Exploration - Can we please have something to discover ?

[jcrg99]

And you think in real life we are the only intelligent life in the galaxy? Highly unlikely. I bet it is out there, just really really rare.

It's probably rare considering the size of the universe and the difficulties to travel between distances, which probably would be the case for any kind of intelligent life.

But in terms of quantities, probably all these different alien species who both, existed and were extincted and/or exist today, can fill a couple of trillions stadiums.
But that still is "rare" considering the size of the space.

Old civilizations were already found in other planets, for sure, in the ED Universe... or it's just me who found those "Alien Artifacts" cannisters?

The cool thing with this game is that in any other game we see a "lore" stating... "a guy found that alien race in the past"...

And on Elite: Dangerous, if it's not there yet, I am sure that they will manage a way to make real players to find them first.

That will be a pretty special and unique moment that I doubt that other game will be able to match.

Hopefully, the 'lucky' guy keep his shields up.

 

[NeoMorph WTH]

Has anyone found any Trumbles yet? Surely they are in there!!!

Imagine someone finds the Trumbles and they sell them at one of the core stations.... How to take down an empire (or federation) without firing a shot lol.

 

[SvennoJ]

Oops, wrong thread

 

[Varrag]

I agree, and it doesn't even have to be anything too fancy, for starters. Quark star. Dark star. Rogue planet. Life forms based on something other than carbon-water/ammonia. Unknown ruins on some barren, long dead planet. Stuff like that.

 

[Sentience]

Elite, the final Frontier
These are the voyages of the starship nameless.
Its continuing grind is to
Explore pretty colored balls in space with random, sometimes nonsensical properties attached
Seek out "Water based life" tags
And new systems or regions with "Permit required"
To boldly go where someone may have gone before, but you don't know until you get there

Post of the day.
I couldn't help but read that in the style of William Shatner.

 

[Ghostwind40]

I'd love to see a more dynamic galaxy. Systems where the star just went super nova. Systems where a planet just got rocked by a massive asteroid and half it is missing, and it's debris needs to be avoided or you get pulled out of super cruise and take damage. Systems with dangerous radioactive clouds. Systems with unstable wormholes that don't last, take your chances and use one to jump several systems away to unknown parts of the galaxy or play it safe and avoid? Systems with strange, unique radio chatter you pick up upon entering and try to discover the source of (maybe that small dark planet on the fringe?). Systems with a planets or moons still forming and hence are amorphous and molten or pure plasma. All these things would simply be flavor, but does make exploring more exciting.

Right now everything is too stable, static and similar. I know that probably mirrors reality, but it's a bit boring too.

 

[Blackfoxx]

You are out in the deepest reaches of our solar system, and the usual confirmation response you get from your ships computer is disrupted by static, and replaced by a very feint yet clearly external signal emanating from out there somewhere direction and distance unknown. Every 3 seconds, you hear this pulse, and only once you turn your ship to new aspects, do you find you can make the signal clearer.. flying towards the signal and with minor course corrections the signal becomes purer, and then louder.. and louder until the all too recognisable blip on the radar flashing due to no physical lock appears.. THERE IS SOMETHING THERE!!
Heading further in, the signal still not locking, so you carry on, you must be right on top of this thing by now surely.. the sound of the beacon is very loud now... then you spot in the distance, next to a small planet , a ship.. twice as big as your own ship but all dark except for one side which is glowing as it is skimming the outer atmosphere of the planet as it appears caught in a limbo between space and the planets low gravity. The ship seems marooned.
You reach the ship now you see its name down one side.. the Columbus? You remember a galnet news article about this missing ship and its crew from some three to four years ago, it was never found... and yet this area of space, seems to be nowhere near its last reported location either.. this ship is well off course, and worse yet, after scans of the ship.. there seems to be no life signs on board either. The Columbus had a crew of six according to its original roster highlighted on Galnet news.
You attempt to hook into the Columbus computer and find that it had set the distress signal as a last hope of reaching another ship or planet. You were about to look further when the signal is cut due to what seems like the fading last power from the columbus’s power plant.
So you send out drones.. some to repair systems, and some to help refuel the Columbus... this ship appears to have seen some battles during its voyages, but of biggest concern right now, is where are the original crew, why is this ship so far out from its original planned destination sector of space?
Power gets restored, Life Support maintained and other key systems are brought back online. It would appear from the Columbus computer that the ship had been adrift for days following ship wide malfunctions caused by lack of suitable components to repair damage after some skirmishes with pirates.. the crew had gone down to a planet which is some 4 light years away, and due to the Columbus entering a state of drift, they were unable to return. The crew most likely is down on the planet that the Columbus drifted from... you obtain the coordinates.. the crew will most likely be there.. but unknown if still alive as it has been quite a long time since they launched from the Columbus. They went to discover what looked like a city in a crater on the planet, ...

Can you.. find them? What will you find?

 

[mossfoot]

In a universe that is vast -and shared- that would be incredibly unlikely. Lost alien civilizations would be vastly less common than earth-like planets, which would mean that the first CMDR to find one would be the only CMDR to find one, in dozens of real-years. Everyone else would be whingeing because they wouldn't find "their" alien species.

Actually having a universe full of space-junk and artifacts would be incredibly unrealistic.

That said, I think that artifacts near/in human space would be pretty cool. They couldn't be super important or valuable, though (after all, we pretty much know where every space artifact launched by humanity is, so far, and it seems unlikely that we'd suddenly start losing big ones like colony ships, etc) Small, still interesting, artifacts would be fun.

Let them whinge. "They" whinge about everything anyway.

The idea of possibly coming across the ruins of an ancient space station belonging to a long dead race would get people flocking to the stars, and once one was found, those who were frustrated by not finding "theirs" could always go to one of the discovered ones.

Heck, the Devs should come up with a few "dead" races to seed the worlds with as well, each with certain distinct traits - then with the procedural generation you could have ruins of cities as well scattered about. They wouldn't even have to invent or explain their backstories, chances are the community would do that based on whatever they find wherever they find it.

And if they REALLY want to give everyone the chance to find one, the answer is simple - make it into a deep space exploration mission you get at a starport. Hell, that's something we need anyway! If the species died out 5000 years ago, there could be transmissions being picked up from 5000LY away that Stellar Cartography wants to check out. What do you find there? Maybe not much, maybe some artifacts and a ship wreck. Maybe a station with lots to see. Maybe a world as well that you can't yet land on, but someday... someday...

 

[Runnybabbit]

Just when you think you're going to be the great discoverer...



Sign, seen, at the end of the Universe...