Satellites and Probes: Unlock the Magellan Within

[Aesir Rising]

Exploration is a largely untapped aspect of game play in Mercenary. This is ironic, given the potential size of the game universe .

Stemming from posts contained in other topics (here and here), I wanted to put together a rough outline for a set of new features, game objects, and ship equipment that would provide a more intricate and engaging exploration facet of the game.

Rough. Outline.



Ship Equipment:
Scanner Module - For satellites; send commands, receive new data, store and retrieve existing data.
Probe Launcher - For probes; required to initiate a probe mission. Includes the telemetry stack required to receive probe data.


Consumables:
Probes - different types cost different amounts.
* Some types are limited availability (only certain city/stations and pilot ranks can obtain these).

Satellites - different types cost different amounts.
* Periodic operation and maintanance costs (similar to crew member wages). Limited availability (city/station and rank).

Satellites: Long-term monitoring, used to gather information about known systems.

Satellite Types (2):
* Signal Array - News, Market data, Contracts
* Sensor Array - Ship data (number, range and/or direction from satellite, type), jump detection, weapon fire detection
Question: In this procedurally-generated universe, does the above information exist prior to the player/pilot entering a system?


Probes: Short-term reconnaissance, used to gather information about unknown systems and immediate intelligence on jump destinations.

Probe Types (4)

Long-range, low-resolution survey - "Variable-Gain Electro-Magnetic Reconnaissance (or "V-GER", similar to "Voyager", yes?)" - used for initial system survey at long ranges, though providing little detail.
* obtains basic sector information, including stellar and planetary object counts, natural satellites (moons), asteroid fields, nebular regions
* Launching more of these as part of the same mission help resolve details through triangulation, such as position information in addition to just the count of objects.
Medium-range, medium-resolution survey - Wide-Array Telemetry ("WAT") - used to get more detail about wat's there...including large asteroids (those with sub-surface tunnels), larger non-natural objects such as stations and planet-side cities

Short-range, high-resolution survey - Magneto-Analysis Partial-Spectrum - ("MAPS") - used to find out what resources exist at a given location (stuff to mine or tractor) and for those large asteroids or other things with tunnels, locate the entrance.

Short-range, high resolution surveillance or Distant Early-Warning ("DEW", leading to the obvious probe deployment mission being referred to as a "DEW drop").
Used to identify potential risks at a jump destination.
* Ship data (number, position, direction, velocity, type), jump detection, weapon fire detection
* Same system or adjacent sector (If i'm using the term sector correctly... I mean the adjacent square in the nav map)

User-interface implementation
There are many different approaches to how the data returned from these satellite and probes can be managed. One implementation might look like this:

* Add another panel to the MFD on the right - the one that currently toggles the display between ship/cargo data and target lists.
* This panel provides a scrolling list of deployed satellites or probes if you have the Scanner Module and/or Probe Launcher installed on your ship.
* Selecting a specific satellite or probe presents the data that satellite or probe has collected.
* There should be a logging option available to write data collected by probes and satellites to a text file for use outside the game.

What would these satellites or probes look like? They could look like anything, possibly even satellites or probes. For example, in my mind, I picture the short-range probes as looking a lot like Arctic Puffins. I picture the long-range probes as looking like Emperor Penguins.

Not really. I was just curious if you've gotten this far in my topic.

None of this needs to be added in one monolithic game update.. Of course, I'm only saying this to increase the possibility of an actual implementation. Secretly, I'd love to see this in a patch next Tuesday.

Add your ideas, voice your support, share your disdain.

Thanks.

Other Random Post-It Notes
Satellites provide real-time data flow. Probes do not. Short range probes have a short delay before data is returned to the ship. Long-range probes have a correspondingly longer delay. How long a delay? Play-testing will help determine that.

Costs should be low enough for a new-ish pilot to afford a probe or two. But high enough that any real methodical survey is going to drain wallets. Likewise, floating a single satellite might be do-able for a new-ish pilot. Having a fleet of satellites monitoring market data throughout a system would be correspondingly expensive enough to make it challenging for even the most successful of trader pilots. The periodic maintanance cost for a market data satellite shouldn't be so high as to make it unprofitable to maintain the satellites. Knowing the high-low prices and news feeds for a given system should impart a financial advantage. But should not come "for free".

