None of this is exploration
Why? Ive engineered the hull to withstand the long journey
No you didn't. You engineered bulkheads for weapon damage reduction. We can keep ship hull integrity completely independent.
This makes your first idea nonsense and is a contradiction
No it isn't and does not. You are mixing bulkheads with the ship hull. They are separate. With neo-exploration, i'm saying bulkheads, as they exist, do not protect against the kind of radiation close encounters with stellar objects and hyperspace without frequent maintenance from support ships and stations. Only special built ship hulls and related support systems can be self sufficient at the cost of module options and interior space to keep mass low enough to not reduce jump distance to unusable levels.
Explain how this is nonsense and contradictory.
Why? Its a ship built for exploration not trading, its had the cargo racks (all but one) removed, in some cases its had items engineered for lighter weight.
If you strip down a car it will have less mass than one off the production line.
You're not paying attention. The ships remain heavier than stripped down legacy ships. Because the mass is in the new hulls and built in systems that exist for neo exploration
Overly complicated and unrealistic, the very idea of Elite is you can use any ship you want for anything.
What matter can you get from different stars?
This is being changed. Again, you are not reading the posts. The existing way it works doesn't. It has made exploration a non-role. I'm making it a real one. Since exploration is otherwise just traveling...which all ships and roles do, it has to be differentiated in some better way to give it a purpose for being called a role.
The matter may not be matter that it scoops but bombardment with different wavelengths of light that cure or irradiate the hulls to trigger the repair polymers. Happy?
You know this game has stars that have surface temps below 0c that emit purple visible light. Infinitely available resources yet money still exists. Super powers with distinct 'cultures' despite being 1 jump apart. This game doesn't practice the 'realism' you are suggesting already.
Anyone fitting weapons on an exploration ship should hang their heads in shame (unless for roleplay purposes).
The limited hardpoints aren't only usable for weapons. Mining options use them too. But i would also suggest that no ships should be undefended. You can never be safe from hostilies in the elite universe.
Again makes no practical sense, modules on any vehicle will take damage regardless of whether the bodywork took damage or not, entropy.
Not with the explorer ships hulls. They are hardened and reinforced significantly to protect all integral systems beyond what is available to normal ships, at the fore mentioned sacrifices. So it makes perfect sense. Above 50% integrity the modules will take no damage at all.
This has no relevance to combat situations except in defense because explorer ships will be incapable of any realistic offense or destructive ability. The primary reason for this change is to limit how often module repairs need to be done or if the player wants to avoid needing to equip the module to do auto repairs.
Why? you may as well just limit exploration to Sidewinder only, good luck with that, it was fun for a while.
You aren't reading so i dont know why you are bothering to respond to the thread.
This can already be achieved through engineering, some ships also cope better with the heat of scooping.
This isn't fuel scoop heating. It's much closer and hotter to do the integrity repairs on the hull. It's outside of the limits of normal ships and rides the edge of being too close to remain in sc for the stellar bodies.
It is a bit odd that to fix damage caused by hyperspace and various radiation, you need to dive into some high (specific levels) of radiation but thats how it works. It's different kinds and does the job.
With the exception of the Anaconda, most multirole ships jump less and have a smaller range than say the DBX/ASP/Mandy.
Notice i didn't use the phrase 'worse than'.
Exploration has never been about the best ship, its about the best ship for you and what you enjoy flying.
The two best ships ive ever taken to Beagle are my Python (MK1) and my Beluga - ships far from being the best at the role.
You aren't describing exploration. You're describing traveling in a risk free galaxy with nothing seemingly keeping humanity from easily spreading to anywhere in the galaxy. I'm creating exploration where fdev has given us really nothing when not hand placing bits of things to find. I'm creating a reason why humanity has to spread from the bubble slowly. I'm creating a purpose for why exploration is limited and thus pays credits as a viable role. The current game does none of those things. This is a correction as much as it is including new gameplay. Doing anything you want in any ship devalues the ships and the activity. While the game wont stop you from taking a nonexploration ship to neo-explore, you will have a vastly harder time doing it with less effectiveness at profiting from the activity or it would necessitate bringing support ships (carrier) with you. That might make it even more rewarding to do so with such ships at a personal level.
Risk can be easily mitigated, in 1912 a very capable and experienced explorer and his team died in the Antarctic despite years of preparation.
Knowledge and equipment change, now we have exploration hubs on the Ross ice shelf and its pretty much expected you will get there and back intact.
How is this relevant? In the game, exploration is intended to be a valuable role. If it were easy and safe, it wouldn't be worth doing as you would have already raced income to the ground with infinitely many potential 'explorers' doing the grunt work.
Since that kills the viability of the role, (and why current exploration is a boring joke), this state cannot exist in the game. The role is desired to exist. Players desire to be paid to do it. Therefore risk must exist and gameplay must exist around the activity that justifies the reward and existance of the role.
If we wanted to try and use real life to back up your points the entire game would be nothing more than robots flying around because in no way would humanity have not solved the hazards and risks of everyday space travel and exploration by not using robots instead of humans...but that would be a boring game.
They already are, regardless of the ship or build, the New Mandy is extremely overpowered, i recently took one to Beagle, was it any better than my Python?
Nope it just got there faster.
O7
Getting to places isn't exploration. It's travel. While some changes in neo-exploration would impact extreme long distance travel, it's not what i'm concerned with. I'm concerned with improving exploration. Exploration is about lots and lots of usually very short jumps as you scan sectors of systems. It involves very long stays away from stations or carriers.
Neo-exploration is about breaking away from traveling and finally being a distinct role with a distinct purpose. And it's about shutting the access to the deep galaxy down so that it's more of an accomplishment to get to remote places, without having to roll back the jump inflation that fdev has needed to appeal to the fact that travel in this game is a boring activity that everyone would rather do as little repeating of as possible.
