First Discoveries In The Age Of The CODEX

[Old Duck]

I was originally going to call this "Carrier Pigeon Limpets" with the idea of giving us a new limpet to allow explorers to send exploration data back to civilization from deep space in order to get First Discovery & Map tags (but not payment) without having to come back to the Bubble, when it hit me that ED has made it perfectly clear that FTL comms do exist in 3305 - first with telepresence and now with First Discoveries in the CODEX being registered immediately.

So, should not our First Discoveries and Mappings of planets also be registered immediately? As I hinted above, I believe we still should have to dock at a station in order to "cash in our chips", but I'm personally more interested in registering "my" planets than I am collecting credits at this stage of the game. Right now I always feel this nagging, "I need to get back to a station to record my discoveries" (I'm a beachcomber), but if my discoveries were uploaded to SC automatically, I'd happily stay in my bubble of exploration for days or even weeks.

So what are your thoughts? I know some of you have a die-hard stance of, "It doesn't count unless you hand in your flash drive to the clerk in person", but surely most would be okay with my proposal, right?

 

[count_headshot]

Blasphemy! Next you ask why we have to land on planets by hand when it's perfectly clear that any ship can do it automatically via the Recall function

Seriously, I think it is so to a. raise the stakes and prevent people from using the KABOOM-taxi whenever they feel like going home and b. to force them to come back to civilization on occasion. Some explorers just don't care about the money because they already have billions and 25 fully A outfitted ships. Those could just blow themselves up whenever they feel like it and whoosh, saved the time for a tedious journey.

 

[Spaceman Si]

What Frontier seem adept at doing is creating contradictions and anomalies!

Until the Codex instant discovery reporting, I would have argued against any idea of getting an instant tag on scan for anything. It really fitted the millieu to have the ability to travel faster than light but not to transmit faster than light, and being able to get a ship and go out "there" for months, gathering data until you returned with it like some latter day Captain Cook or Lewis and Clark seemed very "realistic".

Now, we're faced with the odd situation where exploration data has to be physically transported, and can be lost if the ship is destroyed, but the codex data is instantly transmitted and verified for "Reported" status. Which makes no sense to me at all.

So on that basis, making tags instant as well would be consistent; but I don't like it much - it takes away the feeling of being the aforementioned Cook or Lewis/Clark for me.

Maybe the Codex could operate more like the explo. data, for consistency? I.e Have to turn it in before you are verified as first reporter?

(But Frontier have already demonstrated that consistency and the need to physically transport things somewhere are not things they are bothered about - after all, Magic Space Pixies stole my ADS in a reverse Santa Claus move one night )

 

[Old Duck]

Next you ask why we have to land on planets by hand when it's perfectly clear that any ship can do it automatically via the Recall function

You're a genius - why didn't I think of that? Seriously, I have no problem using an autopilot

As for ships blowing up, that exploit already exists to some extent, since we can hand in data to a station in a remote nebula, shoot a friendly NPC for a small bounty, and let the authorities send you to the "nearest" detention center, which can be many thousands of lightyears away. You don't even lose your ship! Yes, I tried it once, just as an experiment. It works.

Now lest you think I'm a cheat, I've actually entertained playing a "modified iron man" mode where if I die thousands of LY away from civilization, my CMDR will actually die, as in clear the save, assuming the fault is mine and not a glitch or bug in the game.

 

[count_headshot]

You're a genius - why didn't I think of that? Seriously, I have no problem using an autopilot

As for ships blowing up, that exploit already exists to some extent, since we can hand in data to a station in a remote nebula, shoot a friendly NPC for a small bounty, and let the authorities send you to the "nearest" detention center, which can be many thousands of lightyears away. You don't even lose your ship! Yes, I tried it once, just as an experiment. It works.

Now lest you think I'm a cheat, I've actually entertained playing a "modified iron man" mode where if I die thousands of LY away from civilization, my CMDR will actually die, as in clear the save, assuming the fault is mine and not a glitch or bug in the game.

I have been known to take the Suicidewinder taxi from Colonia too But hey. The game allows for it so it's not cheating. Even though even that well traveled highway holds a lot of first discoveries still - made a cool 100 million on my last trip by just honking and I even used two of the stations along the way.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

1 or 2 years ago I suggested the following :

- create a Premium/Online Interstellar Factors facility
-> permit sale of Bounties, Combat Bonds and Exploration Data at a Discount (i.e. -25% upto -50%) as an Online Transaction from any location

This Option would solve the inconsistency of clearly existing and cost-free, instant and realtime communications across the Galaxy vs. having Data "stuck" in the Ship.
A luxury Option for wealthy CMDRs or those that simply prefer the safety of their Data over payouts.

