The incoming changes in CHPT 4 sounds great!
But what would be grand for Exploration is : SPACE LEGS! (and multicrew)
The problem that turns off most people from exploring is the tedious jump and honk - which is getting addressed with CHPT 4 however not the hyperspace travelling itself which sucks a lot of your time watching the loading screen with little gameplay.
Remember the Krait Mk2 review where it seemed like you could almost walk around your ship, it seems Frontier already has some foundations in place.
What if, we can have space legs and walk around our ships doing module repairs, reading news or inspect cargo while our ship travels from star to star?
But how would the FSD be engaged without the pilot at the cockpit? Well here we could have multicrew!
Crew that we hire could have gunnery, piloting, and endurance stats. Or split piloting into two categories : local space piloting and long haul piloting.
If we then can assign a crew member to travel along our set route (we better plan the route carefully if we don't want the rats involved) then we could walk around our ship and (insert gameplay) while the ship undergoes multiple jumps to the preset destination point. We could make it so that the multicrew pilot would cause a time or failure (module damage) penalty depending on the multicrew's rank so that it would still be best if the player himself pilots his own ship. Obviously, you'd need a multicrew ship to take advantage of this gameplay.. so Diamondback Explorer pilots would be classed as hardcore.
I would also propose an endurance stat for the multicrew pilot so that s/he does eventually get tired and would need to rest, so you send him/her to the bunker while you takeover the ship. This would also be nice with multiplayer multicrew where you can actually have two or three people working together on a ship to explore the unknown and having the real feeling of immersion of being in a ship together in space.
These changes would certainly remove unenjoyable gameplay from Exploration or just travelling - or if you do enjoy evading stars and lining up for the next jump and squeal at the hyperspace jump sequence you could still do it.
And if these changes can be applied, I would also like to propose a couple more things to enhance exploration - for example, hull damage could only be repaired with the ship landed - you have to go out with your SRV and repair it from outside. Only modules could be repaired with AMFU. Cockpit glass could be repaired if the ship is landed and all crew members are in an SRV or a fighter. And so on - details would be up to Frontier. Yes obviously we recognize that the base game doesn't include Horizons - but it has been years now and that should be changed.
Then another thing would be the multicrew element itself. If a crew member is assigned to shields, then shields should function 50% better. If a crew member is assigned to weapons, then weapons should function 50% better, and so on depending on the rank and skill of the crew member. A crew member could also be assigned to pilot the ship (egads!) while the player mans the turrets. But this should be a different thread.
Getting back to the topic - space legs doesn't have to mean earth shattering changes. Floating around your ship would be a nice start, which could lead to floating around inside a megaship, then to floating around inside a generation ship, then to walking around stations, then to walking around cities, then lastly in several years walking around planets. That end can be achieved through this step-by-step process. Personally I don't really care about walking around planets or cities - but would love to be able to float around inside a megaship. Imagine arriving in the vicinity of a large orbital station and seeing multiple huge capital and megaclass ships around the space station and knowing that you could visit into any of them. And if you could visit a capital ship - wouldn't that open a new class of gameplay, such as a military career and/or espionage?
Thanks for reading!
But what would be grand for Exploration is : SPACE LEGS! (and multicrew)
The problem that turns off most people from exploring is the tedious jump and honk - which is getting addressed with CHPT 4 however not the hyperspace travelling itself which sucks a lot of your time watching the loading screen with little gameplay.
Remember the Krait Mk2 review where it seemed like you could almost walk around your ship, it seems Frontier already has some foundations in place.
What if, we can have space legs and walk around our ships doing module repairs, reading news or inspect cargo while our ship travels from star to star?
But how would the FSD be engaged without the pilot at the cockpit? Well here we could have multicrew!
Crew that we hire could have gunnery, piloting, and endurance stats. Or split piloting into two categories : local space piloting and long haul piloting.
If we then can assign a crew member to travel along our set route (we better plan the route carefully if we don't want the rats involved) then we could walk around our ship and (insert gameplay) while the ship undergoes multiple jumps to the preset destination point. We could make it so that the multicrew pilot would cause a time or failure (module damage) penalty depending on the multicrew's rank so that it would still be best if the player himself pilots his own ship. Obviously, you'd need a multicrew ship to take advantage of this gameplay.. so Diamondback Explorer pilots would be classed as hardcore.
I would also propose an endurance stat for the multicrew pilot so that s/he does eventually get tired and would need to rest, so you send him/her to the bunker while you takeover the ship. This would also be nice with multiplayer multicrew where you can actually have two or three people working together on a ship to explore the unknown and having the real feeling of immersion of being in a ship together in space.
These changes would certainly remove unenjoyable gameplay from Exploration or just travelling - or if you do enjoy evading stars and lining up for the next jump and squeal at the hyperspace jump sequence you could still do it.
And if these changes can be applied, I would also like to propose a couple more things to enhance exploration - for example, hull damage could only be repaired with the ship landed - you have to go out with your SRV and repair it from outside. Only modules could be repaired with AMFU. Cockpit glass could be repaired if the ship is landed and all crew members are in an SRV or a fighter. And so on - details would be up to Frontier. Yes obviously we recognize that the base game doesn't include Horizons - but it has been years now and that should be changed.
Then another thing would be the multicrew element itself. If a crew member is assigned to shields, then shields should function 50% better. If a crew member is assigned to weapons, then weapons should function 50% better, and so on depending on the rank and skill of the crew member. A crew member could also be assigned to pilot the ship (egads!) while the player mans the turrets. But this should be a different thread.
Getting back to the topic - space legs doesn't have to mean earth shattering changes. Floating around your ship would be a nice start, which could lead to floating around inside a megaship, then to floating around inside a generation ship, then to walking around stations, then to walking around cities, then lastly in several years walking around planets. That end can be achieved through this step-by-step process. Personally I don't really care about walking around planets or cities - but would love to be able to float around inside a megaship. Imagine arriving in the vicinity of a large orbital station and seeing multiple huge capital and megaclass ships around the space station and knowing that you could visit into any of them. And if you could visit a capital ship - wouldn't that open a new class of gameplay, such as a military career and/or espionage?
Thanks for reading!
