Deep Space Salvaging *Revisited*

Arjin

Arjin
Hello Commanders, FD


I know we have discussed this before and I think this awesome feature will be in the game at some point down the road. I mean who doesn't like the thought of salvaging and exploring a creepy derelict ship and or station/outpost, or uncovering the mystery of what happened at the scene based on the salvage that is found.

I've had some initial ideas on the subject and though I would share some more, so here are some additional ideas.

Deep Space Salvaging can be Mission based, or Random Encounter based.
Missions will have 4 different types of salvaging modes available, Mystery, Standard, Heavy, and Emergency. (See Mission Modes)

Mission Based:

  • Missions can be taken via the bulletin board randomly Universal Cartographics or faction specific. Factions can assign a mission randomly via the Galnet feed in a players ship.
  • Mission parameters would include information about the salvage event, mode, system coordinates, reward information etc..


Random Encounter:


  • These encounters will be found in both USS (Unidentified Signal Source) and SSS (Strong Signal Source) instances until if/when a new method is developed by FD.
  • Encounters will spawn one of the four salvage modes randomly upon zoning into the instance.

Mission Modes:

  • Mystery Mode will engage the player and challenge them in order to solve the mystery that caused the ships and or station/outposts destruction. Upon accepting a mystery salvage mission the player will be given a short storyline about the event, and some potential clues to start the investigation. Arriving at the salvage site, and after scanning the area specific debris will be uncovered and once scooped up more information, clues will be revealed and Mission parameters will be updated. This mode may lead to several system jumps, and or travel to certain stations/outposts for more clues. This mode will require a max cargo of up to 10 tons.
  • Standard Mode will involve a typical salvage effort in order to attempt retrieval of all salvageable items. This mode will require up to a max of 100 tons.
  • Heavy Mode This mode operates the same as standard but has a max cargo of up to 600 tons, may require the assistance of a wing mate.
  • Emergency Mode This mode is a timed mode upon accepting the mission players will be given a set amount of time to retrieve as much salvage as possible. This mode will have a bonus if all salvage is collected before time expires. Salvage amounts will be randomly determined upon zoning into the instance. If time expires you will still be rewarded for your effort although at a significantly lower credit amount. Factions may tend to favor this mission when assigning a mission.
The Mechanics:

  • The Salvage Scanner module will be needed in order to scan the debris once a player zones into the salvage instance.
  • The Salvage Scanner utilizes a utility slot and is used the same as a basic discovery scanner, and has a total range of 100km. After a debris area is scanned the salvageable items can then be targeted and scooped via cargo drones or standard cargo scooping.
  • Mission based salvage is taken back to the station/outpost that gave the mission, Random Encounter salvage can be sold at any station/outpost that has a commodities market.
  • Once a salvage instance is left it is considered depleted and will disappear.

Salvaged Items:

  • Salvageable items can include but not limited to sell-able scrap metal, random cargo, trinkets, exotic goods, illegal items, damaged non-repairable power plants, and modules/weapons etc.. Ship components will take up a significantly larger amount of cargo space for example, a damaged power plant will consume 5 tons of cargo space due to its size.
Salvaged Loot: (Who doesn't like loot?)

  • There will be a very small % that when the debris is scanned that a rare module, thruster, power plant, and or weapon may be found. These items are damaged but repairable and offer very unique versions. Cost to repair will be significant. Example,

Damaged Rapid Fire Pulse Laser B6
( An exotic weapon used in the early stages of space exploration. This laser fires a rapid intermittent pulse which has a
10% chance to disrupt the electronics of the enemy ship causing temporary loss of thruster control.)

Cost to repair 52,500 CR


  • After repairing the item all additional stats will be revealed such as mass, power requirements etc..
  • Rare salvaged items chance applies to all salvage modes and is randomly generated when the debris is scanned this % will be very low.
The Real Black Box:

  • In the event an explorer's ship has been destroyed they will have the option (selected at the insurance revive screen) to go back and retrieve their flight data recorder then return to dock and sell whatever data they complied.
  • If this option is chosen a player cannot scan systems for new data until the data recorder is recovered.

Ship Boarding: TBD

  • Eventually leaving your ship and boarding another one will be released and this will provide some extra awesome creepiness when exploring a derelict ship/station. And will greatly enhance the mystery mode!!!:eek:


Discuss any additional ideas you all have or flaws that you may see!

Thanks,

Fury out
 
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NickTheGrey

N
I think there are some cracking ideas there - certainly things I would love to see in the game at some point. Salvage and solving mysteries sound awesome!
 

who?

who?
Would love to be able to find destroyed explorers, and salvage their data. That would of course require some kind of persistence of wreckage after destruction.

