I wish exploration was something akin the long dark in space : scraping by to keep going 
exploring still sucks.
- Thread starter Kingston@#
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I don't know what game you've been playing. If it's Elite Dangerous, then you need to see a professional counselor to work on your disconnect from reality. Either that or ease up on the drugs. Bolted on with the mechanics disconnected from one another? No competent game design? They've got the Newtonian flight model nailed. Don't believe me? Disable flight assist. I know, the speed limit. Stupid galactic spanning governments with their stupid laws requiring all ships be built with stupid speed governors; go figure. General lack of vision? Do what? They definitely have a vision for the game. This might not be what you'd envision, but it's what the Head Honchos at Frontier Developments envision. And I don't care how much people rant in the forum, if something is not included in their design vision, it won't get added no matter how much we beg. Witness the proposed autopilot for supercruise. People begged for that. And it never happened. Why? Cause it wasn't in their design vision.
It sounds to me like this is not the game for you. And that's okay. It's not for everyone. So find a game you like and play it. But don't think you'll find a game (that you haven't developed yourself) that will be exactly what you want. There are things in Elite Dangerous I would change. But overall, it's fun as heck; to me.
How about you follow your own advice? They're talking about exploration (and probably scanning missions by the sound of it). Not the flight physics and ship behaviour that you may or may not like.
Remember what this thread is about?
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I wish exploration was something akin the long dark in space : scraping by to keep going
That's an awesome comparison. It is exactly what i would want. Exploration being about survival.
Thread: "exploring still sucks." Aye, by the bucket load.
I would much prefer FDev investing time and energy in developing the exploration aspect of this wonderful game rather than continuously nerffing the combat aspects, after all, the ED Universe is beyond compare to the minuscule portion of the combat component.
CMIV
I would much prefer FDev investing time and energy in developing the exploration aspect of this wonderful game rather than continuously nerffing the combat aspects, after all, the ED Universe is beyond compare to the minuscule portion of the combat component.
CMIV
Well, as a veteran explorer in Elite, I can at least let you know how I would improve exploration if given the chance:
Exploration needs two areas of improvement: mechanics, and content. Frontier has added some content since 1.0 in the form of geysers, fumeroles, and fungal life, but explorers have no tools at all to find them, so they need to search entire planets by eye, which is of course not feasible for anything other than the smallest of potato worlds. They added content potential with landable worlds but as of yet have not utilized this potential for explorers in any engaging nor interactive ways. Neutron jumps are the only meaningful mechanic to be added to exploration since 1.0 that directly changes and makes the game play of exploration more interactive and engaging. Exploration in Elite desperately needs more engaging and interactive mechanics to add diversity and player initiated actions to the role, the fact that so many explorers currently watch Netflix while they explore says it all!!!
So this is how I would develop exploration, and I’ll do the mechanics first, followed by the content which then uses said mechanics:
New Exploration Mechanics and Improvements:
- Planet Surface Heat Maps – A new feature of DSS scans, surface maps now highlight areas of interest, or search zones which can identify large areas to find things like man made unidentified objects (unregistered bases or outposts), alien unidentified objects (alien ruins, alien ship crash sites), geysers and fumeroles, fungal life, basically any unidentified procedurally or hand placed fixed POI on the surface.
Upon flying down into a heatmap zone and entering glide, a bouncing search designator routine begins just like is currently used for surface salvage missions, only requiring many more “iterations” to narrow down. Once the commander finalizes the search routine they then must land and use the SRV scanners to exactly locate where the POI is. Once these POI’s are found by the commander then they become “known” to them and from then on are no longer marked with heatmaps but instead with the normal surface designator icon, like bubble surface content currently is. - Solar Flares – Fuel scooping is now more dangerous! Occasionally there can be solar flares and star corona ejections while flying close to stars, like when fuel scooping, which have to either be avoided or the ship could experience sudden drastic heat increases, and even take shield damage, and if the shields drop then hull and module damage.
