Making the finding of USS more interesting

[Cmdr Kurnek]

A simple idea really, have the quality of your scanners affect it, but essentially have the USS spawn and despawn periodically in specific locations in system, which you pick up when you get close enough based on your scanners (which obviously would need increased range compared to the current system)

This way, USS seem more like they really happened there and you're just finding it, rather than the millionth randomly generated nonsense on your nav panel that gets created more or less wherever you go.

Bonus point? Multiple players in an instance would share the USS the same way they share the nav beacon, meaning if two players drop into the same USS - Voila! Emergent gameplay.

And the P2P nature of elite shouldn't be an issue, as really it's no different to spawning combat zones...

 

[Tadeus72]

Im all for a new type of USS that would require some kind of scanning/searching mechanic in order to be found. But keep the standard ones that appear in your face while cruising, cause they are a relaxed way to get some engineering mats without wasting time and while doing other things and are a nice short stop from the grind.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Two things that would help make USS's more interesting IMHO.

1. Active scanning (honk) should reveal USS's within a certain range of your ship, & these USS's should be persistent until they're investigated or no longer within range of your ship. As Tadeus rightly says, USS's should still show up randomly in SC, even if you choose not to do an active scan.

2. When jumping into most USS's, you should get the feeling that you're jumping into events that are already underway. For example, jumping into a Convoy USS should bring up comms between the ships in the convoy, to help explain why the ships are currently traveling in Normal Space. Jump into a "Weapons Fire Detected" USS should have ships already engaged in some kind of combat (or else how can you detect weapon fire?!?!)