Type 7 now makes a decent explorer especially if engineered, she's a bit on the big side but handles well thanks to a recent mass reduction. It's a surprisingly satisfying beastie to fly.
Frontier, can we PLEASE have a new Exploration ship now?
- Thread starter Kaybe
- Start date
And this is *everything* that is wrong with exploration, in my opinion.
When I was super-naive about exploring, I took an Imperial Clipper out exploring... noting this was pre-SRVs... and I had the following:
1. Shield
2. Fuel Scoop
4. Hatch Breaker Limpet
5. Collector Limpet
6. Manifest Scanner
7. Wake Scanner
8. AFMU x 2
9. Weapons systems
Now we have things like Recon Limpets and Research Limpets. Frankly, these should be *mandatory* for any dedicated exploration vessel. Take a look at space probes, the mars rover and the like. These things aren't decked out clean-skin and thrown into space with no systems on board. Instead, they're decked out with all sorts of things to collect information or interact with the world around them. When we "explored" the moon, did we just go there, say "nice moon" and leave? Obviously not.
I said previously and somewhat flippantly "I'll have a new exploration vessel when there's something to do besides jump, honk, scan, next"... and to my surprise nobody said "But what about Thargoids? Guardians? Deep-space megaships?". All these things *require* additional fittings to *fully* interact with, but certainly not many (and arguably none, for the guardians at least). Bizarrely enough, there's no fitting that helps you search for these sorts of things (another problem with Exploration)... but you'll be hard-fetched to find any "seasoned" explorer fitting those sort of items, because as kinda prefaced with this post, this is entirely the problem with Exploration, it's just "Jump, honk, scan, next".
"What about brain trees? Geysers?" - What about them? Sightseeing material, nothing more. Way these things should work, using brain trees/Thargoid Structures/barnacles/other organic surface objects:
1. Fit "Organic Matter Scanner" to ship
2. Fly within, say, 1Ls of planet
3. Scan planet
4. Get a few signal POIs appear on the planet. A couple will be procedurally generated and might just be escape pods or similar.
5. Get down on the planet, maybe find some brain trees.
6. Scan them for data! Take samples of them! Be able to return that for some halfway-decent rewards or contribution to some activity. That's the stuff that's missing
Thargoid Structures are great, and you may want to argue that that's the sort of gameplay I should do... but here's the rub: does your average explorer carry CRCRs and at least one thargoid probe/link/sensor wherever they go, on the off chance they're exploring and find a Thargoid Structure? I guarantee not. So it's not really exploration, just sightseeing.
There needs to be more activities/variations on fittings required before you can even contemplate a new exploration ship in the current game. For all the grief I might hang up on the excessive amount of limpet controllers we have now, at least it makes me weigh up what activity I want to do, and what fittings I need. Only then would a dedicated exploration vessel really come to the fore.
EDIT: It may sound like I have problems with the existence of jump,honk,scan,next gameplay. True it's not for me, and some people may enjoy that. So let's get proper serious about it. How's this for a fitting, with some "imagined" mods.
1. Fuel Scoop
2. Gas Catalyser - Allows you to scoop off a greater range of stars, or even gas giants
3. Advanced Disco Scanner
4. Detailed Surface Scanner
5. Omni-directional fitment - Scans any body in range, not just ones you're pointing at and have targeted
6. Range amplifier - This may already be a modification in engineering, but, extends by double or more, the typical range to scan a body.
7. FSD Booster
Make some sensible decisions around some of the fitting requirements and bam! Now you're not just an exploration vessel, but a celestial scanning body machine... you might not be able to find or interact with any cool things lurking in the system but you're a mean machine when it comes to system scanning.
Last edited:
Absolutely.
This is why I think FDev should take a hard look at whether it's viable to remove slots completely.
If they can do it, without allowing people to create seriously exploity builds, it'd make it much easier to add new features into the game in future.
If they can't get rid of slots, they're either going to have to add more slots to every ship, they're going to have to create some kind of slot-dividers or we're just flat-out never getting much in the way of expanded functionality.
Said it before but FDev need to take a good look at what KSP allows the player to do with "science stuff" (both in the standard game and with some mod's) and then take inspiration from that.
Perhaps the way forward would be to create some kind of "Scientific Survey Module" (maybe in range of sizes from C3 to C6?) and then have a seperate "equipping" page where it could be configured to fit various instruments and equipment for specific roles?
Once they did that, they could get rid of some of the limpet controllers we currently have and make the DSS part of the SSM too, which'd tidy things up significantly and give them a fair bit of breathing-space to expand the features explorers have to play with.
Last edited:
Not if you only give it one hard point LOL.
