Uhm, firstly it is my belief that the damage to hull / power plant only occurs if YOU screw up, multiple commanders routinely spend months...
Hull integrity damage happens from a variety of circumstances, not all of them because a player screws up. Power Plant damage typically happens during exploration only during overheating events which can happen during exploration even when utmost care is taken... jumping into a close coupled binary system for example. However, I do agree with your perspective that there are commanders who do routinely spend months out in the void, and they accept the limitations and risks that come with such extended journeys. Once you have hit Elite in exploration rank, the rewards are probably largely secondary to other motives.
Now as someone who routinely hunts "golden worlds" I can assure you that the risk of losing 300+ mil due to a bug / pilot error basically mandates turning in data every 3-4 days.
Which currently means returning to the bubble (or at least the Colonia region), this is a reasonable balancing factor IMO.
But with good notes a death while annoying is very easy to pay the insurance and basically road to riches by only returning and cherry picking planets I ALREADY know what they are. To appropriate your own language holo-me was the "slippery slope" Fdev has all but confirmed that this entire universe is simply a hologram. (
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...no-collision?p=5701578&viewfull=1#post5701578) and thus my previous comment about making data payouts instantaneous.
Game balancing reasons, make payouts instantaneous and the risk-reward balance becomes inconsequential. Hence, should not happen IMO.
The Holo-Me was a step on the road towards space-legs and seems to primarily cover the Multi-Crew mechanic at the moment. It is not the same thing as saying the entire universe is just a hologram. With multi-crew we present a Holo-Me avatar to every other member of the crew because everyone
except the pilot is essentially only present in terms of a holo-me avatar. There is no gameplay side effect to allowing players to have a Holo-Me, though the benefits of multi-crew in combat scenarios could be more of a concern. I believe that concern is mitigated though by Multi-Crew and Wings seemingly being mutually exclusive.
As for cosmetic changes to ships being just holographic overlays, that is not the same thing as the ship or the universe is simply a hologram either.
Now these are the 2 general play styles of "exploration" and the 50% first discovered bonus is a complete waste of time when you can simply cherry pick TWW/THMC planets from a list (Due to previous work of players like me). Further more with synthesis and engineers it takes less than 2 hours to make the 22k LY trip to Colonia (Negating the sacrifice to collect these mats) Of course many players complain about the SRV "grind" and the ideas posted by AL33 (
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...s-bases-work?p=5707769&viewfull=1#post5707769) could work wonders.
Generally speaking, I am guessing you are referring to the materials storage aspects. In which case, I point at general game balance concerns - I am not opposed to increased material storage, just the way some would like to go about it.
Their point about "restricting access" just illustrates one of my other concerns about player controlled cross-instance facilities and zones of control... it largely smacks of wanting to play tower defence, and there is the risk of players using such tools to effectively blockade places regardless of what instance a given player is in. Overall, NO THANK YOU!!! The ideas presented just highlight some of the other inter-player side-effect concerns I have already presented in this thread.
As stated on several occasions, providing player "homes" do not directly affect other player's gameplay regardless of the mode of play then there is no issue - but AL33's ideas fly in the face of that premise.
Returning to the first type of "explorer" these players routinely try to "link up" drawing from the "campsite" even the idea the ability to place a temporary "beacon" allows for this. Again camp SITES in real life are well known "meet up" points not normally because of their remote or hard to reach status but because you get to hang out with FRIENDS!
We have wings and Holo-Me/Multi-Crew for easily facilitated "meet ups" currently, we do not need player created "camp sites" to facilitate meet ups. Adding such camp sites would not (or should not) change the fact that players will still have to fly their ships to the relevant meeting point - which need not be a base of any kind. I have done this myself with people I typically choose to play with.
The current issue in elite is that it is actually MORE restrictive than real life (Self destruct is more time efficient than waiting for a spare part to be "flown in").
If you are getting to the point during exploration where you "need a spare part" in the void then you have royally screwed up and failed to either build your ship appropriately AND/OR failed to monitor the state of repair of your ship. No it is not more restrictive than real life, in real-life suicide (self-destruct) would not be an option - there is no replay IRL (at least where this life is concerned - let's not get into meta-physics and religion).
As is a common theme in my posts I seek to further integration between already existing systems in the Elite universe we have module storage / delivery why not expand this? Imagine player groups like the fuel rats bringing spare equipment like a new power plant or SRV's along with the already confirmed hull limpets. Cause currently losing all your SRV's is the ONLY thing that forces a player to return.
Actually not true, as the Power Plant takes damage overall power availability is reduced (at least if it gets below a certain point) and if the Power Plant integrity drops too far there is (a) a risk of random malfunctions and (b) a chance of the power plant blowing up and taking the ship with it.
As for delivering spare equipment... Not really the same thing as hull repair limpets, AFMUs, or fuel transfer limpets. The limpets are reasonable mechanics supporting co-operative gameplay and the AFMU is a reasonable (and limited) self-repair mechanic, the delivery of spare equipment out in the void though is probably a step too far. Module storage is a borderline reasonable mechanic that FD have been careful about the balance of. We are limited in the modules we can store and the primary justification for this seems to be so we can transfer engineered equipment between ships, the transfer times and cost are a bit too limiting to consider the primary reason being anything else. It largely comes down to game balance again.
Finally there are emergencies in which a ship must simply be abandoned (Scuttling) no matter how well equipped it may have been the situation simply becomes too dangerous for the crew... The ship maybe recovered at a later date but in Elite this happens every time you simply "land" on a moon.
If you fail to fit shields or land too hard then you could wreck your ship to the point of it needing scuttling. However, any assertions that landing on any moon requires scuttling is total rubbish.
When landing on planets there are three main factors - the power of your engines, the strength of your shields, and the level of gravity. The last part is the critical element that can be punishing if you fail to check the scan data before attempting to land. You always need to assess whether your thrusters are powerful enough to take off again, and whether your shields are sufficient to absorb the damage from a heavy landing. If you choose to land despite unfavourable load-out circumstances then you screwed up.
If you screw up then you pay the piper, including losing any exploration data, bounties, or other things you may have accumulated and not yet handed in. Attempting to bypass that specific penalty just seems wrong to me.
