Exploration shortfalls, in my opinion, and ideas for improvement

[Pon Farr]

Just to briefly give some background and info, this isn't a whinging "I'm leaving E: D" post (so you can't have all my stuff, don't ask ;-) ) and I've been playing E: D since Premium Beta with over 3,000 hours under my belt. I also played all the original games, which still rank in my all time top 10 list.

Exploration is one of my preferred occupations and I really enjoy getting out there and seeing the sights, however I think it could have been done so much better.

Take, for example, the fact that whilst we're all exploring the same galaxy, we're doing it individually. Meaning any system I jump in to, out in the black, it's random luck as to whether that system has been discovered and fully, or partially scanned, or a totally new discovery. Why? Wouldn't it make sense that all exploration data submitted to Universal Cartographics is available to all CMDRs so that they could readily see, on the map, where systems aren't discovered.

I don't understand, nor see any logical game play reasons, for not doing that.

There is a way to partially have access to discovered systems found by other CMDRs by downloading the data from http://www.visitedstarscache.space/ and changing the game's visited stars cache. Using that the galaxy map, in visited systems mode, shows all visited systems as logged on EDSM, which is more how I'd expect to view the map. Maybe there should be two visited systems modes - "my visited systems" and "all visited systems".

As an aside, the above also highlights the fact that way more systems have been discovered than are in EDSM. I'm about 1,500k LY down from Sol using the data from the above link and there are literally tons of systems showing as undiscovered (well, not visited, but that's how this works) however a lot of them have been fully or partially scanned. EDSM states a figure of nearly 48.5M discovered systems. I wonder what the actual figure is.

Also I don't understand why we can't back up exploration data, aside from making coming home with data on board "dangerous" which, given how powerful combat ships are against exploration ones, in general, seems pointless too. If we can transmit enough data clean across the galaxy to telepresence into someone else's ship for multi-play, surely we should be able to transmit our exploration data back to a central database for safe storage, even if that didn't add said data to the UC database until we actually get back and sell it. Personally I'd like to see a database dump style option where, whenever we choose, we can send our exploration data in and then said data is available to everyone. Perhaps we don't get credit (financial and personal - meaning names on discoveries) until we physically get back and sell the data but at least if we don't make it, the data still gets in to the discovered database.

A further exploration 'thing' that just doesn't work for me is the Codex. The discovery section to be precise. So, it states there are, say, brain trees on XYZ planet, but that it's not confirmed, then I find the same kind of brain trees on ABC planet and now the existence of them is confirmed in the Codex, but on XYZ planet and only for me. How can that be right? I didn't go to XYZ and see them!

For me the Codex would be a thing worth having if it recorded and showed every discovery, after the data had been submitted to UC. Perhaps as unconfirmed until two CMDRs visit it, perhaps not, but it should be a growing list or it's basically pointless.

I'd imagine lots of folk don't necessarily agree with my feelings here, and that's fine. For me, though, they are part of the reason why whilst I won't stop playing, and enjoying E: D, it'll always have that edge of disappointment. It could be so much better. Someone once described E: D as an ocean a million kilometres wide, but only a centimetre deep. After all this time playing it I'm afraid I have to agree.

o7 CMDRs

 

[Darth Wonko]

Just to briefly give some background and info, this isn't a whinging "I'm leaving E: D" post (so you can't have all my stuff, don't ask ;-) ) and I've been playing E: D since Premium Beta with over 3,000 hours under my belt. I also played all the original games, which still rank in my all time top 10 list.

Can I have all your stuff anyway?

Take, for example, the fact that whilst we're all exploring the same galaxy, we're doing it individually. Meaning any system I jump in to, out in the black, it's random luck as to whether that system has been discovered and fully, or partially scanned, or a totally new discovery. Why? Wouldn't it make sense that all exploration data submitted to Universal Cartographics is available to all CMDRs so that they could readily see, on the map, where systems aren't discovered.

I don't understand, nor see any logical game play reasons, for not doing that.