I want a Guardian-based ship with a Center seat in the cockpit canopy (none of that offset nonsense) with a nice canopy and alien like designed hull. With a huge jump range and godly fuel scoop. Give it one hardpoint or 2 , make them smalls, who cares. Just give me some godly new eyecandy
Even one hardpoint will make such a ship performant at combat. Far from optimal for sure, but with one hardpoint I'd still happily take on anything up to an Asp in size, and given outfitting availability, I may even take on up to a FAS if I can deck out some armour plates beforehand.
I often carry fitouts on my ships that have weapons for utility rather than combat (i.e missile launchers, for skimmers), and only one weapon for actual combat (say, a single beam or multicannon). Sure you won't take out an assassination target or that gang of 73,432 pirates that mission agent wanted you to kill, but you can still fight off small things if you have to.
Last edited:
I'd rather see the Diamondbacks get those exploration module slots so they can actually be worthy of the name Scout and Explorer before we see another exploration ship.
Problem is that if the Asp Explorer doesn't get exploration module slots, people are going to about it. But the Asplorer already has great optional internals and doesn't need exploration slots. The Asplorer either needs to lose some optional internals for those new exploration slots, or lose some jump distance and only be a multirole. It's spent too long being too good at both, same goes for the Anaconda.
Problem is that if the Asp Explorer doesn't get exploration module slots, people are going to about it. But the Asplorer already has great optional internals and doesn't need exploration slots. The Asplorer either needs to lose some optional internals for those new exploration slots, or lose some jump distance and only be a multirole. It's spent too long being too good at both, same goes for the Anaconda.
Last edited:
The biggest issue with negating hardpoints and so forth is that Frontier hasn't yet drawn any clear boundaries as to their design intent with ships in regard to specialization or multiroling.
Consistency- if you will.
Specialize them, or don't.
Make them all multiroles, or don't.
They first need to make up their minds as to which direction they want to travel by reviewing the Galaxy map... but it appears they just want to engage hyperspace without setting a nav point.
Point is, we can all sit here debating detailed module placement, jump ranges and everything else under the stars, but if Frontier doesn't even have a clear direction we're just wasting a lot of time discussing it all.
Consistency- if you will.
Specialize them, or don't.
Make them all multiroles, or don't.
They first need to make up their minds as to which direction they want to travel by reviewing the Galaxy map... but it appears they just want to engage hyperspace without setting a nav point.
Point is, we can all sit here debating detailed module placement, jump ranges and everything else under the stars, but if Frontier doesn't even have a clear direction we're just wasting a lot of time discussing it all.
Last edited:
I would like to see a SLE. (Ship Launch Explorer):
Deep Space Scout
Hard points: 0
Utility Mounts: 0
Core:
- Armor: light wieght alloy only.
- Power Plant: 1?
- Thrusters: 1
- FSD: 4? 60-70ly jumps
- Life support: 1
- Power Distributor: 1? Enough for FSD
- Sensor: 1
- Fuel Tank: 3? Enough for 4+ max range jumps
Optional Internal:
- 2) Shield (we bump things), fuel tank, or scoop.
- 1) Shield or scoop.
- 1) Surface scanner
- 1) Advance discovery scanner
This could go in a hanger, be repaired, and would add extra range jumps, above current ships. Basically a seat strapped to a FSD. Be multi crew or npc. You would leave npc or another player in large ship and take the Scout to hit those out of reach systems.
Deep Space Scout
Hard points: 0
Utility Mounts: 0
Core:
- Armor: light wieght alloy only.
- Power Plant: 1?
- Thrusters: 1
- FSD: 4? 60-70ly jumps
- Life support: 1
- Power Distributor: 1? Enough for FSD
- Sensor: 1
- Fuel Tank: 3? Enough for 4+ max range jumps
Optional Internal:
- 2) Shield (we bump things), fuel tank, or scoop.
- 1) Shield or scoop.
- 1) Surface scanner
- 1) Advance discovery scanner
This could go in a hanger, be repaired, and would add extra range jumps, above current ships. Basically a seat strapped to a FSD. Be multi crew or npc. You would leave npc or another player in large ship and take the Scout to hit those out of reach systems.
The ships don't all need to be specialized or not, multiroled or not. What's needed is not being both at the same time. And there's really only two of those ships, at least that I can think of.
My ideal end-game explorer ship would be an Imperial design, based off of the cutter, but holding truer to the original concept art that was in circulation for ages before it's release. Shorter and more tapered than the Cutter, and with a simpler engine arrangement at the rear (two engine exhausts.) Armament shaved down to 2 large and 4 medium, it'd still have some ability to fight, and possibly able to support a fully turreted armament, moving the 2 ventral mediums into the wing root, and the second large from a dorsal mount to a ventral, mounted further back than a Cutter's huge. Aesthetically, perhaps expand the observation decks to have larger windows and bring with it the ability to fit luxury cabins.
SLF Function retained, as are all of the core modules. Optional modules Would be largely the same, however one class 8 removed, and a class 5 is removed for an additional 4, a 3 and 2 2's.
That said, this would be designed to supercede an Anaconda as premier explorer, but I agree that there need to be more intermediate options. I'd still like to see an Asp with SLF, A medium Imperial and a medium Saud-Kruger ship, all with good to great jump ranges.
SLF Function retained, as are all of the core modules. Optional modules Would be largely the same, however one class 8 removed, and a class 5 is removed for an additional 4, a 3 and 2 2's.
That said, this would be designed to supercede an Anaconda as premier explorer, but I agree that there need to be more intermediate options. I'd still like to see an Asp with SLF, A medium Imperial and a medium Saud-Kruger ship, all with good to great jump ranges.
Honestly that is mostly just noise around personal preference and people continuing to perpetuate the myth that arbitrary restriction is a vital component and simply angling for the bits they personally care about. The key take away is Frontier have tried to introduce role-based ships with arbitrary restrictions after deciding they would not resolve an outlier, in a game that also includes multi-role. This ostensibly means we have 'role' based ships that are a poor cousin versus 'multirole' variants.
Module and utility count has become a very strong driver due to module proliferation. And this has only further broadened the chasm.
Krait shows a return to building ships that are essentially fit for purpose. It is a bit of generalist though, so there's part of the explanation. The other is maybe the developer actually does understand this has become a problem and there's good value in resolving some of the larger disparities. I think there is great value in a ship-wide review and consideration for how continued module proliferation will impact the entire fleet. There has been discussion around module 'racks' and exploration probes using existing modules.
The issue, perhaps, has never been the technical nature of resolving ship disparity? it's the developer either recognising it exists (and it's evident that's taken a while to sink in) or that it actually matters and having the conviction to get it done. They have accepted and said as much, indeed, that having their time over again, Anaconda would not now be as it is. One cannot undo the past, but one can certainly learn from it.
I'd like to think Q4 is a chance to reset the field a bit and offer a genuine alternative as part of improvement; ahead of biting the bullet and getting on with ensuring ships are actually addressing their designed purpose.
Last edited:
Sure; if they use the same module bay to hold. What if, as is often the case, Frontier simply invent yet another module? More modules. I too, would like more options for vehicular transport. However I think either proliferation consideration, and or ship changes also need to occur, to make that a positive outcome.
Last edited:
They've specifically said that new SRV types would use the same planetary vehicle hangar, though possibly more than one slot in it.
They once said SRV would just take up space in the cargo bay. And then suddenly it was a new hanger. As was the fighter. I've learned over time to expect the execution to not always match the intention. It's less disappointing that way.
The FDL, arguably still the best pure combat ship, has no military slots (and fewer non-military internals than most other combat ships, too)
The Python has a bigger power distributor and similar hardpoint convergence to the FDL, as well as slightly more on-paper firepower in terms of hardpoint selection, but is significantly inferior as a combat ship because it's slower, less agile, and two utility mounts shorter.
Yes. And since this is combat, not mining, and the targets move and fire back, agility is extremely important.
Yeah, cockpit is very important. I was talking about technical ship specs influenced by mass and internals. Jumprange sticks out because the other factors are generally speaking just unimportant.
I would also appreciate a real Yacht-like ship, built for speed and jump range. A bit like the FDL in style but built around a massive FDL slot. Like the (water)ships on Earth - there are Navy vessels, ships for freight and passengers - and ships especially designed for exploration or recreation. Such a ship does not really exist in ED. And why do people keep mentioning the Krait? A fine ship, but nothing more than a Python where one type6 slot has been swapped for a SLF. Thats not an exploration ship.
I see so many advocating the Anaconda for exploration, and many others (like myself) being totally repulsed by the handling of the Annie in SC that I'm starting to think there's two types of explorer and they are more different than I at first thought:
1) System hunters who do not scan many planets (Annie pilots?) I guess they care about jump range only as they are aiming for far flung systems.
2) Planet hunters who scan many planets - ELW, TF HMC, TF WW etc. (Asp/DBX etc. pilots?) Care less about jump range (an undiscovered system is an undiscovered system regardless of distance), rather these folks probably care much more for SC agility.
1) System hunters who do not scan many planets (Annie pilots?) I guess they care about jump range only as they are aiming for far flung systems.
2) Planet hunters who scan many planets - ELW, TF HMC, TF WW etc. (Asp/DBX etc. pilots?) Care less about jump range (an undiscovered system is an undiscovered system regardless of distance), rather these folks probably care much more for SC agility.