o7 CMDRs
Since Odyssey's launch and throughout the current Thargoid War, my mind has repeatedly come back to something FDev said about the new avenues of gameplay. The on-foot gameplay introduced was to act as a foundation for future content. And while settlement and spire-based missions have become gameplay loops, I can't help but want more. Below are some ideas I think would be fun for players and easy to monetize for FDev:
More Planetary Vehicles
We have a measly two vehicles for exploring planetary surfaces. The Scorpion (May 2021) and the venerable Scarab (December 2015). Both have their purposes and handle largely the same (like slippery bricks). While the Scorpion accomplishes its goal of dominating on-foot combat encounters, and the Scarab can bumble its way around Horizon's planetary surfaces in search of meteorites and Guardian skimmer drones, both are uncomfortable at navigating the reworked planets brought on by Odyssey's upgrades to the Stellar Forge. I would like to see more variety. I am biased towards exploration so my first thought is something that can more quickly and smoothly traverse the rarely smooth worlds we can land on. A speeder bike to be precise. Possibly an open canopy racing bike that allows CMDRs to hover over the ground and move at higher speeds, allowing exobiologists and racers a more stylish way to move around. The in-game tech could be based on the skimmer drones we see at settlements, but fashioned into something sleeker by some minor enterprise, only to be bought and relabelled under Faulcon DeLacy (seems their style). Perhaps as a tradeoff for its speed and maneuverability compared to the rovers, it could be more fragile and lacks cargo capacity.
More Handheld Weapons
On Odyssey's launch, we received 11 handheld weapons. And we've had time to become accustomed to those weapons. But now the selection feels stale. Again, more variety could help to spice up Conflict Zones and scavenger extermination. My most immediate suggestion is a proper sniper rifle. The Manticore Executioner is the least satisfying long-range rifle I've seen in gaming in years due to the projectile being slow enough that unaware targets often will simply walk away after the gun is fired but before it lands, sometimes alerting the settlement, and rendering what was supposed to be a silent assassination, into an episode of Benny Hill. A sniper rifle that requires its user to compensate for the weapon's inaccuracy is hardly a weapon worthy of respect, despite how cool it looks. I suggest: an Aegis or Azimuth-branded Guardian Gauss rifle. A proper hit-scan rifle capable of the precise lethality that comes to mind when we hear the term "sniper rifle". There's also room to expand into shotguns, expanding the heavy weapons category to include laser miniguns, plasma flamethrowers, and melee weapons. Legally distinct lightsabers anyone?
Base Building
You've been teasing this for a while throughout the years. Just give it to us already! There's a deep frustration I feel as an explorer that the worlds I've scoured the black for, that I've got my name on, bear no other marks. Let us stake our claims with building bases on planets and/or orbits. This has so much to offer in terms of emergent gameplay. This could be something tied to trade, factions, and even the upcoming Powerplay rework! Allow players to claim small sections of land on planets. The bases should be more just decoration. Allow them to be functional. Places where players can extract and refine resources based on the planet's composition (the info is already tied to the planets, and we can see it with the FSS), Geological and Biological signatures. Make it so settlements require resources to continue operation, and that excess resources can be traded to other settlements. This would further encourage explorers to find more valuable worlds to settle, it would encourage expansion of the Bubble, or new Bubbles. It should be expensive so that the many CMDR's who have literal billions of credits sitting in their pockets can have something to spend it on. It could be the new end-game of Trade. Allow CMDR's to recruit NPCs to staff these settlements like how we can already hire them as crew for our ships. If you're looking for who's homework tocopy take inspiration from then I'd suggest Fallout 76 (hear me out, their C.A.M.P. building system is something they did well).
Looking forward, there are a couple more things I want to be heard on.
Further Development of the Stellar Forge
While I complained about navigating the surfaces on the new planets just a couple of paragraphs ago, please to no mistake that as a complaint against updating the Stellar Forge's planetary generation during Odyssey. On the contrary, I was thrilled when I saw the new planets. I tingle at the thought that as Elite Dangerous continues to be developed over time, more and more of the planets we find will one day be landable. I sincerely hope that the next expansion will continue the trend adding more complexity and details to planets. Extra layers of details like deep snow, tall grass, and water. More forms of life to discover and catalog, not just fungi and plants, but animals. Passive critters and deadly predators. Give explorers a reason to bring our guns out with us. Could you imagine landing on an Ammonia world and encountering monstrous mega-fauna and fleeing for your life back to your ship? Wouldn't that make for an exciting expedition story?
Ship, Megaship, and Station Interiors
I know this is old ground that's been tread hundreds of times before. But let me pose my case by asking a question: can you imagine how interiors can be used narratively? I want you to cast your minds back to 2017. You're exploring the Nefertem system, you find a listening post, and you follow the signal out to the remains of a colossal ship, Generation Ship Thetis. You hear the logs of the pandamonium that occurred aboard that cursed ship. Now imagine instead of finding the logs, you managed to find a shuttle bay and managed to board and got to explore those halls and piece together the events yourself.
I know that's a hyperspecific example. But now also imagine what else we could do with ship interiors. Instead of destroyed ships being reduced to shrapnel, what if they were explorable hulks that could be scavenged for cargo, materials, weapons, armor, consumables, and cosmetics? What if you could board active ships that are rest or have had their thrusters critically damaged? Wouldn't that be a pirate's dream? How would the factions of the world react?
I know that was a lot of text. If you're still reading, thank you for indulging my rambling. I'd love to see the discussion around these suggestions.
