News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal

pocketmoon

P
Will Flanagan said:
Hello Commanders!
...Replace flying time with gameplay: We want to reduce the amount of time you have to spend flying to a planet just to discover it.
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That's a step back for me. One of the pillars of planetary discovery is you have to put in the flying time. Effort == Reward. For explorers it's all part of the life. No "click to win" ;) Dropping into an undiscovered multi-star system with dozens of bodies and spending an hour scanning ? Bliss

Rob
 

Watcher

W
Well this all sounds pretty amazing to be honest :)

With the DSS now having ammo does it make sense to have different size and grades to improve ammo capacity and give you a non-engineered choice around range, power draw and the like?
 

fico74

F
I think that beside thinking about more refined exploration dynamics you should think about introducing something more interesting to explore and discover. Possibly not generated as copy / paste
 

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
OK, I've had my hysterical reaction. :)

I'm thinking about just going down to a Sidewinder, if this is the case.

Consider: If a great deal of time, effort, and some skill is required, long exploration voyages will not be attractive from a time and cost standpoint. I will be better off remaining in a much more localized area, using economical mode, instead of investing in a ship like the DBX, or Asp Explorer. Very large craft, like the Anaconda will still be used to set time and distance records, but the intermediate ships will find the benefits of long jump ranges greatly offset by the time needed to use the new system.

Since I play in solo, and my Real Life friends will not commit the time needed to wing up, that means lone wolves like myself will be confined to patches of the galaxy. My time is *finite*, the galaxy is *really big*.

I have been around since the launch, and I remember finding objects by eye, and parallax view. It turned out that I was missing a great many objects, due to sheer travel distance. Yes, it was fun to have the rush of finding something without the ADS. But, without the long range of the ADS, players will be spending a great deal of time in individual systems.

I like the probe mechanics. I have no quarrel with surface mapping. That part will bring improved gameplay.

I will no longer be traveling long distances, in the hopes of finding something truly unique. Today, within a thousand light years of an inhabited system, almost every scoopable systems had been visited, on the way to Colonia.

Why spend $100 million, for the same result as a Sidewinder? Truly dedicated exploration ships will decrease in utility. So, I will decrease my rebuy, as I will be more vulnerable than ever while searching systems.

The term "SuicideWinder" will take on a new meaning... :(
 

krautbernd

K
Ralph Vargr said:
I like the probe mechanics. I have no quarrel with surface mapping. That part will bring improved gameplay.

I will no longer be traveling long distances, in the hopes of finding something truly unique.
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But can we still do that if we wanted to? Can we still use the DSS to actually scan stuff? Are probes mandatory to map planets?
 

Tall_Toot

Tall_Toot
TL; DR

So whats happening is that 'people' (who are moaning about exploration not being involved enough) are moaning that it will take more time to carry out the more involved exploration.

I love 'people', they're so funny....

Thanks for addressing Exploration as a whole FDev - good luck implementing it for your 'people'........
 

Cmdr_Kersner

C
Replace flying time with gameplay: We want to reduce the amount of time you have to spend flying to a planet just to discover it. The only time we want you to fly to a planet is because you want to visit it as there’s something there you want to see or do. Ultimately that will make exploring planetary bodies and getting first discoveries in a system quicker and more engaging at the same time.
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I'm reading this as "Rather than honk/check system map for money planets / spend 3-5 mins. in super cruise to get in scan distance / jump to next system, you will now honk / scan different directions / find a planet you want to scan / scan it / jump to next system". Or, put more succinctly, trading super cruise time for mini-game time.
 

Siobhan

Siobhan
Tall_Toot said:
TL; DR

So whats happening is that 'people' (who are moaning about exploration not being involved enough) are moaning that it will take more time to carry out the more involved exploration.

I love 'people', they're so funny....

Thanks for addressing Exploration as a whole FDev - good luck implementing it for your 'people'........
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the forum for you. FD can't win, ever (though tbh most of the time they shouldn't). Even when they get it right, there will be salt. If they get it very right, there'll be almost as much salt as if they get it very wrong.

tl;dr No good deed goes unpunished.
 

Xtopher SI

Xtopher SI
Hi. I think you are on the right track here. It all sounds awesome! Just a few questions:

1. Will the scanning of Navigation Beacons still reveal full map? Including all surface details?

2. Will systems that are previously discovered (including current discoveries) from other commanders have data on all planets revealed or would we have to rediscover them from scratch? Will we be able to see if these planets have been previously surface scanned? How will we see if someone else has been tagged with the first mapped discovery? Will current discovered systems still have their current first find discovery tag and will those systems have undiscovered/untagged mapped scans?

