Your life is not enough...

[Mucka]

I agree there are concerns about how exploration will work.
It is just not a decent game mechanic to expect explorers to have to travel all the way back from whence they came and then back out past all the systems they have already travelled to get back out to the frontier.
That is why i think it could be a mistake if they are ruling out wormholes or some form of fast travel under certain circumstances.

Who would be prepared to play that role after one or two missions max?
The role is supposed to be about exploring not travelling endlessly back and forth along a route like a bus!

Those stating that it is not about exploring every system are entirely missing the point - it is about making exploring not only viable but enjoyable.
That doesn't mean you have every ship capable of jumping to any point in the galaxy (though even if it did you still would never explore a fraction of the galaxy) it is about enabling fast travel under certain circumstances to make the game playable.
Saying fast travel back to civilisation should not be allowed is like suggesting jumps should not be allowed - it is senseless.

My other concern for the explorer role is variety - making it visually worthwhile exploring which is really what most explorers will be all about - looking for new sights and wonders.
It is fine to have generic systems but there needs to be wonders out there too that will keep the game alive and explorer role fresh.

If you are going to boast about how huge your gameworld is then shouldn't you at least make it possible that it can be explored even if in reality it will be practically impossible to see it all?
Without a limited form of of fast travel people will give up the explorer role pretty quickly because 99.9% of their game time will be spent travelling through the known systems which can't be right.

I guess civilisation catching up and space stations appearing once systems are explored could solve some of those issues.
I hope the devs have thought it through and if they find a way without introducing a form of fast ravel then fair enough though idea of being able to jump through worm holes in certain circumstances is very appealing and I don't see why it is seen as such a negative or inconsistent with ED universe.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

Figures in the universe are staggering.
So sceintists say there are 170 Billion galaxies ! How many stars and planets are that ! A 1/2 Googol ?
We the humans in 2014 have managed to blip arond the moon and our own planet, sent an object to de brim of our planet system....
Huraahhh ....
The nearest planet outside our system is Alpha Centauri is 4.6 Ly away, today an insurmountable distance...
When..
Taming fusion power within the next 30 years , will likely mean a feasible space craft within the next 60 years, solar system explored within the next 100 years and Alpha Centauri within next 200 years.
And the my musings stop, I simply have not got the intellect to imagine what will be invented, understood and constructed 200 years ahead.
But we will go there.. we will, if we survive the next century.
My grandchildren might live to see "The Big Push" finally breaking humankind's final bountier: Space.
Meanwhile in Elite we can fly and dream.

Cheers Explorer's

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Well, it has to be large, I mean ridiculously large, for the explorer role to be a real thing. Frankly even then I think exploring will peter out soon enough unless they introduce some way to get back to the frontier without having to cover all the intermediate systems... like a stargate or something like that.

I was thinking of maybe doing the explorer thing, but ^^ this also concerns me. I don't wish to spend say 6 months or longer doing the whole final frontier thing with side bits (if it's true you can get to name systems and allsorts of easter egg goodies), only to have to spend however long backtracking to find some semblance of player based population.

That would be bad. That might lead to a re-roll situation, which is not appealing either.

I wonder if it might be possible for those in control to do a gamesmaster move for those who chose the explorer start, a 1 time only - "ok are you really sure you want this" kinda thing then move your toon to a "normal start" core system position.

Or thinking about it, a paid transfer of sorts, so other players in core systems can experience the final frontier thing without it taking months just to get to the edge.

They could even make it a roleplay - a transmission "pilot we have found co-ordinates of a hyper wormhole but have no idea where it goes - are you willing to travel through it? Travel to space beacon X" sorta thing.

@DeepFried:

Shorcuts, stargates, wormholes or any form of click-to-travel have all been explicitly ruled out by DB and other FDEV folks both in public statements and in posts on these fora. At the moment, any such mechanic in E: D is in "will never happen" status.

Barring a radical design change, that DB has already stated is incompatible with the vision for the game, the only way to get from point A to point B in E: D will be to sit in a ship and make the jumps from star to star that are necessary to get there.

Oh *sadface* I have to say while lore friendly, it will really hamper exploration IMHO. It would take the dedicated few to spend more than say 6 months doing this KNOWING it will take another 6 months to get back.

Question is would new players get the chance to roll a toon on the edge of the "new known space" frontier as it grows, giving those already out there some (small if it's random placing) chance at RL player populations?

Ironman explorer might be all well and good, but worthless if there's no one else out there but NPC's.

 

[Jason S]

So what the OP is saying is you never again have to buy anouther game.

