I never saw that! I know it was mentioned in the KS. I remember the rushing back from work to grab Cmdr names only to find that it was not based on date of registering interest (day 2 late I know) but one actual backing date which was difficult deciding levels.
What DDF Proposals would you like to see Frontier work on?
- Thread starter Alien
- Start date
Well, they certainly need to be very bold to rescue it. When this comes up on threads (not an unusual thing to crop up) you tend to get well known explorers all agreeing that FD need to wipe the whole (or, rather, the whole 'outside the bubble') UC database, in order that we can start again doing exploring as we expected it to be. I can imagine non-trivial whinging from folks with a handful of 'first discovered' tags who don't think it is fair to lose that. Clearly there could easily be a technical way to retain those tags so that when the system is eventually 'properly discovered', the tag reappears. But that would be unfair on the guy who has now found it properly. So there probably need to be 2 tags, but they will have to either work hard to come up with a lore-based reason for the wipe and the double tags or (as they have done with the magic escape capsule transporting you back to the last docked station when you are 'killed'), simply ignore it, and have a glaring gap in the lore.
Of course, I backed this game to explore, which is why I tend to be a little vocal on my disappointment. I promised myself that I would get to Elite exploring in open, and will play the game until I do. I am out in deep space working my way up the Perseus Arm at the moment, and as long as I do not lose the lot in an unfortunate accident, I expect to get to Elite on my return. At that point I may well just stop playing - there really would be nothing to draw me back, unless they do eventually flesh exploring out.
I had to go to a funeral today, with about 7 hours in the car there and back. I took the Audio book version of Drew Wagar's 'Reclamation' with me, and listened to about two thirds of the book. It was a great and a depressing experience. All the official books were blessed by FD, and Drew in particular included lots of Elite lore and mentions in passing: it is definitely an Elite book, rather than an SF book that happens to be set in something with some approximation to the Elite galaxy, as some of them are. Time and time again those little lore comments reminded me of how much was missing, or how much was so simplified. In part of the book a 'bounty hunter' goes out chasing a ship that left 11 hours before him. And still finds a trail, and the ship has not got all that far. Yet we have people getting to Sag A* in less than a day ...
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At my age, I am no longer sure of anything my memory tells me. If there were not several of you disputing this, I would have said that, yes, I am sure. But the more that dispute it, the less sure I become, of course. Feel free to ignore me ...
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And the PP bubbles are huge. Too big for expansion, more for turf warfare.
Oh, I know that feeling all too well!
That's cos it never happened, the man's hallucinating, or remembering stuff from a parallel universe or something. Perhaps a parallel universe where we got all the stuff in the DDA!
178 voters may not be totally representative of half a million (?) players, but at least in term of statistics this is already a "meaningful" amount of samples (anything > 30 samples I think is suitable for the so called "P-test", I think [don't ask me how it works, though ]).
Pretty surprised salvaging got so many votes. After re-reading the DDA thread, I wasn't too excited about it. Must be about people being accustomed to "loot" in other games
]).Pretty surprised salvaging got so many votes. After re-reading the DDA thread, I wasn't too excited about it. Must be about people being accustomed to "loot" in other games
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The exploration DDF was the reason i've bought the Premium Beta. I do really love the exploration from eve online. Its complex, its interesting and its rewarding.
The Exploration DDF sounded similar complex but combined with a endless universe and without all that 0 sec pirates shooting you into pieces while you try to follow your path peacefully.
The DDF sounded so awesome. Long Range scanning with Heat Map Results, to search for uncharted star systems. Hyperspace probes you can send out to check your findings. And much, much more. For short: it was described as something that actually needs some thinking. But what we got instead is the most boring thinkable exploration minigame.
I cannot even imagine how a man that likes space games could design such a thing. I mean: david braben practically invented this genre. I'm sure he understands the fascination of exploring such a huge galaxy. It does not go into my head how he could sign such a boring peace of gameplay with his name. He once was one of my heroes!
The Exploration DDF sounded similar complex but combined with a endless universe and without all that 0 sec pirates shooting you into pieces while you try to follow your path peacefully.
The DDF sounded so awesome. Long Range scanning with Heat Map Results, to search for uncharted star systems. Hyperspace probes you can send out to check your findings. And much, much more. For short: it was described as something that actually needs some thinking. But what we got instead is the most boring thinkable exploration minigame.
