Exploration needs a major overhaul

[Dave1029]

thinks i like about your idea
- extras for scanning whole system
- immersion (gold hole)
- aspect of making rare findings even more of a luck (even if out there i'm always partying if i find an earthlike)

things i'm sceptical
- only scannable 5 times. very unfair to new gamers. also not really immersive (have in mind how often new cartographic data is produced on cities, countries etc.)
- the very high payoff. i'm out in the dark for some weeks now. i will come back with 50-80 + million data. with your numbers i'd come back with 500+ million credits, maybe even more. i simply say, thats to much. indiana jones still needed to teach history ;-)
- i think if pay-out gets complex (i'd like, too. i even would like local factions pay differently for data, maybe via missions...), it will make gameplay less enjoyable for many players.

I thought on what the payouts should be, and I just came to the conclusion that if you're going to travel to the core, you should be rewarded more

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What you describe is not a "major overhaul". It is only an economic balance patch. An actual major overhaul would include deeper gameplay mechanics. Eg. Scanners that involved some kind of player skill or at least active involvement, etc.

Nice post though, and I agree with most of it. But not the part where fun is focused on CR/hr grinding. Nor the part about an arbitrary 5 scans = discovered. That is just silly, and would break the economy. As for the distance based model, realize that it only takes 8.5 hours for an anaconda to travel to the center of the Galaxy. Compare that to how long it took Magellan to circumnavigate the globe! Ergo distance for metals or colonization isn't as big deal as we players think of it as, because in RL people don't mine for 40 minutes a day and go home. They mine for 12 hours a day, 12 months a year, and live on the mountain.

Maybe a reduced rate with each scan then... It doesn't seem right to pay the the same regardless of other people's scans.

 

[Jim Steinman]

Exploration definitely needs more love. Will we get it? Possibly not. I'm wary about what the next announcement will be, I just hope it's not too combat heavy.

 

[EUS]

Scans of already discovered systems already payout on a diminishing basis.

 

[Zerosum]

Joe's information would be worth less and less in this instance since the expenses of running a mining operation from afar would mount. Joe needs to come to terms that his data will be worthless, even his newly discovered alien plant nectar that can cure space AIDS. Joe needs to find pieces of ancient alien tech/modules/ships that currently do not exist in the current build of the game. Joe will be poor and will have 0% hull integrity until then.

 

[Oveja-Negra]

I do like the idea, but instead of 5 scans, there would be a need for an extra module to scan world with ammonia or water based life...which can only be carried out at a very close range.....

 

[stocko1111]

I would love to see just a simple exploration mission on the BB, for instance, a company wants to locate 10 new earth-like worlds and will pay 750,000 for the data etc etc. It would be so, so easy to implement. Maybe in the future but I really don't see why it can't be done now.

 

[Zerosum]

Or have massive community goals funded by players(and hauled by player anacondas, t-9 etc.)) every so often to build a few jumpgates stations to start new colonies based on exploration data. I'm talking a massive sink of credits that all players can get behind and having explorers lead that charge. Scanning something 57 times with 4 different modules won't change much more than income at the expense of more tedium.

 

[Sapient6]

Instead of having the system lock out at 5 scans, I'd like to see each scan of a high-value system after the first five scans come with an increase in probability that an outpost will be built there (perhaps a "deep space" outpost with a large landing pad)...

 

[Dave1029]

Instead of having the system lock out at 5 scans, I'd like to see each scan of a high-value system after the first five scans come with an increase in probability that an outpost will be built there (perhaps a "deep space" outpost with a large landing pad)...

That's a really awesome idea.

 

[Zerosum]

if you involve the trading/mining profession to aid in it's construction and combat to defend/assault against raids, that's easy and reasonable enough. We need something more than a refueling station and a docking bay. Maybe if/when frontier adds alien races in, a frontline station far away will mean a lot more than it does currently.

 

[Bam]

It would be fantastic if you could set the route planner only to use the currently selected star types.
Non-Sequences only plz computer,and take the scenic route

Its amazing how many jumps you can make on 1 tank of fuel in an Anaconda once you get closer to the core.

 

[Coyote]

Having profits go way down further away from inhabited space kinda discourages people to go out and explore very far at all

Depends. I think metal-content worlds would be okay to drop in value the farther you go move away from inhabited space. Nobody needs a high-metal content planet at the other side of the galaxy.
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But Earth-likes for instance should become more valuable as they allow distant settlements. It's not that even the other side of the galaxy is unreachable anymore - people can indeed go there within not too much time and set up a colony. And a distant colony might be more interesting than one in your immediate neighborhood.
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Black holes and the likes can also increase in value with distance (or maybe just pretty much everything else), since it's simply more difficult to find them using telescopes and stuff the farther away they are. A distant neutron star is rare, a close one probably well-known already.
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Having said that, I also love the exploration "needle in haystack" mission idea.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Exploration has been catered to too much!

We need more support for combat, PvP, Open, and console gaming. Those modes are being discriminated against!

Serious: Odds are a metric boatload of what we want is being held back for Planetary Landings.

 

[Brujah]

Depends what systems you scan. You can tilt the odds in your favour. I am 1023 systems out on my current trip. 11 E-ls, 100 WWs, 16 AWs, 58 NSs.

I cannot agree that exploration needs a major overhaul, because there is just not enough there to overhaul. It barely manages to stagger up to the level of placeholder. Basically, the whole thing (which if you ignore the stellar forge and galactic map stuff that has to be there anyway for travel inside the bubble consists of 3 levels of scanners, a nice honk sound effect, the admin stuff to capture what you have seen, and first discovered by tags) needs to be thrown away, and they need to start again.

There is a nice little spec in the DDA. I would like that one, please.

Alas I don't seriously expect them to be using anything suggested in the DDA. They've implemented huge swathes of content that were never even mentioned in the DDA and have barely touched the stuff that is.
Nope. That stuff is either dead or going to be locked behind a paywall.

 

[Knightshark]

I stopped playing before wings with hundreds of hours clocked because all new features are just more grindy time-sinks and exploration is still quite underwhelming. I was really hoping that they will do something about it but nothing so far...