K have fun wasting your time on those
Guardian ruins bunker door
I'm not. This is the Shadow of the Colossus "Final Secret" all over again. Well, no, actually that's Raxxla, but the point is, people want there to be a mystery, when there really isn't anything there, unfortunately, and they'll grab on to any vague possibility they can if they think the mystery will suddenly unravel.
Now, don't mind me, I've nearly closed in on finding Bigfoot in GTA San Andreas!
Yeah I mean I don't think anyone is suggesting that it's by any means the game's biggest mystery. But I'm also not surprised of there being Naysayers. You know? In a livestream? FDEV did state that the game's biggest secret was yet to be discovered and that it wasn't tied to RAXXLA. Again, not at all suggesting that the Guardians are in any way tied to whatever mystery has yet to be unveiled. Just making the point that there are things in the game that are big that have yet to be found.
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I believe you’re right.
So I’m a naysayer for saying a wall is not a door.
Citation needed for FDev saying the game’s biggest secret was yet to be discovered and it’s not Raxxla. When was that?
For me, you've gotta meta-game that stuff. And by that, I mean "If you've tried all standard game mechanics and options, and haven't turned up a solution, there probably isn't one". If there's some "mystery mechanic" we haven't found (and historically, all FD's puzzles have been very simple, there's just been, well, complicating factors unrelated to the puzzles themselves, but that'd really derail this thread)... then that mystery mechanic and whatever is hidden behind it may well not exist... which is a bit of a crux of this post I've cross-posted a few times.
Many, many people have done all sorts of waveform analysis in the game trying to find things, and besides the obvious ones of the Link and the Probe (which aren't actually useful to solving anything anyway), they've never turned up anything that, true to Braben's previous statements, "couldn't be solved with a pencil and paper"
And if the solution to a puzzle is "look for a black cat, in a dark room, where there is no black cat", then that's just poor game design, and I'd rather that particular "big discovery" go undiscovered, until FD realises the wrapping mechanics are poor. From FD's perspective, the longer something goes undiscovered, the longer it remains as wasted dev time. A little part of me wonders if FD some romantic idea that all the stories people have from FFE's handcoded content were from people genuinely discovering the whole chain leading to Thargoids, rather than relying on the rev-eng'ed code, and thought "yeah, let's do that again!"
For example, a critical design flaw of pre-FSS planetary surface discoveries such as Barnacles, Guardian Structures, Thargoid Structures and Tipoffs, was the mechanics for discovering things. When you first take a couple missions to a planet's surface, or just do some flying around for "the lols"... you quickly find out that things of-interest appear as "blue circles" on your radar. Takehome from that is; if you see a blue circle, there's something interesting there.
So pre-FSS, how did you find these things? Ignore that mechanic, and just randomly search around planets. That's counter-intuitive and poor design. Now, we have the FSS (which goes in the other extreme direction) and allows us to pinpoint everything on the surface. Which of course, leads us to Merope 5c... the landable planet the thargoid probe points to. For a long time, people thought there must be something we can find there... why else would it point there? But of course, now the question could be "Maybe it doesn't come up on the FSS! It's unknown after all!"... of course... but it still runs contrary to the game mechanics and isn't sane, and would continue to be poor game design.
Another great (reverse) example of this problem in action is the Codex. In this case, it's a defined mechanic that is 99% of the time completely unreliable and should be ignored as a source of "how to find cool things". So let's go find Lagrange Storm Clouds. Where do we find these awesome things? According to the codex... "Any Nebula". Where do we find Standard Lagrange Clouds? According to the codex... "Any nebul---oh". Sure enough, an amazing amount of things can be found in "Any nebula" according to the codex, and yet 99% of things you won't find in "Any Nebula", rather you'll find them in a single nebula in a single sector due, which renders the codex utterly useless for it's function. So yeah, there's some mystery mechanics not represented anywhere in the game that makes these things have a much more narrow search criteria than the codex suggests, and that makes it terrible game design.
So yeah, balance of probabilities, unless there's something to suggest otherwise, there's probably nothing to find here. But hey, fill your boots, and if you think you're onto something, then blaze that trail. As long as you're having fun!
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A lot of good points here.
I was actually going to post something like this myself, yesterday. At least in terms of how discoveries are made in ED.
I was out exploring out past the Vela Dark Region, after visiting the Guardian structure there. I plotted and pondered going back out toward the Zurara. Specifically to follow the "RR (Reorte/ Reidquat) line mystery." I ultimately decided to head back and do some catching up on mining, since I had not engaged in that activity since Void Opals were the hot commodity. The thought that changed my mind was how things are (were/ are?) discovered in this game.
