What would make exploration process more fun?

[Kristov]

A very strange thing about ED honk-and-scan "exploration" is that you rarely see a planet as more than a dot in the distance. (the system map does NOT count) It's barely visible as a slightly larger dot by the time your scan is done and you've turned away to approach and scan the next planet. This provides no actual feeling of "exploration" to me. Unfortunately it's prohibitively time consuming to cruise up close to each planet and do a full orbit to get a good satisfying look at it - this would cut your credit earnings down to just a fraction of the current rate.

I'd really prefer exploration to be more involved and detailed. You should have to at least do a full close orbit of the planet to properly scan it, drop probes (probe module), collect data, etc etc etc. And naturally, the payout model for exploration would need to be changed as needed so that simply honking from a distance is far less profitable, but detailed time-consuming orbital scanning yields at least the same rate of credits per hour of exploring effort that we get for simple honk-and-scan now.

And get rid of the signal sources full of generic ships and all the "salvagable wrecks" in systems far from the Bubble!

Second person to mention signal sources while out exploring...you weren't very far out if you saw those, 3k LY is the farthest point I've seen anything 'unnatural', a Salvageable Wreckage, beyond that distance, in space, nothing. No offense, but you really need to get away from the bubble before you cease to see signs of humanity, and that's a bit further out than a few hundred light years. Now with Horizons, seeing stuff on planets while a long ways out...that's a different story, they need to clean that one up like they did the SS's.

And the payout for exploration doesn't need to be increased, that's not making it better, that's bribing people to do it. It's not a get rich quick profession and it shouldn't be turned into one. The motivation to explore should be because you want to see what's out there, not a cr/hr breakdown, enough people already doing that with it.

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White knights GIVE ME THE POWER!! yeah.... It feels good.

So, you don't actually have anything intelligent to respond with to my questions? I asked actual questions there, I actually wanted some feedback on some of your ideas, but hey, that's cool, I get it, you've got that hat on and your legs block your view.

 

[SciTrekker]

And the payout for exploration doesn't need to be increased, that's not making it better, that's bribing people to do it. It's not a get rich quick profession and it shouldn't be turned into one. The motivation to explore should be because you want to see what's out there, not a cr/hr breakdown, enough people already doing that with it.

Not all professions pay the same in real life. Why should they in a sim, sci-fi or not? Someone's gotta clean my ship but I'm not gonna pay them 1 mil CR to do it, not even if s/he's wearing a skimpy maid's uniform.

 

[Shy'la Nesthorn]

Not all professions pay the same in real life. Why should they in a sim, sci-fi or not? Someone's gotta clean my ship but I'm not gonna pay them 1 mil CR to do it, not even if s/he's wearing a skimpy maid's uniform.

if I wanted real life I wouldn't be playing a game

 

[Kristov]

Not all professions pay the same in real life. Why should they in a sim, sci-fi or not? Someone's gotta clean my ship but I'm not gonna pay them 1 mil CR to do it, not even if s/he's wearing a skimpy maid's uniform.

Exactly...although...if she's hot enough...I may well end up paying that million credits at some point...

 

[who?]

Some suggestions:

- Use audio more, an echolocation-like effect. The discovery honk results in a chorus of echoes from the system's planets, each echo unique to the planet type. After a while your ear would be tuned to what ELWs, AWs and WWs sound like and could focus on those. The delay after the honk gives a rough indication of how near/far the planet is. With this, you wouldn't need to pull up the System Map each time, just honk, listen, and move on if the echoes are't good. (Needless to say, it's not actually echoes, but sound projections of the energy/gravitational signatures of the bodies).

- Let us see what we've found! How many Earth-likes, water-worlds? Let us plot them on a Galaxy Map. Let us know what the most valuable body we've scanned was. And the most valuable system. Let us share our interesting finds in-game. Maybe even let us sell/trade our discovery tags. Oh, and don't punish us for getting close to the planets we're scanning - get too close and you get caught in the gravity well so you end up scanning tiny dots from a distance which isn't very engaging. Maybe lightweight explorer builds should be slowed less by planets.

