Dear Frontier Development,
like many Commanders, I've been very excited when I heard that there will a new incarnation of Elite which I've been playing since Elite II. Like many Commanders, I can't imagine another game I would have waited 20 years to see - or better experience - a renewed version. Now I've been playing it for a couple of weeks since its official launch, though - like many Commanders - I'm a part of the recent generation bearing the responsiblity which comes when the child-,youth-, studenthood is over and the retirement seems as far away as the outer rims on the other side of the milky way. So, spending time/money etc. on ED today needs some better reasons than 20 years ago. That's why I would like to offer a couple of proposals today.
Like many Commanders, I've always been very excited by the concept of an almost unlimited and physically realistic designed universe to be experienced and explored. Wing Commander, Freespace, Homeworld, the X Series, Star Trek games and even Eve Online were never dedicated to this special sort of seriously taken fusion between the awesome status quo of our knowledge about the universe and a versatile sci fi styled space flight simulator including the "arcarde modes" we know from other games and so many great movies and TV series. But Elite has always been the best and most aspiring attempt to be it, and thats why it had so many fans and backers long before the official launch of ED. Watching, imagining and exploring a physically and astronomically somewhat "true" universe has been always a core concept of Elite. We all can see one aspects of this very special thing on Youtube: Commanders are developing and building cockpit cabines for ED today, not for Eve Online or one of the other games which are also exciting - but not so inspiring. Experiencing and exploring the awesome universe in a game, if we just can't have it RL, makes the Elite series something special and unique for so many people.
Despite of this, trying to be an explorer in the ED universe is regrettably far from being satisfying. I know this today because I've spent the usual amount of _worktime_ which is needed to buy an A-level fitted Cobra MKIII including the necessary scanners to start this kind of mission which aligns with the best and decades old traditions of Elite. Now, I'm on the way back from a first ~3000lys trip to the coalsack region and barnards loop. And I'm unsure whether spending ressources on ED is and will be really reasonable.
Of course, it has been interesting and visually satisfying to approach Barnard's loop and admire the growth of its image from my cockpit. Of course, it's been great to see the milky way covered by some "dark regions", aswell as noticing the varying presence of certain star types in different regions. I almost did arrive in a "dead end" when I realized that scoopable stars are rare in some regions. Great! Of course, it's this ascpect of the game mechanics which is making exploration exciting in ED. But it's far from being enough for me.
Proposals
One thing which really disappoints me as an explorer is the Advanced Discovery Scanner (ADS) itself, since it's the "magic wand" in ED today. My first exploration trips were so exciting, I did realize later, only because I didn't have the ADS which did reveal all the objects in a certain system at once. Before having the ADS installed, I did enjoy using the "old school exploration tactics" like watching out for (glowing) constellations and searching for fast(er) moving stars from my cockpit while cruising the system on 30-900c using my basic or intermediate discovery scanner again and again. This did really feel like an exploration. Since I've got the ADS, "exploration" is terribly reduced to hopping between the systems and checking whether there are planets worth scanning in regard to the ISK... uh, I mean credits... to be expected.
1. Limit the range/scope of the ADS to 50.000-10.000ls. Dismiss the concept of an omnipotent discovery scanner, strenghten collaborating discovery tactics, e.g. exploration wings which can combine their systems to gain an advantage.
Besides the few "touristical" highlights the universe is offering today, exploration has to be made much more attractive. ATM, my experience is that you'll have to travel around 1000lys from the core systems to reach a region which hasn't already been visited/explored by one, dozens or hundreds of Commanders. This should have priority not just because this border is widened every day by present commanders while the X Box and PS 4 versions aren't online yet, but also because it requires a - for most people - relevant amount of ressources (ship aquirements, time) to travel this 1000lys-distance in the ED universe. At the moment, I predict that "younger" Commanders will be frustrated by the fact that exploring the "unknown" universe is far beyond reasonable capabilities regarding necessary time and so on. And if I want to know how a certain part of the ED universe looks like, I can watch video records of other Commanders. There's no good point to try to get there personally.
2. Add some sort of "random items" which can be discovered even by Commanders who are arriving years later in a certain system and which require a certain amount of dedication to exploration to be discovered.
3. Add some special tasks for explorers like planting nav beacons which makes it more attractive to travel over hundreds and thousands of light years.
4. Add random events/challenges in "unexplored" systems which make exploration more dangerous aka exciting. Star Trek is giving some inspiration here aswell as some other games. The ED universe is physically correct, but isn't hiding alot unexpected things - contradicting to the nature of the universe we know.
However, Elite has also been an educational game once. Like for many Commanders, it did foster my will to become informed about the universe: by looking up things I met through Elite and by looking up things I already knew in Elite. This aspect isn't playing a big role in ED too, as far as I can see – although it would be an important selling proposition to a relevant group of people, IMO, and to make ED much more interesting to this group of people who are feeling that they are explorers of the universe.
5. Add more astronomical and astrophysical interesting objects to the universe, like regions with an "abnormal" high solar (whatever) radiation for example. Extend the info system of the ugly 90's style sytem map.
