The main problem I see here is that the primary social demographic of the game probably plays in Solo or small player Private Groups. I think there is more likely to be a minority (if a vocal minority) that play in Open mode.
And before the fire and salt starts... yes I realise that most people on this forum probably play in open, but most people on this forum is not a true representation of the majority of Elite players.
For me there are so many elements in the game that need the attention lavished on pew-pew.
Exploration:
- Give us a surface scanner that actually scans the surface and maps POIs and mineral deposits so you can land near them and not have to drive around for an hour using the universe's most useless scanner to try and interpret the noise lines
- Give us different SRVs that can carry more cargo, or mining gear, or experimental equipment
- Give us missions with these (like conducting core sampling or testing gas outlets at fumaroles)
- Give us the ability to plot over 1000LY
- Give us the ability to set waypoints (like a current sat nav can)
- Give us new things to find - planets with indiginous life, carbon stars with diamond cores, asteroids of pure polonium (or something), so we can sell mining rights.
- Stuff that makes exploring worth doing for some reason other than "first discovered" and interesting selfies.
Mining:
- Give us a mineral scanner than can detect the deposits in the nearby asteroids without randomly firing off "prospector" limpets (or give us the ability to fire and track more than 2 prospectors)
- Give us a way to mark depleted or un-interesting 'roids (or ring fragments) on our map so that we can stop keep going back over the same old ground because everything looks the same.
- Give us a mining ship with dedicated refinery modules
- Let us mine in wings, where 2 ships can blast the 'roids, one refines and another hauls the loot (this would encourage group play)
Bounty Hunting:
- Let us hunt... Use a Kill Warrant scanner to mark your prey, then wake scanners to follow them across multiple systems, maybe even be able to set up ambushes
- Hunt in groups. Again mark the target and have other ships waiting in nearby systems that the target could flee to (again encouraging group co-operation)
- Make Bouthy Hunting a skilled profession where the rewards for the target make it worth the risk, unlike now where the reward can sometimes not even cover your repair costs if you have any damage from the missions
Mercenaries:
- Let groups of like minded players hire themselves out to player (or NPC factions) for undermining, combat zone work etc... (again encouraging group play)
Player owned stuctures would be one option, but I'd see these as more the province of player factions (like [NULL] for example) rather than single players as I can imagine them costing hundreds of billions to build and tens of millions a week ro maintain.
However, small asteroid bases or even mega-ships would be perfectly feasible for the rich single player.
And these are just a few of the ideas, that in my opinion would be far better than "space legs" and even atmospheric landings at selling the next season. These would be quality of life improvements and gameplay improvements.
Based of the current incarnation of multi-crew, and the fact that they only intend to develop it further if there is "significant interest" I suspect "space legs" would be a half- ability to walk round some of your ship and maybe a cabin on a station that they would "develop further if there was interest", but would be so badly done that they would effectively nip it in the bud.
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