Which is a real shame. You can already fly SLF in multicrew but not drive SRV.
I really would like to hear some kind of explanation for this not happening. Anyone at Fdev wanting to shed a little light on this?
News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal
Which is a real shame. You can already fly SLF in multicrew but not drive SRV.
I really would like to hear some kind of explanation for this not happening. Anyone at Fdev wanting to shed a little light on this?
Will we get more bookmarks so we can save more places and categorise them with minerals etc
My guess would be that SRVs came as a kludge before multicrew, replacing the ship. It will probably take a rewrite of the whole SRV system to fix that. It may yet be coming though, and this would also explain why there are no more SRVs yet while SLFs come thick and fast.
I suspect we'll see SLFs that can land, or move in liquid, then which can drive...and then they will replace the SRV.
While I am positive about most of the changes suggested, I do have concerns about completely removing the initial honks ability to reveal all bodies in system which I think will become tedious if you are not exploring but just traveling from A to B in the bubble
Even if you reduce the range of the ADS and remove the ability to see the type of planet (black sphere bug) I think it is important to keep some part of the instant reveal functionality. If this is not feasible then add more functionality to the Universal Cartographics board on station giving you the ability to buy data on systems and sectors as well as being able to sell data. As you can already buy data on nearby systems when docked from the galaxy map so it is not outside of existing game lore. With the addition of mapping data for quick travel to persistent POIs you could also add the ability to buy directions to a particular type of POI e.g. Brain Trees, Thargoid structures etc saving you the hassle of having to map a system where they are already known to exist.
One final suggestion even if we dont get the credits add a way for us to send the "tagging" Data for systems/planets while out exploring even if it requires a new module to do it since at the moment not being able to do so discourages sharing of interesting systems. My suggestion would be that you can remotely sell system data but you only get 10% of the credits for doing so OR you get the full credits but only when you dock at a station so if you die before docking you still lose the payout but can keep the tags so long as the data has been transmitted. If you still want to keep an element of the current system then set up a "Master Nav Beacon" in all sectors (locatable on the galaxy map) that you can transmit your data to in order to get your tags without having to disrupt your exploration mission by going to a human station.
Even if you reduce the range of the ADS and remove the ability to see the type of planet (black sphere bug) I think it is important to keep some part of the instant reveal functionality. If this is not feasible then add more functionality to the Universal Cartographics board on station giving you the ability to buy data on systems and sectors as well as being able to sell data. As you can already buy data on nearby systems when docked from the galaxy map so it is not outside of existing game lore. With the addition of mapping data for quick travel to persistent POIs you could also add the ability to buy directions to a particular type of POI e.g. Brain Trees, Thargoid structures etc saving you the hassle of having to map a system where they are already known to exist.
One final suggestion even if we dont get the credits add a way for us to send the "tagging" Data for systems/planets while out exploring even if it requires a new module to do it since at the moment not being able to do so discourages sharing of interesting systems. My suggestion would be that you can remotely sell system data but you only get 10% of the credits for doing so OR you get the full credits but only when you dock at a station so if you die before docking you still lose the payout but can keep the tags so long as the data has been transmitted. If you still want to keep an element of the current system then set up a "Master Nav Beacon" in all sectors (locatable on the galaxy map) that you can transmit your data to in order to get your tags without having to disrupt your exploration mission by going to a human station.
I'm not from FDev, but I'll hazard a guess that it has to do with distance limitations to multiplayer instancing. SLFs cannot go very far from the mothership, but SRVs can go out totally on their own. So for example, could I land, have my human crewmate get in the SRV, and then I take off and go into orbit while they are still on the planet? What if I leave the system?
That said, wings allow players to be in different locations, even different systems, and still be 'connected', so cutting the umbilical cord between SLF (and someday SRV) and the mothership should be doable, Frontier probably just needs to rewrite a large chunk of code to get there.
Will there be planetary waypoints and a compass HUD thing of some sort for finding bases gaurdian structures etc
I know I said this earlier, but it would be great if they gave us a riskier, more skill-based method for fast fuel scooping, that ties in with exploration. Detailed Scanning of a Star should reveal "hot spots", regions that will fuel your ship faster, but are more unstable & prone to solar ejection. This, coupled with a Distance/Angle system for getting the most efficient fuel scooping experience would be great.