Cheers CMDRs
Fly dangerously
CMDR kreankorm
Since Odyssey's launch and throughout the current Thargoid War, my mind has repeatedly come back to something FDev said about the new avenues of gameplay. The on-foot gameplay introduced was to act as a foundation for future content. And while settlement and spire-based missions have become gameplay loops, I can't help but want more. Below are some ideas I think would be fun for players and easy to monetize for FDev:
More Planetary Vehicles
We have a measly two vehicles for exploring planetary surfaces. The Scorpion (May 2021) and the venerable Scarab (December 2015). Both have their purposes and handle largely the same (like slippery bricks). While the Scorpion accomplishes its goal of dominating on-foot combat encounters, and the Scarab can bumble its way around Horizon's planetary surfaces in search of meteorites and Guardian skimmer drones, both are uncomfortable at navigating the reworked planets brought on by Odyssey's upgrades to the Stellar Forge. I would like to see more variety. I am biased towards exploration so my first thought is something that can more quickly and smoothly traverse the rarely smooth worlds we can land on. A speeder bike to be precise. Possibly an open canopy racing bike that allows CMDRs to hover over the ground and move at higher speeds, allowing exobiologists and racers a more stylish way to move around. The in-game tech could be based on the skimmer drones we see at settlements, but fashioned into something sleeker by some minor enterprise, only to be bought and relabelled under Faulcon DeLacy (seems their style). Perhaps as a tradeoff for its speed and maneuverability compared to the rovers, it could be more fragile and lacks cargo capacity.
More Handheld Weapons
On Odyssey's launch, we received 11 handheld weapons. And we've had time to become accustomed to those weapons. But now the selection feels stale. Again, more variety could help to spice up Conflict Zones and scavenger extermination. My most immediate suggestion is a proper sniper rifle. The Manticore Executioner is the least satisfying long-range rifle I've seen in gaming in years due to the projectile being slow enough that unaware targets often will simply walk away after the gun is fired but before it lands, sometimes alerting the settlement, and rendering what was supposed to be a silent assassination, into an episode of Benny Hill. A sniper rifle that requires its user to compensate for the weapon's inaccuracy is hardly a weapon worthy of respect, despite how cool it looks. I suggest: an Aegis or Azimuth-branded Guardian Gauss rifle. A proper hit-scan rifle capable of the precise lethality that comes to mind when we hear the term "sniper rifle". There's also room to expand into shotguns, expanding the heavy weapons category to include laser miniguns, plasma flamethrowers, and melee weapons. Legally distinct lightsabers anyone?
Base Building
You've been teasing this for a while throughout the years. Just give it to us already! There's a deep frustration I feel as an explorer that the worlds I've scoured the black for, that I've got my name on, bear no other marks. Let us stake our claims with building bases on planets and/or orbits. This has so much to offer in terms of emergent gameplay. This could be something tied to trade, factions, and even the upcoming Powerplay rework! Allow players to claim small sections of land on planets. The bases should be more just decoration. Allow them to be functional. Places where players can extract and refine resources based on the planet's composition (the info is already tied to the planets, and we can see it with the FSS), Geological and Biological signatures. Make it so settlements require resources to continue operation, and that excess resources can be traded to other settlements. This would further encourage explorers to find more valuable worlds to settle, it would encourage expansion of the Bubble, or new Bubbles. It should be expensive so that the many CMDR's who have literal billions of credits sitting in their pockets can have something to spend it on. It could be the new end-game of Trade. Allow CMDR's to recruit NPCs to staff these settlements like how we can already hire them as crew for our ships. If you're looking for who's homework to
Looking forward, there are a couple more things I want to be heard on.
Further Development of the Stellar Forge
While I complained about navigating the surfaces on the new planets just a couple of paragraphs ago, please to no mistake that as a complaint against updating the Stellar Forge's planetary generation during Odyssey. On the contrary, I was thrilled when I saw the new planets. I tingle at the thought that as Elite Dangerous continues to be developed over time, more and more of the planets we find will one day be landable. I sincerely hope that the next expansion will continue the trend adding more complexity and details to planets. Extra layers of details like deep snow, tall grass, and water. More forms of life to discover and catalog, not just fungi and plants, but animals. Passive critters and deadly predators. Give explorers a reason to bring our guns out with us. Could you imagine landing on an Ammonia world and encountering monstrous mega-fauna and fleeing for your life back to your ship? Wouldn't that make for an exciting expedition story?
Ship, Megaship, and Station Interiors
I know this is old ground that's been tread hundreds of times before. But let me pose my case by asking a question: can you imagine how interiors can be used narratively? I want you to cast your minds back to 2017. You're exploring the Nefertem system, you find a listening post, and you follow the signal out to the remains of a colossal ship, Generation Ship Thetis. You hear the logs of the pandamonium that occurred aboard that cursed ship. Now imagine instead of finding the logs, you managed to find a shuttle bay and managed to board and got to explore those halls and piece together the events yourself.
I know that's a hyperspecific example. But now also imagine what else we could do with ship interiors. Instead of destroyed ships being reduced to shrapnel, what if they were explorable hulks that could be scavenged for cargo, materials, weapons, armor, consumables, and cosmetics? What if you could board active ships that are rest or have had their thrusters critically damaged? Wouldn't that be a pirate's dream? How would the factions of the world react?
I know that was a lot of text. If you're still reading, thank you for indulging my rambling. I'd love to see the discussion around these suggestions.
Cheers CMDRs
Fly dangerously
CMDR kreankorm