 

[Zenicetus]

I was thinking of maybe doing the explorer thing, but ^^ this also concerns me. I don't wish to spend say 6 months or longer doing the whole final frontier thing with side bits (if it's true you can get to name systems and allsorts of easter egg goodies), only to have to spend however long backtracking to find some semblance of player based population.

I think the plan (I could be wrong) is that there will be a wave of frontier expansion behind the explorers. New stations, or at least some kind of frontier outposts will be seeded many jumps behind them, but not too far, so you don't have to spend weeks of real-life time getting back to civilization for hyperdrive engine service and turning in survey data.

I wonder if it might be possible for those in control to do a gamesmaster move for those who chose the explorer start, a 1 time only - "ok are you really sure you want this" kinda thing then move your toon to a "normal start" core system position.

Last I heard, we'll be getting more than one character slot per account (maybe three?), so you can keep one character in an explorer ship out on the edge, with another one for core system faction rep, pirating, or whatever.

Or thinking about it, a paid transfer of sorts, so other players in core systems can experience the final frontier thing without it taking months just to get to the edge.

I sure hope not! That would invalidate the time and effort the explorers made to push the boundary of the frontier. There will be amazing new things to see out there, but I hope players will have to work equally hard to get out there and see them in person. For the rest, there is always YouTube uploads.

 

[TartanDragon]

I don't think wormholes would be FDs way to go. Just not their MO and the uproar on these forums would be deafening(I would happen to agree with it.).

One way that I can see, not saying this will be the case, is that the explorer leaves a transmitter in each of the systems they "visit". Once finishing a survey they trigger there transmitter rely system so that the information or news of the information makes it either to a faction or to the bulletin boards. If the bulletin board option is used bidding would start for the complete survey results.

Draw backs? Well yes the explorer is leaving a trail of bread crumbs behind for others to follow and/or track him/her down.

Just a thought.



Edit: Very similar to what Commander Debic said earlier in this thread. I just had not read it yet.

 

[Zenicetus]

One more quick addition to the last post. Once faction rep enters the game, and with the requirement to turn in survey data to just one of the main factions, this could mean that exploring also has a faction rep component.

Some people (like me) will head to the nearest famous astronomical objects. But other explorers may choose to expand the sphere of influence of "their" faction. Because that will help in other ways, like getting access to faction rewards (ships, weapons). And it would also generate automatic war zone areas where the expansion bubbles met.

So it may not be only random exploration, but also a way to increase the size of faction influence in the game. I have no idea if this is what FD is planning, but it's a logical extension of the game design.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

I agree there are concerns about how exploration will work.
It is just not a decent game mechanic to expect explorers to have to travel all the way back from whence they came and then back out past all the systems they have already travelled to get back out to the frontier.

I can't speak for anyone else's navigation decisions, but I plan on taking one exploring route "out", then circling back by a different, equally unexplored, route "back".

Also, once you've registered your explored systems, there's no need to follow the last route again, to reach the "pointy end" of your previous exploration vector. Pad out the sides. Increase the overall "bubble" of explored systems.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

I can't speak for anyone else's navigation decisions, but I plan on taking one exploring route "out", then circling back by a different, equally unexplored, route "back".

Also, once you've registered your explored systems, there's no need to follow the last route again, to reach the "pointy end" of your previous exploration vector. Pad out the sides. Increase the overall "bubble" of explored systems.

It's not this so much but the going back to a "populated by space stations and starbases" section of space that concerns me. I hope they will implement the NPC exodus into new regions in a timely fashion.

As for alternate pilots doing different things; no. In theory in other games it works, but in Elite, the amount of work involved to develop each toon is far higher than people realise; I've gone down that road before in Frontier, and it gets very silly after a while.

1 commander, 1 path that's it. Either 1 faction or another, it matters little in the end, the rewards will be similar enough I'd imagine to not warrant the choice being definitive. I think faction choice will be for personal role play only.

I find it highly unlikely either faction will have a daft "must have" reward like a cloak device, because then everyone will switch and the immersion broken.

 

[Pisiyat]

So what the OP is saying is you never again have to buy anouther game.

Exactly I never said anything negative, but my only concern is to see a copy of each system.

Exploration should be more than "look this star is green, and this one is red" color changes on same graphics.

 

[Flamepreacher]

And that's only 1 galaxy...


I wonder if the account will be able to be left in a will like a watch.

Yup was planning on leaving it all to my children to carry on my legacy

(I don't currently have any but I'll explain to my wife that we need to get on with it, once she realises it's for a good cause I'm sure she'll be up for it)