Ship equipment costs: The best equipment is the most expensive, but provides bonuses in the form of reduced deployment times and/or larger volumes of space covered by a given probe or satellite.

Gameplay advantages include providing a potentially unlimited (from a practical standpoing) money sink to counter-act the accumulation of wealth for end-game pilots. In addition, even for newer pilots, a more interesting method of exploration - one that requires something more than an AFK flight on auto-pilot while you go make sandwiches - should appeal to some subset of players. The implementation might even appeal to those players with very narrow focuses and objectives. For example, a player that typically plays just to shoot things down might find the surveillance satellites and short-range probes to be an interesting tactical device.

Satellites last as long as they are maintained. Probes decay as they complete their mission.

When saying "Long-range" or "short-range" what kind of range are we talking about? I don't know. Play-testing will determine that. As a starting point, I would expect long-range low resolution deep space probes to reach throughout a given system, possibly into an adjacent system. I may be using incorrect terminology however. So when I say "system" I believe I mean the names you see on the quadrant map. That would define "long-range" for me.

Probes are over-powered and will make the game too easy!
From another topic:

Originally posted by Vice
The Evochron Quadrant itself is about +/- 5000 sectors SX, SZ, +/- 2 sectors SY on the galactic ecliptic.

That would indicate 400 million sectors to explore, if I understand the quote.

[Edited on 10-15-2010 by Aesir Rising]

[Von Paulus]

You love to write, don't you Aesir?
I really like some of your ideas, and like you, think that the exploration part of the game needs to be re-enforced.
But I wonder, like TGS said in another post, if there's a lot of things to explore.

Also in my closing note one thing I have noticed that has kind of worried me is that in reality there might be a lot less out there than people realize. Newbies and new players are given these nice visions of a massive universe with tons of secret treats waiting to be discovered but are there really?

[Edited on 15-10-2010 by Von Paulus]

[Edited on 15-10-2010 by Von Paulus]

[Von Paulus]

Originally posted by Eclipse
There is, as I pointed out in another topic, more uncharted space with stuff in it then charted.

Glad to know about that, Eclipse.

[Sinbad]

I like your post Aesir! The high expenditure for this type of equipment would make it more meaningful to earn the billion credit profits which are currently possible.

[DaveK]

You love to write, don't you Aesir?

You also obviously give a great deal of thought to your ideas before you post them. I think that, if the ideas can be coded without destroying Vice's social life for the next six months, and if they don't increase the system requirement beyond typical players' PC set-ups then they would improve the game significantly in its major weaker aspect.

(I would still like a rumour/hint system as well, though!)

[Von Paulus]

Originally posted by DaveK

You love to write, don't you Aesir?

You also obviously give a great deal of thought to your ideas before you post them.

I do some, yes. But most of the times I've to edit my posts because English is not my native language. Portuguese grammar is a "little" different.

[TGS]

I have to say I really like these ideas. One thing I have been debating on in terms of placement is that I also would like to see expansion on the server-side 'universe' additions. As it stands exploration may not have a great many things to discover outside of the already precoded systems/planets/etc. But what if players could actually create anything. Not just stations but anything. Planets, Jump gates... even entire systems. What Vice has implemented with Mercenary could be a framework for so much more in terms of a persistent server-side universe. Hell many sci-fi media already have idea's surrounding the creation of such things. Planets could be created via "Genesis Devices". Jump Gates could be constructed by a player dropping a construction "point a" and then jump to whereever they want point b to be and the farther the distance the more expensive the gate.

