For the sake of those that do not wish to read yet another rambling critique on exploration, here are the major bullet points up for discussion:
Feel free to skip to The Conclusion if you're not in a reading mood.
If anyone has anything I see fit to add, or if Frontier makes any notable replies to the topic, I shall include links to the relevant posts as well:
It Begins.
I recently began my fourth exploration-focused expedition into unpopulated space, and only just recently happened across a string of systems that had me particularly excited. Adding another Earth Like World to my collection was certainly a joyful moment, but it was a system filled with nothing but gas giants that had me particularly giddy long before any alien life was to be found. As I scanned my third or fourth Class I Jovian Gas Giant, I immediately did what had become instinct and switched to scanning its moons with a high degree of excitement. As the third or fourth Ice Planet came up empty once again, I was suddenly overcome with a strange question, one that had been creeping in the back of my mind for some time. It was only in this moment, however, that it had managed to shove itself into the forefront of my thoughts and force me to give it any actual attention.
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
This thought wasn't directed at exploration in general, just the simple act of joyfully scanning a half-dozen balls of ice. Once more, I immediately had an answer, and it was that answer that really got me curious.
Because of Europa.
That answer came up before the question itself had been fully posed, and while it instantly answered the primary question it really only served to raise several others. Ice Worlds in Elite Dangerous are fairly bland, their scans are worth almost nothing at market. Indeed they form The Holy Trinity of Blandness that are Rocky Worlds, Ice Worlds, and the occasionally stunningly dull Rocky Ice Worlds. It then seemed somewhat strange to me that the mere thought of Europa had me scurrying about from one bland object to the next without any thought to the amount of time I was wasting away with my detailed surface scanner. So I pulled up a Wikipedia page and tried to gauge just what it was about this lone icy moon that had me scanning everything like it in the entire galaxy. The page hadn't even loaded before I had my answer.
There's a fair amount of scientific consensus behind the belief that a sub-surface ocean probably exists on Europa, and that life could actually be thriving there as we speak. For those unwilling to seek out answers on google, the short of it is that this particular Rocky Ice World could have an active volcanic core, which scientists speculate keeps the ice melted below a certain threshold and allows for something of an ice-covered water world to exist.
That, right there, was my true answer. I hadn't really been scanning Ice Worlds with relentless vigor, I've been scanning what my subconscious assumes to be a vast collection of potential Water Worlds hidden under a light crust of lying ice. The same thoughts that drove me to seek out Earth Like Worlds and their Ammonia counterparts were also driving me here, and it was with this realization that an even greater question was posed.
Does Elite Dangerous model this?
Now I've scanned hundreds of systems and thousands of objects. As of this post I'm at Ranger Rank with Exploration in the Pilot's Federation, and so far the answer to my question has been a resounding no. However, there's a lot of objects I know I haven't scanned before, and there's a lot to experience that I have yet to find. In short, I couldn't be sure just based off of my own findings. In order to have a high degree of certainty, I would need to find a world that was practically guaranteed to be of this type and read the data associated with its detailed scan. Yet, how could one possibly go about identifying such an object before scanning it? Amid 400 billion stars? That was like finding a needle in a haystack!
I'll admit it took me longer than it should have to connect the dots. A quick trip to the galaxy map had me back in SOL's system map in no time, and it was with no small disappointment that I read the flavor text for Europa. A Rocky Ice World, nothing special. Surely if Europa was not one of these fabled Subsurface Water Worlds, no other moon or planet would be one either, it was a safe bet that such objects did not exist in the game at all. My instincts had let me down, and my scanning had been in vain. Hundreds of hours of my life had been wasted believing in a fruitless dream.
Let's take another look at Sol.
That's the thought that pulled me away from my disappointment. After all, Subsurface Water Worlds were only a theory. Plausibility aside, one could at least argue the point one way or another until the existence of such a thing was actually confirmed. So it was that I began browsing around the planets once again, seeing what else Frontier might not believe in. Terraforming mars, check. Gas Giants sorted by Surdarsky's Classification system? Duh. Obviously.
One check.
Two check.
Three check?
Four check?!!?
Let's make something very clear. Elite was born in 1985, and I was not. Indeed, this commander didn't come into being until the 1990's had began, and so I never lived in a time where the following information was ever disputed:
URANUS AND NEPTUNE ARE NOT GAS GIANTS.
I'm going to repeat this just so we're all clear.
URANUS AND NEPTUNE ARE NOT GAS GIANTS.
