∞ probes?

[Lestat]

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.

We have to account for non-Horizon players. I think my idea would work for them. I did make an idea that would work for non-horizon players as well as horizon player. It still bases on having a set amount of probes. A set time for a new probe would be automatically made. It still has the Unlimited properties as the Devs said it will. But it takes a while for the new probe to be made. Check my Sig of the basic idea.

1 We still have ammo which we would not want to spam.
2 we have unlimited with time restriction. So we can't spam probes. Plus credit bonus.
3 Supercruise speed might lower the time a probe is made. An incentive to go 300k ls.

(Note I still don't like the Unlimited idea because it too gamey)

 

[Stigbob]

How?

See the previous post.

 

[GTwannabe]

I want to be first to Probe Uranus !!!

Really, Commander?

 

[Vash627]

The ADS and DSS didn't require synthesis, if the new upgraded mechanics do then they aren't really an upgrade. It would be a system that takes longer, requires more work and trips either to planets or asteroid fields in order to keep doing it.

Trade ships don't have to do synthesis in order to transport their cargo.
Combat ships don't have to use synthesis to reload their pew pew guns. (granted you could, but you don't have to)

Probes aren't limpets, they don't require cargo space, they don't require any limpet controller, they do not gather and return something to the ship that launched them. They deliver a concentrated energy pulse that the ship's sensors pick up and record. There is no reason lore-wise, or mechanically, or even game balance-wise that they would need to be a finite resource that one must manufacture many times over a long journey.

The problem is not that they are infinite, the problem is that some people want everything to be needlessly complicated, and when not complicated they want it to be overly expensive. Probes can't be infinite? Fuel can't be cheap? Making probes finite and fuel expensive does nothing to improve the game. It would just be more time sinks, more grind, those are things this game absolutely does not need.

As it stands the probe mechanics should be fine. If you spam them mindlessly you will fail to get the most out of them, the punishment is reduced credits, more time will be required to earn credits. Time spent mining for probe materials is time spent not having fun, not getting any exploration done, time that people will just complain about having to spend. All this was already taken into consideration when they decided to make them infinite. They've had months to make that decision, a knee-jerk reaction to that news shouting that they must involve grinding and time wasting is just the silliest thing I've seen all week.

 

[mossfoot]

As I suggested elsewhere:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ner-Ammo-Issue-Proposal?p=7089958#post7089958


Ultimately I don't mind if we have infinite probes (though I would prefer finite). But if they do stick with it, I just hope they get rid of the ammo count. There is literally NO reason to show an infinite ammo count.

 

[Lestat]

As it stands the probe mechanics should be fine. If you spam them mindlessly you will fail to get the most out of them, the punishment is reduced credits, more time will be required to earn credits. Time spent mining for probe materials is time spent not having fun, not getting any exploration done, time that people will just complain about having to spend. All this was already taken into consideration when they decided to make them infinite. They've had months to make that decision, a knee-jerk reaction to that news shouting that they must involve grinding and time wasting is just the silliest thing I've seen all week.

So do you really think people going to care to lose 10% 20% credits. If it that low. I going to SPAM the hell out of probes because I can get it done as fast as possible and jump to the next system and repeat It. It no skin off my nose If I lose 200,000 credits that could have been 1,000,000.

 

[Braandlin]

34 pages of discussion (argument) about whether there should be a limit on the number of make believe futuristic mapping drones your fictional spaceship should have?

I think we all need to draw a deep breath and have a good look in the mirror.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

34 pages of discussion (argument) about whether there should be a limit on the number of make believe futuristic mapping drones your fictional spaceship should have?

I think we all need to draw a deep breath and have a good look in the mirror.

Yep, still looking GOOOOOOD!

 

[Vash627]

So do you really think people going to care to lose 10% 20% credits. If it that low. I going to SPAM the hell out of probes because I can get it done fast as possible and jump to the next system and repeat It no skin off my nose If a system could have been 1,000,000 and I lose 200,000.

Some will. Some people micro-manage the hell out of their resources, time being one of them. 10% increase in mission payout was the proposed balance adjustment for the new mission system with the unified board and no-flipping. Also consider that any credits lost through inefficient probe use will accumulate over long trips, ultimately leading to the loss of hundreds of millions if not billions depending on how long someone keeps doing it wrong.

 

[kofeyh]

It's a one-shot resource like a pulse laser. They go out, dont come back and despite endless noise, 1.x players exist and boy where they convenient when people were asking for NPCs to be nerfed. What will 1.x players do with engineered NPCs they said. Why they were the entire reason most everything had to be wound back. Now? Under the bus, who even cares. lol. It's so incredibly transparent.

