It's not gameplay at the moment, I agree - however I think honking a planet should just be the beginning of exploration. You should be able to honk a planet for say a base discovery fee, but the bigger bucks could come in the form of advanced exploration; such as, mapping canyons and caves (when they come), collecting soil samples, collective flora and fauna samples for study in your ships science lab ( once we can land on worlds with animal life, and once we have legs, and once we have a science lab for our ship, lol). Launch probes into stars, or drilling through the icy crust of an ice moon ( Europa ) and dropping a few "swimmer" probes.
Explorers : would you consider giving up on the infinite honk for...?
- Thread starter Godsailsaqueen
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It's not gameplay at the moment, I agree - however I think honking a planet should just be the beginning of exploration. You should be able to honk a planet for say a base discovery fee, but the bigger bucks could come in the form of advanced exploration; such as, mapping canyons and caves (when they come), collecting soil samples, collective flora and fauna samples for study in your ships science lab ( once we can land on worlds with animal life, and once we have legs, and once we have a science lab for our ship, lol). Launch probes into stars, or drilling through the icy crust of an ice moon ( Europa ) and dropping a few "swimmer" probes.
My thoughts - no way - there are limits to the Honk and currently there are gains for doing detailed scans.
I would support additions such as near body surface scans (and surface exploration) unveiling additional information such as interesting features but not removal/downgrade of features for the sake of adding other mechanics.
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Now you're talking!
Using various tools that operate at different spectrums, and use different detector types to peer through dense atmospheres, analyze volcanic and tectonic activity, check surface chemistry for tell-tale chemical signs of life and the best places to hunt for a given mineral/metal, gather telemetry and accurately measure masses to analyze complex multi-body orbits etc. This is the kind of stuff that could be used to create a complete picture of a given system. The larger and more bodies within a system, the more complete the full gravitational, vector, and orbital harmonic/resonance picture would need to be in order to complete an accurate Orrery. And voila! In your post we finally have a gameplay reason to have an Orrery: completionism.
Great idea Obsidian!
See, I'm a little more in favor of the ADS revealing the basic structure of the orrery map but with "black" stellar bodies, like the bug during that one beta that gave us system maps full of graphic-less planets. Basically I'd like exploring a system to go something like this:
- First Stage - The ADS (honk). This reveals gravitational data on objects, giving you an Orrery map with "black" stellar bodies, their orbital paths, and their gravity data. With that Orrery map you can see if the system looks interesting or not, how many bodies it has, etc.
- Second Stage - Visual Scan. Next would be the long distance visual scan, where you point the ship (from very far away, don't need to fly up close) at the the stellar bodies and quickly scan them, revealing their graphics on the Orrery map so you can see what they look like, surface map included. This would also unlock what type of stellar body it is, for example star type or planet type, but no detail data on the objects yet.
- Third Stage - Detail Scan. Here is where you can fly to within a certain distance of a stellar body (much longer range than currently in game!) and perform a scan to get all of the body data, like age, orbital info, materials, etc. This also provides you with the Surface Heat Map, which highlights large potential search areas on the planet surface where things can be found, like geysers/fumeroles, unknown structures, life forms, high material concnetrations, etc.
- Fourth Stage - Surface Exploration. The heat map now in hand, the commander can choose to fly down into search zones to look for POI's. Upon entering the zone a search indicator pops up (like surface salvage missions currently use only more intensive) to guide the player incrementally, gradually narrowing down the search area to a more localized zone where the commander would need to land and use the SRV scanners to finally pinpoint the POI.
Each stage reveals info about the system a bit at a time but allows the commander to make informed decisions along the way. Exploration needs more decision making and actions, and staging the exploration process like this would provide that in a meaningful way while also instilling a sense of gradual discovery via actions and decisions. This also would provide a great foundation of tools to allow additional content to be seamlessly added down the road, enabling players to actually find procedurally placed things out in space using more than just their eyes.
That's how I'd design the exploration process for Elite.
Oh god please no not the 'black body' thing again. I really like you Mengy but I hate this idea - it's absolutely 'gamey' to an extreme - yes I know this is just a videogame, but c'mon, really, black bodies after an ADS honk - we've been there before and all the arguments for and against it have been ranted out before. Optics on the ADS, yadda yadda...