On a similar note, can we expect to see regular stars be made a bit more dangerous? Will black holes ever get both a visual & game-play based overhaul? Will we ever get Pulsars & Quasars? Inquiring Minds wish to know!!!
On a similar note, can we expect to see regular stars be made a bit more dangerous? Will black holes ever get both a visual & game-play based overhaul? Will we ever get Pulsars & Quasars? Inquiring Minds wish to know!!!
Maybe make some easier, some harder... A range based on size, temperature, weather patterns etc. Add in scooping from certain gas giants too...
Hmm, good points actually.
As soon as you discovered a planet via Discovery scanner, it will tell you if there is a Guardian structure or other cool things on it.
After you mapped the planet via detailed surface scanner probes, you will get the location of said Guardian structure or cool thing as a nav point.
It sounds very interesting and overall positive. Should add some real depth to the gameplay of exploration.
My concerns are :
1) It sounds like it's all going to get a lot more complicated to achieve any meaningful exploration.
2) After an initial honk with the ADS will we no longer get a planetary overview of the system?
3) The detailed scanner upgrade sounds interesting and I like the POI searching facility. Good. How big are these micro probes going to be and are they going to need stocking?
My concerns are :
1) It sounds like it's all going to get a lot more complicated to achieve any meaningful exploration.
2) After an initial honk with the ADS will we no longer get a planetary overview of the system?
3) The detailed scanner upgrade sounds interesting and I like the POI searching facility. Good. How big are these micro probes going to be and are they going to need stocking?
Sounds really good on first viewing. a few questions.
1) when you have a secondary star system say 300,000 ls + away from the main star, how easy will it be to detect it?, not moaning at all about this, you can argue that there's real skill involved now in find those!
2) how will you know that you've found everything in a system? maybe a gravitational mass counter like indicator
3) what does the honk now give you?, if you haven't actually detected anything yet, as need to find them manually withe scanner, what are you actually selling?
4) hopefully it's relatively easy to synthesise the probes and they can be made from planetary materials only (no data or components please, they're pretty hard to find thousands of light seconds away from the bubble!)
as there's now 90 odd pages maybe a FAQ might be required here!
Keith
1) when you have a secondary star system say 300,000 ls + away from the main star, how easy will it be to detect it?, not moaning at all about this, you can argue that there's real skill involved now in find those!
2) how will you know that you've found everything in a system? maybe a gravitational mass counter like indicator
3) what does the honk now give you?, if you haven't actually detected anything yet, as need to find them manually withe scanner, what are you actually selling?
4) hopefully it's relatively easy to synthesise the probes and they can be made from planetary materials only (no data or components please, they're pretty hard to find thousands of light seconds away from the bubble!)
as there's now 90 odd pages maybe a FAQ might be required here!
Keith
I think the load on the forum servers right now are indicative of how much people have wanted FD to spend some time actually improving Exploration. We are like ravenous dogs and FD is dangling the meat out there.
I love what they want to do/have done in concept. From a design perspective overall its perfect blend of their style of keeping simple enough people in VR and consoles can use it.
I was hoping it was a little more complex but my main concern is this: REWARDS for time spent.
1) If we are going to spend a long period of time in one system - make it worthwhile, especially if we find some anomalies / special deposits
2) Make there be a huge bonus if you are able to complete 100% of a system
3) Bigger bonus if you completely scan an entire system to 100% and are the first to report back and sell 100% of the data (you basically have discovered the ENTIRE system and all bodies)
4) Allow people who are exploring looking for SPECIFIC materials/minerals anomalies to have an "alert" for something they are looking for. Maybe a checkbox next to the material names that will "ding" if you find what you are looking for.
5) Did I mention make it REWARDING? $$$$ Show me the money. This should be the most profitable venture out there since it will be the most time consuming, and lonely endeavor!
6) Use plenty of sound! You have the best sound team in gaming. USE THEM. Wavescanner was perfect. Make some audio as a form of helping us ID specific anomolies so when we hear something including USS we don't recognize we'll know its different.
7) Make millions of procedural anomalies, comets, descriptions, artifacts, mysteries out there for us to find ... PLEASE - fill the galaxy with mystery and other life forms other than JUST the thargoids/ guardians.
