What can the devs do to improve exploration?

[Lance 'Spacecat' D.]

Gazillion good ideas out there, I risk repeating some but here is what I feel would be... most desirable.

-Give an incentive/reward to fully scan a system, a cash bonus would be a good idea. Completionists deserve their cookies.
-Give an incentive to scan asteroid belts. Maybe that's what it takes to get an assessment of reserves and/or an idea what minerals are in? Maybe cash reward?
-A way on the galmap to see what's explored and what's not.
-A way to hit those 100k LS and more stellar objects in a reasonable amount of time is probably in the works, but it bears insisting. Whether it's a slingshot drive, an insystem hyperdrive... We need something to hit those spread-out binaries don't we?
-More things to scan would be lovely. Before adding artifacts from long-dead alien species, I'd suggest comets, rogue asteroids, unexpected debris field/gas cloud and such - natural stuff. Maybe the odd scientific anomaly/phenomenon (cue pretty lights).
-Adding more scanning 'devices' would be a good idea. Maybe for simplicity we call that step 'analysis'. And maybe you need different devices to analyze different stellar bodies: Like a Spectrographer to analyze a star. An atmosphere scanner to analyze gas giants, and a short-wave spectroanalysis device for most rockys and icys (I'm throwing some technobabble here). Of course we ~must~ have 'first analyzed by' kudos to the system maps.
-How about exploration -missions- in inhabited space? 'Our faction will pay you N credit for scanning MOAI 1 A-1 for scientific purposes'. If you take the mission, the object would have to become scannable again if you scanned it in the past, of course. This could be further expanded by requesting the analysis, and maybe two-three bodies in that system. The cash for the mission would count against exploration elite status.

-Beautify the galaxy! It's full of wonders, and this game just needs a bit more to add some Awe. I would love to see close binaries sharing plasma gases in a spiral cloud of fiery beauty. And we have lots of close binaries. Maybe some stars 'pulse' and you can see the lit gas shockwave pulse out? A bit of artistic sense combined with science could go a long way here.

 

[Greyhawk]

Exploration - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scBY3cVyeyA

 

[Murishani]

No strawberriesand cream though...

Well so far they've found raspberries and rum, that's good enough for me. Cocktail party at Sgr B2.

 

[iain666]

-A way to hit those 100k LS and more stellar objects in a reasonable amount of time is probably in the works, but it bears insisting. Whether it's a slingshot drive, an insystem hyperdrive... We need something to hit those spread-out binaries don't we?

Patience, that's what we have to hit those

 

[Stewviking]

I would really like to hear rubble and grit on my ship’s hull as I glide among the lumps of rock mining for resources

Also would like to see more information on planets, when exploring, like CLASS M PLANET WITH 20 PERCENT SURFACE WATER... 10 PERCENT FOREST COVER, INDIGENOUS LIFE AT PRIMORDIAL LEVEL. NON-INDIGENOUS LIFE FORMS DETECTED ETC... If this was displayed on the glass subtly... as you view out at the planet on like a HUD.., that would be brill also.

Actuallly reading this back, I realise this would not be everyones cup of tea, especially the HUD idea but if you could buy a device in outfitting that would allow this inclusion then, you could decide if you wished this addition.

Oh and one last thing, if intelligent probes could be bought and used on exploring surfaces and return to your ship with samples (perhaps contianing exotic minerals and life) for re-sale at stations that would also be cool

 

[Herik]

What is missing for me is a reason to come back to a system I've scanned. I am searching for a lovely system that I would really like to be, but... then what?

Some ideas to give reason to return to a system or hang out there:

• Make Painite reserves mostly-depleted in human space - the best way to trade in it is to take a mining rig back out to pristine reserves that you discovered in deep space. (It has to be painite or something similarly valuable otherwise you're losing money and time by not mining platinum right next to the place you're selling it). Have those reserves deplete with mining activity as well.
• Allow players to purchase and deploy a semi-permanent canister or drone in a system, which becomes part of that system for up to a month (a Weak Signal Source) so other players can interact with it (and/or destroy it). Types of drone/cannister could include:
  • Refueling drone - Players can choose to either refuel their ships from it (if it still has fuel), or refuel the drone from their ships.
  • Geo-cache - Players can take an item of cargo from the box, and/or leave an item of cargo in the box. (The "box" is really a beacon-location where the game knows to make a jettisoned cargo container persist for the next visitor.)
  • Visitor's Log nav-beacon - like the station traffic report, but for the system. The log can be read by all, same as station traffic, but the log-beacon allows this to exist for a while in a system with no stations.
  • For the cost of a $1,500,000 credits, a player can buy a Universal Cartographics relay-station with a one-month battery life and a 150LY transmission range, packed into a cargo cannister. Exploration data can be sold at the relay-station if it is within range of another relay-station and so on all the way back to human space. Explorers would collaborate to build and maintain a network of useful length. Data sold there suffers a 10% fee (UC pays less for it) as a premium rates-gouging because UC knows the lowered risk (of not having to fly to a station to sell) is valuable.
  • Visitor's Notes beacon - as above, but players can enter a message via the existing comms interface, or read messages left by others.
• "Fuel-scooping" gas-giants can acquire valuable samples when done on gas giants discovered to have life.
• A way to formally invite Jaques Station (or a capital ship or some other feature) to visit a particular system for a period. (Causing curious players and traders visiting the station if it comes).

