I am mainly focussing on exploration gameplay here to help actually live up to the definition of the name "Odyssey"
Also note my emphasis here is on 'easy' low effort improvements to implement quickly, not wishful thinking requiring extensive years-long rework of existing or entirely new functionality. As much as we would all love something bonkers I'm trying to keep grounded (ha pun!)
And all this also ASSUMES (naively perhaps) that Update 5 will resolve issues especially affecting explorers with terrain LOD embarrassingly jerky loading/blending, odd artefacts, INVISIBLE BOULDERS sabotaging SRVs, lacklustre small mountains and canyons, repeating patterns (giving the ground a grannies carpet look, and moiré effects), UIs, etc., etc., [ EDIT: UPDATE 5 DID NOT ] and that future REGULAR minor updates (e.g. quarterly/biannually) would also bring at least some additional variety of existing gameplay scenarios. E.g. a new type of crashed ship, exploration/tourism mission types, scavengable POI, additional biological, geological, NSP, types, etc.
General on foot improvements
A new Exploration-variant carrier, with 1/3 the size, capacity, cost, and upkeep requirements. Only offering say 2 medium and 2 small size pads. This carrier variant would not be visible on system map (but can be targetted to fly to via the nav panel) and would only be visible to all on Galaxy map if the owner had not set the carrier friends only.
All ships to be outfitted by default with a new small sized, single shot, emergency/flexible limpet controller that can be 'programmed'/synthesized with a limpet required for a one off thing. E.g. I discover a thing in a NSP cloud or a Thargoid ship - I can synthesise program the controller to get me a sample, or if I find a stranded ship in space I can set it to refuel (or repair) just enough to get them on their way, or I stumble across a distant tourist station that has hackable data or cargo port, or I have taken some damage and I need to repair just enough to limp to a base. Gameplay loops should not be completely locked out of access given our limited dedicated slots. There would still be a benefit to outfitting better, dedicated limpet controllers for things that are your main gameplay focus as we have now, but this would again offer more existing gameplay opportunities for everyone to participate in on a casual basis. Make better use of your existing content!
A more "Dangerous" Elite Dangerous
Increased sense of danger and risk - also this plays into that emergency programmable limpet controller:
The point is one of the biggest, most often made criticisms levelled at Elite is, it's great, but "such a missed opportunity". Well the community is continuously suggesting ways to resolve that criticism but it always seems to fall on deaf ears, even when the suggestions are low effort/dev cost.
Live up to the name dammit, especially given the extreme disappointment from the hype that we thought exploration gameplay was finally going to get some long overdue work (the genetic sampler misstep), what should have been a re-imagined longer term strategy for MUCH greater biological variety, and the whole, you know, Armstrong moment (TM) thing, and for the things that have always been missing.
Also note my emphasis here is on 'easy' low effort improvements to implement quickly, not wishful thinking requiring extensive years-long rework of existing or entirely new functionality. As much as we would all love something bonkers I'm trying to keep grounded (ha pun!)
And all this also ASSUMES (naively perhaps) that Update 5 will resolve issues especially affecting explorers with terrain LOD embarrassingly jerky loading/blending, odd artefacts, INVISIBLE BOULDERS sabotaging SRVs, lacklustre small mountains and canyons, repeating patterns (giving the ground a grannies carpet look, and moiré effects), UIs, etc., etc., [ EDIT: UPDATE 5 DID NOT ] and that future REGULAR minor updates (e.g. quarterly/biannually) would also bring at least some additional variety of existing gameplay scenarios. E.g. a new type of crashed ship, exploration/tourism mission types, scavengable POI, additional biological, geological, NSP, types, etc.
General on foot improvements
- Rather than not allow disembarking on some hot/high G worlds at all, instead enable much shorter duration disembarking on foot for all but the most extreme. For example some mission POI and even settlements and surface ports (with concourses visible and people walking about) are currently on surfaces we cannot currently get out of our ships on. This is clearly not right, and the easiest fix would be to enable at least the Artemis and Maverick suits to have greater ability to disembark on such worlds, though make it so the powerpacks are depleted at a much increased rate, e.g. within 2 minutes or so. This will give enough time to collect something at a POI or get to safety - and give a warning, "extreme temperature, suit power will deplete rapidly/in x minutes".
