I think you may be playing the wrong game then. A simulator simulates. It creates immersion.
Without different prices for buying and selling commodities, there would be no trade profession. If all ships were the same size and had the same quantity and class of hardpoints and internals, there wouldn't be a need for more than 1 type of ship. Sounds like you want that or maybe you only want the parts of the game you're interested in to be the same (ie, earning CRs).
I think you may be playing the wrong game then. A simulator simulates. It creates immersion.
Without different prices for buying and selling commodities, there would be no trade profession. If all ships were the same size and had the same quantity and class of hardpoints and internals, there wouldn't be a need for more than 1 type of ship. Sounds like you want that or maybe you only want the parts of the game you're interested in to be the same (ie, earning CRs).
No no I can guarantee I'm playing the right game. But the game advertises as "play as you want" yet clearly makes other ways of playing better. In real life you get a poor paying job because that is all you can get and because you need to pay bills and food and stuff. In game you don't
No no I can guarantee I'm playing the right game. But the game advertises as "play as you want" yet clearly makes other ways of playing better. In real life you get a poor paying job because that is all you can get and because you need to pay bills and food and stuff. In game you don't
Ah, I see the confusion. When they say, "play as you want," you interpret that to mean "play as you want and progress the same as others playing their way." The tag line doesn't have any form of the word "equal" in it.
“Perhaps the oddest thing was that, for the most part, she appeared to be in fine shape – almost eerily so. The ‘Dei Gratia’ crew found no serious weather damage, no trace of a struggle, or any other sign of trouble that would have made veteran sailors abandon ship in the middle of the ocean. Stranger still, the crew had left behind foul-weather gear, personal belongings, even their pipes – things they almost certainly would have taken, or would have been wearing during a storm.
There were other things that seemed more than a little peculiar: The form of a sleeping child was imprinted in the wet mattress of one bunk, a few barrels of alcohol had broken open or leaked in the hold, and there was a decorative sword in the captain’s cabin, its blade peppered with a reddish stain. The last entry in the Mary Celeste’s logbook was an innocuous notation made ten days earlier that suggested nothing but a routine passage – and placed the ship more than 300 miles west of its current position. The men of the Dei Gratia could not imagine how the ship had traveled so far sailing under so little canvas, nor could they explain where its crew had gone or, just as confounding why. The brigantine’s captain and crew had simply vanished into the cold salt air.” Ghost Ship: The Mysterious True Story of the Mary Celeste and Her Missing Crew
By Brian Hick
I’m not exactly the most brave guy when it comes to horror. I usually just skip the scary parts of movies with it and I simply don’t play horror games alone. Truth be told I just don’t like the whole “jump scare” thing (they are cheap) and I find most horror themes “forced” in one way or another. Because of all that, generally speaking I simply avoid it. For some reason though, the mere sight of an abandoned entity drifting along unopposed in silence, resting in complete loneliness, drains the heat out of my blood in ways that other horror themes don’t manage to do it. And yet - in contrast with with what I've said at the start - I still want to see more of it, and I still want to explore it and understand what happened with it. All in all I’m sure this particular combination of mystery, “horror” and possible rewards is not considered interesting just by me.
*shivers*
I’m also not a hardcore space flight sim player, however I did played almost everything that is available on the market and so far, I have not managed to see a single game make a proper in-depth use of this amazing opportunity. The opportunity to blend the exploration of the unknown with possible interesting rewards, and maybe, just maybe, add along a small pinch of “mystery/horror” over it (space after all, is disease & danger), and all that without sacrificing "scale" (available space) to make it happen.
Not a terrible movie if you are into this sort of thing.
EvE online recently did manage to score some points in this area. From the get go you can basically fit a small fast ship and head towards the edges of the galaxy, or if you are interested enter and stay inside wormholes exploring unknown space. Inside those places you will be looking for special sites (abandoned ships, structures, etc) using scans/probes and later on hacking said structures, via a small mini-game, to get the loot (most of the times you get "normal" items, there are some other times though that you hit the motherload and just like that you are able to afford a Dreadnought – if you manage to head back home alive to sell it). And all this will be done while trying to avoid pirates, high conflict zones between player corporations fighting over sectors, traps (bubles and gate camps) laid out over the systems and NPCs of course. The more dangerous the zone you are is, the better the rewards will (most likely) be.
Still, there’s not much depth or “soul” to it. Almost all said structures look exactly the same and there’s just no “story” behind it. Also the special sites while not bad looking end up feeling.. bland because of all this. It sometimes ends up feeling that exploration there is pretty much all about the money, or maybe I just don’t like the graphics colors and/or the 360º Third-person-unlimited-zoom camera for exploration/immersion purposes.