I love what they want to do/have done in concept. From a design perspective overall its perfect blend of their style of keeping simple enough people in VR and consoles can use it.
I was hoping it was a little more complex but my main concern is this: REWARDS for time spent.
1) If we are going to spend a long period of time in one system - make it worthwhile, especially if we find some anomalies / special deposits
2) Make there be a huge bonus if you are able to complete 100% of a system
3) Bigger bonus if you completely scan an entire system to 100% and are the first to report back and sell 100% of the data (you basically have discovered the ENTIRE system and all bodies)
4) Allow people who are exploring looking for SPECIFIC materials/minerals anomalies to have an "alert" for something they are looking for. Maybe a checkbox next to the material names that will "ding" if you find what you are looking for.
5) Did I mention make it REWARDING? $$$$ Show me the money. This should be the most profitable venture out there since it will be the most time consuming, and lonely endeavor!
6) Use plenty of sound! You have the best sound team in gaming. USE THEM. Wavescanner was perfect. Make some audio as a form of helping us ID specific anomolies so when we hear something including USS we don't recognize we'll know its different.
7) Make millions of procedural anomalies, comets, descriptions, artifacts, mysteries out there for us to find ... PLEASE - fill the galaxy with mystery and other life forms other than JUST the thargoids/ guardians.
Not sure on your other questions, but for 2 you can see a percentage discovered counter in the bottom left of the screenshots they provided, and for 3 they've said somewhere else in this thread that honking and jumping should pay roughly the same as before for just selling the emissions data.
I wish I could have what ever it is the majority of this thread are on, because sitting here sober as I am, the core changes to exploration look terrible.
As stated by the Devs, there's going to be no extra planetary information, so all they've done is stick two further time-walls in front of getting what we could already see (Initial honk, detailed surface scan) and called it content. From how I'm reading the thread, it's not really a new gameplay concept either, just a variation of the wave scanner-nose pointing found on the SRV. And they've also decided, now almost all the interesting locations in the galaxy have been reclaimed, to just allow a second wave of claiming over the first names and called that "mapping"...
Let me explain why these changes then are particularly depressing; the main frustration when flying huge distances across the galaxy is never knowing whether you've missed something special. Even now, you need to be on of E Ds Obsessives to want to sit there manually cross checking every variable on the planet's list just to see if it's beaten one of your records. But now, even finding a TYPE of planet is going to be a tedious search through all the hidden locations. Even knowing the habitable zone around each individual star class to try and narow down an ELW say is going to be a hideously boring endeavour when you can't possibly tell if one MIGHT be there now, and after scanning a hundred or more objects, finding there wasn't one and you have to do it all again in the next system.
Meanwhile if you did exploration under the current system, you've likely lodged all your discoveries with various player organisations; and I already had the miserable experience of discovering that my own posted forum names for what I'd found had been over-written in various tools because I wasn't aware of one particular mapping group. Now, there'll be another wave of explorers using the lists you contributed too to go out there and "map" your items in game too.
FDev have GOT to stop listening to the kind of MMO player that thinks grind is the same as achievement (usually because they're time rich and quality-unconcerned; just make stuff off putting and slow so they can power through it obsessively and then feel they've done something above average)... What makes the POI changes a genuine improvement is that it makes finding them both simpler and more fulfilling. The Exploration changes however go in the complete opposite direction, and that makes them slower, finicky and thus terrible.
And then you add ammunition on top of this?! Why? Just... why? Yes, to try and give more purpose to equally dull as dishwater gameplay, like SRV hunting for minerals... but you should be making the core content better; make mining more fun for miners, and improve exploration for explorers, don't make them have to break off travelling to land, and hunt for rocks just so they can do what they used to be able to do with a press of a button!
I could sit here and try to explain how it could have been done so much better; but what's the point? If we're at the feedback stage, the design work is almost certainly locked in stone now. Some variant of this terrible system is on the way. What a shame. Fortunately I've already been to Beagle, so I wasn't planning any new expeditions... and now I can see I likely would never have completed another one again with this system.
