∞ probes?

[Kayweg]

One thing to consider in the debate about infinite probes vs synthesis is what the purpose of the probes is.

You use them in order to discover things on the surface of planets.
Presumably, you might follow that up by going down there - where all the materials are.

I'm not sure it's necessary, but having synthesis for probes wouldn't be a major inconvenience that I can see.

Try and look at it this way.
With the current exploration mechanic everybody can explore as many systems they want in whatever detail they want to.
Introduce number-limited probes and you have suddenly imposed a restriction where previously there wasn't one.
No, maybe it wouldn't be a major inconvenience.
But a minor inconvenience is still more than no inconvenience at all, which is the situation right now.
I think they are doing it the right way.
And my hope is they finally fathomed that throwing spanners into people's works doesn't equal good gameplay, or even gameplay at all.

 

[Factabulous]

Can a mod create a subforum where topics like this can be moved to? I dunno, something catchy, like "Forum/Elite Dangerous/Dangerous Discussions/Irrelevances/"?

And then we, as well as hopefully the devs, can immediately spot it's worth.

It's in the right forum already then

 

[Factabulous]

One thing to consider in the debate about infinite probes vs synthesis is what the purpose of the probes is.

You use them in order to discover things on the surface of planets.
Presumably, you might follow that up by going down there - where all the materials are.

I'm not sure it's necessary, but having synthesis for probes wouldn't be a major inconvenience that I can see.

Yeah, it's all a bit of a storm in a teacup.

Only cases I can think that would be affected would be:

1) searches for aliens - you'd be looking for 'Alien' poi (so using probes), but then the visits to those poi would probably (if they're like today) not replenish any probe mats. So you would run out, and have additional work to visit non-alien locations. But that's very niche.

2) the people who just want to claim the 'mapped' credit for as many bodies as possible - they don't need to visit the poi as they just want their names in lights. I guess making them grind for mats would be funny, maybe I should change my vote

 

[Mengy]

Introduce number-limited probes and you have suddenly imposed a restriction where previously there wasn't one.
No, maybe it wouldn't be a major inconvenience.
But a minor inconvenience is still more than no inconvenience at all, which is the situation right now.

I think that's the point of contention though: some see probe synthesis as an inconvenience, while others see it as a more engaging mechanic.

This is why I love the idea of engineered probes bring finite but stock being infinite; it provides options for both viewpoints.

 

[DaggerSnake]

I think I agree with infinite probes. BUT, there's something about the efficiency bonus in the planet surface scanning that now just seems daft, given probes are infinite. ie: Who cares where/why if it takes six or seven probes to map 90+% of a planet?

If we want want probe usage to matter there needs to be a reason. An accountability. And that's either they're finite/slow to regenerate, or their individual usage counts for something. But this contrived bonus usage score just seems to grate with me (now). Especially as I suspect all you need to do is log off to menu, and log back in to reset the mini-game (we'll need to test this in beta)?


I'd prefer if the whole thing simply felt less like a mini-game and more purposeful/accountable. Let's simply say:-

• When you shoot a probe it discovers a "circle" of sectors on the planet.
• Depending on how many of these have been scanned by you before (via a previous probe) you get an efficiency rating for that probe. ie: If they are all newly scanned sectors then that's 100%. If most have been scanned by you before that witll be a very low %age efficiency. The CR exploration data value of the new sectors scanned is adjusted by that efficiency so when you sell your exploration data they're adjusted accordingly. There's handwavium involved on how clear the data is yadda yadda.
• The sectors you've scanned are stored immediately (for you).
• Any features in the sectors you've scanned are revealed immediately (to you).
• The 90% rule still applies, so one you've scanned something like 90% of the sectors, the rest are revealed.
• Done

So it simply makes more sense to try and be as efficient as possibly with your probes, scanning as many previously unscanned sectors/regions as possible to give you the best CR reward when you sell your exploration data for the sectors you've scanned.

And if you know there's some brain trees around a huge crater on the planet, you need only shoot one or two probes at that area to find the exact location of them. No need to probe 90% of the planet, as features are revealed to you immediately for sectors you've scanned.

This is the discussion that needs to be happening. Infinite probes is fine. I'd like to see what the incentives are for using less and being more efficient.

Will the ammount and quality of the planetside anomolies change based on efficiency?
Are there diffiernt tiers of "loot tables" that the game will hit depending on how well you scan the planet.
I'd love to be able to find a crater of Mesosiderite's loaded with jump boosing or rare materials that would be missed with a spammy probe spray.

I don't like the idea of efficency tied just to credits. I want the skill in scanning to yield unique anomolies and things that would be missed by a less skilled or impatient player. That would be more inline with discovery and exploration.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

57 pages over probes. Fifty-seven. If this is the worst flaw you can be arguing about, Q4 is shaping up to be a really good expansion.