- Also, as we only currently have very tenuous atmospheres, the difference in temperature between being in daylight or night-time/shadow should be much greater I think. E.g. even an much too hot world we should be able to disembark if in a shadowed crater etc.
- SRVs should be deployable from the on foot ship boarding menu (similar to the newly added inventory management).
- Deploying on foot should have at least some effort at a cut scene/animation similar to SRV/Figher deployment. Even if it was just literally a close up animation of a boot touching the surface and then panning up. Currently its more like a captain Kirk beaming down moment, but without even the 60's cheesy budget effects, not an Armstrong moment at all.
- footstep foley is too often sounding "clippy cloppy", and not enough gravelly, frozen ice/snow, or sandy sounding. I think the clip clop sound needs to be limited to just indoor and footpath locations (and should also be made more subtle)
- finding and scanning data of dead NPCs (that you haven't murdered) and escape pods should be able to be handed in to the S&R contact for reward (or bounty). You have just confirmed location and death for next of kin/employers/law enforcement. Sometimes you do not have cargo space to pickup pods, but they should still be rewards for identifying. Again, leverage the assets the game already has.
- fix on foot head tracking, hud and targetting reticle is all over the place, it works fine in SRV and ship head tracking. On foot is borked.
- give it two "R" selectable modes: 1. Genetic, and 2. Geological (this alone would more than double the on foot exploration gameplay, see details):
- each mode samples via point and click similar to current (though some more intricate loop would be nice - just not reaction wheels... and more like the tuning of FSS scanning, or the DSS concept of aiming and probing, or something analogous to subsurface/core mining mechanic).
- increase right-click audio ping range to at least 1km, the current limit of what seems like about 100m is utterly pointless and infuriating
- enable up to three types to be collected at once (three LED lines on the canister), attempting the collect a 4th will discard the type with the lowest number of diverse samples or the oldest non-completed item. Limiting it to one type at a time is again utterly infuriating to the point of not wanting to participate in the game loop at all, its a slap in the face. Darwin would have died an unknown man with this inefficiency.
- give Genetic scanning additional RNG chance of secondary benefits, e.g. discovering secondary traits of the scanned item such as the item likely being edible, or with medicinal or recreational use etc. This random element of the discovery should give the player an opportunity to barter with the Vista NPC, similar to mission NPCs, e.g. "I think this sample is worth more than that, you will have to offer me more | a lot more". And if that Vista NPC flat out turns you down, you can take it to another in a different system and try there instead. Currently the Vista NPC gives no variety or depth.
- Geological scanning (making it act like a rotating laser "drill") should work the same kind of way, but discovering rock and soil types, mineral seams, evidence of past habitability, fumarole/lava composition, fossils, etc. This stuff too can be handed into Vista NPCs. Also have RNG chance of secondary benefits in this instance providing collectable valuable materials. Essentially a basic surface mining. Surface rock design and scatter, and the general surface textures are much nicer now, but are not being utilised. These are the one thing we have on EVERY landable planet (regardless of any specific Geological/Biological POI types shown after DSS scan). This feature would add gameplay to literally every landable planet and give people a reason to visit anywhere on foot even if nothing specific is found after DSS scan. Make better use of your existing content!
- Another potential tertiary RNG outcome of the whole Vista collection gameloop could also be getting your Cmdr name credited with the first discovery of materials subsequently developed into a product/medicine by Vista Genomics in the lore/products available in the commodity markets.
A new Exploration-variant carrier, with 1/3 the size, capacity, cost, and upkeep requirements. Only offering say 2 medium and 2 small size pads. This carrier variant would not be visible on system map (but can be targetted to fly to via the nav panel) and would only be visible to all on Galaxy map if the owner had not set the carrier friends only.
- could potentially re-use existing assets designed for the carrier support ships that ended up not being used when Carriers launched with minimal rework required.
