Wakes should be scannable for data without a wake scanner.

[DemiserofD]

Wake data is one of the most annoying kinds to collect. Most people don't realize they need to do it until they need a load of it, and then they feel forced to collect a bunch at once, and the overall process ends up feeling quite annoying.

It would be nice if you could target a wake and slowly scan it for data, even without a wake scanner. It would take maybe 20 seconds, but would have no range limit, so you could see a distant wake while inside a station and target it, getting a unit of data by the time you're outside the NFZ.

While you're at it, make scanning wakes give you a 'wake data package', that could be sold at contacts. Hopefully players would see that and wonder what it is, and target wakes out of curiosity. It wouldn't need to give you much - maybe 5-10k each? - but it would call people's attention to it, further encouraging wake scanning.

 

[Lugh]

Or just fit wake scanners? Honestly there aren't any Horizons components you can consider passive collections outside of mining and ship scanning.


As for wake data your best bet is missions anyway

 

[DemiserofD]

Or just fit wake scanners? Honestly there aren't any Horizons components you can consider passive collections outside of mining and ship scanning.


As for wake data your best bet is missions anyway

If you want to collect wakes in a dedicated manner, that's the best solution, absolutely. But the idea here is that, much like shield scan data, you'll have some BEFORE you realize you need it.

It wouldn't be a massive change, but just by easing players into the engineering process, I think you'd make the whole game a lot more beginner-friendly.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Given the lack of in-game uses for the wake scanner except for collecting wake data, just dropping it entirely and making a standard scan of the wake do the same thing would probably be fine.

High-grade wake data is one of the few Horizons materials which isn't available as a by-product of doing something else more interesting than dedicated material collection.

 

[SlickPBW]

I don’t support this.

I will say that you can get ALL data slowly and steadily over time if you just scan every ship you come across. That will give you quite a few different data mats. When these get full (or before) just trade them for other data, like those in the “wake“ string. Using this method you will soon have lots of every data material. No real need to scan wakes or install a wake scanner. [not to mention that you can fill DWE’s in 6 or so visits to Jameson’s crash site…]

edit: as an added bonus, trading mats earns you arx

 

[Lugh]

High-grade wake data is one of the few Horizons materials which isn't available as a by-product of doing something else more interesting than dedicated material collection.

you can get them from missions.

 

[DemiserofD]

you can get them from missions.

That's pretty much dedicated material collection, isn't it?

 

[Lugh]

That's pretty much dedicated material collection, isn't it?

hardly. And if you're removing missions the only things you can sort of get without dedicated mat farming are the few you get from mining and from scanning ships. Thats it for passive mats

 

[DemiserofD]

hardly. And if you're removing missions the only things you can sort of get without dedicated mat farming are the few you get from mining and from scanning ships. Thats it for passive mats

I think it's important to distinguish between getting things as a result of doing missions, and choosing them as a reward for the mission. IE, if you do a settlement scanning mission, you don't get the settlement data as a reward, but just as a side effect. And every time you do that kind of mission, you get that kind of reward, AND something else. By contrast, wake scan data from missions must be intentionally chosen as a reward, sacrificing other rewards(which, if you don't know you'll need it, isn't gonna happen), and you also can't predict where and how you'll get them.

Most manufactured mats are the same way. Do an assassination mission or whatever and you get a load of them just as a coincidence.

I'd be game for just adding more missions that involve wake scanning, that would work too, but that takes a lot more effort than just letting players data scan wakes by looking at them. After all, it's not like you need a 'shield scanner' to scan enemy ships for shield data.

 

[Lugh]

Do an assassination mission or whatever and you get a load of them just as a coincidence.

only if you actively go out of your way to scoop them up. you could say the same for wakes, the area is full of them, just slap a scanner on and you're gold.

 

[Maolagin]

High-grade wake data is one of the few Horizons materials which isn't available as a by-product of doing something else more interesting than dedicated material collection.

I think FDev would beg to differ - you're supposed to get wake data from piracy/assassination game loops that have you following a target's wake. It's just that, for various reasons, nobody actually does that so nobody is doing the game loops that would passively yield wake data.

 

[DemiserofD]

only if you actively go out of your way to scoop them up. you could say the same for wakes, the area is full of them, just slap a scanner on and you're gold.

Sure. You can take a little while to scoop them up with your cargo hatch, OR you can bring a collector limpet controller to scoop more efficiently.

Just like I'm proposing you be able to slowly scan wakes for a little bit of data, OR you can bring a wake scanner to scan much more efficiently.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

you can get them from missions.

Low-grade ones, yes. Like a lot of useful Horizons materials, though, only the lower grades are in the mission reward pool. That's okay for most material types as the higher-grade ones also have alternative ways of getting them ... but DWEs like Improvised Components (and Military Supercapacitors?) are tied to "you'll only get these because you're specifically grinding this material" methods, which is actually unusual for a Horizons material.

