Exploring, revamped.

[OBoile]

I voted "yes" but I don't think distance should matter. There would be incentive to go further regardless as you're more likely to find an unexplored system that way. Plus, when you think about it, data from close systems (that haven't yet been explored) would be more valuable as it would be much easier to expand into them. In a practical sense, data from the other side of the galaxy would be virtually worthless.

 

[_Flin_]

Well, no thank you.

I'd prefer additional mechanics that give
a) more fun
b) more fun
c) more credits

If they'd just double the payout, all would be well. So you could make 500k an hour, or 100k if you take your time and look at stuff.

Or give a +300% bonus for a completely scanned system.

 

[Hexen]

Nah. Risk of getting asleep behind a wheel you mean? I understand that exploration need more features and bigger payoff to be entertaining. But whole "gimme more money because I wasn't fell asleep while it was boring as hell" logic is not my cup of tea either. Exploration need more complexity, some mini-games, new features, I don't know. But right now it's boring sightseeing and that's the first issue for me. No amount of credits can make up for a wasted time on the exploration as of now.

 

[Gibbonici]

Exploration doesn't require the same investment of time and credits that operating a large trader or combat ship does.

Exploration is, without any question, the most time intensive activity there is. As for credit investment, my Asp cost just over 13m credits to fit out for exploration, and after two months of exploring I'm still nowhere near paying that off. I made that money in a week of trading in Open without any noticable risk, and with far lower costs per credit earned than all my time exploring.

Exploration is also the highest-stakes activity too. If you die to an unlucky interdiction when your stripped-down, 100% wear & tear ship hobbles back to civilisation with whatever hull/module attrition it's accrued along the way, you don't just lose your rebuy costs, you don't just lose one run's worth of cargo, you lose your entire income for days or weeks PLUS a sizeable portion of the income from your last days- or weeks-long trip in rebuy costs.

To put it in perspective, there was a guy on these forums yesterday talking about how he made 3.5m credits in one hour simply by trading luxury goods in-system. That's twice as much as you can make in a week of exploring. To add a little more perspective to that, it took more than an hour just to sell the data I gathered in that week.

And here's the thing, explorers are traders and bounty hunters too (we have to be or we can't be explorers) and we probably know the comparative costs and risk of exploration vs bounty hunting vs trading better than anyone else.

I don't think anyone necessarily wants exploration to match the profit of trading, but it would be nice to make as much over a week's exploration as a trader can make in an hour.

Does that seem unreasonable?

 

[bobilon]

i agree that exploring at current state is on very basic level at this moment. Rewards are quite low and work is very time consuming. I even understand your frustration, if you see traders in anacondas and pythons, who started their games later then some of us. In my opinion, its our "fault" that we go out to deep space and doing this job for few credits. Nobody forces us to do it. We were supposed to trade to get enough money to have decent 7-8 digit accounts and properly fitted ships and wait for new content.

I beleive, that we will get a lot of new exploring features in future upgrades, including route plans, waypoints, new exploring events, missions and devices. Those events, missions and devices will give us better rewards from what we are used to. BUT dont expect that your income will be equal to actual traders profits, rather expect that price margins will flatten (fixed by FD, because invisible hand of market is not that strong at this moment, and affected by traders themself). And then traders will cry for more credits.

so those are the reasons why i dont agree with your suggestion.

 

[Brad Avidro]

I think your ideas are ok, collecting data on stellar bodies is ok for cartographers or companies looking for resources.

However I do believe exploring needs to fleshed out considerably. What is needed are missions where you are commissioned by a museum, university or government office to go to a certain part of the galaxy to explore and perhaps collect specimens of some lost culture to bring back, or just some scientific data or just proof that a system was populated.

These missions could pay large sums depending on how far and how difficult it is to get the data. Once the mission for that particular task has been completed by a player then it would be flagged and the next player could either get a mission to the same part of the galaxy but for different data, with the amount systems in the galaxy I'm sure we wouldn't run out of places to explore.

 

[Altissimus]

Exploration is, without any question, the most time intensive activity there is. As for credit investment, my Asp cost just over 13m credits to fit out for exploration, and after two months of exploring I'm still nowhere near paying that off. I made that money in a week of trading in Open without any noticable risk, and with far lower costs per credit earned than all my time exploring.

