"You Have Died of Dysentery". what are the explorers in for?

[kenwshmt]

Some of us are heading to the edge at the first change we get, and we will be fine for a while.

After doing it for a month or two, 1 jump or 10 a day, from 10 to 220 light-years depending on skill.

What will break?
What is going to strand us in the wilderness?

How are we going to survive with a broken ship?

 

[P4UL]

You will get Space Rickets!!!! Or the Solar Squitts!!

 

[kenwshmt]

While a type 3 drive is ideal (cobra), would a type 2 be better with more repair equipment in storage and if there is any on ship, equipped?

The fast, lite jumpers will go far quickly, but they will, unless very very lucky, be forced to stop from failures, and maybe die out with out any assistance.

Slower repair capable ships can keep plodding along at a reasonable pace.

If this game depends on getting to a frontier station to deliver the data on system scans, beyond preliminary 'scan reported', the ships built to survive and repair will be the winners, not the Krait with the enhanced scanners.

As to 'scan reported': improved basic information, call it level 2, level 1 is long range electromagnetic passive, what we do now.
level 2, what any ship calling back to check in, would do, is better; how many planets, moons, asteroids, stations (else), maybe a hint of 'gold be here', but not the granular level 3 that a ship returning from a long search gets you. like named planets and moons.

ALSO.. any 'rights' need a station visit.. if you mine, you mine without any 'legal' claim, you just happen to be there. it becomes 'yours' after placing a claim at a station, 300 light years away.

Anyhow, back to what breaks on ships.

 

[brightangel]

"You have died from the vapours."

 

[Bounder]

High energy radiation damage might be an obvious problem, but then how would the ship's occupants be protected if their kit isn't? Besides, spacecraft equipment is over-engineered to survive heavy damage from cosmic rays, alpha particles etc.

You need to introduce another element to explain a high breakdown frequency.

Hopefully Occam will prevail and by 3250 critical ship systems will be at least as reliable as NASA's circa 1970.

 

[deMangler]

When I first went exploring in Frontier I died far from known space because my fuel scoops broke. I Just set down on a planet and watched the sunset.
I assume I died anyway, possibly ships life-support systems could keep you alive for hundreds of years in 3200 or whenever....

 

[Hamerstein]

When I first went exploring in Frontier I died far from known space because my fuel scoops broke. I Just set down on a planet and watched the sunset.

I really like that image, perhaps 50 years later the next gen of explorers found this half crazy, grizzled veteran who had canibalised his ship and made a life on an alien ball of rock. You needed a harmonica to complete that sunset image though .

More on topic. I'd expect ships to have multiple redundancies to cope with bog standard equipment failures. I'm not a fan of the idea of MOTs, not that they're unrealistic, but because I don't fancy being burdened with the mechanic (no pun intended).

But that wouldn't preclude ships being damaged by attack, or bad driving (heavy landing, dinking an asteroid). I'd like the idea of an explorer being able to recover from such disasters though, rather than being forced to just watch the sun go down.

I know some folks aren't a fan of the crafting concept but this is one of the places where it could come into its own. If you could mine and refine materials, buy repair manuals for exploration equipment essentials (like fuel scoops) and craft a "patch" to repair the damaged system. It would maintain the "make do", "Wagon train" essence of pioneers and give the player the feeling that their ingenuity and effort fixed the problem, rather than some passive mechanic like an auto-repair system.

 

[JKF]

I think when I go exploring I'll be wanting a ship large enough to carry a small ship that I can use to get back to civilisation. I would not expect the small ship to deteriorate as long as I don't use it.

 

[Kerrash]

...
I know some folks aren't a fan of the crafting concept but this is one of the places where it could come into its own. If you could mine and refine materials, buy repair manuals for exploration equipment essentials (like fuel scoops) and craft a "patch" to repair the damaged system. It would maintain the "make do", "Wagon train" essence of pioneers and give the player the feeling that their ingenuity and effort fixed the problem, rather than some passive mechanic like an auto-repair system.

I like the idea of not limiting exploration this way. Perhaps if the old real downside of equipment breaking was having a time penalty to repair it? Or that a patched up ship has reduced range per jump?

We have 3D printers here in 2013, I imagine ship systems circa 33rd century are at least self sufficient enough to keep limping along at a reduced pace.

 

[Zebarmy]

I approve of the discussion around this.

I want an Elite universe Wookiee equivalent as one of my ship mates.

