some suggestions and thanks

[Tpol]

I'm loving EL. Have been immersed in it now for a couple of days and have shaken off most of my rustiness from not having played ER in a few months.

So now that I'm having to go out and earn some money to upgrade my ship and etc, I've come across something that just doesn't make sense, or rather, I think it could be improved.

I've hired an engineer, science officer, and navigator. I'm jumping into another quadrant with a nice load of platinum to sell where I'll get a higher price. And then my science officer types a bunch of stuff about where there may be containers and etc, etc. Of course, I've got to grab my pen and try to write all this stuff down. But... why?

Seems to me that between my science officer and navigator, that they could put some little dots on the nav map for where these goodies are. Or at least put the info in a simple log for me to look at after I've sold my platinum.

Plus, if I'm jumping into a quadrant, going to a station, so I've got my IDS turned off and zooming straight into a station, when my science officer says that there's a container at heading 349 pitch 2, is that from where I entered the quadrant, or where I'll be leaving the station I'm going into??? You see, it would be so much nicer if this value would remain relative to my ship, like, after I've sold my platinum and leaving a station. And it would be nice if I knew about how far away it was, so I don't head in that direction for like 30 minutes, never knowing if I've gone too far yet and missed it. A good old x on my nav map would be ideal.

Or if the science officer could give me little updates to let me know if I'm heading in the right direction, and maybe even when might be a good idea to slow down or something, because the container is not too far away.

All in all, I'm having a great time. You've done it again, Vice, great sim! Thanks!!

Tpol

[Winter Owl]

I have to disagree here. I actually enjoy the hunt for the hidden containers, with only that one brief clue to go on.

It just now occurred to me as I typed that I could exit the system, then jump back in at a different point, and use the two different vectors from the science officer to roughly triangulate the containers' location. That could be fun.

Anyway, I like the search, so at the very least would want the features you describe to be optional.


Edit: I just tried it. Triangulating from two different entry points works very well. I realize the more experienced players probably already knew about this trick... oh well. It's still fun.

[Edited on 2-11-2009 by Winter Owl]

[Storm]

(Tpol)

I like the game the way it is currently in this regard, but your suggestion DOES make sense. You have a Science Officer, and a Navigator, between the two of them they indicate that there are containers and approximately in what direction. Your point : "Why should I have to write it down?". Logically you shouldn't have to.

Just to throw a suggestion out there.... (which in my opinion might "clutter the game up a bit"), ... a TEMPORARY little purple dot might be good. Persistant until, say, your next jump. After your next jump, if still in the same sector, maybe it shouldn't be there anymore. I.E. it is linked to the notifications you get from the Science Officer (as far as I can tell, the Science Officer never delivers the same notification twice if you haven't jumped far (jumped within the same area) - I might be wrong about that). Each time the Science Officer initiates a notification, a purple dot is placed at those coords on the NavMap (until you jump out of the area - but you get it back if you jump out ... then in again). You then have a choice of setting a nav point, and storing it in your Map Log.

Perhaps simpler to implement (From Vice's point of view) would be that possible container notifications would be automatically added to the Map Log (in a CONTROLLED fashion... otherwise one might end up with a dozen coords tied to the same object in the log)... but that would definitely clutter up the game.

The Navigator could ask... "Add this to the log?". But interrupting the player with this in the middle of combat wouldn't be good. Again this clutters the game a bit.


[Edited on 2-11-2009 by Storm]

[BraveHart]

The directions you receive is when you first enter the system....I would just finish selling off your goods and jump out and back into the sector to get a new heading. doing this a couple of times will help you triangle your co-ordinates and get a better ideal where the containers are. I know from past experience that the containers could be near the other side of the sector but not always. When you are less then 10,000 away they will show up on radar as a purple blip. Glad you are back in action and having Fun knocking off the rust....u2u me when your ready to go online in Legends MP

[Tpol]

Storm's got a great idea there. As for you other guys, lol, yes, I'm having to jump back out of a system and then come back in and write down what the science officer types, again, and yes, I'm doing this several times to triangulate, and yes, that helps.

But think about it, even if you're driving in your car and someone who knows the area is in the back seat, the one who is supposed to get us to the restaurant, to our hotel, to the business appointment, locate the ATM, and etc. You've got a bad friend if they spout off everything at once when you approach a town and you can't ask them to repeat themselves or put it in the gps for you, or write it down, or mark it on a map, or talk you through it, or help you get straight to it. Duh. Do you really think the right thing is that you are able to write down for yourself just one of these things while you're driving. Then you turn the car around, drive back away from the city, then turn back around and come back into the city to write down the next bit as your friend spouts off the entire list again??? And you keep doing this over and over again until you get it all written down, cryptically, I might add, you might have to take several routes into the city to figure it all out, lol.

Hum..... interesting, lol.

[BraveHart]

He He He....the new GPS systems are pretty good

[Storm]

Originally posted by Tpol
Storm's got a great idea there. As for you other guys, lol, yes, I'm having to jump back out of a system and then come back in and write down what the science officer types, again, and yes, I'm doing this several times to triangulate, and yes, that helps.

