Which faction uses slavery? Both the Empire and the Feds or FD would have you believe with all the Naval slave missions for the Feds. I have no doubt there is some kind of lore with the game but it doesn't present itself. There are glaring issues such as the Fed Navy wanting you to smuggle slaves. I love the combat, the exploration and the passenger missions and that's what I do but there if there is a story, I don't know what it is.
Why Elite's riddles and story do not work for me
- Thread starter KiDra
- Start date
Which faction uses slavery? Both the Empire and the Feds or FD would have you believe with all the Naval slave missions for the Feds. I have no doubt there is some kind of lore with the game but it doesn't present itself. There are glaring issues such as the Fed Navy wanting you to smuggle slaves. I love the combat, the exploration and the passenger missions and that's what I do but there if there is a story, I don't know what it is.
Nobody has said that. You're just being deliberately inflammatory or playing the martyr. Stop it.
What *has* been said though is that to be involved you have to GET involved, rather than standing at the sidelines, not wanting to be involved, not participating at all, and then saying at the end 'but I could not participate'.
Try it.
Or engage with it in some way; even if its just the brute force work of searching with mk I eyeballs.
I didn't know what a nonogram was until last week, either. I'm not a member of Canonn. But I most certainly was on the right planet when the ruins were found, contributing as much as anyone else, because I was equipped with eyes and a spaceship. I could have literally been anyone else, with any skill set. And all I did was read a post and decide in my own mind that I thought it was a promising theory, and that I was happy to spend a few hours of time going and seeing if I could help, without promise of reward or a prize.
That is literally all it took to be right there at the end of several mysteries and to feel a part of the excitement: Being a set of anonymous boots on the ground. no out of game tools or knowledge required; just my willingness to throw a few hours at a perhaps futile goal.
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Warning: Long post, possibly even a rant!
Well said Leo, we need solutions.
I don't want to sound like a broken record or that I am having a go at Cannon but I do feel that a big part of the problem is how all science is lumped together. I know Rizal does a splendid job of keeping the front page updated with the latest information but unless you have followed this from the beginning it is a hard read, not helped by it having the latest news first - which is good for those up to date.
Look at this situation as a new player who has come to the forums for the first time, he see's the thread and within a few minutes he will be confused - possibly to the point of not bothering to delve deeper. Part of the problem is how all the topics are kept together in one place - In the real world these differing branches of investigation would be discussed in detail by themselves with a coming together with those concentrating on other aspects to share ideas in a common place. We currently have just the common place with everyone shouting as loud as possible to be heard in the hopes that there idea may have merit. If they are lucky they may get a response along the lines of 'See post 2,345 in the second thread' or 'No, it's been done already' - not what I would call helpful or encouraging.
While Cannon do make everything freely available there also seems to be a mentality that anything to do with any mystery has to be posted in the thread - I've even seen CMDR's state this openly which to my mind is not right and has to stop now as it makes Cannon seem like an all encompassing group that has copyright on all things mysterious in the game. They do not, nor do they claim such a thing, it appears to be a forum thing.
I had a look in the Cannon thread this morning to try and catch up on whats happening, not a chance. The posts jump from one topic to another, it was like listening to all the conversation's in a hair salon at once, impossible to understand any one thing and lots of background noise making the job even harder. However I don't blame anyone person for this state of affairs other than the forum managers - not moderators - who have allowed this to become the norm with all things science in Elite. Meanwhile the people who have been able to become invested in the mysteries do an amazing job and it is incredible to see the amount of work being done to solve the puzzle's which brings us to the main topic of this thread.
Are Frontier catering to a small minority of people? Yes.
Have they done it intentionally? No.
Have they become stuck in a rut? Yes.