- SRV MkII – This is a new, larger version of the Scarab, with a weaker turret but much more cargo space. The MkII also carries a surface drill rig which can be used for various things, some of which will be detailed below in the “content” section.
- Exploration Internal Slots – Certain ships get additional internals that can be used for exploration related modules, like both scanners, fuel scoops, and the AFMU.
- Natural Signal Sources – New version of USS but all naturally occurring stuff, like comets, very large landable asteroids, wandering asteroid fields, and even rogue planets (more below). Some NSS’s contain things which can be scanned for data (more valuable with distance from SOL), others can be mined for materials. NSS can spawn anywhere, even in the bubble too, but they get much more valuable with distance from the bubble of course.
- Neutron Battery – New module, can store one charge of a neutron jump corona scoop for the FSD. This could allow explorers to potentially use neutron stars to jump into very remote systems which would normally strand the ship with no way to return.
New Exploration Content:
- Rework Geysers / Fumeroles / Fungal Life – Simply update these to work with the new DSS heatmaps, and add scan points to them so that they can be flagged as “discovered” and their locations can be sold for credits. Also add increased variety, like huge and gargantuan geysers!
- New Natural Surface POI’s – These are not fixed POI’s like geysers, but a new category of randomly generated instanced POI’s (like cargo dumps and mat nodes) which are located via the SRV scanners. Gives explorers things to find out on planet surfaces in deep space which can be scanned for valuable data. Things like geologic formations, meteor impact sites, more kinds of fungal life, and surface core samples (more on this below), all in varying degrees of value and quality. These data scans become more valuable with distance from SOL, this encourages explorers to get out into deep space.
- Surface Core Samples – These are rare random locations found with the SRV scanner which allow the commander to use the drill rig on the SRV MkII to drill through the surface and collect a planet core sample, which takes 1T of cargo space and can be taken back to civilization and sold for large credit values. Again the cores increase in value with distance from SOL. The new DSS heatmaps can be used to locate areas on planets with the best chances of finding surface core spots, but much SRV searching will still be required to find one. In general though they will procedurally spawn around areas of increased surface terrain geometry, like large canyon or mountain networks.
- Rogue Planets - Fully landable and functional planets found in the new Natural Signal Sources, with potentially everything that can be found on normal planets, but with much more robust terrain geometry. These planets have gone through hell, so they can potentially have very extreme terrain features and crazy POI clusters. Extremely valuable surface core samples, as long as you can locate them!
This is all just off the top of my head, I have more ideas. More planet types to land on would open so many more concepts, but at least the mechanics would then be in place to take advantage of the new worlds. I’ve posted so many “improve exploration” ideas across so many threads, I really should just make my own thread detailing it all out and then just post a link to it from now on…
Disable flight assist and park yourself next to a star. Do you fall into it? No? Sir Isaac would be spinning in his grave.
Blackcompany
Banned
I want the game I paid for. That's mostly the reason: that I want was promised to early backers and buyers.
Totally agree. Hate the honk!
Not close enough. Go to a 1G landable planet and tell me that 'parking' 4 or 5 km up and turning off flight assist doesn't cause you to fall toward the surface. Tell me that and I'll know you're lying.
Do you think you're going to get what you imagined by constantly whining about it?
Life tips:
* Don't dwell on things you can't change.
* Don't spend time doing something you dislike, unless you're being paid to do it.
All you're doing is wasting everyone's time (including your own).
Not close enough? LOL. So, you believe that the suns gravity, which is able to hold the earth in orbit at a distance of some 90 million miles at a speed of 30km/s, is not strong enough to capture your spaceship, travelling at a speed of 0m/s at a distance of 500,000 kilometres? I have no idea where you get your scientific knowledge from, but you might want to make efforts to improve it if you're going to continue to debate physics with people.
Edit: Please, don't bother responding. I remember you now, you're the one who thinks a LASER beam would stop at 3km in real life. You're clearly trolling me, nobody could be that ignorant.
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If your ship was as big as a planet, maybe. Let's see the earth's mass is about 5.9 sextillion tonnes. That's the decimal point is shifted 24 places to the right. Compared to that, our ships aren't even a spec of lint. As for the 'lasers', I don't know what they are, but I do know what they aren't; they aren't lasers. Yeah, I know, they're called lasers. I can call a tree a lake. That doesn't mean it's true. A 'laser' in the game is a directed energy weapon. But it's not a laser. If it was you wouldn't be able to see it as it fired. They call them that because that's all our limited 21st century minds can comprehend. We haven't lived through a thousand years of progress. Still don't know about the projectile weapons. But there is a plausible explanation, even if we don't know what it is.
eh? what? the ship doesn't fall to the suns surface because its too small? haha (i'm pretty sure i missed something)
Anyway you guys this is not what the thread was about.
i would suggest completely scrap the current old style of these small jumps and the newer edition of this honking exploring. These jump drives are boring, honking is boring, sounds cool, but boring. I want warp drives, so we can travel until we run out of fuel, you can still use the scooping if that's important. I don't know what a warp drive runs on, who cares. Perhaps if we ever get legs, there's other stuff to do on the ship while traveling other than jumping and honking. Like maybe keeping an eye on scanner data as it gets clearer the closer you get to other systems or so. Maybe you pick up some weird signals that could be examined closer.
Content!!!!!!!!! for those that think that space is empty and is made up of 5 different types of beige planets or whatever, 3 types of rocks and the same old junk on all of them. I promise you it's stupid, even for a game. For exploration maybe look for life? maybe there's microscopic life even on moons or asteroids without atmosphere. Take surface samples, surface scans (maybe you can find some weird mineral or something that could be sold to mining company or so?)
If the galaxy is full of junk from humans on every little moon or planet there is, and only been flying around the galaxy for a short period of time. It must be absolutely packed of old crap from other older civilisations. But maybe there is a god and humans are alone, how sad Well i and probably everyone else could barf ideas all day long, but nothing will happen. Shoot a rock get 50 points is more Elite style
(i'm pretty sure i missed something)Anyway you guys this is not what the thread was about.
i would suggest completely scrap the current old style of these small jumps and the newer edition of this honking exploring. These jump drives are boring, honking is boring, sounds cool, but boring. I want warp drives, so we can travel until we run out of fuel, you can still use the scooping if that's important. I don't know what a warp drive runs on, who cares. Perhaps if we ever get legs, there's other stuff to do on the ship while traveling other than jumping and honking. Like maybe keeping an eye on scanner data as it gets clearer the closer you get to other systems or so. Maybe you pick up some weird signals that could be examined closer.
Content!!!!!!!!! for those that think that space is empty and is made up of 5 different types of beige planets or whatever, 3 types of rocks and the same old junk on all of them. I promise you it's stupid, even for a game. For exploration maybe look for life? maybe there's microscopic life even on moons or asteroids without atmosphere. Take surface samples, surface scans (maybe you can find some weird mineral or something that could be sold to mining company or so?)
If the galaxy is full of junk from humans on every little moon or planet there is, and only been flying around the galaxy for a short period of time. It must be absolutely packed of old crap from other older civilisations. But maybe there is a god and humans are alone, how sad
Well i and probably everyone else could barf ideas all day long, but nothing will happen. Shoot a rock get 50 points is more Elite style 
Isn't exploring quite good in No Mans Sky?
Only one thing DF should be working on:
F U L L P L A N E T A R Y L A N D I N G S ! ! !
The one thing still missing from Frontier II
Don't care if it not teeming with life, we should just be able to land everywhere mass and solidity permits. It can be as generic as hell; I don't care. All the rest is just details.
F U L L P L A N E T A R Y L A N D I N G S ! ! !
The one thing still missing from Frontier II
Don't care if it not teeming with life, we should just be able to land everywhere mass and solidity permits. It can be as generic as hell; I don't care. All the rest is just details.
