Exploration improvements - hoping similar to this will be in the later chapter of beyond...

[GraphicEqualizer]

This idea is again based on 2000+ hrs in game for a way to make exploration more of a career and tie in with other gameplay.

1. Create a new Elite ranking career for "Science" where ranking is based on discovering new things/scanning data/alien artifacts/planets with life/etc, using new features such as the following (also ties into pirating gamelpay):

Ability for commanders to drop probes (on a planet away from central star) in three systems roughly equidistant (and <50LY apart for example) for a "quantum entangled discovery" (QED gettit?!) enhanced triangulation method of finding stuff (with a max of say 9 probes on board ship = 3 discovery attempts).

Probes are also high value, can potentially be found in a system and hacked/deactivated and then stolen by Pirates. Probes expire after an amount of time (e.g. 10 hours of in game time).

The deployer of the probes will then have a likelihood of being alerted via messages of the likely location of unknown items (e.g. points of interest, alien artifacts, systems with life, etc., within systems inside the triangulation range).

Discoveries are sold back at a station (some discoveries could be much higher value to specific stations), and science ranking increases.

An Elite science rank could unlock a new science-focused deep space exploration ship, something that brings out the inner nerdy spock in all of us

 

[Lestat]

The idea not bad. But a question. When is the last time you ran into someone in space? How likely would someone find those probs? granted we have 400 billion systems. It kinda likes trying to win the Lotto.

So the question comes back to How likely is a pirate will find a probe?

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

maybe while the probes are active - e.g. three probes have been deployed and have not expired, any other ships in systems within the triangulation area can also 'see' that a QED scanner is being operated - if they then jump into an system where a probe is actually deployed a honk would reveal the planet to search

 

[Jaylem]

I like it!

That triangulation method sounds very cool indeed! I have also suggested Topographical and geothermic scans for system map overlays as well, which like your suggestion could also be used to manually find points of interest. geaothermic would be wonderful in finding Volcanism!!

I too Like science and this sort or rank could be an interesting field with Geology, Xeno-biology, Xeno-archaeology being a part of that.

 

[Lestat]

maybe while the probes are active - e.g. three probes have been deployed and have not expired, any other ships in systems within the triangulation area can also 'see' that a QED scanner is being operated - if they then jump into an system where a probe is actually deployed a honk would reveal the planet to search

Do you not understand how massive Elite Dangerous Galaxy is. Let say the Triangulation 300 LY each which sounds large. But there are players that been 65,000ly away from Sol. Also, the Galaxy is not 2D when you always know someone would hit that location but It 3D. Like when I go to a well-known area Let say the edge of the bubble to Sag A*. If I offset my course in any direction by 50 to 100LY and do the same thing near Sag A*. I can bet you 99% Of the system I explored was never explored before.

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

This is true, the chances are slim to tiny... however maybe also there would be a RNG npc element to it too. So when you have a triangulation scan up there is also a possibility of opening yourself up to interdictions and direct attack by NPCs (also based on how frequently the area had been visited by players in the past). Things like this would help to make for more diversity of activities and possibilities for gameplay however remote. Besides I imagine there would be some locations that there are more likely include more player activity - e.g. the formadine rift, areas of guardians etc... and those are also likely areas that people would want to use the QED scanner. The point is, every bit of functionality like this helps

PS. The area of a roughly right angle triangle with points just 50LY apart would result in total area around 1250 sqLY