In the latest stream, Bruce confirmed no current development is happening for exobiology and asked us for suggestions for content

[Darkfyre99]

That's one of my biggest gripes about the current system, there should be no way the same plant type can be spread across the entire galaxy, I mean 10kly is to far, once outside the human bubble we should be finding stuff not in the bubble expect for imported species in stations and around settlements where people plant them. I mean people are still people and they of course bring samples back, but it should be possible once leaving the bubble and hitting completely unexplored bodies (in some directions as few as a couple of thousand ly's) you should be able to find new bio. Hence the necessity for procedural generation, it simply can't be done with the current system.

One of my biggest gripes about the current system is that a "void ecology" exists at all. But then we wouldn't have much to do at all when landing upon worlds until worlds with proper ecologies are able to be explored, so I'm trying hard to suspend my disbelief. Key word here is trying.

But since the Elite Universe is one where panspermia is apparently viable as an explanation for life, then the current lack of bio-diversity actually makes a bit of sense. If spores from these species were ejected into interstellar space at a modest 50km/s, it would take roughly 500 million years for them to cross the entirety of the Milky Way galaxy. If these species also had extremely slow metabolisms to deal with near- or total-vacuum conditions they exist in, then it's far easier to imagine the Milky Way as one huge biome, and the iniquitousness of the various void species is due to those few who managed to thrive in such an extremely hostile environment in the first place.

o/~ That's my Head Canon, and I'm sticking to it! o/~
​

But once ammonia, water, and earth-like worlds are open for exploration, I hope to see proper procedural life. Not the "Potato Head" style life from No Man's Sky, but for Frontier to demonstrate their procedural generation expertise and give us something better than that or Vancouver Doubling. But given Frontier's track record to date, I wouldn't be surprised if they did that anyway. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised.

 

[Old Duck]

The most recent exploration CGs have worked exactly like that.

Huh... I guess that was during my Space Engineers hiatus, as I totally missed it. So how did that work, exactly? Never mind, I just read a comment that confirms my fear - these CGs didn't focus on truly undiscovered worlds, but any old ELW planet (including Bubble planets IIRC) would do. Forgive me, but that's not true exploration by my definition, it's just a road trip using a tourist map bought at the local gas station. But I never was a fan of the "road to riches" reward system to begin with.

 

[Old Duck]

One of my biggest gripes about the current system is that a "void ecology" exists at all. But then we wouldn't have much to do at all when landing upon worlds until worlds with proper ecologies are able to be explored, so I'm trying hard to suspend my disbelief. Key word here is trying.

[..]

But once ammonia, water, and earth-like worlds are open for exploration, I hope to see proper procedural life. Not the "Potato Head" style life from No Man's Sky, but for Frontier to demonstrate their procedural generation expertise and give us something better than that or Vancouver Doubling. But given Frontier's track record to date, I wouldn't be surprised if they did that anyway. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised.

One of the problems with NMS, and now also Odyssey IIRC (though to a lesser extent), is that life is way too abundant everywhere, so it's very easy to start seeing repetition in "assemble the pieces" procgen (or in Odyssey's case, hand-crafted) life. I'm of the opinion that complex life in the galaxy should be very rare, like one system in every one hundred. Scarcity is what makes something valuable, which would make finding that thing much more rewarding. Of course once you do find that life, then a nice gameplay loop tied to exploring and cataloging that life would be nice. I actually enjoy NMS's simplistic scanning mechanism, along with their version of a "Codex". I got bored with it not because of the mechanism, but rather because life in NMS is like credits in Elite - meaningless due to its over abundance and ease of acquisition.

That's not to say that a better procgen system wouldn't be welcome, but even with a million variations, the thrill of finding life will soon fade if every planet you land on has said life.

 

[Flimley]

I'm beginning to suspect next years "major overhaul" of a current feature will be to engineering. If so, that be the fourth time Frontier have revisited this.
Meanwhile it's poor and estranged cousin, exploration, which is eye bleedingly repetitive and tedious even after a few days will be left In its current malaise.

if this turns out to be the course of future events, I will recommend Jonathan Frakes resurrect his TV series ' beyond belief' for one off special. Featuring the frontier design decision process.

Flimley

 

[marx]

I want to be able to harvest these lifeforms for food and then prepare that food.

One word: Spacecooking

Set Genetic Samplers to Juice!

 

[Darkfyre99]

Speak for yourself. For my part, I would very much welcome an intellectual "occupation". And if not directly in the process of scanning, then at least as a follow-up work in collecting and classifying the data. Hopefully in a slightly more sophisticated (and interesting!) way. "We" explorers are by no means all stupid click-and-point monkeys, just so you know. But I do agree in that a twitch/reflex solution is a very silly idea for explorers.