It would also be useful to recover your own data if you're destroyed.. racing out to collect your data before anyone else does, or else pay someone to do it for you? I'd love to be a salvage specialist.
 

Nemes

N
Goof idea all round.

I've often wondered why we couldnt come across some derelicted remains of huge space battles and go in scanning for salvagable remains.
Makes totally sense to me...

Nemes
 

Arjin

Arjin
Liqua said:
Very similar to FD's orginal ideas :)

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=10523
Click to expand...

Ahh cool didn't even see that one lol thanks.

Whiterose said:
It would be nice to come across a derelict while exploring in deep space.
Click to expand...

Yes it would indeed! I always have that in the back of my mind, jumping into a system and finding a unknown derelict is just awesome.

Ben Ryder said:
As soon as smuggling is sorted out, I'd love to see salvage next... and then you can bring on the aliens.
Click to expand...

Yea I agree Ben, since smuggling is already in game, and it does need much lovin's!

shadragon said:
Or derelict stations. Might make good "off the radar" pirate bases.
Click to expand...

Yea man imagine setting up a pirate base! or even watching NPC's pirates setup and build out a base. Excellent immersion there!
 

Valok

Valok
I made a topic not long ago about this, guess I'll just repost it.
“Perhaps the oddest thing was that, for the most part, she appeared to be in fine shape – almost eerily so. The ‘Dei Gratia’ crew found no serious weather damage, no trace of a struggle, or any other sign of trouble that would have made veteran sailors abandon ship in the middle of the ocean. Stranger still, the crew had left behind foul-weather gear, personal belongings, even their pipes – things they almost certainly would have taken, or would have been wearing during a storm.

There were other things that seemed more than a little peculiar: The form of a sleeping child was imprinted in the wet mattress of one bunk, a few barrels of alcohol had broken open or leaked in the hold, and there was a decorative sword in the captain’s cabin, its blade peppered with a reddish stain. The last entry in the Mary Celeste’s logbook was an innocuous notation made ten days earlier that suggested nothing but a routine passage – and placed the ship more than 300 miles west of its current position. The men of the Dei Gratia could not imagine how the ship had traveled so far sailing under so little canvas, nor could they explain where its crew had gone or, just as confounding why. The brigantine’s captain and crew had simply vanished into the cold salt air.”
Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew
By Brian Hick​



I’m not exactly the most brave guy when it comes to horror. I usually just skip the scary parts of movies with it and I simply don’t play horror games alone. Truth be told I just don’t like the hole “jump scare” thing (they are cheap) and I find most horror themes “forced” in one way or another. Because of all that, generally speaking I simply avoid it. For some reason though, the mere sight of an abandoned entity drifting along unopposed in silence, resting in complete loneliness, drains the heat out of my blood in ways that other horror themes don’t manage to do it. And yet - in contrast with what I've said at the start - I still want to see more of it, and I still want to explore it and understand it. All in all I’m sure this particular combination of mystery, “horror” and possible rewards is not considered interesting just by me.


​*shivers*

​
I’m also not a hardcore space flight sim player, however I did played almost everything that is available on the market and so far, I have not managed to see a single game make a proper in-depth use of this amazing opportunity. The opportunity to blend the exploration of the unknown with possible interesting rewards, and maybe, just maybe, add along a small pinch of “mystery/horror” over it (space after all, is disease & danger), and all that without sacrificing "scale" (available space) to make it happen.


​Not a terrible movie if you are into this sort of thing.

EvE online recently did manage to score some points in this area. From the get go you can basically fit a small fast ship and head towards the edges of the galaxy, or if you are interested enter and stay inside wormholes exploring unknown space. Inside those places you will be looking for special sites (abandoned ships, structures, etc) using scans/probes and later on hacking said structures, via a small mini-game, to get the loot (most of the times you get "normal" items, there are some other times though that you hit the motherload and just like that you are able to afford a Dreadnought – if you manage to head back home alive to sell it). And all this will be done while trying to avoid pirates, high conflict zones between player corporations fighting over sectors, traps (bubles and gate camps) laid out over the systems and NPCs of course. The more dangerous the zone you are is, the better the rewards will (most likely) be.

Still, there’s not much depth or “soul” to it. Almost all said structures look exactly the same and there’s just no “story” behind it. Also the special sites while not bad looking end up feeling.. bland because of all this. It sometimes ends up feeling that exploration there is pretty much just all about the money, or maybe I just don’t like the graphics colors and/or the 360º Third-person-unlimited-zoom camera for exploration/immersion purposes.


What lies beyond?

