Why is the Explorer path so unbalanced?

[Alex Brentnall]

And here I was thinking this was an "Exploration is too easy" thread. I mean once you buy an Advanced Discovery Scanner your sidewinder is just as good at exploring as your 700mil Anaconda and there's zero scaling so you can get profits at about the same rate... On top of that there's nothing in the black to do you any damage or risk apart from your own piloting.


As for the topic at hand. I think its fine. The risk can be greatly reduced by having a combat ship at the edge of human inhabited space (I use a system with a station 20ls away from the entry star). Easy hop into the station and then swap ship to travel to where I want to sell my data. Never been interdicted, never had a problem, done upwards of 40 excursions many without shields.

I do however think that keeping a token amount, say 5% of the value of the data but no first discovery reward for whatever would be nice. Say you had 200mil of data you get 10mil from it. Covers the expense.
There's also (as I'm sure many have mentioned already) a whole bunch of stations out there and many more being made now so that you can almost risk-free sell your data without having to hit the main bubble.

Part of me agrees but I really dislike the idea of being able to remote sell or keep data after death. It's a penalty for a reason and it needs to stay imo.
Whilst in the black exploration risk is close to 0%, worst thing you can do is hit a planet surface with high gravity, aside from that any death is really on the pilot who can't avoid hitting stars. All it is really is the risk squeezed into the first and last 10 minutes due to the type of ship and stacked up data. As above if you make the last 10 minutes shorter by prepping a combat ship in the right place then you reduce the risk.


Finally I'll say the right Anaconda or Cutter can get 2000Mj+ of shielding and still break 35ly. You can tank an exploration ship, its just people (including myself) often go for max range.


Edit: The other thing I'd add is that you can do exploration a few hundred systems at a time. Go back after you have 5mil of data instead of 200mil. Thats another choice you can make same way a combat pilot says I'll go back with 5mil of combat bonds instead of 10mil. Only the distance is further.

 

[Stupid_hippy]

Very large snip

Saying we have no right to dictate how you play while dictating to us how you want the game to be played is just beautiful.

Good effort.

Frontiers game, Frontiers game mechanics, Frontiers dictation. We just agree with how they've dictated over the risks to explorers, you don't.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

There is very little risk out in the black for explorers apart from your own mistakes. I see it as pretty well balanced.

What I would like though is a way to get that exploration data back somehow if I have an Accident. Like having to go back to the place you were to retrieve your data from a data beacon or something like that.

 

[MickyG1982]

Here's the thing,

By streaming you open yourself (and others nearby) up to stream sniping. It's a gentleman sausage thing to do but it's hardly FD's problem to mitigate the additional risk that you are putting yourself under.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Not playing Open shouldn't be my only recourse to mitigating combat risk to my weeks or months worth of stellar scan data in a weakened ship.

Indeed - it's not.

Iridium Wing has escorted over 300 explorers in similar circumstances to you - some of them into hotspots like CGs, Engineer bases, Shinrarta Dezhra, or the middle of a BGS fight - and all of them have been able to successfully sell their data where they wanted it sold. Give us a call when you're a few days out from the bubble (or Colonia) and we'll put together a defence team for you, no charge. (Other groups providing similar services are available)

If you're playing in Open, you may as well take advantage of the ability to have armed friends on your side.


For the deep space part of the journey, Frontier has made significant steps to make exploration safer since the original release:
- repair limpets
- SRVs/synthesis for AFMU ammo/synthesis for heat sinks
- wide range of deep space outposts for resupply and data sales
- much reduced NPC hostility to exploration ships
- engineering allowing tougher defense for the same weight (and the same jump range for a heavier weight)

That last one is very significant - you can nowadays get a ship capable of quite significant exploration - easily reaching and going beyond Beagle Point - that also has sufficient shields to leisurely run away from any opposition. A full-sized shield and a bunch of boosters, especially engineered, only takes a few LY off your jump range, but massively improves your survival chances in a fight. (Also, means being a bit careless with a high-G landing won't kill you either)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I have had 2 occasions where I returned to the bubble with 130+ mil data. And while flying around with such value was a little tense, the return to the Bubble wasn't. The docking procedure was more tense than that. Open, Solo or Private makes little difference.

Just pick a system at the edge of the bubble with a station close to the main star, and Bob's your uncle. The gankers won't be snooping around in systems without frequent players, so you won't find them on the fringes of the bubble. They want a congo line of easy targets, so CGs, Engineers, thos kind of systems. Most get into trouble when they want to use that data to influence the BGS, and venture into the bubble into the more populated areas. If that's your target, then you should park a sturdy ship with a big shield and fast engines in a system at the edge of the bubble and hop into that instead of your weary exploration ship.

And there's always Private and Solo of course.

I want to start live streaming and I want to stream the Distant Worlds 2 expedition later this year. I would like to do this adventure in Open, mainly because there IS more chance of things going on. But when it comes to exploration data, that's a bit of a stickler for me. Because my location will always be known, I am at higher risk of attack.

I was considering this when I realized that there is no way other then leaving open to deal with it.

That felt 'off' to me, like, there's something missing in the game, and this why I started this thread.

The stream will be "From Sidewinder to Beagle Point, an adventure in Elite: Dangerous" and I wanted to play it in open. Most things I have a pretty good idea on how to deal with, except this.

Ah, well that's a very specific activity you would like to change the entire gameplay mechanic for.

I don't get why you'd want to do DW2 in Open, since I think most of the participants will be in a private group. So to make the best of your life stream I'd go Fleetcomm.

Another option is to delay your life stream somewhat. (is that possible?)

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

Coincidentally I raised the spectre of this possibility in my Newbies going to Colonia thread.

I can think of nothing more soul destroying than having spent several days or even weeks out in The Black to lose your ship and therefore data on the finish line. I think if that happened, other than by my own stupidity, I would uninstall the game and never play again. As the OP indicates, exploration is not a case of getting knocked back a few minutes in gameplay and having to rebuy your ship. You are losing all that accumulated gameplay.

Given we are already suspending disbelief that the remains of a frozen/incinerated/otherwise deceased Cmdr are magically transported maybe several 100ly to their last hard save location, then reconstituted, is it too much to ask our data stays on our corpse. There could be a rebuy charge for this, perhaps even 50% of the value but the data would be intact. Otherwise the whole re-load/re-buy whenever you die is flawed as it should be a case of Dead Is Dead. FDev wouldn't have many players left if they implemented that so a little laitude surrounding one of the more passive in game pursuits would be welcome.

Or perhaps if we land on a planet out in The Black, we can leave a canister or thumb drive of our collected data to retrieve later. That would still entail jumping potentially 1000's ly from our respawn point but better than losing all that information. Perhaps the canisters could be available at the Bulletin Board for 500k (edited from 50k) a time with a maximum of three owned at any one time?