Some people have rightly complained about the lack of PoI variety on planets.....especially outside of the bubble.....& about the lack of truly exploration driven stuff in the game. So I had these ideas of how to improve both of these elements of the game.....in a reasonably realistic fashion!
1. Geological PoI's: These would be fairly rare geological formations, the discovery of which would earn you points towards your explorer rank, & gain you first discovered credits if you're the first to stumble across them. Obviously some of these formations would be visible from the air, whilst some would require your scanner to find. Also, outside of mere discovery, some of these formations could also be the source of minerals & precious stones.
2. Ancient, alien ruins. Not everything has to be about the Thargoids
. Airless worlds, particularly in much older star systems-& especially those whose suns have mostly died out-could have the remnants of ancient, non-human civilizations-ranging from Bronze Age through to Space Age....or even early Interstellar. Finding & moving through these ruins would add to your exploration rankings. Also, some of these ruins could also contain Ancient Artifacts (TM) that will add further exploration points, & which you can take back & sell
3. Medium to large shipwrecks & FTL Probes. True, some of these are already present, but hopefully more meaning can be given to them. Being able to salvage modules & scrap metal from crashed/abandoned ships-for an engineer to do customization with-is an obvious starting point. Collection of Black Boxes, Exploration Data & Escape Pods could help to trigger an entire chain of missions, & FTL Probes could be the source of valuable data or even collectible as a whole item.
4. Missions. Of course, all 3 of the above can be made even more interesting if there were missions tied into them. You could have Universal Cartographics as an in-game faction, giving you specific missions tied to any one of the 3 items above. Likewise, other in-game factions could also have an interest in the exploration of distant worlds.....or merely be wanting the exploration data/black box of a deep space exploration ship of theirs that went missing. Of course, this could be made even more fun with chained missions in place!
1. Geological PoI's: These would be fairly rare geological formations, the discovery of which would earn you points towards your explorer rank, & gain you first discovered credits if you're the first to stumble across them. Obviously some of these formations would be visible from the air, whilst some would require your scanner to find. Also, outside of mere discovery, some of these formations could also be the source of minerals & precious stones.
2. Ancient, alien ruins. Not everything has to be about the Thargoids
. Airless worlds, particularly in much older star systems-& especially those whose suns have mostly died out-could have the remnants of ancient, non-human civilizations-ranging from Bronze Age through to Space Age....or even early Interstellar. Finding & moving through these ruins would add to your exploration rankings. Also, some of these ruins could also contain Ancient Artifacts (TM) that will add further exploration points, & which you can take back & sell3. Medium to large shipwrecks & FTL Probes. True, some of these are already present, but hopefully more meaning can be given to them. Being able to salvage modules & scrap metal from crashed/abandoned ships-for an engineer to do customization with-is an obvious starting point. Collection of Black Boxes, Exploration Data & Escape Pods could help to trigger an entire chain of missions, & FTL Probes could be the source of valuable data or even collectible as a whole item.
4. Missions. Of course, all 3 of the above can be made even more interesting if there were missions tied into them. You could have Universal Cartographics as an in-game faction, giving you specific missions tied to any one of the 3 items above. Likewise, other in-game factions could also have an interest in the exploration of distant worlds.....or merely be wanting the exploration data/black box of a deep space exploration ship of theirs that went missing. Of course, this could be made even more fun with chained missions in place!