Elite: Dangerous is offering 400 Billion stars systems.. Jezz that’s a lot of space, and we are be able to reach the corners of the galaxy by just traveling through it with no “loading screens” - just you, the cockpit and the stars. The potencial to finally do this right is here, there’s just no denial. With a number like that though it's obvious that abandoned sectors will exist but still, it would be amazing if we could fill some of that space with something else aside from the ordinary (i.e planet visuals). Unfortunately so far that’s not the impression I got.

I did read the DDA about exploration and my view about it is that their vision is just too limited at this point (especially when considering what their game offers in terms of “places to go” and how we will be able to go towards said places).

“In Elite: Dangerous explorers are players who travel out into undiscovered areas of the galaxy, hoping to find previously undiscovered systems and locations. Explorers scan and record data wherever they go, and can sell that data on to various interested authorities. Explorers can also sell on data they have discovered to other players, allowing them to sell the co-ordinates of a valuable find to the highest bidder, or keep their discoveries to exploit for themselves.” http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6418

Why limit to just that? Why not allow us to discover some weird derelicts/anomalies and maybe get/steal/salvage/hack/cut/blow up some materials from it? We could maybe use our computer to steal valuable information that’s available inside said structures.

There could also be some new modules that would allow us to “hack” the structure cargo hold (same way as in EvE) or maybe we could use drones/special lazors to chew through sectors of said derelicts in order to hopefully get something interesting out it (it would also be a good idea to avoid the “fuel tank” while doing this – there could be a special scanner in the future that would give us some insight on the ship/station/whatever structure composition, allowing us to avoid critical zones and go after the most valuable ones. And other times it would not be able to get any info whatsoever. Example; you find a very old ship model that has not been seen in decades/centuries and your computer has no data on it, or maybe an alien ship).

Maybe we could also assume direct control of certain abandoned structures by accessing the mainframe, or sell to an interested person the location to do so. This could be one of the ways to populate zones that were considered at first completely abandoned (or perhaps we could just rig it to explode next time someone tries to access it, te hee). Adding some of this would certain give the game the option to start increasing its overall content by putting some logistics into play, making it desirable and certainly more profitable to start doing exploration operations with a group of players, with one supporting each other in case their ship does not carry all the necessary equipment to work with what was found (Or if they want 3 Anacondas to escort them back to safe space because they just found an alien relic with probably an amazing selling potencial).

While on the subject, it would be a really nice addition if we could have a bigger interactivity with our ship systems as we are exploring/scanning by allowing us to mess around with our cockpit more while doing said actions (DCS anyone?). Small example; let’s say you choose to go with the hacking route - make it so that when the hacking starts a keyboard pops up on the ship and we have to type IRL special “codes” on the screen (So far I’ve been just throwing ideas here, no balance/real thought taken too much into account here. Leave your personal ideas bellow if you are interested.) Also while scanning stuff, some displays on the screen with general info about the system/planet/ship/station/ possible composition/minerals/gases available/heat signatures/radio chatter/general stuff like that, would certainly go long ways to help the immersion and it would definitely reduce the "boredom" while exploring by allowing us to be more involved with the game and the ship itself.


It’s over 9000.

But most important; as we are doing all this, why not have in some cases a weird audiolog pop-up while we scan and access the computer of a derelict ship? Maybe some notes giving some insight on why this abandoned station has no one alive on it? Or just some “strange” sounds while we scan a weird anomaly/structure that just popped up on the radar? Flashes on the horizon? Distress signals with high interference? Weapon sounds coming through an anomaly you just scanned? Light signals? Morse code?! What I’m asking here if for you Devs to tease us more with some questions about things we may see/hear in our travels. Give us something else to seek on the galaxy aside from money and status.




“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand”. - Neil Armstrong​

TL.DR
ED has an amazing potencial when it comes to Exploration and it definitely should be expanded (much) more.
 
Last edited:

Arjin

Arjin
Valok said:
I made a topic not long ago about this, guess I'll just repost it.
“Perhaps the oddest thing was that, for the most part, she appeared to be in fine shape – almost eerily so. The ‘Dei Gratia’ crew found no serious weather damage, no trace of a struggle, or any other sign of trouble that would have made veteran sailors abandon ship in the middle of the ocean. Stranger still, the crew had left behind foul-weather gear, personal belongings, even their pipes – things they almost certainly would have taken, or would have been wearing during a storm.

