Upper bound on respawn distance for deep space rebuy; retrieval of lost data via mission/challenge

[Feros-da-Grundig]

[Edit - to clarify vs some responses below - I make this suggestion on behalf of the CMDRs whom I send to rebuy. I am not concerned that I will expire in deep space.]

I know this has been requested in the past, but I feel given the current game circumstances (extreme danger to DW2 participants in open) it deserves new consideration. The drastic imbalance in consequences for death in bubble and outside of bubble has never been more evident.

I would like for there to be some upper limit on how far from point of death an explorer should respawn. The same ship that picks up the escape pod could be towing the insured rebuy ship, picking up explorer ~500ly away from point of ship destruction.

A passive blackbox transmitter, which would only activate when receiving keyed broadcast from CMDR's rebought ship (thus cannot be detected nor stolen by others), could remain in the system of death (perhaps guarded by NPCs or other challenge to regain). It could contain exploration data from the destroyed ship.

Or any reasonable variant of that.

 

[Lestat]

If you are saying you want the black box to respawn at 500ly from the bubble. If anything. If you die at beagle point you should have to fly back to beagle point.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

If you are saying you want the black box to respawn at 500ly from the bubble. If anything. If you die at beagle point you should have to fly back to beagle point.

No, I am saying the exploded CMDR should respawn 500ly (or 1000ly, or some arbitrary number) from where they died deep out in the black, assuming their last dock base was farther away than this. An upper limit on the loss of distance.

The black box should be in the system of death.

Note this is not for my benefit. During DG2 I have sent at least one commander ~10k ly back to jameson, probably several others as well (I do not know where they last docked and thus respawn, but one told me via DM). I wonder if they have the fortitude to try again, especially in open.

It seems very clear to me though that right now many relatively inexperienced players in DW2 are having several or even hundreds of jumps erased in moments when they meet an associate of DG2. I simply propose a system by which their "punishment" would be more akin to playing in such a vulnerable manner back in the bubble.

I don't mind having consequences for poor play, but the consequences of poor play in open for DW2 are much higher than is typical in the bubble. Many of these casual players have had no effective warning of the consequnces. They don't even hear about it on Gal-net, which instead reports on celebrity gossip rather than rampant murder.

POIs in open mode along DW2 are effectively off limits to a casual player right now due to the extreme level of risk.

I understand for experienced explorers, this may seem too easy, or unfair to others who've had the harsher penalties of the past, etc. I am open to disagreement.

I would prefer above all this, effective defensive in-game training for new players in the early stages of their career. I don't see that as likely to be implemented though.

EDIT - having the player spawn in bubble, with box nearby (which I think is what you were phrasing), is the opposite of what I would want. This would allow for a player to "one-way" explore, purposefully self destruct, collect black box, sell explo without having a return journey. That is definitely not what I was getting at.

 

[Captain Thea Kreutzer]

No, I am saying the exploded CMDR should respawn 500ly (or 1000ly, or some arbitrary number) from where they died deep out in the black, assuming their last dock base was farther away than this. An upper limit on the loss of distance.

The black box should be in the system of death.

Note this is not for my benefit. During DG2 I have sent at least one commander ~10k ly back to jameson, probably several others as well (I do not know where they last docked and thus respawn, but one told me via DM). I wonder if they have the fortitude to try again, especially in open.

It seems very clear to me though that right now many relatively inexperienced players in DW2 are having several or even hundreds of jumps erased in moments when they meet an associate of DG2. I simply propose a system by which their "punishment" would be more akin to playing in such a vulnerable manner back in the bubble.

I don't mind having consequences for poor play, but the consequences of poor play in open for DW2 are much higher than is typical in the bubble. Many of these casual players have had no effective warning of the consequnces. They don't even hear about it on Gal-net, which instead reports on celebrity gossip rather than rampant murder.

POIs in open mode along DW2 are effectively off limits to a casual player right now due to the extreme level of risk.

I understand for experienced explorers, this may seem too easy, or unfair to others who've had the harsher penalties of the past, etc. I am open to disagreement.

I would prefer above all this, effective defensive in-game training for new players in the early stages of their career. I don't see that as likely to be implemented though.

