I bring a fighter bay on my exploraconda to fight space madness. Breaks up the monotony and it can do recon. It would be great to see a version with no hardpoints that has scanners and super cruise.
SLF thats explorer focused
- Thread starter Dziondziak
- Start date
I've seen this suggested before and I think it's a fantastic idea. It would really cut through the space madness if you could explore one system with two ships simultaneously; sending your crew member off in the mothership to scan planets while doing the same in an SLF. Plus, if it was super-duper fast in normal space, it would give a whole new, high-octane perspective on surface features that we're used to crawling past in Anacondas and Asps that move slowly and are too precious to risk.
I'd go for this!
+1'd elsewhere!!
+1'd elsewhere!!
I didnt even think of having a crew member sweep one area of a system while I do the other. That would change the exploring game! I never bring a crew with me now. I would if I could do this.
Yeah, it would add more for AI crew members to do (seeing as they take a cut of all income, when they only really contribute to combat) as well as adding a reason for explorers to actually use multicrew.
There might be some kind of networking challenges to iron out when it comes to having a SLF in a different instance though (i.e. supercruising to another area of the system), judging by how militant the game is about keeping the current SLFs within close range of the mothership.
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Hello and very good idea, Dizzoballs.
SLFs have particular characteristics that aren't quite so desirable here. I'd class these SuperCruise-capable ships as SLSVs - Ship-Launched Support Vehicles. As others suggest, if they're SC-capable, I'd like to see some limited support for sharing exploration activity between myself and co-pilot NPCs.
I also envisage trader versions that could ship small amounts of cargo and fuel between large ships and outposts (or starports on high-G planets), although I assume it wouldn't be possible to hand in missions with them, unless we're flying them personally. I doubt FD would want to recode missions to be able to hand in goods a few cannisters at a time, so presumably we'd be limited to the maximum an SLSV can carry.
If FD can have our ships mysteriously sprout an inflatable autopilot and fly away while we play in our SRVs, they can certainly cope with this. I can see potential issues with our unsimulated, invisible, AI-piloted ships magically carrying out actions remotely, effectively bypassing blockades, etc - but I assume ED can be programmed to remember what kind of threats are in a current instance or parent system: AI NPCs can simply refuse to travel too far away, if there's anything potentially dangerous around, thereby avoiding most, if not all, situations where ED effectively plays itself for us.
SLFs have particular characteristics that aren't quite so desirable here. I'd class these SuperCruise-capable ships as SLSVs - Ship-Launched Support Vehicles. As others suggest, if they're SC-capable, I'd like to see some limited support for sharing exploration activity between myself and co-pilot NPCs.
I also envisage trader versions that could ship small amounts of cargo and fuel between large ships and outposts (or starports on high-G planets), although I assume it wouldn't be possible to hand in missions with them, unless we're flying them personally. I doubt FD would want to recode missions to be able to hand in goods a few cannisters at a time, so presumably we'd be limited to the maximum an SLSV can carry.
If FD can have our ships mysteriously sprout an inflatable autopilot and fly away while we play in our SRVs, they can certainly cope with this. I can see potential issues with our unsimulated, invisible, AI-piloted ships magically carrying out actions remotely, effectively bypassing blockades, etc - but I assume ED can be programmed to remember what kind of threats are in a current instance or parent system: AI NPCs can simply refuse to travel too far away, if there's anything potentially dangerous around, thereby avoiding most, if not all, situations where ED effectively plays itself for us.
You wont get useful SLFs any time soon, the 'Conda is supposed to be able to launch a Sidewinder, it even said so in the Shipyard blurb until SLFs were released and then it was deleted. If FD wanted you to be able to do anything other than dog fight they would have just left that launch capability in the game.
It actually still says it, but now it's worded something along the lines of "some Anacondas can launch ships up to Sidewinder size, but most are only capable of launching small fighters".
That's new since I last checked then, it's been reworded.
This is the current text.
But I think you're probably right. I think due to network limitations of the game, it's sometimes tricky for Elite Dangerous to keep track of ships in different instances, which is why even wings have a tendency to bug out and disconnect from each other. We can only hope that preventing the Ship Launched Explorer from leaving the same system as the mothership (i.e. only getting in-system supercruise, not inter-system jump capabilities), is enough mitigation for it to be at least feasible.
But I think you're probably right. I think due to network limitations of the game, it's sometimes tricky for Elite Dangerous to keep track of ships in different instances, which is why even wings have a tendency to bug out and disconnect from each other. We can only hope that preventing the Ship Launched Explorer from leaving the same system as the mothership (i.e. only getting in-system supercruise, not inter-system jump capabilities), is enough mitigation for it to be at least feasible.
That's why I originally said super cruise rather than full blown fsd. are there issue right now with ships in the same system keeping instance?
If you combined this with a ship that could carry, say, 4 bays, this would be an ideal tool for exploring a system.
Make a ship that is not combat oriented (few hardpoints, large target, etc), but is capable of good speed and reserve slots for "hangars", and you could have an excellent multi-player explorer.
Make a ship that is not combat oriented (few hardpoints, large target, etc), but is capable of good speed and reserve slots for "hangars", and you could have an excellent multi-player explorer.
Except that I disconnect on MOST multiplayer system changes in multicrew, and even some in-system session changes.
Still, having NPC crew that scan planets would actually justify their paycheck. As opposed to how the currently sit with their thumbs up their bums while you explore, trade, do missions, well, ANYTHING BUT LAUNCH A FIGHTER. And then when time comes to collect money for all that stuff they didn't even help with, they're front and center for their cut!