EXPLORATION: Reporting in on return from Trifid Nebula - bug/game mechanic discussion

[_Flin_]

Great read, great suggestions, great analysis! +1

A +300% (or even +500%; or "number of bodies * 30%") payout bonus would be nice for a completely scanned system with more than 3 planetary bodies. That wouldn't be unbalanced, but would reward "real" exploring, where you actually cartograph the system, spend 20 minutes and more, and then get 20 k for it. Instead the current best way to make money "exploring" is jump and ADS-scan.

Plus more mechanics and more scanners. Like having +
- basic long range scanning (like it is currently, with more range), plus
- scanning that reveals points of interest (like the Grand Canyon, or Olympus Mons on Mars) with a different scanner;
- or a ressource scanner;
- have a drone bay that sends small frameshiftdrones, and can load different amounts for different sizes (like 100 for size 2, 10000 for size 8). They move out and get back to the ship with different scan configurations, and take maybe 10 minutes for 500k Ls. Then send data back to ship and self destruct (unless you scoop them up and recycle them with some kind of refinery mechanism, for which you need fuel and some metal or power generators)

 

[andyl]

Requests for basic additions/improvements

- The ability to select a navigation point within the system view
- Why does the Galaxy Map spend ages calculating thousands of possible routes to places you don't want to go, when it could just wait for you to select your destination and then calculate that route quickly . . . it seems like a waste of time and resources to me. Have a "manual route option" where it is idle until you select a destination
- Be able to manually select way-points in the galaxy map; again, seems unnecessarily limiting that it only gives you two options of getting between A and B
- Be able to drop tags in the Galaxy map with notes
- Please give a windscreen-cleaning mechanic for the Cobra; mine was disgusting - I don't care if it's a tedious mini-game; in real life I would have held my breath and crawled out the cargo hatch with a rag and cleaned the damned thing
- Have a record/log of exploration that I can overlay on the Galaxy Map

A few more (I have tried to keep them minor and fairly uncontroversial).

- Caching (or better caching) of the System View. It takes a while to load, and you probably want to look at it a number of times in more complex systems. Waiting for the server comms is agonizing for no good reason. The system ain't gonna change, so the data could easily be cached locally.
- Saving the current route being flown when doing a save/exit

One more bug (I think)

- Sometimes when I scan, it completes and says Detailed Scan Completed but then immediately starts scanning again (and the planet name doesn't fill in). Sometimes that happens more than once for a planet.

 

[Old Joe]

+1
This post very well summed up everything that has to be improved. I'm having a lot of fun exploring, but there's always a chance to make it better.
I'm looking forward to the announced new route-planning, too. I'm ~2k LY away from my next exploration target and the way back to the core worlds would be much easier if you could plan ahead for more than 100 LY...

 

[sensai25]

Major bug from my side :

Procedural generation fails when entering a new distant system (2900ly). It locks up my Savez. Crash to menu. IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY ANYMORE.

Support had to teleport my ship to human system to fix it.
It took 3 days. 3 days where i cannot play at all. This is the biggest Exploration FAILURE to fix in TOP priority.

 

[skydivertricky]

+1 from me too

I just did my first exploration trip in my asp. 3000 LY - started out towards the seagull nebula before taking a right turn to the orion nebula then home. I found myself just ADS then looking for potential valuable planets in system view. I think a completion bonus would help counter this.

Im looking forward to the new route plotter. They have said it requires gui changes - so fingers crossed for waypoints!

I too would like feedback on sale data. Theres a big empty space on the RHS of the screen that could be filled with an explanation of why you get what you get:
- Star 1500
- 6 planets - 6000
- Earth like - 30000
- First to visit - 5000
- Completion Bonus 6000

Etc.

And now Ive been that way - Id like to avoid ones Ive already scanned.

