Exploring ! How do you find Stations ?

[Steve_T]

because there has never been a mention of station discovery by anyone on these forums in the last 2 months, and because I have visited dozens of systems with the advanced D-Scanner and never discovered any new stations around the planets and moons I had to go to individually (to scan them close up).

Well that's good to know, I won't bother looking for the elusive station at the system I was in.

 

[dognosh]

Well that's good to know, I won't bother looking for the elusive station at the system I was in.

please do, i said I haven't found one(forgot to add "yet") . I would love stations outside the main hub be discoverable, but alas that won't happen

 

[Ydiss]

Bear in mind also that there will likely be a huge number of systems that have multiple surface starports, which of course we don't have access to at this time.

This is what I thought. There's evidence of this throughout the game already. Just because a system doesn't have any stations, doesn't mean it has no industry

It's great the planets already have cities and infrastructure ready to go. We are just waiting for the expansion to allow us to travel to them. 500ms is too slow, super cruise is mass locked. So perhaps a drive capable of ultra sonic speeds - faster than sound but slower than super cruise - where you can't engage in combat but can still be interdicted will work well for planetary entry and inter-continental travel.

The ultra-sonic drive would engage where the current target exists on any planetary body but you're too close for super-cruise.

At 500ms it would take just over 3 hours to travel from London to New York. That's way too long. So I'd say the max speed of the ultra-drive should be around 20kms (the journey would take less than 5 minutes, ignoring acceleration time).

 

[Herne]

This is what I thought. There's evidence of this throughout the game already. Just because a system doesn't have any stations, doesn't mean it has no industry

It's great the planets already have cities and infrastructure ready to go. We are just waiting for the expansion to allow us to travel to them. 500ms is too slow, super cruise is mass locked. So perhaps a drive capable of ultra sound speeds - faster than sound but slower than super cruise - where you can't engage in combat but can still be interdicted will work well for planetary entry and inter-continental travel.

Yes it's going to be great, plenty of room in my eagle for a set of golf clubs

 

[Zephyriel]

I'm sure there will be some secret bases that you have to find by exploring... Looking forward to that actually. They could have rare/unique items for sale, or interesting prices.

 

[Sargon]

I've never found a station that wasn't listed in the system map, so I'd guess there isn't one.

I've found stations that weren't listed...

 

[Herne]

I've found stations that weren't listed...

So are you going to tell us how ? or did you just successfully get me to bite

 

[Sargon]

So are you going to tell us how ? or did you just successfully get me to bite

Well, I decided to explore the deep end of the pill.. I jumped into a previously unmapped system. Straight away it detected the star (of course), scanned it. Immediately after the ship detected three unknown bodies. Which upon closer observation and scanning turned out to be planets... Straight away it detected an orbiting body around one of said planets. Which turned out to be a station.

If I recall it was a High Tech Independent station.

I only found one so far... But I believe it's because of the fact that everything was in tight orbit around everything...

 

[Herne]

Nice, in that case i'll continue to get close when I find new planets

 

[JayJ]

This is what I thought. There's evidence of this throughout the game already. Just because a system doesn't have any stations, doesn't mean it has no industry

It's great the planets already have cities and infrastructure ready to go. We are just waiting for the expansion to allow us to travel to them. 500ms is too slow, super cruise is mass locked. So perhaps a drive capable of ultra sonic speeds - faster than sound but slower than super cruise - where you can't engage in combat but can still be interdicted will work well for planetary entry and inter-continental travel.

The ultra-sonic drive would engage where the current target exists on any planetary body but you're too close for super-cruise.

At 500ms it would take just over 3 hours to travel from London to New York. That's way too long. So I'd say the max speed of the ultra-drive should be around 20kms (the journey would take less than 5 minutes, ignoring acceleration time).

This bugs me. Our ships are slow... today's modern fighter jets travel much faster than that. The F-15 a 38year old fighter has a top speed of 737m/s. Speed of sound is 340m/s. Our standard drives should be 10x what they are now, especially in space.

 

[Steve_T]

Nice, in that case i'll continue to get close when I find new planets

... and I'll have to get the advanced discover scanner to find the missing astro objects in the system I was searching.

 

[Steve_T]

This bugs me. Our ships are slow... today's modern fighter jets travel much faster than that. The F-15 a 38year old fighter has a top speed of 737m/s. Speed of sound is 340m/s. Our standard drives should be 10x what they are now, especially in space.

The slow speed is for gameplay reasons that many others have argued over (and are still arguing over). Search "newtonian" for further posts.

 

[Herne]

This bugs me. Our ships are slow... today's modern fighter jets travel much faster than that. The F-15 a 38year old fighter has a top speed of 737m/s. Speed of sound is 340m/s. Our standard drives should be 10x what they are now, especially in space.