Basically, as well as traders, explorers, fighters, etc, let us be gardeners too

Bug-fixes and tweaks:

• Galaxy-map destination and plotted-route needs to stop getting wiped every time the server connection struggles and every time we save and exit the game.
• Debug/drone cameras want a longer tether. Photography of our journey is one of the few things we get to do out there, and the tether really cramps the shots. There has been no abuse of debug-cam, so the tether can be extended.

No on extending the tether on the Debug camera...I know there would be abuse. I remember all those pew pewer's discussing how great it would be to add the camera use for seeing around asteroids when hiding etc...

 

[mossfoot]

No on extending the tether on the Debug camera...I know there would be abuse. I remember all those pew pewer's discussing how great it would be to add the camera use for seeing around asteroids when hiding etc...

Given how slow it takes for the camera to get in place, it would be pretty difficult to effectively use it in those situations. Maybe make it so the tether slows down more and more the farther you get out?

 

[Rick Mason]

Booby Trapped cargo, for the unsuspecting Pirate, love this idea,

 

[CMDR DoubleSkulls]

The other thing though that Im noticing is that most of our ships have at least a few empty slots, either weapons hardpoints, utility points or or empty slots filled with cargo racks we never use. I would love to see more tools to bring back more, and different kinds of data. Atmosphere scoops for ELPs or anything with an atmosphere. Some kind of mineral sampler, or organic sampler to bring back pretty rocks or simple life forms. Maybe devices to measure background radiation, or anything else really. Or how about an "experimental scanner" that can be used inside black holes or those previously mentioned anomalies for bigger payouts due to potentially high risk situations in scientifically important areas.

Really good ideas here. I was thinking perhaps more in line of upgraded DSS, so it could have longer range, process faster or have a wider area (e.g. automatically scans within 100 ls - so you get multiple targets concurrently).

I was also thinking of other things to help explorers, so SC speed boosters. If these take up internal slots it should make for interesting decisions for other career types too.

Something to reduce the time in hyperspace or charge time on the FSD may be helpful too, but that would need to be done carefully so as not to interfere with interdiction balance.

 

[Whiterose]

The methodology of exploring is fine, however we do need more astronomical effects, comets, planetary geysers, that sort of thing.

 

[Gimi]

Single most important functionality I want is the ability to select target in system view (I understand that this is coming).
After that, and API so the boffins around here can make better explorer oriented tools.

As for changes to the galaxy, I understand that this is not easy. Changing the different seed values to fix bugs and implement new stuff throughout the galaxy is near impossible as that can easily change those elements in the galaxy as a whole and effectively create a new galaxy.
I just want Frontier to continue to update the hand crafted parts as new discoveries are made in real life and introduce what they can.

(And of course, fix whatever they can fix that needs fixing )

 

[Ziljan]

The methodology of exploring is fine, however we do need more astronomical effects, comets, planetary geysers, that sort of thing.

Agree to disagree. The passive Honk and Point-and-Wait scanning "mechanic" is about as shallow and uninspired as it gets. The only input a player has right now is deciding whether to point-and-wait here or point-and-wait somewhere else. There are half a hundred ways it could be a deeper and more compelling with minimal development effort.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I have made this suggestion elsewhere, but here goes. I have read that the reason you can only sell exploration data a page at a time is for checking purposes. How about an exploration recording module (like a flight recorder black box). When you return to occupied space you take this module to the Universal Cartographers and hand it over. 24 hours later you can then go back to the UC (at any station, not just the one you left the module with), and get paid (as well as receiving a replacement module) (this gives the FD server enough time to check the data, while freeing up the Commander from the 'Sell Page' task). These modules are keyed to the Commanders' ID, so if they had a ship destroyed with a load of data on the module, they could return to that system, go to the functions screen, and then trigger the modules' locator beacon, thereby allowing them to get the module back (hopefully with the data intact).

 

[Varrag]

Basically give us more scanners, more tools, more lenses, more scoops, and a reason to have a cargo rack to bring back samples and goodies from space

Right. One of those new scanners could be used to generate "heatmap" of planetary soil and mineral deposits, and not in fully passive mode like now: I am imagining it as device that can be manually tuned in order to search for certain materials (for example: noble metals) and filter out those that aren't so interesting, also allowing us to pinpoint areas with highest concentration by changing the sensitivity. Then there are deep penetrattion scanners capable to go through the icy crust, biosphere scanners which should return detailed reports about indigenous life, etc. There are so many things that can be done in this regard to make exploration less mechanical and a bit more interactive process.

Picture below is from EVE - pretty good example for what most of us (I believe) would be happy to see in some form: