I`m a little disappointed with the ease at which a pilot can explore the galaxy. Outside of wear and tear on your ship, its not a particularly dangerous pursuit and it should be! After-all, you’re a lone pilot, far away from occupied space, yet you can explore the galaxy with almost god-like ease. The game has been out for quite a while now and much of space has already been explored. Its very beautiful out there, and there are sights to see, but other than that, exploration amounts to ticking boxes on a list and perhaps a race to get your name on a planet, rather than exploring for the sake of curiosity, discovery and most importantly....adventure. The first two are there, but in small amounts and they would benefit tremendously from planetary landings. Of course, there are some things in the game, which unfortunately, probably have to be the way they are now, at least until such time as more can be done to improve them.
I would hope that P.L`s would offer a variety of things to do. I think there needs to be missions and shooter elements among those activities, especially in occupied space, but I think exploration could be improved greatly if there were a survival oriented focus to deep space exploration. After-all, it’s a frontier out there and it should feel like one! Planetary exploration should be difficult. I would like to see players being able to land, map a planet, carry out detailed surveys for various purposes, be they locating planet-side resources for big corp money etc, or going out in search of lost pilots derelict ships be they alien or human etc. But a pilot should need food, water and other elements, in order to survive a treacherous environment a long way from occupied space. This might involve setting up some sort of machinery and a temporary base of operations, from which food, water, fuel, oxygen or other elements could be created, perhaps with planetary resources, and consumed while exploring, prospecting, mapping etc. Sure, in regard to fuel, you can fuel scoop quicker and easier, but I don’t think that would prevent people from wanting to do it on a planets surface, just because they can! If your using a wheeled vehicle to roam a planet fuel will be needed. If the planets and activities to be had on them were interesting enough, I certainly would use those abilities.
For instance: Imagine setting up your base and some survey equipment on a planet, which at first seems completely devoid of life. It takes time for your survey equipment to complete a cycle and so in the mean-time, you decide to take in the view or go exploring the terrain. However, unbeknownst to you, there just so happens to be a species of giant bug living beneath the surface of the planet. This organism only emerges out onto the planets surface at night time only. So there you are, going about your mission, doing whatever it is you choose to do and then suddenly these things start to come up out of the ground. So all of a sudden, a seemingly hospitable world, gives way to a “Pitch Black”, “Starship Troopers” type situation, with you sprinting back to your ship and a horde of giant alien bugs in hot pursuit! You have two choices. You can either fight off the horde long enough for the survey equipment to complete its cycle, or get into your ship and get the hell out of there, which may mean abandoning your equipment altogether or attempting to retrieve it at a later time. Such decisions could cost you the mission, or even your life! This organism might also damage or destroy your ship and so leave you stranded on that world and have to survive there, until you get rescued by another player! Once something like that occurs, you would then need to activate a beacon which would automatically generate a rescue oriented mission, for another player, back in populated space. You could of course just choose to take your own life instead and wind up on the insurance screen.
Planets themselves, meaning the terrain, conditions, atmosphere, radiation etc present on them, should offer their own challenges, in and of themselves! Planets with high surface radiation might require a pilot to spend at least some of their time underground or in caves to avoid lethal doses of radiation while exploring. Ice planets and particularly planets with a lot of volcanic activity could be especially lethal environments. Even traversing the terrain on foot, or in a vehicle should be dangerous. Personally, I would welcome anything that gives way to adventure, in an emergent fashion!
Probably never happen, but its nice to dream!
S