 

[streki]

Please do correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly, but deep exploration was limited in Frontier due to my ship needing repairs and the availability of starbases where the repairs could be purchased. I don't remember being able to go too far before my ship breaking down and leaving me stranded. Or were repairs only necessary after combat ?

 

[Ian Phillips]

I originally posted this in the "Dockable ships" thread:

How to explore: The logistics of exploring in far regions of space.

Imagine a ball in space - thats the 'known' region of space. It has all the amenities we have come to take for granted. Governments, Space docking stations, Trading posts, Pirates, Repair and maintenance yards, Bars and all the rest.

Now imagine a bigger ball that encompasses the first ball - it can be as big as you like. This is the unknown. This is where we are going. But how do we get past the limitations of our ships that need repair, refueling and perhaps re-arming (you never know what you will meet out there). These things place a restriction on how far we can go.

We will have to bring our amenities with us!

Personally I think that Pirates and Governments can be left off the list of essential features but that refueling facilities, repair facilities, docking for R&R and storage of the results of mining activities would be things that would be required.

So, a large (No - I said large, think bigger!) docking ship/station. Probably modular so that it is simple to grow bigger over time. The individual modules would have to be able to jump under their own power, but once bolted together it becomes a station and cannot hyperjump. Maybe it could fly around the system? That would solve problems that have been voiced in this thread about not wanting to have player controlled docking ships - just make them too big to fly around the galaxy!


Automatic mining rigs. Drones to skim gas giants for fuel and bring it back to the station. Storage facilities for fuel and ores. A bar. Storage facilities for the vast quantities of Elite real ale that the bar serves. A bolt-on module for the docking station for ship repairs.

 

[Laton]

I think Michael already mentioned in the KS Comments that self-repair would be possible but not economical and it would be preferable to repair at a station. We've also seen footage of heavily-damaged Anacondas still limping through space.

I think the biggest problem about being out in unexplored space is that if you find some amazing mineral resource or something, and you fill up your cargo bay, there's nobody to sell that stuff to, and you'd have to voyage back to a system with a population again pretty often.

Unless there's some kind of in-game reward or career that's available by literally BEING an explorer? Maybe if you visit a system / map a planet from orbit which has never been visited or mapped by a player before, the Federation will pay you for that information? That would work well I think.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Please do correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly, but deep exploration was limited in Frontier due to my ship needing repairs and the availability of starbases where the repairs could be purchased. I don't remember being able to go too far before my ship breaking down and leaving me stranded. Or were repairs only necessary after combat ?

You could break down at any time during a jump (and get a mis-jump), which could leave you in a lot of trouble. If you were serious about space exploration you generally got a big enough ship to fit an auto-repair unit in, so you didn't need space docks then, just a fuel scoop to collect your fuel.

-------------------------------------

I would like to see exploration seriously expanded upon in Elite: Dangerous. Not from the first release(as they have enough to do already!), but as an expansion. The base reason for exploration should be some low level reward (along the lines of the bounty you get for killing a pirate/clearing up debris in close orbit etc), and a way to chart each players discovery. Some things that come to mind to look into:

1. Space Anomalies - have various kinds of these things floating around in the void or hidden amongst asteroid fields, on planets etc. The more the merrier and take from sci-fi if needed to add variety. Positive and negative effects (plus an obligatory cash reward for any discovery) etc.

2. Lost/Hidden Items - lost artifacts(some Alien!), abandoned colonies, salvageable remnants of a space battle/witch-space jump gone wrong etc.

3. System and Planet discoveries - not naming of them, as that mostly often goes to the big-wigs (and might be better handled from FD themselves over concerns of lewd words etc), but a credit for having discovered them in the system info? And if landing on new worlds have a variety of dangers from exotic atmospheres to strange creatures and virus etc.

The base of any exploration system should be to give both an even chance of good and bad things happening (not enough to kill outright, but so an element of danger is always in the players mind on these missions), and ways to mitigate those (so for an exotic atmosphere you need protection from that via some hardware you can buy, maybe pre-scanning the planet with special scanners first to identify the exotic atmospheric conditions etc).

It could/should become a fully featured aspect of the game with a good level of risk and reward.

 

[JackWeaver]

I really like that image, perhaps 50 years later the next gen of explorers found this half crazy, grizzled veteran who had canibalised his ship and made a life on an alien ball of rock. You needed a harmonica to complete that sunset image though .

