Hey all,
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I play games like ED for either crafting or exploration. I have been thrashing ED and I have some issues around exploration compared to other professions.
.
.
Problems with exploration playability:
- Time vs Reward is very poor compared to other careers paths. I can spend up to 1 hour scanning a large system with an advanced scanner (the one up from the base) and I will make around 5k. If I sit at a nav point with a viper I can make 100k in 30 min.
- A game that has a mind boggling number of stars exploration really means nothing to a person exploring. No reward in the form of naming, visit history, findings...basically the 4 billions stars have nothing except for millions of bodies which you just scan for a few bucks.
- There are some beautiful planets out there but you will literally see none up close as you will scan from a distance and basically they all look like shiny dots
.
.
Ideas to enhance the experience:
1. Create a probe launcher which a person can decide to swap out a weapon/mining laser for. These hold 30-120 probes etc.
2. Once you scan a body, any body, you can then decide to send a probe to the surface
3. To send a probe you will need to get close enough (thus seeing the planet in all of its glory) and fire off a probe with some pretty graphics
4. Depending on the quality of the body you have a percentage of finding something decent or nothing at all. e.g. an ice planet could have a 5% chance only.
5. After 30 seconds you will receive a report which will capture information that could deliver something like:
- signs of life
- unknown structure
- causes a pirate attack as you find a base
- mineral deposit
- lost radio signal
- basically a range of results ranging from nothing to xxxxx
6. If you are lucky enough to find any of these you don't need cargo as its information only. You will then receive a mission stating that you can deliver this information to a faction to get big reward, big rep bonus, rare chance of finding a new settlement for a faction etc etc.
7. You will need to decide which body to send a probe to as you will run out of ammo in deep space.
.
.
The mechanics for exploration are fine. I actually enjoy the hunt and even though I laugh at the hours versus the money I make out of exploration (I tend to carve my real income at the nav point before landing at a platform to sell my exploration data). Its just a shame that its fallen short of actually meaning anything at all.
.
Professions for me should be something like:
- Trade (requires research, planning, has big reward but also big risk if you lose cargo)
- Bounty/Pirating (requires skill, medium reward with the risk of losing a ship)
- Exploration (requires patience and skill to find bodies but has a big luck element like a lottery with probes etc. Low risk)
.
Looking at ED the core of the game could arguably be exploration. The vastness is incredible and I think its a shame that such a core function of the game has really ended up pointing at dots and scanning them for tiny reward and useless information.
.
Loving the game and looking forward to 2015!
.
I play games like ED for either crafting or exploration. I have been thrashing ED and I have some issues around exploration compared to other professions.
.
.
Problems with exploration playability:
- Time vs Reward is very poor compared to other careers paths. I can spend up to 1 hour scanning a large system with an advanced scanner (the one up from the base) and I will make around 5k. If I sit at a nav point with a viper I can make 100k in 30 min.
- A game that has a mind boggling number of stars exploration really means nothing to a person exploring. No reward in the form of naming, visit history, findings...basically the 4 billions stars have nothing except for millions of bodies which you just scan for a few bucks.
- There are some beautiful planets out there but you will literally see none up close as you will scan from a distance and basically they all look like shiny dots
.
.
Ideas to enhance the experience:
1. Create a probe launcher which a person can decide to swap out a weapon/mining laser for. These hold 30-120 probes etc.
2. Once you scan a body, any body, you can then decide to send a probe to the surface
3. To send a probe you will need to get close enough (thus seeing the planet in all of its glory) and fire off a probe with some pretty graphics
4. Depending on the quality of the body you have a percentage of finding something decent or nothing at all. e.g. an ice planet could have a 5% chance only.
5. After 30 seconds you will receive a report which will capture information that could deliver something like:
- signs of life
- unknown structure
- causes a pirate attack as you find a base
- mineral deposit
- lost radio signal
- basically a range of results ranging from nothing to xxxxx
6. If you are lucky enough to find any of these you don't need cargo as its information only. You will then receive a mission stating that you can deliver this information to a faction to get big reward, big rep bonus, rare chance of finding a new settlement for a faction etc etc.
7. You will need to decide which body to send a probe to as you will run out of ammo in deep space.
.
.
The mechanics for exploration are fine. I actually enjoy the hunt and even though I laugh at the hours versus the money I make out of exploration (I tend to carve my real income at the nav point before landing at a platform to sell my exploration data). Its just a shame that its fallen short of actually meaning anything at all.
.
Professions for me should be something like:
- Trade (requires research, planning, has big reward but also big risk if you lose cargo)
- Bounty/Pirating (requires skill, medium reward with the risk of losing a ship)
- Exploration (requires patience and skill to find bodies but has a big luck element like a lottery with probes etc. Low risk)
.
Looking at ED the core of the game could arguably be exploration. The vastness is incredible and I think its a shame that such a core function of the game has really ended up pointing at dots and scanning them for tiny reward and useless information.
.
Loving the game and looking forward to 2015!
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