- Data-mules. One of the biggest pains with exploration is having to return to the bubble to 'cash in' regularly. One option would be arranging a rendezvous with a friendly data-mule, and jettisoning your data-cache so they can return to the bubble and cash it in - with the mule possibly taking a cut of the profits. It'd open up a new career and possibly emergent gameplay. And, possibly, piracy! (though since the explorer takes the bulk of the profits, pirates might not be as interested).

- Missions! Prospecting. Surveying etc. "Sirius Manufacturing needs an Ammonia World with gravity in the range 0.75-0.8 of Earth for optimised manufacturing conditions.." and that could be a long-term goal to find any such planet, for mega-bucks.

- More nuanced risk/death. Not entirely exploration related, but currently damage means nothing or big boom. Nothing in between. How about having to nurse a damaged ship back to the bubble? A failing FSD that sometimes sends you to the wrong system? How about instead of your SRV blowing up, it breaks down and you have to call for rescue? Or instead of your ship blowing up, you might be able to crash-land on a planet and call for rescue.

 

[Kristov]

Some suggestions:

- Use audio more, an echolocation-like effect. The discovery honk results in a chorus of echoes from the system's planets, each echo unique to the planet type. After a while your ear would be tuned to what ELWs, AWs and WWs sound like and could focus on those. The delay after the honk gives a rough indication of how near/far the planet is. With this, you wouldn't need to pull up the System Map each time, just honk, listen, and move on if the echoes are't good. (Needless to say, it's not actually echoes, but sound projections of the energy/gravitational signatures of the bodies).

- Let us see what we've found! How many Earth-likes, water-worlds? Let us plot them on a Galaxy Map. Let us know what the most valuable body we've scanned was. And the most valuable system. Let us share our interesting finds in-game. Maybe even let us sell/trade our discovery tags. Oh, and don't punish us for getting close to the planets we're scanning - get too close and you get caught in the gravity well so you end up scanning tiny dots from a distance which isn't very engaging. Maybe lightweight explorer builds should be slowed less by planets.

- Data-mules. One of the biggest pains with exploration is having to return to the bubble to 'cash in' regularly. One option would be arranging a rendezvous with a friendly data-mule, and jettisoning your data-cache so they can return to the bubble and cash it in - with the mule possibly taking a cut of the profits. It'd open up a new career and possibly emergent gameplay. And, possibly, piracy! (though since the explorer takes the bulk of the profits, pirates might not be as interested).

- Missions! Prospecting. Surveying etc. "Sirius Manufacturing needs an Ammonia World with gravity in the range 0.75-0.8 of Earth for optimised manufacturing conditions.." and that could be a long-term goal to find any such planet, for mega-bucks.

- More nuanced risk/death. Not entirely exploration related, but currently damage means nothing or big boom. Nothing in between. How about having to nurse a damaged ship back to the bubble? A failing FSD that sometimes sends you to the wrong system? How about instead of your SRV blowing up, it breaks down and you have to call for rescue? Or instead of your ship blowing up, you might be able to crash-land on a planet and call for rescue.

Sound is already part of the exploration process, I can tell if that little ball is an earthlike, waterworld, rock, iceball, metallic, and so on from the sounds on the System Map, there's a great reference post somewhere for this. My daughter's eyes when I had her put on my headphones and I selected an earthlike on the system map, while she couldn't see my screen at all...'it's beautiful dad!'...

 

[GilliganTX]

- Missions! Prospecting. Surveying etc. "Sirius Manufacturing needs an Ammonia World with gravity in the range 0.75-0.8 of Earth for optimised manufacturing conditions.." and that could be a long-term goal to find any such planet, for mega-bucks.

That would do more to get me out there than anything else suggested yet.

 

[who?]

Sound is already part of the exploration process, I can tell if that little ball is an earthlike, waterworld, rock, iceball, metallic, and so on from the sounds on the System Map, there's a great reference post somewhere for this. My daughter's eyes when I had her put on my headphones and I selected an earthlike on the system map, while she couldn't see my screen at all...'it's beautiful dad!'...

