Black Box (you know we need it)

Ski'Thor

Ski'Thor
Greetings,

I will try to make it quick :)

I lost my data. All of it, the second time ;)

First time I made a small 35k lightyear journey around the Center of the Galaxy... made a repair, went to the door to pick up a package, forgot to turn on life support after module repair... popped... stupid, sure, but still not so cool.
Second time happend yesterday... 1,65G are not 0,16G ... mid flight screen shot aaaand crashed... again 25k lightyears gone...

Yea, it was my own fault and it is "ok" to crash, but could we please get a black box option?

How should it work?
1. Buyable module, needs to be placed in a class 1 or 2 slot (no additional, new slot... )
2. The black box works like a real black box works
3. You fly and scan and gather bio data on planets
4. Your ship gets hit by laser/rocket/projectile/other ship/asteroids/planets/star/stupidity and will be destroyed
5. Your Black Box remains intact and will send a system wide distress call

What do I have to do?
1. Rebuy screen
2. Start over from the last port you docked (as usual after rebuy)
3. You hopefully remember the system, where you crashed your ship...
4. You have to fly to the system, where your black box is (let's hope you remember)
5. You have to hurry up. The black box' energy cell only holds up for 7 days (not there in 7 days? Well... no energy, no distress call, no data)
6. When you arrive in the system, the black box can be found like a nav bake

And the fun?
Of course, this would be a very playerfriendly feature. And of course, it would make exploring the dark a bit more "safe". But where is the fun?
Well... you are not the only one, who can pick up your black box. If anyone else will visit the system within the 7 days and you have not picked up your box, the "unknown player" can pick up your black box.
Will this "unknown player" get all of the data? No. Since Codex Entries should be found by yourself, you will only get the "organic data" and "carthographic data".
The "unknown player" will not be set as "first visited" or "first scanned", but the "unkown player" will get the money for the data.

I know, this would be a bit unfair in some cases, but still better than the "I do not have a black box" option ;)
Regarding balancing: It's up to Frontier of course, but it might also be possible to set the original player as "first scanned", when the "unknown player" sells the data. (Explorers are realy friendly and they don't mind to help each other... and if you can make some extra Brapples... be my guest)

Why?
Most people think, exploring is not a big deal. Just jump, fly, scan, land, have a ride, go by foot, scan, board, ride, board, fly, jump, repeat. But it's not! It is a journey, in most cases over days, weeks or even month. Hundrets or thousend of systems, stars, planets and secrets all over the galaxy.
It is frustrating and a show stopper when you crash and all your work over the last month is just gone. It is something different, when you are on war and fight against humans or aliens. You shoot, you win, you shoot you pop, but you won't loose month of data gathering.

Any questions? Just ask. Please keep in mind, that English is not my mother tounge ;)

Bonus
A 5 minute work appetizer...

blackbox.jpg



Additional thoughts
For me, as an explorer, Elite Dangerous has always been my Dark Souls in Space, maybe I rename the Game to "Space Souls" ;)
Just kidding, but it might be a game balancing option, if handling black boxes like your "belongings" in Dark Souls. When you crash / die while on the way to your black box, the black box will mysteriously get lost.

You should also get a message from the authorities, when someone sold your data. For example "It seems, CMDR Hasselhoff found your blackbox in Flyooe Eohn ZQ-S b50-0. The data has been submitted and processed."
There should be NO information, when someone picks up your box. Only, when the data of the box is processed. Because of the fun and feelings when you are heading to your black box as fast as you can. But maybe someone else is faster :D
 
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Ski'Thor

Ski'Thor
Achtung-Goomba said:
I’d be in favour of the only penalty for death was the distance; if your black box data is a bazillion Ly away, that’s on you. But make the data only retrievable by the CMDR who lost it.
Click to expand...
When it is only retrievalbe by the commandar who lost it, it would be too easy. There would be no thrill and therefor, the balancing would suffer.
The data can't be extracted from other CMDRs, they only get the money of it ;)
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
It would be hilarious :)

CMDR> I died! Can you give me back all my data!
Support> Not any more, people asked for beacons, so now you have to travel back to retrieve it
CMDR> What! It's 60K Ly away! That is so unfair!
Support> Sorry, that's what people wanted - safe travels!

(...three months later...)

CMDR> I got there and there was no beacon! It took me three months!
Support> Ah yes, that happens sometimes. Sadly because you logged back in we cannot return that data to your account. Fly safe!
 

