There was an interesting post by @Ian Doncaster in the Distant Worlds 3 expedition is postponed indefinitely thread, and I would like to touch on the subject: however, I'm banned from posting in that thread, and the subject would be off-topic anyway, so I'll do a new thread on it here. The subject: the new exobiology content in Odyssey, its problems and some simple ways it could be made better.
A small disclaimer: I'm not one of those who says that the expansion had nothing for exploration. Plenty to be done there, although many might not choose to engage with it anyway. There were some missed opportunities, and that's what I'd like to talk about.
First off, the rewards. A quick refresher to those who aren't familiar with them: you get paid out a set amount of credits that varies by the species you scanned (for example, Clypeus Lacrimam, Clypeus being the genus, not the species), and if you were the first to bring back the sample from that specific body, you get paid double. Which region you sampled in doesn't matter, nor where you sold the samples.
How many credits are we talking about? Well, it appears that the best case scenario, rocky worlds with water atmospheres, would net you around 2-3 million Cr if you scan only the high earners there, so 4-6 million if you were the first. It takes over half an hour to go through all of these. In short, even in the best case, you make less credits than you'd make with "vanilla" exploration.
Moving on, you also gain progress in the new Exobiology rank. The rewards for that are some unlockable cosmetics for the Artemis suit, and the Founder's permit that's included with every Elite rank.
You also gain a Codex tag if you were the first to scan that particular colour in a region, but the Codex is now littered with hundreds of tags in each region, so it might be a challenge to even find what you tagged there.
So here's the first problem: that's all of it, the rewards are meager. There are AFAIK no (noticeable) BGS effects to selling data, no interaction with any other systems. Not even material drops for Engineering, neither for the new Odyssey system nor the old. You get a meager amount of credits, a new title, some new suit pieces, and another way of getting the Founder's permit. (Although I believe that you could easily hit Elite in exploration on your way well before you'd hit Elite in exobio.)
Also, the second problem is that there's next to nothing that encourages travelling to distant regions and exploring for new life there. The rewards are same, no matter where you go. Perhaps some regions will have undiscovered species we haven't found yet that are worth more credits, but they'd have to be worth far more to make the effort to go there worth it. (Why spend hours going somewhere when you could spend hours farming stuff close by?) Given the payout differences and the bonuses, the best way to powerlevel your exobio rank and get some credits will be to go through specific planets around the bubble: soon enough, I believe we'll see something like a Road to Riches - Exobiology Edition. Even if you don't get the double bonus from being the first to log the sample from the body, going through valuable planets without having to look for them will see you progress much faster than finding your own unexplored worlds would.
So, my first suggestion would be for Frontier to add new life to distant regions that pays more. Well, it would be good if they adjusted existing payouts already, but I don't know if that's something they would do. As things are now though, there's next to nothing to encourage going far from the Inner Orion Spur (or Colonia's region, the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm). The only thing would be getting your own Codex tags, but soon enough, those will run out too - and more importantly, they don't translate to any other rewards, like rank progression or credits.
Moving on, my second suggestion would be to add some extra interaction with other systems. Whether adding Engineering material (data) drops would be good or not is a matter of debate, but it looks like Frontier have decided not to do that. However, some BGS effects could be nice. Also, we were promised squadron leaderboards for the two new ranks (Exobiology and Mercenary), we haven't gotten those either. There could even be some Community Goals, although if it's not only for first logged samples, then we go back to folks farming specific locations in / near the bubble again.
These are just interactions with existing stuff, and not adding new stuff for exobiology to interact with.
Then it would be nice to be able to sell samples on carriers. I know that it's not done because they have no Concourses to disembark too, but we can sell exploration data to them already - and besides, there is only one carrier type, so it's not like they'd need more than one concourse type. So this would just be something that could be done for the more distant future instead. (As opposed to the above, all of which shouldn't require much effort.)
Finally though, there's one common complaint for exploration gameplay: we have canisters, let us upgrade the tool to be able to hold more than one sample. You know, include some pockets for more than one canister maybe
It would be a nice QoL feature, and it would help with engaging with Engineering too. It would be a significant upgrade, which the Artemis suit is lacking in anyway. (Maybe Night Vision, except that's practically restricted to lucky purchases now, because engineering that far has severe issues.)