It never occurred to me to check a detail both so incredibly minor and so outrageously significant. It was in 90's that scientists came to understand that Uranus and Neptune were something other than Gas Giants, and so I was never once taught to think of these two planets as Gas Giants. For all those unaware, Uranus and Neptune are Ice Giants. This distinction is important solely because Surdarsky's Classification system doesn't work on these types of objects. It's an important distinction that Elite Dangerous glosses right over as if the 80's were still in full effect, and it brought me to realize something quite shocking. It's altogether possible that a large chunk of the Gas Giants I've scanned throughout my career are actually mislabeled Ice Giants. Although there is a worse possibility, the altogether scary likelihood that Ice Giants may not be modeled in the galaxy at all. I'm not well versed in the happenings of the so-called Stellar Forge, but I'd practically demand the entire galaxy be reset if Ice Giants were never even considered. They're not exactly uncommon objects, our own solar system has just as many Ice Giants as it does Gas Giants. Not including these objects, even for nostalgia's sake is a gross oversight.
DWARF PLANETS.
I closed the galaxy map in disgust and started sailing around the system again. It also occurred to me that most Dwarf Planets were not modeled in any way shape or form. Sol has a significant number of these, Pluto now listed among them, and seeing them absent was disheartening as well. Although, it also wasn't all that shocking. If Ice Giants are missing from the game, the Dwarf Planets are hardly a fight worth discussing at length. I have a great love for little Ceres, but I think most would stand to see at least Eris properly represented in some form. Still, if Frontier wants to model the solar system based solely on the nine planets most people would recognize, I don't exactly fault them for that. It's just not entirely scientifically accurate to leave out all these other Pluto-sized objects entirely, even if their current classification system is questionable at best.
Though, as I traveled across one of the stars at the center of this particular system a thought did occur to me.
ORBITS.
Elite Dangerous really likes circular orbits. This might seem like a weird observation to some, but anyone that's looked at a fairly detailed map of our own solar system should realize that elliptical orbits do actually exist. They're not uncommon either, even a lot of orbits that look fairly circular usually aren't. The most obvious object to look at in this regard is Pluto, because of how extreme its orbit truly is, but even the Earth's orbit isn't actually circular. Strangely, though, it appears Elite Dangerous doesn't seem to take these sorts of orbits into account when generating new systems. Every celestial object I've seen in this game usually has a nearly perfect circular orbit of some kind, with the lone exceptions being objects orbiting other objects of similar mass pulling on each other. This is indeed a type of elliptical orbit the game models, and you'll frequently see these relationships between binary suns and pairs of very small moons. However, you're very unlikely to see the orbit of a high metal content planet shoot across the orbit of another, or see anything similarly interesting happen in this regard.
Rogue Planets.
As I finished up uselessly scanning icy moons and prepared to jump to the next system in my planned route, my thoughts strayed to the galaxy map itself. Elite Dangerous sells itself on the idea of exploring 400 billion suns, but David Braben admitted himself that the skies were simply too bright when stars were all that they had rendering there. Ultimately Frontier settled on adding "dust" to make the Galaxy render correctly, and you can see this dust rather clearly all over the place. It's present in the galaxy map and the "sky box" which surrounds every system. Though it's what this dust is made out of that is most interesting. It's asteroids, it's planets, it's a lot of big and terrifying objects, none of which are orbiting any stars or stellar remnants. These rogue, orphaned, interstellar, free-floating planets all orbit relative to the core of the galaxy itself at varying speeds. Occasionally they tend to collide with things, but even if they didn't they're still interesting objects in their own right.
As it stands right now, however, we can't visit them.
Frame Shift drives, as they're implemented, simply cannot target these. These loose objects are also not available on the galaxy map.
This might not seem like a big deal to some, but this a lot of outright mass in the galaxy that explorers will never be able to touch. We can see it, it's out there, we can look at it from a distance, but it all remains infuriatingly out of reach. For all we know, some of it might be on a collision course with Earth or other populated systems and there's literally nothing we can do about it. Everything that's out in the black is beyond our grasp and it's only the 400 billion suns that our within our reach.
THE CONCLUSION.