I often wondered about this, myself. I mean if FDev has servers that know all of this information and lots of people interact with that data remotely, wouldn't it make sense we could do what you're proposing in the year 3306?

There is a way to partially have access to discovered systems found by other CMDRs by downloading the data from http://www.visitedstarscache.space/ and changing the game's visited stars cache. Using that the galaxy map, in visited systems mode, shows all visited systems as logged on EDSM, which is more how I'd expect to view the map. Maybe there should be two visited systems modes - "my visited systems" and "all visited systems".

I'll check into this. Does this mess up my log files or updates to INARA, EDSM, etc.?

As an aside, the above also highlights the fact that way more systems have been discovered than are in EDSM. I'm about 1,500k LY down from Sol using the data from the above link and there are literally tons of systems showing as undiscovered (well, not visited, but that's how this works) however a lot of them have been fully or partially scanned. EDSM states a figure of nearly 48.5M discovered systems. I wonder what the actual figure is.

Keep in mind only people who go in and manually upload their log files (or use a tool such as EDDiscovery) are updating EDSM. One of the best things we can do as players is encourage others to upload their own data.

Also I don't understand why we can't back up exploration data, aside from making coming home with data on board "dangerous" which, given how powerful combat ships are against exploration ones, in general, seems pointless too. If we can transmit enough data clean across the galaxy to telepresence into someone else's ship for multi-play, surely we should be able to transmit our exploration data back to a central database for safe storage, even if that didn't add said data to the UC database until we actually get back and sell it. Personally I'd like to see a database dump style option where, whenever we choose, we can send our exploration data in and then said data is available to everyone. Perhaps we don't get credit (financial and personal - meaning names on discoveries) until we physically get back and sell the data but at least if we don't make it, the data still gets in to the discovered database.

This baffles me, too. I mean, somehow our raw materials, encoded materials and manufactured materials survive ship destruction (if they didn't, nobody would ever do engineering). But, our exploration data doesn't?

I think the reason why is they don't want you to fly all the way out to Beagle Point, self-destruct and then sell your data in the Bubble with no return trip. However, that's easily remedied by having the "Self Destruct" feature wipe out that data, but anything else keep it intact. Of course, then people would just plow into planets, or something.

Actually, this probably isn't a bad thing, now that I think about it. It adds an element of danger to exploration.

A further exploration 'thing' that just doesn't work for me is the Codex. The discovery section to be precise. So, it states there are, say, brain trees on XYZ planet, but that it's not confirmed, then I find the same kind of brain trees on ABC planet and now the existence of them is confirmed in the Codex, but on XYZ planet and only for me. How can that be right? I didn't go to XYZ and see them!

For me the Codex would be a thing worth having if it recorded and showed every discovery, after the data had been submitted to UC. Perhaps as unconfirmed until two CMDRs visit it, perhaps not, but it should be a growing list or it's basically pointless.

Yeah, I don't really get the Codex, either. I rarely, if ever, look at it.

I'd imagine lots of folk don't necessarily agree with my feelings here, and that's fine. For me, though, they are part of the reason why whilst I won't stop playing, and enjoying E: D, it'll always have that edge of disappointment. It could be so much better. Someone once described E: D as an ocean a million kilometres wide, but only a centimetre deep. After all this time playing it I'm afraid I have to agree.

I've said many times playing ED is a love/hate relationship. I must love it more than I hate it, given the obscene amounts of time and money I've spent on it.

Cheers! o7

 

[Heavy Johnson]

This baffles me, too. I mean, somehow our raw materials, encoded materials and manufactured materials survive ship destruction (if they didn't, nobody would ever do engineering). But, our exploration data doesn't?

FDev wants to make death painful, so loss of your data in deep space makes that death more real - and prevents just killing yourself to pop back to the bubble.

I would argue that data collected should be too much to easily transmit, and that's why you need to do a direct download at a station. I also think you should lose your mats and materials. It would pretty much end suicide-winder, which I think is a good thing.

 

[iain666]

EDSM states a figure of nearly 48.5M discovered systems. I wonder what the actual figure is.

