DUST Search - [Suggestion] Exploration

Ender Storm wrote:

Jakar Umbra wrote:

Ender Storm wrote:

I like it especially the part where EVE capsuleers would be feeding contracts into Dust.

In EVE players have entire bussines based around running exploration sites. People get them or find them and hand them the site locations to be run for a % of the gains, usually 50/50.

So, people inside Legion corps could also get these business up as well, the same as in EVE, making the experience even greater since players would start to have other activities besides PVP.

But, all things in EVE have a risk.

I think it would be nice also that, after a locations is being run, if another capsuleer finds the site and sees people runing, he could put up a "counter contract" that would allow another Legion party to enter the fray.

So there woudl be the risk of PVP on PVE activities. I believe in all activities in the EVE universe, there must be a risk of a Real fight.

Exploration is such a quick and emergent thing that I believe it needs to stay that way. For example the EVE player would still need to scan down the site and hope that the contract gets accepted before the group already there finishes the site as it would remove the site and by extension the contract. It needs to be a system that can't be exploited however as in the second example, when EVE Player 1 had to obtain equipment to deploy to the surface which would take time, instead of making a contract which automatically puts ground troops and equipment on site without any preparation or assembly of assets.

There is nothing more annoying in exploration than finding a site, getting to like 98% scanned and then it disappears because someone else beat you to the punch.

Yeah, but thats kind of the way of the business, its not like WoW where you go to a raid and do it, it needs some work.

Also, scaning isnt the only source of sites. Escalations are very common as well with good pay outs.


Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 600	Posted - 2014.05.13 12:02:00 - [1] - Quote I've been playing EVE for a while now, and one of my favourite activities is exploration. For those who do not know, exploration is essentially the locating of cosmic anomalies in space and running them; they are almost a type of emergent mission. These locations are most often referred to as sites and there are several, but the primary ones are Combat sites, Data sites and Relic Sites, with others being Ore Sites, Ice Sites, Gas Sites and Wormholes. How does exploration in EVE Online work? Well in EVE you fit your ship with a module which launches probes. You then use these probes to scan the site and pin down its exact location by manipulating placement and scan range of the probes to get more and more precise readings until you 100% locate the site. At this point you can warp to the site and run it. There are skills which improve your scanning abilities as well as ships which have various scanning related bonuses; my personal favourite ship for this being the Sisters of EVE frigate, the Astero. How could exploration work in Legion? There are a variety of ways this could work for Legion, on a personal level, a squad level, a corporation level, and on levels which could integrate very well with EVE. For the Lone mercenary exploration, and the word is used a little loosely, would happen in a couple of ways. For one, the lone mercenary would have the ability to scan down minor sites on moons in the system he is in or travels to via whatever transport system is in the game, probably Interbus. These sites would fall under combat, data and Relic, where after fighting some defenders, defences or NPC Salvagers of the faction the relic site belongs to in the case of relic sites, the player could attempt to access various rooms, terminals or ground outpost ruins to get useful salvage or blueprints which he could use or otherwise sell. These areas would exist in high sec and low sec space. The other method for the lone mercenary to explore would be via contracts and as this would tie back into a few other sections I'm going to explain as I go. On a squad level, a squad leader, or perhaps designated scanner in a group, if said person has the skills, would be able to locate sites in the local system, these sites would either fall under minor or medium sites. Minor sites would be accessible with a squad, while medium sites would not be accessible solo. These sites would play in much the same way as Solo sites except it would be possible to locate an ore site, underground gas deposit site or maybe even ice sites. These sites would not be accessible to lone mercenaries. For these sites an extractor would need to be deployed which the players would have to defend as its programmed AI seeks out pockets of ore and extracts them. I'm not entirely sure what NPC opponents would exist here as for a FPS things to shoot at are a must, however if other mercenaries drop in on one of these sites in low sec while another group is there well... On a corporation or let's called it assembled platoon level, scanning would be the same except these can only be deployed to large sites, which would be much better in low and null sec. These sites would yield massive rewards as groups of players would not attack simply outposts but storage warehouses and large enemy bases, run relic sites of large battlefields and recover data from large data cache strongholds. Now you're probably wondering how this might integrate with EVE. In EVE an exploring egger would be scanning anomalies and wait... is that anomaly on a moon? Yep. He can't access it but according to Concord there are things there that he might want that are on the ground too, that he can't access since it's on the ground. A prompt appears, would you like to make a contract? [YES] A contract appears with pay not even necessary as the reward and ground salvage would be enough for the group as well as fixed minor fees associated with whatever capsuleer oriented salvage they locate and recover. So okay, that's the general idea, what about some of the finer points? Well next post. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 600	Posted - 2014.05.13 12:02:00 - [2] - Quote Reserved Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 600	Posted - 2014.05.13 12:54:00 - [3] - Quote Reserved again Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 605	Posted - 2014.05.13 21:15:00 - [4] - Quote Dauth Jenkins wrote: Simply put.... +1. Good work, with a lot of thought put into it. Also, is it possible for , let's say, the HAV pilot to join up with the solo nerc and become allies, or would they just inherently be put against each other. I guess what I'm asking is, if you and some random feel like working together, could you squad up right then and there. Honestly, through all of my thinking this out I had in fact thought of that but when I wrote it out I forgot to mention it. There is that possibility and it would be a very good way to start forming up groups. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 605	Posted - 2014.05.13 21:20:00 - [5] - Quote Ender Storm wrote: I like it especially the part where EVE capsuleers would be feeding contracts into Dust. In EVE players have entire bussines based around running exploration sites. People get them or find them and hand them the site locations to be run for a % of the gains, usually 50/50. So, people inside Legion corps could also get these business up as well, the same as in EVE, making the experience even greater since players would start to have other activities besides PVP. But, all things in EVE have a risk. I think it would be nice also that, after a locations is being run, if another capsuleer finds the site and sees people runing, he could put up a "counter contract" that would allow another Legion party to enter the fray. So there woudl be the risk of PVP on PVE activities. I believe in all activities in the EVE universe, there must be a risk of a Real fight. Exploration is such a quick and emergent thing that I believe it needs to stay that way. For example the EVE player would still need to scan down the site and hope that the contract gets accepted before the group already there finishes the site as it would remove the site and by extension the contract. It needs to be a system that can't be exploited however as in the second example, when EVE Player 1 had to obtain equipment to deploy to the surface which would take time, instead of making a contract which automatically puts ground troops and equipment on site without any preparation or assembly of assets. There is nothing more annoying in exploration than finding a site, getting to like 98% scanned and then it disappears because someone else beat you to the punch. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 605	Posted - 2014.05.13 21:26:00 - [6] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: Why couldn't the merc simply get onto a district, and walk around and explore FC style? What's the guarantee there's going to be something there? It would be the equivalent of flying to deadspace and hoping to find a site. While immersion is a big thing, time spent performing these activities still needs to be kept in mind as you want things to be flowing consistently much rather than a haphazard hop of absolute boredom travelling from district to district on foot or dropship or LAV to find out there's nothing on this particular moon and then you still have a lot more to check. Some of the planets in EVE have ludicrous numbers of moons and I'm only using moons for examples. What about the potential for derelict stations, or pirate outpost stations? Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 605	Posted - 2014.05.13 21:41:00 - [7] - Quote Godin Thekiller wrote: Jakar Umbra wrote: Godin Thekiller wrote: Why couldn't the merc simply get onto a district, and walk around and explore FC style? What's the guarantee there's going to be something there? It would be the equivalent of flying to deadspace and hoping to find a site. While immersion is a big thing, time spent performing these activities still needs to be kept in mind as you want things to be flowing consistently much rather than a haphazard hop of absolute boredom travelling from district to district on foot or dropship or LAV to find out there's nothing on this particular moon and then you still have a lot more to check. Some of the planets in EVE have ludicrous numbers of moons and I'm only using moons for examples. What about the potential for derelict stations, or pirate outpost stations? If that what if was an actual problem, the America's would never been discovered. EDIT: Actually, even worse, if that what if was a problem, humans would probably be killed off by now. Trust me when I say I would love nothing more than to run around an empty district; in fact I have a couple in times in Dust, something I'm sure many of us have done, but look at it from the point of view of "Okay running around on the ground by myself with nothing to shoot at is fun, relaxing and all but this is a FPS/MMO I want to shoot and loot." I'm actually go a little off base and use one of my personal favourite games Fallout 3. For me one of the biggest things I loved about Fallout 3 was the fact that everywhere I turned there was something to find. I never worried about getting lost because I knew that no matter where I ended up, I would find something interesting to do, shoot, loot, craft, read or what have you. This was actually a problem I had with New Vegas which while there was still plenty to do, there was not a lot to find. Here you don't want to spend so much time in a game where there is so much to do doing nothing, unless of course you deliberately set out to do so, therefore I find that a mechanic that flows quickly and leads into the ability to get to a site do it and move onto the next one, not necessarily quickly but smoothly, would be advantageous. To deploy on foot to search several square kilometres by whatever vehicle you have at your disposal, only to find nothing and still have multiple districts on multiple moons would lead to a bit of emptiness unless you spawned something on one in every two or three districts, which would kind of diminish the rewards for seeking out the signature. Of course there would also be cosmic anomalies, things that you immediately pick up that are in system that you could immediately deploy to. These could play out in that sort of manner, but because of the lack of effort required to locate them, their rewards would be a little less attractive, not to say you wouldn't want them. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 605	Posted - 2014.05.13 22:31:00 - [8] - Quote Fox Gaden wrote: How about if the EVE pilot equips a module on his ship that allows him to drop a CRU on any lunar sites he scans down. He can then sell the access code to the CRU to a Legion merc via the contract system. That's a possibility as well. I'd like to point out that in my examples I threw as many different mechanics together as possible in order to point them out and highlight them. The ability for a squad to scan down a site and deploy to it is still a possibility. Since they are in system they would have the advantage of being able to deploy their Exploration Vessel to the moon or what have you and operate quickly. However the possibility for a contract to be available to a squad of mercs accordingly is not an issue. I've just been pointing out that on the off chance the contract isn't accepted before someone else clears the site you would lose it. There are a lot of people who explore and compete for sites in EVE, making it a particularly competitive activity. No doubt there are mercs who would play at times to do only those kinds of contracts. I'm just saying that there are so many ways into it because of how competitive it is that sometimes contracts may be fruitless occasionally but not saying that you shouldn't put them up as an EVE capsuleer or do them as a Legionnaire as anything with a reward that is worth a decently low risk could be achieved. After all putting up the contract would cost the capsuleer nothing more than the broker's fees to put it up and he could just as easily do other sites while waiting for the returns. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 613	Posted - 2014.05.14 00:10:00 - [9] - Quote Ender Storm wrote: Jakar Umbra wrote: Ender Storm wrote: I like it especially the part where EVE capsuleers would be feeding contracts into Dust. In EVE players have entire bussines based around running exploration sites. People get them or find them and hand them the site locations to be run for a % of the gains, usually 50/50. So, people inside Legion corps could also get these business up as well, the same as in EVE, making the experience even greater since players would start to have other activities besides PVP. But, all things in EVE have a risk. I think it would be nice also that, after a locations is being run, if another capsuleer finds the site and sees people runing, he could put up a "counter contract" that would allow another Legion party to enter the fray. So there woudl be the risk of PVP on PVE activities. I believe in all activities in the EVE universe, there must be a risk of a Real fight. Exploration is such a quick and emergent thing that I believe it needs to stay that way. For example the EVE player would still need to scan down the site and hope that the contract gets accepted before the group already there finishes the site as it would remove the site and by extension the contract. It needs to be a system that can't be exploited however as in the second example, when EVE Player 1 had to obtain equipment to deploy to the surface which would take time, instead of making a contract which automatically puts ground troops and equipment on site without any preparation or assembly of assets. There is nothing more annoying in exploration than finding a site, getting to like 98% scanned and then it disappears because someone else beat you to the punch. Yeah, but thats kind of the way of the business, its not like WoW where you go to a raid and do it, it needs some work. Also, scaning isnt the only source of sites. Escalations are very common as well with good pay outs. I assume you're talking about my last thought, which honestly I should have finished. It's annoying yes, but it's part of what makes it what it is and that's why I love doing it so much when I play EVE. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.
Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 614	Posted - 2014.05.14 12:25:00 - [10] - Quote Please don't let this thread get lost. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.

Jakar Umbra Altyr Initiative 615	Posted - 2014.05.14 18:54:00 - [11] - Quote Dauth Jenkins wrote: Would it be possible for a dust merc to give out exploration contracts? Let's say that a platoon sized group is looking for a challenge, but none of the current contracts look to be very difficult. Could we put out our own contract, asking an EvE pilot to find a high level PvE zone? Don't ask me, ask CCP. This is a suggestion so feel free to suggest or help figure out ways to streamline how it might work. I do however like that idea, essentially an up for hire contract section with filters for things like exploration, meaningful PvP battles, etc. Author of Umbra's Short Stories Sisters of EVE Initiate.