Yeah, I know there are plenty of arguments for and against it, but I do feel like the current ADS is far too powerful, in that it robs potential gameplay opportunities. I don't want parallax exploring to be needed though, so the infinite honk is necessary in my opinion. So, the only way to reduce the "power" of the ADS is to limit what it reveals, thus...black bodies on honk. And if you make the visual scan essentially infinite in range too and very fast, but still requiring physicaly pointing the ship at the area, well it just adds another level of both activity and discovery to the exploration routine that provides the player with new and meaningful information.
Exploration really lacks that thrill of discovery currently, and gating the "reveal" process behind actions is one way to incorporate that. It doesn't have to be a time sink, it can be relatively quick, as long as it requires both decision and action to accomplish rather than simply pressing one button. IMHO, of course.
Er, I think it's a goddamn fantastic idea. I actually suggested something similar with far less detail earlier in the thread. I can't see why it's overly gamey at all in the slightest.
Artificial speed limits in space? That's gamey. Not being able to determine every detail of a planetary body that's several thousand LS away from you or more?
Sure there could always be refinement of some kind. If I had to make an adjustment the system scan would tell you perhaps what there is in the system map, but not where (okay now we're getting gamey), with a few traits unique to each body type that might help you narrow down what ones in the system you're looking for.
I have to admit that expecting a chap to scan 60+ bodies in a system to know if there's anything worthwhile in there is a bit far. But it's even worse the other way around in this incarnation; just a continual journey where you instantly know everything in a system and just go slightly out your way every now and then to get a known high-profit scan of effectively fixed value.
Why not making exploration about exploring, instead of "honk, check map, go to a body if it's the top band of profitable scans, move on"?
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I would be happy to give up the infinite honk if you got rid of the need for it in the bubble and allowed you to buy any scanned systems information. Nothing like jumping into an "unexplored" system to find it full of stations and traffic. I would also expect that if you were in one major powers space you might not be able to get updated, current maps, unless you flew to one of their spaceports. Also, military outposts and faction outposts wouldn't be on the charts unless you were friendly with the faction/super power and they gave you a mission to go to one or a competing faction wanted you to attack one.
I would also expect you to pay less just for a honked system map, and a lot more for a detailed scan which would show you mineral content and if the system is pristine.
If you find that too jarring and upsetting of your exploration free lunch credit that you got by scanning a known system it would make sense if, when you are asked to take on a mission, that you should be able to purchase that information prior to accepting the mission. It makes no sense of someone wanting you to fly some where's to do a mission that they wouldn't tell you where it is or have that information readily available.
I would also expect you to pay less just for a honked system map, and a lot more for a detailed scan which would show you mineral content and if the system is pristine.
If you find that too jarring and upsetting of your exploration free lunch credit that you got by scanning a known system it would make sense if, when you are asked to take on a mission, that you should be able to purchase that information prior to accepting the mission. It makes no sense of someone wanting you to fly some where's to do a mission that they wouldn't tell you where it is or have that information readily available.
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How about UC take a more active role in getting the galaxy mapped/scanned.
Rather than passively accepting scans from all CMDRs for all the systems. They galaxy map be improved so we can see what systems are and aren't scanned (in the same way that we can toggle those we've visited) and some mechanic for UC requesting additional scans on systems they're interested in. I can't imagine UC are that interested hundreds of scans of icy planets, but they would want up to date info in ELW, WW and AW, especially if they're terraformable. This would allow UC to put missions on the board asking for scans of far away systems, or sectors.
I've played the XCOM games and there was the idea of you couldn't see much of the play area until you had walked near it first. I think that's the idea some people are thinking about - everything's dark until you've been there. A sort of 'fog of war'.
It's totally 'gamey' - especially in the context of this game, which has a lot of simulation aspects to it - for example, once you warp into a star system, immediately you can see the main star you dropped into. There may be very close orbiting bodies around it, so you can see those as well. In fact even at the moment where the hyperspace jump is ending, you can see various points of light as you quickly approach the main star - don't know if you've noticed this before, but these are in fact the various bodies orbiting the star. The light these bodies reflect from the main star is already reaching your ship, ship's sensors, and your eyes. As is the light emanating from any nearby other stars. It's already there to be detected by the ship.
Which is why hobbling the body discovery scanner (ADS/IDS/BDS) such that you see nothing but black bodies really grates. It's a 2-bit 'gamey' non-solution sitting inside a simulation game, because who says the body discovery scanner can't see the light from the bodies orbiting the star? Optics aren't a thing any more in the 34th century? Please.