EDSM has a bit more than a quarter of the total, but has picked up almost half over the last couple of years.

According to Marx's analysis

 

[Redfox]

I'd imagine lots of folk don't necessarily agree with my feelings here

You think yours is an unpopular opinion? From the sentiments on this forum most of your points are likely to be considered valid, though having already been pointed out and discussed here many times ofter over the years. Thus, and based on the (lack of) interaction with FD on this sort of topic they've been mostly accepted by many veteran explorers as basic facts that are unlikely to be changed by any QOL improvements or future releases.

For me, 3rd party tools make up for many of these shortcomings (and in some cases providing services many times better than a game ever could/would), and e.g. my data being stored/available in EDD and EDSM is much more relevant (for science, yeah!) than having tags on random stars/planets in-game that neither I nor anyone else will ever see. Without these tools and the smart/creative/friendly CMDRs in the exploration community I'd have quit ED years ago.

 

[varonica]

This baffles me, too. I mean, somehow our raw materials, encoded materials and manufactured materials survive ship destruction (if they didn't, nobody would ever do engineering). But, our exploration data doesn't?

See I've always looked at it as, exploration doesn't mean just going somewhere, it's the going there and the coming back to report where you have been and what you have seen. Lacking that we will just get people flying to BP, then exploding their ships and cashing the data in when they respawn at their favourite station. It would be like Edmund Hillary climbing to the top of Everest, reporting everything by radio, then killing himself because he couldn't be bothered climbing down. I'm quite happy with mats surviving because they aren't stuff directly related to exploration, and there are other things that could be done to alleviate the loss of exploration data, such as data drops such that you have to travel back out to collect it, but exploration data surviving death out in the black so you can just cash it in when you respawn would in my opinion be a rather poor thing to do.

 

[CMDR Yates]

The original game design documents actually did specify being able to view which systems had been explored from the galaxy map. At some point a decision was made not to have that feature, possibly because they saw all the early users online going "hey I found my first unexplored system, woo!" and decided the surprise of that had some experience value to new players. Just have a look at the subreddit to see how many posts there are like that even today.

As an explorer, I don't necessarily agree it should be that way, but I see where it comes from.

Those of us who cover thousands of light years visiting thousands of virgin systems far from civilisation are very much a small, hard core of outliers. The vast majority of players tool around the vicinity of the bubble, and finding an untouched system is a big exciting event for them. Less so if it's just something they can filter by and immediately fly to on hour one of the game.

A compromise might be an in-game Universal Cartographics Professional Account that seasoned players can buy from station services for credits, only if they've proved their status by reaching a certain exploration rank (Surveyor or Trailblazer maybe). It gives users access to more mapping tools including seeing which systems have been explored on the gal map.

Then newbies and non-explorers could still get the thrill of stumbling on their first unseen star, and the explorers are able to pinpoint the unexplored systems when surveying a nebula or whatever.

 

[CMDR Yates]

As for the Codex: it's kind of a weird feature as it stands.

The majority of discoveries were first ticked off by players within a few days of the feature's launch, and it only shows each object's first discovery. As such it's like a frozen snapshot of those first days.

Whole clusters of stellar phenomena and biological sites will have been found far away from the individual first reports marked in the Codex, yet the Codex doesn't care about these, doesn't even hint at their existence unless it was the first finding in that vast sector. There's no real indication of the distribution of things.

I recognise that showing a list of ALL discoveries would be ridiculous overkill and probably a vast drain on bandwidth.

So what about showing the First Discovery and then a HEAT MAP of where subsequent discoveries have been located in the sector.

It also has the benefit of letting us use the tools availabt to track down more of the discoveries, without just spoon-feeding us a system names. Then we still have EDSM etc. if we really need a list.

 

[marx]

Regarding the Codex: don't forget that we were kept in the dark about what it actually is going to be, and that the exploration part of the Chapter Four update was rushed. I wouldn't be surprised if how it ended up wasn't the original plan, but what they managed to get working instead.


As for showing visited systems to everyone: I think there are two problems here. One would be the bandwidth required. Let's see... the visited stars filter from VSC.space is currently at around 249 MB, compressed. Going with four times that, we have a nearly 1 GB download per player. Of course, subsequent updates could be done via patching only, no need to download the entire thing all the time. We have no idea how many active players the game has over all platforms, but if you think about it, that's a lot of bandwidth for a feature that only a small niche of players would actually use.
Oh, and even if it auto-updated daily, you'd still get the occasional complaints that a system marked as unvisited was actually visited.

Then there's the second one: a system having been visited doesn't tell how well it has been explored. So you might have had someone flying through and only honking, and a "this system has been visited" flag would discourage later visitors from going there - and perhaps finding something that was missed. Players cherry-picking stuff probably wasn't the original plan, but by the time the game got to the gamma headstart, Frontier could have seen that it's what it's going to be.
So, the cost-benefit there? Even worse.

I almost forgot. There would also be a problem about systems that have been visited but the data not sold yet. So you'd get players racing to sell data before the first discoverer did. (It happens with the Codex too.)

So, with all that, there would be costs... but what would the benefits be? To be honest, I don't really see much. Even the OP wrote only that it would make sense, and left it at that. I'm not sure it would.
Personally, to me, it wouldn't. The reason I'm using the visited stars cache from EDSM is simple: because from EDSM, I can tell exactly what has been discovered in a system. But if all I knew whether a system was already visited or not, that wouldn't be of much use to me.
We'd probably have many more people complaining about people not scanning everything they come across though

 

[CMDR Yates]

Regarding the Codex: don't forget that we were kept in the dark about what it actually is going to be, and that the exploration part of the Chapter Four update was rushed. I wouldn't be surprised if how it ended up wasn't the original plan, but what they managed to get working instead.


As for showing visited systems to everyone: I think there are two problems here. One would be the bandwidth required. Let's see... the visited stars filter from VSC.space is currently at around 249 MB, compressed. Going with four times that, we have a nearly 1 GB download per player. Of course, subsequent updates could be done via patching only, no need to download the entire thing all the time. We have no idea how many active players the game has over all platforms, but if you think about it, that's a lot of bandwidth for a feature that only a small niche of players would actually use.
Oh, and even if it auto-updated daily, you'd still get the occasional complaints that a system marked as unvisited was actually visited.

Then there's the second one: a system having been visited doesn't tell how well it has been explored. So you might have had someone flying through and only honking, and a "this system has been visited" flag would discourage later visitors from going there - and perhaps finding something that was missed. Players cherry-picking stuff probably wasn't the original plan, but by the time the game got to the gamma headstart, Frontier could have seen that it's what it's going to be.
So, the cost-benefit there? Even worse.

I almost forgot. There would also be a problem about systems that have been visited but the data not sold yet. So you'd get players racing to sell data before the first discoverer did. (It happens with the Codex too.)

So, with all that, there would be costs... but what would the benefits be? To be honest, I don't really see much. Even the OP wrote only that it would make sense, and left it at that. I'm not sure it would.
Personally, to me, it wouldn't. The reason I'm using the visited stars cache from EDSM is simple: because from EDSM, I can tell exactly what has been discovered in a system. But if all I knew whether a system was already visited or not, that wouldn't be of much use to me.
We'd probably have many more people complaining about people not scanning everything they come across though

Yeah, that's true. They could have a four way filter for systems, though: mapped, explored, partially explored, unexplored. With colours and/or icons to indicate which.

Mapped if each body is FSS scanned AND surface scanned
Explored if each body is FSS scanned and all/some haven't been surface scanned
Partially Explored if some bodies are scanned and/or surface scanned, but not all
Unexplored if it hasn't even been honked

If I saw a partially explored system near my location when I was out in the far black, it wouldn't always put me off visiting. I might be tempted to see who'd been there before me.

These should only change once the data has been returned to a station and sold IMO, so no sniping exploration data.

