Within the bubble(s), Universal Cartographics becomes not just a "sell your stuff" page, but a mission provider, where they offer two types of missions;
Mission Type 1 - deploy a new type of beacon
Place an exploration beacon in (system) - with the usual sort scaled pay-offs for distance, rank etc.
You get a 1 tonne mission specific cargo that is the exploration beacon. Travel to target system, find the Mission Specific USS (in the same location as the Nav beacon usually is), and jettison the beacon.
Job done - fly on home and get paid. You could, and should, stack a whole bunch of these and do a long mission deploying them.
The system should be in some way "interesting" - ELW, Neutron Star, Ammonia world and so on.
There's plenty of this in both the lore of the Formidine Rift, and in the more general Sci-Fi canon (remember the Red Dwarf despair squid episode?)
Mission Type 2 - carry out detailed surveying
The Universal Cartographics contact gives you a mission to travel to (system), scan the exploration beacon data there, and basically do what it says;
So, you drop into the system, find the Exploration Beacon (same as Nav Beacon), scan it. New mission tells you to Scan the Moons around body Six, or Scan the companion Neutron Star - something like that.
You do the detailed scanning, go home, get paid. again, very stackable.
Additional Mission Type - Randomly encountering exploration beacons
Once the mechanic of exploration beacons is there, they could be semi-randomly seeded close to California Nebula, Maia, Colonia and the main human Bubble.
You drop into a system, and there's a beacon by the star - scan, do what it says, extra credits and interesting stuff to do/see
If done properly, the beacons should point to places that are genuinely interesting - surface POIs etc.
Bonus-Additional Usage;
Pilots could carry exploration beacons as a regular non mission specific cargo item, and drop them in "interesting" systems. Differing rewards based on the complexity etc. of the system... and make the reward somewhere between the Honk and Go value of the system and the full discovery value.
I would so this so - Assume Honk and Go is worth 1000 credits for this system, full scan of all objects is worth 250K. If you Honk, see interesting stuff but don't go scan, you get, say 10K instead of the base 1K.
If the next commander sees your beacon, scans that, then goes and scans the rest of the system she can get a slightly higher payout than the normal - say the same as the first discovery bonus.
You could even make the exploration beacons only have so many uses before going inactive. (in lore, because the system is now properly surveyed...)
Mission Type 1 - deploy a new type of beacon
Place an exploration beacon in (system) - with the usual sort scaled pay-offs for distance, rank etc.
You get a 1 tonne mission specific cargo that is the exploration beacon. Travel to target system, find the Mission Specific USS (in the same location as the Nav beacon usually is), and jettison the beacon.
Job done - fly on home and get paid. You could, and should, stack a whole bunch of these and do a long mission deploying them.
The system should be in some way "interesting" - ELW, Neutron Star, Ammonia world and so on.
There's plenty of this in both the lore of the Formidine Rift, and in the more general Sci-Fi canon (remember the Red Dwarf despair squid episode?)
Mission Type 2 - carry out detailed surveying
The Universal Cartographics contact gives you a mission to travel to (system), scan the exploration beacon data there, and basically do what it says;
So, you drop into the system, find the Exploration Beacon (same as Nav Beacon), scan it. New mission tells you to Scan the Moons around body Six, or Scan the companion Neutron Star - something like that.
You do the detailed scanning, go home, get paid. again, very stackable.
Additional Mission Type - Randomly encountering exploration beacons
Once the mechanic of exploration beacons is there, they could be semi-randomly seeded close to California Nebula, Maia, Colonia and the main human Bubble.
You drop into a system, and there's a beacon by the star - scan, do what it says, extra credits and interesting stuff to do/see
If done properly, the beacons should point to places that are genuinely interesting - surface POIs etc.
Bonus-Additional Usage;
Pilots could carry exploration beacons as a regular non mission specific cargo item, and drop them in "interesting" systems. Differing rewards based on the complexity etc. of the system... and make the reward somewhere between the Honk and Go value of the system and the full discovery value.
I would so this so - Assume Honk and Go is worth 1000 credits for this system, full scan of all objects is worth 250K. If you Honk, see interesting stuff but don't go scan, you get, say 10K instead of the base 1K.
If the next commander sees your beacon, scans that, then goes and scans the rest of the system she can get a slightly higher payout than the normal - say the same as the first discovery bonus.
You could even make the exploration beacons only have so many uses before going inactive. (in lore, because the system is now properly surveyed...)