Speaking personally, my short exploration trips that involved involved the Artemis Suit so far (as opposed to the long journey from Colonia after Odyssey released, before the Artemis suit became ubiquitous), hit the right mix of ease of use and surface activity for me. Most of this, as mentioned above, was that I could combine taking geological “surface samples” using my SRVs WAVE scanner, while traveling to take the farther Xeno-samples.

I’m very much a 4X style explorer, and I prefer my “intellectual occupation” to be in the searching for stuff to exploit… which explains my delight with scanners like the WAVE. I wouldn’t say no to laboratory modules, such analysis aboard ship would help fill some of the activity voids, not to mention expand the painfully limited explorers toolkit, I just don’t want to see a return of twitch based interfaces.

 

[Darth Ender]

I’m very much a 4X style explorer, and I prefer my “intellectual occupation” to be in the searching for stuff to exploit… which explains my delight with scanners like the WAVE. I wouldn’t say no to laboratory modules, such analysis aboard ship would help fill some of the activity voids, not to mention expand the painfully limited explorers toolkit, I just don’t want to see a return of twitch based interfaces.

what are you exploiting by exploring?
nothing you find exploring out away from populated systems is unique or usable to you within the game or even helpful for additional 'intellectual' gameplay.

nothing you find causes the game to respond in any particular way that would leverage what you found in any particular area unless it's a hand placed narrative item.

this intellectual occupation is a myth. exploration has no purpose as a role in the game beyond the need to map systems where there is actually content (populated systems and immediately surrounding)

it's a role who's purpose is entirely imaginary lacking so much thought from the pointlessness of it that the biggest risk explorers have is driving into a star after jumping or becoming too bored with the game and not wanting to 'play' thru hours of return trip loading screens.

mimicking exploration (what draws players to that currently) for exobiology is unnecessary. since this role involves imaginary purpose and imaginary intelligence to do, then those players should have no problem just imagining surface exploration the same way. fdev doesn't need to change a thing for them.

exobiology on the other hand should be something that matters to the game because otherwise why bother making something new for the game? it should involve gameplay, risks, and skill to accomplish. the lifeforms should be different from rocks and the bgs should respond to players collecting or interacting with these things. they should matter. what players do with them should matter. and they should provide players with something that makes the particulars of that interaction matter.

 

[aRJay]

I haven't read the entire thread so someone might have pointed this out already, and i know many people have mentioned the 1 plant at a time limit of the sampler but...

Why does the bio tool even have a canister at all? The sample we take is a scan, not physical specimen. We take it without actually having to touch the plant at all.

So if the sampler is a scanner and we're actually recording data and not taking a specimen, it's capacity should be much higher.

its the logical inconsistencies that bug me.

With the size requirement for a docking computer being a two tonne capacity cargo rack I did wonder if for reasons involving worries about AI computers and storage in the 34th century are mechanically based like Babbages machines from the 19th century this would explain why the storage is in a canister to allow room for the cams.

 

[MacIntoc]

I haven't read the entire thread so someone might have pointed this out already, and i know many people have mentioned the 1 plant at a time limit of the sampler but...

Why does the bio tool even have a canister at all? The sample we take is a scan, not physical specimen. We take it without actually having to touch the plant at all.

So if the sampler is a scanner and we're actually recording data and not taking a specimen, it's capacity should be much higher.

its the logical inconsistencies that bug me.

Yes, indeed. IMO, it's the whole process that should be reworked. The scanner should be... well... just a scanner. To see a bit more than our eyes can. But above all, it should have additional tools for taking samples. And not only from the plants, but also from the environment (soil, atmo,...). Then add a way to analyse all these samples (like a laboratory module on ship, as menu for now waiting for ship interior, or a dedicated SRV) to discover uses (even emergent gameplay) or complete mission objectives (from settlements/concourses).

With the size requirement for a docking computer being a two tonne capacity cargo rack I did wonder if for reasons involving worries about AI computers and storage in the 34th century are mechanically based like Babbages machines from the 19th century this would explain why the storage is in a canister to allow room for the cams.

ED is not Dune

 

[Bonesaw]

If anyone missed it, Bruce was asked in the latest live stream on Wednesday 31st May whether there was any current exobiology development going on.

The answer was no and he also asked us if we had any content ideas.

Apart from being quite shocked that Frontier has not got any ideas themselves and is not currently working on a feature they know we love and are currently unhappy with (the scanning mini-game was rejected in its entirety by the community), maybe it's time we clarified what we want with exobiology so we can improve this much-desired and loved feature.