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I think exploring need the following and not necesary missions.
1 - real jump from point A to point B, its unreal to kown you are traveling from point a to b and know there is only 12 stars and the animation is...nice but not real, Space Engine can do that.
2 - Full planetary landings, exploring is a risk, we do not want to find an alien base in every planet we landed but we want lava, water, mountains, floods, fire, fog..climate dynamic, risks.
3 - Traces, we are humans exploring the galaxy, where are our traces? if a planet have 400 comanders making races over an area in 3 months, this area need to be modified to let traces of all those races, you know, i like to explore a planet in the other side of the galaxy and "maybe" fin traces of another commanders, i said maybe cos is not mandatory to land in the exact area...and heres come 4
4 - Natural climate condition of the planets, maybe some time later this zones are cleared by the winds, sand and water or rain and the traces are erased or not if the planet are desert without wind.
5 - first person walking, E.V.A., in the spaceshift, outside, around, over and under the spaceship, on land and in space... Explore abandoned settlements, alien bases or whatever, we do not want to find a war in every planet we landed but something to bring emotion to exploring. Why not something that says "Commander **** was here" written on a wall?.
6 - temporary settlements in the landed zone if you have a failure in the ship, but not to claim "this planet is mine forever" but to leave supplies for a limited time if you need to start again from base and want to go to the exact zone to continue exploring, for example, you have motor failure and you have no way to repair it, you land in a planet and if not crashed, finally landing, making an EVA to get all necesary equipment and start from base with the option of temporal safe zone, after a time, the supplies get lost if the commander is not present. and 7
7 - ...Travellers in the galaxy never eat?, we can die in all abominable form, but never eat to survive?, no space in the ship for food?. Ok, how about to find food in earth like planets and store them on the trip??.
8 - Spaceships crashed on land that remain accessible for a time to be ruthlessly torn apart to obtain parts to repair or continue the exploring. you are an explorer fighing for your life, no?, find those spaceship if another history in the luck of humankind.
1 - real jump from point A to point B, its unreal to kown you are traveling from point a to b and know there is only 12 stars and the animation is...nice but not real, Space Engine can do that.
2 - Full planetary landings, exploring is a risk, we do not want to find an alien base in every planet we landed but we want lava, water, mountains, floods, fire, fog..climate dynamic, risks.
3 - Traces, we are humans exploring the galaxy, where are our traces? if a planet have 400 comanders making races over an area in 3 months, this area need to be modified to let traces of all those races, you know, i like to explore a planet in the other side of the galaxy and "maybe" fin traces of another commanders, i said maybe cos is not mandatory to land in the exact area...and heres come 4
4 - Natural climate condition of the planets, maybe some time later this zones are cleared by the winds, sand and water or rain and the traces are erased or not if the planet are desert without wind.
5 - first person walking, E.V.A., in the spaceshift, outside, around, over and under the spaceship, on land and in space... Explore abandoned settlements, alien bases or whatever, we do not want to find a war in every planet we landed but something to bring emotion to exploring. Why not something that says "Commander **** was here" written on a wall?.
6 - temporary settlements in the landed zone if you have a failure in the ship, but not to claim "this planet is mine forever" but to leave supplies for a limited time if you need to start again from base and want to go to the exact zone to continue exploring, for example, you have motor failure and you have no way to repair it, you land in a planet and if not crashed, finally landing, making an EVA to get all necesary equipment and start from base with the option of temporal safe zone, after a time, the supplies get lost if the commander is not present. and 7
7 - ...Travellers in the galaxy never eat?, we can die in all abominable form, but never eat to survive?, no space in the ship for food?. Ok, how about to find food in earth like planets and store them on the trip??.
8 - Spaceships crashed on land that remain accessible for a time to be ruthlessly torn apart to obtain parts to repair or continue the exploring
. you are an explorer fighing for your life, no?, find those spaceship if another history in the luck of humankind.