I have recently been doing more exploration now that I can afford a Advanced Discovery Scanner, a Detailed Surface Scanner, a decent Fuel Scoop, and a decent overall jump range. During the first week of release I did a week long expedition roughly 1000 ly galactic North of Sol and I made almost 3 million Credits at Alpha Centauri. In my time wandering I came up with some ideas that IMO would improve exploration. This is a lot of text so feel free to just browse the embolden titles for a TL;DR unless you want more detail, and if you reply with a quote please just quote the relevant part.
. Make the Discovery Scan Passive: Unfortunately this would probably get rid of the fog horn sound effect, but I'm sure another place can be found for it. Basically the most basic discovery scanners method for finding astronomical bodies should be the same as a pilot finding them by eye except that it would work omnidirectionally (relative movement to the background when traveling) . Better scanners would be able to see fainter objects at further distance with less required parallax. Objects which are relatively near to each other could resolve at a distance to be a single object until they receive a closer examination. It would also be possible for near by astronomical objects to block the view of objects on their far side so even the best scanners could fail to find all objects within a few seconds of entering a star system if the player doesn't fly around a bit. As far as how the simulation could figure out if a astronomical body is found or not I think it could work by continuously adding together relative X/Y/Z motion of each astronomical body, objects are marked as discovered once the relative motion passes a threshold based on the ability score of the scanner, the distance to the object, and the brightness of the object discovered (but objects near each other can resolve as a single brighter object until approached) . Obviously to save computing power this data could be erased between jumps.
. Some star systems could require discovery before they can be jumped to: Using the same technique as above near by stars within jump range (and even further) could need to be discovered before they could be jumped too. This would only need to be at very distant distances from civilization for stars that could not possibly have been seen before. Unlike finding planets around stars this discovery might accumulate from observations over several jumps. However there would also be a possibility of finding brown dwarfs that could act as bridges between already know stars especially if you need to first take the long way around (more observations with greater parallax) .
. Make the Surface Scanner active: Instead of making a player first discover a astronomical body before it can be scanned (currently it needs to be locked) let the player actively interrogate any point in the sky they suspect to be something by just pointing their scanner at it and pulling the trigger. To add some realism this directional pulse (new place for the fog horn sound effect?) could be limited to the speed of light, so it could only be done when traveling less then 1.0c. Also the return echo would also be limited to the speed of light but would radiate as a omnidirectional sphere expanding at the speed of light (this would need to be flown through to collect the discovered data but the speed of flight can exceed 1.0c) . Objects that emit radio waves naturally (like stars) might not require a active scan to get the same information a passive scan can get and would therefore not have any speed of light restrictions.
.Allow near flybys to collect more data then a Discovery but less then a Surface Scan: This not only would be a bit more realistic but would help players who don't have a Surface Scanner be more effective explorers but they would need to travel about slightly more. Also if a player with a Surface Scanner doesn't slow down enough to scan or misses the omnidirectional echo they could still collect some data and choose to abandon the surface scan data.
. Assign all new discoveries a temporary designation unique to the player and in the order discovered: This would simply be a replacement for the current "Unexplored" tag which would allow some comparison between astronomical bodies seen in the System Map, the Navigation Tab, and what can be seen in front of the player. Currently it can be difficult to find a specific planet which you can see would be interesting from its picture in the System Map (additionally the ability to lock/set destination from the system map would be appreciated) . To save computational resources these tags could be reordered from closest to the primary system body to the furthest if the player leaves the system.
. Don't imply non discovered Astronomical Bodies by naming or visual gaps in the System Map: This means that after any Surface Scan or Flyby some already discovered objects may need to be renamed and the System map needs to more dynamically change to represent new data when it is discovered. There should never be a finality to discovery, and the player should alway feel like there might be more left undiscovered. Once any Data is sold to Universal Cartographics the Astronomical bodies names could change yet again to either a unique non sequential alphanumeric sequence, or a uniquely addressed proper name, or maybe they could process the data and discover the gravitationally inferred missing planets like the discovery of Neptune thus allowing for the conventional naming with estimated gaps (gaps could automatically remain open until all missing mass is identified) .
. Make each child or binary body in a planetary system of Astronomical Bodies a optional expansion in the Navigation Tab: At the moment the Navigation Tab is dominated by moons and asteroids. To simply make it easier to scroll and find specific objects it would be helpful if they grouped together under sets ordered from the barycenter of planetary systems. Asteroid belts should be treated a bit like a group of moons with no planet so they can also be grouped together. Any rouge bodies that cross the orbit of planets (like comets) could be grouped under the next crossed planets expansion, as could Trojan asteroids in L4 and L5 (I don't think these are currently implemented but I hope they are in the future) . A few extra icons and numbers could reveal the number of discovered moons/rings/asteroids/stations before expanding a planetary system.
