∞ probes?

[Ian Skippy]

While you do have a point, I still think having probes that are actually spent would at least make me care when launching probes, though.

But you just said that the insignificant fuel cost makes it a pointless gimmick. So that make your idea work, it has to be a non-insignificant, or signficant, cost to it. So what would that be? And how do you think people would respond to it?

I dont mind the concept of scavenging being needed for explorers at all, but I'd prefer if that is for repairing the ship and such. So it feels more like an adventure on its own, rather than a never ending chore. Needing a significant investment in probes reminds me of the endless grinding for jump fuel in NMS. Its fun a few times, and then it becomes a mindless activity that makes you eventually just give up on the whole thing.

I was under the impression that you wanted skill-based gameplay.
Infinite probes isn't skilled, it's 'spray-and-pray'

Except now you get a bonus if you are skilled. With your idea, you just need to grind a bit longer for the same result. To me, skill-based means greater rewards for greater skill, not being forced to just grind a bit more skillless stuff to get to the same point. That is not skill, that is tedium.

I guess it partly depends on how you define things, but I feel FD has lately been honing in on what many people have been saying: skill leads to reward, and tedium should be limited.

 

[Lestat]

Except now you get a bonus if you are skilled. With your idea, you just need to grind a bit longer for the same result. To me, skill-based means greater rewards for greater skill, not being forced to just grind a bit more skillless stuff to get to the same point. That is not skill, that is tedium.

That not going to matter after exploring so many planets. So your wrong on this. After a few hundred planets. They are just going to spam the crap out of probes. That why My idea might be best. It forces players to look at their ammo knowing it takes a while to remake a probe. That keep skill in check. Instead of shooting 20 probes at a system when 5 probes could do the same job with a little extra credit.

 

[Ian Skippy]

That not going to matter after exploring so many planets. So your wrong on this. After a few hundred planets. They are just going to spam the crap out of probes. That why My idea might be best. It forces players to look at their ammo knowing it takes a while to remake a probe. That keep skill in check. Instead of shooting 20 probes at a system when 5 probes could do the same job with a little extra credit.

Errr, no offense, but what I just told you is pretty much factually true. After both one and a million planets, the system doesn't change.

1) You do get an actual reward based on skill now
2) With your proposal the reward is reduced to 'needing to grind less often'

Its okay if you like your idea better, but lets keep to the facts here. And you may want to be careful with claiming your idea is better 'because you can force people' to do something they may not want. I myself am going to try and be efficient. Others who may not want to can chose not to. I am hesitant in claiming that a system forcing others to play like me is better. Also, I prefer rewarding skill over punishing a lack of it.

 

[CMDR Ginge]

Turds come from food. Do we have infinite food on our ships? Oh the travesty! The missing gameplay!! The IMMERSION!!!! I'm going to have to start shooting rocks so I can synthesize food to eat.

On a serious note, I would personally find it fun to play "hardcore" exploration mode (which would have to be self-imposed), where I load up my cargo hold with necessary supplies before setting out, and eject them as they are used up. A ton of food cartridges, a ton of coffee, multiple tons of telemetry suites (fancy name for probes - one ton could be 100 probes). Because let's face it, right now infinite probes is the least of our "this game isn't realistic" worries. And massless, volumeless synthesis isn't the answer - but actual cargo would be! Though I'm guessing most of the "I want challenging gameplay" folk ironically would not give up precious jump range to properly pack for a long-term trip...

And yes, all my exploration ships have plenty of cargo space. I really think I might try this someday!

Im not going to over think it. Im happy with turd launcher.

 

[bitstorm]

I'm not really bothered either way.

As long as exploration isn't pushed to a "grind to explore" or "sit and wait doing nothing" mechanic, as often happens with changes to appease immersion.

 

[Pauciloquent]

So the only real reason we're going to have ∞ probes is so non-Horizon players don't get left behind... Okay then give non-Horizon players ∞ probes, and Horizon players 200 probes... problem solved.

 

[Lestat]

Errr, no offense, but what I just told you is pretty much factually true. After both one and a million planets, the system doesn't change.

You can say that until your blue to the face. But you are wrong.

1) You do get an actual reward based on skill now

See players are not going to worry about losing 10% 20% credit reduction due to their fact of spamming probes. Get that in your brain. The only way frontier would be able to make your fact as a fact. Is cut it down to 50% credits. Make using excess probes really hurt.

2) With your proposal the reward is reduced to 'needing to grind less often'

At least with my idea. It makes the player go hay if I practice I can waste fewer probes.

 

[Stigbob]

I was under the impression that you wanted skill-based gameplay.
Infinite probes isn't skilled, it's 'spray-and-pray'

Like soloing wing assassinations in smaller ships, infinite probes are skill based if you choose to challenge yourself and use them as efficiently as you can.

 

[Rebel RDX]

What must we look like to Frontier?! They take a quick glance at the forums after showing us all this amazing new stuff...

"nope, they ain't fussed with that orrery stuff we spent the last year on, na the graphics update has gone almost un-noticed, oh here it is they're going crazy over the probes, told you so"

....

"PS that Rebel RDX seems like a nice bloke, maybe we should sort him out with a nice new Cobra MK.IV paint job"

*cough*

 

[Cervantes01]

You're so right. Where's the bog in my Asp, btw? Amazingly I don't seem to have ever visited it. I must, for realism's sake.

