[Suggestion] Exploring

[Flt_Lt_Marsh]

exploring is quite a long and tedious process so i have a few suggestions to make it a more pleasant experience.

Route planning is good now that you can plot 1000 LY however its quite irritating to discover that somebody has been there and done that system youve just spent an age getting to, so i would suggest a Route planner that can plot long distance trips that goto as many Unexplored systems as is possible.

Also it would be very handy for a set destination to be saved so that when you come back to the game you dont have to find that scrap of paper with the system name on it !

and.... please make exploring more profitable as trading still is by far the best way of making creds.

also... reduce the surface scanning time, it send me to sleep waiting for that to complete.

 

[CmdrKull]

If you are "out in the black" then you are usually one hop away from unexplored territory.

Route planner, sure.. That would be a nice addition. Ditto for a way of saving your current route when you log off. Edit: sort of misread your idea for a route planner. Skipping systems that are explored? What about systems with only the main star explored? What about systems that were pinged but not surface scanned? What about systems with that one star waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out on the edge that hasn't been scanned? Where do you draw the line? But a route planner that lets you set a few waypoints, that I'd like.

However for the last two:

surface scanning shouldn't be instantaneous, and it doesn't take that long. I think I can speak plainly on this, I'm Pioneer rank.

Trading should be the most valuable profession because it's the only one where the entire point is making money. Bounty hunting/ piracy are about the pew pew and oh hey I get paid too, score! exploring is about writing your name on the universe and finding something amazing and oh hey I get paid too, score!

 

[Slippery Jim DiGriz]

surface scanning shouldn't be instantaneous, and it doesn't take that long. I think I can speak plainly on this, I'm Pioneer rank.

Just a humble Ranger here, definitely not instantaneous but I can't imagine that nobody has taken a point defence and ripped out the gun and nailed a scanner dish in its place then wired the mount into the nav-com to make a omni-directional scanner, I'd like to be able to scan suns when going away from them (or while scooping) and to scan gas giants while zipping past.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

I would prefer it if the Detailed Surface scanner had to be actively fired just like the discovery scanner or KWS when facing a planet and being in scanning range, taking 10-20 seconds to finish and showing an expanding wireframe, as shown in this early concept design.

 

[Varrag]

it would be very handy for a set destination to be saved so that when you come back to the game you dont have to find that scrap of paper with the system name on it !

This is an absolute must and it's beyound me why it hasn't been done yet. Saving one destination would be good for starters - but what we really need is a bookrmark list.