There were other things that seemed more than a little peculiar: The form of a sleeping child was imprinted in the wet mattress of one bunk, a few barrels of alcohol had broken open or leaked in the hold, and there was a decorative sword in the captain’s cabin, its blade peppered with a reddish stain. The last entry in the Mary Celeste’s logbook was an innocuous notation made ten days earlier that suggested nothing but a routine passage – and placed the ship more than 300 miles west of its current position. The men of the Dei Gratia could not imagine how the ship had traveled so far sailing under so little canvas, nor could they explain where its crew had gone or, just as confounding why. The brigantine’s captain and crew had simply vanished into the cold salt air.”
Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew
By Brian Hick​



I’m not exactly the most brave guy when it comes to horror. I usually just skip the scary parts of movies with it and I simply don’t play horror games alone. Truth be told I just don’t like the hole “jump scare” thing (they are cheap) and I find most horror themes “forced” in one way or another. Because of all that, generally speaking I simply avoid it. For some reason though, the mere sight of an abandoned entity drifting along unopposed in silence, resting in complete loneliness, drains the heat out of my blood in ways that other horror themes don’t manage to do it. And yet - in contrast with what I've said at the start - I still want to see more of it, and I still want to explore it and understand it. All in all I’m sure this particular combination of mystery, “horror” and possible rewards is not considered interesting just by me.
I’m also not a hardcore space flight sim player, however I did played almost everything that is available on the market and so far, I have not managed to see a single game make a proper in-depth use of this amazing opportunity. The opportunity to blend the exploration of the unknown with possible interesting rewards, and maybe, just maybe, add along a small pinch of “mystery/horror” over it (space after all, is disease & danger), and all that without sacrificing "scale" (available space) to make it happen.

http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i388/ccespedes33/transferir_zpsef8c206a.jpg
​Not a terrible movie if you are into this sort of thing.

EvE online recently did manage to score some points in this area. From the get go you can basically fit a small fast ship and head towards the edges of the galaxy, or if you are interested enter and stay inside wormholes exploring unknown space. Inside those places you will be looking for special sites (abandoned ships, structures, etc) using scans/probes and later on hacking said structures, via a small mini-game, to get the loot (most of the times you get "normal" items, there are some other times though that you hit the motherload and just like that you are able to afford a Dreadnought – if you manage to head back home alive to sell it). And all this will be done while trying to avoid pirates, high conflict zones between player corporations fighting over sectors, traps (bubles and gate camps) laid out over the systems and NPCs of course. The more dangerous the zone you are is, the better the rewards will (most likely) be.

Still, there’s not much depth or “soul” to it. Almost all said structures look exactly the same and there’s just no “story” behind it. Also the special sites while not bad looking end up feeling.. bland because of all this. It sometimes ends up feeling that exploration there is pretty much just all about the money, or maybe I just don’t like the graphics colors and/or the 360º Third-person-unlimited-zoom camera for exploration/immersion purposes.


Elite: Dangerous is offering 400 Billion stars systems.. Jezz that’s a lot of space, and we are be able to reach the corners of the galaxy by just traveling through it with no “loading screens” - just you, the cockpit and the stars. The potencial to finally do this right is here, there’s just no denial. With a number like that though it's obvious that abandoned sectors will exist but still, it would be amazing if we could fill some of that space with something else aside from the ordinary (i.e planet visuals). Unfortunately so far that’s not the impression I got.

I did read the DDA about exploration and my view about it is that their vision is just too limited at this point (especially when considering what their game offers in terms of “places to go” and how we will be able to go towards said places).

“In Elite: Dangerous explorers are players who travel out into undiscovered areas of the galaxy, hoping to find previously undiscovered systems and locations. Explorers scan and record data wherever they go, and can sell that data on to various interested authorities. Explorers can also sell on data they have discovered to other players, allowing them to sell the co-ordinates of a valuable find to the highest bidder, or keep their discoveries to exploit for themselves.” http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6418

Why limit to just that? Why not allow us to discover some weird derelicts/anomalies and maybe get/steal/salvage/hack/cut/blow up some materials from it? We could maybe use our computer to steal valuable information that’s available inside said structures.

There could also be some new modules that would allow us to “hack” the structure cargo hold (same way as in EvE) or maybe we could use drones/special lazors to chew through sectors of said derelicts in order to hopefully get something interesting out it (it would also be a good idea to avoid the “fuel tank” while doing this – there could be a special scanner in the future that would give us some insight on the ship/station/whatever structure composition, allowing us to avoid critical zones and go after the most valuable ones. And other times it would not be able to get any info whatsoever. Example; you find a very old ship model that has not been seen in decades/centuries and your computer has no data on it, or maybe an alien ship).