The bog is next to your bunk behind the door to the flight deck. How have you been managing up to now? Whizzing out of the window perhaps?

 

[Lestat]

Like soloing wing assassinations in smaller ships, infinite probes are skill based if you choose to challenge yourself and use them as efficiently as you can.

The only way it would be a challenge is if you can earn at least 50% to 70% extra credits or more. But I have a feeling Frontier will only give players 10% to 20%. No one going to care such a low bonus payout and all the players will do is spam Probes.

 

[Rebel RDX]

spam Probes.

Haha the secrets out, maybe that's what they are 3d printed from?

Anyway I'm in the 'not too fussed' camp with this one. I'll just be happy to be exploring the galaxy with my spam probe...

 

[Kaocraft]

Infinite probes for the win
Let's be honest,, it's not like we need any more reason for gathering materials, half my game play time is gathering materials, I'm kind of at saturation point with that already....

Though I'm up for synthesizing a new srv if that ever becomes a thing

I disagree partially because if we're going to have material gathering in the game AT ALL, I want the materials to have multiple useful uses. I also really prefer to have multiple ways of accomplishing the same thing, rather than being railroaded into do A then B then C always.

Right now materials are mostly an obligatory tedious chore that you "have" to do in order to earn Disneyland funny-money to spend at the Engineers funhouse. This is partially because small amounts of common mats are generally useless, and partially because most uses for mats require you to go to a specific "store" and "spend" them like money, which is a really delayed gratification thing. If there were more immediate uses for the materials you gather here and there, I think it would feel a lot better gathering them.

Probes are one of those opportunities to have something which is relatively trivial to continually "top up," but still gives you a bit of reward and motivation to PAY ATTENTION to your scan results and maybe drop into the occasional Ring or planet surface.

Ideally probes would have multiple inexpensive synthesis recipes, like maybe 1 Iron=200 probes, but 1 Iron+2 Carbon= 600 probes, and maybe 1 copper=300 probes, etc. (or whatever - this is a random example). And there would be ways to synthesize probes (and other things!) using materials from planets or rings or industrial materials found at crash sites, etc.

In my opinion, the more uses for materials, the better. But I'd like to see more ways of gathering materials as well.

It would be really really nice if you could mine asteroids with normal weapons. Badly. Horribly inefficiently, but just well enough that if you're desperate for a certain material you would consider dropping into a ring to collect a few iron shards.

 

[Cervantes01]

Just watched the stream now, I like the probe mechanic. Looks interesting and fun, BUT.....



Okay, I'll be said whinger.

I don't like infinite probes. The 200 count we saw in the pic months ago was far too low, but I'd still like to see them be a finite resource which requires some degree of housekeeping to maintain. I like mechanics which in time require a new activity to support. Using synthesis to make more probes would eventually force a player to farm mats (either by mining rings or the SRV) to keep the probes flying, and I think that would be a value added aspect of the whole shebang.

But that's just me. I'm not super mad that they are infinite, I just feel like it's a missed opportunity to add more loops to our gameplay.

Totally agreed. Spot on

 

[Cervantes01]

Anyone who thinks they should be using RAWs to make probes can synthesize a few limpits every now and again and chuck them into a passing star.

There you go! Materials being used.

Good point, so why can't we have infinite limpets as well as infinite ammo to go along with our infinite probes?

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

So the only real reason we're going to have ∞ probes is so non-Horizon players don't get left behind... Okay then give non-Horizon players ∞ probes, and Horizon players 200 probes... problem solved.

I say we go with 10,000 probes and a free copy of Horizons and a free SRV in a new extra slot on all ships. I'm not serious of course, I can't imagine how large a salt dome that would create.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Errr, no offense, but what I just told you is pretty much factually true. After both one and a million planets, the system doesn't change.

1) You do get an actual reward based on skill now
2) With your proposal the reward is reduced to 'needing to grind less often'

Its okay if you like your idea better, but lets keep to the facts here. And you may want to be careful with claiming your idea is better 'because you can force people' to do something they may not want. I myself am going to try and be efficient. Others who may not want to can chose not to. I am hesitant in claiming that a system forcing others to play like me is better. Also, I prefer rewarding skill over punishing a lack of it.

I'd been led to believe that 'real explorers' weren't in it for the credits.
Now we're justifying the new mechanics on the bonus payouts.

 

[Kaocraft]

Bingo

Although synthesis was an option assuming an explorer was fitted for mining:



This was already discussed earlier in the thread, but we've now reached the point of whiners repeating the same flawed arguments.

"The same flawed arguments"? Is that the one where people repeatedly point out that YOUR argument is founded on an objectively false premise, that synthesis is for Horizons only?

Nobody is asking for a synthesis recipe using guardian shards + polenium. There's no reason probes can't be synthesized in a way (or range of ways) that non-Horizons owners can use.

Acknowledge your error instead of moving the goalposts, and if you still want to ridicule the idea of non-infinite probes, make a new argument.

 

[Cervantes01]

No it wouldn't they are entirely different.

How?

 

[Rebel RDX]

I don't have to worry about it, because I'm sending modulated charged plasma packets, which like sonar pings, are infinite.

Ooh I like this. That suits me just fine. It's almost as if 'probe' is just the slang term for a modulated charged plasma packet. Thanks

Actually to add to that, the whole bonus for using less 'probes' could be down to the fact that less data from less modulated packets needs to be stored/sorted, thus making it an easier job for those at the Stellar Cartography end when you sell 'em the data.