Do you even need 40 LY range? I remember before engineers anything over 30 was gold.
A Theory of Exploration
- Thread starter Atebits
- Start date
Do you even need 40 LY range? I remember before engineers anything over 30 was gold.
Agreed. I did all my time in the Rift and probably 90% of my rank with a 26.x LY Asp. Worked just fine. It's now a 35LY Asp. Until there's a way to cross wire the FSD to the detailed and advanced discovery scanner, my SRV and my eyes then ultimately jump range is about getting somewhere fast, it's only tangentially related to exploratory discovery.
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Not really TBH. Just tends to make jumping in fields of Dark brown dwarf systems slightly less painful.
verminstar
Banned
This whole fsd range thing has come up many times before...its almost as though exploration didnt exist before rngeers introduced slot machine luck rolls. Theres a very good reason why some of us ignore rngeers entirely...they are simply...not...needed.
I know others who will disagree...let them argue with those souls who took unengineered sidewinders to beagle point and see how that argument goes.
Players like that were an inspiration...engineered high range fsd has very little to do with actual exploration...its a luxury item that allows a player to cover greater distances in the same timeframe. It has more relevance to buckyball racers than it has to exploration.
I know others who will disagree...let them argue with those souls who took unengineered sidewinders to beagle point and see how that argument goes.
Players like that were an inspiration...engineered high range fsd has very little to do with actual exploration...its a luxury item that allows a player to cover greater distances in the same timeframe. It has more relevance to buckyball racers than it has to exploration.
verminstar
Banned
One can filter out any stars ye dont want to jump to on the galaxy map ^
There is a layer of non-scoopable stars throughout the galaxy at around -30, I call it the doldrums. Once you are aware of it it's easy enough to navigate even without the recent route filter addition
A random thought just occurred to me regarding Linear vs. Logarithmic.
When looking for nuclear detonations here on Earth one of the methods used is through detecting small changes in the normal vibration of the earth. This same methodology has been used to determine much more local findings such as the rough outlines of archaeological sites. There is a machine at Princeton that was used for measurements at the quantum scale which had become so sensitive it would detect the waves crashing on the New Jersey shore. No one knew what the "noise" in the machine was originally.
Therefore, it follows that sitting your ship down over a POI with another ship on the opposite end and simultaneously using the ADS would produce a rough geological fngerprint of the local area. Ala, a means to finding (and at what range) underground structures. As a solo-pilot it would require circling the area to gain a rough geological sampling of the POI's perimeter.
However, this involves group-play. The chances that an MMO (social engineering wasteland) is going to involve elements of group-play is as to endanger positive collectivism and lasting meaningful friendships. Totally undesirable, of course.
But hey, that's a rational functionality Linear vs. Logarithmic might take.
Another thought for some healthy improvements to all things Exploration is Subnautica. The Cyclops (a large submarine) in that has gained some wonderful functionality lately. It is basically a mobile personal habitat with some laboratory functionalities coming down the road. And hey, you can be Geordi la Forge in that. The 3D Printer is a module you can build right into the ship with several larger variety on hand. No need to go back to the Bubble some 40,000 Ly ... or to put it into proper perspective... No need to throw your life down the toilet for 2 weeks of Buckyballing just to throw more of your life away with RNGi just to get back into the game.
And we might all want to take that elbow at RNGi seriously. For now it is a gimmick for those really out there wanting that Jump Range or added shielding, etc. However, how you going to feel about RNGineers when say... I don't know... Something like Meta-Drive is locked behind it? What if Meta-Drive suddenly meant large ships like the Corvette, Cutter, and Type-9 would get that long teleport jump so many are speculating about? Long cooldown, but suddenly the large ships get jump drives like the capital ships or older Elite games? Suddenly then RNGineers isn't just a sorry excuse for a developer flopping on the seemy side of development. It's a true barrier to entry. Gotta face facts, when a developer decides to skimp on development because they don't want to put the effort into gaming that 1990s and early 2000s MMO developers did (that'd be all your developers today) you're going to get a junk game. And when you put up with it? You get that junk compounded next time. So.. may as well keep putting needles in the developers shoes every single time this topic comes up. They're deleting your real life time because they couldn't be bothered to do some time-based math and serious development on core game mechanics. We'll see if anything improves after 2.4 or if this skinner-box doubles down.
Going back to Subnautica (*cough*... "...has a crafting system," and "engineering on the fly"... like early 2000s MMOs) the Seamoth is a good cairn to consider. The Seamoth has modules. That's just exactly what they are called:
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Upgrade_Modules
So, you can get 3 types of pressure compensation modules, hull reinforcements, engine efficiency (fuel), and storage.
Also, you can make it recharge by solar (apparently the whole thing runs on DC current), an electrified hull to scary off fish, torpedos, and sonar.
Sonar is pretty darned useful, by the way. I'd love to have this sort of thing in our ships as a secondary functionality of the ADS. Get close to a planet's surface, go searching for a POI, and after that 2.0 km cut-out idiocy you can honk with the ADS to get a 3D holo-display of the surface through your helmet. Repeat this to narrow down the actual location of the POI's location or use the same function to see in dark shadows or foggy valleys.
I was in my cutter recently on a shadowy side of a large moon with awesome canyons. Two people were out in fighters trying to find a POI we had found. We never did find it. That's three pilots and no way to find it because you can't use the SRV in multicrew. This goes back to me saying the SRV is a gimmick. It is there for nerds who believe NASA and Elan Musk can overcome the entropy of the death of STEM or for the novelty of doing what our grandparents failed at... maintaining innovation forwards to a future in space. So no we're playing futuristic space games with what amounts to a fairly interesting metal detector and 1970s space-buggy. It's a good reflection on the state of decadence of innovation. "We're going to the past to get the future!" ...Well, our grandparents definitely had a space industry so... there's something to that, but there's a schizophrenia there as well.
The cognitive dissonance between 3300 gravity defying technology and ships using thrusters really is honestly rather novel. It throws us into an image of the future where there has been some sort of hard decline in a civilization. The 1984 Elite apparently had all kinds of super long range jumps. That implies the game now is set in an era much like our own. Industry has declined. Civilization has made a BDSM slave out of the sciences and scientists. It is a setup for a hard crash. So things get slapped together. The essentials go on to keep the electricity running, but everything else is the skim from the milk of other generations' momentum.
Players realize this. It's why there are all the Scientology jokes around the DC 9s and the Cutter. I think we all get it that it was supposed to be a nod to 2001. It worked, but the effect is opposite the intent. Probably the most "space age" looking ship in the game is the Courier or the Eagles. However, ALL of our ships are single vector craft: forward-going. We don't have anything that uses gravity or momentum to do something like a right-angle turn.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eQp4grGdqY
Minute: 23:00
Skimmers come to mind as I watch this video. A very simple technology we ought to be using rather than the SRV.
But Elite seems to be set in a period of extreme authoritarianism. No innovation and rapid decline with slapped together ships we could best today (in the 1950s) combined with the essential technology of toroidal forces necessary to move us into galactic travel.
Toroidal Examples:
https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/9678426
In the BSG Episode "Blood on the Scales" Chief Tyrol pulls out what amounts to a giant spark plug in the Galactica's FTL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXA06DC32Ss
A few moments before this (good luck finding it online) you get a brief glimpse of the ship's engine from a monitor. It is a toroidal force technology. In the spin-off Blood and Chrome you can see the Engines of a Battlestar briefly in this episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOllLhUnKDQ
It is, again, a toroidal mechanic.
So, as far as Elite Dangerous goes the most advanced technology I've seen are the Skimmers where it comes to practical non-superluminal flight. As far as superluminal flight goes we only have jump technology.
We're about to enter into some sort of first encounter with a species that seems to have continuous ability to enter a superluminal state as well as directional control in that state. That leads to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo1_E5_oZ5E
So, again... what should we be bringing with us? I'd argue that anyone not currently flying with a Wake Scanner is shorting themselves.
A summary, at this point, would look like: "And so we can see from all of the evidence at hand we need suites of scanners."
Explores are dependent on equipment we don't have or using inadequate equipment due to the variability of situation and gimmicky limitations in current equipment.
Also, what's with alien bases and brown-dwarves?
Did they get to such a state they used up all the hydrogen from their local stars or do we not understand something about their FTL technology? Possibly is this all the wrong question?
- Having a way to analyze the reaction of materials we have onboard through something like (I'm dead serious) an "alchemy table" aboard the ship wouldn't be without good gameplay opportunities
- Why can't I try blending micro-commodities like zinc with exotic materials like meta-materials and analysis-data from the off-gas around brown dwarves? Oh, wait nevermind... you didn't make a crafting system because that would require doing development.
To whoever said ED is made by programmers for programmers: Yes
There's very little in this game to work with which is visual.
Thus it gets pretty draining to sort out for ourselves anything from the GAME itself. I've spent weeks trying to puzzle out game content as it relates to papers from Caltech only to realize... oh... this is probably something involving ascii. Bleh.
Since I'm usually arriving at the new content and discoveries around the same time as other Canonn people this leads me to believe the game is set up for this. That is, a lot of "blind math" and use of programming languages. That's great for the nerds, but it is probably hurting the GAME. Gamers are going to want something visual, tonal, and recognizably patterned. Heck, so do nerds. Not as the end-all-be-all for content. Just to break up the monotony of life.
No one uses a calculator to get back from it ag6?wbai&3LL. I mean, what would anyone even do with that? And if there is something to that jumble of letters how about a clue what to source outside the game so as to include more people IN IT? Otherwise it is pompous gob that is a bit condescending. And programmers are like that so it does you no favors to add to the impression.
Sorry this particular bit at the end comes off so harshly, honestly, but the GAME end of things is pretty dead and shallow. When a "gamer" can't find "the game" they're going to start pointing fingers at the developers pretty fast. It does the game no favors to be like that.
So, where am I going with things here?
Impressions and long-term appeal~
Modern games are worthless piles of garbage. This one is worth struggling to keep the devs honest and developing only because there is a thriving community in the game. Thriving, but increasingly contemptuous.
People hate to hear things are bad. That's true, but it is better to point out all the bits and bops that make it "bad" even if you believe it is subjective. That way you can get an open discussion going. And if - god forbid - it hurts someone's feelings when you've been negative about something... well... maybe the things you're negative about hurt you that much. Personally, that's why I get so negative about Engineers. 1990s games, early 2000s games, and even games more recently like Subnautica have realized if you excuse yourself from being a developer with RNG.
When you do that people will excuse themselves from any decency towards you in your development; largely for not doing very much of it. RNG is the excuse to not develop a Skill grind. Want to be an Herbalist in WoW? Go GATHER Materials to Level-up YOUR Skill (something you TAKE WITH YOU WHERE YOU GOOOOOO). Then it is always WITH YOU. Want to then become an Alchemist? Same thing... and it is then PERMANENT.
And seriously. Crafting COMES FROM THE GAME! You are actively going out to look for things and you CAN find them. Who cares if Mountain Silversage spawns at exactly -31, -159, every fifteen minutes? That's a schedule people can KEEP and RELY on. It means you HAVE NOT... as a developer... actively TRIED to remove players from success.
And again... is this a multiplayer game or isn't it?
Why don't you let PLAYERS ...BECOME ...ENGINEERS.
And then we can HELP EACH OTHER!
... but I am obviously, of course, insane. Developers clearly have it in their agenda today to in no way do this. This is the age of social isolation and phobia regarding all of your fellow human beings. God has forbidden any tolerance for such common decency as to assist and share with one another. This is the stuff of a bygone era who... *cough* Fostered everything we have.
Seriously, FDev.
Yes or no?
Is a multiplayer experience or isn't it?
Clearly you are leaning "Yes" so do some coordination with the stuff you already have available.
