Eating is not repetitive. You need to try something tasty.
Eating is not repetitive - try going without.
Explorers : would you consider giving up on the infinite honk for...?
- Thread starter Godsailsaqueen
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Eating is not repetitive. You need to try something tasty.
Eating is not repetitive - try going without.
Eating is not repetitive - try choosing from a large variety.
That's exactly his point though: the mechanics of eating are very repetitive, it's the variety of food that adds the "fun" to it. Imagine if you could only ever eat beige poptarts, with maybe the occasional blueberry or strawberry poptarts now and then. Now tell me how repetitive would that be? There you go, Elite Exploration.
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And how much more fun would it be if all your poptarts came in the same plain wrapper and you had to buy them before you got to find out what flavor they were?
Or if you could only buy a big box labelled 'poptarts' and you didn't get to open it to find out whether it contained anything until you got it home?
That's right, it would be no fun at all.
Stupid food analogy is stupid.
If all you can find is beige poptarts because the one and only way to find flavoured ones was removed, then yes - it'd be very repetitive. I see we agree on that.
I'm confused. If that (and that sort of thing) is what you want, and you're the lead designer, then why isn't that the sort of thing we have? What keeps pulling the game in the super simplified direction, instead of the interactive and engaging one?
The honk is the bread and garlic butter you get before the meal. Not really part of the actual meal. The follow up mechanics is when you dig in.
After investigating, the screenies of the now new and improved surfaces are the coffee and brandy which you enjoy on the porch enjoying the view of the setting sun.
After investigating, the screenies of the now new and improved surfaces are the coffee and brandy which you enjoy on the porch enjoying the view of the setting sun.
I posted something along the below lines in the suggestion forum some time ago, however here is something a little more upto date and taking into account Sandros comments.
I would leave the Advanced scanner with infinite range but give it certain downsides while offering certain benefits from using the other two scanners.
My thinking around changes to scanners is based loosely on Sonars and radars.
The Basic Scanner i would change into a Passive scanner similar to passive sonar. The main benefits of this would be that it is stealthy, in that ships using this scanner would be harder to detect, especially if combined with other low observability kit like clean drives and low emissions powerplant. Stealth gameplay elements would be built into using this type of scanner, for example you would be able to detect and lock onto interdictions in the locale This would allow bounty Hunters to quickly come to the assistance of players being attacked by pirates. The scanner would also allow players to identify specific engineering modifications thereby enabling better tactical judgement on if to attack a target or not. In addition it would also be excellent at revealing hidden assets such as pirate bases, loot caches, or other unauthorised activity. As it is a passive device it generates no heat penalty with only minimal power usage. The range for planetary scanning would be increased to 1000ls.
The Advanced Scanner. This is a fully active scanner. This lights you up like a christmas tree. Everyone human or otherwise can detect you throughout the star system when equipped with this scanner. Carry this scanner and if you enter lets say an area with hostile aliens in it, then you can expect a very hot reception. If in human space then you will stand out beautifully for pirates. Interdictions of ships equipped with advanced scanners become far easier. Torpedoes and other homing weapons love them as they lock onto the emissions and hunt you down., Gimballed and turreted weapons find you easier to track. The main benefit of this scanner however is its infinite range that reveals all planetary objects within a star system. The power of the system however drowns out low level emissions from hidden artifacts such as pirate bases, ships of the missing, loot caches and anything else frontier want to make hard to find. Fitting this scanner carries a significant power and heat penalty along with some mass penalty. It is of course excellent for those engaged in stellar mapping.
The intermediate Scanner. This represents a half way house between the Advanced Scanner and the Basic Scanner. One might say it is a semi active scanner. This does intermittently generate some noise which makes you visible to those around you so dont expect to be able to use this as a stealth ship. However you are not advertising your presence to all and sundry throughout a star system. Though you will be visible within a certain detection sphere. Hidden features may be visible but will be harder to detect than with the Basic scanner. The intermediate scanner comes with some heat and power penalties and some weight penalties. I would increase its range to 10,000 ls.
Each scanner would need to have its own signature sound to indicate its operation. The advanced would in my opinion retain the current foghorn like sound. I think that is appropriate. The Intermediate would have something like a classic pinging sound of sonar, while the passive would have a hissing noise to represent just the background radiation of the stars it is picking up.
The various scanners would reveal planets much as they do now. However for more forensic analysis there would be the option of opening up something akin to the SRV scanner that would emit various noises and wave patterns to indicate something unusual. This would be especially useful in a multicrew scenario as would allow someone to fly the ship while someone else sits examining the scan data. In multicrew through having a dedicated scanner screen the scanner operative would be able to drill down to specific noise segments to hone in on specific areas of interest quickly, and be able to plot courses and set markers in space or on planetary surfaces.