I cannot even imagine how a man that likes space games could design such a thing. I mean: david braben practically invented this genre. I'm sure he understands the fascination of exploring such a huge galaxy. It does not go into my head how he could sign such a boring peace of gameplay with his name. He once was one of my heroes!
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The exploration DDF was the reason i've bought the Premium Beta. I do really love the exploration from eve online. Its complex, its interesting and its rewarding.
The Exploration DDF sounded similar. Long Range scanning with Heat Map Results, to search for uncharted star systems. Hyperspace probes you can send out to check your findings. And much more. For short: it was described as something that actually needs some thinking. What we got is a most boring thinkable exploration minigame.
I cannot even imagine how a man that likes space games could design such a thing. I mean: david braben practically invented this genre. I'm sure he understands the fascination of exploring such a huge galaxy. It does not go into my head how he could sign such a boring peace of gameplay with his name. He once was one of my heroes!
I agree. When reading interviews with David Braben, I was under the impression that exploration and landing on unexplored planets were particularly important to him. How we could end up with this bare minimum of exploration mechanics I really can't understand.
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What about the "NPC wingmen for hire"?
Added. Thank you for the suggestion
I agree. When reading interviews with David Braben, I was under the impression that exploration and landing on unexplored planets were particularly important to him. How we could end up with this bare minimum of exploration mechanics I really can't understand.
Yes. What is exploration? 2 Types of scanners, with one being a mouse click and one directing your ships nose at a object. And what things are out there to explore? Balls. Balls. Even more balls. No mystery and the wonder wears up pretty fast. After seeing your third black hole and neutron star they are already nothing special anymore. And after being disappointed that even the most rare star types look like a normal sun, maybe differently colored, you start to ask yourself what happened to the greatness and the vision they've designed on paper?
It always makes me sad to even think about. A galaxy with 400 billion star system. And that are the tools to explore them. Really a missed chance.
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This is a great poll. Thanks, Alien.
I chose "Exploring" as one of the items, but seeing as the entire galaxy was 100% surveyed when the game went live, and all we're doing is go on space-tourist road trips, I'm not exactly sure how FD could pull off REAL exploring now. But I live in hope.
I chose "Exploring" as one of the items, but seeing as the entire galaxy was 100% surveyed when the game went live, and all we're doing is go on space-tourist road trips, I'm not exactly sure how FD could pull off REAL exploring now. But I live in hope.
No: implementing them all as implied during early development when they got my £200 would do it
Tbh., it's less that different stars can look similar - I suppose this is quite scientifically accurate and makes the odd blue shining white dwarf quite interesting - but rather all the interesting concepts of how exploration was supposed to work. Finding new systems via scan instead of all systems in the galaxy being visible from the beginning, the possibility of missjumps, dark systems etc. There were so many cool ideas in the DDA of how exploration could be a complex and interesting trail to blaze. It's sad that it has been reduced to "jump, scan, scoop fuel, rinse and repeat".
Er what?
This is a great poll. Thanks, Alien.
I chose "Exploring" as one of the items, but seeing as the entire galaxy was 100% surveyed when the game went live, and all we're doing is go on space-tourist road trips, I'm not exactly sure how FD could pull off REAL exploring now. But I live in hope.
I also thought about that. But the DDF has the answer, like everytime. Dark Systems, Planets and Deep Space Signal Sources. This thing could easily build on top of the current planet structure because they don't change anything to the current system structure. Its a complete new layer of content, on top of the current star systems. The DDF also describes how this would be done:
There needs to be a scanner, that scans about 10-50 ly around your current position(depending on scanner quality). The scanner gives back a heat map result with different resolution(depending again on scanner quality, to make some especially precious objects only be scannable by the best scaners).
Then you can send hyperspace probes to this regions to scan them and answer with data about the target region. If they find something they are being used as a FTL Anchorpoint you can warp to. Then you can scan the system with in system scanning equipment(as described in the DDA). The things you can find could be:
- Planets to scan(and later land on),
- Black Holes,
- Asteroid Belts,
- Thargoid bases(when they finally arrive),
- Ancient Space stations and other things of completly unknown origin who hint to some precursor alien races.
- Ships stranded in the void in cause of a hyperspace malfunction(both: wrecks and still alive in need of some fuel).
- Pirate hideouts
- Unknown Artifacts
Some of this thing would be random generated/scripted like signal sources. Some of them are persistent like normal star systems but hidden and more preciours because completly unexploited.
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