Exploration Multi-crew Detailed Suggestion

First up, I originally posted this on Reddit but it got no attention, thought I should probably try here.

This isn't a hate thread. Whilst MC is underwhelming, there's a platform to be built upon which is pretty cool. I love this game and I love exploration, I just want to see it flourish.

Also, these suggestions are thing's I haven't seen, and some are mechanics that FDev could implement relatively soon if they (by some work of god) saw this thread and liked some of the ideas.

Anyway, I mostly do exploration in this game, as do many others. But currently with MC there is nothing for the co-pilots to actually do other than pop heat sinks. Despite this, I've had several commanders join me and stay in the ship chatting with me for a long duration. One even stayed in the ship just sightseeing for 2kLY.
During this time I've obviously come across many WW and a few ELW, meaning that between outposts on the way to Colonia, I'm making around 4/5m, and obviously getting explorer rep too, whilst the co-pilot gets nothing.

Now, I know the first argument is "the co-pilot just sits there and does nothing, why should they get a cut?", and whilst I agree that credits and rep should be earned, there's not much for exploration MC to do right now.
So here are a couple ways of improving exploration MC. (I'm going to put them into different categories, with how easy it would be to implement the changes)


EASY STUFF


  • Simply give the co-pilots a reward 40% based off of the earnings that have been made through the duration of their stay on the ship.

This would mean that even though a CMDR that joins a ship part way through their journey, would be able to hop in and start earning at any time. The money earned from exploration, whilst buffed, isn't enough to be exploited with MC, and co-pilots would have to stay for a while to get any meaningful cash/rank.
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  • System Scan and Navigation Role (SSN from now on) for co-pilots. Increasing their payout and rep based on the amount of interaction they have with the mechanics.


My thoughts for this are that, you could equip the ship with another kind of ADS, that scans quicker if a co-pilot uses it. Meaning the pilot can focus on refueling and navigating the ship around the entry star. The SSN Role should then be able to see in the System Map and select planets to go and scan. There have been times where I've missed a WW or ELW and a co-pilot has reminded me about it. If it was the co-pilots job to find certain planets, it would allow for less mistakes as the co-pilot focuses on system map and the pilot focuses on flying. Another potential implementation of this would be to reuse the turret mechanics and have the co-pilot manually aim the DSS, which would take longer to finish at longer ranges.

If this was implemented, it should give the co-pilot the opportunity to achieve 100% of the reward given, similar to the pilot. Therefore, co-pilot system scan = 60% increase on system payout, and 60% increase on DSS payouts. Therefore, explorers who just sit back and watch get only 40% of the payout, whereas co-pilots that help and join, get an equal amount.
This should be quite easy to put in, as it's reusing code FDev already have, and moving things round a bit.
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NOT SO EASY STUFF


  • Deep Space Exploration Engineer Role (DSEE from now on)


Now, this isn't fleshed out as much as my other ideas so feel free to improve on it a bit, as I feel that there should be an "Engineer" role for every activity. This is just how I would have it work for Deep Space Exploration and Jump Drives.

The DSEE role would be used to increase jump range by working with the pilot. Now, in order for the jump range to be increased, it would mean that there needs to be more power in the FSD, similar to a neutron star. What the DSEE would do, is whilst the Pilot is fuel scooping, the DSEE can try and balance the intake of fuel, heat and power, through some kind of interface, increasing the jump range of the ship. Not to the extent of a neutron star, but enough to make it a viable mechanic that's worth repeating.

In terms of target location changing in the event of DSEE being successful, what the GalaxyMap could do when plotting a standard route, is to plot a second route at the same time with the 30% increase implemented.
It would work something like this:
Is fuel/heat/fsd balanced?
If yes - increase jump range 30% + increase system payout by 60% + select alternative jump route
If no - do nothing


This would allow for two different exploration co-pilot roles.

These changes to exploration Multi-crew would be great and not something so time consuming that it takes months to achieve, as it's reusing already existing code for the most part.

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TOUGH STUFF


Now we're getting into my fantasy land, so from here on is simply a wishlist as I don't think it will ever get implemented.

  • Deep Space Expeditions. Long range missions that payout huge for long exploration trips.


A mission, which sends you from inhabited space to the far reaches of the galaxy. The objectives being to scan certain amounts of planets, certain systems, visit nebulae... the list goes on.
Put simply: Go out and find 30 ELW near the core - Payout: 200m
The payout is so high because of the amount of time spent even getting to the core, let alone the amount of time finding ELW and getting back. If it wasn't for ExpData, I'd expect a higher payment.

The rep payment for these missions should be around 2.5% of the reward, so that if you get a high payout mission that's 200m, you would get Exploration rep equal to 5m of data. Making it so the missions aren't an easy way to Elite Explorer rank, but also make it Deep Space Exploration more of a worthy payout. Plus, doing missions like that would get you a lot of Exploration Rep anyway, especially if using multicrew to complete these missions.

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  • Give the Helm to someone else!

This would be great if the pilot could give Helm permissions to a trusted co-pilot. Allowing for players to swap roles and refresh the gameplay in their current login session.

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BALANCE
Now some of what I'm proposing here sounds relatively unbalanced. So I'm going to address some of the issues here before I'm flamed to death.

Q - "Why should MC get the opportunity to increase FSD range whilst solo players don't?"
A - Whilst it may seem unfair that MC have the opportunity to increase FSD range, the nature of exploration is not competitive and therefore, even though it does give MC an advantage over solo players, it doesn't directly affect them. Also, in realistic terms, a ship with a crew would be able to reach much larger jump ranges than a solo exploration ship, due to the size and nature of mission.

Q - "What about people just sitting AFK to get their exploration rank up and farm credits doing nothing?"
A- AFK co-pilots earn 60% less and don't contribute to the ship. Therefore it's likely that the pilot will kick the AFK pilot in the search of having a crew that increase productivity. Plus, earning only 40% of a system payout isn't very much, so there's not a lot to worry about here.

Q - "How would payouts work?"
A - Payouts would work on the MC Report. When a co-pilot leaves the session, they get a payout of the amount of systems that they took part in. Whereas for the pilot, it would be whenever they dock and sell Data as per usual.

Q - "Aren't ships 3man ships like the Anaconda going to be OP for exploration compared to 2man ship like the ASP EXP?"
A - The only thing pilots cannot do is the role of the DSEE, therefore with 2man ships it simply keeps exploration the same as it is currently, however there's the option to use the role of DSEE for the co-pilot. Having the SSN role filled just increases productivity for the larger vessels.
But yeah... There's a few thoughts I've had for Exploration MC. Feel free to ask about mechanics, how they'd work or w/e if I've not explained it clearly enough. Hopefully if this thread sees enough positive interest FDev might do something about it.

Q - "You didn't mention SRV's!"
A - At this point... Do I need to?

I'm working on more complete documentation with examples and diagrams showing how this would work. Available on request.

Fly safe CMDR's! o7



NoFlameDisclaim
When it comes to how I've categorized it in terms of ease, I do so coming from a Game Design background. I've been studying Game Design for almost 5 years now and I'm soon to graduate from university. So I'm simply organizing the mechanics by how difficult I'd find it to implement personally. Obviously, I don't have access to FDevs engine or code, so therefore have no accurate idea of how difficult these would be to implement.
 
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