I would leave the Advanced scanner with infinite range but give it certain downsides while offering certain benefits from using the other two scanners.
My thinking around changes to scanners is based loosely on Sonars and radars.
The Basic Scanner i would change into a Passive scanner similar to passive sonar. The main benefits of this would be that it is stealthy, in that ships using this scanner would be harder to detect, especially if combined with other low observability kit like clean drives and low emissions powerplant. Stealth gameplay elements would be built into using this type of scanner, for example you would be able to detect and lock onto interdictions in the locale This would allow bounty Hunters to quickly come to the assistance of players being attacked by pirates. The scanner would also allow players to identify specific engineering modifications thereby enabling better tactical judgement on if to attack a target or not. In addition it would also be excellent at revealing hidden assets such as pirate bases, loot caches, or other unauthorised activity. As it is a passive device it generates no heat penalty with only minimal power usage. The range for planetary scanning would be increased to 1000ls.
The Advanced Scanner. This is a fully active scanner. This lights you up like a christmas tree. Everyone human or otherwise can detect you throughout the star system when equipped with this scanner. Carry this scanner and if you enter lets say an area with hostile aliens in it, then you can expect a very hot reception. If in human space then you will stand out beautifully for pirates. Interdictions of ships equipped with advanced scanners become far easier. Torpedoes and other homing weapons love them as they lock onto the emissions and hunt you down., Gimballed and turreted weapons find you easier to track. The main benefit of this scanner however is its infinite range that reveals all planetary objects within a star system. The power of the system however drowns out low level emissions from hidden artifacts such as pirate bases, ships of the missing, loot caches and anything else frontier want to make hard to find. Fitting this scanner carries a significant power and heat penalty along with some mass penalty. It is of course excellent for those engaged in stellar mapping.
The intermediate Scanner. This represents a half way house between the Advanced Scanner and the Basic Scanner. One might say it is a semi active scanner. This does intermittently generate some noise which makes you visible to those around you so dont expect to be able to use this as a stealth ship. However you are not advertising your presence to all and sundry throughout a star system. Though you will be visible within a certain detection sphere. Hidden features may be visible but will be harder to detect than with the Basic scanner. The intermediate scanner comes with some heat and power penalties and some weight penalties. I would increase its range to 10,000 ls.
Each scanner would need to have its own signature sound to indicate its operation. The advanced would in my opinion retain the current foghorn like sound. I think that is appropriate. The Intermediate would have something like a classic pinging sound of sonar, while the passive would have a hissing noise to represent just the background radiation of the stars it is picking up.
The various scanners would reveal planets much as they do now. However for more forensic analysis there would be the option of opening up something akin to the SRV scanner that would emit various noises and wave patterns to indicate something unusual. This would be especially useful in a multicrew scenario as would allow someone to fly the ship while someone else sits examining the scan data. In multicrew through having a dedicated scanner screen the scanner operative would be able to drill down to specific noise segments to hone in on specific areas of interest quickly, and be able to plot courses and set markers in space or on planetary surfaces.
Pretty much, but I would go one step further. The act of honking and point and wait mechanics are more like eating flavorless styrofoam packing popcorn.
What's really sad is that the absence of any interactive gameplay where greater depth of exploration = greater CR rewards, people have been conditioned by object-based reward values to think of some systems as being amazing and more valuable and others. When in truth, some low value tiny mass "500 CR" iceballs are among the most beautiful and fascinating back drops for Exploration. But currently there is nothing to do once you get there except collect a 500 CR paycheck, snap some picks, and move on.
But... Imagine a game were ice balls were as interactive as a Haz Res for a miner or a trade CG filled with blood thirsty bounty hunters for a pirate. Where the rewards in CR per hour extended to match the more in depth gameplay, so no one felt they were short changing themselves by sticking to any system they choose to spend extra time in.
And for the people worried about getting tricked into spending time in a "low value system" then they could actually draw upon their experience to make a call to stay or move on. I mean, even the BDS will tell you exactly what Type of system you are dealing with since the first 500 Ls of any system is huge clue. If there are any possible ELWs it terraformables then it will be obvious to anyone with a human pattern detecting brain. I am 100% certain that whatever system Frontier come up with will love you sufficient information to make this kind of call quickly after entering a system since it's virtually guaranteed to give more info than a BDS honk.
But my hope is that Frontier will shift the rewards so that the CR value of a system will increase depending on the amount of time spent and information gathered, so that we will finally feel the freedom to luxuriate in a system we like for a long time without feeling pressured by our wallets or need for "achievement" to move on to the next paycheck.
