Exploring star systems is boring

[Matamaure001]

Using a ship to visit each planet and moon in a star system to explore all space objects is tedious and boring (tons of clics, and clics, and clics... and tons of our time to do repititive and not interesting things)

I suggest to program a function to autoexplore a system with the appropriate reports (aliens artifacts, type of planets, mines....). The time to autoexplore should be based on the FTL MK of the exploring ship and should take more time than doing it manually with the same ship. In a contest between many captains, it would be faster to do it manually. A message should be sent when the autoexploration is completed (like for LR jumps). The fuel cost should be the cost it would be to do it manually.

The autoexplore would also give a chance to captains that work in RL and do not have all the time that other have.

[Rostin]

I could get into this if it only gave vague exploration details. Like how many orbital stations, planetary modules, and player ships were in the system as well as just a list of every mineral and gas in the system without saying what planet they are all at. That would leave it up to the player to do the actual exploration and if they had a goal like, "Oh, I want to find where that diamond is!" it would be much more fun scanning through the planets.

You could also develop advanced scanners that told you who owned modules/stations/ships in the system without actually going to the planet. Could be part of the reconnaissance/surveillance  update that I keep suggesting ;)

[JamJulLison]

I could get into this if it only gave vague exploration details. Like how many orbital stations, planetary modules, and player ships were in the system as well as just a list of every mineral and gas in the system without saying what planet they are all at. That would leave it up to the player to do the actual exploration and if they had a goal like, "Oh, I want to find where that diamond is!" it would be much more fun scanning through the planets.

You could also develop advanced scanners that told you who owned modules/stations/ships in the system without actually going to the planet. Could be part of the reconnaissance/surveillance  update that I keep suggesting ;)

What mata is talking about is the ship going planet to planet taking scans. Not scanning from the safe zone. So since the ship would have visited them all, it makes sense it would record in it's computers everything on each planet/moon it visits. I for one thing this idea of his is very good.  Though people would want to perhaps use it with caution.  After all ships could still be attacked while jumping from planet to planet.   Though with a high MK FTL that shouldn't be a huge problem.  As for the issue of looking for diamonds. If I wanted to find diamonds, i'd just keep doing a bunch of nest. You make far more on diamonds from those then you do from mining.

[Rostin]

I was using the diamonds as an example... There are other players in this game that would be interested in diamonds besides you JJL... But I digress.

Why don't we just automate everything then! What's the point of playing the game if you let the computer explore everything for you? Exploration should take a little bit of effort on the player's part. So I do not like this idea

[sargas]

I'm with Rostin on this...

[JamJulLison]

I was using the diamonds as an example... There are other players in this game that would be interested in diamonds besides you JJL... But I digress.

Why don't we just automate everything then! What's the point of playing the game if you let the computer explore everything for you? Exploration should take a little bit of effort on the player's part. So I do not like this idea

So make it a VIP option then and for non-vip incorporate into the autopilot modules.  From a technological standpoint with how things are in the game right now there is no reason we shouldn't be able to do it. If you still want to do it manually you can. Hell most of the time I still would. But it can get a bit tedious. Especially when trying to search systems while managing a crap ton of other ships at the same time.

[SirEmi]

I was using the diamonds as an example... There are other players in this game that would be interested in diamonds besides you JJL... But I digress.

Why don't we just automate everything then! What's the point of playing the game if you let the computer explore everything for you? Exploration should take a little bit of effort on the player's part. So I do not like this idea

So make it a VIP option then and for non-vip incorporate into the autopilot modules.  From a technological standpoint with how things are in the game right now there is no reason we shouldn't be able to do it. If you still want to do it manually you can. Hell most of the time I still would. But it can get a bit tedious. Especially when trying to search systems while managing a crap ton of other ships at the same time.

A VIP option or a combo (AP + System Exploration Extension) could be done... and it will work similar to the autopilot. It will wait 5 minutes between plotting new courses / jumping etc. It will be a lot slower then manual, but it could get the job done It's low priority but will note it, thank you.

[Irredrache]

What if FTLs could plot advanced courses through a star system? So you tell it what path you want it to take, as in: Go to Alpha first, A1 second, Beta third, B2 fourth, B1 fifth, and so on. Then the system could process the time required for all the jumps at once, and then we can manually explore, but without those annoying little 1 minute wait timers. That would preserve the joy of exploring for me, but it would make things less boring for Mata and JJL, I bet .

[JamJulLison]

What if FTLs could plot advanced courses through a star system? So you tell it what path you want it to take, as in: Go to Alpha first, A1 second, Beta third, B2 fourth, B1 fifth, and so on. Then the system could process the time required for all the jumps at once, and then we can manually explore, but without those annoying little 1 minute wait timers. That would preserve the joy of exploring for me, but it would make things less boring for Mata and JJL, I bet .