 

[Nutter]

What an excellent report and summary +Rep and more

Don't forget about the B & O Systems, they can be really interesting and quite often have photo opportunities, good chance of seeing ringed stars wich are great to look at from inside the ring

To add to your reasonable list of tools for the explorer.
The Plan my own route option
The measure distance between two systems tool

Great stuff Commander!

Nutter

 

[PanzerSheriff]

Fantastic post mattensky

You summarize the rewards and trials and tribulations of Exploring in a superb way! For me the worst part of exploring is spending hours selling the data when you get back.... I cant comprehend why they cant give us an option to "sell all"...... all the data is stored on the servers anyway so why do we have to wait 5 seconds for each sale to go back and forth between PC and Server a few times?

Next target is the Heart and Soul Nebula, and then whatever is close. That bubble nebula probably. I'm not looking forward to going back home since all that waits me there is hours and hours of selling exploration data. Maybe I'll stay out until a sell all button has been added So far I've been to the Witch head nebula, Bernard's loop region, Seagull, Rosette, Jellyfish, Monkey head and the smaller nebulae in between. I did find a couple of earth like worlds out there, but only 1 tiny black hole and 1 neutron star so far. Not a lot of big stars out near the edge. Multiple stars per system is very common though, the lone star systems seem in the minority.

I set out for the Heart and Soul Nebulaes a few days ago. When approaching the Elephant Trunk Nebula I spotted this:

Spoiler

I turned out to be the NGC 7822 Nebula. Almost every bright star you see in the Nebula also has a companion Black Hole (some several) and I highly recommend stopping by NGC 7822 on your way to Heart and Soul. Maby we will run in to each other as I will head out to Heart and Soul as soon as I am done enjoying the view in NGC 7822

Fly Safe Commanders!

 

[Zephon]

Wow - what ship do you have with that Scoop speed? That'd be fantastic.

Now that I'm home all I can think about is getting back into the jungle . . . am tossing up between an Asp or a Hauler - I have about 13 mil in assets so could just grind a couple of rare routes and fit out one of those 14 mil Asps . . . hmmm

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HIP 23607 and HIP 12341 you say? -- twiddles thumbs . . . .

Thanks for the tip

For fuel scoops the bigger the scoop the more fuel, more important than rating if you ask me. I'm running a 4C scoop on my cobra instead of cargo space as it's not as useful for exploring and I get 245/sec scooping which is alright, considering had a 3C in that slot previously and was maxing out at 170ish/sec.

 

[mattensky]

For fuel scoops the bigger the scoop the more fuel, more important than rating if you ask me. I'm running a 4C scoop on my cobra instead of cargo space as it's not as useful for exploring and I get 245/sec scooping which is alright, considering had a 3C in that slot previously and was maxing out at 170ish/sec.

Thanks - I did not know that. Wow - it would have saved me a lot of time! - most of my scooping was done between 20-30/s . . .

 

[OnePercent]

Earth like worlds exist, Even in extremely rare cases like 1 orbiting a neutron star I found.

 

[Ravenov]

Excellent post OP, +rep. Made pretty much all the points i wanted to more clearly than i would have done.

I set out for the Heart and Soul Nebulaes a few days ago. When approaching the Elephant Trunk Nebula I spotted this:

Spoiler

View attachment 9997

I turned out to be the NGC 7822 Nebula. Almost every bright star you see in the Nebula also has a companion Black Hole (some several) and I highly recommend stopping by NGC 7822 on your way to Heart and Soul. Maby we will run in to each other as I will head out to Heart and Soul as soon as I am done enjoying the view in NGC 7822

Fly Safe Commanders!

I'm at Elephants Trunk right now, and will be following your general route over the next week probably. Might do the cave nebula first, though.

 

[Zephon]

Thanks - I did not know that. Wow - it would have saved me a lot of time! - most of my scooping was done between 20-30/s . . .

That sounds agonisingly slow lol. Gonna have ago at mining before I head back out again. Just to break it up a bit. Then when 1.1 lands with its 1000 ly route planner gonna head to the rosette nebula some 5000 ly away. The route planning has to be one of the most tedious moments waiting for it to find a route in 100ly blocks.