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I hate pop tarts.
Nobody is arguing against greater depth.
We're arguing about whether hiding part of the system adds to depth or just wastes time.
Maybe you can explain why using the IDS instead of the ADS is not a viable option.
I've personally never had an issue with discovering the contents of an entire system upon entry. Part of the issue has been that there isn't always anything beyond that and even where there is you just supercruise to the body for a closer scan and move on. So I'm with you on that last bit for people that have an issue with the ADS. You can easily limit your range if discovering things the low tech way is preferred. I'm not sure it was being argued in what you replied to though, I think the BDS was just being used as an example of how shallow the really mechanics are.
My hope is that the complexity realizes itself in the form of increased information or things to go down to a planet for or even fly around a less valuable looking system. Stellar bodies should be the easy part. However, there could be anomalies that need to be scanned down further, all the way to the point of needing to drive around in an SRV to discover what is really going on. Perhaps, some of the planets 'plant' life has mutated and you need to take a scan of it (just a simple example). Of course, they could also be in deep space portions of the system, but would require navigation of an area with environmental hazards to navigate (pocket of strong EM activity that drains shields or damages hull). These types of discoveries could then be more precious and worth more since they are either more difficult to scan down or simply more dangerous.
My issue with honking is that you have to load an external interface to look to see if there is anything interesting. Personally I think if you honked and the computers could glean so much information with that honk - it would also be able to tell us if anything abnormal or out of the ordinary were out there worth investigating.
That is why smaller unique objects would need to be hunted for / scavenged and found. There would need to be an infinite but useful reason to find these things. I have a feeling this will be our thargoid tech etc we'll be looking for.
What better thing to do for explorers is seed each system with unique things to find and be rewarded for. Maybe some of them leading to other discoveries and or rewards. Maybe even stories..
Always said
Honk = large bodies basic info
Scan = small bodies overall details
Telemetry suite = finding needle in haystack and whether a bird pooped on a rock last tuesday.
That is why smaller unique objects would need to be hunted for / scavenged and found. There would need to be an infinite but useful reason to find these things. I have a feeling this will be our thargoid tech etc we'll be looking for.
What better thing to do for explorers is seed each system with unique things to find and be rewarded for. Maybe some of them leading to other discoveries and or rewards. Maybe even stories..
Always said
Honk = large bodies basic info
Scan = small bodies overall details
Telemetry suite = finding needle in haystack and whether a bird pooped on a rock last tuesday.
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im against changing the range or lessening the info you get from the discos. if they also pointed out planets or rings with some anomalous reading, well that gives an excuse to fly to that belt or ring or planet and drop out of sc/land and go hunting for it. especially if its of historical/touristy/xenoarcheological importance and value. more barnacles anyone?
seed each system with unique stuff, eh?. ok im not sure how many systems are just a single star for one. but lets assume you mean all 400 billion systems. thats right underneath the infinite monkeys and shakespeare. FD dont have the time or manpower to manually seed unique things in EVERY system. and an automatic seeding system by definition cannot be random enough to be unique.
seed each system with unique stuff, eh?. ok im not sure how many systems are just a single star for one. but lets assume you mean all 400 billion systems. thats right underneath the infinite monkeys and shakespeare. FD dont have the time or manpower to manually seed unique things in EVERY system. and an automatic seeding system by definition cannot be random enough to be unique.
Just toying with an idea here...
What if - after the ADS, we had a "Ping analysis Graph" This would be a relatively rapidly moving graph that involved a learning process from easy to complex.
What "it's" job would be would be to:
Indicate a basic rundown of the system. Oh look! Theres a lots of arsenic somewhere in this system!
Indicate Stellar and Planetary anomalies (Extreme magnetic qualities etc..) for the record hunters. (Process needs a little work from the player)
Provide an indication (To highly trained eyes) of an Anomaly.
I strongly believe that actual natural forces need to IN THIS GAME. Theres no point in playing a game called "Elite Dangerous" when you can have a relaxed and serene pint by a by a black hole when you are talking exploration.
@Sandro. Think about this. What is the point of this discussion? We all concentrate on the ADS the IDS and so... but its completely pointless if there is rarely anything new to actually discover.
IMHO, the only way forward is to make the Systems within the Galaxy actually DYNAMIC. How would you feel if you got a new car and it was always on autopilot? When nothing unexpected ever happens? When you can never "feel" the road?
And that there is the core problem with ED Exploration. Every system is dead. Every rock is dead. All static and unchanging. Its just an unengaging picture. You have only the option of making planet side content.
No wonder people are having so much trouble arguing over how the ADS works.
GIVE IT LIFE!
Give it:
Radiation!
Magnetism!
