Do you think we will ever get a really long range exploration ship?

[Star-Hunter]

I was thinking about a new Carrier Vessel Type Capital Ship (maybe alliance as it has none yet), A capital ship that is not combat oriented, but which allows you to dock on it, and then jumps to a distant star cluster, either for exporation or colonisation. Might come when the Alliance Colonisation initiative kicks off.

as capital ships have a huge jump range. Colony supply runs should be based on large government supervised ships, not some independent pilots jumping around systems for weeks. Also, roaming systems in capital ships for exploration is not practical when you can bring with you a squad of eager independent explorers to sweep the cluster.

The mechanic is already implemented with Jaques Station. all it needs is a Good Time Table For the jumps and the ship.
BTW, the ship could function like an outpost, with a bunch of landing pads outside situated on the Ventral and Dorsal sides of the hull. Primarily small + a few medium ones.

The more i think about it, this is the best mechanic i can think of in terms of usefulness, lore, balance and common sense.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I rather have them implement the "dark systems" they've talked about before. Rouge planets or other objects between star systems in more or less complete darkness. Systems that could only be found and jumped to by using special scanners. These could then potentially be used as "bridges" in cases described in the OP. They could also be discovered even inside populated space to expand on the exploration role. Maybe these can be very hard to find but still have the possibility to contain really rare resources close to populated world.

Whatever happened to those dark systems? I was thinking about them the other day, wondering if I will every actually get to see one...

Do you remember roughly when dark systems were actually last mentioned by Frontier?

 

[Ydiss]

I rather have them implement the "dark systems" they've talked about before. Rouge planets or other objects between star systems in more or less complete darkness. Systems that could only be found and jumped to by using special scanners. These could then potentially be used as "bridges" in cases described in the OP. They could also be discovered even inside populated space to expand on the exploration role. Maybe these can be very hard to find but still have the possibility to contain really rare resources close to populated world.

I like this idea the most.

 

[shadragon]

I would imagine a rares run would not be worth it, or be uneconomical, at that level of tech.

Which would not be an exploration ship then, would it. No true exploration ship even needs a cargo bay.

Once you have rares on board, you'll have people screaming for hard points and additional defenses, then armour upgrades.

Just say no.

 

[CdrTwisted]

After deciding to start my extremely overdue exploration mission I reached the edge of the galaxy a couple of days ago and began claiming a whole load of systems for myself when I noticed something

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After being stuck in a region for a few hours I got to a point where there was no way on, yet there were more stars hundreds of light years away
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An example, the max jump on an Anaconda can be around 41ly, but after looking around I found a gap of around 100ly and then a cluster of stars, with no possible route to them from any angle ( I estimate around 50+ stars in the cluster) I got as close as I could but there is a huge gap from all sides except from outside the galaxy
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Even more interesting is that beyond that there are some lonely stars hundreds of Ly outside the galaxy all on their own, I even spotted 1 neutron star 200ly away with no stars anywhere near it
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So will we ever get a ship that can get there? I hope so, but will a ship with like 100ly jump range be overpowered?
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Not if it's done right, I really want a long range ship like this and I hope it's something FD have thought about

What you need is a General Products No. 4 hull.

 

[Arindor]

That's exactly what it is today, only it takes 4 times as long. Time sink does not equal difficult.

Perhaps not, but the type of system you hit is a factor worth taking into account.

 

[CMDR RAY-ZOR'SHARP]

Another way would be to have a linked multi jump, A 100 ly jump would be split into 4x25 ly jumps once started cannot be stopped like a normal hyper jump, very risky not knowing whats at the other end, (no scoopable stars), but with the new add an extra fuel tank on its way could work quite well.

 

[EAGLE 5]

I think if this will happen look to the Alliance for it.

Why not? in FFE they built the Quest with its insane jump range.

 

[theinternot]

Think a few people miss the scale of the galaxy. Where I am the now it is like grains of sand as far as the eye can see.

If everybody in game were exploring with 100ly range ships, they still wouldn't put a dent in it.
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As for cherry picking, you still have to stop and search. I have scanned a ridiculous amount of stars so far on my trip and have about 8 black holes.
Long range is good to get out to a target area and then you are still going to be down to small jumps over many, many weeks.
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Just makes the 20,000, or 30,000 ly trip home a little bit quicker. Instead of 3 weeks it may be 2 week trip home.

I completely agree. I am currently in the Froarks nebula and it has taken me almost a month of casual 1-2 hour a night play to get there. The journey home is going to be a struggle.