I'll start with a few of my own suggestions:

- More plant variety, possibly even leveraging some procedural generation to generate new plant species. This is the number one priority IMO, it feels like the galaxy is too small to have only 30 or so different species of plants when I can find more than that in a 10 metre squared patch of my garden!

- Dangerous plants. Plants that actually want to attack you. Plants that fire poison darts. Plants with teeth that swing and take a bite at you. Plants that emit weird gases. Plants that react to you coming close to them and shrivel up into a protective ball. Plants that are absolutely GIGANTIC like a redwood tree on earth.

- The ability to physically remove samples from the plant and store them as cargo in our ship that we can then take to Research odyssey settlements in the Bubble. Or at least bring our scans to these settlements and get more money for them than you would at a regular Vista genomics outlet.

- Once you've scanned a certain number of plants in an area, you get a clue from this research where you might locate a super-rare exciting plant. You can then get given a specific area of a planet to look for it.

- Add more variety to the sizes of the areas where the plants spawn. It would be nice to see some areas absolutely brim with forests of plants (this exists to an extent) but it would be good to see forest-sized patches of plants covering many many hectares of ground.

- Plants you've scanned can be made into mini pot plants for your dashboard.

How much of their job do they actually think we should do ?

 

[Darkfyre99]

what are you exploiting by exploring?
nothing you find exploring out away from populated systems is unique or usable to you within the game or even helpful for additional 'intellectual' gameplay.

What’s the point of playing the game, period? There’s nothing to be gained here that’s useful in real life…

Except, of course, it’s good to deal with something besides all the crap going on in real life. To be able to solve problems that won’t leave you unemployed, homeless, or in a hospital or grave if you fail. To do something you enjoy, purely for enjoyment’s sake, that allows you to relax, or indulge in fantasies that are impossible in real life.

Like everything else in this game, exploration is an “excuse plot.” It gives me an excuse to fly virtual ships through alien skies, drive surface vehicles across alien worlds, and now run and jump across alien landscapes. “Exploiting” what I find is the excuse for me doing so, whether it’s raw materials for engineering or synthesis, credits to buy new ships and components, or ranks to get free decals, the stuff I search for gives me a star to steer by on a ship dwarfed by a sea of endless possibilities.

When it comes to exploration, the most important aspect for me is the feeling of discovery. I want just enough signs to provide me clues on where to look, but not a neon sign reading “It’s Right Here!” Scanners like the WAVE scanner, and readouts like the “heat map,” manage find the right balance between utility and mystery, h8nts and spoilers, that makes discovering things fun for me.

Would I like to see more survival aspects to exploration? Sure, but that ship sailed long ago, and there’s a plethora of space-based survival games to scratch that particular itch these days. What I want most of all is more activities to do with what we got, especially those that will require their own dedicated optional module aboard ship. I want to have enough variety in exploration kit that the number of module slots will dethrone jump range as the most desirable trait of an exploration ship, and to expand the reasons to land on a world beyond the limited number we have now.

 

[MacIntoc]

I want to have enough variety in exploration kit that the number of module slots will dethrone jump range as the most desirable trait of an exploration ship, and to expand the reasons to land on a world beyond the limited number we have now.

 

[Mogen Teras]

what are you exploiting by exploring?
nothing you find exploring out away from populated systems is unique or usable to you within the game or even helpful for additional 'intellectual' gameplay.

nothing you find causes the game to respond in any particular way that would leverage what you found in any particular area unless it's a hand placed narrative item.

this intellectual occupation is a myth. exploration has no purpose as a role in the game beyond the need to map systems where there is actually content (populated systems and immediately surrounding)

it's a role who's purpose is entirely imaginary lacking so much thought from the pointlessness of it that the biggest risk explorers have is driving into a star after jumping or becoming too bored with the game and not wanting to 'play' thru hours of return trip loading screens.

mimicking exploration (what draws players to that currently) for exobiology is unnecessary. since this role involves imaginary purpose and imaginary intelligence to do, then those players should have no problem just imagining surface exploration the same way. fdev doesn't need to change a thing for them.

exobiology on the other hand should be something that matters to the game because otherwise why bother making something new for the game? it should involve gameplay, risks, and skill to accomplish. the lifeforms should be different from rocks and the bgs should respond to players collecting or interacting with these things. they should matter. what players do with them should matter. and they should provide players with something that makes the particulars of that interaction matter.

A lot of the game relies on self-directed player narrative tbh. It isn't exclusive to exploration.

 

[aRJay]

...


ED is not Dune

True enough, at least it isn't yet the Butlerian Jihad is not due for another 6-7 thousand years and the events in Dune not for 10 thousand more after that assuming we on in the same timeline.

But I seem to remember reading in the forums that there is lore as to why we don't have AI and there are all sorts of rumours about the Guardians AI.

And it would explain why DC need so much space.