To continue this logic it could be possible to expand the Navigation Tab selection of neighboring Star Systems so it is possible to select the final destination of a journey (a station) . Hyperspace jumping would still deliver the player to the primary star but they would have the station selected as their destination as soon as they arrive.
I would also like it if instead of a limited number of asteroid clusters individual or binary asteroids were almost as limitless in number as the rocks in planetary rings (but often much bigger) just spread over such vast distances that it would be necessary to find them like Unidentified Signal Sources when flying through the belt regions. Only the largest would be permanently recorded like planets but all would be procedurally created. The same technique could be used to create and fill in the extrasolar equivalents of the Kuiper belt, Oort Clouds, and Rouge Astronomical Bodies.
. Discovery should reveal Astronomical Bodies position, diameter, basic atmospheric composition, and average temperature but not velocity (orbital paths), mass (orbital paths of children and binaries), or anything else: This would be more realistic and to encourage more Flyby flights or Surface Scanning by players so that information can be inferred about neighboring objects too. Basically the logic is that to calculate a accurate orbit of something you must approximately know its mass and velocity and the approximate mass and velocity of anything it orbits. Discovery is basically only finding points of light so the very little information that could be approximated is location, diameter, basic atmospheric composition, and average surface temperature (using infrared spectroscopy) . While realistically more features could be inferred by a long duration passive observation the time scale would be beyond acceptable for the average player, so this can safely be ignored (unless it is implemented in game by many different Discovery Scans of the same objects sold to Universal Cartographics to build up a more detailed System Map from different explorers) . However Surface Scanning could basically act as a radar and reveal details like velocity, rotation, a precise diameter and surface composition (thus a means to approximate mass) , and many more details too. A Flyby might be able to only additionally reveal velocity and mass (via gravity) , but that would be enough to predict accurate orbital paths.
How this would work in practice is a player would enter a star system near the primary, this would register as a flyby of that star. The Discovery Scanner would start finding Astronomical Bodies but would only give location without orbital paths. Approaching a Astronomical Body might reveal its actually a few different Astronomical Bodies close together. As the player approaches they might Surface Scan or Flyby a moon but with the planet unscanned its orbit would seem to orbit the star and its predicted orbit could be very wrong (maybe even at escape velocity or terminating at the stars surface) because the gravity of the planet had not been accounted for. Surface Scanning or doing a Flyby of the planet would then correct the moons orbital path and add a orbital path for the planet.
. All Discovered stars and planets should list a best guess nearest and farthest Habitable range (Goldilocks zone): This guess could be refined by different levels of information (including additional discovered heat sources that push the habitable ranges further out) until enough data is know to predict if the planet can be lived on or even terraformed. I include planets as something that should have a habitable range because I would like planets that are too hot (possibly just because of a greenhouse effect) to possibly be considered for some upper atmosphere settlement if their habitable zone is above the surface but within the atmosphere at a reasonable pressure (for example both Venus and Saturn in the Solar system). Likewise planets might have a habitable zone below the surface but not so deep that the pressure would be a problem (for example both Mercury or Europa in the Solar system) . When the Habitable ranges intersect with the surface the percentage (and the km^2) of the surface that is Habitable could be listed, this should also take into account varying surface temperatures like polar regions, lava fields, cloud cover, and the dark side of tidally locked planets.
With this extra data it should be possible to predict the habitability of planets without their actual appearance perhaps spoiling it. At the moment it's clear which worlds are probably garden worlds just by looking at the System Map, this detailed image could be removed and replaced with a large blurry colored dot until at least a flyby is made.
. All reference to Astronomical Units (AUs) should be replaced with light seconds, Mm, km, or m : AUs are a meaningless measure of distance that I think is exclusively used in the System Map. Unfortunately they're used for many distances that are to small to even register like moons, planetary binaries, or even planetary orbits around dwarf stars. If anyone really wants to know how many AUs a distance is they can just divide its light seconds by ~500 (or multiply light years by ~63,000) , and if its in any smaller scale the answer would be 0.0AU. Also unless a orbit is around a barycenter it should be measured from the surface of one Astronomical Body to the surface of the other (not center to center) .
. All types of binaries should have a secondary orbital line through their barycenter if they also orbit something else: This is a visual improvement which is a necessary addition to orbital lines (once a pair of objects are both Surface Scanned or have a Flyby) . For planets they should also be presented in a way in the System Map that makes it clear they are each others moons including the naming convention being the same number postfix from the star but with the additional postfix A for the largest and B for the next largest (... C, D E... and so on) . For moons they should be the same letter postfix followed the additional postfix roman numeral I for the largest and the roman numeral II for the next largest (... III, IV, V... and so on) . In the detailed description of a planet in the System Map the detailed of both the stellar orbit and the co-orbital planetary orbits should both be listed.
