Buying the full Universal Cartographics database

[00prometheus]

The maps in my ship's navigation software are horrendous! Even when flying around in the bubble, a well and truly explored region of space, I mostly have "Unexplored" in my navigation system, not to mention when I am exploring and keep hitting systems that have already been discovered by someone else! My ship database is crufty old rubbish and I need to upgrade my maps NOW! I will happily pay 100 Mil just for a complete and up-to-date copy of the full cartographics database!

So, Frontier: When and where can I buy a full and up-to-date set of maps?

 

[DCLXVI your God]

The maps in my ship's navigation software are horrendous! Even when flying around in the bubble, a well and truly explored region of space, I mostly have "Unexplored" in my navigation system, not to mention when I am exploring and keep hitting systems that have already been discovered by someone else! My ship database is crufty old rubbish and I need to upgrade my maps NOW! I will happily pay 100 Mil just for a complete and up-to-date copy of the full cartographics database!

So, when can I buy a full and up-to-date set of maps?

Maybe allah will be merciful...

 

[Hellhawk666]

Deskplant. When facepalm isn't enough.

 

[_neuron_]

This is a terrible idea. The last thing the game needs is for exploration to be even further disincentivized.

 

[00prometheus]

I am not sure I follow your meaning; the whole point is to incentivize exploration! The problem is that when exploring in the near bubble region you often come across stars that already are discovered. The cartographic maps would allow you to explore the near region and still find stars that are unexplored.

The price tag of 100M Credits is not randomly chosen: at that point you no longer have any interest in exploration rewards inside the bubble, you want "first dibs" on external systems. As we all know, there is no way we will run out of stars to map, so the only thing this map would do is prevent the frustration of going to stars that have already been explored.

Also, I believe it would be lots of fun to watch the threads of exploration spread out across the galaxy, as intrepid explorers find new paths to new regions. That in itself would be highly incentivizing!

 

[Privata]

I would say this option would be intresting if its only worlds that have at least one station in and are older than a year in lore

 

[Kezha]

Buying the whole lot of known space in the bubble in one go would not be the best, but you can buy data there already.

What could be an idea would be to buy portions instead perhaps for a fair price that would make any newling player not want to waste money on it, and have a med player value it.



Perhaps a cooperation with Garmin, or perhaps TomTom could be established

 

[00prometheus]

@privata: I think you have your wish granted already! The current systems that are known in your on-ship database are the ones that have a space station (not just an outpost).

 

[_neuron_]

I am not sure I follow your meaning; the whole point is to incentivize exploration! The problem is that when exploring in the near bubble region you often come across stars that already are discovered. The cartographic maps would allow you to explore the near region and still find stars that are unexplored.

The price tag of 100M Credits is not randomly chosen: at that point you no longer have any interest in exploration rewards inside the bubble, you want "first dibs" on external systems. As we all know, there is no way we will run out of stars to map, so the only thing this map would do is prevent the frustration of going to stars that have already been explored.

Also, I believe it would be lots of fun to watch the threads of exploration spread out across the galaxy, as intrepid explorers find new paths to new regions. That in itself would be highly incentivizing!

Those are fair points regarding how it could actually be beneficial to exploration. For it to really work, though, I think we'd need to combine it with a navigation option to the effect of "prioritize unexplored systems" (similar to the way we can currently select speed versus fuel efficiency), since manually picking each step of a journey can get quite tedious. Also, there'd have to be some way of updating the database after the initial 100 million credit update -- maybe a fee of 1 million credits to download the latest data.

Anyway, rep to you for an interesting suggestion. I honestly thought when I read the original post that this was just an "I'm too lazy to explore" thread, but now that you've fleshed it out, I see how it could provide a good way of allowing explorers to more efficiently chart new systems.

 

[00prometheus]

I honestly thought when I read the original post that this was just an "I'm too lazy to explore" thread, but now that you've fleshed it out, I see how it could provide a good way of allowing explorers to more efficiently chart new systems.

Sorry about that, my original post was trying to be "in character", but I mostly managed to confuse everyone about my motives!

I like your idea of improving the auto-router to take advantage of the new map data! That would be very useful!

 

[dynamicbob]

id like to be able to buy data from systems already scanned by other commanders even if within 1000ly of sol or nearest settlement