Exploration Questions.

Tips, tactics, and general discussion for Evochron Legacy.
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Valok
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Exploration Questions.

Post by Valok »

Firstovall I'd like to say that yes I did some research on the subject (a topic like this is ofc not the first one to pop) but I could not find exactly what I wanted to known. Because of that then I decided to start a new one. (I think I will also post this on the steam forums. Not trying to spam here, I just want more people to see and perhaps that way I can get more info).

Exploration, what exactly it offers, how it works/plays and can I make a profit with it along the way? ... Let me try perhaps to be more specific by looking at other games where I played an explorer role.

EvE. Really short version. You get a ship, pimp it to fit the explorer role and then start ingame scanning minigames to find the hidden sites that contain the interesting stuff. Once a location has been found you would enter it, click on one of the things there and start a minigame where you hack it and if you are successful you get the loot. Said loot ranges from mundane things to stuff that would allow you to buy a Dreadnought.

So, hows the 'loot' here? Is it randomly generated? Static and finite? On EvE if you are smart (and lucky) you can make some serious buck from the get go with exploration. How's it here? Short term wise is there enough money to be made to upgrade your ship? Or would I probably want to do some other activity first, gather some money, and then spend on a explorer?

Also while on the subject, are there such things as artifacts to be found? Perhaps some secret tech? No need to be specific here.. Just want to known if there are things out of the "ordinary" out there that you can sell and maybe use.

Now.. when it comes to actually finding the stuff on this game, how exactly does it work? Does it offer some interesting "tools" or some sort of "minigame"? Allow me to expand.. Elite Dangerous is showing signs of xeno scum infestation lately, even some gaming websites covered. Alien relics, bases and apparently ships were found recently. It is all really interesting but there's one not so small problem with it.. The game offers you zero tools to actually find these things (in other words, it is not REALLY connected to the gameplay).

I'm not looking for ways to make the game "easy" here (although of course one could argue that the game would get easier).. It is just that from a gaming perspective it would be much more cooler (not to mention, immersive) to actually find these things using something other than your eyes on the pitch black and silent vacuum of space. The situation got so bad that the Devs of ED ended up having to send videos and some other stuff giving "hints" of where those secrets were hidden. And of course, after said hints were given, it did not take long for people to find it.

Like I don't known, why not go with weird sounds on the radio if you are in range of something 'unusual'? Strange stuff on the radar/ship scanners? Ship/sensors starts to act weird? Nothing too fancy is necessary because honestly if you known what you are doing it doesn't take a lot to get the player dragged into the experience. Take a look at these trailers from this little game. By itself it is actually very simple and yet it still manages to drag me into its universe in ways Elite Dangerous with their huge budget failed miserably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWWrISpsIIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ollufhaUUI
Interesting, cryptic story with immersive/interactive/creepy gameplay at the same time. It is the perfect set up. The game does not have a 1:1 galaxy or HD graphics and yet it completely beats ED on the exploration experience as far as I am concerned.

So, back to Evochron. I heard that there's some weird stuff out there to be found (is that correct?). Are those also generated as time passes or are all of them static/finite? I'm talking here about large ship wrecks and other 'mysterious' things. But perhaps more importantly, how exactly is the process of finding it? Does the game (ship) offers tools/ways to do or is it again like ED where you find it the ol'fashioned way?

Just as a small example. EvE scanning minigame:
https://youtu.be/YCQ-JecpDQI?t=2m46s (Please note that your character skills/upgrades and your ship+equipment+upgrades makes this easier or harders).

For the moment I think that's it. Thank you.
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Marvin
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Re: Exploration Questions.

Post by Marvin »

A science officer (if you hire one) will let you know if you've entered a sector where unusual objects can be found. And, if you have a Deploy Constructor, you can launch a sensor module ... which will usually pinpoint unusual objects via a purple blip (some peeps see the blip as pink ... but a rose by any other name, etc.)
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DaveK
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Re: Exploration Questions.

Post by DaveK »

I don't think the following is a spoiler ...

Some asteroids have caves in them that can be explored. There are wormholes (both bare and hidden inside blackholes) that are worth investigating (at least I think so)

The system map you can see shows a small fraction of the systems that exist. There are two alien species that you might meet - neither are friendly

There's a lot of 'garbage' from the centuries of civil war (surely an oxymoron??!). It contains sources of info that can help explain the present politics in the Evoverse

As for 'weird stuff' ... define weird ;D I'll then see if I can find a way of explaining why the scanners/radio act weirdly ;)

Go to Sol and land on Earth (in one piece)

I'm not sure whether your comment "The game offers you zero tools to actually find these things " refers to Elite or EL - If you're talking about EL then perhaps you just haven't recognised them yet. Try asking NPC's. Scanners/sensors of various sorts give a lot of info. As Marvin said - crew are very useful. Have you tried any of the quests yet? They provide some guidance in learning exploration.

"Perhaps some secret tech?" If there is secret tech then by definition it's secret ... if I told you I'd have to kill you. ;D

I've been playing the evolving game (Legends > Mercenary > Mercenary II > Legacy) for seven years and still have many things left to do, find, explore and explain.

:)
Valok
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Re: Exploration Questions.

Post by Valok »

Sorry for the delay real life can be a B sometimes.
DaveK wrote:As for 'weird stuff' ... define weird ;D I'll then see if I can find a way of explaining why the scanners/radio act weirdly
Well the truth is that weird is subjective. Cats with breasts looks like something really weird to me and yet, it is part of normal life in Elder Scrolls and therefor not really weird there. To put it short then, anything out the ordinary within the world. Ancient relics of an unknown alien species, ultra secret tech, one giant ship wreck is the middle of nowhere with no possible explanation as to why it is there, a Cthulhu skeleton on a planet.. Those are things that come to my mind that could possibly be classified as 'weird'.

As for the quests part, not yet. I'll check it out once I have some time for the game.
DaveK wrote:I'm not sure whether your comment "The game offers you zero tools to actually find these things " refers to Elite or EL - If you're talking about EL then perhaps you just haven't recognised them yet.
Elite. The only exploration tools that exist are the system scanner (to detect planets), the surface scanner to get info on said planets you discover (resource composition/etc) and the SRV which is a vehicle you can land on planets to look after said resources. The problem here is that the first two do nothing when it comes to finding the 'weird' stuff (so far, alien tech) on that game and the SRV, while able to do so with a very rudimentary SONAR, the tool is short range - which in turn means that if you alien hunting you are gonna have to use your eyes to actually find it.

So what I got by looking at your responses and others is that the tools our ships can have are enough to actually find whats out there to be found, right? Also, I'm getting the impression that all the things out there to be found are static, that would be correct? Or are there also stuff generated randomly as you play?

Once again, thank you.
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Marvin
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Re: Exploration Questions.

Post by Marvin »

Default items are static. Some of the quest items are not. In fact, quest-generated items usually disappear if you leave the sector (similar to how deployed modules or jettisoned cargo pods get scooped up by AI if you jump into another sector and nobody else, in MP, is available to babysit).
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