This meandering post wasn't all without reason. A lot of people clamor for an overhaul to Exploration, but their ideas and suggestions are usually met with at least some amount of backlash. The very real problem, from my perspective, is that everyone realizes there's work to be done but few can decide on where that work needs to start. Some believe that the problem is one of mechanics, others that things are simply too boring, but I wanted to do a little more than just throw another rant into the storm. I wanted to offer some specific points where ED could see some real improvements for all types and varieties of explorers. Adding the likelihood of finding Subsurface Water Worlds would encourage people to give most Ice Worlds another look, and would encourage veteran explorers to give more time and care to exploring the types of "boring" systems that are usually filled with nothing but balls of ice. Correctly categorizing Ice Giants would give more variety to systems dominated by Gas Giants, and give more variety to the entire game by extension. Seeing the dwarf planets modeled in Sol might give people more reason to visit the birthplace of humanity, and might even drive some people to understand a little more about our own little corner of the universe. A greater use of elliptical orbits would add much needed variety to what is usually a sea of perfectly concentric circles, and would give systems a real sense of identity and personality that many insist the game outright lacks. Adding to it all, traveling to Rogue Planets could open up the door to a galaxy-wide hunt for problem objects endangering civilizations and Earth Like Worlds. It would allow explorers to do more than seek out life, or expand humanity's reach, it could literally turn exploring into a guardian angel profession.
Once more, none of these things would break, compromise, or even fundamentally change the way the mechanics of exploration currently work. All of it would only serve to give players more reasons to be interested in what's already there via the addition of scientifically accurate cosmic variety. I have intentionally withheld discussion on fundamental and mechanical changes for this reason. I firmly believe that making exploration better must start with a basic set of additions to the game that everyone can agree upon. Until we have this all sorted out, I personally believe any discussion on more controversial changes to the fundamental structure of the Exploration Profession are essentially pointless.
That said, allow me to finish by proposing some basic questions for discussion:
If you've made it this far or just skipped straight to the end, thanks for joining the discussion! Please know that I'm not here to inflame or to bash, and I really do appreciate the exceptional work Frontier have put into Elite Dangerous as well as the fantastic community which continues to support this wonderful game. Even if you don't have anything to add, thank you for taking the time to give my post a look! Fly safe commanders!
- Ice Worlds lack the subsurface oceans speculated by scientists.
- Ice Giants are miscategorized as Gas Giants.
- Dwarf Planets around Sol are almost entirely absent.
- Elliptical Orbits are almost never present.
- Rogue Planets simply do not exist.
Feel free to skip to The Conclusion if you're not in a reading mood.
If anyone has anything I see fit to add, or if Frontier makes any notable replies to the topic, I shall include links to the relevant posts as well:
It Begins.
I recently began my fourth exploration-focused expedition into unpopulated space, and only just recently happened across a string of systems that had me particularly excited. Adding another Earth Like World to my collection was certainly a joyful moment, but it was a system filled with nothing but gas giants that had me particularly giddy long before any alien life was to be found. As I scanned my third or fourth Class I Jovian Gas Giant, I immediately did what had become instinct and switched to scanning its moons with a high degree of excitement. As the third or fourth Ice Planet came up empty once again, I was suddenly overcome with a strange question, one that had been creeping in the back of my mind for some time. It was only in this moment, however, that it had managed to shove itself into the forefront of my thoughts and force me to give it any actual attention.
WHY AM I DOING THIS?
This thought wasn't directed at exploration in general, just the simple act of joyfully scanning a half-dozen balls of ice. Once more, I immediately had an answer, and it was that answer that really got me curious.
Because of Europa.
That answer came up before the question itself had been fully posed, and while it instantly answered the primary question it really only served to raise several others. Ice Worlds in Elite Dangerous are fairly bland, their scans are worth almost nothing at market. Indeed they form The Holy Trinity of Blandness that are Rocky Worlds, Ice Worlds, and the occasionally stunningly dull Rocky Ice Worlds. It then seemed somewhat strange to me that the mere thought of Europa had me scurrying about from one bland object to the next without any thought to the amount of time I was wasting away with my detailed surface scanner. So I pulled up a Wikipedia page and tried to gauge just what it was about this lone icy moon that had me scanning everything like it in the entire galaxy. The page hadn't even loaded before I had my answer.
There's a fair amount of scientific consensus behind the belief that a sub-surface ocean probably exists on Europa, and that life could actually be thriving there as we speak. For those unwilling to seek out answers on google, the short of it is that this particular Rocky Ice World could have an active volcanic core, which scientists speculate keeps the ice melted below a certain threshold and allows for something of an ice-covered water world to exist.