3. Will we have a galmap option to find our first time discovered systems/planets?

4. Exploration seems to becoming more realistic. Will exploration become more dangerous?

5.Are there plans for further exploration with srv's?

6.With all the work we will have to put in the new exploration system, will there be a way to save our exploration data if our ship is destroyed? Perhaps a mission that will allow us to go find our missing data cache from our destroyed ship? Or even a way to redeem the exploration data but we waiver the credits, maybe add an insurance cost as well for data recovery?
 
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Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Great changes, I hope they are well implemented.

One question please, I haven't read the entire thread so if it's been answered, please let me know guys...

When a USS decays, is it replaced by another random one in another part of the system? Or do they slowly all decay until there's no activity left in the system (unlikely, but felt I needed to ask)? :)
 

Taimaru

Taimaru
Thanks Frontier for the information regarding exploration in Chapter 4. The changes do sound interesting and I look forward to seeing you demonstrate it in a live stream (hopefully soon).

Frontier, whilst many are happy with the new changes there does seem to be some that will miss getting a basic view of the system with a single honk, and flying to all the planets because they enjoy flying in supercruise.

So, I wonder if it's worth having 2 types of Discovery Scanners - Basic and Advanced - to satisfy both types of people.

The Advanced Discovery Scanner would work the way Frontier are proposing the new Discovery Scanner to work for Chapter 4 as described in the original post.

The Basic Discovery Scanner would act the way the current Advanced Discovery Scanner and Surface Scanner work, but combined, and you have to fly to each body as you do now. So, with the new Basic Discovery Scanner you would do the honk to get an outline of the objects in the system (as you do now) but then fly in supercruise to each of the objects to get the surface scanned, which may take time if it's a large system.
 

Guest 161958

G
Will Flanagan said:
This particular thread is not an area for debate between community members – it’s fine to read what others have put, but try to ensure your posts are directed at us rather than your fellow posters.
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Just to reiterate as people seem to not get it:
Don't say fdev does not communicate if you cannot understand what's being communicated. This thread degenerated once again in a mess. Why don't you go to the other sub forums to chat? And you wonder why devs don't go through all the suggestions
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
Netah said:
You mean something maybe like:

If this new exploration technique were applied to combat, no longer would targeting an enemy ship give initial wanted data. Instead, the kill warrant scanner would bring up a new HUD, you would search for an enemy ship within the system with a "signature" indicating something might be wanted, then try to find the blip on your HUD scanner and move toward it, then probe it for more wanted information (i.e., is it wanted in this system or another system; is it noob, competent, dangerous, elite, etc.; and for how much the bounty range is); then after finding, engaging, and killing said wanted ship, you would only be able to turn the bounty voucher in for the system it was wanted in, not for any other system and also not at an Interstellar Factor. Doesn't matter if doing a CG or in a CZ or just cruising around, one would have to do this for each ship.

(ok, I will go away now, promise)
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... that actually sounds awesome and exactly the kind of stuff I've been dying for FD to add to bounty hunting.
 

Hanerib

Hanerib
ADS scan should still reveal large gas giants and nearby atmospheric worlds. I think a lot of people are going to travel very blindfolded after this update, not willing to scan everything on their journey. This could be a good thing also.

Signal sources could become something one looks for in a system, like looking for earth-likes, etc. Finding odd signal sources in far-away locations could be very good content, and easy to implement. Mysteries keep players engaged, not fluff.

You need to have things out there, otherwise this is only recycling old content. I would probably prefer if you did those things you had planned in 2014, concerning exploration content. Navigation requiring some skill, mis-jumps, dark systems.. all that has been neglected.
 

equex

equex
"any unusual locations will be revealed to your ship’s navigation systems. So no more eyeballing an entire planet to find those brain trees!"

HNNNNG finally
 

willisit

willisit
I read the first 45 pages and saw 16 requests for information on VR.... I guess it didn't get answered.

In any case, I REALLY look forward to this stuff - sounds a bit like how Mass Effect worked (in my head, that's the visual) and I'm really happy as I was about to start a long journey - I'll wait (Well, I was waiting, but now I'm definitely waiting!). I cannot wait to get lost and discover my own corner of the galaxy.

Now let us land on stuff.. oh, shhh! I know. Sorry!

Additionally;

As long as the ADS honk still gives us the basics and I don't have to travel 100k LS to find a planet, I'm fine with it.
Ammo is great, and 200 is fine for the probes - again, as long as at the end of nowhere, we can still get materials to synthisise what we need.
USSs degrading with a counter is great; has the same been said of the likes of NHSS? Even so, if we get the system's worth in one honk and then the usual spawns I'm happy enough.

Looking forward to the beta on this one! (so I can try it in VR!) :D
 
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