I think they way it should work is they should still be sent back to the dock they last docked at but there be a Black box of some type to collect where they last died.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

no.
this is elite dangerous, not elite arcade 1994
no arbitrary respawns in random locations in the galaxy unless the system is colonized.
this is a hyper-realistic space sim, not an arcade game.
you blow up, rescue teams bring you back to a station.

I will however, accept a time frame that you have to collect your black box from the location your ship was destroyed at.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

no.
this is elite dangerous, not elite arcade 1994
no arbitrary respawns in random locations in the galaxy unless the system is colonized.
this is a hyper-realistic space sim, not an arcade game.
you blow up, rescue teams bring you back to a station.

I will however, accept a time frame that you have to collect your black box from the location your ship was destroyed at.

I think you may misunderstand my reason for posting. So it is clear, I am not the one who is blowing up in the black. I am the danger.

Open is nearly deserted, and I've killed every explorer I've seen aside from one combat log.

Solo/PG doesn't seem very dangerous at all, so I don't find that criteria convincing.

Personally I consider all game design decisions should be determined by what is the best gameplay, rather than what is the most realistic, especially when "realism" doesn't exist as none of this is remotely possible during current day. It is almost entirely speculative, so I disagree on "hyper-realistic".

I do not refute your right to the opinion though and respect it. It's quite likely you would have little problem avoiding me. But that seems to be the exception not the rule so far from my observations of DG2.

 

[Lestat]

No, I am saying the exploded CMDR should respawn 500ly (or 1000ly, or some arbitrary number) from where they died deep out in the black, assuming their last dock base was farther away than this. An upper limit on the loss of distance.

So your asking for an easy mode and eliminates the need for Hull repair or AFMU. I have to say no to your idea. With ships like mine that has 70 ly jump range. That 8 jumps at the 500LY. Or twice that for 14 1000 LY. If you use the Neutron Stars You can get there in 3 to 5 jumps. See how your idea already failed.

The black box should be in the system of death.

Note this is not for my benefit. During DG2 I have sent at least one commander ~10k ly back to jameson, probably several others as well (I do not know where they last docked and thus respawn, but one told me via DM). I wonder if they have the fortitude to try again, especially in open.

See 10,000 in my Build with 70 ly is only 143 jumps if you are really skilled in neutron highway you could do it in 54 jumps. I going by someone who went to Colonia in 107 jumps from Sol system.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

So your asking for an easy mode and eliminates the need for Hull repair or AFMU. I have to say no to your idea.

No. My build has dual AMFU and hull repair along with a size 6 SRV hangar. Due to bounties and future bounties, I must assume to be fully self sufficient. I am quite sure if your 70ly build happened to be in the same system as my build, it would not find things going along in "easy mode".

This is ironic. A murderhobo proposes something to make death a little less shocking for those he murders, and he is called out for requesting "easy mode".

My idea is not for explorers like you, it is for the bulk of the participants of DW2, who are not like you. There was a massive spike in interest in the game from DW2, so I made this suggestion as it might be germane to such players and thus to FDev.

In any case, you're convincing me to not bother trying to compromise or reason. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

So your asking for an easy mode and eliminates the need for Hull repair or AFMU

Also, these items will not help with the sort of rebuy I am referring to. Unless your hull repair limpets and AMFU can keep up with a few hundred DPS.

 

[Maolagin]

Yeah, I've been mulling the same issue lately, watching your murdohobo shenanigans (mostly from the safety of fleetcom of course).

It does seem to me there's a fundamental imbalance. Exploration data is the only thing of value you can accumulate in your ship without limit, that is at risk of total loss in the event of destruction. (Cargo is limited by ship size, missions are capped in number, mats are both artificially limited and safe from loss, etc...) And exploration tags are one of the only ways to leave a permanent, personal mark on the galaxy, so the data is of value even when credits no longer have meaning. (Codex reports are another way now, but there are a very limited number of entries available to first-report, and the easy ones are all long since taken.) Then again, to the sort of experienced players who hang out on the forums here, the most valuable yields of exploration are probably the screenshots, EDSM logs, and stories - and being out-of-game, nothing can take those away.

Lestat has a fair point though - with current jump ranges, neutron boosting, and stations for respawning scattered halfway across the galaxy, the travel itself is already pretty easy compared to a few years ago. So I probably wouldn't bother adding new mechanisms to save travel progress. Indeed, DWII itself is further reducing the difficulty by establishing a respawn point at SagA. But I agree with the black box idea. Personally I'd make them a thing you cache rather than automatic - both to add some player agency and to answer the obvious follow-on of "why didn't the rescue ship bring my data back along with my escape pod?" Perhaps you would synthesize a beacon like you would a limpet, forcing the player to spend some mats and sacrifice an internal slot for a cargo bay, before deploying the beacon at a location of your choosing. I'm undecided as to whether I'd like the mechanic to be that the beacon has a copy of your data that you *can* retrieve if you need it, or if it would be the *only* copy of your data that you would *have* to go back for to claim that data. I can see reasonable arguments either way.

This is ironic. A murderhobo proposes something to make death a little less shocking for those he murders, and he is called out for requesting "easy mode".

I had that thought as well, reading the initial responses to your post.

 

[Maolagin]

Note this is not for my benefit. During DG2 I have sent at least one commander ~10k ly back to jameson, probably several others as well (I do not know where they last docked and thus respawn, but one told me via DM). I wonder if they have the fortitude to try again, especially in open.

It seems very clear to me though that right now many relatively inexperienced players in DW2 are having several or even hundreds of jumps erased in moments when they meet an associate of DG2. I simply propose a system by which their "punishment" would be more akin to playing in such a vulnerable manner back in the bubble.

I don't mind having consequences for poor play, but the consequences of poor play in open for DW2 are much higher than is typical in the bubble. Many of these casual players have had no effective warning of the consequnces. They don't even hear about it on Gal-net, which instead reports on celebrity gossip rather than rampant murder.

Yes, a quite separate issue is that E: D has a serious player education issue. There's no reason to be sent back to Jameson other than somehow you never got the message that "if you die you go back to where you last docked" even applies across thousands of LY. Which makes me wonder if low-information players would even know about the black box mechanism if they had it.

 

[Lestat]

I would like for there to be some upper limit on how far from point of death an explorer should respawn. The same ship that picks up the escape pod could be towing the insured rebuy ship, picking up explorer ~500ly away from point of ship destruction.

You keep going you are for the new Explorers. This part shows me you are NOT for the new Explorers. Here why. Let say they have a build 70 LY jump range we already know they can get back really fast. But a lot of them like to stay in the open. Which give you the option to wait for them to return to the black box with your wing to wait for them to return and just keep killing them over and over. This idea only caters to PvP Explorers. If I die from a PvP Explorer I would rather Be thrown back 10k 20k even 65K just so a PvP Explorer can not attack me again.

Because we know a PvP Exploration Is not tell a New explorer "Hay go on go on solo mode to retrieve your Exploration data."

It also would easy to get key info when you find another Explorer like acting friendly and asking key questions like how far is their jump range.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I had that thought as well, reading the initial responses to your post.

It's really confusing to me. Instead of actually reading my posts where I state the core issue ("I've killed every explorer I've seen aside from one combat log") they just assume I'm some new player with heat damage. My build can survive pretty much anything including wing ganks, admittedly I will have 60-80% more jumps than a 70ly build but I chose to pay that price.

As far as bases and respawn - it's worth noting that (in open) we can effectively blockade both stations and planetary landings impunity, even with bounties (Sacaqawea for instance is currently "closed" to open explorers on PS4 due to my vessel).

This makes the whole "last base" notion a bit less reliable. (Sure I'll eventually have to go to bed, can a casual player outwait me?)

I feel the responses so far basically dismiss casual players participating in events like DW (in open), for reasons I don't quite understand. DW2 is a perfect event for casual players, and some are going to choose open (deliberately or accidentally).

I'd even be fine if the process only applied to murder rebuys. I can see why a long time explorer would be annoyed some new player who can't google AMFU gets a free pass.

I can't see why they'd think some poor guy/gal who happened to cross my path deserves to lose what might be a week of casual play time. Avoiding a rebuy from me is certainly not easy mode.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

Because we know a PvP Exploration Is not tell a New explorer "Hay go on go on solo mode to retrieve your Exploration data."

I'm perfectly fine if they use solo mode to get their data, and if they messaged me in a non insulting manner after that is what I would reply. Or offer tips on how they might avoid better next time.

I am the poster in this thread who is actually trying to make gameplay suggestions to help these new explorers. If you have some, please post.

My in-game CMDR's persona is separate from this fact.

 

[tafkabb]

I posted something similar almost three years ago (originally on Reddit)

The data recorder should have a temporary battery life - say two weeks - should be encrypted, and should have a weak signal source. If you can find it again you can pick it up, decrypt its contents and you've rescued ALL of your data. If you find someone else's you can scoop it up and sell it but, due to encryption, at a far lower value. Similar to finding a large survey data cache, which is possible now.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

I posted something similar almost three years ago (originally on Reddit)

That's a great variant. I know a lot of other people have had similar ideas before me, just felt with all the murdering going on in DG2 it was a good time to revisit.

Re your particular flavor, it would be interesting too if the salvager got a lower payout, and the original CMDR still got the tags. Rebought explorers might enlist nearby friends to quickly save their tags, and the friends get paid too. Maybe this is a choice on sale by the salvager (so murderers would choose to steal the tags, and altruists to give "rightful" credit).

As far as my variant with the respawn distance limit - I really found it odd how virulent the pushback I received was, first being accused of easy mode, and then of other things once folks realized in game I was on DG2 and wasn't just complaining about heat damage without an AMFU.

Many CMDR villains actually take pride in how far distant they can send a murdered explorer, here I suggest the opposite trying to find a balance between playing a villain and real world player time considerations and get nowhere. Eh oh well.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

FerosFerioGTR: agreed that the risk balance for explorers is way off - the likelihood is really low (a few systems on the DW2 route aside, of course, but that's an unusual case), the impact is extremely high. I think it might need more fundamental changes than this, though.

It does seem to me there's a fundamental imbalance. Exploration data is the only thing of value you can accumulate in your ship without limit, that is at risk of total loss in the event of destruction.

Combat vouchers - bonds, bounties, AX rewards - can also be accumulated without limit, but obviously people don't in practice.
Powerplay combat vouchers are similar - and there is some incentive to hang on to them beyond one sortie - but have to be handed in weekly so can't get too high.

I think two extra things for exploration data
- obviously, it's much harder to hand in regularly than combat data
- any ship can get exploration data, while a ship that can get and hang on to masses of combat data is probably tough enough to be invincible

Lestat has a fair point though - with current jump ranges, neutron boosting, and stations for respawning scattered halfway across the galaxy, the travel itself is already pretty easy compared to a few years ago. So I probably wouldn't bother adding new mechanisms to save travel progress. Indeed, DWII itself is further reducing the difficulty by establishing a respawn point at SagA. But I agree with the black box idea. Personally I'd make them a thing you cache rather than automatic - both to add some player agency and to answer the obvious follow-on of "why didn't the rescue ship bring my data back along with my escape pod?" Perhaps you would synthesize a beacon like you would a limpet, forcing the player to spend some mats and sacrifice an internal slot for a cargo bay, before deploying the beacon at a location of your choosing.

Yeah, this is a tricky bit. Jump ranges are potentially large nowadays - but they don't have to be. Sure, an optimised jumpship can go 320 LY at a time with neutron boosts. For them, even "respawn at the new Sag A* station" isn't a big setback. But you don't have to explore in one of those - an explorer with a more rounded build, perhaps only FSD engineering and no Guardian booster, maybe either no AFMU or no confidence in neutron boosting, might have a 40 LY range or less. I think the shortest range ship on DW2 - and I don't mean the PvP FDLs following it... - is under 25 LY range.

So it's very hard to set a "appear X distance back" marker which wouldn't be trivial for long-range explorers, because it would be a substantial trip for less min-maxed builds.

Similarly cache recovery from near Beagle would be a massive endeavour for someone who'd barely got out there in the first place (especially if it had any time limits), but relatively minor for anyone else.

And there's also an issue with deep-space respawns potentially dropping you in a system you can't escape from - e.g. use the last of your jump synthesis getting *out* of a set of systems on the fringes, try to land to collect more, crash, get put back 500LY into a system you now can't escape at all. It'd be rare, but really annoying.