Thing is I really like the combat the way it is now, how you can get up close and personal. If you increase speeds by 2 - 3 times as much, you'll be ramming pixels before you have time to get outta the way.

 

[Ozric]

Well, I decided to explore the deep end of the pill.. I jumped into a previously unmapped system. Straight away it detected the star (of course), scanned it. Immediately after the ship detected three unknown bodies. Which upon closer observation and scanning turned out to be planets... Straight away it detected an orbiting body around one of said planets. Which turned out to be a station.

If I recall it was a High Tech Independent station.

I only found one so far... But I believe it's because of the fact that everything was in tight orbit around everything...

And you're sure that the station wasn't listed on either you Navigation panel when you first jumped into the system, or the system map itself?

This intrigues me as I've looked through a few systems at the other end of the pill and the system maps for all of them already show the stations and the main stars in the system. I've mapped a fair amount of systems since exploring came (including one with 48 objects in it) but have never come across a station that wasn't already shown. I don't suppose by any chance you can remember the name of the system?

I'd like to hope there's undiscovered stations out there, I just thought at the moment you knew they were all there because they broadcast signals.

 

[Mysturji]

I'm all in for stations you have to find: Smuggler outposts, secret research or military outposts...

Apart from those examples and probably a few others I can't think of at the moment, stations generally WANT to be found - Trade is their livelihood, so they broadcast their identity and location to the entire system.
No stations on your nav screen = no regular stations.

 

[Sargon]

And you're sure that the station wasn't listed on either you Navigation panel when you first jumped into the system, or the system map itself?

This intrigues me as I've looked through a few systems at the other end of the pill and the system maps for all of them already show the stations and the main stars in the system. I've mapped a fair amount of systems since exploring came (including one with 48 objects in it) but have never come across a station that wasn't already shown. I don't suppose by any chance you can remember the name of the system?

I'd like to hope there's undiscovered stations out there, I just thought at the moment you knew they were all there because they broadcast signals.

Absolutely. It wasn't listed or shown on the system map either.
I specifically went hunting for stations by checking the system maps first. Making doubly sure that they were unknowns.

I can't remember the name of the system... Which brings to mind how handy an automatic flight log would be!

I do recall that I hit the scanner while still in shift-drive though... and that the station popped up after the scanner did it's thing.

 

[Herne]

Absolutely. It wasn't listed or shown on the system map either.
I specifically went hunting for stations by checking the system maps first. Making doubly sure that they were unknowns.

I can't remember the name of the system... Which brings to mind how handy an automatic flight log would be!

I do recall that I hit the scanner while still in shift-drive though... and that the station popped up after the scanner did it's thing.

was your scanner upgraded from stock out of interest ?

 

[Sargon]

was your scanner upgraded from stock out of interest ?

Yes sir... I've got the medium D1 sensor installed in my Cobra.

 

[JayJ]

Thing is I really like the combat the way it is now, how you can get up close and personal. If you increase speeds by 2 - 3 times as much, you'll be ramming pixels before you have time to get outta the way.

Just adjust the blue bar scale for maneuvering. You don't fight at top speeds. Maybe for the initial volley, but after that in flight fighting can't maintain those high speeds. Adjust weapons so you can't have long distance shoot outs and it will still draw the combat into dog fighting.

The realism of this game is a big draw for me and a lot of others from what I see in the forums. The debate on flight mechanics is a huge one, and I think, is this game's only draw back. The developers are trying to pigeon hole the fighting to the way they want it, which is killing the true flight mechanics of a space sim. If they want dog fighting then adjust other aspects that will draw players into that.

Dog fighting should also depend on what ship you are in as well. Small ships should have the up close advantage to larger ships and larger ships should have range and armor advantage to small ships.

 

[Herne]

Just adjust the blue bar scale for maneuvering. You don't fight at top speeds. Maybe for the initial volley, but after that in flight fighting can't maintain those high speeds. Adjust weapons so you can't have long distance shoot outs and it will still draw the combat into dog fighting.

The realism of this game is a big draw for me and a lot of others from what I see in the forums. The debate on flight mechanics is a huge one, and I think, is this game's only draw back. The developers are trying to pigeon hole the fighting to the way they want it, which is killing the true flight mechanics of a space sim. If they want dog fighting then adjust other aspects that will draw players into that.

Dog fighting should also depend on what ship you are in as well. Small ships should have the up close advantage to larger ships and larger ships should have range and armor advantage to small ships.

Speaking for myself though, I loved the original Elite in 1984, I hated frontier, because of its combat at relativistic speeds.

I know there's a lot of people out there who love realism, but I love what FDEV's current implementation of travel and combat is in the game