That's all from me for now. Thanks for reading!
A small disclaimer: I'm not one of those who says that the expansion had nothing for exploration. Plenty to be done there, although many might not choose to engage with it anyway. There were some missed opportunities, and that's what I'd like to talk about.
First off, the rewards. A quick refresher to those who aren't familiar with them: you get paid out a set amount of credits that varies by the species you scanned (for example, Clypeus Lacrimam, Clypeus being the genus, not the species), and if you were the first to bring back the sample from that specific body, you get paid double. Which region you sampled in doesn't matter, nor where you sold the samples.
How many credits are we talking about? Well, it appears that the best case scenario, rocky worlds with water atmospheres, would net you around 2-3 million Cr if you scan only the high earners there, so 4-6 million if you were the first. It takes over half an hour to go through all of these. In short, even in the best case, you make less credits than you'd make with "vanilla" exploration.
Moving on, you also gain progress in the new Exobiology rank. The rewards for that are some unlockable cosmetics for the Artemis suit, and the Founder's permit that's included with every Elite rank.
You also gain a Codex tag if you were the first to scan that particular colour in a region, but the Codex is now littered with hundreds of tags in each region, so it might be a challenge to even find what you tagged there.
So here's the first problem: that's all of it, the rewards are meager. There are AFAIK no (noticeable) BGS effects to selling data, no interaction with any other systems. Not even material drops for Engineering, neither for the new Odyssey system nor the old. You get a meager amount of credits, a new title, some new suit pieces, and another way of getting the Founder's permit. (Although I believe that you could easily hit Elite in exploration on your way well before you'd hit Elite in exobio.)
Also, the second problem is that there's next to nothing that encourages travelling to distant regions and exploring for new life there. The rewards are same, no matter where you go. Perhaps some regions will have undiscovered species we haven't found yet that are worth more credits, but they'd have to be worth far more to make the effort to go there worth it. (Why spend hours going somewhere when you could spend hours farming stuff close by?) Given the payout differences and the bonuses, the best way to powerlevel your exobio rank and get some credits will be to go through specific planets around the bubble: soon enough, I believe we'll see something like a Road to Riches - Exobiology Edition. Even if you don't get the double bonus from being the first to log the sample from the body, going through valuable planets without having to look for them will see you progress much faster than finding your own unexplored worlds would.
So, my first suggestion would be for Frontier to add new life to distant regions that pays more. Well, it would be good if they adjusted existing payouts already, but I don't know if that's something they would do. As things are now though, there's next to nothing to encourage going far from the Inner Orion Spur (or Colonia's region, the Inner Scutum-Centaurus Arm). The only thing would be getting your own Codex tags, but soon enough, those will run out too - and more importantly, they don't translate to any other rewards, like rank progression or credits.
Moving on, my second suggestion would be to add some extra interaction with other systems. Whether adding Engineering material (data) drops would be good or not is a matter of debate, but it looks like Frontier have decided not to do that. However, some BGS effects could be nice. Also, we were promised squadron leaderboards for the two new ranks (Exobiology and Mercenary), we haven't gotten those either. There could even be some Community Goals, although if it's not only for first logged samples, then we go back to folks farming specific locations in / near the bubble again.
These are just interactions with existing stuff, and not adding new stuff for exobiology to interact with.
Then it would be nice to be able to sell samples on carriers. I know that it's not done because they have no Concourses to disembark too, but we can sell exploration data to them already - and besides, there is only one carrier type, so it's not like they'd need more than one concourse type. So this would just be something that could be done for the more distant future instead. (As opposed to the above, all of which shouldn't require much effort.)
Finally though, there's one common complaint for exploration gameplay: we have canisters, let us upgrade the tool to be able to hold more than one sample. You know, include some pockets for more than one canister maybe
It would be a nice QoL feature, and it would help with engaging with Engineering too. It would be a significant upgrade, which the Artemis suit is lacking in anyway. (Maybe Night Vision, except that's practically restricted to lucky purchases now, because engineering that far has severe issues.)That's all from me for now. Thanks for reading!
Last edited:
