Try a little to make exploration a real role

Darth Ender

D
Make hull integrity able to drop to 0 and cause ship destruction

Make exploration role ships have additional hull mass to add integrity, this severely reduces module space.

Jump distance is about on par with decently loaded trader ships (not minmaxed) of similar size.

Exploration ships, and only exploration ship have an integrated hull integrity repair system that uses matter scooped from specific types of stars to function. Replenishing hull integrity.

Exploration ships are tanky when hull integrity is full, but they have very limited hardpoints, due to all of the hull shielding and still needing to keep mass relatively low for jump range.

Exploration ships cannot have modules take damage thru the hull until it is below 50%.

Optional module space is limited to a few size 1 spots and a single larger spot that varies by ship.

Exploration ships can absorb more heat than other ships but also cool slower once heated up due to the thicker - specialized hull.


This creates a distinct identity for the exploration role for ships. Multirole and trader ships would be significantly limited from the exploration role even if they had better jump distance due to the lack of the specialized hull and integrity repair system. It makes multirole ships less awesome at everything instead of what they should be: 'just ok' at everything.

It also makes exploration a little risky. Not only does each jump kill you a little, but scooping to repair is at least a little risky as well, as it's a fine line between repairing and taking fatal damage.

This would make exploration ships ideal for exploring, while not allowing them to use that specialization in an unbalanced way in any other role. All while not forcing explorers to do an activity they dont already do while exploring.
 

Dragsham

Dragsham
Oh I disagree, its never to late to improve upon things. Question is, is Ops suggestion actually an improvement?
I think so yes.
I ld even go further.
No hardpoints at all except a small one to 'vent fuel' with a plasma rail. then again, most paper builds don't have even that, what with such long ranged jump capacity nowadays.
But here's where I disagree. I'd argue that if exploration is to get any love from the God's. It's gotta be focused on something far more important. Namely exploration itself. Content. We've seen virtually nothing in this regard.
 

Uthael

Uthael
Darth Ender said:
Optional module space is limited to a few size 1 spots and a single larger spot that varies by ship.
Click to expand...
You see, my idea of exploration differs a lot from yours. I'm more interested in survival against time and various long expeditions, not limited only to ship sensors. My ideal exploration vessel would include all of the following:
  • largest possible FSD, with all the boosts and engineering. I need to chain Neutron jumps constantly.
  • a huge fuel scoop, to reduce downtime while traveling
  • a small and light shield generator. To protect against random debris or bumps in dangerous areas.
  • anti-corrosion cargo slots
  • repair limpets for hull repair
  • SRV for surface exploration
  • 1 mining laser along that SRV for materials for consumables
  • a wake scanner, who knows when I might need to follow something
  • heat sinks, because one bad heat incident can destroy your ship, no matter its integrity
  • any long-range weapon I can build ammo for (or a laser). Not for hostiles, for chipping or activating random stuff.
  • 1 or 2 module reinforcements.
  • 2 AFM units, so one doesn't break
  • Detailed Surface Scanner
  • lightest possible hull for best jump range
As you can see, it's not a multi-role ship. It can't haul for trading, it can't pirate, it can't hunt bounties or aliens. Yet, it uses a LOT of modules.

Darth Ender said:
Exploration ships, and only exploration ship have an integrated hull integrity repair system that uses matter scooped from specific types of stars to function. Replenishing hull integrity.
Click to expand...
Being able to repair integrity is fine, but I'm totally against scooping to repair. That's too simple a solution for such a serious and slowly creeping problem. But I would like to be able to shut down my ship and repair it on foot. Using Synthesis to craft repair components from materials that I searched for with DSS. That could be a good way to repair the power plant too.

In the meantime, consider your power plant the 0-integrity thing. You can't turn it off to repair it since repair stops working too. When it's at 0%, its output is severely reduced and it has a chance of blowing up your ship each time it takes damage.
Dedicated exploration ships could have a small, secondary power plant. Just enough to power Life Support, Synthesis and a small AFM, so you can repair your main powerplant.

P.S.: I'd like to be able to synthesize fuel. Likely from Tritium and some micromaterials.

Edit: I'd also like to be able to launch a remote-controlled scout vessel. Even if it's in the form of a limpet. Maybe some day we get a Docking Bay or customizable fighters so we can put a whole scanner suite on a scout vessel. Pulse Wave Analyser, Wake Scanner, Xeno Scanner, Detailed Surface Scanner, prospector limpets, research limpets. That's how I like my exploration.
 