Strong comments to make but they are what I feel has happened. I think the intention of Frontier was to create interesting hard to solve mysteries that would engage the player base but here is where they have made the first mistake. It appears that at some point the choice was made to make the mysteries require third party tools taking the player out of the game - for many this is never an issue but for a lot of players it is. They paid for the game and want to play it, not spend the weekend knee deep in paper work and having to download all kinds of third party software just to see if it produces some kind of result. I don't think they made this choice with the intention of breaking a players immersion however when I load up a game I don't then want to be swapping between the game and other software - it's akin to playing Monopoly while watching a spy film and making a three course meal - neither of which will help you if you land on Mayfair with my hotels! With the recent mysteries also needing tools outside of the game I think Frontier have let themselves become to involved with this one aspect of the community - loosing the interests of other players is never a good thing and not something you want to hear about at any stage in a games life - I would say the alien mystery is the biggest attention grabber for many players but then we are just left on the sidelines without a clue how to solve the ingame clues. This alone has made me not even interested in the mystery any more.
With the recent mysteries that have been thrown at the player base it is clear that the first thing that gets done is for the third party software to be used, it may be photoshop to enhance an image or a sound package to look for images in the new audio. Obviously spreadsheets are also needed as are a pen and paper... These are not the tools most gamer's associate with playing a game - you know the thing you spent your money on to have a bit of fun with? It seems that despite David saying they they had got it wrong they intend to carrying on getting it wrong.
To make it worse when new discoveries are made the in-game mechanics for informing all the players is woefully lacking. GalNet may be the one stop place to go for all your information but be honest, most pilots never go to the page in game to read the news. Half the time trying to find news as opposed to stats or political standings can be a mission all by itself. We spend vast amounts of time just sat in SC - why can the news not then be read or even narrated to us via text to speech software? Instead I am expected to sit in a space station and read.
Remind me again did I buy a book or a game to play?
What could be the solution to all of this?
I would look at adding the ability to listen to the galaxies news with a range of topics you can choose to listen to or not.
PF Messages sent to all CMDR's upon confirmation of a new discovery.
Access to information - supplied by the PF - of information pertaining to the various mysteries within the game, crediting the CMDR's who made the discovery.
A science forum whereby the main topics can be discussed in detail with the best ideas/knowledge shared in a kind of science convention thread - currently we only have the convention thread although I fear thing's may of gone to far already for this.
There may well be other great of better ideas as to how this can be tackled but it needs to be addressed and solved so it stops becoming a barrier to entry for new players as this is not what Frontier or Cannon ever set out to do.
Sorry for the wall of text but this is my 'trigger' topic. When I bought the game I was ready for an adventure in space, instead I got to learn how to use Google more and became an expert in Excel.
Well said Leo, we need solutions.
I don't want to sound like a broken record or that I am having a go at Cannon but I do feel that a big part of the problem is how all science is lumped together. I know Rizal does a splendid job of keeping the front page updated with the latest information but unless you have followed this from the beginning it is a hard read, not helped by it having the latest news first - which is good for those up to date.
Look at this situation as a new player who has come to the forums for the first time, he see's the thread and within a few minutes he will be confused - possibly to the point of not bothering to delve deeper. Part of the problem is how all the topics are kept together in one place - In the real world these differing branches of investigation would be discussed in detail by themselves with a coming together with those concentrating on other aspects to share ideas in a common place. We currently have just the common place with everyone shouting as loud as possible to be heard in the hopes that there idea may have merit. If they are lucky they may get a response along the lines of 'See post 2,345 in the second thread' or 'No, it's been done already' - not what I would call helpful or encouraging.
While Cannon do make everything freely available there also seems to be a mentality that anything to do with any mystery has to be posted in the thread - I've even seen CMDR's state this openly which to my mind is not right and has to stop now as it makes Cannon seem like an all encompassing group that has copyright on all things mysterious in the game. They do not, nor do they claim such a thing, it appears to be a forum thing.
I had a look in the Cannon thread this morning to try and catch up on whats happening, not a chance. The posts jump from one topic to another, it was like listening to all the conversation's in a hair salon at once, impossible to understand any one thing and lots of background noise making the job even harder. However I don't blame anyone person for this state of affairs other than the forum managers - not moderators - who have allowed this to become the norm with all things science in Elite. Meanwhile the people who have been able to become invested in the mysteries do an amazing job and it is incredible to see the amount of work being done to solve the puzzle's which brings us to the main topic of this thread.
Are Frontier catering to a small minority of people? Yes.
Have they done it intentionally? No.
Have they become stuck in a rut? Yes.
Strong comments to make but they are what I feel has happened. I think the intention of Frontier was to create interesting hard to solve mysteries that would engage the player base but here is where they have made the first mistake. It appears that at some point the choice was made to make the mysteries require third party tools taking the player out of the game - for many this is never an issue but for a lot of players it is. They paid for the game and want to play it, not spend the weekend knee deep in paper work and having to download all kinds of third party software just to see if it produces some kind of result. I don't think they made this choice with the intention of breaking a players immersion however when I load up a game I don't then want to be swapping between the game and other software - it's akin to playing Monopoly while watching a spy film and making a three course meal - neither of which will help you if you land on Mayfair with my hotels! With the recent mysteries also needing tools outside of the game I think Frontier have let themselves become to involved with this one aspect of the community - loosing the interests of other players is never a good thing and not something you want to hear about at any stage in a games life - I would say the alien mystery is the biggest attention grabber for many players but then we are just left on the sidelines without a clue how to solve the ingame clues. This alone has made me not even interested in the mystery any more.
With the recent mysteries that have been thrown at the player base it is clear that the first thing that gets done is for the third party software to be used, it may be photoshop to enhance an image or a sound package to look for images in the new audio. Obviously spreadsheets are also needed as are a pen and paper... These are not the tools most gamer's associate with playing a game - you know the thing you spent your money on to have a bit of fun with? It seems that despite David saying they they had got it wrong they intend to carrying on getting it wrong.
To make it worse when new discoveries are made the in-game mechanics for informing all the players is woefully lacking. GalNet may be the one stop place to go for all your information but be honest, most pilots never go to the page in game to read the news. Half the time trying to find news as opposed to stats or political standings can be a mission all by itself. We spend vast amounts of time just sat in SC - why can the news not then be read or even narrated to us via text to speech software? Instead I am expected to sit in a space station and read.
Remind me again did I buy a book or a game to play?
What could be the solution to all of this?
I would look at adding the ability to listen to the galaxies news with a range of topics you can choose to listen to or not.
PF Messages sent to all CMDR's upon confirmation of a new discovery.
Access to information - supplied by the PF - of information pertaining to the various mysteries within the game, crediting the CMDR's who made the discovery.
A science forum whereby the main topics can be discussed in detail with the best ideas/knowledge shared in a kind of science convention thread - currently we only have the convention thread although I fear thing's may of gone to far already for this.
There may well be other great of better ideas as to how this can be tackled but it needs to be addressed and solved so it stops becoming a barrier to entry for new players as this is not what Frontier or Cannon ever set out to do.
Sorry for the wall of text but this is my 'trigger' topic. When I bought the game I was ready for an adventure in space, instead I got to learn how to use Google more and became an expert in Excel.
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As I've said before, Tip-off missions seem to be being used to drip hints about major plot and mysterious stuff, via the ship logs that are with the wreckage. There were allusions of pilots being ambushed by weird stuff for about three months before the first alien wreck was found. I believe that these are one of three primary methods FD are using to bring the plot lines to the wider player base (the others being Galnet and CGs).
However, they do require the player engage with the mission. But I don't see what FD can do to shove things in the players face any more than that: We get a special snowflake alert that tells us we are a special snowflake and there is a special mission for us from a secretfriend. Honestly, if a player at that point prefers to go and do a Sothis run or whatever else instead, then that was their choice to opt out of story content.
It is a mess of a thread. It was fine when there was only one or two mysteries and that was it, but now there are dozens of things going on at once, it needs splitting. There was attempts to do this with the Numbers Station mysteries, but it didn't last long, and everything was hoovered by the megathread again.