- this offers additional opportunity for Arx customisability and revenue (I'd gladly pay real money to make my exploration carrier look sleek like the Enterprise D - and not have the paintjob then look grey one day - that's another fix needed, tactical ice paint job for ships is still broken).
- these exploration class carriers will also help to alleviate the current Carrier clutter. A lot of carrier owners would switch to this type of carrier which offers them flexibility of gameplay that carriers bring, especially for explorers (have several types of ships with you for mining, pewpew, racing, scouting, etc. is fantastic), but without all the overkill of the current carriers which are really geared at teams of players (they always were).
- concourses on carriers too of course.
- Previously after FSS scanning, the system map alone could be used to find interesting areas of worlds to visit just from examining them via the system map you could see mountains, now I rarely if ever see any indication of tall interesting mountains, cliffs or canyons to visit. All bodies look billiard ball smooth from the system map even zoomed into the maximum extent. This was not the experience in Horizons.
- FSS scanner panning around control bindings also needs ability to set the speed/sensitivity. It is currently a lot slower that Horizons (and that too was already pretty slow). FSS mouse speed can be set, but not controller stick bindings. This would be very useful, and essential for console players.
- After DSS scanning we need to again see lines of latitude and longitude like we did in Horizons, without it this makes navigating to interesting areas we have seen from just the system map harder. E.g. if I saw an interesting mountain location pretty close to the polar area or nearer the equator from the system map in Horizons I would use the lat long lines to figure out where I needed to head before even entering orbit (this is necessary because we cannot bookmark interesting locations! another useful addition to have).
- Ability to "pin" multiple Galaxy map filters. Currently the filters are limited to a single thing. This is pretty useless. Imagine a spreadsheet or BI tool that only allowed a single type of filter to be applied at any one time!
- Ability see an aggregate 'heatmap' view of the galaxy for various types of filters., e.g. Visited, Carrier location, Inhabited, etc., I should be able to zoom right out and see indications of where those things are in aggregate blobs overlaid on the galaxy, which can be resolved to individual details by zooming right in. The current functionality only works out to a range of about 200 square LY, and then nothing if you zoom further out than that.
- Bookmarks need to be able to be coloured from a small user-selectable pallette of colours. Users can then colour their bookmarks according to colours that make sense to them, e.g. good mining locations, interesting planets, things to investigate, a personal mission to map all systems within an area etc., etc. Currently everything is the same no context orange. Pretty useless
All ships to be outfitted by default with a new small sized, single shot, emergency/flexible limpet controller that can be 'programmed'/synthesized with a limpet required for a one off thing. E.g. I discover a thing in a NSP cloud or a Thargoid ship - I can synthesise program the controller to get me a sample, or if I find a stranded ship in space I can set it to refuel (or repair) just enough to get them on their way, or I stumble across a distant tourist station that has hackable data or cargo port, or I have taken some damage and I need to repair just enough to limp to a base. Gameplay loops should not be completely locked out of access given our limited dedicated slots. There would still be a benefit to outfitting better, dedicated limpet controllers for things that are your main gameplay focus as we have now, but this would again offer more existing gameplay opportunities for everyone to participate in on a casual basis. Make better use of your existing content!
A more "Dangerous" Elite Dangerous
Increased sense of danger and risk - also this plays into that emergency programmable limpet controller:
- black hole effects/strain/damage to ship, or slingshot it if you get too close - ideally also with a graphical overhaul
- turbulence and minor damage from atmospheres if close to current maximum allowed and at steeper angles of entry
- mining to have a greater affect on your ship, hear micrometeorites pinging off the hull, increased paint job wear, more risks of random slight damage. Needs much more of this to offset the huge financial benefits, mining should be like coal mining on earth, dirty, gruelling, dangerous, costly with wear and tear, and you come home looking like crap.
- small risk of fumarole/lava spout ejecta material raining down causing damage and sound effects similar to mining
The point is one of the biggest, most often made criticisms levelled at Elite is, it's great, but "such a missed opportunity". Well the community is continuously suggesting ways to resolve that criticism but it always seems to fall on deaf ears, even when the suggestions are low effort/dev cost.
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