A Fuel Transfer module is worth not a thing to the pilot carrying it. THAT is a MULTIPLAYER (group and community) focused ABILITY.
If I carry something that does NOT benefit me I am most likely doing it for someone ELSE.
EXPAND ON THIS!!! THAT'S WHY WE PLAY THESE MMO GAMES!!! Let the Conda and other large ships have a "Repair Boon". Let players transfer micro-commodities... even if only in to-use module scenarios. I can totally respect game-balance concerns, but current state of the game is schizophrenic.
For now, let's call MMOs what they are. Just to get on the same page as reality, "Massively Online Skyboxes". The acronym even works. MOS. Like on a rock sitting pretty and pointless.
And this isn't so much a snub at FDev as game developers of this whole era. I think it goes back to the idea of this generation making games right now hasn't any idea what to do with other people. It might even be a wholly Western issue. The Internet hit the West first and being formerly nations involved with Individualism combined with low populations it makes sense chronic isolationism would result. East Asia seems to be going on fine with multiplayer games and group oriented content. Probably because you can't help going outside without running into a lot of people in a little amount of space. There isn't the opportunity to completely tune out reality.
Personally I find a lot of gaming weird lately. Like, what is "friending" for? I'm not sure developers know what to do with friendship or how it comes about. It's like right now in multicrew people friend me all the time. Why?????? What's the point? Did we do something together that was critical to the continuation of either or both of us? No. Are we going to crew together in the future? Evidently not that often. And people respond phobically when you text them like they aren't sure just how to behave in a social situation. It's like they're not sure they are deserving of the attention and you have to constantly nurse their egos into life. "No, really you did great! Thank you for flying with me." ...."Oh, wow. Okay!" And suddenly they want to game where before they're almost hiding in the seat afraid to even say hello first.
This is the state of gaming right now everywhere. I'm convinced it is because developers are cowards when it comes to group-based content. It is the larger problem of the internet making us all isolationists. People don't know how to deal with individuals. They're phobic of individuality. "Omg, it's a Cobra MKIII! I'm in a Conda Explorer!" *Logs*. I actually watched that happen this morning with me in a Dolphin, another pilot in a Conda. The Conda freaked and logged. Some of that is also RNGineers. Who knows if what you are facing is a "dolphin" or Mutantaphin."
So, to me this is becoming a responsibility. Developers need to get a grip.
We can egg this phobia on by developing gaming environments that shelter people into some sort of chronic psychosis from the psychedelic reality of another consciousness than their own or suffer the collapse of civilization as a result of being neotenized.
The PvPers have something right in their ire with the carebear.
People reject their stance because it is too monochrome, but principally they're correct. Just the other night I went to visit the alien ruins. A bunch of other ships were there. All condas. I'd barely completed glide before I see chat reading, "Incoming" and I'm being shot to pieces. THAT is a state of mind. Some people are just going to assume hostility to anyone not in their in-group. Sort of stunk to be me, but I'm not upset by it. It's part of the risk of flying in open. And now that exploration actually pays a bit I don't have to constantly feel like the game is punishing me for not being armed to the teeth. In honesty "that" is "game balance". If a Conda has more firepower and armor than a Vulture... well... that rather makes sense.
Rationally you might have a hard time connecting this to Exploration so let me summarize.
My impressions of gaming... from years and years of gaming... is that if you slight people as a developer they're going to give it back to you. It even starts to turn into a Pareto Distribution really quickly. Slight one part of the community and the square root of that community is now upset more or less permanently. For whatever reason, you're just not going to get them back in favor with you. Strangely this can be nullified by an honest apology, but only so much. After awhile you have to correct the mistake as a demonstration you words are congruent to your actions.
Example, if you make a ship that's "awesome" and then nerf it into the ground people get miffed, but if you apologize for it they'll more or less drop the issue. If, however, you create the expansion "Cataclysm" (to use a World of Warcraft example) you have destroyed 5 years of the game's environments (static elements) which your entire gamer-population has developed emotional attachments. You DESTROYED it. Gone forever. The Pareto Distribution has now gone into hard effect. The community WILL NOT recover. That group of the player base leaves and the fundamental nature of your game changes with them because suddenly you're selling to a completely separate market. Guild Wars 2 did this early on by changing Guild Wars (as a franchise) from a group-based community-oriented game to a single-player experience without even pathing for creatures in many cases. To this day that developers are constantly lying or shorting on their plans. Consequently even the developers have admitted their just catering to the player base that will continue to buy from them. They have no expectations of gaining any new players form advertising or word of mouth.
Elite Dangerous seems on the verge of heading either way. It has already lost a good chunk of its early enthusiasts because of RNGi. There's no way to balance PvP if you can't Craft because there is no way to balance time-to-gain against the individual demands of ALL player's real life obligations. If you have a fully developed crafting system without RNG then players who are short on time can PLAN THEIR GAME TIME AGAINST THEIR REAL LIFE OBLIGATIONS.
So, once RNGi became Elite Dangerous the developers basically chose to throw away any respect for people's lives. All fairness from PvP was the first to be hit and hit the worst. No amount of time devoted to gaming is sufficient to overcome random-outcome. It was a massive abandonment to any and every player that has obligations beyond gaming. It was much more an abandonment to their PvP crowd. This is an example of where no apology will do. The only way to recover from the loss is to change to a crafting system because now Elite Dangerous is regarded basically just a game where you build spaceships. Every other aspect of the game is RNGi.
This leads directly into Exploration because it was right around the time RNGineers became a thing Expeditions became popular. Why? A lot of the expedition pilots were formerly combat pilots. And if you just talked with them a bit the single thing said over and over again was they were . Completely and waiting for "FDev to fix things with Engineers." As time went on it became obvious that RNG had broken Combat. No one was fighting players or even other NPCs based on SKILL anymore.
From this point forwards Elite Dangerous was two things: RNGi and "the game" which has seen no meaningful updates since 2015.
For a little while we've had this large boom in Exploration. Much of it because those pilots who got involved were doing so waiting out the return of the content they enjoyed. See, they thought it was a mistake. That FDev just needed to "balance things out". But what THEY came to realize (and FDev won't admit or doesn't understand) is that by laws as real as those that govern physics this isn't possible.
NO Developer can balance out RNG with the variables obligations of each and every individual player's life. So... what happens is that RNG becomes a barrier to entry. And more and more things get tied into RNGineers. This means more and more time has to be spent... with a hard reset back to the starting line ...if you get a bad roll. The only GAME element to RNGineers is unlocking them. Everything else is a sorry excuse for arrested development.
As Elite stands only the independently wealthy who aren't working or kids who have a lot of time (and aren't working) benefit from RNGineers. They have TIME TO SPARE.
Everyone else ...by design ...the game is actively excluding.
I DOUBT this is intended... I seriously doubt FDev meant to have this result. But I also seriously doubt that the decency of the community will go out on the limb of risking insult to the Developers' intelligence to say this. And that's what I'm doing. I'm going out on a limb and telling you FDev... you miss stepped. Hard.
All through last Fall Colonia had people there pretty often. But as Winter wore on and "Did 'NOT' come," players realized... okay FDev has stopped with the Deving. And now Exploration is getting pointed at. I'm not the first person to bring this stuff up. I might be the first person to say it so bluntly. Personally, I am not the kind of person to care. I used to be the kind of person who would bring something up in hopes someone would come to the same idea as me. Now i just say exactly what other people have said to me back at them. Usually that's what it takes for people to go, "Oh, this is what I meant?" ..."Yes, you've been saying it for bloody year." ..."Mm, ahh. I guess I have."
Exploration is a niche thing, but it became a critical thing LAST YEAR directly because of how RNGineers messed up PvP. Now we've lost a good chunk of the PvPers and are losing the PvPers that idled into Exploration to keep their communities alive while they faithfully waited for FDev to "fix things".
You can't fix RNG FDev.
You can't fix it because you can't fix every individual players real lives' obligatory demands that are also RNG.
Thus, you can make a crafting system or wave goodbye to more players. Exploration has already taken a hit all through November 2016 forwards.
A Crafting System (not RNG) ENABLES PLAYERS to DECIDE and SET GOALS whose TEMPORAL OUTCOMES can be DETERMINED RELATIVE to THEIR LIFE DEMANDS OUTSIDE THE GAME.
Thus,
the
M
of
Multiple-Player
can
take
place.
In doing this people can ... MAKE SCHEDULES and KEEP DATES.
In other words... in making a CRAFTING SYSTEM... you PRESERVE... online COMMUNITIES...
The final outcome can still be random to some extent, but that should be based on SKILL... not absolute RNG. If a person has a Sensors, Engineering skill of 400/500 they'll do fine with a Grade 4 roll (say), but Grade 5 is going to be unicorns. And 450, would be better rolls than 400, though both could do all of Grade 4. And a Grade 5 engineer would nearly always 100% on Grade 4s. Locations on planets as to where to find resources should be fixed and reliable. Some locations could have random spawns for higher (or lower) yields to play on the idea of fresh meteor strike sites, etc. That's a fair game with real development that is demonstrating respect for people's time. What you have is just damaging Elite unrecoverably.
By making RNG everything there is to the game you alienate people from one another AND THE GAME. No one can end up drumming to the same beat. There can be no beat all, in fact.
If an expedition is going out this Sunday there's no way to know if anyone is going to have their ships ready in time. No one can promise anything. Eventually people stop trying to get together... and worse for the game... (as people are already posting in this thread) they refuse to USE your RNGineering.
And that's happening.
Al ot.
This tells you not only that you have alienated people from:
1. one another
2. RNGineers
...but most importantly
3. the game you are making
Good job.
Great designing right there.
How long can that go on?
So... this is where you're at. You've got Power Play that needs work, you've got PvP... that's just broke, you've got PvE Combat... arguably that was your PvP community, and now Exploration going "content please"... the PvPers that turned to Exploration have already largely stepped out.
Once 2.4 comes out you're going to have to stop skimping on development. Just copy early 2000s games. Put an actual game into the bloody sandbox.
Point 3 just above is starting to show signs of being the default go-to position for most.
You can name RNGi a USS, Quent, Mining, or a micro-commodity, but you can't turn it into content.
This isn't a slight at you.
It isn't like things are all that doom and gloom. We have a ton of great game mechanics as things are. You just have to respect people a bit. If you're going to make a game make a game. Don't insult their intelligence if you're going to make a slot machine by telling them it is anything else. People will just step back from the game and warn people off. There's even a youtuber dedicated to this now and his subscriber/watched videos number has been increasing recently. So I'm not just venting here.
For those engaging in discussion...
These points, such as they are, are still puzzle pieces to be sorted out... denied, confirmed, shredded and bloodied... whatever. If something I'm setting "has got it wrong"... for god sake call it out. Otherwise my version of idiocy could become content if someone is reading this and listening.
When looking for nuclear detonations here on Earth one of the methods used is through detecting small changes in the normal vibration of the earth. This same methodology has been used to determine much more local findings such as the rough outlines of archaeological sites. There is a machine at Princeton that was used for measurements at the quantum scale which had become so sensitive it would detect the waves crashing on the New Jersey shore. No one knew what the "noise" in the machine was originally.
Therefore, it follows that sitting your ship down over a POI with another ship on the opposite end and simultaneously using the ADS would produce a rough geological fngerprint of the local area. Ala, a means to finding (and at what range) underground structures. As a solo-pilot it would require circling the area to gain a rough geological sampling of the POI's perimeter.
However, this involves group-play. The chances that an MMO (social engineering wasteland) is going to involve elements of group-play is as to endanger positive collectivism and lasting meaningful friendships. Totally undesirable, of course.
But hey, that's a rational functionality Linear vs. Logarithmic might take.
Another thought for some healthy improvements to all things Exploration is Subnautica. The Cyclops (a large submarine) in that has gained some wonderful functionality lately. It is basically a mobile personal habitat with some laboratory functionalities coming down the road. And hey, you can be Geordi la Forge in that. The 3D Printer is a module you can build right into the ship with several larger variety on hand. No need to go back to the Bubble some 40,000 Ly ... or to put it into proper perspective... No need to throw your life down the toilet for 2 weeks of Buckyballing just to throw more of your life away with RNGi just to get back into the game.
And we might all want to take that elbow at RNGi seriously. For now it is a gimmick for those really out there wanting that Jump Range or added shielding, etc. However, how you going to feel about RNGineers when say... I don't know... Something like Meta-Drive is locked behind it? What if Meta-Drive suddenly meant large ships like the Corvette, Cutter, and Type-9 would get that long teleport jump so many are speculating about? Long cooldown, but suddenly the large ships get jump drives like the capital ships or older Elite games? Suddenly then RNGineers isn't just a sorry excuse for a developer flopping on the seemy side of development. It's a true barrier to entry. Gotta face facts, when a developer decides to skimp on development because they don't want to put the effort into gaming that 1990s and early 2000s MMO developers did (that'd be all your developers today) you're going to get a junk game. And when you put up with it? You get that junk compounded next time. So.. may as well keep putting needles in the developers shoes every single time this topic comes up. They're deleting your real life time because they couldn't be bothered to do some time-based math and serious development on core game mechanics. We'll see if anything improves after 2.4 or if this skinner-box doubles down.
Going back to Subnautica (*cough*... "...has a crafting system," and "engineering on the fly"... like early 2000s MMOs) the Seamoth is a good cairn to consider. The Seamoth has modules. That's just exactly what they are called:
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Upgrade_Modules
So, you can get 3 types of pressure compensation modules, hull reinforcements, engine efficiency (fuel), and storage.
Also, you can make it recharge by solar (apparently the whole thing runs on DC current), an electrified hull to scary off fish, torpedos, and sonar.
Sonar is pretty darned useful, by the way. I'd love to have this sort of thing in our ships as a secondary functionality of the ADS. Get close to a planet's surface, go searching for a POI, and after that 2.0 km cut-out idiocy you can honk with the ADS to get a 3D holo-display of the surface through your helmet. Repeat this to narrow down the actual location of the POI's location or use the same function to see in dark shadows or foggy valleys.
I was in my cutter recently on a shadowy side of a large moon with awesome canyons. Two people were out in fighters trying to find a POI we had found. We never did find it. That's three pilots and no way to find it because you can't use the SRV in multicrew. This goes back to me saying the SRV is a gimmick. It is there for nerds who believe NASA and Elan Musk can overcome the entropy of the death of STEM or for the novelty of doing what our grandparents failed at... maintaining innovation forwards to a future in space. So no we're playing futuristic space games with what amounts to a fairly interesting metal detector and 1970s space-buggy. It's a good reflection on the state of decadence of innovation. "We're going to the past to get the future!" ...Well, our grandparents definitely had a space industry so... there's something to that, but there's a schizophrenia there as well.
The cognitive dissonance between 3300 gravity defying technology and ships using thrusters really is honestly rather novel. It throws us into an image of the future where there has been some sort of hard decline in a civilization. The 1984 Elite apparently had all kinds of super long range jumps. That implies the game now is set in an era much like our own. Industry has declined. Civilization has made a BDSM slave out of the sciences and scientists. It is a setup for a hard crash. So things get slapped together. The essentials go on to keep the electricity running, but everything else is the skim from the milk of other generations' momentum.
Players realize this. It's why there are all the Scientology jokes around the DC 9s and the Cutter. I think we all get it that it was supposed to be a nod to 2001. It worked, but the effect is opposite the intent. Probably the most "space age" looking ship in the game is the Courier or the Eagles. However, ALL of our ships are single vector craft: forward-going. We don't have anything that uses gravity or momentum to do something like a right-angle turn.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eQp4grGdqY
Minute: 23:00
Skimmers come to mind as I watch this video. A very simple technology we ought to be using rather than the SRV.
But Elite seems to be set in a period of extreme authoritarianism. No innovation and rapid decline with slapped together ships we could best today (in the 1950s) combined with the essential technology of toroidal forces necessary to move us into galactic travel.
Toroidal Examples:
https://new.liveauctioneers.com/item/9678426
In the BSG Episode "Blood on the Scales" Chief Tyrol pulls out what amounts to a giant spark plug in the Galactica's FTL. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXA06DC32Ss
A few moments before this (good luck finding it online) you get a brief glimpse of the ship's engine from a monitor. It is a toroidal force technology. In the spin-off Blood and Chrome you can see the Engines of a Battlestar briefly in this episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOllLhUnKDQ
It is, again, a toroidal mechanic.
So, as far as Elite Dangerous goes the most advanced technology I've seen are the Skimmers where it comes to practical non-superluminal flight. As far as superluminal flight goes we only have jump technology.
We're about to enter into some sort of first encounter with a species that seems to have continuous ability to enter a superluminal state as well as directional control in that state. That leads to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo1_E5_oZ5E
So, again... what should we be bringing with us? I'd argue that anyone not currently flying with a Wake Scanner is shorting themselves.
A summary, at this point, would look like: "And so we can see from all of the evidence at hand we need suites of scanners."
Explores are dependent on equipment we don't have or using inadequate equipment due to the variability of situation and gimmicky limitations in current equipment.
Also, what's with alien bases and brown-dwarves?
Did they get to such a state they used up all the hydrogen from their local stars or do we not understand something about their FTL technology? Possibly is this all the wrong question?
- Having a way to analyze the reaction of materials we have onboard through something like (I'm dead serious) an "alchemy table" aboard the ship wouldn't be without good gameplay opportunities
- Why can't I try blending micro-commodities like zinc with exotic materials like meta-materials and analysis-data from the off-gas around brown dwarves? Oh, wait nevermind... you didn't make a crafting system because that would require doing development.