Gamma rays!
Gravitational shear!
Accretion Discs!
Accretion disc Mining and tech hunting!
Binary Gas Sharing!
Actual heat planetside!
Actual cold planetside!
Comets!
More volcanism!
More Geysers!
Landslides!
Meteor Showers!
SRV Loadouts! (Ice Tyres...Cooling Systems etc...!)
No more Automatic brightness darkside!
LANDING LIGHTS!
Spear winch for SRV!
Dawn and sunset planet eruptions!
And then give Planetside content actual worth!
Diamond Planets!
Ultra dense Planetoids! (Dead stellar remnants)
Extra pay for high rare content planets!
Extra pay for Extreme radiation planets (Very rare minerals of high worth)
Shared atmosphere binary planets!
Extreme volcanism planets!
Steak the mineral deposit missions!
Hold the mineral deposit claim missions!
Power specific mining and geological corporations!
Biological corporations!
Bio scan missions!
God the list goes on and on... But we live in a dead, motionless Galaxy.
What if - after the ADS, we had a "Ping analysis Graph" This would be a relatively rapidly moving graph that involved a learning process from easy to complex.
What "it's" job would be would be to:
Indicate a basic rundown of the system. Oh look! Theres a lots of arsenic somewhere in this system!
Indicate Stellar and Planetary anomalies (Extreme magnetic qualities etc..) for the record hunters. (Process needs a little work from the player)
Provide an indication (To highly trained eyes) of an Anomaly.
I strongly believe that actual natural forces need to IN THIS GAME. Theres no point in playing a game called "Elite Dangerous" when you can have a relaxed and serene pint by a by a black hole when you are talking exploration.
@Sandro. Think about this. What is the point of this discussion? We all concentrate on the ADS the IDS and so... but its completely pointless if there is rarely anything new to actually discover.
IMHO, the only way forward is to make the Systems within the Galaxy actually DYNAMIC. How would you feel if you got a new car and it was always on autopilot? When nothing unexpected ever happens? When you can never "feel" the road?
And that there is the core problem with ED Exploration. Every system is dead. Every rock is dead. All static and unchanging. Its just an unengaging picture. You have only the option of making planet side content.
No wonder people are having so much trouble arguing over how the ADS works.
GIVE IT LIFE!
Give it:
Radiation!
Magnetism!
Gamma rays!
Gravitational shear!
Accretion Discs!
Accretion disc Mining and tech hunting!
Binary Gas Sharing!
Actual heat planetside!
Actual cold planetside!
Comets!
More volcanism!
More Geysers!
Landslides!
Meteor Showers!
SRV Loadouts! (Ice Tyres...Cooling Systems etc...!)
No more Automatic brightness darkside!
LANDING LIGHTS!
Spear winch for SRV!
Dawn and sunset planet eruptions!
And then give Planetside content actual worth!
Diamond Planets!
Ultra dense Planetoids! (Dead stellar remnants)
Extra pay for high rare content planets!
Extra pay for Extreme radiation planets (Very rare minerals of high worth)
Shared atmosphere binary planets!
Extreme volcanism planets!
Steak the mineral deposit missions!
Hold the mineral deposit claim missions!
Power specific mining and geological corporations!
Biological corporations!
Bio scan missions!
God the list goes on and on... But we live in a dead, motionless Galaxy.
It's a shame I can't edit it
Don't be too proud of hand placed assets. The ability to place objects on a planet is insignificant next to the power of procedural generation.
Probably not the first to say it but infinite ADS needs to go.
Get rid of Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced and just use the rating system that every other module uses.
An A-rated Disco Scanner would still have a large range (somewhere in the 100-500k ls range), but what gets discovered would depend on how big/bright an object is and how far away it is.
E.g. You might discover a secondary star 80,000ls away but not any planets around it.
The trade off for nerfing the ADS would be Scanning Limpets.
Fire off a limpet at a distant target and it would SC out there (faster than your ship) and perform a disco scan, returning the info to you. Then you decide if you want to go out there for detailed scans and limpet recovery.
While we're at it, what is the actual point of the honk. Just automate it.
Get rid of Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced and just use the rating system that every other module uses.
An A-rated Disco Scanner would still have a large range (somewhere in the 100-500k ls range), but what gets discovered would depend on how big/bright an object is and how far away it is.
E.g. You might discover a secondary star 80,000ls away but not any planets around it.
The trade off for nerfing the ADS would be Scanning Limpets.
Fire off a limpet at a distant target and it would SC out there (faster than your ship) and perform a disco scan, returning the info to you. Then you decide if you want to go out there for detailed scans and limpet recovery.
While we're at it, what is the actual point of the honk. Just automate it.