Horizons I like scanning tourist beacons, but i don't like passenger missions.

gb212

G
Hello elite forums.

I week or so ago i posted this idea in reddit, while noone cared there, fast forward to now and i even more so feel this could be a significant amount of fun so...

Basis: After a number of tourist missions, i find that very much enjoy going to and scanning tourist beacons, but i strongly dislike (to the point of not doing) the tourist missions because 1) the destinations/itinerary feel forced 2) I don't want to do demanding passengers. I really don't care about what they want.. my immediate gameplay is working out if i can disappoint them and complete the mission still.

As a compliment or alternative, seems there could be room for sandbox passenger missions.

Tourist sandbox passengers (the adventure seekers): Pick up passengers at any port -> get a message requesting going to a random tourist beacon within a 50ly radius -> payment for mission increases with each beacon scanned -> passengers can be dropped off at any station. This would provide a base for imagination and a meaning to just go see the tourist beacons, and like the rest of the sandbox activities, function in freeform elite sandbox mode, rather than the non sandbox mission board gameplay which is far, far worse.

On the run passengers: Propose taking a political refugee or criminal (who may or may not be wanted) as far away from the pickup system as possible. Drop them off at any system of the opposing major faction (or anarchy system etc as fitting). This could function similar to rare commodities today. It could add a nice new passenger element to any form of the travel in the game.

Elite is elegant and perfect while in sandbox play. All the gameplay themes around the mission board are just worse, and it would be great to get some sort of passenger missions out of this..

Though, ultimately i would be happy if there was a freeform way to go to visitor beacons without missions. Ideally with some in game purpose to support it.

Thanks for considering.
 

XenonBuster

X
can anyone tell me how to scan a tourist beacon
I have on board he advanced discovery scanner and the detailed surface scanner
have landed nest to the beacon but nothing happens
 

Muetdhiver

Muetdhiver
It would be nice if one could scan the beacons while in SC (normal space scan for missions) but
to access lore stuff it would be nice QoL small change.
 

Khromm

K
I'd actually love to see something along the lines of setting your own "tour" route, through systems that you've already visited, and picking up passengers that ask to take your tour. Shouldn't be too difficult to set up, and would really improve the whole idea of your ship being a liner/cruise vessel and not just a glorified bus-for-hire/taxi. You'd set up a route via your bookmarks with as many stops as you'd like on it, and have the route fed to your passenger lounge at each station you visited, with passengers able to leave at each port if they wanted to or complete a circuit with you (with associated distance based ticket prices). So long as you'd already got the visitor beacon locations, you'd be able to set that route. Kind of like a sea cruise nowadays.

I'm not saying I don't like the passenger missions we've got now, because I do, but even the sigtseeing tours don't feel quite right in an anaconda with passenger bays, let alone in a beluga, which isn't far off the size of an ocean liner :D I just feel more like an armed taxi driver than I do a cruise manager...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom