Your "average trader" shouldn't be dropping in on Distress Calls. They're traders, not Rescue Rangers. You wouldn't pull up to a raging forest fire in a fuel tanker and say "Hey, I'm here to help."
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Your "average trader" shouldn't be dropping in on Distress Calls. They're traders, not Rescue Rangers. You wouldn't pull up to a raging forest fire in a fuel tanker and say "Hey, I'm here to help."
I disagree.
Vessels in distress have always been treated with a sense of "we are all a community of travellers, we go to each other's aid, because one day that might be me". I see no reason why the morality would change in space.
However this is a game and it doesn't have the same moral and emotional context because there are no consequences. "So the NPC dies, so what?" etc...
Well, it's never gonna get to 100 pages now.. You just came in here with the smoking gun.. Case closed; there is no argument to counter the fact you've laid out.
I think we're starting to see more posts about shutting down the discussion because the arguments for finite probes are persuasive, people are starting to see the positive aspects of them and the negative aspects of infinite, and the cognitive dissonance is making people uncomfortable.
Requiring a small non-grindy level of materials gathering for probes and giving explorers a reason to visit parts of the game that to date have been largely ignored by explorers and that Frontier have spent a lot of time developing and improving - planetary rings / asteroid fields - is a good thing for the game. Explorers have been crying out for years for more game play, it's a bit hypocritical to start saying no now.
Infinite probes just slams the gate shut on possible additional gameplay for exploration. It's "inch deep" (I'm being generous) game design.
Aside: Wouldn't it be nice if we could jettison materials for other commanders to scoop up?
Requiring a small non-grindy level of materials gathering for probes and giving explorers a reason to visit parts of the game that to date have been largely ignored by explorers and that Frontier have spent a lot of time developing and improving - planetary rings / asteroid fields - is a good thing for the game. Explorers have been crying out for years for more game play, it's a bit hypocritical to start saying no now.
Infinite probes just slams the gate shut on possible additional gameplay for exploration. It's "inch deep" (I'm being generous) game design.
Aside: Wouldn't it be nice if we could jettison materials for other commanders to scoop up?
But we don't have the honk anymore. Oh wait... we have infinite probes for the lazy honk lovers.
99 pages huh?
Well, just going to chip in to say I think infinite probes are fine. I can headcanon it as nano-size miniaturization tech.
Outside of immersion-think, it's a step away from the synthesis system, which I like. If it were up to me, synthesis just wouldn't exist. Alternatives would be put in place only where strictly necessary, premium ammo would be gone, and it'd open way for a re-do of the material system for less pointless variants and having volume/mass to worry about.
Well, just going to chip in to say I think infinite probes are fine. I can headcanon it as nano-size miniaturization tech.
Outside of immersion-think, it's a step away from the synthesis system, which I like. If it were up to me, synthesis just wouldn't exist. Alternatives would be put in place only where strictly necessary, premium ammo would be gone, and it'd open way for a re-do of the material system for less pointless variants and having volume/mass to worry about.
I'd say it's more because this is the teeniest part of a small part of one specific type of scanning, and isn't this important one way or the other, honestly, so people are getting silly.
It is a thousand times more important that we find cooler things to scan for in the first place, not how many scanbullets we have to make. The honk was infinite, and I don't recall anyone requesting ammo for that to make the game cooler.
If we were told that probes were energy pings from day one there would be a zero-page thread about this; it would not have crossed ANYONE'S radar, at all.
What do you base that opinion on?
Well, we (the players) know they are, cos FDev told us that they'd originally need mat's to synth' them... and then they changed that without changing anything else about the probes, themselves.
I keep hearing "Yeah, but it's not a big deal" but if it isn't a big deal then it shouldn't be a big deal to fix it, properly, one way or the other instead of just halfassing it and bunging it in the game.
Not true, NeilF came up with a nice suggestion with rings and asteroids scooping around page 80
Ahem...
Post #64. And Genar-Hofoen suggested his interstellar dust solution even earlier in post #53. I prefer rings as they require a modicum of active gameplay and player choice, but at the end of the day it's all mere justification for a decision already made.
My solution requires a tiny amount of extra code (track the number of probes, implement a replenishment timer when in a ring, display one of a handful of contextual messages) some of which will already have existed prior to the decision to go infinite, while Genar-Hofoen's doesn't require any at all unless you want to add a "Microprobe materials replenished" message to the comms window when you enter supercruise.
The main argument against the ring solution is that it takes time better spent doing something else, to which I would wonder why anyone unwilling to take a 60 second cruise through a picturesque ring system every couple of hours would be out exploring deep space in the first place. The interstellar scooping solution has no real argument against it at all given that it's literally just an idea, other than whataboutery comparing other aspects of material collection and synthesis which can also be levelled at the ring solution. But that's ultimately an argument for consistency across the whole of ED's lore and gameplay, and that's one hell of a rabbit hole to go down over something as minor as planetary probes.
Solutions exist to this problem, one of which was posted nearly 10 days ago and requires nothing more than to read something and choose to believe it. Yet 1470+ posts later, we're still going.
I wonder what would happen if FD adopted Genar-Hofoen's headcanon and made it part of the official lore by way of a Galnet article or similar? Would the arguments die down or be amplified by the endorsement? I honestly wouldn't want to wager either way. Watching this community is like watching a giant school of fish or a murmuration of starlings. Just when you think they're mostly moving in unison with a bit of chaos at the fringes, the whole thing breaks apart and coalesces into something heading in a completely different direction.
Not read the entire thread, but...
Refinery and scanners and autopilot built into the frame of the ship.
Kill the entire engineering thing, it's - lets get back to skill based game play.
I'm sure there's techno babble to explain why we don't get smeared.
Kinetic rounds just lose any power after... oh wait! yea, we're in space, no friction...
Ship replacement: See point one.
SLF auto rebuild is stupid, as stupid as telepresence, as stupid as infinite probes - inconsistent.
Instant stuff is gameplay, just call it that. In an offline game the screen could just fade to black then announce 4 hours have passed, here we're constrained by the online element.
Also, if they're up for reducing the grind make mats acquisition a buyable / sellable part of gameplay. People who like shooting rocks will be happy, people who hate it will also be happy and everyone (apart from the players out in deep space) can ensure enough mats to synthesise SLFs, SRVs, ammo and probes to... infinity and beyond - yea, I'm getting my coat.
Win win!
I didn't vote, but would prefer finite probes.
Instant rebirth - unapologetic game play but you should lose mats, just like you lose anything in your hold, and you should be given a bare ship (but with A rated stuff if you bought it).
Refinery and scanners and autopilot built into the frame of the ship.
Kill the entire engineering thing, it's - lets get back to skill based game play.
I'm sure there's techno babble to explain why we don't get smeared.
Kinetic rounds just lose any power after... oh wait! yea, we're in space, no friction...
Ship replacement: See point one.
SLF auto rebuild is stupid, as stupid as telepresence, as stupid as infinite probes - inconsistent.
Instant stuff is gameplay, just call it that. In an offline game the screen could just fade to black then announce 4 hours have passed, here we're constrained by the online element.
At this point they've pretty much made anything smaller than the Python useless for any kind of gameplay and really should have used this opportunity to do multifunctional tools, like the scanners, limpets etc.
As for the food thing, why not be able to offer something from your personal stock, it's not like they're asking for a ton of the stuff, and you can just reload at the next station, same with fuel, give them some of yours. I was actually kind'a surprised when they showed you couldn't do that.
Then show us that in-game and in the presentation - it's been a while since I saw the vid but it looked pretty physical...
Also, if they're up for reducing the grind make mats acquisition a buyable / sellable part of gameplay. People who like shooting rocks will be happy, people who hate it will also be happy and everyone (apart from the players out in deep space) can ensure enough mats to synthesise SLFs, SRVs, ammo and probes to... infinity and beyond - yea, I'm getting my coat.
Win win!
Ahem...
Post #64. And Genar-Hofoen suggested his interstellar dust solution even earlier in post #53. I prefer rings as they require a modicum of active gameplay and player choice, but at the end of the day it's all mere justification for a decision already made.
The only problem with anything like that is it still leaves you with a giant inconsistency related to why this magical new scanner is the only module capable of this.
A C1 collector weighs 2t.
A C7 collector weighs 128t and, in practical terms, has no extra functionality beyond what a C1 collector has aside from the ability to control 4 limpets at a time which, presumably, is the result of improved software or control-circuitry.
You'd think that some of that extra bloat might be taken up with the same magical hardware that the new scanner has, allowing it to build new limpets out of ring-dust.... where a collector is likely to spend most of it's bloody life!
Either they make it so the probes require mat's or they become some kind of energy-scan, or we're always going to be left with either magical probes or a magical scanner.
....unless they do add similar capabilities to things like limpet controllers as well. Which would be lovely.
Didn't even know there was a vote; how can it be representative?
Just for the record: Finite (along with one of the dozens of good suggestions in this and other threads on how to occasionally restock mats whether or not you have Horizons or various pieces of equipment onboard).
Instant rebirth (aka, Ship Insurance):
- you can choose to spawn at the closest station, and be given cash-value equivalent of your current ship and can then buy/outfit whatever is available.
- or you can choose to respawn at Shinrarta Dezra (or the closest station that has your ship-type and all modules) and get your ship back (minus engineering - after all only the ship and its modules are insured, not any custom modifications you've made to it yourself afterwards)
Engineering - agree; at least in its current form. Minor stats tweaks with properly balanced pros and cons would be an alternative. An engineered ship should never outclass an unengineered ship by orders of magnitude though.
Smearing technobabble: Alcubierre Drive (for Supercruise). You're not actually accelerating/decelerating per se, you're manipulating space-time around you. But landing on a 9G planet should squash not only you, but also the ship.
Other stuff - yep what he said.
Are we at 100 yet?
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It's not really related to this thread (though the core logic may be the same and the reason why I dislike it the same) but that always cheesed me off too. If a pirate attacks me and I open a can of pain on him, and a few tons of slaves get dropped unless I want to be a slave trader myself and smuggle them I have to leave them out in the black.
This never sat well with me, we should be able to flag all "stolen stuff" pick it up but at that point we can't sell it and it gets automatically taken off us on docking .
The mechanic is actually there with the search and rescue agent but it should be expanded to dropped cargo (maybe with a small finder's fee but far less than commodities value)
If we are worried about realism this much I demand that respawning (aka travelling by escape pod to a station) takes at least hours if not weeks. For the sake of realism we could even make it so that someone has to actively take your pod there. Or would that inconvenience the realism and inconsistency crowd too much after all?
For all that's holy... drop it already, it's silly.
For all that's holy... drop it already, it's silly.
Ok i agree those of us who care (FOR finite) are in a minority however I think it is hard to argue that finite does have a lot of advantages. Obviously FD have coded finite into the game as it was their plan to from the off, so surely the better compromise then is to NOT use engineering on them to make them better but use synthesis instead that way those who just won't do synthesis get what is offered now, but those who want to have a reason to drop into the asteroid belts etc can and can create probes with say double coverage but are finite.
The net result in terms over planets scanned per hr may be the same but this way we all get what we want .
It's not my 1st choice but it is a way of everyone getting what they want
As for the 2hr video ..... Well I don't have time to watch however it does not surprise me that OA wants infinite, as he has spoke in the past of other features being streamlined regardless of lore etc.
And it's his opinion and is not wrong as it's his view... But just because he is a (interesting) streamer should not give his view more weight than anyone else...... Had he come out in favour of finite would everyone have suddenly accepted it? I think not.
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So is conflating consistency with realism. Maybe we could drop that too?
You _do_ realise that we're not being (entirely) serious, right? At least as far as the respawning goes. Finite Probes FTW! Lol.
Yeah, the far bigger thing (for me) is internal consistency. I can overlook realism most of the time as long as something is consistent. Films, books, games, doesn't matter. Consistency trumps everything.
You don't need to there's only one number you need to know, 10% support for finite probes only.
The poster I replied to wanted to know OA's thoughts on it not just the number itself which means listening to the whole thing.
It's already been dropped. FD made a design decision. It's over. Pick a new hill to die on.
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