Use of Distress Beacons on Planets?

[theVenerable]

With the Horizons pack coming out, I was wondering if there are any possibilities to use distress beacons when on a planet.

For example if your ship is out of fuel or cant take off or some other reason (I haven't played ED much to be honest yet, so I'm unsure how often this may occur), you could send a distress signal out and hopefully a ship passing by the solar system might pick it up and try to help (or pirates come and steal your cargo!).

Also another way to implement the distress beacons, and probably more common, could be that you could be the one receiving a distress signal while cruising a solar system.
The signal could be from another human player 'stranded' on a planet, or from a computer controlled NCP character.
This scenario could be similar to the old classic C64 Game Rescue on Fractulus, where you flew around the planet looking for distress signals, then pick up the stranded pilot.... sometimes however the 'pilot' was an alien in disguise and if you weren't paying attention the alien would get onto your ship and beat you to death !

Sorry if this has been discussed/planned already, but just in case it hasn't I thought I'd put it out there.

Any thoughts ?

 

[Marc_Hicks]

With the Horizons pack coming out, I was wondering if there are any possibilities to use distress beacons when on a planet.

For example of your ship is out of fuel or cant take off or some other reason (I haven't playe ED much to be honest yet, so I'm unsure how often this may occur), you could send a distress signal out and hopefully a ship passing by the solar system might pick it up and try to help (or pirates come and steal your cargo!).

Also another way to implement the distress beacons, and probably more common, could be that you could be the one receiving a distress signal while cruising a solar system.
The signal could be from another human player 'stranded' on a planet, or from a computer controlled NCP character.
This scenario could be similar to the old classic C64 Game Rescue on Fractulus, where you flew around the planet looking for distress signals, then pick up the stranded pilot.... sometimes however the 'pilot' was an alien in disguise and if you weren't paying attention the alien would get onto your ship and beat you to death !

Sorry if this has been discussed/planned already, but just in case it hasn't I thought I'd put it out there.

Any thoughts ?

Nothing more to add, but it does sound like a fantastic idea !

 

[Jon flint]

Does sound a good idea, maybe some dynamically generated bullitin board missions when a cmdr is stranded with no fuel and activates a beacon.

This could also apply to normal space flight too not just on planetary surfaces. Effectively turning any cmdr who accepts the mission into a fuel rat for the missions duration

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Does sound a good idea, maybe some dynamically generated bullitin board missions when a cmdr is stranded with no fuel and activates a beacon.

This could also apply to normal space flight too not just on planetary surfaces. Effectively turning any cmdr who accepts the mission into a fuel rat for the missions duration

Interestingly enough, in 1.5 update they're talking about missions no longer just being obtainable via the Bulletin Board, but also via an event driven mechanism. I could definitely see a situation where you're flying past a planet & scanning it, & having this generate a "random mission"-possibly a rescue mission or asking for a fuel drop for the pilot. Will be intriguing to see if this kind of thing makes it into the game!