Dropping in on distress signals is a nice little bit of flavour in between bigger tasks, however, the current mechanic of them means you often drop in on an activity that it turns out you cannot participate in just because you don't have the right limpet controller, and the countdown timer (and reward) is not usually worth dashing to a station to swap out modules and return to help. So this is just needlessly denying users opportunities for a nice easy gameplay loop to keep them engaged. Here are my suggestions in rising levels of developer effort for improvement:
- simple quick fix is just make all refuelling distress calls show as Threat 0 - and all repair distress calls show as Threat 1 -- makes sense from a lore pov, as damaged ships could be a result of nearby pirates, or danger that the ship could spontaneously blow up. This would let players know that they can drop in on the distress call they have the right limpets to help with.
- slightly more involved fix would be to re-label distress calls as "Fuel Distress Signal" and "Repair Distress Signal" to make it even more obvious
- gold plated fix (which would also fix similar gameplay loop lost opportunities) is to make a synthesis-reprogrammable Limpet Controller to enable users to participate in many other gameplay loops that would otherwise be wasted. There are too many separate limpet types that just serve to lock players out of enjoying the game. This solution would fix that and add more compelling reasons for synthesis material collection and using material traders, etc.