 

[Feros-da-Grundig]

FerosFerioGTR: agreed that the risk balance for explorers is way off - the likelihood is really low (a few systems on the DW2 route aside, of course, but that's an unusual case), the impact is extremely high. I think it might need more fundamental changes than this, though.

I also agree with everything you're saying, but I think there is a big picture consideration missing from the objections about how jump ranges would the penalty toothless.

The people dying on DW2 can often barely even enter orbital cruise. They are not going to be using neutron stars to speed along to their death drop.

My post is trying to point out that the players least prepared to pay a price were the ones being charged the highest price (in terms of time, which is the real yardstick).

500ly might be nothing to a seasoned explorer with a jumpaconda, but fdev might be concerned what it means to the (potentially hundreds or thousands of) CMDRs who read about DW2 on polygon [or similar] and signed up with no idea about the murder that awaited them.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

[Edit - to clarify vs some responses below - I make this suggestion on behalf of the CMDRs whom I send to rebuy. I am not concerned that I will expire in deep space]

I know this has been requested in the past, but I feel given the current game circumstances (extreme danger to DW2 participants in open) it deserves new consideration. The drastic imbalance in consequences for death in bubble and outside of bubble has never been more evident.

I would like for there to be some upper limit on how far from point of death an explorer should respawn. The same ship that picks up the escape pod could be towing the insured rebuy ship, picking up explorer ~500ly away from point of ship destruction.

A passive blackbox transmitter, which would only activate when receiving keyed broadcast from CMDR's rebought ship (thus cannot be detected nor stolen by others), could remain in the system of death (perhaps guarded by NPCs or other challenge to regain). It could contain exploration data from the destroyed ship.

Or any reasonable variant of that.

+1
Deep space explorers have the most to lose upon death over any single other activity.
Weeks, months or even years of work can be completely lost.
Not only do they lose their ship, and exploration credits, they lose rank progress, and first discovered tags.

In comparison, that'd be like never cashing in bounty vouchers for weeks or months, or continuing to mine VOs for months without selling them (assuming your cargo space never ran out).

Nearest station spawning makes sense, but can obviously be used to fast travel, so I'd recommend a "route check", which will check for nearby stations along your route already traveled, and spawn you at one of those. Or something like that.
So for example, you pass by a nebula with a station on the way to Sag A, but didn't dock, but flew pretty close. You carry on, nearly to Sag A, and die. So you spawn in the nebula.

And the blackbox idea I've suggested loads of times, and is a great incentive to get back out there. I'd put a time limit on it though to add some urgency to it.
But it'd have to be based on play time, not real time, because there's no way to balance it. 1 week might be plenty for some CMDRs, but others might only be an hour or two of play time.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The people dying on DW2 can often barely even enter orbital cruise. They are not going to be using neutron stars to speed along to their death drop.

My post is trying to point out that the players least prepared to pay a price were the ones being charged the highest price (in terms of time, which is the real yardstick).

Agreed entirely. And this also means that things which depend on having particular optional modules won't help either, because the experienced explorers will take one (and complain that now the DBX doesn't have "enough" internals) and the beginners won't have it.

And the "you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, you're dead" nature of exploration mishaps means that things like "remembering to deploy a survey cache" won't help either because there's unlikely to be time to when you realise you need it - especially if they're limited use or have disadvantages over returning with the data.


I think with a blank slate start, it would have been better to
- make attrition on deep space exploration more routine so that managing damage and risk is a normal part of exploration rather than a rare (but probably catastrophic) event.
- make establishment of resupply bases a general part of the game so that there's by now a lot of options and explorers expect to restock at them then start establishing the next one.
- make all jump range boosters additive rather than multiplicative so that there isn't such a massive variation in travel speeds.

But I don't see how you get to that from here. Adding extra risk to exploration will just hurt the beginners most. Jump ranges are what they are now. And therefore a network of deep space stations doesn't necessarily work out because to have them close enough to be useful for beginners makes them almost "in the bubble" close for experienced players. (And if you sent someone 10kLY back they clearly weren't taking advantage of the deep space stations already there anyway, so...)



Long-term I think Frontier is going to have to come up with some solution to this - either for a "taking the fight to the Thargoids" progression in that plot, or for unlocking the distant permit sectors like Bovomit - but in the shorter-term making exploration danger less all-or-nothing would also be beneficial.