To whoever said ED is made by programmers for programmers: Yes
There's very little in this game to work with which is visual.
Thus it gets pretty draining to sort out for ourselves anything from the GAME itself. I've spent weeks trying to puzzle out game content as it relates to papers from Caltech only to realize... oh... this is probably something involving ascii. Bleh.
Since I'm usually arriving at the new content and discoveries around the same time as other Canonn people this leads me to believe the game is set up for this. That is, a lot of "blind math" and use of programming languages. That's great for the nerds, but it is probably hurting the GAME. Gamers are going to want something visual, tonal, and recognizably patterned. Heck, so do nerds. Not as the end-all-be-all for content. Just to break up the monotony of life.
No one uses a calculator to get back from it ag6?wbai&3LL. I mean, what would anyone even do with that? And if there is something to that jumble of letters how about a clue what to source outside the game so as to include more people IN IT? Otherwise it is pompous gob that is a bit condescending. And programmers are like that so it does you no favors to add to the impression.
Sorry this particular bit at the end comes off so harshly, honestly, but the GAME end of things is pretty dead and shallow. When a "gamer" can't find "the game" they're going to start pointing fingers at the developers pretty fast. It does the game no favors to be like that.
So, where am I going with things here?
Impressions and long-term appeal~
Modern games are worthless piles of garbage. This one is worth struggling to keep the devs honest and developing only because there is a thriving community in the game. Thriving, but increasingly contemptuous.
People hate to hear things are bad. That's true, but it is better to point out all the bits and bops that make it "bad" even if you believe it is subjective. That way you can get an open discussion going. And if - god forbid - it hurts someone's feelings when you've been negative about something... well... maybe the things you're negative about hurt you that much. Personally, that's why I get so negative about Engineers. 1990s games, early 2000s games, and even games more recently like Subnautica have realized if you excuse yourself from being a developer with RNG.
When you do that people will excuse themselves from any decency towards you in your development; largely for not doing very much of it. RNG is the excuse to not develop a Skill grind. Want to be an Herbalist in WoW? Go GATHER Materials to Level-up YOUR Skill (something you TAKE WITH YOU WHERE YOU GOOOOOO). Then it is always WITH YOU. Want to then become an Alchemist? Same thing... and it is then PERMANENT.
And seriously. Crafting COMES FROM THE GAME! You are actively going out to look for things and you CAN find them. Who cares if Mountain Silversage spawns at exactly -31, -159, every fifteen minutes? That's a schedule people can KEEP and RELY on. It means you HAVE NOT... as a developer... actively TRIED to remove players from success.
And again... is this a multiplayer game or isn't it?
Why don't you let PLAYERS ...BECOME ...ENGINEERS.
And then we can HELP EACH OTHER!
... but I am obviously, of course, insane. Developers clearly have it in their agenda today to in no way do this. This is the age of social isolation and phobia regarding all of your fellow human beings. God has forbidden any tolerance for such common decency as to assist and share with one another. This is the stuff of a bygone era who... *cough* Fostered everything we have.
Seriously, FDev.
Yes or no?
Is a multiplayer experience or isn't it?
Clearly you are leaning "Yes" so do some coordination with the stuff you already have available.
A Fuel Transfer module is worth not a thing to the pilot carrying it. THAT is a MULTIPLAYER (group and community) focused ABILITY.
If I carry something that does NOT benefit me I am most likely doing it for someone ELSE.
EXPAND ON THIS!!! THAT'S WHY WE PLAY THESE MMO GAMES!!! Let the Conda and other large ships have a "Repair Boon". Let players transfer micro-commodities... even if only in to-use module scenarios. I can totally respect game-balance concerns, but current state of the game is schizophrenic.
For now, let's call MMOs what they are. Just to get on the same page as reality, "Massively Online Skyboxes". The acronym even works. MOS. Like on a rock sitting pretty and pointless.
And this isn't so much a snub at FDev as game developers of this whole era. I think it goes back to the idea of this generation making games right now hasn't any idea what to do with other people. It might even be a wholly Western issue. The Internet hit the West first and being formerly nations involved with Individualism combined with low populations it makes sense chronic isolationism would result. East Asia seems to be going on fine with multiplayer games and group oriented content. Probably because you can't help going outside without running into a lot of people in a little amount of space. There isn't the opportunity to completely tune out reality.
Personally I find a lot of gaming weird lately. Like, what is "friending" for? I'm not sure developers know what to do with friendship or how it comes about. It's like right now in multicrew people friend me all the time. Why?????? What's the point? Did we do something together that was critical to the continuation of either or both of us? No. Are we going to crew together in the future? Evidently not that often. And people respond phobically when you text them like they aren't sure just how to behave in a social situation. It's like they're not sure they are deserving of the attention and you have to constantly nurse their egos into life. "No, really you did great! Thank you for flying with me." ...."Oh, wow. Okay!" And suddenly they want to game where before they're almost hiding in the seat afraid to even say hello first.
This is the state of gaming right now everywhere. I'm convinced it is because developers are cowards when it comes to group-based content. It is the larger problem of the internet making us all isolationists. People don't know how to deal with individuals. They're phobic of individuality. "Omg, it's a Cobra MKIII! I'm in a Conda Explorer!" *Logs*. I actually watched that happen this morning with me in a Dolphin, another pilot in a Conda. The Conda freaked and logged. Some of that is also RNGineers. Who knows if what you are facing is a "dolphin" or Mutantaphin."
So, to me this is becoming a responsibility. Developers need to get a grip.
We can egg this phobia on by developing gaming environments that shelter people into some sort of chronic psychosis from the psychedelic reality of another consciousness than their own or suffer the collapse of civilization as a result of being neotenized.
The PvPers have something right in their ire with the carebear.
People reject their stance because it is too monochrome, but principally they're correct. Just the other night I went to visit the alien ruins. A bunch of other ships were there. All condas. I'd barely completed glide before I see chat reading, "Incoming" and I'm being shot to pieces. THAT is a state of mind. Some people are just going to assume hostility to anyone not in their in-group. Sort of stunk to be me, but I'm not upset by it. It's part of the risk of flying in open. And now that exploration actually pays a bit I don't have to constantly feel like the game is punishing me for not being armed to the teeth. In honesty "that" is "game balance". If a Conda has more firepower and armor than a Vulture... well... that rather makes sense.
Rationally you might have a hard time connecting this to Exploration so let me summarize.
My impressions of gaming... from years and years of gaming... is that if you slight people as a developer they're going to give it back to you. It even starts to turn into a Pareto Distribution really quickly. Slight one part of the community and the square root of that community is now upset more or less permanently. For whatever reason, you're just not going to get them back in favor with you. Strangely this can be nullified by an honest apology, but only so much. After awhile you have to correct the mistake as a demonstration you words are congruent to your actions.
Example, if you make a ship that's "awesome" and then nerf it into the ground people get miffed, but if you apologize for it they'll more or less drop the issue. If, however, you create the expansion "Cataclysm" (to use a World of Warcraft example) you have destroyed 5 years of the game's environments (static elements) which your entire gamer-population has developed emotional attachments. You DESTROYED it. Gone forever. The Pareto Distribution has now gone into hard effect. The community WILL NOT recover. That group of the player base leaves and the fundamental nature of your game changes with them because suddenly you're selling to a completely separate market. Guild Wars 2 did this early on by changing Guild Wars (as a franchise) from a group-based community-oriented game to a single-player experience without even pathing for creatures in many cases. To this day that developers are constantly lying or shorting on their plans. Consequently even the developers have admitted their just catering to the player base that will continue to buy from them. They have no expectations of gaining any new players form advertising or word of mouth.
Elite Dangerous seems on the verge of heading either way. It has already lost a good chunk of its early enthusiasts because of RNGi. There's no way to balance PvP if you can't Craft because there is no way to balance time-to-gain against the individual demands of ALL player's real life obligations. If you have a fully developed crafting system without RNG then players who are short on time can PLAN THEIR GAME TIME AGAINST THEIR REAL LIFE OBLIGATIONS.
So, once RNGi became Elite Dangerous the developers basically chose to throw away any respect for people's lives. All fairness from PvP was the first to be hit and hit the worst. No amount of time devoted to gaming is sufficient to overcome random-outcome. It was a massive abandonment to any and every player that has obligations beyond gaming. It was much more an abandonment to their PvP crowd. This is an example of where no apology will do. The only way to recover from the loss is to change to a crafting system because now Elite Dangerous is regarded basically just a game where you build spaceships. Every other aspect of the game is RNGi.
This leads directly into Exploration because it was right around the time RNGineers became a thing Expeditions became popular. Why? A lot of the expedition pilots were formerly combat pilots. And if you just talked with them a bit the single thing said over and over again was they were . Completely and waiting for "FDev to fix things with Engineers." As time went on it became obvious that RNG had broken Combat. No one was fighting players or even other NPCs based on SKILL anymore.
From this point forwards Elite Dangerous was two things: RNGi and "the game" which has seen no meaningful updates since 2015.
For a little while we've had this large boom in Exploration. Much of it because those pilots who got involved were doing so waiting out the return of the content they enjoyed. See, they thought it was a mistake. That FDev just needed to "balance things out". But what THEY came to realize (and FDev won't admit or doesn't understand) is that by laws as real as those that govern physics this isn't possible.
NO Developer can balance out RNG with the variables obligations of each and every individual player's life. So... what happens is that RNG becomes a barrier to entry. And more and more things get tied into RNGineers. This means more and more time has to be spent... with a hard reset back to the starting line ...if you get a bad roll. The only GAME element to RNGineers is unlocking them. Everything else is a sorry excuse for arrested development.
As Elite stands only the independently wealthy who aren't working or kids who have a lot of time (and aren't working) benefit from RNGineers. They have TIME TO SPARE.
Everyone else ...by design ...the game is actively excluding.
I DOUBT this is intended... I seriously doubt FDev meant to have this result. But I also seriously doubt that the decency of the community will go out on the limb of risking insult to the Developers' intelligence to say this. And that's what I'm doing. I'm going out on a limb and telling you FDev... you miss stepped. Hard.
All through last Fall Colonia had people there pretty often. But as Winter wore on and "Did 'NOT' come," players realized... okay FDev has stopped with the Deving. And now Exploration is getting pointed at. I'm not the first person to bring this stuff up. I might be the first person to say it so bluntly. Personally, I am not the kind of person to care. I used to be the kind of person who would bring something up in hopes someone would come to the same idea as me. Now i just say exactly what other people have said to me back at them. Usually that's what it takes for people to go, "Oh, this is what I meant?" ..."Yes, you've been saying it for bloody year." ..."Mm, ahh. I guess I have."
Exploration is a niche thing, but it became a critical thing LAST YEAR directly because of how RNGineers messed up PvP. Now we've lost a good chunk of the PvPers and are losing the PvPers that idled into Exploration to keep their communities alive while they faithfully waited for FDev to "fix things".
You can't fix RNG FDev.
You can't fix it because you can't fix every individual players real lives' obligatory demands that are also RNG.
Thus, you can make a crafting system or wave goodbye to more players. Exploration has already taken a hit all through November 2016 forwards.
A Crafting System (not RNG) ENABLES PLAYERS to DECIDE and SET GOALS whose TEMPORAL OUTCOMES can be DETERMINED RELATIVE to THEIR LIFE DEMANDS OUTSIDE THE GAME.
Thus,
the
M
of
Multiple-Player
can
take
place.
In doing this people can ... MAKE SCHEDULES and KEEP DATES.
In other words... in making a CRAFTING SYSTEM... you PRESERVE... online COMMUNITIES...