No more "why can be have realtime Comms, Telemetry, Data Transfers (GALnet, KWS/Wanted Status) and even Combat-capable Holograms but have to manually deliver other things?".

But in a sense, it's in the same boat as for example :
Why can't Players place remote orders for Ships and Equipment, but are forced to manually retrieve every lousy piece themselves in the 34th century? 20th century already had online sales and shipping...

Gameplay reasons are as usual the most likely answer.
Problem is indeed : it produces highly inconsistent and illogical Gameplay restrictions where none should exist because they don't make any sense. The dreaded failed "common sense check".

 

[Old Duck]

Gameplay reasons are as usual the most likely answer.

No Man's Sky instantly updates their version of "Stellar Cartography" (and instantly pay me for my finds and allow me to name my planets), so I don't understand the gameplay argument some (not you) are making. UNLESS Elite Dangerous was truly a universe were FTL communication did not exist, which I would be totally okay with. Unfortunately this just isn't the case.

Heck, gameplay could be created around this, where 'evil' CMDRs could hack FTL receivers and get the coordinates of explorers in deep space! You want the convenience of transmitting your data back home wirelessly, you have to give away your location. Then we'll have threads demanding that exploration be "Open only", LOL.

 

[znôrt]

ED has made it perfectly clear that FTL comms do exist in 3305 - first with telepresence and now with First Discoveries in the CODEX being registered immediately.

it's indeed a contradiction, probably a result of the codex being an afterthought.

but, honestly, i would solve it the other way round: codex only should get updated when data is sold. plus the same data should never be paid out twice. the galaxy is big enough for everyone to make discoveries, and will be so for the foreseeable future. it would only give more meaning to 'being an explorer'.

 

[Gut Rumble]

Might as well sit in a station and play the blue blob game and not bother going out at all lol

 

[Bennoj61]

I had the idea sometime back that message probes could be sent carrying exploration data back to a central location in the Bubble. In order to make it a bit risky, the probes would only be capable of about a 10 ly jump at a time, and have a tiny fuel scoop. While scooping, the probes would be detectable with some difficulty, perhaps some engineering would be available to make this harder, and could either be destroyed or captured and the data stolen. So an explorer would have the choice of a faster, but risky, method of getting credit or just hanging on to it until they get to an outpost with a Universal Cartographics office.

 

[Sapyx]

My head-canon explanation:

The Codex data and the planet scanning/mapping data are collected by two separate authorities, with different standards of data verification.

Scanning and Mapping data is kept by Universal Cartographics. UC is a scientific institution and as such, requires maximum rigorousness of data. No fake or fudged data is to be allowed into their hallowed database. So, each bit of data needs to be checked by an authorized agent of UC before being forwarded to UC's central office. Only data delivered in person on genuine tamper-proof UC cartographic data chips is accepted. That's where the UC offices in each starport come in.

The Codex is maintained by the Pilots Federation. It is not a scientific institution, so they can afford to be a little more laissez-faire when it comes to data verification. Which is why Codex discoveries are only considered "reported" rather than "verified" and you don't verify them until you go and see them for yourself, and even then it's not considered "verified" for anyone else. So if someone were to hack a fake Codex discovery, they get their names lit up in glory for all other PF members to see - but don't get their data passed on to be used by the scientific community until and unless it goes through the proper channels.

 

[Sunyavadin]

My head-canon explanation:

The Codex data and the planet scanning/mapping data are collected by two separate authorities, with different standards of data verification.

Scanning and Mapping data is kept by Universal Cartographics. UC is a scientific institution and as such, requires maximum rigorousness of data. No fake or fudged data is to be allowed into their hallowed database. So, each bit of data needs to be checked by an authorized agent of UC before being forwarded to UC's central office. Only data delivered in person on genuine tamper-proof UC cartographic data chips is accepted. That's where the UC offices in each starport come in.

The Codex is maintained by the Pilots Federation. It is not a scientific institution, so they can afford to be a little more laissez-faire when it comes to data verification. Which is why Codex discoveries are only considered "reported" rather than "verified" and you don't verify them until you go and see them for yourself, and even then it's not considered "verified" for anyone else. So if someone were to hack a fake Codex discovery, they get their names lit up in glory for all other PF members to see - but don't get their data passed on to be used by the scientific community until and unless it goes through the proper channels.