 

[Darkfyre99]

True enough, at least it isn't yet the Butlerian Jihad is not due for another 6-7 thousand years and the events in Dune not for 10 thousand more after that assuming we on in the same timeline.

But I seem to remember reading in the forums that there is lore as to why we don't have AI and there are all sorts of rumours about the Guardians AI.

And it would explain why DC need so much space.

It's part of the lore of the Elite universe that human attempts at truly sapient AI did not go at all well, to put it mildly, and there are rumors that least one Human AI has managed to escape into deep space. And of course, the Guardian civilization was destroyed by their own attempts at AI.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

what are you exploiting by exploring?
nothing you find exploring out away from populated systems is unique or usable to you within the game or even helpful for additional 'intellectual' gameplay.

nothing you find causes the game to respond in any particular way that would leverage what you found in any particular area unless it's a hand placed narrative item.

this intellectual occupation is a myth. exploration has no purpose as a role in the game beyond the need to map systems where there is actually content (populated systems and immediately surrounding)

it's a role who's purpose is entirely imaginary lacking so much thought from the pointlessness of it that the biggest risk explorers have is driving into a star after jumping or becoming too bored with the game and not wanting to 'play' thru hours of return trip loading screens.

mimicking exploration (what draws players to that currently) for exobiology is unnecessary. since this role involves imaginary purpose and imaginary intelligence to do, then those players should have no problem just imagining surface exploration the same way. fdev doesn't need to change a thing for them.

exobiology on the other hand should be something that matters to the game because otherwise why bother making something new for the game? it should involve gameplay, risks, and skill to accomplish. the lifeforms should be different from rocks and the bgs should respond to players collecting or interacting with these things. they should matter. what players do with them should matter. and they should provide players with something that makes the particulars of that interaction matter.

So much fail...
Explorers found; the Formadine Rift settlements, the generation ships, Colonia, Guardian sites, crystal shards, Hyford's cache, Neutron highway...
But what have the explorers ever done for us?

 

[Darth Ender]

So much fail...
Explorers found; the Formadine Rift settlements, the generation ships, Colonia, Guardian sites, crystal shards, Hyford's cache, Neutron highway...
But what have the explorers ever done for us?

the narrative and direction (hand crafting) of fdev provided that content. not exploration.

none of that stuff is possible as a consequence of exploration. it's a consequence of having been put in a place at a given time and then players given direction to those places at the requested time. either directly or via interacting with the bgs or their ill conceived hidden hints.

that kind of puzzle gameplay is not the exploration role... otherwise 'exploring' would only exist for very short periods after a release and then have to wait half a year.

exploration as a role in the game is not really implemented. and that's justified as being ok because it gives an option for customers who don't want to play the game to get something out of it.

and i don't have that much of an issue with that existing. i just don't see how exobiology needs to consider players who are effectively avoiding the game...nor do those players miss out on exobio being something interesting and risky and rewarding.... since you don't go out exploring because you are interested in playing the game. it's participated in for the opposite. pretty specifically.

 

[Felix DiCestria]

What narrative found the crystal shards?
Keep digging.

 

[SasaThargoidsHunter]

So here some feedback for Bruce.

what’s happens with the spider like creature from the Halloweenevent? They should perhaps implemented? I mean THEY are already existing according to this event.

sorry but you have so many things to implement for exobiologies, perhaps you shouldn’t ask the community, it would be good to check out the story’s which are already told by yourself.


experience with bugs Fdev has a huge past. (No I don’t mean this times the bugs from the technical site) I mean the lore with Thargoids stuffs)

 

[angusmadmac1]

the narrative and direction (hand crafting) of fdev provided that content. not exploration.

none of that stuff is possible as a consequence of exploration. it's a consequence of having been put in a place at a given time and then players given direction to those places at the requested time. either directly or via interacting with the bgs or their ill conceived hidden hints.

that kind of puzzle gameplay is not the exploration role... otherwise 'exploring' would only exist for very short periods after a release and then have to wait half a year.

exploration as a role in the game is not really implemented. and that's justified as being ok because it gives an option for customers who don't want to play the game to get something out of it.

and i don't have that much of an issue with that existing. i just don't see how exobiology needs to consider players who are effectively avoiding the game...nor do those players miss out on exobio being something interesting and risky and rewarding.... since you don't go out exploring because you are interested in playing the game. it's participated in for the opposite. pretty specifically.

That can be applied to every role within elite. Trading Fdev put the numbers out , combat ? No real role . BGS again fdev push the numbers out . The superpowers well that's been broke for years . But again fdev put numbers out. Even the CG are normally weighted to where Fdev want the result . Gives us a whole universe to explore and nah we will stay in the bubble ???