I really believe so! I'm very happy with the rest of the exploration contents

And thereby forfeit any future revenue from Horizons, after just having spent an entire year on trying to improve the game ?

FD gets much more money from paintkits and bubbleheads rather than from horizons expansion right now. On Kinguin.net you can get Horizons for only 15€. After the last livestream a lot of people bought ship kits and other stuff to support the good work. We could argue a lot about it but since none of us has the real figures there's no point in objecting.

In general, I'm not opposed to anything that's optional. Up to this point, synthesis has been optional. But there have been many posts in this thread that implied that finite probes should be mandatory

Aurea Mediocritas.
I'm not in favour of mandatory finite probes. It's of course the least popular choice and it's against the current design of ED. No chance that this will be considered by FD. I'm in favour of a solution that fills everyone's preference, not only one group of players.

Beyond 3.3 is the expansion everyone is waiting for since 3 years. It should be a game changer for everyone, 'cause everyone that put his/her own patience in the game and belived in it now deserves to be rewarded.

 

[andrewg_oz]

When probes were originally announced, Frontier said they would be limited and need synthesis. This is how I thought it would work:

The SRV refuel/rearm would be used as a model. I can't state an exact number, but it feels like it takes about an hour for my SRV to run out of fuel and need replenishing. However long that is, that's how long I expected our stash of probes to last before they needed replenishing. Then, like the SRV, they would be replenished using common readily available materials. Materials that could be found with less than 5 minutes of actively prospecting for them. About how long it takes to find SRV fuel/ammo materials (HMC planets excluded, of course). I expected those materials to be found in asteroid belts or planetary rings and be extracted using a mining laser, just like materials are already extracted from asteroids or planetary rings right now. No SRV required. No Horizons required.

In short, I expected to be able to continuously probe planets for about an hour before needing to refill. I expected to be able to refill many times before running out of materials. I expected it to take about 5 minutes of mining per hour of probing to keep the materials at a constant level.

I don't consider that to be in any way a grind. In fact, I think it's the opposite. A new activity that breaks up scanning and probing and provides some interest. If anything, infinite probes encourages grindy gameplay.

I expected Frontier to use this as an opportunity to bring their new exploration gameplay and tie it together with their new mining gameplay. It made so much sense to me. I've seen how gorgeous those dusty rings are going to look. Who wouldn't want to spend a few minutes every hour in there?

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

When probes were originally announced, Frontier said they would be limited and need synthesis. This is how I thought it would work:

The SRV refuel/rearm would be used as a model. I can't state an exact number, but it feels like it takes about an hour for my SRV to run out of fuel and need replenishing. However long that is, that's how long I expected our stash of probes to last before they needed replenishing. Then, like the SRV, they would be replenished using common readily available materials. Materials that could be found with less than 5 minutes of actively prospecting for them. About how long it takes to find SRV fuel/ammo materials (HMC planets excluded, of course).
In short, I expected to be able to continuously probe planets for about an hour before needing to refill. I expected to be able to refill many times before running out of materials.

It was my same understanting of Probes Synthesis Requirements

 

[Alecz]

We could have found additional probes from Deep Space Salvage USS's if SRV mining was a concern.

But yeah, you are able to launch a probe that has its own space-time bubble when it approaches the planet and you can launch an unlimited number of them with no cost to you. It is arcade-y but that is what we have.

 

[march topcat]

Try and look at it this way.
With the current exploration mechanic everybody can explore as many systems they want in whatever detail they want to.

That's exactly why the current exploration mechanics is rather boring and also the devs obviously wanted to change something. Games are about challenge, and this means restrictions, developing skill, competition and - yes, maybe some grinding. Firing a bunch of probes at a planet without any needs of giving or paying anything in return - is this really what the community wants?

 

[Stigbob]

That's exactly why the current exploration mechanics is rather boring and also the devs obviously wanted to change something. Games are about challenge, and this means restrictions, developing skill, competition and - yes, maybe some grinding. Firing a bunch of probes at a planet without any needs of giving or paying anything in return - is this really what the community wants?

Yes, yes it is only 11% want finite probes only.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Indeed. For those who absolutely refuse to do any mining of any type is it really too much to ask to after scanning select a "derelict" USS and salvage from it. Maybe they could have 100 or so probes?

What some people call grind and pointless busy work I see as meshing together all the features and actually creating a coherent game

 

[c00ky1970]

When Beta drops,

all of the people that want synthesis try this experiment.

Set probe number to 200 (or whatever value you personally want)

Go and scan planets, once you hit that 200 probes shot (you might need a pen and paper to record this), regardless of your materials in your magic bag of holding go and land on a planet and mine/gather 3 Iron and 3 carbon, jettison them and count to 20 and add 50 probes to your count, repeat until you are back up to your 200, then take off and continue scanning.

