A hypothetical upgrade to the Stellar Forge - what would you think?

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
I've been wondering about the current state of the galaxy and its systems - proc-genned and hand-placed.

While the galaxy as implemented is an impressive achievement, I think we can all agree that there are things - such as the absence of White Dwarf stars from proc-genned areas - which need fixing, and that in any case there are many ways in which things could be improved by the addition of new 'content' - planets with more to see and do, and so on.

My question is: if the 'price' for the necessary fixing and potential addition of Cool New Stuff was a complete renewal of the generated galaxy (as was done at various points in the Beta), with only the currently existing inhabited systems carried over into the newly generated map wholesale - with all exploration data and tagging (though not rankings) lost as a consequence - would you accept it?

I would love it.
 

Fen Harel

Fen Harel
I see your point, but I personally would be distinctly unhappy if all my exploration efforts were wiped. Honestly, I'd probably quit the game if they did that. (I mean that not as hyperbole, but as literal fact: if they wiped everything I would quit.)
 

Asayanami

Asayanami
we only scratched the surface, they can change the systems we haven't visited yet, i guess. That's if they are tracking what is discovered and what isnt
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Fen Harel said:
I see your point, but I personally would be distinctly unhappy if all my exploration efforts were wiped. Honestly, I'd probably quit the game if they did that. (I mean that not as hyperbole, but as literal fact: if they wiped everything I would quit.)
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I should say; "I would love it, except that I'd be very unhappy if people upped and left over it..." :)
 

Allitnil

Allitnil
I would support it as long as it involved a radical reworking of the exploration mechanics. If it was just Milky Way 2.0 where we would again be zipping all over it within a couple of weeks then I don't see any point, might as well just give us an intergalactic jump to another galaxy and let us zip all over that.
 

Elgered

Elgered
A Quantum Phase scanner would reveal a lot of information still unknown to us medievally equipped scouts...
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
If exploration was changed so that finding the next star to jump to was a challenge, as once was suggested, and doing a full system survey could take days, rather than 30 minutes most of which is flight time, then a full galactic reset might be justifiable - though probably still very unpopular. As it is, it hardly seems worth it.

I suspect "reset everything except visited systems", while cleaning out most of the bugs reasonably well, would have two problems: firstly, it would require literally millions of exemptions to be coded in, rather than the relatively small number of custom systems which currently exist; secondly, things like the neutron fields are the sort of bug which would ideally have been fixed before release, but even the fractions of them which have been visited so far are implausibly large.

Any proper changes would probably need a series of very extended betas for explorers to fly out (perhaps with some beta-only long-range drives), check everything, bugs fixed, galaxy regenerated, repeat until sure ... then change the random seed so that beta explorers can't just use the ELW lists they found there, and regenerate it one last time to apply to the real game with the slower exploration rules. In practice, I can't see that happening before Elite V.
 

Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
I wouldn't mind a complete reset if it meant that the galaxy was going to get a lot better. It'd have to be "a lot" not just "a bit" though.

As it stands, FD's decision not to reset the universe after beta meant that the people who entered the game when it shipped were dealing with a "used universe" instead of a brand new one. That doesn't appear to have been a big problem.

If FD was going to reset the universe it'd be best to do it sooner rather than in a year; every week that goes by would make more unhappy ragequits if they did it. I doubt they will.

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Allitnil said:
I would support it as long as it involved a radical reworking of the exploration mechanics. If it was just Milky Way 2.0 where we would again be zipping all over it within a couple of weeks then I don't see any point, might as well just give us an intergalactic jump to another galaxy and let us zip all over that.
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I agree. A radical reworking would be necessary (and make the game better)

For example, the idea that there are political zones and conflicts is just kind of farsical when you realize that anyone who didn't like it could just up and leave. As the game is currently set up I can live indefinitely on the edge of space in my Python and other than getting bored or lonely I don't need anyone. I can find my own planet and orbit it forever, or drop down to visit. Whatever. Humanity would fracture very fast and very hard.
 

nicomak

nicomak
Dont forget that a good part of human space itself is procedural. I doubt any wipe is likely to happen now.

I'm more curious about surface details of planets, can that be changed without touching the rest? In order to add more variety maybe. Something like that.
Planets and stars would still be there, same data and name, but ground or surface features might be alterable, stars with high rotation could be "flattened" somewhat, things like that. It seems to me that this kind of change is possible.
After all, city lights have been added, and i suppose can still be chaged later, especially when we'll be able to land there(by the way, no lights on rocky/metallic planets? there has to be some colonies down there ^^.
water worlds some time ago could have continents on them, i've seen at least one of them that had, it was a moon so not something frequently seen, i took a screenshot then, not sure i still have it though, and it now does not have any continent left.

I also would have liked that it would not have been so so easy(long but easy) to get anywhere without real fear of loosing your ship to a malfunction or else.
But it also goes with the lore introduced with ED, the new jump drive in real time + supercruise, instead of "one-week" jump lating 3 sec for the pilote + stardreamer/time acceleration. You needed to make a full overhaul every year in FE2/FFE. It made sense then as year went by rather quickly for anyone who travels a lot. In a way it makes sense that we could travel much further than we use to. But it may be too much on the other extreme now.
 
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CMDR DoubleSkulls

C
I think any system that has been tagged shouldn't be changed. Losing FD tags would be very disappointing to me. I also think regenerating the galactic map (i.e. new "top" level stars" would be annoying) as some have made rather exhaustive surveys of specific regions, so adding/removing systems shouldn't happen an changing the type/quantity of the top level stars (i.e. those mentioned on the galactic map) shouldn't happen either.

TL;DR - only stuff that hasn't been visible to people before could change.
 

thehairymob

T
As long as I still get paid for all the stuff I have scanned on my current journey. Having been out in the viod since mid March I would want to feel like I was just wasting my time, even if some would say I have by playing games :) Also no wiping of my commanders data, rank, etc. Been through that in the beta stages of the game don't want to go down that road again. Of course it would all have to be worth it ie we get feeding balck holes, systems in the early stages of forming around their stars and nebula where stars are born being more dangerous via more risk of heat damage if you don't manage ships systems carefully. :)
 

Tinman

Tinman
Asayanami said:
we only scratched the surface, they can change the systems we haven't visited yet, i guess. That's if they are tracking what is discovered and what isnt
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They could probably change the majority of system we HAVE visited too without us even noticing for the most part (there would of course be a few exceptions). ;)
 

EdzUp

EdzUp
I think a change but keeping all the player data like who found it first would be ok, after all how many of us remember every star we visited. Its only the amazing ones and pretty systems we remember.

Realism is one reason I never generate stuff being near to 'real life' because there is always something new to add and always someone pointing out the missing items.
 

Sajuukar

S
I don't understand why we know from the beginning the location of all star systems in the Galaxy. As humans have colonized only a tiny amount of them, I find quite illogical that, for instance, you can know precisely the location of a star system located tens of thousands of light-years away. Even for star systems located outside of the current max jump range.
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
Janichsan said:
Eh? I'm pretty sure I have seen White Dwarfs in procedurally generated systems.
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They're almost completely absent outside inhabited space, whereas they should be everywhere. If you know an area outside civilisation that isn't hand-placed and which has White Dwarfs, I'd like to know where it is!
 
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