"What about bodies on the other side of the star from you, Genar?" - okay, perhaps represent a black body for bodies obscured by the star in that case - you've detected them via other means, but not yet optical. A few seconds of flying around the drop-in star would solve that - automatically - the ADS kept a note of which bodies were at first obscured by the drop-in star and has now collected the already-existing reflected/emitted light and has updated your system map/future orrery.
A more realistic compromise for a game which has a lot of simulation aspects to it, methinks.
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fog of war is a very broad definition which i agree would not work literally with elite because like you say, we can already see many stars with todays tech.
BUT just because i can look at a star with my mk1 eyeball does not mean i would automatically have the maths available to calcluate a hyperpace jump to the system.
in this context a fog of war - would not be a dense fog, but just a series of systems i could NOT just blindly jump to until "exploration" had been done alowing our computer to calculate co-ordinates.
i do not remember an insystem fog of war ever been mentioned in Elite, i think it was only ever talked about for jumping to other systems., so would not be directly to do with the ADS
Yes I've read your earlier post lamenting the fact that we can already see every star in the ED galaxy. But this thread is about the ADS, not that, so I'm not going to talk about that.
Though called a simulator there are really very few aspects of simulation. By definition, a simulator is "a machine designed to provide a realistic imitation of the controls and operation of a vehicle...". How do you provide a realistic imitation of something that doesn't exist yet and has to break multiple rules of physics to work? I refuse to believe we're even approaching the bottom rung of a simulator until we have full newtonian physics and my exploration run involves paying attention to orbits.
In any case, nothing is quite as gamey as not being obliterated by the radiation within your FSD bubble, or when jumping right next to a star.
I would agree that refinement on the idea is required, but I already made that clear. I'm not an explorer by nature. I don't hold all the answers. FD might develop it nicely or someone else might have some crackers of ideas. Hell, just a post or two after my last, someone already mentioned that UC need to be getting more involved.
Needing refinement though is no excuse for just dropping the change. We could automatically have details on stars in system and quite nearby bodies (don't forget that technically speaking, nearly all bodies in the universe are visible, but it doesn't mean you have the apparatus to view them). We could have info on the bodies even if you don't know which of the bodies that correlates to. Or ideas much better than what I can put forward. But you cannot deny that ultimately it would go some way to putting the "exploration" in "exploration".
I said this game had "aspects of simulation", not that it was a simulation. But it does simulate the Milky Way, one of its major selling points for many people. And you snipped away the main point, so, no need to continue with the rest of yours, which was based on a misreading of what I'm saying.
Given what you call "the main point" was just a continuation of your attempt to label the proposal "gamey" with a couple of minor concessions towards said proposal, I'd say I've misread nothing.
No bad feelings. I simply know exactly what you said and don't feel I've misrepresented it in my reply at all, unless you were deliberately looking for a specific argument about the physics of visibility - an argument I'm not interested in slightly because we are so much closer to a game than a simulator in the first place.
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Oh don't get me wrong - it is nothing more than a videogame - in fact practically the only videogame I give any time to. If I need a space simulation fix with newtonian flight I'll load up Rogue System - or if I felt like it FE2.
Nevertheless there are some sim aspects to this videogame, so those should be taken into account before introducing even more gamey things like black planets. Ugh. [ugh]
Maybe, maybe not... it is probably pretty realistic though. Consider the power of current telescopes to provide basic information on bodies with-in our own solar system...
The current body images we get from such scans are far from fool proof in determining the precise nature of the body detected and I see no good reason to segregate the current approach into multiple stages like you seem to want. It would not add anything and only serve to make the process seem even more grindy (what some seem to complain about wrt exploration in it's current form). Personally, I do not find the process grindy at all and doing what you suggest is unlikely to stop cherry picking like seems to happen in some systems.
The current infinite range is not a true infinite range otherwise we would be able to "honk" the whole galaxy without having to leave the confines of the starting system (an equally ridiculous proposition IMO).
Adding detail to the current Detailed Scan and Surface Exploration factors is a fine proposition though.
Can't give you any more rep, but seconded.
Please scrap the honk. Bear minimum honk should only detect LARGE objects. Smaller objects should require some searching NOT by flying around but by manually operating telemetry and or some sort of exploration UI. Wavescanner idea was perfect for on the surface. Lets see something similar. I had posted my ideas last year with screen shots as to how I'd do it. The more rare and hard to find objects you find the more money you'll get.
Each system should have a % found meter for the sake of "fun" showing us whether or not we've discovered all of the stellar and planetary mass in the solar system. The % should not include man made things. For finding man made anomalies, satellites relics derelicts etc it should be a different system.
