What would make Exploration more fun?
Oh, you know, pretty much all the stuff that has been repeated hundreds of times over the last year and a half that I can't be forced to reiterate for the sake of my own sanity....
But besides that? Something that hasn't been discussed to death and begged for unto exhaustion?
Some cat and mouse gameplay.
Give us tracking beacons, and make these tracking beacons quirky.
Fire a tracking beacon at an explorer on his way out of the bubble and if you get a solid hit on a good part of the ship (I.E. somewhere that it isn't going to get scraped off when they deploy hard points, and not in the cockpit glass.... Or maybe having a blinking red beacon sticking in your cockpit about a foot away from your face would add a nice edge to exploration.
) and you can track the Explorer away from the bubble on your galaxy map. Give them a maximum range (throw in different qualities and give them variety) and a transmission delay, and then throw in some other factors such as...
If the trackee is near a recent supernova will scatter the signal, causing it to look like your tagged commander is in several different systems.
Nebula slow down the transmissions
Being in a system near a black hole will bend the signal and cause the commander to appear in a different nearby system.
Insert other interesting phenomena here.
And then give us the option to either steal exploration data or scoop it.
Now... You do this and tinker with the rules a bit depending on how players interact with it and you end up with a fun game, but one that doesn't happen very often (how often do you see explorers departing from the bubble, and what would be the likelihood that you'd be able to tag one with a tracking beacon before you lost them?). You want the Explorer's data but at the time you find them, they don't have any, so you've got to let them go. You're equipped to fight and they're likely equipped to travel, so you will likely have a hard time keeping up and if they get too far away, you lose them. If you get too close and accidentally stumble into the same system as them too early, you'll spook them and lose your catch, they will almost be guaranteed to be able to sprint away faster than you can follow once they know they're being followed. There will ideally be a sweet spot that the tracker will have to feel out depending on how active the Explorer is and how they do their particular brand of Exploration, and the tracker will need to maintain that sweet spot until they decide the Explorer has scanned enough to be suitable for fleecing.
If the tracker pounces and manages to catch his prey, they get a double payload of Exploration Data. If he pounces and fails, the tracked commander might sprint back for the bubble to cash in their current data, or they may continue exploring since now that they know they're being tracked, they can be said to have the advantage in being able to avoid their pursuer by having all of these interesting phenomena to use to their advantage and above all.... To be Forewarned is to be Forearmed.
So there's Exploration Content Idea #407. It'll likely rot in the grammatical peat bogs of forum hell just like it's 406 predecessors, but whatever. I did my part.
