Universal Cartographics
Attn: Codex Operations Dept.
To whom it may concern;
I am writing to my deep and abiding appreciation for the effort you have put into providing an interface to the data in the master archive in the form of the Codex update that was recently patched into my ship's systems. It goes without saying that access to this information is vital to explorers such as myself. I have been contributing to the archive for most of my professional career in the Pilot's Federation, and I am grateful for the generous support of Universal Cartographics for agreeing to purchase the data I have so painstakingly acquired in my travels. You should know, however, that the information that I have provided to the archive is more than just a collection of interesting observations and carefully measured data points. This data also represents my history, my efforts, and my profound hope that I am providing a valuable resource for others to gain insights and plan for the future. It is towards this latter point that I wish to address the remainder of this correspondence.
I have written to you in the past expressing my long-held desire to gain access to the accumulated data from the net efforts of the exploration corps. The data stored in the archive would be of great assistance to me as I plan my future expeditions, and could also serve as additional inspiration and enlightenment as I travel through areas of space where my fellow explorers, and our predecessors, have previously tread. With that being said, I'm afraid I must express my disappointment in the Codex, as it is currently implemented. With all of the data at your disposal, you have chosen to make only the tiniest fraction available for our use. For my purposes, it is practically useless. Please allow me to explain the crux of the problem.
For each galactic sector, the Codex only provides the first instance of a reported and/or confirmed phenomena. Thus, in a very short time, it will essentially become a static document as each of the high-level phenomenological categories are subsequently reported and confirmed. This is despite the fact that we continue to provide new observations and discoveries to the archive. These fixed data points are also useless to me for planning purposes as they only provide one location, out of an entire galactic sector, for each observed phenomenon. I could be flying past dozens of systems with similar phenomena, or perhaps even be diligently logging them myself, without ever being made aware of the fact that they had been previously logged to the archive by another commander. Indeed, there's almost no way for me know which of these systems I myself have made significant discoveries since only my first confirmed observation is provided by the Codex interface.
I recognize the fact that the archive is vast and that it would be impractical to make all of the data available given the limited resources of our on-board computer systems. However, I do have a suggestion that would make the Codex much more useful than it is now: Rather than only displaying the very first observation for an entire sector, perhaps it would better to show the first observation for the nearest reported and/or confirmed locations for each phenomena. That way any commander can quickly locate the nearest instance of a particular phenomena. This would prevent pilots from having to travel half-way across a sector to view a specific discovery (while possibly flying past several instances of very similar phenomena). It might also be useful for pilots who may want to make a brief detour from their regular routes to go see an interesting phenomena that may be just a few systems away. But ultimately, for myself and my fellow commanders in the exploration corps, this information could be used to guide our exploration efforts as well as provide enlightenment and inspiration for one another.
Thank you for your time,
CMDR D.G. Baley
Attn: Codex Operations Dept.
To whom it may concern;
I am writing to my deep and abiding appreciation for the effort you have put into providing an interface to the data in the master archive in the form of the Codex update that was recently patched into my ship's systems. It goes without saying that access to this information is vital to explorers such as myself. I have been contributing to the archive for most of my professional career in the Pilot's Federation, and I am grateful for the generous support of Universal Cartographics for agreeing to purchase the data I have so painstakingly acquired in my travels. You should know, however, that the information that I have provided to the archive is more than just a collection of interesting observations and carefully measured data points. This data also represents my history, my efforts, and my profound hope that I am providing a valuable resource for others to gain insights and plan for the future. It is towards this latter point that I wish to address the remainder of this correspondence.
I have written to you in the past expressing my long-held desire to gain access to the accumulated data from the net efforts of the exploration corps. The data stored in the archive would be of great assistance to me as I plan my future expeditions, and could also serve as additional inspiration and enlightenment as I travel through areas of space where my fellow explorers, and our predecessors, have previously tread. With that being said, I'm afraid I must express my disappointment in the Codex, as it is currently implemented. With all of the data at your disposal, you have chosen to make only the tiniest fraction available for our use. For my purposes, it is practically useless. Please allow me to explain the crux of the problem.
For each galactic sector, the Codex only provides the first instance of a reported and/or confirmed phenomena. Thus, in a very short time, it will essentially become a static document as each of the high-level phenomenological categories are subsequently reported and confirmed. This is despite the fact that we continue to provide new observations and discoveries to the archive. These fixed data points are also useless to me for planning purposes as they only provide one location, out of an entire galactic sector, for each observed phenomenon. I could be flying past dozens of systems with similar phenomena, or perhaps even be diligently logging them myself, without ever being made aware of the fact that they had been previously logged to the archive by another commander. Indeed, there's almost no way for me know which of these systems I myself have made significant discoveries since only my first confirmed observation is provided by the Codex interface.
I recognize the fact that the archive is vast and that it would be impractical to make all of the data available given the limited resources of our on-board computer systems. However, I do have a suggestion that would make the Codex much more useful than it is now: Rather than only displaying the very first observation for an entire sector, perhaps it would better to show the first observation for the nearest reported and/or confirmed locations for each phenomena. That way any commander can quickly locate the nearest instance of a particular phenomena. This would prevent pilots from having to travel half-way across a sector to view a specific discovery (while possibly flying past several instances of very similar phenomena). It might also be useful for pilots who may want to make a brief detour from their regular routes to go see an interesting phenomena that may be just a few systems away. But ultimately, for myself and my fellow commanders in the exploration corps, this information could be used to guide our exploration efforts as well as provide enlightenment and inspiration for one another.
Thank you for your time,
CMDR D.G. Baley
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