Exploration is also the highest-stakes activity too. If you die to an unlucky interdiction when your stripped-down, 100% wear & tear ship hobbles back to civilisation with whatever hull/module attrition it's accrued along the way, you don't just lose your rebuy costs, you don't just lose one run's worth of cargo, you lose your entire income for days or weeks PLUS a sizeable portion of the income from your last days- or weeks-long trip in rebuy costs.

To put it in perspective, there was a guy on these forums yesterday talking about how he made 3.5m credits in one hour simply by trading luxury goods in-system. That's twice as much as you can make in a week of exploring. To add a little more perspective to that, it took more than an hour just to sell the data I gathered in that week.

And here's the thing, explorers are traders and bounty hunters too (we have to be or we can't be explorers) and we probably know the comparative costs and risk of exploration vs bounty hunting vs trading better than anyone else.

I don't think anyone necessarily wants exploration to match the profit of trading, but it would be nice to make as much over a week's exploration as a trader can make in an hour.

Does that seem unreasonable?

Exactly my point. +1 to you brave Sir.

Those who have never explored do not know the risks.

The numbers I have proposed (although they may well need tweaking) reflect not only the time and effort, but also the risk.

Now, I've been playing Galaxy Truck Simulator (trading) for a few weeks and the highest risk I have encountered is the risk of accidentally hitting boost while in a station. That's as bad as it gets, and can also be avoided by leaving your landing gear down. I can't remember the last time I was interdicted. I have NEVER been interdicted and nto managed to escape, after submitting, without any damage whatsoever - and I run without shields. Exiting the letterbox with an on-coming Eagle is more risky than an interdiction. And the damage to my T7 from those (frequent) escapades are paid for by the profit of one of my 232 tons of cargo.

Exploring IS high risk. If you think it isn't, run 500 ly out and back and do nothing other than refuel at stars, and see what state your ship is in when you get home. If you get interdicted on your way back.....then you'll know about risk. Try doing that with data from hours and hours of play.

Frankly, I am unlikely to ever explore unless a) I'm already elite in trading and combat, or b) they implement this (or similar) revamp to exploration.

I do not think it is unreasonable.

And, in accordance with many suggestions that do not detrimentally affect anyone's play and improve it for ALL of us, I struggle to understand why anyone would not be in favour.

 

[Jeeves]

Exactly my point. +1 to you brave Sir.

Those who have never explored do not know the risks.

The numbers I have proposed (although they may well need tweaking) reflect not only the time and effort, but also the risk.

Now, I've been playing Galaxy Truck Simulator (trading) for a few weeks and the highest risk I have encountered is the risk of accidentally hitting boost while in a station. That's as bad as it gets, and can also be avoided by leaving your landing gear down. I can't remember the last time I was interdicted. I have NEVER been interdicted and nto managed to escape, after submitting, without any damage whatsoever - and I run without shields. Exiting the letterbox with an on-coming Eagle is more risky than an interdiction. And the damage to my T7 from those (frequent) escapades are paid for by the profit of one of my 232 tons of cargo.

Exploring IS high risk. If you think it isn't, run 500 ly out and back and do nothing other than refuel at stars, and see what state your ship is in when you get home. If you get interdicted on your way back.....then you'll know about risk. Try doing that with data from hours and hours of play.

Frankly, I am unlikely to ever explore unless a) I'm already elite in trading and combat, or b) they implement this (or similar) revamp to exploration.

I do not think it is unreasonable.

And, in accordance with many suggestions that do not detrimentally affect anyone's play and improve it for ALL of us, I struggle to understand why anyone would not be in favour.

This is true, especially in hostile space. The time it takes to do proper scanning sets you up for easy pirate attack, and you have, absolutely have to possess a kill warrant scanner out there to get anything from those interactions. And there are good odds that you will take damage. In fact, you really need the strongest shield possible, because your hull weight will be ridiculous with military grade armor. And if you do decide to take it, you need A grade thrusters, A grade power plant, etc., all of which takes away from your weight slimming methods that let you jump far. Not to mention, Beam lasers are pretty much required. So altogether you have to run a very, very expensive ship to explore safely. That makes ship destruction all that more costly.

I know that the developers had discussed an initial bonus for the first person who turns in data on a system, but did that actually get implemented?

 

[Shads]

Very rare finds should also be mentioned on Galnet along with the pilots name who discovered them.

 

[V3teran]

The further you travel out and bring data back the more credits you should get. They need to make it though that when you do travel out and come back that you earn decent credits for it otherwise people just will not bother which is exactly what is happening now.