Each system should have a % found meter for the sake of "fun" showing us whether or not we've discovered all of the stellar and planetary mass in the solar system. The % should not include man made things. For finding man made anomalies, satellites relics derelicts etc it should be a different system.
I'm glad you feel the same way. Please take into consideration something I've proposed before - There was a game called "Flight of the old dog" (Megafortress) about a B52 with super technology in it and ECM suite. You could man countermeasures, radar detection, there was terrain following radar etc all in a very fun UI. It was basic but it required different stations and technology to do whatever you were doing. I'd so love to have something like that with multicrew eventually.
Make a UI with scanners that allow us to select areas to explore and fine tune our scanning. Just like fighter pilots do to lock onto targets. Ultimately to see something like this though.
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My tuppence worth...warning, it goes on a while!
Hi everyone!
So, I read the whole thread, long time since I did that, but this subject is close to my heart since it’s now over a year I’ve been out exploring without docking.
First, I think a few people need to learn or be reminded what each of the scanners in game actually does:
Regarding arguments that exploring is currently a grind with no end: AFAIK, all the storylines in the game revolve around exploration mechanics. All the non-proc-gen content is exploration-related. Even a lot of the proc-gen content requires using exploration skills to complete. Okay, it’s not “pure” exploration, but it still uses the same gameplay mechanics.
The biggest mistakes with exploration gameplay were made at the beginning: infinite range on ADS and being able to see all stars in the galaxy map, even on the opposite side of the core before anyone had ever been there to look! However, these mistakes cannot and should not be undone; we can’t reboot the game, the universe is alive and the stories are evolving.
Feel free to add variations of the basic/intermediate/advanced disco scanners that have better/worse level 2 scan sensitivity/capabilities/robustness/weight/etc, but leave the existing ones in game as they currently are.
My thoughts on improvements we can make to exploration gameplay using scanners:
More thoughts on what other people have said:
perhaps repair limpet controller, fuel scoop and discovery scanners fall into this category.
I'd also like to see scan info contribute to using the galaxy map. The visited stars filter could be expanded to include the selection of stars that have certain body types, materials, ring types, etc. We could then filter the galaxy map to access information about what is inside each system, not only the information that is already visible in the galaxy map.
I like your idea for precious stones though, good thinking.
Cheers
Hi everyone!
So, I read the whole thread, long time since I did that, but this subject is close to my heart since it’s now over a year I’ve been out exploring without docking.
First, I think a few people need to learn or be reminded what each of the scanners in game actually does:
The honk doesn’t do anything except tell you how many objects are in a system, where they are, whether they’re landable or not, with a visual and audible indication of the body type, plus how big it is relative to the main star. You do NOT get first discovery tags for honking. It is no use in itself except to tell you where to explore next in more detail.
To everyone who thinks you need a DSS to do surface scans – you don’t, you can do a level 2 surface scan with B/I/ADS and get 90% of the info and 66% of the credits you would get from doing the same gameplay for a level 3 surface scan with a DSS. At present the extra 10% info has no worth in gameplay AFAIK.
To everyone who thinks you need a DSS to do surface scans – you don’t, you can do a level 2 surface scan with B/I/ADS and get 90% of the info and 66% of the credits you would get from doing the same gameplay for a level 3 surface scan with a DSS. At present the extra 10% info has no worth in gameplay AFAIK.
Regarding arguments that exploring is currently a grind with no end: AFAIK, all the storylines in the game revolve around exploration mechanics. All the non-proc-gen content is exploration-related. Even a lot of the proc-gen content requires using exploration skills to complete. Okay, it’s not “pure” exploration, but it still uses the same gameplay mechanics.
The biggest mistakes with exploration gameplay were made at the beginning: infinite range on ADS and being able to see all stars in the galaxy map, even on the opposite side of the core before anyone had ever been there to look! However, these mistakes cannot and should not be undone; we can’t reboot the game, the universe is alive and the stories are evolving.
Please don’t remove anything, don’t “add” by making existing mechanics more difficult to use, access or reducing their worth. Please focus on adding new content/gameplay/storyline features that require new features of existing modules or new modules.
Feel free to add variations of the basic/intermediate/advanced disco scanners that have better/worse level 2 scan sensitivity/capabilities/robustness/weight/etc, but leave the existing ones in game as they currently are.
My thoughts on improvements we can make to exploration gameplay using scanners:
First, fill the holes in existing gameplay. We have the ADS which tells us what the system looks like, and there is a kind of mini-game involved in opening the system map to see what the bodies look like and more importantly what they sound like! We decide what to do next based on what we see and hear. At present I see no need to change that.
