"Eldrazzi was here!" AKA Discovery Beacons.

[Eldrazzi]

I'm out now over 1000 Ly from SOL and have discovered a few terraforming candidates and some other interesting worlds. Most have really long odd names like: WREGOE ER-P B49-0 B2.

It would be very cool if after scanning a TC that no one else has previously scanned (in other words, you're the first) you get a message that says:

"Congratulations Commander! You're the first explorer to find this new world. Proceed to within 10mm of the planet to drop a Discovery Beacon and leave your mark on this system".

So you buzz down to the new planet, approach to within 10mm, select the planet from your left-hand nav window and select the new option "Deploy Discovery Beacon".

New pop up window opens where you can enter two things:

Enter a name for this new world:
Enter a message for posterity:
Click DEPLOY!

Bweeeeeeeep, Bweep, Bweep!

So now when someone rolls up on this system and they see a planet named "Drazzi's Tooth" they can be reasonably sure that someone's already been here. By approaching Drazzi's Tooth they'll find a Discovery Beacon already in low orbit.

By scanning the beacon they'll find this:

WREGOE ER-P B49-0 B2 discovered by CMDR Eldrazzi on 1/5/3015
Named: Drazzi's Tooth
MSG: Eldrazzi was here! Banged my tooth on the stick while reaching for my beer. It hurt.

 

[Don Quichot]

I think that giving the discovered / 1st scanned by "$name" in a system's options is also very nice.
Giving players a way to put there own text in the game is not a realy great idea becouse the system get's exploited by evil trolls all the time.

i don't wanna see an systembeacon with a "Discovered by Your Mother MSG: I came here fist." sign.

But some recognition if you are the 1st to reatch a far out world "where no one has gone before" would be nice

 

[Dorf Lundgren]

Giving players the chance to name planets/systems? Yeah, that wouldn't end well. I really like the idea of the discovery beacon as an in-game artefact tied to a unique player & their exploration though.
John

 

[Eldrazzi]

When the alternative is billions of pre-generated WREGOE ER-P B49-0 B2's I don't think I'd mind the odd "your mom" once a while, just to break up the monotony. However, explorers tend to have a different mindset, they're not "trolls" by nature. And though I'm sure you'd get the odd "your mom" you'd also get the odd gibberish strings that are far worse than the original planet name, like "adfjaldskfjafaljk342394028". Both would cause problems in terms of management, lore, and immersion.

There are, however, dozens of free data validation scripts for nearly any programming language that utilize a customizable library/dictionary that check for just this sort of thing. I'm sure FDev could implement something. One running on the back end that checks for profanity, un-sanctioned phrases (like "your mom", etc), and strings of gibberish would get most of it and just revert it to default strings.

The point is, the galaxy is flavorless and this would add some much needed flavor out in the fringe and beyond. At least until the Empire claims it and renames it

 

[Archvillain]

Text names that are only a couple dozen characters long (and require travel between inputting each one) don't consume much moderator time; a few users here could be given moderator privileges and handle it all at no charge.
If a submitted name fails moderation, it auto-reverts to [CMDR-name]+designation, so the player still got to leave their mark, so there is nothing to contest.
Any frustration/anger about moderation gets directed at the mods, ie these forums, leaving FD out of it.

 

[ixobelle]

Text names that are only a couple dozen characters long (and require travel between inputting each one) don't consume much moderator time; a few users here could be given moderator privileges and handle it all at no charge.

400 billion. yeah, no.

 

[Archvillain]

400 billion. yeah, no.

It's not 400 billion at all.
If a player has to reach an object to get naming rights to it, then even if they dedicate themselves to exploring, they could at best only name a few objects in a play session, and the sum total of their entire week's play would take seconds for a mod to check. (Maybe a bit longer if they're actually a troll trying to skirt boundaries and Mod is mulling on how firm to be).
Seconds of moderating per weeks of player-time can be handled by volunteers.

Especially considering that naming is an activity that can only be done by the few players at the very periphery. The vast majority of players will be spending the vast majority of their time within jumping distance of stations and trade routes and missions and other players and so on, where paths are trodden so there are no naming opportunities.

 

[Eldrazzi]

I wasn't actaully suggesting that all celestial bodies be namable. I was only suggesting that Terraforming Candidates and Earth-Like Worlds get granted naming rights, since those will be open for colonization later on in the game. That significantly reduces the administration "overhead", but like I mentioned data validation is a real thing and could be used to mitigate 99.9% of naming and msg issues.

Having just discovered my first ELW some 1300+ LY from SOL it somewhat pains me to have to leave it. That no one will ever know that I was here (and here first) is a bit disconerting. It's a long way back home and there's no guarantee I'll return with my data intact. So an "I saw it first. Eldrazzi was here." softball-sized beacon orbiting the planet for posterity doesn't seem like too much to ask. If planet landings were a thing I'd be planting my flag and carving my initials in the sandstone to that effect.

 

[maxcorwyn]

i don't wanna see an systembeacon with a "Discovered by Your Mother MSG: I came here fist." sign.

I lol'd hard.

 

[rdizz]

Ya kinda sucks you are not really discovering anything... I agree with op

 

[mercurymesh]

Ya kinda sucks you are not really discovering anything... I agree with op

It would also help to have an overview of systems you already visited/scanned, maybe similar to the "exploration data available"-view of the map (like an "I wuz tehre" color coded map overlay). I love exploration so far, but it lacks a bit of feeling what one has achieved.

 

[Eldrazzi]

It would also help to have an overview of systems you already visited/scanned, maybe similar to the "exploration data available"-view of the map (like an "I wuz tehre" color coded map overlay). I love exploration so far, but it lacks a bit of feeling what one has achieved.

I too have suggested something similar to this, "Galactic Breadcrumbs" in another thread HERE.

 

[Eldrazzi]

I'm amending my request to only include ELW's as these planets will be the only worlds available for immediate colonization. I initially liked the idea of naming TC's but terraforming could take decades and I belive the background simulation would handle this more effectively. That would also bring us well down into the "manageable" category.

EDIT: It may also be worthwhile to include a system rename based on the ELW rename so that when you're navigating in that galactic sea of WREGOE's a system like "DRAZZI'S TOOTH" sticks out.