Ski'Thor

Ski'Thor
Factabulous said:
It would be hilarious :)

CMDR> I died! Can you give me back all my data!
Support> Not any more, people asked for beacons, so now you have to travel back to retrieve it
CMDR> What! It's 60K Ly away! That is so unfair!
Support> Sorry, that's what people wanted - safe travels!

(...three months later...)

CMDR> I got there and there was no beacon! It took me three months!
Support> Ah yes, that happens sometimes. Sadly because you logged back in we cannot return that data to your account. Fly safe!
Click to expand...

7, 14 [insert random number here] days... it's up to FDEV.
 

Treya

Treya
I really like the 'can be picked up by others' twist as it would open up some new gameplay opportunities. And the nice part is that at least some of the leg work (signal sources that are persistent for all players and that can be dynamically added/removed) was already done for the Fleet Carrier update.

Some other thoughts:
  • Maybe the payout could be split if the black box gets picked up by someone else? That would provide some incentive to share a location with others if one doesn't want to pick it up themselves.
  • Have the black box occupy a standard cargo slot when picked up. That way it could be moved around between ships, for instance to give it back to the original owner. It would also incentivize bringing cargo space as an explorer, leading to tradeoffs for some builds.
  • Implementing a black box feature would also be a good opportunity to change when 'discovered/mapped by' tags are awarded and give them out immediately (as is already the case for codex entries as well as first footfall tags).
 

Ski'Thor

Ski'Thor
Treya said:
I really like the 'can be picked up by others' twist as it would open up some new gameplay opportunities. And the nice part is that at least some of the leg work (signal sources that are persistent for all players and that can be dynamically added/removed) was already done for the Fleet Carrier update.

Some other thoughts:
  • Maybe the payout could be split if the black box gets picked up by someone else? That would provide some incentive to share a location with others if one doesn't want to pick it up themselves.
  • Have the black box occupy a standard cargo slot when picked up. That way it could be moved around between ships, for instance to give it back to the original owner. It would also incentivize bringing cargo space as an explorer, leading to tradeoffs for some builds.
  • Implementing a black box feature would also be a good opportunity to change when 'discovered/mapped by' tags are awarded and give them out immediately (as is already the case for codex entries as well as first footfall tags).
Click to expand...
I like the idea with a needed cargo space, when picking up a black box.
This would be a good reason for Explorers to outfit a cargo rack. This would, of course be a nogo for some explorers, but they are not forced to have it (they just can't take it).

Also, as an addition, there could be a story related reason, why black boxes can only be sold at stations, but not at a carrier. Maybe the technology for opening, reading and awarding a black box is only available to high class authorities... something like that.

I think it is important to keep the pace of the game, so there are enough advantages and disadvantages. More depth, more story, more differentation ;)
 

Treya

Treya
Ski'Thor said:
Also, as an addition, there could be a story related reason, why black boxes can only be sold at stations, but not at a carrier. Maybe the technology for opening, reading and awarding a black box is only available to high class authorities... something like that.
Click to expand...
Or, more pragmatically, associate them with the Search and Rescue contact. Would fit thematically as well as exclude FCs.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
Years ago I came up with the idea of a 'stealthy' black box. The idea was that, for a certain period of time (say, 30 days) the black box would 'cloak' itself, and only be 'visible' to somebody who had the right frequency. This would be the Commander whose black box it was. This would allow them the chance of recovering their data (imagine how YOU would feel if you had been out for a very long time and then had your ship destroyed!). They would also have recorded the precise location where the black box was to be found, so they could head straight back there once they had got back into a ship. However, after the 30 days had expired the black box no longer had enough power to sustain the cloak, and so became visible to all.
 

Tetra Trash

Tetra Trash
I like the idea of having a recoverable black box; I see the excitement for having them findable by anyone but I really don't like the idea of enhancing the min-maxed combat FdL vs paper explorer interactions (or further incentivizing explorers to not be in open). If they were findable I'd like to see a skill-based mechanism for finding them that would be targeted toward the explorer mindset/gameplay (and maybe a bit of a slog for combat pilots) but I have no idea what it could be.
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
It's a cool idea but anything except personally being able to retrieve it requires adding an object across modes and while the player is logged out.

This causes a bunch of edge case problems not super easily resolved and requiring potentially fleet carrier level code....

My 8 ball says: seems unlikely
 
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