Last edited:

Darth Ender

D
I picked scooping to repair integrity to avoid the explorer complaints about being forced to do anything not required to jump and honk (exploration).

Improving the actual mechanic by giving exploration some more gameplay directly would be nice. That's probably a bridge too far. I kept everything to just tweaks to ships cuz i figure that's more plausible to actually be done 11 years in.
 

Uthael

Uthael
If all an explorer does is jump, scoop, honk and repeat, can they really call themselves "an explorer"? All they see are stars. An automated probe should be able to do that much. Comparable to bounty hunters who afk in a Low RES with their backs against an asteroid. It does get the massacre missions done, but no "hunter" is even needed for that.

Judging from the topic title, there should be suggestions here that make "explorers" complain.
 
Last edited:

PilotB

P
None of these make exploration more fun they all just make exploration more obnoxious. Exploration needs more content and more depth not more barriers and costs that don't deliver a single improvement to the gameplay. These are bad suggestions and the whole concept is very negative. All stick no carrot.
 

Darth Ender

D
PilotB said:
None of these make exploration more fun they all just make exploration more obnoxious. Exploration needs more content and more depth not more barriers and costs that don't deliver a single improvement to the gameplay. These are bad suggestions and the whole concept is very negative. All stick no carrot.
Click to expand...
What i suggested does add gameplay. You now have an obstacle to overcome thru an active player action that simultaneously creates meaning for the role by requiring purpose built selections of ships and components to survive and creates risk of failure the more the player progresses in the activity.
It does this without making the player do a different mechanic/game loop that they already dont have to do (for other reasons) to eliminate any complaining about being forced to do a game loop they dont like.

As for adding content. There's various content in deep space, that currently do nothing that could be modified to add even more danger for some new or much bigger reward. Things in space could do something besides sometimes generating heat.

Carrot and stick....the carrot exists because the stick exists and to some extent the role already is all carrot and no reason you should get one. The act of exploring becomes gameplay when there is some risk of death you have to overcome to do it for an appropriate reward. As opposed to fdev's general stick of time sinks and repitition. Exploration currently has no reason to be paid at all. It's an anti-role.

Now, sure, this doesn't address the fact that the game doesn't care about anything you find or discover....making the motivation to explore to be to just have a fairly passive way to make some credits while looking at backgrounds and pointless stellar objects. I'd love for that to also change. But i think you get there in steps...rather than all at once.

After establishing exploration as at least having a basic role via my original suggestion, have the things you discover be things the bgs can make use of depending on who you sell to. Increasing tech, or wealth, or certain goods etc for the faction that has practical changes in what commodities they offer etc, creating missions or causing a spawning of npcs to show up at certain valueable locations when players visit the discovered locations. Even cz's when locations are sold to different factions. All based on the particular content with players who do the discovering getting bonuses to those missions and the amount they make can vary depending on the faction you sell to.

Improving the act itself is an even bigger ask from fdev in terms of adding to it. How would a higher level exploration mechanic work without adding combat or becoming a simple circumvention of the activity (like trade is balanced)?
My suggestion here is in a combination of a tweaked and improved interdiction effect and puzzle solving via a new entity...an ai probe. AI probes would be hard to catch (but not super rare in deep space) and jump to other systems to escape you, which you would have to determine their next location via hints around their type and what systems are around you, eventually learning certain types prefer certain systems in specific orders. Once you catch one (explorer ships have the needed devices builtin) then they will offer you all of the full scans for all the systems you chased them thru plus a few others it presumably had been in to let it go. If you do it leaves and cant be followed. If you destroy it, you can collect its materials which can be used to reinforce your explorer hull. There would be 6 to 10 variants of these probes with different preferred system sequences. Ai probes can only be detected with the advanced explorer sensors only found in explorer ships. Take too long in following and you lose the probe.

This provides a higher skill option not just in twitch flight but awareness of the systems around you to make quick decisions. Allowing such skilled players to acquire exploration rewards faster than the base grind method, at the risk of failing to aquire any exploration data and perhaps not pay attention to fuel or integrity and end up dying. And it would be more fun as an optional way to participate when the mood strikes when bored of traditional exploration. Rather than circumventing 'gameplay' in exploration, it replaces the sc and honk/shoot mechanic with something else if you're up for it.
 

Uthael

Uthael
PilotB said:
None of these make exploration more fun they all just make exploration more obnoxious. Exploration needs more content and more depth not more barriers and costs that don't deliver a single improvement to the gameplay. These are bad suggestions and the whole concept is very negative. All stick no carrot.
Click to expand...
This post and everyone who liked it don't get what the OP was trying to say. Or it's just me who doesn't get it, not sure to be honest.

I think that the main idea is to spice up exploration in any way possible, but to still allow for jump-honk-repeat to remain viable.

The original thing is the DSS and looking for terraformable planets.
Most recent addition is exobiology. That's a fine attempt although it still feels unfinished. The lifeforms are... Frozen in stasis. No interaction other than look at them. No way to make them multiply, move, die, change shape or color, anything.

The probe suggestion in the post above this is a nice suggestion. Make it of Guardian or some other non-human origin just so it doesn't have to follow a sensible objective. Also, give it a non-ship design. I don't know... Two red tetrahedrons orbiting a small ball, connected with lightning from their corners.
 

Dragsham

Dragsham
Exploration needs above all, the systems your exploring having far more to them.
Atm its just scanning & logging. That's pretty much it.
Doesn't sound too realistic to me.
An Elw or waterworld or any complex body should have far more done in order to truly say a system is mapped fully.
Surveys, both Atmospheric and geological. Having those facts to hand as a result of a dss or whatever scan is an oversimplification of something that should take alot more time and effort.
Colonisation has to an extent helped in this regard, especially once Colonisation reaches out to as yet undiscovered systems.
Having more to do in exploration is for me as an elite 4 explorer, infinitely better content potential.
 

Lahgtah

L
Ehh idk, I like that any ship can be used for exploring, but some are more optimized for it than others. I don't really like the idea of fully cutting out sub-optimal ships for the task.

I think there should be exploration related hardpoints. Just feels odd leaving a ship's hardpoints bare: like it's wasted potential. Larger scale samplers for atmospheric and geological surveying could be a decent start - really deep studies of a planet to truly understand it instead of just 2 scans and a footfall. For extra risks, different types of atmosphere could pose different conditions, such as wind, potentially caustic elements, or radiation to all be aware of. These, in turn, should have an appropriate counter such as specific types of shielding, atmospheric sensors to better help navigate through the wind, and regular field maintenance to counter the rigors of long term travel. This would be made all the better if weather were a thing on planets.

Another way is to expand exobiology, and add on exogeology, fusing the two together in the sense of being able to run experiments and tests in the field to make discoveries. Having a ship capable of handling certain volatile experiments through its outfitting would integrate nicely with this, such as requiring an on-board science lab or being able to drop a temporary pre-fab one onto a planet's surface sorta like an SRV(would give a purpose to using larger, otherwise unwieldy ships for exploration as a trade-off for their shorter jump range and difficulty landing.)

A shuttle bay as opposed to a fighter bay could be a fun little addition as well; where it'd differ from fighters is that it'd be kinda like a sub-orbital SRV that can land almost anywhere and allow its mothership to remain in-orbit or hovering high above the surface, and possibly carry its own handy scientific equipment. As to not make the SRV obsolete, it shouldn't be able to surface-prospect and should require a fighter bay capable vessel to launch from.

The elephant in the room is that it'd probably screw over everyone who hasn't been back to the bubble in months or years.
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
Only thing is this would be a major change to the game as there's no such thing as an exploration ship right now. We have ships more suited for exploration, but there's nothing stopping me from using my Mandalay for trade or combat, or my FdL to go sightseeing around the galaxy. Who gets to decide which is and isn't an exploration ship given that people use Belugas and T-7s to circumnavigate the galaxy?

Personally, if exploration ships become a thing and have all this extra faff, I'll just use my carrier.
 

Darth Ender

D
The problem with not having role specific ships for exploration is that the mechanic and the galaxy are devoid of anything that is uniquely hazardous to exploring. Exploration is effectively just traveling, which all ships can do. Nothing special is needed but a scoop, which anything can equip.

By creating a mechanism that limits the ships that can survive in deep space, you have much more control over how to balance the limited risk you have available in deep space. This lets you control the rewards and makes it very hard for players to meta around the balance of the role. At the same time it gives the role some identity by making it an investment rather than a couple module swap (if that) afterthought.

There is a greater sense of accomplishment or value in the role when you know other players are having to experience it with the same effort you did. Rather than just cheese it with something they minmaxed.

