Simple Suggestions For An Exploration Overhaul

It's easy to stay out for months and not die. It doesn't need to be easier. If you're careless and you have weeks of data, that's your choice and your failing. You don't have to stay out for weeks, you can make elite in exploration by putting around in a 500LY radius of the bubble. That's the riskless option.

Once again, I don't mind the risk. If it comes with some excitement, count me in. Many people say it's easy to stay out for months and not die... Or that you have to be careless or unlucky to die during exploration. Where is the risk then? Personally I'd rather die to the dangers of deep space and travel back to get my exploration data back after beating those dangers. But I guess every player will have different preferences.
 
If you get your data back after dying, you didn't beat those dangers. The game provided a massive (unnecessary) safety net to catch you. The risk is in losing the data.
 

Lestat

Banned
What I think they should add. A Star counter that you can only reset at the base and a Avg amount of credit you might get when you turn in the data when you dock. Here what it will do.

1 It will Show what a player what they can lose if they mess up and Die and maybe take more care with the amount of money they are risking.
 
I like this one, especially data deterioration the further away the pilot is from the bubble. The only question is where does it transfer data to. Now we know it's stored on the ship. Although, surprisingly, the pilot apparently carries that data with them when swapping ships :) Just seems to "forget" how to do that when out in the black...

In my opinion, only changes in gameplay that are easy to implement are going to have a small chance to finally find their way into the game. To keep it simple: if you lose your ship and you have this antenna fitted and powered at the moment of destruction, an algorithm (depending on how far you're out) will determine, which data will make it back to the bubble. This data should be loaded in your ship's computer right after you have passed the rebuy-screen.
 
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If you get your data back after dying, you didn't beat those dangers. The game provided a massive (unnecessary) safety net to catch you. The risk is in losing the data.

But you wrote previously it's easy to stay out for months and not die. Unless the player is careless, they do not risk anything. That's why I asked where is the risk.

As for the example of a black box (I'll stick to this idea as a way of recovering discovery data). Let's say I got blown up by Thargoids 20k Ly away from the bubble. Or, I've been careless, tried to mine some asteroid and had a collision with something.
I have barely managed to lock myself in the escape pod and survive. I've been found and rescued some 500Ly away from Sol by some kind trader. But my discovery data is there with the debris of my ship (it's not actually there, just like NPCs we are send to locate and interact with are not actually there before we get to the target system). This event generated a mission for me to recover that data. With a timer. Do I go back all that way? I have to hurry, there's enough time for me to get there with refueling on the way, but not for surface scanning of the astronomical objects in the systems I go through. I will of course still get the stars discovered automatically during that trip and there's enough time to fire advanced discovery scanner between the jumps. Yes, the black box will contain surface scans I've done before, which will add some value to this whole trip, but actually, I could as well just not collect it and that would be fine. I'm collecting some of the same data on my way. Not much of a material gain for me when it comes to recovering that black box.

What it actually adds to the gameplay, is the mission element. Additional purpose for the player. There is a risk I'm going to fail this mission. Get distracted by something, start wandering about and run out of time. Now I'm in a hurry and I am less careful, I can run into some white dwarf I forgot about. Also, when I get to my destination, what if the hostile factor is still there and blows me up again? Maybe I should just abandon this mission and go into some completely different direction? After all, who cares about the data, I've seen what I wanted to see already.

So my question this time would be: what safety net you're talking about? I have to go all the way back, thus getting all stars and systems discovered again. I get a mission and I get a mission reward (surface scans). I get a choice, because there is nothing to force me to complete this mission. The game gets more immersive, because it doesn't force me to believe that in the 34th century people are dumb and don't know how to backup data. I also get the knowledge, that if I get blown up, the data is out there, but I'm not getting it for free, I have to make a significant effort to recover it whilst on the other hand, I am getting back a huge chunk of it just by flying to my last location. So what it essentially becomes is a map marker (and custom map markers are coming anyway) and an additional purpose for going to a specific location.
 
I could imagine, if others could pick up those black boxes eventually there will rise a player fraction similar to the fuel rats. "I've lost my ship and data in system xy, can you retrieve this for me?". Sure, I'm dreaming, but: This would be one step to more teamplay in this game. Very needful, because winter is .... eeeh... Thargoids are coming ;)
 

Lestat

Banned
I could imagine, if others could pick up those black boxes eventually there will rise a player fraction similar to the fuel rats. "I've lost my ship and data in system xy, can you retrieve this for me?". Sure, I'm dreaming, but: This would be one step to more teamplay in this game. Very needful, because winter is .... eeeh... Thargoids are coming ;)
Or that Team play could be use as abuse. Hay yes I can retrieve it. But you have to pay a mega finders fee. Let say. 200 slaves. They could have fun. Have you meet them in a system that makes Slave trade illegal.

So if there's no risk why do you want so many safety nets?
I think because game today hold your hand. You never really have danger.

I hope they never add anything to hold you hand for elite.
 
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