Maybe we could also assume direct control of certain abandoned structures by accessing the mainframe, or sell to an interested person the location to do so. This could be one of the ways to populate zones that were considered at first completely abandoned (or perhaps we could just rig it to explode next time someone tries to access it, te hee). Adding some of this would certain give the game the option to start increasing its overall content by putting some logistics into play, making it desirable and certainly more profitable to start doing exploration operations with a group of players, with one supporting each other in case their ship does not carry all the necessary equipment to work with what was found (Or if they want 3 Anacondas to escort them back to safe space because they just found an alien relic with probably an amazing selling potencial).

While on the subject, it would be a really nice addition if we could have a bigger interactivity with our ship systems as we are exploring/scanning by allowing us to mess around with our cockpit more while doing said actions (DCS anyone?). Small example; let’s say you choose to go with the hacking route - make it so that when the hacking starts a keyboard pops up on the ship and we have to type IRL special “codes” on the screen (So far I’ve been just throwing ideas here, no balance/real thought taken too much into account here. Leave your personal ideas bellow if you are interested.) Also while scanning stuff, some displays on the screen with general info about the system/planet/ship/station/ possible composition/minerals/gases available/heat signatures/radio chatter/general stuff like that, would certainly go long ways to help the immersion and it would definitely reduce the "boredom" while exploring by allowing us to be more involved with the game and the ship itself.


But most important; as we are doing all this, why not have in some cases a weird audiolog pop-up while we scan and access the computer of a derelict ship? Maybe some notes giving some insight on why this abandoned station has no one alive on it? Or just some “strange” sounds while we scan a weird anomaly/structure that just popped up on the radar? Flashes on the horizon? Distress signals with high interference? Weapon sounds coming through an anomaly you just scanned? Light signals? Morse code?! What I’m asking here if for you Devs to tease us more with some questions about things we may see/hear in our travels. Give us something else to seek on the galaxy aside from money and status.




“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand”. - Neil Armstrong​

TL.DR
ED has an amazing potencial when it comes to Exploration and it definitely should be expanded (much) more.
Click to expand...

Very Nice!! Well done! yea the potential of this game is amazing and I do see a lot of these types of things becoming a reality for the game eventually it's just me want now.. :)
 

shadragon

shadragon
Ben Ryder said:
I think in the original you could scoop up debirs as Alloys
Click to expand...

Just add salvage droids and a refinery to turn encountered debris into standard metals and scrap. Treat it just like mining.

I do think 1.4 should fluff up the galaxy a bit and throw in some new graphic improvements like station interiors and the like. That stellar hydrogen mining plant in orbit around a star sounded epic.
 

Arjin

Arjin
shadragon said:
Just add salvage droids and a refinery to turn encountered debris into standard metals and scrap. Treat it just like mining.

I do think 1.4 should fluff up the galaxy a bit and throw in some new graphic improvements like station interiors and the like. That stellar hydrogen mining plant in orbit around a star sounded epic.
Click to expand...

Imagine salvaging this,

alien_derelict.jpg


Or coming across this...

derlict_ship.JPG
 
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Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
"What is that thing" he muttered.... The screen showed the salvage limpet had identified a large round steel globe, and was dissecting it from the scrap wreckage with its plasma arc.
"Huh. Nice stainless steel. Good salvage," as he turned away and reached for his coffee cup, something caught his eye and he hit the 'zoom' button on the cargo hatch monitor.
"Anti.. whatsit er... magnetic containment" ??
The coffee cup floated across the room, ignored, over the sound of panicked fists slamming into the control buttom panel.
Then everything went light.


Alternate version:

"WOW! That thing looks completely intact!!! When we bring it in, we're all gonna be LOADED! I wonder what she's carrying!"

ALIENS_Sulaco_Model_Digi_Paint_by_omegadragon3000.jpg
(digital painting by 'omegadragon' on deviantart)
 
Last edited:

Arjin

Arjin
Surly_Badger said:
"What is that thing" he muttered.... The screen showed the salvage limpet had identified a large round steel globe, and was dissecting it from the scrap wreckage with its plasma arc.
"Huh. Nice stainless steel. Good salvage," as he turned away and reached for his coffee cup, something caught his eye and he hit the 'zoom' button on the cargo hatch monitor.
"Anti.. whatsit er... magnetic containment" ??
The coffee cup floated across the room, ignored, over the sound of panicked fists slamming into the control buttom panel.
Then everything went light.


Alternate version:

"WOW! That thing looks completely intact!!! When we bring it in, we're all gonna be LOADED! I wonder what she's carrying!"

View attachment 46668
(digital painting by 'omegadragon' on deviantart)
Click to expand...


Yes precisely! lol we need a little sci-fi added in, And who said Badger doesn't have an imagination... ;)
 
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