Rock hermits have been part of Elite lore since 1984. These are the grizzled deep space survivalists of the galaxy, hunkered down in hollowed-out asteroids, hiding inside planetary rings, and on tiny spud moons in the untravelled backcountry.
I propose bringing these characters into Elite Dangerous, making the act of discovering them another way of building the personal narrative, using them as another means to barter rare materials for specific cargo types or missions, and as a means of offering emergency repairs to explorers in the black.
Several hundred or thousand rock hermits would be seeded throughout uninhabited space, with a few dotted around the bubble in anarchy systems.
They live inside tiny, persistent bases in rocks inside rings or asteroid clusters, with a small slot barely big enough to fit the largest ships, and only a single large-pad hangar available immediately inside the slot. A few have small outposts on planets, again with only one free pad.
They offer:
Barter market
Repair
Restock
Remote workshop
Very basic Outfitting (of mining and exploration gear)
Limited Missions (more on that in a sec)
Raw material trade (at a slightly better rate than usual, and can trade rare/expensive cargo for mats)
All services are paid for by trading materials/goods or performing services in kind. They are living "off the grid" and so cash is less valuable to them. They are barter-focused, with individual hermits offering services in return for the specific materials or cargo that is required by them. They will perform minimal emergency repairs for a vastly inflated cash sum (hull to 10%, canopy fixed, modules to a minimal usable level), but anything more will require you to either trade materials, cargo (mining ores, luxuries, other specific commodities based on the hermit) or to run errands for them.
These errands might be mining missions, data delivery missions to another hermit, missions to scan a particular body a few systems over, etc. Again, instead of cash, rewards would always be materials, or access to repair/restock services.
Deep space explorers would be able to stop over for servicing out in the black, maybe once every couple of thousand light years in theory, but they'd have to work for it (and be able to find them). However, since these hermits are distrustful of corporations/governments/centralised power, networks like Universal Cartographics would not be available at their bases (so you can't sell your exploration data there), you won't respawn there if you die (no connection to the galactic insurance systems), and you can't have any ships or modules transported there. Thus, the risk of deep space exploration is preserved.
Again, you'd also have to know where to find them...
They wouldn't appear on the galaxy map, and systems housing them would show as zero population, but information about some of their locations (those near civilisation) can be earned by building rep with engineers or minor factions. Each new rock hermit would also tip you off to a smattering of others across the galaxy, once you successfully interact with them. Over time you'd build up a network of these guys across the gal map, along with a list of what mats/cargo they each want, and what they give as rewards. There would also be other ways to discover them, such as a breadcrumb trail from a data beacon on a crashed ship in the black.
They don't advertise their presence, so you'd need to use the new Q4 exploration tools to find them, even if you knew what ring/planet they were on. In theory, you could find them just during undirected exploration, but it's very unlikely.
These bases would also have the megaship interactions. They keep lots of VERY valuable cargo and materials in their holds, but if you hack them, the mailslot will lock shut, they will open fire, potentially launch their own ship against you, and you will lose standing with all hermits. Hacking their data point will give you data, the locations of numerous other hermits, cause them to lock down, and lose you some standing.
Although all hermits are affected by your reputation with the Hermit faction, some are inherently friendly and less affected by a low standing. Some will refuse to let you dock with a bad reputation. Some are suspicious and require a very high reputation to dock. And some are space-mad paranoiacs who will outright open fire if you try to approach without good standing.
There could also be a second group using the same assets, but for Pirate Hideouts. These would be concentrated in anarchies around inhabited space, WOULD use a cash enconomy, would offer more outfitting services, a black market, etc. and probably wouldn't be connected under a single faction umbrella - perhaps instead, you would need a certain amount of bounties against you to use their services.
This would give the sense of a criminal underworld, give players who want to play as criminals better access to outfitting and stuff that's locked under anonymous access at normal ports, while offering law abiding players access to the rock hermit assault mechanics without having to attack rock hermits.
What do you folks think?
I propose bringing these characters into Elite Dangerous, making the act of discovering them another way of building the personal narrative, using them as another means to barter rare materials for specific cargo types or missions, and as a means of offering emergency repairs to explorers in the black.
Several hundred or thousand rock hermits would be seeded throughout uninhabited space, with a few dotted around the bubble in anarchy systems.
They live inside tiny, persistent bases in rocks inside rings or asteroid clusters, with a small slot barely big enough to fit the largest ships, and only a single large-pad hangar available immediately inside the slot. A few have small outposts on planets, again with only one free pad.
They offer:
Barter market
Repair
Restock
Remote workshop
Very basic Outfitting (of mining and exploration gear)
Limited Missions (more on that in a sec)
Raw material trade (at a slightly better rate than usual, and can trade rare/expensive cargo for mats)
All services are paid for by trading materials/goods or performing services in kind. They are living "off the grid" and so cash is less valuable to them. They are barter-focused, with individual hermits offering services in return for the specific materials or cargo that is required by them. They will perform minimal emergency repairs for a vastly inflated cash sum (hull to 10%, canopy fixed, modules to a minimal usable level), but anything more will require you to either trade materials, cargo (mining ores, luxuries, other specific commodities based on the hermit) or to run errands for them.
These errands might be mining missions, data delivery missions to another hermit, missions to scan a particular body a few systems over, etc. Again, instead of cash, rewards would always be materials, or access to repair/restock services.
Deep space explorers would be able to stop over for servicing out in the black, maybe once every couple of thousand light years in theory, but they'd have to work for it (and be able to find them). However, since these hermits are distrustful of corporations/governments/centralised power, networks like Universal Cartographics would not be available at their bases (so you can't sell your exploration data there), you won't respawn there if you die (no connection to the galactic insurance systems), and you can't have any ships or modules transported there. Thus, the risk of deep space exploration is preserved.
Again, you'd also have to know where to find them...
They wouldn't appear on the galaxy map, and systems housing them would show as zero population, but information about some of their locations (those near civilisation) can be earned by building rep with engineers or minor factions. Each new rock hermit would also tip you off to a smattering of others across the galaxy, once you successfully interact with them. Over time you'd build up a network of these guys across the gal map, along with a list of what mats/cargo they each want, and what they give as rewards. There would also be other ways to discover them, such as a breadcrumb trail from a data beacon on a crashed ship in the black.
They don't advertise their presence, so you'd need to use the new Q4 exploration tools to find them, even if you knew what ring/planet they were on. In theory, you could find them just during undirected exploration, but it's very unlikely.
These bases would also have the megaship interactions. They keep lots of VERY valuable cargo and materials in their holds, but if you hack them, the mailslot will lock shut, they will open fire, potentially launch their own ship against you, and you will lose standing with all hermits. Hacking their data point will give you data, the locations of numerous other hermits, cause them to lock down, and lose you some standing.
Although all hermits are affected by your reputation with the Hermit faction, some are inherently friendly and less affected by a low standing. Some will refuse to let you dock with a bad reputation. Some are suspicious and require a very high reputation to dock. And some are space-mad paranoiacs who will outright open fire if you try to approach without good standing.
There could also be a second group using the same assets, but for Pirate Hideouts. These would be concentrated in anarchies around inhabited space, WOULD use a cash enconomy, would offer more outfitting services, a black market, etc. and probably wouldn't be connected under a single faction umbrella - perhaps instead, you would need a certain amount of bounties against you to use their services.
This would give the sense of a criminal underworld, give players who want to play as criminals better access to outfitting and stuff that's locked under anonymous access at normal ports, while offering law abiding players access to the rock hermit assault mechanics without having to attack rock hermits.
What do you folks think?
