Why not? Elite Dangerous: Exploration Division, a mini-game for smartphones

VR SenseiMatty

VR SenseiMatty
The new exploration mechanics would perfectly fit also on smartphones and the exploration game could also advertise the full game.

Elite Dangerous: Exploration Division

Context
You're an explorer and your task is to reach Sagittarius A*.

Setup
You have a 2D galaxy map, reduced in stars of course compared to ED, this is a smartphone arcade game.
All systems are unexplored, no BGS, no powerplay, just exploration. You can't fly the ship, you just play the exploration mini-games. You can see your ship during the jump animation: it's an Asp-X.

Scope:
You start from Sol and the game ends when you reach Sagittarius A*

Game mechanics:

  • You can jump to other systems within your FSD jump range by selecting them on the 2D galaxy map.
  • When you jump to a system the FSS interface appears and you play the mini-game to discover planets and anomalies.
  • By zooming on a newly discovered planet you access to the surface mapping mini-game. There's a maximum number of probes to be used to map it (bigger than the actual efficiency target). If you exceed this number you fail the mini-game and the planet remains unmapped.
  • A players chart is shown for every system showing the names of the 3 CMDR's that mapped it at 100% with the lowest number of probes.
  • You can leave a system and jump to another one only when it's 100% discovered. No mapping is required but you get very low XP points.
  • When you scan and map a neutron star system at 100% you get the FSD boost bonus, same for White Dwarves.
  • Black holes systems have a timer. If the time expires while you're scanning and mapping it the ship is sent back to another random system in a 400 LY range through a worm hole. If you can scan it and map it at 100% within the time limit you get a 400 LY jump boost bonus.

Rules:
  • At the beginning you can only visit systems with brown-dwarves and red-dwarves.
  • By collecting cartography data you gain XP points and you rank-up through the exploration ranks.
  • The type of stars where you can jump to are unlocked by the ranks.
  • Only when you hit Elite you can jump to black holes.

Game styles:
You can chose the short path and fly straight to Sag A* with the risk that when you get there you are not Elite yet so you need to hang around a little bit before completing the game.
If you want to enjoy the game and you're a "completionist" you can chose to scan all stars in the galaxy and go to Sag A* only for the end-game.
 
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krylite

krylite
As Frontier gets bigger, I would guess they could eventually branch out to do some phone app games.

I wonder if someday Frontier would do an rpg game, whether 3D spacelegs part of ED, or a standalone space type or not kind of rpg game like the recent Pathfinder:Kingmaker which was made on Unity, or the older KOTOR, or even Balder's Gate series. They've got great sound design and their voice acting efforts can be above average games, and the cobra engine seems more than capable of a game like those.
 

Boff'in

Boff'in
If frontier was to make a companion app, do it properly.

1) Player Journal.
2) Player Stats.
3) Interface to the station and the ships UI and "basic" navigation, probably based on your history or currents missions, so the galaxy map render isn't possible, maybe economic routes(???)
4) Multi-crew 2D interface, so instead of having the 3D render, you have a poormans 2D render or circles and lines. (giggle like mabe elite 1984 but in the new Orange UI colourscheme :D
Allowing you to do the probe launching, or planetary scanning from phone or tablet.
So A housemate could sit next to you, log in on their phone/tablet, and help co-pilot your ship.

I was hoping that's what the duradrive hardcore tablet thing might alude to if it wasn't a hint for space legs......bah, it might even just be some crappy galnet news ;)
 
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