Seems like the exploration state could be stored on Frontier's servers: just the name of each visited system (presumably compressed) with a one-byte nugget indicating which of the three explored states it is, and make unexplored default so the names of every unexplored system don't need to be stored server-side. The game then requests these from the server, only for the immediate sphere of stars you can see on the map, while looking at the map (maybe we can't plot routes by discovery, or can only plot routes by discovery over a short distance as a tradeoff).

I'm no expert, I'm sure it would be an increase in bandwidth versus looking at the present gal map, but I don't imagine it's more bandwidth than flying around a busy system with lots of dynamic assets. After all, lots of us have ED Discovery or similar open in the background doing the same thing and a whole lot more, and don't notice much impact.

I could be way off though.

 

[Pon Farr]

Can I have all your stuff anyway?

No

I'll check into this. Does this mess up my log files or updates to INARA, EDSM, etc.?

No it doesn't. In fact it doesn't change anything other than the visited/not visited stars in the galaxy map. Even the systems count in your commander's stats in game still shows the accurate number of systems you've visted.

I realise using the data from the visited stars cache page isn't perfect, and some may see it as meta-gaming or even borderline cheating, but I like it. It is worth bearing in mind, as others have pointed out, that it's not a 100% perfect way to know what has and hasn't been fully scanned. Systems showing up as visited still regularly have un-scanned bodies. So whilst on my current voyage out to the lower eastern edge of the galaxy and around to Beagle Point I err towards systems showing as not visited, I'll still drop in to visited ones on the way, especially the less likely ones. "Tourist" stars - big ones, neutrons, black holes etc., are almost always fully scanned, but T Tauri, brown dwarves, etc., rarely are.

See I've always looked at it as, exploration doesn't mean just going somewhere, it's the going there and the coming back to report where you have been and what you have seen.

I completely agree. But at the same time I still don't see why the exploration data gathered couldn't be transmitted back to UC for safe keeping. Perhaps to avoid other's concerns of people going out there, getting the data, then destroying themselves the backed up data could remain just that, and not actually committed to UC until a safe return, without death(s), to claim and submit the info.

Mapped if each body is FSS scanned AND surface scanned
Explored if each body is FSS scanned and all/some haven't been surface scanned
Partially Explored if some bodies are scanned and/or surface scanned, but not all
Unexplored if it hasn't even been honked

I particularly like that suggestion, however I also hear and understand the concerns of others regarding bandwidth. Yes, the visited stars cache is large, and only of use to some, so how about an option to download exploration data in one of the ship's control panels, even better if such an option was by galaxy sector rather than the whole galaxy. Just like downloading your Google map for offline use.

There are some very interesting ideas and views here, thanks folks. It'd be nice if FDEV gave a bit more thought to this area of the game. I've already mentioned that it's a disappointment to me and sadly it is. It's a great game, for sure, and I'll keep playing it, but I believe with more thought to the logic of certain aspects, such as those we've discussed here, it could become an awesome game in more ways than currently (graphics & sound being, IMO, outstanding).

Oh, as an aside, I wonder if others have a mental (or even physical) note of other commander names that pop up regularly on exploration trips. I've got a small mental list and I can tell, pretty reliably, if a system will be fully or only partially scanned by the tag on the star! I also double check, of course, but I'm usually right. Games we (I) play to stave off madness out the in the depths of space

 

[Pon Farr]

Had a thought (yeah, it hurt) to add a wee list of desirable (to me, anyway) improvements...

• Better logic and tools to make exploration more efficient and believable.
• A usable Codex that grows with discoveries.

Stuff I've not mentioned before, but would absolutely love to see...

• An overlay, as a switchable option, that shows star names on the 'sky box'. Maybe just the ones within one or two jumps. Wouldn't it be great to look out of the cockpit and see system names! Ok, probably just eye candy rather than a useful feature, but I'd love it.
• Binoculars! Or a telescope! Seriously, why with all the tech we have around us in our ships and SRV can we not zoom in on the outside world without having to use the external camera suite?
• I think it'd be really handy to be able to edit the route plotted in the galaxy map - in a similar way to how Google maps' routes can be altered by dragging points. Being able to customise a route easily, with multiple waypoints, would be great! Eh, please?

 

[Martin Shepard]

Just to briefly give some background and info, this isn't a whinging "I'm leaving E: D" post (so you can't have all my stuff, don't ask ;-) ) and I've been playing E: D since Premium Beta with over 3,000 hours under my belt. I also played all the original games, which still rank in my all time top 10 list.

Exploration is one of my preferred occupations and I really enjoy getting out there and seeing the sights, however I think it could have been done so much better.

Take, for example, the fact that whilst we're all exploring the same galaxy, we're doing it individually. Meaning any system I jump in to, out in the black, it's random luck as to whether that system has been discovered and fully, or partially scanned, or a totally new discovery. Why? Wouldn't it make sense that all exploration data submitted to Universal Cartographics is available to all CMDRs so that they could readily see, on the map, where systems aren't discovered.

I don't understand, nor see any logical game play reasons, for not doing that.

There is a way to partially have access to discovered systems found by other CMDRs by downloading the data from http://www.visitedstarscache.space/ and changing the game's visited stars cache. Using that the galaxy map, in visited systems mode, shows all visited systems as logged on EDSM, which is more how I'd expect to view the map. Maybe there should be two visited systems modes - "my visited systems" and "all visited systems".

As an aside, the above also highlights the fact that way more systems have been discovered than are in EDSM. I'm about 1,500k LY down from Sol using the data from the above link and there are literally tons of systems showing as undiscovered (well, not visited, but that's how this works) however a lot of them have been fully or partially scanned. EDSM states a figure of nearly 48.5M discovered systems. I wonder what the actual figure is.

Also I don't understand why we can't back up exploration data, aside from making coming home with data on board "dangerous" which, given how powerful combat ships are against exploration ones, in general, seems pointless too. If we can transmit enough data clean across the galaxy to telepresence into someone else's ship for multi-play, surely we should be able to transmit our exploration data back to a central database for safe storage, even if that didn't add said data to the UC database until we actually get back and sell it. Personally I'd like to see a database dump style option where, whenever we choose, we can send our exploration data in and then said data is available to everyone. Perhaps we don't get credit (financial and personal - meaning names on discoveries) until we physically get back and sell the data but at least if we don't make it, the data still gets in to the discovered database.

A further exploration 'thing' that just doesn't work for me is the Codex. The discovery section to be precise. So, it states there are, say, brain trees on XYZ planet, but that it's not confirmed, then I find the same kind of brain trees on ABC planet and now the existence of them is confirmed in the Codex, but on XYZ planet and only for me. How can that be right? I didn't go to XYZ and see them!

For me the Codex would be a thing worth having if it recorded and showed every discovery, after the data had been submitted to UC. Perhaps as unconfirmed until two CMDRs visit it, perhaps not, but it should be a growing list or it's basically pointless.

I'd imagine lots of folk don't necessarily agree with my feelings here, and that's fine. For me, though, they are part of the reason why whilst I won't stop playing, and enjoying E: D, it'll always have that edge of disappointment. It could be so much better. Someone once described E: D as an ocean a million kilometres wide, but only a centimetre deep. After all this time playing it I'm afraid I have to agree.

o7 CMDRs

I think it is alright as it is. I'm of the opinion that having EDSM and all the other tools to provide data for external sites is an advantage of the game. It supports the community and it's spirit. This makes a huge impact on how we are interacting as explorers. When EDSM and all the tools weren't here and all the commanders talking about developing new ones then the community and the forum would be much more empty.
This is a way of interacting and I love it. The game doesn't just take place when you hit play in your launcher.

Amen.

 

[Numenor1379]

Regarding the Codex: don't forget that we were kept in the dark about what it actually is going to be, and that the exploration part of the Chapter Four update was rushed. I wouldn't be surprised if how it ended up wasn't the original plan, but what they managed to get working instead.