 

[Ravenov]

That sounds agonisingly slow lol. Gonna have ago at mining before I head back out again. Just to break it up a bit. Then when 1.1 lands with its 1000 ly route planner gonna head to the rosette nebula some 5000 ly away. The route planning has to be one of the most tedious moments waiting for it to find a route in 100ly blocks.

If you can get to an area of low stellar density it plots much faster. I'm about 3-400 light years above the galactic plane of the ecliptic, with an average only about 10 systems within 20 light years at a time and it plots routes out to 140 light years in a minute or so.

 

[PsychoFish]

Excellent post OP, +rep. Made pretty much all the points i wanted to more clearly than i would have done.



I'm at Elephants Trunk right now, and will be following your general route over the next week probably. Might do the cave nebula first, though.

Find me on the way ... I left ET Yesterday heading for cave nebula... NGC 7822 after that.


to OP: totally agree with pretty much everything - I hope exploration gets some love. I'm really interested what my current trip (Iris Nebula - VV Cephei - Elephant's Trunk Nebula - Cave Nebula - NGC 7822) will yield in the end.

 

[Allitnil]

I turned out to be the NGC 7822 Nebula. Almost every bright star you see in the Nebula also has a companion Black Hole (some several) and I highly recommend stopping by NGC 7822 on your way to Heart and Soul. Maby we will run in to each other as I will head out to Heart and Soul as soon as I am done enjoying the view in NGC 7822

That's where I'm currently heading on the homeward leg of a grand tour of the nebulae that are to the 'south' of Sol so do wave if we pass (I'm actually en-route from the Bubble Nebula which is bugged in that the main star that created it, BD+60 2522, is thousands of light years away)

I first spotted NGC 7822 whilst on the long (and I mean LONG) slog between the Monkey Head and Soul nebulae. Couldn't work out what it was as I could only see the stars and not the nebula itself. Think this was probably a bit of a bug as the stars were too visible really - they were individually distinguishable even though they must have been about 4000 LY away.

I hope to get home this weekend or early next week after which I'll write the trip up.

 

[remosito]

fantastic writeup!


we have similar methodology, except I go further out from main star.

Brings my average payout per system a bit over 10k. Might end up being less per hour spent though

 

[Zenith]

NGC7822 really is a siren to everyone who sees it. You feel a pull towards it. I want to go there, but it is about 3700ly away from me right now.

Great writeup and some points well raised. I'd add my support to the suggestion of being able to see your own progress on the map, and maybe playback of the jumps in sequence.
I also agree with the idea of a "completion bonus" for a full DSS scan of every body in a system. I've spent the last 3 nights fully surveying every O/B/A star in the NGC 6871 star cluster in Cygnus so I can "calibrate" the credit gain when I get back to populated space. And to say that I've done it.

 

[CMDR Flaxton]

I totally agree with your assessment of exploration. There are definite improvements which need to be made and some of your suggestions are fantastic especially the selling all option, modifier for complete system scans and the exploration overlay which would be nice to see exactly where you have been in the galaxy.
Hopefully a couple of FDEV's will pick up on this post and make some of these suggestions reality.

Great Post mattensky !!!

 

[Ravenov]

About the only other thing i would add (made a post about it yesterday) would be the ability to see the value of a scanned system while you're scanning it, so you can really tell what's worth the work and what isn't.

 

[Pennyblack]

An excellent first op; and I agree with it and hope FD pay attention to it. Having completed 10,000ly trip myself, I relate to all the points you've made.

I only hope this thread is not ignored or neglected by FD, as it appears exploration isn't credible or well planned or developed by FD.

Thank you for taking the time to post such a precise summary of your observations and concerns.

EDIT...

I've found Earth like planets, two in total.
The maximum I've been paid for star system is 159,780cr.