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Author Topic: a little more of a hint  (Read 3272 times)

blainedeyoung

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a little more of a hint
« on: December 27, 2020, 02:12:57 PM »

I just took a "scan a derelict ship" mission, and all the information I got about its location was the system and that it's "some distance" from the center.  I understand there wouldn't be any challenge if you gave me the exact coordinates, but I get a little bit of a hint? 
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Brasidas

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2021, 04:45:48 AM »

If you take the tachyon scanner ability, it'll show you the direction of various energy emisions from ships and such. I use it to find derelicts in star systems - save before going looking obviously, as you can go off on some massive detours due to a dud on the scanner.
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SCC

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2021, 11:21:14 AM »

Space is empty. With this comes the issue that there's few hints you can be given without making it obvious where you have to look (in vicinity of any planet? you just beeline straight for it), but the same emptiness makes searching for stuff pretty boring at the same time.

Serenitis

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2021, 02:14:13 AM »

The "space is big" vs "not being able to complete missions" is one of those realism vs gameplay deals, which I'd prefer leant more on the side of gameplay.

Deliberately avoiding missions because they contain certain words/phrases which mean you have an incredibly low chance of finding the target feels "gamey", like you're being offered a choice which you know has a significant chance of punishing you. Once you're aware of this, why would you ever choose to do that?

Maybe some of the hints could be improved a little.
As noted, you can't really really say something is "near planet x" as that removes any need for searching.
But you could say that something is "in the orbital region of planet x". That would give a decent sized area to search and the player (probably) wouldn't find it right away, but it's not so large that it's offputting.
This would have the same mission effect as the object being in an asteroid belt. You need to search the edge of a circle, which is bigger the further away from the star it is, but you know exactly where you need to look and its a limited area.

A similar thing could be done for the outskirts mission targets.
Just arbitrarily decree that all system maps in-sector use NSEW as a cartography convention for ease of understanding, and then have the mission hint point the player into a quadrant or segment depending on how you want to divide up the map.
The mission effect here is still broadly the same as it is now, but you've narrowed the search area down by a significant amount.
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SCC

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2021, 02:31:14 AM »

What is "orbital region of X"? Do you mean the orbit path? The Lagrange points? Or is it simply near it? I feel like this can be either too obvious or too vague, even though you hoped to strike the middle.
I think that instead of vague hints, I would rather get rid of hints entirely and instead make it so that objects of interests can only spawn in or nearby obvious spots (around planets, Lagrange points, star coronas, asteroid and ring belts) instead of "outer reaches". You don't get everything handed to you on a plate, but you don't have to pixel hunt either.

Serenitis

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2021, 08:51:07 AM »

I was thinking "somewhere near-ish to the orbit path" which would be effectively almost the same as searching an asteroid belt, but without rocks bumping you.
This could include two of the L points.
I don't suppose it matters if you specifiy this or not as you'd fly-by L4 & L5 anyway as part of your search.
(L1, 2 & 3 I don't think the game even tracks, definitely nothing player-facing at any rate.)

But tbh, just making the whole process less of a gamble on whether the target is somewhere findable in a reasonable time frame or not would be a huge improvement on it's own.
Agree with having mission objects spawn near other things/places and not in the middle of nowhere.
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Megas

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #6 on: January 04, 2021, 09:17:47 AM »

Agree with having mission objects spawn near other things/places and not in the middle of nowhere.
Worst is the rare pirate base somewhere in a huge outer asteroid belt, far from any planet or relay (and beyond Sensor Burst range).  Those may never be found without Neutrino Detector.
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Helldiver

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2021, 10:18:04 AM »

Besides the Neutrino Detector being a big help, it pays to always have a large margin of supplies so you can afford to search for a good while on site without running out. And if you're planning on often doing these sorts of exploration missions, it's best to have the fleet and skills adapted for it, with high burn speed and good passive detection range.
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DistressBeacon

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #8 on: January 11, 2021, 05:09:28 PM »

I think it might an interesting system where you can hire people,ships, etc to help you to do certain missions, say you don't have the Neutrino Scanner thingy. Just hire someone with a ship that does, and they'll take part of the reward.

And so on.
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Morrokain

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2021, 05:27:12 PM »

The orbital range idea could definitely help narrow it down without practically saying "go here" so that could work. I think a goal should be preserving the usefulness of the Neutrino Detector without making it mandatory so the hint can't be too good.

I think it might an interesting system where you can hire people,ships, etc to help you to do certain missions, say you don't have the Neutrino Scanner thingy. Just hire someone with a ship that does, and they'll take part of the reward.

And so on.

I like this idea from a flavor standpoint. Maybe this is something that can be patched on to the "Fleet Orders" feature if that ever becomes a thing.
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Megas

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Re: a little more of a hint
« Reply #10 on: January 11, 2021, 05:35:11 PM »

For that one pirate base (in Penelope's Star) I used Neutrino Detector for, I spent more than thirty minutes checking all of the planets and the relays, and pulsed Sensor Burst and searched for nearby patrols.  Searching this way, I found every previous pirate base in about a minute, but it failed miserably this time.  Eventually, I gave up and got Neutrino Detector just to find that pirate base, which was located in a non-descript place in the outermost asteroid belt, far from any landmarks.

It was one of those -3/-50% pirate bases tormenting the core worlds.
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