That, right there, was my true answer. I hadn't really been scanning Ice Worlds with relentless vigor, I've been scanning what my subconscious assumes to be a vast collection of potential Water Worlds hidden under a light crust of lying ice. The same thoughts that drove me to seek out Earth Like Worlds and their Ammonia counterparts were also driving me here, and it was with this realization that an even greater question was posed.
Does Elite Dangerous model this?
Now I've scanned hundreds of systems and thousands of objects. As of this post I'm at Ranger Rank with Exploration in the Pilot's Federation, and so far the answer to my question has been a resounding no. However, there's a lot of objects I know I haven't scanned before, and there's a lot to experience that I have yet to find. In short, I couldn't be sure just based off of my own findings. In order to have a high degree of certainty, I would need to find a world that was practically guaranteed to be of this type and read the data associated with its detailed scan. Yet, how could one possibly go about identifying such an object before scanning it? Amid 400 billion stars? That was like finding a needle in a haystack!
I'll admit it took me longer than it should have to connect the dots. A quick trip to the galaxy map had me back in SOL's system map in no time, and it was with no small disappointment that I read the flavor text for Europa. A Rocky Ice World, nothing special. Surely if Europa was not one of these fabled Subsurface Water Worlds, no other moon or planet would be one either, it was a safe bet that such objects did not exist in the game at all. My instincts had let me down, and my scanning had been in vain. Hundreds of hours of my life had been wasted believing in a fruitless dream.
Let's take another look at Sol.
That's the thought that pulled me away from my disappointment. After all, Subsurface Water Worlds were only a theory. Plausibility aside, one could at least argue the point one way or another until the existence of such a thing was actually confirmed. So it was that I began browsing around the planets once again, seeing what else Frontier might not believe in. Terraforming mars, check. Gas Giants sorted by Surdarsky's Classification system? Duh. Obviously.
One check.
Two check.
Three check?
Four check?!!?
Let's make something very clear. Elite was born in 1985, and I was not. Indeed, this commander didn't come into being until the 1990's had began, and so I never lived in a time where the following information was ever disputed:
URANUS AND NEPTUNE ARE NOT GAS GIANTS.
I'm going to repeat this just so we're all clear.
URANUS AND NEPTUNE ARE NOT GAS GIANTS.
It never occurred to me to check a detail both so incredibly minor and so outrageously significant. It was in 90's that scientists came to understand that Uranus and Neptune were something other than Gas Giants, and so I was never once taught to think of these two planets as Gas Giants. For all those unaware, Uranus and Neptune are Ice Giants. This distinction is important solely because Surdarsky's Classification system doesn't work on these types of objects. It's an important distinction that Elite Dangerous glosses right over as if the 80's were still in full effect, and it brought me to realize something quite shocking. It's altogether possible that a large chunk of the Gas Giants I've scanned throughout my career are actually mislabeled Ice Giants. Although there is a worse possibility, the altogether scary likelihood that Ice Giants may not be modeled in the galaxy at all. I'm not well versed in the happenings of the so-called Stellar Forge, but I'd practically demand the entire galaxy be reset if Ice Giants were never even considered. They're not exactly uncommon objects, our own solar system has just as many Ice Giants as it does Gas Giants. Not including these objects, even for nostalgia's sake is a gross oversight.
DWARF PLANETS.
I closed the galaxy map in disgust and started sailing around the system again. It also occurred to me that most Dwarf Planets were not modeled in any way shape or form. Sol has a significant number of these, Pluto now listed among them, and seeing them absent was disheartening as well. Although, it also wasn't all that shocking. If Ice Giants are missing from the game, the Dwarf Planets are hardly a fight worth discussing at length. I have a great love for little Ceres, but I think most would stand to see at least Eris properly represented in some form. Still, if Frontier wants to model the solar system based solely on the nine planets most people would recognize, I don't exactly fault them for that. It's just not entirely scientifically accurate to leave out all these other Pluto-sized objects entirely, even if their current classification system is questionable at best.
Though, as I traveled across one of the stars at the center of this particular system a thought did occur to me.
ORBITS.