I think using your children as science officers is technically cheating...

Yup! Though personally the only things I can recognise are water-worlds! It would be nice if we could get similar info without waiting for the System Map to come up, thus keeping us 'in game'.

 

[Ignition]

So, you don't actually have anything intelligent to respond with to my questions? I asked actual questions there, I actually wanted some feedback on some of your ideas, but hey, that's cool, I get it, you've got that hat on and your legs block your view.

You didn't respond intelligently to what I said so I don't have to.

I never wanted a scientific mathematicaly gameplay. I never wanted realism. For the rest of what I said, "use your imagination".

 

[bitstorm]

Not all professions pay the same in real life. Why should they in a sim, sci-fi or not? Someone's gotta clean my ship but I'm not gonna pay them 1 mil CR to do it, not even if s/he's wearing a skimpy maid's uniform.

Maybe in a communist government system they should?

 

[GilliganTX]

You didn't respond intelligently to what I said so I don't have to.

I never wanted a scientific mathematicaly gameplay. I never wanted realism. For the rest of what I said, "use your imagination".

Is that logically consistent with buying a game who's developer has an open penchant for realism? *shrug*


That said, there are core mechanics to this game (Flight model) that are 100% from the arcade.


What a beautiful mess, eh?

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Maybe in a communist government system they should?

I lol'd.

 

[Ignition]

Is that logically consistent with buying a game who's developer has an open penchant for realism? *shrug*

Sorry I don't understand what you tried to say. It was a specific response to a specific quote.

 

[Kristov]

I think using your children as science officers is technically cheating...

Yup! Though personally the only things I can recognise are water-worlds! It would be nice if we could get similar info without waiting for the System Map to come up, thus keeping us 'in game'.

Nah, she doesn't play the game, I was just letting her hear an earthlike, she didn't get why her old man, who's been a gamer all her life, was so into a video game where he WASN'T killing anything or anyone, as I'm usually playing PvP games. I'd been trying to get her let me get the game for my grandson, so, I let her see what I love doing, exploration, and let her listen to an earthlike.

My grandson got an XBOne and Elite: Dangerous from grandpa for Christmas

You didn't respond intelligently to what I said so I don't have to.

I never wanted a scientific mathematicaly gameplay. I never wanted realism. For the rest of what I said, "use your imagination".

So you didn't even bother to read what I wrote, yeah, figured, legs blocking your view will do that. I asked you questions about some of your ideas, I liked them and wanted to know more about what you had in mind....

 

[GilliganTX]

Sorry I don't understand what you tried to say. It was a specific response to a specific quote.

"Is it logically consistent to buy a game from a man with who is open about his desire for realism when you yourself do not care for.."


Oh nevermind, just musing.

 

[Ignition]

So you didn't even bother to read what I wrote, yeah, figured, legs blocking your view will do that. I asked you questions about some of your ideas, I liked them and wanted to know more about what you had in mind....

You didn't read what I wrote. Sorry but I'm not going to feed the troll. Fanatics will be Fanatics for ever.

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"Is it logically consistent to buy a game from a man with who is open about his desire for realism when you yourself do not care for.."


Oh nevermind, just musing.

Yes what I thought. As I said before it was a specific response. Someone said I want realism and scientific and mathematical gameplay while I never said such thing.

 

[bkrownd]

And the payout for exploration doesn't need to be increased, that's not making it better, that's bribing people to do it. It's not a get rich quick profession and it shouldn't be turned into one. The motivation to explore should be because you want to see what's out there, not a cr/hr breakdown, enough people already doing that with it.

I didn't say the payout needs to be increased. I said the payout should be shifted to doing detailed close up exploration instead of the current slapdash honk-scan-jump stuff. As far as your "do it for love, not money" comment, we do need to "pay the bills" in this game - to buy and outfit ships, create a cash cushion, advance our exploration rank, advance our faction reputation, bring in exploration credits for BGS, etc. This stuff doesn't happen for free, so the earnings need to be sufficient to make slow detailed exploring reasonable and attractive in the larger game.