What mysteries lies beyond?
Elite: Dangerous is offering 400 Billion stars systems.. Jezz that’s a lot of space, and we are be able to reach the corners of the galaxy by just traveling through it with no “loading screens” - just you, the cockpit and the stars. The potencial to finally do this right is here, there’s just no denial. With a number like that though it's obvious that abandoned sectors will exist but still, it would be amazing if we could fill some of that space with somethingelse aside from the ordinary (i.e planet looks). Unfortunately so far that’s not the impression I got.
I did read the DDA about exploration and my view about it is that their vision is just too limited at this point (especially when considering what their game offers in terms of “places to go” and how we will be able to go towards said places).
“In Elite: Dangerous explorers are players who travel out into undiscovered areas of the galaxy, hoping to find previously undiscovered systems and locations. Explorers scan and record data wherever they go, and can sell that data on to various interested authorities. Explorers can also sell on data they have discovered to other players, allowing them to sell the co-ordinates of a valuable find to the highest bidder, or keep their discoveries to exploit for themselves.” http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6418
Why limit to just that? Why not allow us to discover some weird derelicts/anomalies and maybe get/steal/salvage/hack/cut/blow up some materials from it? We could maybe use our computer to steal valuable information that’s available inside said structures.
There could also be some new modules that would allow us to “hack” the structure cargo hold (same way as in EvE) or maybe we could use drones/special lazors to chew through sectors of said derelicts in order to hopefully get something interesting out it (it would also be a good idea to avoid the “fuel tank” while doing this – there could be a special scanner in the future that would give us some insight on the ship/station/whatever structure composition, allowing us to avoid critical zones and go after the most valuable ones. And other times it would not be able to get any info whatsoever. Example; you find a very old ship model that has not been seen in decades/centuries and your computer has no data on it). Or perhaps, just an alien one.
Maybe we could also assume direct control of certain abandoned structures by accessing the mainframe, or sell to an interested person the location to do so. This could be one of the ways to populate zones that were considered at first completely abandoned (or perhaps we could just rig it to explode next time someone tries to access it, te hee). Adding some of this would certain give the game the option to start increasing its overall content by putting some logistics into play, making it desirable and certainly more profitable to start doing exploration operations with a group of players, with one supporting each other in case their ship does not carry all the necessary equipment to work with what was found (Or if they want 3 Anacondas to escort them back to safe space because they just found an alien relic with probably an amazing selling potencial).
While on the subject, it would be a really nice addition if we could have a biggerinteractivity with our ship systems as we are exploring/scanning by allowing us to mess around with our cockpit more while doing said actions (DCS anyone?). Small example; let’s say you choose to go with the hacking route - make it so that when the hacking starts a keyboard pops up on the ship and we have to type IRL special “codes” on the screen - Think "Hacknet", but inside your ship. (Just throwing ideas here btw, no balance/real thought taken too much into account). Also while scanning stuff, some displays on the screen with general info about the system/planet/ship/station/etc and its possible composition/minerals/gases available/heat signatures/radio chatter/general stuff like that, would certainly go long ways to help the immersion and it would definitely reduce the "boredom" while exploring by allowing us to be more involved with the ship and the game itself. I see also that this could open some new interesting opportunities for new modules/stuff, adding and allowing more variety when it comes to builds.
I really thing the point above by the way should be a top priority (despite though how amazing it would be to have the rest). Considering the amount of places to go and see it's just not possible to fill it all with, err.. "interesting" stuff. Therefor in order to compensate for that YOU NEED to make the stuff that you do in a daily basis more interesting somehow. And as said above, increasing our interaction with the ship systems would certainly help with that.
Also exploration needs to pay more. Yes I said it. Come at me brah.
It’s over 9000.
But most important; as we are doing all this, why not have in some cases a weird audiolog pop-up while we scan and access the computer of a derelict ship? Maybe some notes giving some insight on why this abandoned station has no one alive on it? Or just some “strange” sounds while we scan a weird anomaly/structure that just popped up on the radar? Flashes on the horizon? Distress signals with high interference? Weapon sounds coming through an anomaly you just scanned? Morse code?! What I’m asking here if for you Devs to tease us more with some questions about things we may see/hear in our travels. Give us something else to seek on the galaxy aside from money and status.
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand”. - Neil Armstrong
Exploring has a lot of appeal for me, but an insentive to scan more is needed.
I think a bonus for a completed scan of a system is justified. I like the idea of a 5% bonus for each body in a system, if you scan the lot. If there are 20 bodies thats a 100% bonus. 100 bodies that's 500%.
The longer the development goes the more that will be out there I'm sure. Once aliens are confirmed there maybe a lot more out there and it might be more dangerous as well. At that point explorers will need a lot more rewards.
A more intricate and engaging way of scanning planets. Establishing an orbit and scanning the surface to unearth anomalies and/or stuff to explore with my buggy.
Just waiting for the spinning thing to finish, as it is now, feels as engaging as waiting for the microwave ding.
But having become a realist in Elite i would already be happy with a more pleasing scanning animation. For example a UI grid overlay over the planet with some fancy canned animations.
SOMETHING that invokes the feeling of an actual scan.
Would give a reason to approach the planets too. Because right now the best way is to scan from afar as possible to not get caught by the gravity well.
Which makes exploration even more monotonous visually.
What would make exploring more fun for me, would be to have a more dynamic Universe.
e.g.
Asteroids crashing into planets, planets crashing in to planets (seen systems with planets of the same size so close to each other I keep wondering if gravity should have made them crash into each other a long time ago), planets close to their stars being cooked, planets that were ripped apart leaving a spherical distribution of material that hasn't figured out if it should dissipate or collate. Stars which are close together sucking gases out of each other. Smaller star being eaten by its larger brother.
Flying through an actual gas nebulae where you are surrounded by a glow of gases, you can't see the galactic background cause you're pretty much in a gas cloud, and your shields sparkle as gas particles hit it. Denser clumps of gas that might ignite and throw you out of SC if you get too close causing you to suffer heat damage.
Finding traces of alien life on planets (BGS dedicates a sector of the galaxy as belonging to an alien civilization and populates said sector with abandoned stations and wreckage.)
I would like it to be more like a survival challenge. At the moment, if I don't crash into anything, I can almost keep going forever. AFMUs are much more useful than they were, and power plants are not damaged by heat. When I repair my life support I use a couple of seconds of irreplaceable air, and that is literally the only thing that might eventually run out.
I would like some greater dangers, more chance that wear and tear causes hull damage, and in return some challenging methods to repair that damage. Finding a salvageable wreck should provide parts that can genuinely save your life. A mining laser/refinery should be worth their weight to carry, allowing you to build limpets, or perform patch-up jobs to repair or enhance aspects of your ship.
If the canopy blows out, I should be able to jump into my SRV and try to figure out a way to repair it from there. Also, it's ridiculous that landing on planets gives us zero extra saleable data - let us have first discovered tags on mountains, canyons, craters etc.
Finally, let's see some community support - there are some names that should be on the gal map by now - Beagle Point, Frawds Demise, Botany Bay etc could all get their own names. That would encourage explorers to be more active in the community, for a chance at fame through the gal map.
I don't want my first exploration of the ED universe to be when the game is in this state of massive underdevelopment. When (and if) FD fix this then I'll be going out there and will actually have something to explore rather than just see and I'm happy to wait until that time comes.
I have spent a considerable amount of thought on some of the more typical emergency scenarios common to sci fi, and how they fit in Elite. These things sound fun, but in reality, it's just getting screwed over by a dice roll.
Think about it: days into an exploration run. One hundred percent hull. Healthy ship. But things start flickering because...RNG.
No. Thanks.
How is this fun or fair or reasonable? In a movie it's cool and dramatic; in a game it's just punishing you for playing.
Now, if system failures were tied to logical happening it might work. Say, for instance, that we know the life support systems are located just forward of engine rooms. And we have let the rear dorsal section take a beating recently. So now, we have some degradation there. That's logical; I can get behind that.
Likewise, several hard landings have damaged landing gear and ventral thrusters. Nothing catastrophic but some wear and tear. We are informed, and this is stuff we could have prevented so it's OK.
TL;Dr: ship degradation and possible glitches or system failures must be logically consistent and avoidable. Otherwise it's just unfair RNG that punishes you for playing.
This - take a look at car mechanic simulator. I want that level of repair ability on my ship so if you're going out exploring you better bring spare parts with you but we also need the ability to reroute power and things like that.
Except, what anyone attacking "real life" is forgetting is that when it comes to sci-fi games, more people are interested in offering more sci-fi encounters that border on reality and things to do.
So...people want to do science....and that's all they actually say, they want to do SCIENCE!
Ok, since the folks asking for that obviously don't have a clue, science isn't a THING you do...gods my head hurts right now....seriously...that just makes my head hurt.
Exploring has a lot of appeal for me, but an insentive to scan more is needed.
I think a bonus for a completed scan of a system is justified. I like the idea of a 5% bonus for each body in a system, if you scan the lot. If there are 20 bodies thats a 100% bonus. 100 bodies that's 500%.
The longer the development goes the more that will be out there I'm sure. Once aliens are confirmed there maybe a lot more out there and it might be more dangerous as well. At that point explorers will need a lot more rewards.