Elite Dangerous really likes circular orbits. This might seem like a weird observation to some, but anyone that's looked at a fairly detailed map of our own solar system should realize that elliptical orbits do actually exist. They're not uncommon either, even a lot of orbits that look fairly circular usually aren't. The most obvious object to look at in this regard is Pluto, because of how extreme its orbit truly is, but even the Earth's orbit isn't actually circular. Strangely, though, it appears Elite Dangerous doesn't seem to take these sorts of orbits into account when generating new systems. Every celestial object I've seen in this game usually has a nearly perfect circular orbit of some kind, with the lone exceptions being objects orbiting other objects of similar mass pulling on each other. This is indeed a type of elliptical orbit the game models, and you'll frequently see these relationships between binary suns and pairs of very small moons. However, you're very unlikely to see the orbit of a high metal content planet shoot across the orbit of another, or see anything similarly interesting happen in this regard.
Rogue Planets.
As I finished up uselessly scanning icy moons and prepared to jump to the next system in my planned route, my thoughts strayed to the galaxy map itself. Elite Dangerous sells itself on the idea of exploring 400 billion suns, but David Braben admitted himself that the skies were simply too bright when stars were all that they had rendering there. Ultimately Frontier settled on adding "dust" to make the Galaxy render correctly, and you can see this dust rather clearly all over the place. It's present in the galaxy map and the "sky box" which surrounds every system. Though it's what this dust is made out of that is most interesting. It's asteroids, it's planets, it's a lot of big and terrifying objects, none of which are orbiting any stars or stellar remnants. These rogue, orphaned, interstellar, free-floating planets all orbit relative to the core of the galaxy itself at varying speeds. Occasionally they tend to collide with things, but even if they didn't they're still interesting objects in their own right.
As it stands right now, however, we can't visit them.
Frame Shift drives, as they're implemented, simply cannot target these. These loose objects are also not available on the galaxy map.
This might not seem like a big deal to some, but this a lot of outright mass in the galaxy that explorers will never be able to touch. We can see it, it's out there, we can look at it from a distance, but it all remains infuriatingly out of reach. For all we know, some of it might be on a collision course with Earth or other populated systems and there's literally nothing we can do about it. Everything that's out in the black is beyond our grasp and it's only the 400 billion suns that our within our reach.
THE CONCLUSION.
This meandering post wasn't all without reason. A lot of people clamor for an overhaul to Exploration, but their ideas and suggestions are usually met with at least some amount of backlash. The very real problem, from my perspective, is that everyone realizes there's work to be done but few can decide on where that work needs to start. Some believe that the problem is one of mechanics, others that things are simply too boring, but I wanted to do a little more than just throw another rant into the storm. I wanted to offer some specific points where ED could see some real improvements for all types and varieties of explorers. Adding the likelihood of finding Subsurface Water Worlds would encourage people to give most Ice Worlds another look, and would encourage veteran explorers to give more time and care to exploring the types of "boring" systems that are usually filled with nothing but balls of ice. Correctly categorizing Ice Giants would give more variety to systems dominated by Gas Giants, and give more variety to the entire game by extension. Seeing the dwarf planets modeled in Sol might give people more reason to visit the birthplace of humanity, and might even drive some people to understand a little more about our own little corner of the universe. A greater use of elliptical orbits would add much needed variety to what is usually a sea of perfectly concentric circles, and would give systems a real sense of identity and personality that many insist the game outright lacks. Adding to it all, traveling to Rogue Planets could open up the door to a galaxy-wide hunt for problem objects endangering civilizations and Earth Like Worlds. It would allow explorers to do more than seek out life, or expand humanity's reach, it could literally turn exploring into a guardian angel profession.
Once more, none of these things would break, compromise, or even fundamentally change the way the mechanics of exploration currently work. All of it would only serve to give players more reasons to be interested in what's already there via the addition of scientifically accurate cosmic variety. I have intentionally withheld discussion on fundamental and mechanical changes for this reason. I firmly believe that making exploration better must start with a basic set of additions to the game that everyone can agree upon. Until we have this all sorted out, I personally believe any discussion on more controversial changes to the fundamental structure of the Exploration Profession are essentially pointless.
That said, allow me to finish by proposing some basic questions for discussion:
- Do you feel there's anything else Frontier has missed?
- Do you fundamentally disagree with any of the topics I have discussed?
- What are your feelings with regards to the points I've raised?
If you've made it this far or just skipped straight to the end, thanks for joining the discussion! Please know that I'm not here to inflame or to bash, and I really do appreciate the exceptional work Frontier have put into Elite Dangerous as well as the fantastic community which continues to support this wonderful game. Even if you don't have anything to add, thank you for taking the time to give my post a look! Fly safe commanders!
Last edited:
Asp Explorer and Diamondback Explorer should be the ships to reach furthest, maybe an Anaconda following part of the way in a support role.