Better vehicles: When driving a car around on a low gravity planet, you lose control, you spin out, you crash into rocks, you ramp off small hills and tumble uncontrollably when your boost runs out. You're forced to move slowly as you would be in reality. Good work on it.
A better design would be a low flying vehicle. A VTOL vehicle would be ideal. One which merges short distance precise land movement with fast paced quick launch flying mechanics. Even if the flight is a temporary boost to cover distance, or boosting then gliding. The idea is engagement with the movement.
As for attacking bases, using something a bit tankier than our little buggy would be more sensible, and more in line with a combat scenario. Plus it would make multiple hangers more interesting, and give you more variety with ground combat. Larger more heavily armored bases would be possible to fight with a stronger vehicle too.
Scanning: I get that the scanner has nuance, and I kind of like it for that. Scouting drones would be more functional. You land on the surface, then fire out a pack of scanning drones that operate in the distance around you like a web. You get a possible location hit for whatever is around you, and if nothing is there, you get a better scan point potential, the big difference is signal translation. Possible base NE. Possible mining geode SW. Very similar to how the signal sources work when you're in space. Coupled with a VTOL vehicle, this would be more in line with the rest of the gameplay as it stands.
Looting: For base attacking, it works pretty fine as it is. The difference is the use of the ship. When looting, the ship should use its cargo limpets to ferry items that you tag up to it. You tag the items, the ship warps back in and hovers a distance above you while it loots the tagged items, and flies away again. Once everything is tagged, you can move onto the next prospect.
Limpet Drones: These should not be consumable. If they're destroyed, that's fine. If they run low on fuel, that's fine. If they're damaged and need to be repaired, that's fine too. It should not be a constant expiring consumable. The idea that all ships wouldn't have these installed as standard is a bit crazy to me as well. If you can partially automate a function, it makes sense that it would be fully automated.
Mining: For planet mining, I would imagine it similar to the asteroid mining, with your ship ferrying material back as you break it off, similar to how I mentioned it above. The biggest difference is that a geode would be far larger and contain more material than an asteroid. You set up your mining equipment, and it starts to extract materials. At this point, you have a higher chance to come under attack, as you would through normal asteroid mining. You have a quick battle and then get back to mining. It breaks the pattern of just moving, popping the rock, driving back and forth while singularly selecting what you want from the menu or in the field.
A better design would be a low flying vehicle. A VTOL vehicle would be ideal. One which merges short distance precise land movement with fast paced quick launch flying mechanics. Even if the flight is a temporary boost to cover distance, or boosting then gliding. The idea is engagement with the movement.
As for attacking bases, using something a bit tankier than our little buggy would be more sensible, and more in line with a combat scenario. Plus it would make multiple hangers more interesting, and give you more variety with ground combat. Larger more heavily armored bases would be possible to fight with a stronger vehicle too.
Scanning: I get that the scanner has nuance, and I kind of like it for that. Scouting drones would be more functional. You land on the surface, then fire out a pack of scanning drones that operate in the distance around you like a web. You get a possible location hit for whatever is around you, and if nothing is there, you get a better scan point potential, the big difference is signal translation. Possible base NE. Possible mining geode SW. Very similar to how the signal sources work when you're in space. Coupled with a VTOL vehicle, this would be more in line with the rest of the gameplay as it stands.
Looting: For base attacking, it works pretty fine as it is. The difference is the use of the ship. When looting, the ship should use its cargo limpets to ferry items that you tag up to it. You tag the items, the ship warps back in and hovers a distance above you while it loots the tagged items, and flies away again. Once everything is tagged, you can move onto the next prospect.
Limpet Drones: These should not be consumable. If they're destroyed, that's fine. If they run low on fuel, that's fine. If they're damaged and need to be repaired, that's fine too. It should not be a constant expiring consumable. The idea that all ships wouldn't have these installed as standard is a bit crazy to me as well. If you can partially automate a function, it makes sense that it would be fully automated.
Mining: For planet mining, I would imagine it similar to the asteroid mining, with your ship ferrying material back as you break it off, similar to how I mentioned it above. The biggest difference is that a geode would be far larger and contain more material than an asteroid. You set up your mining equipment, and it starts to extract materials. At this point, you have a higher chance to come under attack, as you would through normal asteroid mining. You have a quick battle and then get back to mining. It breaks the pattern of just moving, popping the rock, driving back and forth while singularly selecting what you want from the menu or in the field.