Agreed. As for the aliens part... Currently the main danger while exploring is us, the pilot, we make mistakes. Going out into the unknown should mean you need to be ready for everything which of course means the need to take weapons with you. This brings with it a whole re-think on what a good exploration build is and also how far you could jump. This in turn leads to more need to roam plants surfaces to find jump boost stuff.
While I agree that there is a lot that could be added to the void of space to make it more interesting we must also remember that, space is big, and possible very empty so a look at the RNG for POI's really is needed. In a way it gives us a less to do right now but to find so many crashed ships on any planet you land on is a bit odd to say the least.
-Let me keep the low-altitude radar when at an altitude to 5 kilometers at least.
-I would not mind more ground material:
--Crystals bursting out of the ground on mineral heavy planets
--Multicoloured crystals reflecting light
--Heavy metal planets having a more metallic sheen like a reflective dust on the ground (100% metal planets would be more fun). Add a heavy metal band or two to them.
When was the last time YOU had to figure out the math for something in a game, or actually DO some real experimentation, exploration, mapping, kick up the mass spec, and so on? I've seen it in a FEW games over the past 40 years, very rare, and in games that never did well because, well, realism doesn't sell in a video game, not the nuts and bolts of it. People want it to LOOK real, but they do not want to take days for various machines to finish analysis of parts of something just so they can take that data, analyze it themselves and try and figure out exactly what the rock was composed of. THAT isn't fun in a video game, no matter how much some people insist they'd love to do that, and it's why it's not done in video games.
Science isn't pushing a button and voila! That's movie/tv/video game science, and it's no more interesting and engaging than honk/scan/refuel/jump is right now.
Probes, cool, what do they DO? What functionality do they have? How much do they weigh? How many can I pack into a single ton of cargo space? What kind of specialized system do I need to launch them? What conditions will they operate in, what can they survive, what can destroy them?
Scanners, we got that covered I think, thinking probes would be the next step there.
Orrey maps are purely a convenience bit, you realize that right? We already know the orbital information for every planet, orrery maps just lays it out in a more easy to understand format, it actually doesn't DO anything to help scientifically speaking. I'd still like to see them, I'm used to them myself, but they aren't required for anything but convenience.
Wormholes, yeah, no. Aliens, already in the game universe, we just haven't found em yet. Comets, also in the game, not currently visible because they don't look good(which is hardly surprising, they will be little balls of ice, we'd not even see them until they started outgassing). Clouds, uhm, what exactly does THAT mean? I see nebulas all over the place, so...too much Star Trek maybe, confusing tv plot devices for actual reality? Pulsars, what, that's a neutron star that emits a beam at it's poles, what exactly are you expecting? Way too much Star Trek man, this IS a scifi based game, true enough, but David is really big on the actual science bit for the astronomical features, not made up , which I happen to agree with him on. I want that scifi stuff, I'll load up STO, it's got tons of totally wild eyed made up 'science'.
Ok, I'll bite. I don't want to do SCIENCE!, I want to do DISCOVERY! or possibly PROSPECTING! and that's kind of what the exploration game is set up for at the moment. There's actually quite a bit of technical content included in the stellar forge which is useful for deep-space exploration if you know to look for it. Terraformable planets are a good example: Terraform Candidates are worth much more than other planets of their type, they're often the most lucrative objects in a system discovery-wise, unfortunately they appear near-identical to other planets of their type on the system map. If you know to look at the planet's mass, the mass of the primary and the distance from the primary then you can develop a knack for spotting which planets are large enough and sit within the goldilocks zone and thus might be worth a visit (there's a user on the Exploration forums who has developed an app for this if anyone is super-keen). Knowing this can really boost your exploration pay-out, it's a good example of using some of the astrophysics along with a bit of knowledge to improve your gameplay. I'd like some modules and points of interest which boost that kind of gameplay please.
One example might be a spectrum analyser which fits in a weapons mount, something which will allow you to perform a low-level scan on a planet at a distance, giving its temperature and atmospheric composition (if any). This would help in further identifying terraformables.
Or if you wanted to add new bits to discover then something like a mineral scanner to identify from orbit fields rich in particular minerals on a planet or a boosted communications ariel to pick up on wrecks from further away.
The idea behind these extra tools would be to make the explorer set-up more varied, with different explorer builds available depending on what you wanted be good at looking for (e.g. a scavenger build vs. a prospector build, or even a build focused on discovering life beneath the surface of ice planets). It would encourage explorers to focus on the parts of stellar forge which are built around physical principles using tools which allow them to inspect the physical properties, deduce the causes behind those properties and then determine which of the observed objects are worth the time needed for a full scan.
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?