Moving on. People are inventing endless and no less gamey reasons to solve unlimited, despite that not needing solving. Engineering could be used to improve the system in other ways, but I think Frontier are on the right path for not gating the thing and inventing another resource loop - just because. There are good examples of how to extend the mechanics. That's cool. Putting limits on things purely because they haven't got one, for the sake of it, just strikes me as a bit unnecessary.

There is so much more to the update that people are ignoring because apparently people have too many probes and that's not okay and I gotta wonder how many people are actually stuck in their own logic loop, versus recognizing a practice solution by Frontier to ensure the mechanics are approachable by all versions, and by as many people as possible.

Which is quite literally the point! Good on them. Roll on beta. The minute they show the next thing that is somehow offensive you'll be on the next hot button issue that is obscure and yet intolerable. lol.

I get it, but in the grand scheme? Is it really as important as everything else. Not really.

 

[Braandlin]

Yep, still looking GOOOOOOD!

lol
o7

 

[kofeyh]

So do you really think people going to care to lose 10% 20% credits. If it that low. I going to SPAM the hell out of probes because I can get it done as fast as possible and jump to the next system and repeat It. It no skin off my nose If I lose 200,000 credits that could have been 1,000,000.

Yes. Actually. Commanders make a lot of noise about credits not being important but of course they are. Critical? No. Important? Yes.

So yes. Absolutely.

 

[Captain Willard]

Here's hoping FD leaves it as is. I'm sure the dev's are way ahead of any proposals here. No matter how many professional developers are on this forum.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Yes. Actually. Commanders make a lot of noise about credits not being important but of course they are. Critical? No. Important? Yes.

So yes. Absolutely.

On an ELW, maybe, on their 50th icy body, probably not.

 

[Old Duck]

You can say that until your blue to the face. But you are wrong. ...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. At least with my idea. It makes the player go hay if I practice I can waste fewer probes.

Will somebody please THINK OF THE PROBES! Seriously dude, what is your obsession with the number of probes other players use? You make me want to shoot 10,000 probes into the sun and post a video of it just to see what it would do to you

 

[Lestat]

Yes. Actually. Commanders make a lot of noise about credits not being important but of course they are. Critical? No. Important? Yes.

So yes. Absolutely.

Well most commanders will just spam the hell out of probes so they can get to the next system and do the same thing over and over and over again. That why I like my idea. We have the Probe ammo and if we spam the probe It will kick us in the rear later when we run out of ammo. With skill and practice. You get both the unlimited Probes and the skill required to use it. If you need more you can Farm it or wait for a new probe to be made. It does not cater to spam mode. I believe we can set it so It can't be used to spam probes.

 

[Vash627]

Well most commanders will just spam the hell out of probes so they can get to the next system and do the same thing over and over and over again.

So? Does it matter, really? Think about it, that's all they're doing with the DSS now. It costs no resource to scan something. It does however take time to approach the individual bodies and scan them currently, and will take time to do that with probes after the update. It is a mini-game to add some flavor to the otherwise bland mechanics of exploration. There isn't a good reason to make it a resource intensive activity. It already uses up a valuable resource as is, that being the resource of time, something you can't synthesize and can never get back. Please, stop trying to suggest things that make people expend more of that most valuable resource than they already do.

 

[Ironwolf]

I think probes can be unlimited still, but just give them a countdown timer to replenish used ones (with a physical limit carried as ammo).
So, using them sparingly means you can keep plugging away, or fire them like crazy and have to wait a while to replenish.

 

[Lestat]

I think probes can be unlimited still, but just give them a countdown timer to replenish used ones (with a physical limit carried as ammo).
So, using them sparingly means you can keep plugging away, or fire them like crazy and have to wait a while to replenish.

That what my idea work on. You get a set amount of probes let say 250. replenish rate could take a set amount of time. So we don't have people spamming them.

Probe idea Unlimited with drawbacks

 

[Tarman]

Will somebody please THINK OF THE PROBES! Seriously dude, what is your obsession with the number of probes other players use? You make me want to shoot 10,000 probes into the sun and post a video of it just to see what it would do to you

I want to see how many we can fire simultaneously just because weeeeeeeee. That's the engineering aspect of it right, increasing the clip size to fire more per clip before a reload? IDR if the baseline number of probes or the time between new clips was listed in the stream, there was too much stuff to retain it.

I'll need to spam probes onto the livestream to get 100% coverage.