The next step is to do a surface scan, which we can do of any planets and even of asteroid belts even though they’re worthless. After this scan there’s nothing to do except fly close and take some photos of you and your AspX infront of them
The gameplay thread should continue and link to landable planets. As has been suggested many times, DSS should indicate surface POIs. This level of information should be achieved through some sort of mini-game, possible similar to the interdiction (chase the highlighted areas to determine the POI type), or KW/cargo scanners or wave-scanner mini-games. For this to be meaningful it would mean that many of the proc-gen POIs need to become persistent. Then we should be able to manually set a waypoint on the planet surface (could also be bookmarked as already suggested). We fly to the waypoint and enter normal flight, thereby linking up with more existing gameplay: use the blue circle method to find the POI, then land and use the SRV wave scanner. I’d personally like to see barnacles and other mysterious things all show up with blue circles as well, I’ve never understood why they don’t.
So exploration is a 4 stage process, and ties a new feature to existing gameplay, each feature leading to the next.
As did a few other people, but I didn’t like the way those suggestions started by hobbling the ADS.
And I like the UC missions that generate based on gaps in exploration knowledge, good thinking.
The next step is to do a surface scan, which we can do of any planets and even of asteroid belts even though they’re worthless. After this scan there’s nothing to do except fly close and take some photos of you and your AspX infront of them
The gameplay thread should continue and link to landable planets. As has been suggested many times, DSS should indicate surface POIs. This level of information should be achieved through some sort of mini-game, possible similar to the interdiction (chase the highlighted areas to determine the POI type), or KW/cargo scanners or wave-scanner mini-games. For this to be meaningful it would mean that many of the proc-gen POIs need to become persistent. Then we should be able to manually set a waypoint on the planet surface (could also be bookmarked as already suggested). We fly to the waypoint and enter normal flight, thereby linking up with more existing gameplay: use the blue circle method to find the POI, then land and use the SRV wave scanner. I’d personally like to see barnacles and other mysterious things all show up with blue circles as well, I’ve never understood why they don’t.
So exploration is a 4 stage process, and ties a new feature to existing gameplay, each feature leading to the next.
I see we had a very similar idea
As did a few other people, but I didn’t like the way those suggestions started by hobbling the ADS.Similar thinking again, and your suggestions go even further
And I like the UC missions that generate based on gaps in exploration knowledge, good thinking.More thoughts on what other people have said:
I second the request for dedicated exploration slots. First we need some modules that are specific to exploration
perhaps repair limpet controller, fuel scoop and discovery scanners fall into this category.I agree it would be nice to have an idea of how much of an area is already explored. The purchase exploration data thing gives some of this but isn’t there a distance limit to it?
I'd also like to see scan info contribute to using the galaxy map. The visited stars filter could be expanded to include the selection of stars that have certain body types, materials, ring types, etc. We could then filter the galaxy map to access information about what is inside each system, not only the information that is already visible in the galaxy map.
Hear hear!
Don’t remove the honk, but change the build-up sound so that it reflects what is found. After all, the honk is almost an ED meme in itself!
I agree. Unfortunately it’s in the game now and unlikely to change. I would like Frontier to add “First explored by –“ for the first commander to land and drive an SRV on a planet, but I also think it’s too late to add that. Maybe when we get atmospheric planets and gas giants this can be started.
Yes, we need an orrery, if only because FE2 had it over 25 years ago…
And multi-crew should be able to use discovery scanners in turret mode.
Yes, more landable planet types and more environmental hazards are definitely needed to give “pure” exploration more fun in and of itself.
Totally agree, a more interesting visual accompaniment to the scan would be nice.
Ziljan confirms what I believed was the case too.
The value that UC pays is related to how useful the information is, not how hard it was for you to get. That’s why a HMC on the opposite side of the galaxy will give the same payout as one within a kly of the bubble.
I like your idea for precious stones though, good thinking.
My thinking too. UC wants to know what’s changing so keeps paying for it, and it would be unfair to new players otherwise.
Unfortunately what you describe will make it longer to get the same level of detail for a system that we can already get with a single honk, so whilst your idea is good I think it’s too late.
Gameplay isn’t about how many credits you get, it’s about how fun something is. I'm firmly in the camp that making it take longer to achieve what the ADS currently gives us will be a step backwards. I hope FDev add more features of the game and give us more fun gameplay without taking away anything that is currently there.