With fewer varied game hazards etc, the best option is to limit the tools available to the player to accomplish the task.. that increases difficulty without needing to create new content. The hard part is doing that in a way that feels like it could fit in the game universe without being obviously arbitrary. I think special radiation hardened hulls available on purpose built ships is believable. Then making hull integrity fall to 0 and cause ship destruction creates a logical exploration hazard that limits access to the role so it's less of a side effect of just traveling.

Adding the 'catch me if you can' puzzle twitch game loop adds a higher risk option to acquire the exploration data faster (if successful) than the slower option with very little chance of just being able to do that option to exploit exploration.

In terms of adding something else to exploration... I think a science module offers possibilities but how to add something to do with it is not obvious. We know the imagination of fdev gave us probes that 'map' planets by shooting it while usually just sitting still. An improved game loop is needed.

I'm thinking instead of missiles, the science module makes orbital zones appear around planets and moons and the player deploys a probe within this zone while in super cruise. The ideal orbital zone is small and hard to successfully deploy in. The pro of the ideal zone is higher earning and faster scan. Anything else is slower and scaling pay depending on how off ideal you are.

I also like the idea of uss's in deep space being able to expose hyperspace with the science module equipped. These are spacetime anomalies that contain swirling roids surrounding a hyperspace cloud like found in cap ship travel. the roids will explode as they absorb too much energy...which you can see as they begin to outgas. Once you navigate thru and reach the hyperspace opening, you can enter it and warp to a random system within 200ly (even locked systems...since fdev isn't ever going to use them for anything else). These also count as discoveries when turning in but they are not persistent and worth quite a bit. They are rare.

Stuff like that is a start...like i mentioned, fleshing out a role that's basically starting from scratch like exploration needs to be done in steps. The people out in the black when step 1 is taken will be shuttled to the nearest bubble or thier carrier if they have one after being notified of the upcoming change. Insta moving them back to the nearest bubble would be doing them a favor vs having to travel anywhere.

Players could still take any ship out in the black to do some basic exploring if they are not too far from a carrier or station. But there will be things only an explorer ship will be able to do that build on the legacy grind game play.
 

Darth Ender

D
Dillon Fallon said:
Only thing is this would be a major change to the game as there's no such thing as an exploration ship right now. We have ships more suited for exploration, but there's nothing stopping me from using my Mandalay for trade or combat, or my FdL to go sightseeing around the galaxy. Who gets to decide which is and isn't an exploration ship given that people use Belugas and T-7s to circumnavigate the galaxy?

Personally, if exploration ships become a thing and have all this extra faff, I'll just use my carrier.
Click to expand...

Who decides? Fdev. Some ships are already obiously explorer intended. Only a few will be my type though. Others will be left for passenger or trade.

The galaxy is supposed to be dangerous and not very accessible. This change corrects the game to reflect that. Most ships cant survive for long away from support ships and lack the complex sensors needed to scan and map systems or the specially radiation hardened hulls to scan hazardous phenomena.

So no, you probably wont be able to just take your fdl out thousands of ly and decide to explore. It's not designed for that.
 

Joe Cool

Joe Cool
Dillon Fallon said:
there's no such thing as an exploration ship right now
Click to expand...
1747476491365.png
 

Joe Cool

Joe Cool
I will very happily upvote the 'more content' crew. Planet surfaces feel a bit too static. When you become excited over the sight of a dust devil, some life choice questions should be asked.

Ship wise, I'm very happy in my Viper MkIV - no secret I'm a fanboy.
The AspX remains one of the best views on the market and the Mandalay is the new jump range king of the hill (not that jump range counts that much beyond reaching your target exploration area or edge boundary pushing).

FC supported exploration changed a lot wrt the specification requirements of the exploration ship - range less important, manoeuvrability and tiny parking footprint top priorities for those lucrative exo bonuses and colonisation surveying.

So my two penneth in summary: -
More content please, please, please. I wait with bated breath and open exploration arms.
No ship work required, move along please.
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
Joe Cool said:
That's not an exploration ship ...
... actually it is and a very fine build to boot sir!

But as you showed use yours I feel obliged to show you mine :eek:

Although the starting chassis are different, the finished ships could almost be exploration twinsies.
Click to expand...
Exactly - part of the charm with this game is the freedom to go out and do whatever we want with the things we are given.

I'm not going to be the person to say someone shouldn't try flying to Beagle Point in a Sidewinder, for example.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom