find for the trader/explorer might be to locate a planet teeming with tasty and very addictive aliens, which he/she could sell on the black market for an outrageous sum. The attraction here is that the whereabouts of the market item would be known only to the player who discovered it- unless they tell others, or another player happens upon the same species. It would be a 'set for life' discovery, as long as you decided to exploit it, or until you ran the species to extinction.
But perhaps you don't want to sell your new friends as food to space tourists.. well there are other options you could pursue...
- Perhaps you're motivated more by environmental protection and the intrinsic worth of nature. In that case, inform the Space Greens and implore them to set up shop around the planet as environmental defense.
- Or maybe you're swayed more by humanitarian concerns. In that case, you could sell to scientists looking for new chemical compounds to tackle disease.
- Or fame... Contact the Interstellar Zoo and have your guy locked in a cage for the amusement of others. (imagine actually being able to walk around a zoo later on in the mature game and see your discovery, along with everybody elses).
Etc...
Of course, some of the stuff you'd find would be worthless to everyone. They might just taste horrible.
This kind of thing could help to tie together and bring added meaning to a lot of the kinds of things already in or planned for the game. Planetary landings, enhanced trading, moral choices, new (sub) factions (the Greens, Big Pharma, Fast Food Corps, Bioweapons Corps), etc. For the player, there would be the sense of real discovery, of making an impact on the game by revealing something new about it to the community.
I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do.
Thanks for reading.
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