As stated by the Devs, there's going to be no extra planetary information, so all they've done is stick two further time-walls in front of getting what we could already see (Initial honk, detailed surface scan) and called it content. From how I'm reading the thread, it's not really a new gameplay concept either, just a variation of the wave scanner-nose pointing found on the SRV. And they've also decided, now almost all the interesting locations in the galaxy have been reclaimed, to just allow a second wave of claiming over the first names and called that "mapping"...
Let me explain why these changes then are particularly depressing; the main frustration when flying huge distances across the galaxy is never knowing whether you've missed something special. Even now, you need to be on of E Ds Obsessives to want to sit there manually cross checking every variable on the planet's list just to see if it's beaten one of your records. But now, even finding a TYPE of planet is going to be a tedious search through all the hidden locations. Even knowing the habitable zone around each individual star class to try and narow down an ELW say is going to be a hideously boring endeavour when you can't possibly tell if one MIGHT be there now, and after scanning a hundred or more objects, finding there wasn't one and you have to do it all again in the next system.
Meanwhile if you did exploration under the current system, you've likely lodged all your discoveries with various player organisations; and I already had the miserable experience of discovering that my own posted forum names for what I'd found had been over-written in various tools because I wasn't aware of one particular mapping group. Now, there'll be another wave of explorers using the lists you contributed too to go out there and "map" your items in game too.
FDev have GOT to stop listening to the kind of MMO player that thinks grind is the same as achievement (usually because they're time rich and quality-unconcerned; just make stuff off putting and slow so they can power through it obsessively and then feel they've done something above average)... What makes the POI changes a genuine improvement is that it makes finding them both simpler and more fulfilling. The Exploration changes however go in the complete opposite direction, and that makes them slower, finicky and thus terrible.
And then you add ammunition on top of this?! Why? Just... why? Yes, to try and give more purpose to equally dull as dishwater gameplay, like SRV hunting for minerals... but you should be making the core content better; make mining more fun for miners, and improve exploration for explorers, don't make them have to break off travelling to land, and hunt for rocks just so they can do what they used to be able to do with a press of a button!
I could sit here and try to explain how it could have been done so much better; but what's the point? If we're at the feedback stage, the design work is almost certainly locked in stone now. Some variant of this terrible system is on the way. What a shame. Fortunately I've already been to Beagle, so I wasn't planning any new expeditions... and now I can see I likely would never have completed another one again with this system.
If you HONK the system.
I do not hope the pull you into some other screen automatic after the honking.
Because if you want to honk and move on that would be very frustrating.
And also, if other screen opens after honking you crash into the sun,
because you normal fly around it while refeuling an dmove on many times to.
With a hony at the same time.
I do not hope the pull you into some other screen automatic after the honking.
Because if you want to honk and move on that would be very frustrating.
And also, if other screen opens after honking you crash into the sun,
because you normal fly around it while refeuling an dmove on many times to.
With a hony at the same time.
I am very excited by these changes and definitely look forward to them. Although I don't agree with the ADS not revealing planets since we use that to know which systems to explore. Elite will need to GREATLY boost the amount of units received for discovering planets since we no longer know where to look for ELWs or other rare planetary bodies. This also is a bit inconvenient when flying within human occupied space since we need that honk to locate engineers or other planetary bases.
Again, I stress, these are all amazing changes and I look forward to it. Just have concerns about ADS balance and ensuring it's day to day impact is not felt too greatly for those not exploring.
Again, I stress, these are all amazing changes and I look forward to it. Just have concerns about ADS balance and ensuring it's day to day impact is not felt too greatly for those not exploring.
Very good points, and ones with which I completely agree. Broadly speaking, good effort, but the ADS mechanic needs a good, long, re-think.
Also, I am not a fan of requiring a player to get involved with some area of play in order to be successful at another - for example, having to mine/do missions to acquire materials to synth probes. Mining invariably involves pirates, which leads to combat. Many of us have no interest in combat. Similarly, you can bet that missions will involve the warning "hostile ships may be sent against you". Combat again. Driving around on the surface to collect mats? Some do not carry an SRV and do not want to do so. My ship is not engineered at all and I would like it to stay that way.
Some elements of the proposed changes appear to require playing the game our way, as long as that way is the one FD requires.
How long would it take a probe to get to a planet 500kly away , just wondering if their pointless like they seem.