So far for today. Live long and prosper.
like many Commanders, I've been very excited when I heard that there will a new incarnation of Elite which I've been playing since Elite II. Like many Commanders, I can't imagine another game I would have waited 20 years to see - or better experience - a renewed version. Now I've been playing it for a couple of weeks since its official launch, though - like many Commanders - I'm a part of the recent generation bearing the responsiblity which comes when the child-,youth-, studenthood is over and the retirement seems as far away as the outer rims on the other side of the milky way. So, spending time/money etc. on ED today needs some better reasons than 20 years ago. That's why I would like to offer a couple of proposals today.
Like many Commanders, I've always been very excited by the concept of an almost unlimited and physically realistic designed universe to be experienced and explored. Wing Commander, Freespace, Homeworld, the X Series, Star Trek games and even Eve Online were never dedicated to this special sort of seriously taken fusion between the awesome status quo of our knowledge about the universe and a versatile sci fi styled space flight simulator including the "arcarde modes" we know from other games and so many great movies and TV series. But Elite has always been the best and most aspiring attempt to be it, and thats why it had so many fans and backers long before the official launch of ED. Watching, imagining and exploring a physically and astronomically somewhat "true" universe has been always a core concept of Elite. We all can see one aspects of this very special thing on Youtube: Commanders are developing and building cockpit cabines for ED today, not for Eve Online or one of the other games which are also exciting - but not so inspiring. Experiencing and exploring the awesome universe in a game, if we just can't have it RL, makes the Elite series something special and unique for so many people.
Despite of this, trying to be an explorer in the ED universe is regrettably far from being satisfying. I know this today because I've spent the usual amount of _worktime_ which is needed to buy an A-level fitted Cobra MKIII including the necessary scanners to start this kind of mission which aligns with the best and decades old traditions of Elite. Now, I'm on the way back from a first ~3000lys trip to the coalsack region and barnards loop. And I'm unsure whether spending ressources on ED is and will be really reasonable.
Of course, it has been interesting and visually satisfying to approach Barnard's loop and admire the growth of its image from my cockpit. Of course, it's been great to see the milky way covered by some "dark regions", aswell as noticing the varying presence of certain star types in different regions. I almost did arrive in a "dead end" when I realized that scoopable stars are rare in some regions. Great! Of course, it's this ascpect of the game mechanics which is making exploration exciting in ED. But it's far from being enough for me.
Proposals
One thing which really disappoints me as an explorer is the Advanced Discovery Scanner (ADS) itself, since it's the "magic wand" in ED today. My first exploration trips were so exciting, I did realize later, only because I didn't have the ADS which did reveal all the objects in a certain system at once. Before having the ADS installed, I did enjoy using the "old school exploration tactics" like watching out for (glowing) constellations and searching for fast(er) moving stars from my cockpit while cruising the system on 30-900c using my basic or intermediate discovery scanner again and again. This did really feel like an exploration. Since I've got the ADS, "exploration" is terribly reduced to hopping between the systems and checking whether there are planets worth scanning in regard to the ISK... uh, I mean credits... to be expected.
1. Limit the range/scope of the ADS to 50.000-10.000ls. Dismiss the concept of an omnipotent discovery scanner, strenghten collaborating discovery tactics, e.g. exploration wings which can combine their systems to gain an advantage.
Besides the few "touristical" highlights the universe is offering today, exploration has to be made much more attractive. ATM, my experience is that you'll have to travel around 1000lys from the core systems to reach a region which hasn't already been visited/explored by one, dozens or hundreds of Commanders. This should have priority not just because this border is widened every day by present commanders while the X Box and PS 4 versions aren't online yet, but also because it requires a - for most people - relevant amount of ressources (ship aquirements, time) to travel this 1000lys-distance in the ED universe. At the moment, I predict that "younger" Commanders will be frustrated by the fact that exploring the "unknown" universe is far beyond reasonable capabilities regarding necessary time and so on. And if I want to know how a certain part of the ED universe looks like, I can watch video records of other Commanders. There's no good point to try to get there personally.
2. Add some sort of "random items" which can be discovered even by Commanders who are arriving years later in a certain system and which require a certain amount of dedication to exploration to be discovered.
3. Add some special tasks for explorers like planting nav beacons which makes it more attractive to travel over hundreds and thousands of light years.
4. Add random events/challenges in "unexplored" systems which make exploration more dangerous aka exciting. Star Trek is giving some inspiration here aswell as some other games. The ED universe is physically correct, but isn't hiding alot unexpected things - contradicting to the nature of the universe we know.
However, Elite has also been an educational game once. Like for many Commanders, it did foster my will to become informed about the universe: by looking up things I met through Elite and by looking up things I already knew in Elite. This aspect isn't playing a big role in ED too, as far as I can see – although it would be an important selling proposition to a relevant group of people, IMO, and to make ED much more interesting to this group of people who are feeling that they are explorers of the universe.
5. Add more astronomical and astrophysical interesting objects to the universe, like regions with an "abnormal" high solar (whatever) radiation for example. Extend the info system of the ugly 90's style sytem map.
So far for today. Live long and prosper.
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The actual model doesn't encourage pilots to become an explorer.