I'd say ''put all the mysteries in their own forum", for ease of access, but then new players might not notice the sub-forum.
I don't think we can expect FD to hire a full time newsreader / voice actor any time soon, and I don't think a synth voice would appeal. As nice as it'd be, this is not practical.
Good idea.
I'm not sure how you'd do that. Without just importing the forum post, it would rely on someone in FD relaying the information second-hand. I mean, we can bung a tourist beacon above every major find, but i have a feeling that you'd want more info. How about sending a message to commanders telling them to check the Galnet article which discusses the find, or is that not enough information? If more information than that is needed, then I stand by my old adage that no company documents their game as well as players do, and the only up-to-date reliable information on games is found in the player's hands: Either on that Canonn thread or Youtube. Games houses simply don't prioritise keeping in-game documentation fresh and accurate because it's a LONG way down the priority list and anything there has already been written up more accurately by players, complete with a youtube video!
As above, I like the idea but worry that it would not be obvious to newcomers, and that it would lead to less awareness, not more.
As-is, the best and most accurate information is generally the first post of the Canonn thread. To be fair, it is well maintained and gives everyone a good overview, without needing to read the main thread.
I am not sure a "science forum" is the solution, it's been proposed a few times previously.
With the one thread you have focused discussion, the discussion moves from topic to topic as the focus of the posters change. I see this as fine, it's following the zeitgeist as it were. My issue with this is that it effectively puts a cap on people getting involved, as traffic increases people can't keep up, so stop following, meaning it self-balances to an upper limit.
More specific threads *do* pop up, they will last a few days but for some reason they tend not to get traction as people go back to the one main thread. I don't believe mods shut these down at all.
My feeling is there are pros and cons, one thread helps in one way, multiple threads help in another. One thread probably helps in the feeling of there being one "group" and were all just having a chilled out conversation without any of the usual forum politics. While on the downside when traffic rises it can start to feel a bit exclusionary.
With multiple threads my feeling is negativity (toxicity?) would increase, the feeling of a conversation would go, but more people would feel they can dip in. As an example some SDC members are in the thread but it's a total none issue due to the single thread nature, my feeling is that would probably not happen with multiple threads, people without any real interest would drop in with an agenda, and the tiresome and off-putting forum negativity would probably be introduced.
There is probably also a side-issue in that at least partly, the players feel various mysteries are linked, the links chop and change so it is hard to make and moderate clear divisions. Discussion on the ruins topic can suddenly in one post switch to discussion on generation ships due to someone suggesting a link, and everyone then discusses those - though as I say this might be an aside.
I think there was a recent post by Brett C saying they will have a good think about this specific issue of a "mysteries" forum recently.
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Tip off missions? Never seen one, for anything. I have no idea what hoop I have to jump through to get them. I do loads of missions, I'm allied with numerous minor factions, last week I was allied to all 3 major factions at the same time (the alliance one has dropped back to friendly now), obviously that isn't enough to get a tip off. Do I need to be Elite? Am I in the wrong part of space? Am I doing the wrong type of missions? Or do I just need to sacrifice 2 goats and a virgin to the RNGod? I have no idea how to get one of these tip offs, I wouldn't even know they existed if I didn't visit the forums.
Again the other things you mentioned I wouldn't know about without visiting these forums. I'm not sure I'd even know there were alien things to find if it wasn't for the forums.
I'd go with the 2 virgin goat sacrifices - I've seen three Tip Offs - they aren't connected to a story arc as far as can make out but they are exactly the kind of mini-adventure I'm talking about ( if a little underwhelming when you do find the wreck POI ) - No idea what triggers them, running a lot of missions for an allied minor faction seems to be a theme though.
Hoop? You do missions as far as I can see, get allied with people in factions, rather than superpowers. Anonymous 'friends' don't send tip-offs of juicy off-the-book salvage jobs to strangers. They're pretty rare and I mainly got them when I was doing a LOT of missions in one place to boost ran or get permits.
I completely agree and I would love a story we all can enjoy not a drop in a bucket footnote to be wrapped in a coding puzzle that a mere 5 commanders can participate in and enjoy. Til then I' don't care
This isnt working for me either.
Reasons:
1. We don´t know how much is in the game. Michael will show us the STOP-Sign right when we are close to something. Happened already.
2. Some of the riddles need external tools to solve. While I understand that a computer game offers a limited set of tools, there should be a couple of other possibilities to solve the riddles. Nothing against a calculator or even excel. (I must admit that the sound-thing was a great idea - but if this special riddle was meant to be solved to continue the storyline... well... )
And I have to say I was part of the guys who were trying to solve the sound-thing back in summer. It was a great idea. But continuing the storyline should be an ingame-thing.
Just my opinion though.
Reasons:
1. We don´t know how much is in the game. Michael will show us the STOP-Sign right when we are close to something. Happened already.
2. Some of the riddles need external tools to solve. While I understand that a computer game offers a limited set of tools, there should be a couple of other possibilities to solve the riddles. Nothing against a calculator or even excel. (I must admit that the sound-thing was a great idea - but if this special riddle was meant to be solved to continue the storyline... well... )
And I have to say I was part of the guys who were trying to solve the sound-thing back in summer. It was a great idea. But continuing the storyline should be an ingame-thing.
Just my opinion though.
I'd just like to add that the mysteries thread is starting to remind me a lot of the movie "A Beautiful Mind" where he suffers from mental health issues that make him see codes everywhere! It's not healthy to drive a section of the community to the brink like this, we should really set up a support group, or maybe block downloads of Audacity and SonicVisualizer for a day or two ?
the ED story is a breadcrumb trail where a crumb only gets dropped every few months 
it really is a very hollow meal it leaves me very hungry and unsatisfied.
The only good thing that comes out of it is my respect for the community for spending hundreds of hours to crack something tossed out so quickly :/ in game development these things are usually the opposite way round (great content overlooked not micro content examined to its finest detail)
it really is a very hollow meal it leaves me very hungry and unsatisfied. The only good thing that comes out of it is my respect for the community for spending hundreds of hours to crack something tossed out so quickly :/ in game development these things are usually the opposite way round (great content overlooked not micro content examined to its finest detail)
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You think *they* are crazy?
Come join us in the Rift thread!
From the mad to the utterly crazy, I'll leave you lot well alone as ordered by by mental health team!
the ED story is a breadcrumb trail where a crumb only gets dropped every few months
Remember we don't pay a subscription charge. We pay for four updates in a season, not for a trickle of extra free stuff in between. I love story aspects unfolding, but I'm not going to beat FD down for not having a continual and extremely rich story-line, updated on a daily basis, even though it's what I'd like to see too.
You think *they* are crazy?
Come join us in the Rift thread!
Funny you should say that ... I was thinking about making a day trip out to EAFOTS BA-A G0 to have a poke around
Crikey, this has moved on a bit since my last post, there are a few things I'd like to address from some of those either in or on the fringes of the Canonn group and those in favour of the current implementation of the aliens story. The points below have been paraphrased a fair bit aa I want to address these points one by one and not the posters behind them.
"Crybabies'
To be honest I've seen very little of this in this thread, many of us have made suggestions and would just like a more inclusive approach to the alien story.
"Elite is nerdy"
To a certain extent it most definitely is, many of us are happy with 'nerdy', we just aren't as delighted that apparently 'nerdy' in Elite is restricted to code and cipher puzzles, the definition of 'nerdy' is much broader.
"The only thing preventing your involvement is you"
There is a very small element of truth to this, but it is tiny, for many of us the only thing 'preventing us getting involved' is a lack of major interest in code and cipher gamepley, we are however interested in aliens and potential alien contact in Elite. This is not a zero sum or mutually exclusive thing, we cannot feign an interest in codes and ciphers if it does not appeal to us that much, but we could, potentially, in a more varied approach from Frontier.
"This isn't the game for you/wrong game"
Please guys and gals, enough with this one either being said outright or being hinted at in a passive/aggressive way. For many in this thread Elite is very much the game for us and so is a storyline involving aliens, as I said above there is no 'zero sum' or mutual exclusivity' to see here, move along.
"These codes and ciphers are great, what other codes and ciphers do you want?"
This one makes me go 'grrrrrrr' a bit to be honest, this is the point being missed on a large scale, we would like something to run alongside the codes and ciphers plot, something different and there have been several good suggestions from myself and others as to what form these could take, (in this thread and others).
"The puzzles are too hard for you"
Guess what, they may or may not be, the problem is that without a relatively deep interest in standing on the shoulders of Alan Turing and Dr Robert Langdon I and others will never know. Some of you guys and gals doing the decoding are very intelligent, that is beyond dispute, but, genius, intelligence and lateral thinking are not the preserve of the codes and ciphers brigade, I bet there is much more genius and intelligence in this game and on these boards that is untapped because of Frontier's narrow view on what constitutes a mystery.
"Offer constructive critique then"
Largely we have been, this thread has been far from an entitlement whine fest.
"Other ideas?"
As stated above, if you haven't skimmed the thread at least go back and do so, I and others have presented some good ideas. Are these ideas going to involve and satisfy everybody? - not by a long chalk but I guarantee you many of them would have a wider appeal than the current implementation.
Guys and gals at Canonn, on the fringes of Canonn or just those who enjoy the codes and ciphers element of the aliens mystery. Nobody is trying to take anything away from you guys, a lot of the suggestions in this thread can quite easily co-exist with the elements you guys are enjoying so much. We are not trying to take Michael Brookes and his teasers away from you, we are not trying to take your Galnet space away from you and we are not trying to take your gameplay away from you. You guys and gals can carry on enjoying your codes and ciphers in the same way you do right now, more diversity in this story, more involvement in this story and more exposure of the game and story on Reddit, streams and more is going to benefit everybody in the short, medium and long term.
"Crybabies'
To be honest I've seen very little of this in this thread, many of us have made suggestions and would just like a more inclusive approach to the alien story.
"Elite is nerdy"
To a certain extent it most definitely is, many of us are happy with 'nerdy', we just aren't as delighted that apparently 'nerdy' in Elite is restricted to code and cipher puzzles, the definition of 'nerdy' is much broader.
"The only thing preventing your involvement is you"
There is a very small element of truth to this, but it is tiny, for many of us the only thing 'preventing us getting involved' is a lack of major interest in code and cipher gamepley, we are however interested in aliens and potential alien contact in Elite. This is not a zero sum or mutually exclusive thing, we cannot feign an interest in codes and ciphers if it does not appeal to us that much, but we could, potentially, in a more varied approach from Frontier.
"This isn't the game for you/wrong game"
Please guys and gals, enough with this one either being said outright or being hinted at in a passive/aggressive way. For many in this thread Elite is very much the game for us and so is a storyline involving aliens, as I said above there is no 'zero sum' or mutual exclusivity' to see here, move along.
"These codes and ciphers are great, what other codes and ciphers do you want?"
This one makes me go 'grrrrrrr' a bit to be honest, this is the point being missed on a large scale, we would like something to run alongside the codes and ciphers plot, something different and there have been several good suggestions from myself and others as to what form these could take, (in this thread and others).
"The puzzles are too hard for you"
Guess what, they may or may not be, the problem is that without a relatively deep interest in standing on the shoulders of Alan Turing and Dr Robert Langdon I and others will never know. Some of you guys and gals doing the decoding are very intelligent, that is beyond dispute, but, genius, intelligence and lateral thinking are not the preserve of the codes and ciphers brigade, I bet there is much more genius and intelligence in this game and on these boards that is untapped because of Frontier's narrow view on what constitutes a mystery.
"Offer constructive critique then"
Largely we have been, this thread has been far from an entitlement whine fest.
"Other ideas?"
As stated above, if you haven't skimmed the thread at least go back and do so, I and others have presented some good ideas. Are these ideas going to involve and satisfy everybody? - not by a long chalk but I guarantee you many of them would have a wider appeal than the current implementation.
Guys and gals at Canonn, on the fringes of Canonn or just those who enjoy the codes and ciphers element of the aliens mystery. Nobody is trying to take anything away from you guys, a lot of the suggestions in this thread can quite easily co-exist with the elements you guys are enjoying so much. We are not trying to take Michael Brookes and his teasers away from you, we are not trying to take your Galnet space away from you and we are not trying to take your gameplay away from you. You guys and gals can carry on enjoying your codes and ciphers in the same way you do right now, more diversity in this story, more involvement in this story and more exposure of the game and story on Reddit, streams and more is going to benefit everybody in the short, medium and long term.
Things I'd like to see in future updates:
Advanced discovery scanners that give more planetary details (deepest canyon, highest mountain, any fixed location unidentified signals, etc.)
A new data decryption interface capable of picking up encoded transmissions and decoding them through a mini game that increases in difficulty with higher levels of encryption. (This could be used to add to the progression of new content and discoveries of unknown origin. Or to decode and break into npc radio chatter or data beacons).
A better comms panel that allows players across multiple instances and sectors to communicate outside of a wing.
Local system voice chat you can enable and disable at will, so everyone in a system can communicate with one another through voice chat without being in a wing, but turn it off when someone starts playing music through it or just being straight up annoying.
Non-linear discoveries, by this I mean throw out the current model of timed discovery in favor of something more realistic, so what if we discover the middle of a puzzle before we found the beginning. To that extent, make content that is multi-directional, you can follow it back to the source or the first step. If you find the next to last clue in a series of puzzles, you can't progress easily without the information of the rest of the pieces.
These aren't new ideas, I've seen a lot of people post similar things all over the forums. And it's time some of this stuff was implemented.
Advanced discovery scanners that give more planetary details (deepest canyon, highest mountain, any fixed location unidentified signals, etc.)
A new data decryption interface capable of picking up encoded transmissions and decoding them through a mini game that increases in difficulty with higher levels of encryption. (This could be used to add to the progression of new content and discoveries of unknown origin. Or to decode and break into npc radio chatter or data beacons).
A better comms panel that allows players across multiple instances and sectors to communicate outside of a wing.
Local system voice chat you can enable and disable at will, so everyone in a system can communicate with one another through voice chat without being in a wing, but turn it off when someone starts playing music through it or just being straight up annoying.
Non-linear discoveries, by this I mean throw out the current model of timed discovery in favor of something more realistic, so what if we discover the middle of a puzzle before we found the beginning. To that extent, make content that is multi-directional, you can follow it back to the source or the first step. If you find the next to last clue in a series of puzzles, you can't progress easily without the information of the rest of the pieces.
These aren't new ideas, I've seen a lot of people post similar things all over the forums. And it's time some of this stuff was implemented.
I am going to have to at least partially disagree with that. They seem to be casting the skillset net fairly wide.
Let's think back:
The clues that led to the treasure hunt spanned a wide number of topics, including mythology and astronomy
Audio experts, not cryptographers found the initial spectrographs
People who do video or use photoshop have cleaned up images
the Rift mystery is seemingly a lot of word-play and riddles, not ciphers
The nonograms are a type of logic puzzle, not a cipher
Flying over planets to find stuff was not a cipher
The find of the alien ruins was down to a bit of trigonometry in lining systems up
The right system in the treasure hunt was found by simple exploration: Checking if possible systems had the right number of planets and main bodies
The braille was...braille
People keep focusing on the 'codebreaking', but most of it is not cryptography at all. Certainly no pattern analysis has been done. The first three Numbers Stations used a simple A=1 code, so yes: It was a code, but in this case no specialised knowledge of cryptography was needed.
Many have required specialised skill to a greater or lesser degree, but it is not just in a single field.
A bit like Bletchley. they didn't get professional cryptographers in. they got a massive variety of very clever people from a wide variety of fields.