As for showing visited systems to everyone: I think there are two problems here. One would be the bandwidth required. Let's see... the visited stars filter from VSC.space is currently at around 249 MB, compressed. Going with four times that, we have a nearly 1 GB download per player. Of course, subsequent updates could be done via patching only, no need to download the entire thing all the time. We have no idea how many active players the game has over all platforms, but if you think about it, that's a lot of bandwidth for a feature that only a small niche of players would actually use.
Oh, and even if it auto-updated daily, you'd still get the occasional complaints that a system marked as unvisited was actually visited.

Then there's the second one: a system having been visited doesn't tell how well it has been explored. So you might have had someone flying through and only honking, and a "this system has been visited" flag would discourage later visitors from going there - and perhaps finding something that was missed. Players cherry-picking stuff probably wasn't the original plan, but by the time the game got to the gamma headstart, Frontier could have seen that it's what it's going to be.
So, the cost-benefit there? Even worse.

I almost forgot. There would also be a problem about systems that have been visited but the data not sold yet. So you'd get players racing to sell data before the first discoverer did. (It happens with the Codex too.)

So, with all that, there would be costs... but what would the benefits be? To be honest, I don't really see much. Even the OP wrote only that it would make sense, and left it at that. I'm not sure it would.
Personally, to me, it wouldn't. The reason I'm using the visited stars cache from EDSM is simple: because from EDSM, I can tell exactly what has been discovered in a system. But if all I knew whether a system was already visited or not, that wouldn't be of much use to me.
We'd probably have many more people complaining about people not scanning everything they come across though

Counter argument... console users cannot use the conglomerate VisitedStarCashe. Having an in-game version would be far superior for all players.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

It would be like Edmund Hillary climbing to the top of Everest, reporting everything by radio, then killing himself because he couldn't be bothered climbing down

Actually it wouldn't.
Edmund would be dead, we were not as it's a game we are playing

Don't understand why it isn't an accomplishment to get to BP as long as you didn't got back.
Three month of jumping is worth nothing, but six month is?

How do I harm any other player with suicidewinder'ing in a sandbox game which is near to completely unexplored?
Ah, I see, cause I would get that 400 tags I'm not worth to get as I only played three month and not six

 

[Redfox]

Don't understand why [...]

Because we've all got different values and goals, and thus different ways to achieve those. Remembering this simple fact is often sufficient to get myself over a lack of understanding of other ppl's actions/sentiments - in here and out there.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

Because we've all got different values and goals, and thus different ways to achieve those. (...)

Exactly.
And cause of this it's fine to suicide winder

 

[iain666]

And cause of this it's fine to suicide winder

Absolutely. You just don't get the tags or credits, but if the achievement of reaching BP was all you were after then that's fine.

 

[marx]

Exactly.
And cause of this it's fine to suicide winder

The point of the Suicidewinder (ticket) is a speedy return to the bubble without losing your data. The way it works is as follows: instead of going all the way back to the bubble, you go to a non-bubble shipyard (Colonia or a few of the remote asteroid bases), sell your exploration data (thereby getting all the credits and tags), then you buy a cheap Sidewinder and store your ship. Take off, suicide, then choose to respawn in a free Sidewinder at your starting location (which is in the bubble). This way, you save yourself plenty of travel, at the cost of having to pay credits to transfer your "old" ship back.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

I know how it works, actually I never made my way back from Colonia with more than one jump

Its not about the "suicidewinder-mechanic" using the freewinder, or a ticket or just a self-destruct.

Its about the necessity to bring competition even into exploration of a sandbox...
There are the highest, lowest, farest threads... the most-elw threads... the someone-has-stolen-my-tag threads...

And I dont get it.
To be honest even in RL I dont understand why people rushed to the south pole to be "the first"

And IMO the cry for "exporation needs to be dangerous" comes from competitive minds, who wants to prove that someone is "worthy", strong enough, whatever. (coming near to a "true explorer statement, get your dirnks )

Still, each to its own of course(!), but if I dont want to compete with some "exploration-rankings" why shouldnt I be allowed to explore my way (including self destruction) and still earn my tags and credits.

Thats why I would like to get both instantly after a scan.
But well - there are many aspects of life where I dont understand most human beings and their behaviours