I'm quite happy to accept "is a mission reward" as "pick up while you're playing", but DWEs aren't an option for that and they're the ones you need most of in the course of engineering an FSD.

I think FDev would beg to differ - you're supposed to get wake data from piracy/assassination game loops that have you following a target's wake. It's just that, for various reasons, nobody actually does that so nobody is doing the game loops that would passively yield wake data.

Sure - it'd be even better if they put some gameplay into the game that actually made use of the wake scanner. But it's been seven years, they're obviously not going to ... and even if they did, it would be the "chasing from system to system" bit which was important about it, not whether you needed a particular utility fitted or not. (Requiring fitting of a particular single-use module is a good way to discourage people from trying gameplay, I think)

For both piracy and assassination as things stand "stop them leaving the system in the first place" is a considerably better option. For assassination missions, even if they do escape to hyperspace you're better off waiting for them to return.

If they want to keep it as a module, then I think a more interesting use would be:
- normal sensors let you tell where a wake goes
- wake scanners let you jump through a wake while using less fuel / even if it exceeds your normal jump range / with reduced charge time, and the higher the scanner grade the more effective that gets.

 

[Misty_Dark]

I doubt the notion that players would randomly slowly scan wakes to let these trickle in, to have something to start with.


This sounds more like, I do not want to give up this slot to fit a required module to use a specific function.

 

[DemiserofD]

I doubt the notion that players would randomly slowly scan wakes to let these trickle in, to have something to start with.


This sounds more like, I do not want to give up this slot to fit a required module to use a specific function.

That's why I want it to also give a small data package with credit value. The idea being, new players will see those and scan one or two as they leave a station, and then, by the time they start the engineering process, they'll already have some available! Plus they get a few spare credits at the beginning of the game.

More advanced players like myself have no real need for this. I run around in a courier doing Odyssey stuff, and often by the time I check a system's weapon shops I'll have 3-5 wakes to scan. I carry a fast scan wake scanner, go 600m/s, and get them all in about 15 seconds, and head on my way.

Would it be COMPLETELY useless to me? No. I'd probably get some data here or there as I play in other ships.

But the main benefit would be to newer players. I just want to make the game more welcoming to them.

 

[Misty_Dark]

That's why I want it to also give a small data package with credit value. The idea being, new players will see those and scan one or two as they leave a station, and then, by the time they start the engineering process, they'll already have some available! Plus they get a few spare credits at the beginning of the game.

More advanced players like myself have no real need for this. I run around in a courier doing Odyssey stuff, and often by the time I check a system's weapon shops I'll have 3-5 wakes to scan. I carry a fast scan wake scanner, go 600m/s, and get them all in about 15 seconds, and head on my way.

Would it be COMPLETELY useless to me? No. I'd probably get some data here or there as I play in other ships.

But the main benefit would be to newer players. I just want to make the game more welcoming to them.

Would it really? so they should randomly select a wake and then some slow scanning started, and if they would get 50k credits, for it, then how useful would that be? Just picking just about any easy mission on the mission would offer a better reward, like deliver data or a small amount of cargo, so if the reward is to low, it is more going to be meh, not worth the time...and if the credit rewards are substantiation enough to justify spending time on the activity, then it would open up for new ways of AFK credit farming.

 

[DemiserofD]

Would it really? so they should randomly select a wake and then some slow scanning started, and if they would get 50k credits, for it, then how useful would that be? Just picking just about any easy mission on the mission would offer a better reward, like deliver data or a small amount of cargo, so if the reward is to low, it is more going to be meh, not worth the time...and if the credit rewards are substantiation enough to justify spending time on the activity, then it would open up for new ways of AFK credit farming.

If properly balanced, it wouldn't be worth doing on its own, but if you spot a wake on the way out of a station, it would be worth selecting to scan as you go to do something else. A little bonus along the way.

 

[Misty_Dark]

If properly balanced, it wouldn't be worth doing on its own, but if you spot a wake on the way out of a station, it would be worth selecting to scan as you go to do something else. A little bonus along the way.

properly balanced... yeah, Elite dnagerous is famously know for it properly balanced game play...

 

[Maolagin]

Sure - it'd be even better if they put some gameplay into the game that actually made use of the wake scanner. But it's been seven years, they're obviously not going to ... and even if they did, it would be the "chasing from system to system" bit which was important about it, not whether you needed a particular utility fitted or not. (Requiring fitting of a particular single-use module is a good way to discourage people from trying gameplay, I think)

There's plenty of single-use modules that players figure out just fine though. Interdictors, fuel scoops, refineries, etc ... all of those are devices that you need to equip before undertaking the corresponding play styles, and otherwise don't much need. In fact, if FDev wanted to address solely the issue of availability of DWEs, maybe also giving wake scan data on successful interdictions would be both thematically appropriate and would passively grant the data to a much broader subset of the player base.

The problem with the wake scanner is, as you say, in the scenarios where you might use one, you're uniformly better off avoiding having to use it, and thus nobody does.