More on topic. I'd expect ships to have multiple redundancies to cope with bog standard equipment failures. I'm not a fan of the idea of MOTs, not that they're unrealistic, but because I don't fancy being burdened with the mechanic (no pun intended).

But that wouldn't preclude ships being damaged by attack, or bad driving (heavy landing, dinking an asteroid). I'd like the idea of an explorer being able to recover from such disasters though, rather than being forced to just watch the sun go down.

I know some folks aren't a fan of the crafting concept but this is one of the places where it could come into its own. If you could mine and refine materials, buy repair manuals for exploration equipment essentials (like fuel scoops) and craft a "patch" to repair the damaged system. It would maintain the "make do", "Wagon train" essence of pioneers and give the player the feeling that their ingenuity and effort fixed the problem, rather than some passive mechanic like an auto-repair system.

Which reminded me of this SEED (2012) Short Film

 

[Andy Kappa]

You guys are so disorganised. By then Honda will have moved into space technologies: get a decent set of engines, have them serviced properly (better yet learn how to do it yourself), and they'll just go on for ever!

Simples!

 

[Kerrash]

Please do correct me if I'm remembering this incorrectly, but deep exploration was limited in Frontier due to my ship needing repairs and the availability of starbases where the repairs could be purchased. I don't remember being able to go too far before my ship breaking down and leaving me stranded. Or were repairs only necessary after combat ?

The former, eventually all parts would fail and you would end up stranded which was a shame.

I would like to see an internal systems equivalent of the hull auto repair system in E: D. It would be great if you could keep repairing your systems but they continue to work at reduced capacity until you replace them completely at a station.

 

[Hamerstein]

I like the idea of not limiting exploration this way. Perhaps if the old real downside of equipment breaking was having a time penalty to repair it? Or that a patched up ship has reduced range per jump?

We have 3D printers here in 2013, I imagine ship systems circa 33rd century are at least self sufficient enough to keep limping along at a reduced pace.

I'd consider that you would have to mine resources and spend time refining/crafting a fix would be penalty enough. You could also make repaired stuff work less efficiently, but eventually the compounded problems would force you to turn back. Think I'd prefer it if that didn't happen.

I did see a flaw in my thinking though, if your fuel scoops failed, you couldn't mine (or atleast you couldn't collect the proceeds). So perhaps either mining lasers have a self collecting element or you'd be allowed to carry a spare fuel scoop in your cargo hold.

Extension of that, why not a spare anything (cargo limitations withstanding)? When polar explorers go on expeditions they try to make sure they have cover for most eventualities, because if something goes pear-shaped out there, you're dead.

I think the biggest problem about being out in unexplored space is that if you find some amazing mineral resource or something, and you fill up your cargo bay, there's nobody to sell that stuff to, and you'd have to voyage back to a system with a population again pretty often.

Not neccesarily, if you think back to Elite, there were mineral commodities that weighed in grammes or kilos rather than tonnes. Like-wise with exotics you might not need alot of it for it to be very valuable and cover the cost of your exploration. There's also the possiblity of data being of value and data takes up no cargo space at all. It's also possible for data to be transmitted home (and your account credited), which would allow you to just keep on going.

I don't think any explorer would just keep going forever, but if they did then the issue of alien cultures in unexplored space needs to be looked at, and the possibilty of trading with them for resupply purposes.

 

[Pekka]

I think it would be great if you could make a living by being an explorer. Somebody would have to pay you for interesting discoveries so that you could afford to keep doing it. Exploring unknown locations has always been possible in Elite, but it could be so much more interesting if it were actually recognized as a potentially profitable profession in the game.

 

[Memnoch]

I really like that image, perhaps 50 years later the next gen of explorers found this half crazy, grizzled veteran who had canibalised his ship and made a life on an alien ball of rock. You needed a harmonica to complete that sunset image though .

Along with copious amounts of beans!

More on topic. I'd expect ships to have multiple redundancies to cope with bog standard equipment failures.

The engine thing was probably just a way of limiting exploration, knowing that you would have to get it serviced at least once a year. This could be neatly ignored with no real penalties or drawbacks to gameplay.

I think it would be great if you could make a living by being an explorer.

I'm sure I've played a game that does this. The type of discovery would yield differing rewards, and more discoveries would lead to new ranks with their own bonuses or benefits.