Honestly, yeah, that explanation seems the most consistent one available.

Look at it similar to verifying records on old arcade games. You can upload a time to an online scoreboard any time you like, stick a stream of your run on twitch, but you're gonna be expected to provide sufficient evidence to have that verified as properly having been done on the original hardware with no hacks in order to keep that record.

For discoveries across the galaxy in 3305, they probably want direct access to the primary logs aboard your ship to verify the data.

 

[Rade Konn]

It's not easy to get a first discovery on the codex especially after 2 months since launch and little by little you see a new codex addition while the current number of explorers is massive. It would be a shame to find a discovery like a guardian site and rush back to sell the data only to be disappointed that someone else beat you to it.

 

[Micha]

What Frontier seem adept at doing is creating contradictions and anomalies!

Until the Codex instant discovery reporting, I would have argued against any idea of getting an instant tag on scan for anything.

The Codex -should- have been "rumours" if Cmdrs find something(*), which is converted to "reported" once enough of those Cmdrs sell their data at a Station, and then, as now, "confirmed" once you find it yourself. It would also have been interesting if each region was broken down into smaller sectors so that the rumours/reports could just list the sector(s) in which they were found instead of the precise system name, so that people still need to actually go searching for the thing(s).

One thing which has turned me off the Codex a bit is the fact that the first Cmdr to find something gets their name up in lights - purely by being logged in first and being at the right spot at the right time after the update netted people such a covetted tag. It's even more impressive than First Discovered tags since there's only a handful and everybody sees them.

The Codex should have remained *your* personal discovery log instead of being another p.ssng contest of who got what first.


-----

(*)Perhaps not even; perhaps even "rumours" should only be raised once the first couple of Cmdrs sell their data.

 

[Old Duck]

My head-canon explanation:

The Codex data and the planet scanning/mapping data are collected by two separate authorities, with different standards of data verification.

Scanning and Mapping data is kept by Universal Cartographics. UC is a scientific institution and as such, requires maximum rigorousness of data. No fake or fudged data is to be allowed into their hallowed database. So, each bit of data needs to be checked by an authorized agent of UC before being forwarded to UC's central office. Only data delivered in person on genuine tamper-proof UC cartographic data chips is accepted. That's where the UC offices in each starport come in.

The Codex is maintained by the Pilots Federation. It is not a scientific institution, so they can afford to be a little more laissez-faire when it comes to data verification. Which is why Codex discoveries are only considered "reported" rather than "verified" and you don't verify them until you go and see them for yourself, and even then it's not considered "verified" for anyone else. So if someone were to hack a fake Codex discovery, they get their names lit up in glory for all other PF members to see - but don't get their data passed on to be used by the scientific community until and unless it goes through the proper channels.

As someone who has written volumes of headcanon to explain away the dozens of nonsensical elements in the game, I like this.

That said, I agree with Micha about how the Codex should have worked. And since I've only gotten one "first discovery" in the Codex, and likely that's all I'll ever get, for me the Codex is now solely a "personal journal" of my own finds, so I don't need to stress about the instant comms side of things.

On the other hand, it should would be nice if FRONTIER was the one enforcing consistency in their game universe. Making players jump through mental hoops to explain all the glaring contradictions is poor game design / story writing on their part. As I said before, I would be thrilled if ED took place a universe without FTL comms (not counting 'carrier pigeons'), as it would make it feel much more like old-time exploration before the advent of telegraph and radio. Screw telepresence, there are times when "it's a video game" is actually the better answer, LOL. But I digress into a rant, so apologies.

 

[Sunyavadin]

the first Cmdr to find something gets their name up in lights - purely by being logged in first and being at the right spot at the right time after the update netted people such a covetted tag.

This was actually helpful to a bunch of my friends who were planning on joining DW2 but didn't have much in the way of engineers or other upgrades unlocked. When it came to the new surface scanning system being added, since I was logged out by a guardian ruin close to the bubble which gives the blueprint needed for FSD boosters when the patch hit, I DSSed the planet, and was able to just give them all the coordinates of the system and tell them to look for the only planet in the system showing as first mapped by me to know instantly which one had the ruins on it. A helpful use for this, while everyone else was DSSing every planet in the bubble as fast as they could.