But think about it, even if you're driving in your car and someone who knows the area is in the back seat, the one who is supposed to get us to the restaurant, to our hotel, to the business appointment, locate the ATM, and etc. You've got a bad friend if they spout off everything at once when you approach a town and you can't ask them to repeat themselves or put it in the gps for you, or write it down, or mark it on a map, or talk you through it, or help you get straight to it. Duh. Do you really think the right thing is that you are able to write down for yourself just one of these things while you're driving. Then you turn the car around, drive back away from the city, then turn back around and come back into the city to write down the next bit as your friend spouts off the entire list again??? And you keep doing this over and over again until you get it all written down, cryptically, I might add, you might have to take several routes into the city to figure it all out, lol.

Hum..... interesting, lol.

No wonder it's been taking so long to get to the coffee shop to buy beans.... or for that matter, why so much coffee is required to even GET there.

[Hopsalot]

I think Tpol has a good point. The triangulation thing works OK, but we are flying starships, we should have some pretty good sensor doodads available to us. I have even wondered about another monitor (touch screen) that would let you run the nav map without blocking the wind shield. If you had a nav map always open you could mark a detected blip when the science officer finds a new container.

[Daedalao]

I believe that this would dramatically alter the gameplay mechanics. Yes, it makes sense since we're in space, but good game design and bad game design walk a fine fine line. Also, I take into consideration that maybe it's an anomaly that's letting my science ops or nav officer see these crates, after all, they are smuggler's storage.

[Winter Owl]

Originally posted by Daedalao
I believe that this would dramatically alter the gameplay mechanics. Yes, it makes sense since we're in space, but good game design and bad game design walk a fine fine line. Also, I take into consideration that maybe it's an anomaly that's letting my science ops or nav officer see these crates, after all, they are smuggler's storage.

Right, I figure the containers are stealthed fairly well, so the science officer can barely detect them, and that's why he gives me a simple vector instead of plotting it on the map.

[Knight Rider]

Originally posted by Tpol
Seems to me that between my science officer and navigator, that they could put some little dots on the nav map for where these goodies are. Or at least put the info in a simple log for me to look at after I've sold my platinum.

I have to agree with Tpol on this one. We are in the next generation starships, and if I'm paying my science officer and navigator to spot those golden nuggets, then my ship should be sophisticated enough to store the information.

If a trader was selling me on buying a new ship, and had this feature, I would buy it in a heart beat.

[Vice]

One more detail to consider. Buying and installing a certain piece of equipment adds to your ability to pick up such containers at greater distances. With just a heading, that piece of equipment can make it much easier to pin down where a container is, even with just one heading.

Containers are partially stealthed, the owners do not want them to be easily found. Without a science officer, you wouldn't even get a heading. But with one, they know how to pick up the faint sensor profile needed to get only a heading. Using either the triangulation method or that piece of equipment can help make the job of finding them much easier and faster.

[verbosity]

yeah!

If anything even the message you get at the moment is a bit much!

Back when evochron was first colonised, we had no crew. The only way to tell if there was a container in a sector was to explore the sector....

Maybe the science officer should only delcare that there are signs that there could be a container in the sector ( and sometimes give false positives) since at the moment its too easy........

[verbosity]

Originally posted by Tpol
You've got a bad friend if they spout off everything at once when you approach a town and you can't ask them to repeat themselves

alt+ / works wonders for me......

[Knight Rider]

Originally posted by Vice
Containers are partially stealthed, the owners do not want them to be easily found. Without a science officer, you wouldn't even get a heading. But with one, they know how to pick up the faint sensor profile needed to get only a heading. Using either the triangulation method or that piece of equipment can help make the job of finding them much easier and faster.

Vice, I see your point. Maybe down the road, we could have a log save feature in the game with any messages easily pulled up later. Sometimes there is a lot going on, and there may not be time to write the coordinates. yet, I have to agree with you on installing a long range sensor. If I have an idea where my science officer picked up the container, then, when I had the time, I could go back, but it would sure be a lot easier to just bring it back up at my leisure.

[Vice]

Oh, that reminds me. I forgot to mention that you can visually triangulate a position using the map log. When you arrive and get a reading on a heading, save the point to the map log and give it the text description you want. This will plot a blue marker on the nav map for you to use as a visual reference for where the point was and with what heading (include that in your text description). Then jump out of the sector and back to a separate point, plot that in the map log as well. Do that a third time and you will then have three blue markers on the nav map that will help you pin down the search area, often within just 5000-10000 units and with that certain piece of equipment, it can make the job even easier. Delete the map log entries when you find it and just store a new one with the exact location for future reference.

[BraveHart]

I have found a lot of containers...LOL reminds me of an Easter Egg Hunt I have saved the ones I want into my log so I can jump to them when I want. I like the search and find method....really adds to the anticipation of what I can find.

[49rTbird]

Question, can the order it the nav map logs be reversed? the reason I ask is after I have 20 or so entries I have to scroll to my last ones. If it could be flip flopped I could get to the ones I am using at the time. Or is there a way (trick) to doing it already? :(;)

[Vice]

Hmm, about the only way is to open the maplog file in notepad and move the order around the way you want it.

[Knight Rider]

Thanks Vice, that definitely will work for me.