The final outcome can still be random to some extent, but that should be based on SKILL... not absolute RNG. If a person has a Sensors, Engineering skill of 400/500 they'll do fine with a Grade 4 roll (say), but Grade 5 is going to be unicorns. And 450, would be better rolls than 400, though both could do all of Grade 4. And a Grade 5 engineer would nearly always 100% on Grade 4s. Locations on planets as to where to find resources should be fixed and reliable. Some locations could have random spawns for higher (or lower) yields to play on the idea of fresh meteor strike sites, etc. That's a fair game with real development that is demonstrating respect for people's time. What you have is just damaging Elite unrecoverably.
By making RNG everything there is to the game you alienate people from one another AND THE GAME. No one can end up drumming to the same beat. There can be no beat all, in fact.
If an expedition is going out this Sunday there's no way to know if anyone is going to have their ships ready in time. No one can promise anything. Eventually people stop trying to get together... and worse for the game... (as people are already posting in this thread) they refuse to USE your RNGineering.
And that's happening.
Al ot.
This tells you not only that you have alienated people from:
1. one another
2. RNGineers
...but most importantly
3. the game you are making
Good job.
Great designing right there.
How long can that go on?
So... this is where you're at. You've got Power Play that needs work, you've got PvP... that's just broke, you've got PvE Combat... arguably that was your PvP community, and now Exploration going "content please"... the PvPers that turned to Exploration have already largely stepped out.
Once 2.4 comes out you're going to have to stop skimping on development. Just copy early 2000s games. Put an actual game into the bloody sandbox.
Point 3 just above is starting to show signs of being the default go-to position for most.
You can name RNGi a USS, Quent, Mining, or a micro-commodity, but you can't turn it into content.
This isn't a slight at you.
It isn't like things are all that doom and gloom. We have a ton of great game mechanics as things are. You just have to respect people a bit. If you're going to make a game make a game. Don't insult their intelligence if you're going to make a slot machine by telling them it is anything else. People will just step back from the game and warn people off. There's even a youtuber dedicated to this now and his subscriber/watched videos number has been increasing recently. So I'm not just venting here.
For those engaging in discussion...
These points, such as they are, are still puzzle pieces to be sorted out... denied, confirmed, shredded and bloodied... whatever. If something I'm setting "has got it wrong"... for god sake call it out. Otherwise my version of idiocy could become content if someone is reading this and listening.
You're trying too hard. It's a lot simpler if you consider that the devs are deliberately griefing explorers for their own amusement.
As an explorer, I am currently caught in a neutron jet, neutron jet FSD overcharging being the only improvement to exploration gameplay that FD have made since release, and only then by accident. So my entire game is now limited to: log on, cut throttle, pips to engines, charge FSD for SC, then just get tossed around and fail to even turn to face the escape vector. Log and repeat. My situation perfectly distils the entire Elite Dangerous exploration experience. Why they can't just kill me.
As an explorer, I am currently caught in a neutron jet, neutron jet FSD overcharging being the only improvement to exploration gameplay that FD have made since release, and only then by accident. So my entire game is now limited to: log on, cut throttle, pips to engines, charge FSD for SC, then just get tossed around and fail to even turn to face the escape vector. Log and repeat. My situation perfectly distils the entire Elite Dangerous exploration experience. Why they can't just kill me.
I'm nearly home after a trip to sag a* via Colonia in my Orca (don't ask), and I didn't need half the stuff on the op's list, not even the AMFU.
What you take on a long haul trip depends on how interested in having fun you are. My exploraconda has two exploration load-outs; one with everything - including weapons - with max range ~55L-y. This one is fun. Especially in a player group. All those buttons to press out in the black. Which you never really need.
But for pure exploration, which is not meant to be fun, I have the stripped-down loadout with empty modules and max range approaching 70L-y.
Right now I'm returning from the SWE2 expedition, in a Sidewinder just for the challenge. Loadout currently 2×M-Cs, HSL, Chaff, C2 Scoop, C2 SRV Hangar, ADS, 1A Shields, range 27L-y. I needed the M-Cs to take part in the expedition SRV hunt. I needed the Shields because players at meet-ups tend to try and hump each other with their ships because there's little else to do. Otherwise I would swap the 2×M-Cs for a 1×Mining Lance, and the Shields for an AFMU for repairing FSD overcharge damage.
Are you going to revive every exploration thread just so you can post the same childish whine over and over again?
I think the Explorer model is more about survival, than wild discoveries. What I see in exploration is the struggle to collect and return with new and valuable data. If there were some more dazzling sites to see, that wouldn't hurt my feelings at all, but I find what we have to be pointing in a different direction.
All of the equipment needed to be successful exploring is part of the challenge. Until the return trip, explorers face a different kind of danger out there, not as much about shooting, as surviving. Getting all of that data back, and turned in. That is what I find at the heart of E|D's Exploration model.
That may be not suitable for all, and that's why things get discussed.
All of the equipment needed to be successful exploring is part of the challenge. Until the return trip, explorers face a different kind of danger out there, not as much about shooting, as surviving. Getting all of that data back, and turned in. That is what I find at the heart of E|D's Exploration model.
That may be not suitable for all, and that's why things get discussed.
Self-destruct.
The question you should really be asking yourself though is how the hell did you manage to get caught in a neutron jet?
verminstar
Banned
The danger of exploration isnt in getting out there and scanning till yer eyes bleed...its getting back and cashing it in whilst keeping ones sanity intact.
Thats why I love it so much...my sanity was long gone before I even set off...really at this point, all Im doing is putting it back together like a grey mushy 500 piece jigsaw puzzle
Btw...how did ye get stuck in a neutron jet? Im guessing ye flew into it unwittingly while taking selfies? Hehe...can I haz yer stuff when ye rage quit?
Thats why I love it so much...my sanity was long gone before I even set off...really at this point, all Im doing is putting it back together like a grey mushy 500 piece jigsaw puzzle
Btw...how did ye get stuck in a neutron jet? Im guessing ye flew into it unwittingly while taking selfies? Hehe...can I haz yer stuff when ye rage quit?