Discoveries were not made, via, the traditional means of exploration, but, via, decoding clues from Galnet, codexes, and other such riddles. In other words, the explorer is not who is going to find a Guardian site, Thargoid site etc. I am no code cracker, or mathematician. And were there anything out there? Game file hackers would have found it by now...as that is the other known means to discovering in the ED universe.
Well, if that's your starting position then I can guarantee you won't find anything.
That was precisely my point. FDEV would include a site or structure in an update and send out a coinciding Galnet article where people could then begin to crack the code and end up with, hopefully, the correct system coordinates. These things aren't necessarily out there to be happened upon. As JManis was saying, if it hasn't been figured out by now, or hasn't been solved by now? It's likely not in the game. Especially, given, you can't much hide content from game file hackers. Historically all we could do is await an update and for a new article to come out containing a codeform riddle. I honestly would love to know which of the discovered structures/ sites today we're discovered by an explorer? All that I can think of have been found, via, piecing together data.
But you seem to have missed mine. If you decide that it's not worth looking you will certainly not find anything.
I can show you eleven, all of them found within the past twelve months.
I'm 99% positive the doors are just for decoration. The game engine can't handle interior spaces unless they're part of a structure, and it doesn't support putting holes in the world geometry as far as I know. Therefore, the structure needs to be placed in a depression in the terrain so that it lies flush with the surrounding ground (like the Thargoid sites), and if that's the case here then the space behind the door is barely big enough to fit an SRV. If the door can be opened, it's not an underground facility; it's a toolshed.
I took a picture of the interior. For me it basically looks like this door works. It seems the 3D model has the necessary cutouts, but of course that doesn't mean anything ...
Currently at the Col 173 Sector GS-J B25-4 Guardian Site and they don't appear to be doors, but instead a collapsed structure. Could they be doors? yes. Do they open? very unlikely.
In the short time I've spent here I've noticed using free camera that the two line up on opposing sides of the main causeway leading up to the Data Terminal. It looks like a collapsed bridge or hallway, or somewhere a larger structure would open out into for Guardians to walk down to this outside area in when the planet had an atmosphere.
The update later on this year is the "future of elite" and a big update. With fleet carriers coming out etc, the universe will be more player run, which is what FDev wants. Hopefully we get a little content guardian/thargoid wise (or other hidden sites else where in the far flung reaches of the galaxy) at that point and beyond as time is freed up from having to do work in game that players will then be doing.
Engine limitations have stopped atmospheric landings and underground sites as others have mentioned. Much like why we don thave cave systems or underground human/guardian bases is because it would clip below the world mesh of a planet, this is typically either a gasseous looking solid layer (ie: an atmosphere) or this Guardian Site door/bridge way.
I think it's best to look at these sites and go "how did the guardians use them?" rather than trying to anthropomorphise the Guardians as a species. This site would be functional for them to use and a bridge in that location somewhat makes sense (given how automated their empire was, the lower area may have been too dangerous to walk). Beyond that all of these structures could be 100% that rampant AGI that killed them off and not actually flesh guardian tech at all, but in fact, robot guardian tech.
In the short time I've spent here I've noticed using free camera that the two line up on opposing sides of the main causeway leading up to the Data Terminal. It looks like a collapsed bridge or hallway, or somewhere a larger structure would open out into for Guardians to walk down to this outside area in when the planet had an atmosphere.
The update later on this year is the "future of elite" and a big update. With fleet carriers coming out etc, the universe will be more player run, which is what FDev wants. Hopefully we get a little content guardian/thargoid wise (or other hidden sites else where in the far flung reaches of the galaxy) at that point and beyond as time is freed up from having to do work in game that players will then be doing.
Engine limitations have stopped atmospheric landings and underground sites as others have mentioned. Much like why we don thave cave systems or underground human/guardian bases is because it would clip below the world mesh of a planet, this is typically either a gasseous looking solid layer (ie: an atmosphere) or this Guardian Site door/bridge way.
I think it's best to look at these sites and go "how did the guardians use them?" rather than trying to anthropomorphise the Guardians as a species. This site would be functional for them to use and a bridge in that location somewhat makes sense (given how automated their empire was, the lower area may have been too dangerous to walk). Beyond that all of these structures could be 100% that rampant AGI that killed them off and not actually flesh guardian tech at all, but in fact, robot guardian tech.