So last night I returned to ED after a long hiatus, to find out that "Beyond" updates were all free and all this new good stuff had just been added to flesh out exploration. Server issues aside, I was quite stoked on my timing.
Today I drove my SRV over a water ice geyser on an ice planet with 0.04G and was almost ejected out into space, in pitch black darkness. I was airborne for about 20-30 seconds and managed to land on the surface again without dying. It was pretty exciting, I loved it!
Total darkness, planetary features with physics, night vision, love it.
Prior to my little adventure, I first had to learn how to use the FSS (easy with the built in walkthrough) and then spent slightly longer trying to work out how to probe planets, and then after probing a planet with geological signals present, I spent longer still trying to find out how to scan them further. The one thing that bothered me about the last two activities was that I had to leave the game and search the forums in order to work out what to do, rather than having some sort of in-game prompt or even a 'Discovery for Dummies' section in the Discovery tab of the Codex.
For anyone not in the know like I was:
1. Probing:
2. Scanning Geo/Bio signals:
Does anyone know if continued scanning of these surface sites yields any exploration data/rewards, or are we just checking boxes in the codex, confirming what Commander XYZ has reported elsewhere?
Nice touch with the new analysis mode, although it would have been nice if it was implemented as a fire-group replacer. It feels like nit-picking, but it just seems like any offensive fire-groups should just be completely ignored whilst in analysis mode and all scanning modules should be ignored whilst in combat mode. That way you wouldn't have to flick through your fire groups to get the ones that work in your selected cockpit mode.
Anyway, great experience so far and I'm really pleased with the direction the game is going since I left. I'm glad to these extra layers and systems of discovery and information sharing being made accessible from within the game as I think it really needed them. Reading the forums for all the latest story developments and discoveries was enjoyable and all, but sometimes you just want to play the game, and by extension have player agency derive from within the game. I think the combination of the codex, galnet and other in-game tools yet to be revealed will hopefully help to enable this further.
Thanks for the free updates!
Today I drove my SRV over a water ice geyser on an ice planet with 0.04G and was almost ejected out into space, in pitch black darkness. I was airborne for about 20-30 seconds and managed to land on the surface again without dying. It was pretty exciting, I loved it!
Total darkness, planetary features with physics, night vision, love it.
Prior to my little adventure, I first had to learn how to use the FSS (easy with the built in walkthrough) and then spent slightly longer trying to work out how to probe planets, and then after probing a planet with geological signals present, I spent longer still trying to find out how to scan them further. The one thing that bothered me about the last two activities was that I had to leave the game and search the forums in order to work out what to do, rather than having some sort of in-game prompt or even a 'Discovery for Dummies' section in the Discovery tab of the Codex.
For anyone not in the know like I was:
1. Probing:
- You need a Detailed Surface Scanner (DSS).
- It needs to be assigned to a fire-group.
- You need to be in Analysis mode and in Supercruise in order to trigger the DSS interface and launch probes at a planet.
2. Scanning Geo/Bio signals:
- This is not done from you SRV, it is done from your ship using your composition scanner.
- Assign your composition scanner to a fire-group.
- Enter analysis mode and point your scanner at your formation of interest to scan.
Does anyone know if continued scanning of these surface sites yields any exploration data/rewards, or are we just checking boxes in the codex, confirming what Commander XYZ has reported elsewhere?
Nice touch with the new analysis mode, although it would have been nice if it was implemented as a fire-group replacer. It feels like nit-picking, but it just seems like any offensive fire-groups should just be completely ignored whilst in analysis mode and all scanning modules should be ignored whilst in combat mode. That way you wouldn't have to flick through your fire groups to get the ones that work in your selected cockpit mode.
Anyway, great experience so far and I'm really pleased with the direction the game is going since I left. I'm glad to these extra layers and systems of discovery and information sharing being made accessible from within the game as I think it really needed them. Reading the forums for all the latest story developments and discoveries was enjoyable and all, but sometimes you just want to play the game, and by extension have player agency derive from within the game. I think the combination of the codex, galnet and other in-game tools yet to be revealed will hopefully help to enable this further.
Thanks for the free updates!
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