Do that for 10 systems and report back how it went.

 

[Old Duck]

That's exactly why the current exploration mechanics is rather boring and also the devs obviously wanted to change something. Games are about challenge, and this means restrictions, developing skill, competition and - yes, maybe some grinding. Firing a bunch of probes at a planet without any needs of giving or paying anything in return - is this really what the community wants?

What the community (IIRC) does not want is for ED to become NMS. Using your logic, why stop at probes? We should have to synthesize Warp Cells for every hyperspace jump. We should have to synthesize O2 for our life support. Jumping system to system without any "needs of giving", infinite O2, etc - is this really what the community wants? Yes.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Yes, yes it is only 11% want finite probes only.

Very true. I respect I am an outlier here and it is clear the game I want is no longer the game the average playerbase wants... But let's not forget in that same poll the majority were happy with a basic infinite implementation but having finite synthesis options to be more efficient

 

[Stigbob]

Very true. I respect I am an outlier here and it is clear the game I want is no longer the game the average playerbase wants... But let's not forget in that same poll the majority were happy with a basic infinite implementation but having finite synthesis options to be more efficient

Don't confuse a single sensible decision made to fit something new into existing ships and mechanics without breaking all the other stuff with a change in games overall direction.

 

[Kayweg]

That's exactly why the current exploration mechanics is rather boring and also the devs obviously wanted to change something. Games are about challenge, and this means restrictions, developing skill, competition and - yes, maybe some grinding. Firing a bunch of probes at a planet without any needs of giving or paying anything in return - is this really what the community wants?

My counter point would be that the challenge should come from the actual exploration activity (y'know, the fun bit), not from sourcing the necessary exploration tools.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Let's be realistic.

No way Probes will be limited only.
The only way to get some limitation is by introducing something new because unlimited will not disappear.

Why not focusing everyone on the possible alternatives?

1. Someone suggested that probes are crafted from fuel. I don't like it because with a Fuel Scoop the Fuel is almost INFINITE so no change so far...

2. My suggestion was to introduce a Basic Scanner with limited probes while the Advanced Scanner got unlimited. This is in-line with the current modules where the basic scanner got a limited range and the advanced got unlimited. The basic scanner is cheaper and it ain't got any limitation in firing probes, while the advanced is currently limited at 3. The probes would be refillable with common materials like Iron and Nickel.

3. OA and other people on the forum suggested to have the ability to engineer the scanner to have better probes. Those would be limited and craftable. The problem with this solution is that the probes could require less common materials because they have some additional performance. Looking for rare materials to craft probes I guess is nobody preference. If the engineered probes are craftable with common materials than I'm also fine with it.

 

[Old Duck]

Very true. I respect I am an outlier here and it is clear the game I want is no longer the game the average playerbase wants...

Many of us our outliers. If I had my way, probes would be finite but storable as cargo (100 probes per ton). I would also only allow synthesis / 3D printing of basic materials like bullets, fuel, repairs, but not complex electronics like seeker missiles, limpets, and probes. This means that explorers wanting to map large parts of deep space away from the Bubble would need to use large ships with lots of probes in their cargo hold (realism) - you run out of probes, you need to go back to a station to resupply, or call the Fuel Rats to restock you with more probes

This, of course, makes me more of an outlier than you, LOL. Not only do I find infinite probes "arcade-y", I find synthesizing probes from rocks to be even more arcade-y. This is why I advocated for "Realism Settings" awhile back, allowing each of us to customize our experiences to our own preference (like MS Flight Simulator and Silent Hunter), but that idea got shot down for the typical stupid reasons...

So these days I pick the "least offense" option on the table that suits my preference for realistic gameplay, which in this specific case is infinite probes active sonar pings.

 

[Kayweg]

FD gets much more money from paintkits and bubbleheads rather than from horizons expansion right now. On Kinguin.net you can get Horizons for only 15€. After the last livestream a lot of people bought ship kits and other stuff to support the good work. We could argue a lot about it but since none of us has the real figures there's no point in objecting.

I am sure they do (though neither of us has the numbers), but why should that prompt them to give up on whatever revenue they still can draw from Horizons ?
Just because one source of income is bigger than the other doesn't mean you don't want both.
Especially not currently and with the prospect of more people potentially buying Horizons after 3.3.
I see absolutely no benefit for FD to roll it into one and give Horizons away for free, not at this point in time anyway.
And there are really no different versions to support, we're all running the same client, just that the Horizons content is locked for non-Horizons players.
As far as i can see, this is not some headache inducing technical balancing act or something like that for them, it's no problem at all really.