I think we should be able to do it either way. lol.  BTW this entire system would make it quicker and less tedious to try to find stuff belonging to IMG. I am sure your boss would find it useful.

[Antilak]

I'm still a relatively new player. Only have 2 ships. Have accrued probably 3-6 million research.

My feeling is exploring is ok for ME. It gives me something to do besides collecting mining production and managing my assets and traveling to/from sol on occassion. (note I haven't done any missions yet) However, I think some players have been around so long that it's no longer just finding a new system every once in a while. Instead it's like having enough ships to explore a dozen systems at once, but not being able to control all of them timely. For example, I only have presently 1 ship I use to explore systems for resources. But imagine if I had 15 exploration ships? It'd get quite tedious to explore systems that way. And if I was part of a corporation and I had to explore several systems periodically to know who's nearby or to checkup on something else, it'd be a very tedious thing as well on top of everything else.

One thing this kind of reminds me of is X2: The Threat. The creators added minimal automation to the game because it required lots of time to have a lot of ships. Early on the burden wasn't bad. However, as a player gains assets it became increasingly difficult to do things with them. This is why players created scripts to automate certain things, depending on what they wanted the ship to do. It's as though the creators of the game failed to create a compelling "high level" game and banked on the early game.

I also think as it's exploring the planets for resources is very uneventful. In space games I've played before, you didn't explore 100's of planets without anything happening. Typically, you'd be attacked now and then by pirates just traveling between two stations. You'd also discover more things than just minerals or gases. You'd discover races or you'd get a new kind of mission or something of that sort. Presently, the "event" system seems to be in the interstellar space between stars, as opposed to also being possible inside the systems themselves.

Maybe the game could scale exploration better as players gain power or ships, so they don't become bogged down by it. And in addition to this there could be some events thrown into planetary exploration to give explorers more eventful gameplay.

And don't automate everything because I like to have stuff to do. It's a balance.

[raphael]

And in addition to this there could be some events thrown into planetary exploration to give explorers more eventful gameplay.

Yes, I agree. Basically just add more random events in the game. Like a random pirate raid (on stations, planetary modules, and on interplanetary and interstellar jumps), maybe random alien attacks. Also random events on Sol where everything will cost less or more due to various reasons.. I could add more samples of random events but you guys probably get my idea.

[Raptor]

I could add more samples of random events but you guys probably get my idea.

Random Zod attacks 

[JamJulLison]

I'd love some random events.  it would certainly help to keep things from getting too dull. Though the rewards from them better be worth it.

[Irredrache]

And in addition to this there could be some events thrown into planetary exploration to give explorers more eventful gameplay.

Yes, I agree. Basically just add more random events in the game. Like a random pirate raid (on stations, planetary modules, and on interplanetary and interstellar jumps), maybe random alien attacks. Also random events on Sol where everything will cost less or more due to various reasons.. I could add more samples of random events but you guys probably get my idea.

I really like this idea... I wouldn't want ideas that could cause damage to planetary modules... mining is already the least useful thing in this game, making it harder to mine would be a bad idea IMO. But maybe events with response timers, so if a station comes under attack you have 24 hours to get a ship in position to fight the pirates. If they had decent rewards, that sort of thing could actually enhance the mining experience.

As for random Sol events, I'm very much in favor of those... maybe a spike in the price of bromine. They could even be based on the community... aka, a shortage of bromine causes a spike in the price. But once the game community sells 10000 bromine (at a greater profit of course!) or whatever, the price can come back down. This is another way to make mining more relevant . Heck, if you really wanted to go hard, Sir Emi, you could program in a supply and demand element to Sol resources, so that extended player purchasing can drive the prices up. Then a player-driven economy could take off, which would REALLY help the miners. I recognize that this would be a major change, but it's just a thought.

[JamJulLison]

In order to do a proper player driver economy resources could no longer be unlimited at Sol. Your right this would help out miners a lot. This is an idea some people have wanted to see in the game for a long time. But it does present another problem. Adding in such a thing at this point risk to throw things off balance. There is nothing that can prevent bigger players from coming in and taking control of the areas with good resources. Assuming the area isn't mined out in the first place of course. Also it would make it that much harder for newer players to actually grow. They would have to either mine to get everything or have someone else make the stuff for them. Meanwhile bigger players who make in solars by the buttloads will not only take over the best mining spots for resources but they likely would buy out everything that comes up on the Earth trading outpost and horde it back in case they need it for later.  This would of course make it even harder on newbies to grow. The only way such a system could be added in fairly would be if either a wipe was done of all accounts or a 2nd server be started.  I think the latter would be a better option. Of course if SirEmi were to do that he might as well add in my suggestions I posted a while back for pvp into that server.