. The Info Panel could list the detailed observations and name changes: Basically this would be just so the flavor text currently hidden in the System Map could be read while flying to help fill the time and make exploration more fun.
. Make the Discovery Scan Passive: Unfortunately this would probably get rid of the fog horn sound effect, but I'm sure another place can be found for it. Basically the most basic discovery scanners method for finding astronomical bodies should be the same as a pilot finding them by eye except that it would work omnidirectionally (relative movement to the background when traveling) . Better scanners would be able to see fainter objects at further distance with less required parallax. Objects which are relatively near to each other could resolve at a distance to be a single object until they receive a closer examination. It would also be possible for near by astronomical objects to block the view of objects on their far side so even the best scanners could fail to find all objects within a few seconds of entering a star system if the player doesn't fly around a bit. As far as how the simulation could figure out if a astronomical body is found or not I think it could work by continuously adding together relative X/Y/Z motion of each astronomical body, objects are marked as discovered once the relative motion passes a threshold based on the ability score of the scanner, the distance to the object, and the brightness of the object discovered (but objects near each other can resolve as a single brighter object until approached) . Obviously to save computing power this data could be erased between jumps.
. Some star systems could require discovery before they can be jumped to: Using the same technique as above near by stars within jump range (and even further) could need to be discovered before they could be jumped too. This would only need to be at very distant distances from civilization for stars that could not possibly have been seen before. Unlike finding planets around stars this discovery might accumulate from observations over several jumps. However there would also be a possibility of finding brown dwarfs that could act as bridges between already know stars especially if you need to first take the long way around (more observations with greater parallax) .
. Make the Surface Scanner active: Instead of making a player first discover a astronomical body before it can be scanned (currently it needs to be locked) let the player actively interrogate any point in the sky they suspect to be something by just pointing their scanner at it and pulling the trigger. To add some realism this directional pulse (new place for the fog horn sound effect?) could be limited to the speed of light, so it could only be done when traveling less then 1.0c. Also the return echo would also be limited to the speed of light but would radiate as a omnidirectional sphere expanding at the speed of light (this would need to be flown through to collect the discovered data but the speed of flight can exceed 1.0c) . Objects that emit radio waves naturally (like stars) might not require a active scan to get the same information a passive scan can get and would therefore not have any speed of light restrictions.
.Allow near flybys to collect more data then a Discovery but less then a Surface Scan: This not only would be a bit more realistic but would help players who don't have a Surface Scanner be more effective explorers but they would need to travel about slightly more. Also if a player with a Surface Scanner doesn't slow down enough to scan or misses the omnidirectional echo they could still collect some data and choose to abandon the surface scan data.
. Assign all new discoveries a temporary designation unique to the player and in the order discovered: This would simply be a replacement for the current "Unexplored" tag which would allow some comparison between astronomical bodies seen in the System Map, the Navigation Tab, and what can be seen in front of the player. Currently it can be difficult to find a specific planet which you can see would be interesting from its picture in the System Map (additionally the ability to lock/set destination from the system map would be appreciated) . To save computational resources these tags could be reordered from closest to the primary system body to the furthest if the player leaves the system.
. Don't imply non discovered Astronomical Bodies by naming or visual gaps in the System Map: This means that after any Surface Scan or Flyby some already discovered objects may need to be renamed and the System map needs to more dynamically change to represent new data when it is discovered. There should never be a finality to discovery, and the player should alway feel like there might be more left undiscovered. Once any Data is sold to Universal Cartographics the Astronomical bodies names could change yet again to either a unique non sequential alphanumeric sequence, or a uniquely addressed proper name, or maybe they could process the data and discover the gravitationally inferred missing planets like the discovery of Neptune thus allowing for the conventional naming with estimated gaps (gaps could automatically remain open until all missing mass is identified) .
. Make each child or binary body in a planetary system of Astronomical Bodies a optional expansion in the Navigation Tab: At the moment the Navigation Tab is dominated by moons and asteroids. To simply make it easier to scroll and find specific objects it would be helpful if they grouped together under sets ordered from the barycenter of planetary systems. Asteroid belts should be treated a bit like a group of moons with no planet so they can also be grouped together. Any rouge bodies that cross the orbit of planets (like comets) could be grouped under the next crossed planets expansion, as could Trojan asteroids in L4 and L5 (I don't think these are currently implemented but I hope they are in the future) . A few extra icons and numbers could reveal the number of discovered moons/rings/asteroids/stations before expanding a planetary system.
To continue this logic it could be possible to expand the Navigation Tab selection of neighboring Star Systems so it is possible to select the final destination of a journey (a station) . Hyperspace jumping would still deliver the player to the primary star but they would have the station selected as their destination as soon as they arrive.