 

[Troa Barton]

A very strange thing about ED honk-and-scan "exploration" is that you rarely see a planet as more than a dot in the distance. (the system map does NOT count) It's barely visible as a slightly larger dot by the time your scan is done and you've turned away to approach and scan the next planet. This provides no actual feeling of "exploration" to me. Unfortunately it's prohibitively time consuming to cruise up close to each planet and do a full orbit to get a good satisfying look at it - this would cut your credit earnings down to just a fraction of the current rate.

I'd really prefer exploration to be more involved and detailed. You should have to at least do a full close orbit of the planet to properly scan it, drop probes (probe module), collect data, etc etc etc. And naturally, the payout model for exploration would need to be changed as needed so that simply honking from a distance is far less profitable, but detailed time-consuming orbital scanning yields at least the same rate of credits per hour of exploring effort that we get for simple honk-and-scan now.

And get rid of the signal sources full of generic ships and all the "salvagable wrecks" in systems far from the Bubble!

Actually this made me think of something, does anyone remember Pokemon snap for the Nintendo 64?
What if part of exploration was taking pictures? The aforementioned game was basically being on a theme park ride and taking pictures of "wildlife" a whole game designed around that. And it was fun!
where do the pictures for the galaxy map come from?
making the solar systems look better would also go a long way, where's the space dust, asteroids, comets, supernova?

 

[Kristov]

You didn't read what I wrote. Sorry but I'm not going to feed the troll. Fanatics will be Fanatics for ever.

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Yes what I thought. As I said before it was a specific response. Someone said I want realism and scientific and mathematical gameplay while I never said such thing.

I did read what you wrote and responded to all of it, I asked you some questions about some of your ideas, I liked them, I wanted to hear more about them, have you flesh them out some...I'm still wanting that because I liked the ideas.

I don't have to agree with everything you say to agree with parts of it you know.

 

[SciTrekker]

Maybe in a communist government system they should?

IMO, one of the worst government types for equal pay. Those at the top always make more than the common folk, whether legitimately or through corruption.

 

[Ignition]

I did read what you wrote and responded to all of it, I asked you some questions about some of your ideas, I liked them, I wanted to hear more about them, have you flesh them out some...I'm still wanting that because I liked the ideas.

I don't have to agree with everything you say to agree with parts of it you know.

Its not so difficult. What FD needs to do is add gameplay, things to do in the ship so you really feel that you're doing something. I REALLY dislike the mechanics of the game, I don't find them fun. I don't see the fun in jump, press a button to honk, system map to see the most "profitable", fly straight and wait for a "scan" to complete. I want to do something "challenging". And for that I think the game needs more equipement. Thats why I said probes and scanners.

I'm not going to post gameplay mechanics because its pointless, FD will add whatever they want to the game so its not usefull posting long detailed mechanics, but imagine the UI and the process, maybe a triangulation with diferent frequencies to id an object. Nothing too much complicated but far more than we have now.

With clouds, comets, wormholes, aliens, etc. This will make the game less empty and more mysterious. I know space is big and blah blah blah but this is a game. I know you will never realise you're in a cloud of gas in reallity, but as I said they could add challenges and gameplay and different enviroments where you need to adapt.

You say aliens are already in the game but people didn't find them, well I don't see them and I think they are beeing cooked in the FD studio.

The orrey map was a promised feature and it could be much more than a simple representation of the system. In the DDF they said that as planets moved around you could not reach the correct destination because of time. It can serve as a link between the ship sensors and the enviroment. Can you see that capital ship behind that planet? No because the planet itself is blocking the signal.

I will leave you a link of the DDA of the exploration mechanics. You will notice the difference of what we have now. It was glorious and was one of the key elements that made me buy the Premium Beta.

Read the second paragraph at least about scaning and probes.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6418