I would also like it if instead of a limited number of asteroid clusters individual or binary asteroids were almost as limitless in number as the rocks in planetary rings (but often much bigger) just spread over such vast distances that it would be necessary to find them like Unidentified Signal Sources when flying through the belt regions. Only the largest would be permanently recorded like planets but all would be procedurally created. The same technique could be used to create and fill in the extrasolar equivalents of the Kuiper belt, Oort Clouds, and Rouge Astronomical Bodies.
. Discovery should reveal Astronomical Bodies position, diameter, basic atmospheric composition, and average temperature but not velocity (orbital paths), mass (orbital paths of children and binaries), or anything else: This would be more realistic and to encourage more Flyby flights or Surface Scanning by players so that information can be inferred about neighboring objects too. Basically the logic is that to calculate a accurate orbit of something you must approximately know its mass and velocity and the approximate mass and velocity of anything it orbits. Discovery is basically only finding points of light so the very little information that could be approximated is location, diameter, basic atmospheric composition, and average surface temperature (using infrared spectroscopy) . While realistically more features could be inferred by a long duration passive observation the time scale would be beyond acceptable for the average player, so this can safely be ignored (unless it is implemented in game by many different Discovery Scans of the same objects sold to Universal Cartographics to build up a more detailed System Map from different explorers) . However Surface Scanning could basically act as a radar and reveal details like velocity, rotation, a precise diameter and surface composition (thus a means to approximate mass) , and many more details too. A Flyby might be able to only additionally reveal velocity and mass (via gravity) , but that would be enough to predict accurate orbital paths.
How this would work in practice is a player would enter a star system near the primary, this would register as a flyby of that star. The Discovery Scanner would start finding Astronomical Bodies but would only give location without orbital paths. Approaching a Astronomical Body might reveal its actually a few different Astronomical Bodies close together. As the player approaches they might Surface Scan or Flyby a moon but with the planet unscanned its orbit would seem to orbit the star and its predicted orbit could be very wrong (maybe even at escape velocity or terminating at the stars surface) because the gravity of the planet had not been accounted for. Surface Scanning or doing a Flyby of the planet would then correct the moons orbital path and add a orbital path for the planet.
. All Discovered stars and planets should list a best guess nearest and farthest Habitable range (Goldilocks zone): This guess could be refined by different levels of information (including additional discovered heat sources that push the habitable ranges further out) until enough data is know to predict if the planet can be lived on or even terraformed. I include planets as something that should have a habitable range because I would like planets that are too hot (possibly just because of a greenhouse effect) to possibly be considered for some upper atmosphere settlement if their habitable zone is above the surface but within the atmosphere at a reasonable pressure (for example both Venus and Saturn in the Solar system). Likewise planets might have a habitable zone below the surface but not so deep that the pressure would be a problem (for example both Mercury or Europa in the Solar system) . When the Habitable ranges intersect with the surface the percentage (and the km^2) of the surface that is Habitable could be listed, this should also take into account varying surface temperatures like polar regions, lava fields, cloud cover, and the dark side of tidally locked planets.
With this extra data it should be possible to predict the habitability of planets without their actual appearance perhaps spoiling it. At the moment it's clear which worlds are probably garden worlds just by looking at the System Map, this detailed image could be removed and replaced with a large blurry colored dot until at least a flyby is made.
. All reference to Astronomical Units (AUs) should be replaced with light seconds, Mm, km, or m : AUs are a meaningless measure of distance that I think is exclusively used in the System Map. Unfortunately they're used for many distances that are to small to even register like moons, planetary binaries, or even planetary orbits around dwarf stars. If anyone really wants to know how many AUs a distance is they can just divide its light seconds by ~500 (or multiply light years by ~63,000) , and if its in any smaller scale the answer would be 0.0AU. Also unless a orbit is around a barycenter it should be measured from the surface of one Astronomical Body to the surface of the other (not center to center) .
. All types of binaries should have a secondary orbital line through their barycenter if they also orbit something else: This is a visual improvement which is a necessary addition to orbital lines (once a pair of objects are both Surface Scanned or have a Flyby) . For planets they should also be presented in a way in the System Map that makes it clear they are each others moons including the naming convention being the same number postfix from the star but with the additional postfix A for the largest and B for the next largest (... C, D E... and so on) . For moons they should be the same letter postfix followed the additional postfix roman numeral I for the largest and the roman numeral II for the next largest (... III, IV, V... and so on) . In the detailed description of a planet in the System Map the detailed of both the stellar orbit and the co-orbital planetary orbits should both be listed.
. The Info Panel could list the detailed observations and name changes: Basically this would be just so the flavor text currently hidden in the System Map could be read while flying to help fill the time and make exploration more fun.
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