Planet's could be customized. Cities could be added. Anything could really be done with enough will, time and energy. Furthermore systems could be placed to deter players from doing what they have been doing on Remula 1 and that's indiscriminately placing hordes and hordes of stations many of which probably serve little to no purpose. I think a minor revamp needs to be made to the already built framework of constructable stations. First off this "Construct but not own" nonsense needs to go. The person who builds a station should be its owner and operator. Which essentially means they also have to cover maintenance costs. This could be done in a few ways which are already sort of in the comfort-zone of the game through server-side cycles. Obviously those cycles would have to be a lot longer than the client-side cycles to give people ample time to "cover" costs. Basically you put a down payment on a station. Then you could have a 24-48 server "cycle". You would get a new interface in your ship similar to the crew screen but instead it would be the assets screen. This screen would list all your assets... how much their maintenance costs are and how much you have "invested" in the asset. For example:

Station A costs 50 million credits and has a maintenance fee per/c of 500,000 now if 500,000 is not "placed" on/in the station by the time the cycle ticks a 1-6 hour abandonment counter starts which effectively kicks the owner out of ownership and places the station at the mercy of the rest of the players. Whoever gets to that station and pays the maintenance fee automatically becomes the owner of the station. If the maintenance cost isn't supplied within the 1-6 hour period the station is destroyed. Now ownership could/should give you a few "perks". But those can be worked on later. Some perks would be denial of access to station. Allowing of access to station. Taxing on the station. Stock control (IE you can control the stations inventory/stock by paying more if the tech level in the area is high enough) As I said. One thing that could really make this game great is more towards the persistence end in multiplayer and singleplayer alike.

Now onto the planets. Planets could be a whole WHOLE new prospect to expand the evochron universe. Now unlike stations you wouldn't automatically "own" a planet. But you could stake a claim by founding cities. 3-5 Cities depending on the size could be constructed on the planet and those would be owned. They'd follow the same rules as stations and it would all function under universal "rules". Planets unlike stations though can have multiple owners as sorts. Meaning you could have multiple cities on the same planet owned by different people. If there 2 cities and 2 people own a city each they have 50/50 ownership of the planet. (And yes cities would be destroyable for those who want to "take over" Now if you had a planet with 5 cities and each city had its own owner it would be 20x5. Now this expands the territory control system a tad doesn't it?

The thing however with planets is that they would have a few additional rules. One they would have to be VERY VERY VERY expensive. They might also have to require a star to be within a certain distance. Which could require the creation of a star. Also very expensive. Planet's would also take a lot of time to "build" or rather come to existence. Anyway I'll leave you all to chew on this.

Now on a final note of the ideas is that a new global system would have to be put in place. Automatic saving. Similar to what happens (or is suppose to happen) when you tinker with your ship in the hangar. It automatically saves. Now this would need to be stepped up several notches for pretty much any asset management. Also to prevent people from placing a bunch of things then just overwriting their player profile with an old save a unique "id key" system could be implemented to define ownership of assets. IE when you place an asset a random key is generated with that asset and your player profile stored on both. When you come back and dock at your asset your client sends the asset on the server your "key" and matches it to the key generated when you created the asset. This would mean that if you were to overwrite your pilot profile you would no longer have that key thus on the next cycle you'd lose ownership of the asset and it would eventually be destroyed should noone reinvest in the asset. Now this key would also be used in conjunction with your pilot name for two reasons. 1. To prevent you from using the same name to ditch to initial cost then take it back over when the next cycle rolls around 2. Prevent people from changing their names and retaining ownership with the same key. Although an option could be provided to rerandomize the key with a chosen name.

Now the reason I bring all this up is primarily the fact of expansion. This game is cool and all but it can be cool or it can be great. Now honestly we as a community and Vice as a developer really needs to define what this game is and what it isn't. Is it a sandbox game ? Is it a multiplayer game? Is it a simulator? Is it an action game? Is it meant to be persistent? Is it suppose to truly give players absolute spacial freedom as a pilot and beyond? Can we as players have a true impact on the universe around us.

I might have to say that these are all things for the next game but honestly the hardest part of all of this is already in. And that's the framework for having and placing server-side objects. Now all that really needs to be done is setup some control systems and additional handlers for events and we'd really be cooking. Something I have noticed though is this game does go in so many directions it really needs to solidify what it DOES have. Exploration being one of the big ones. Right now exploration actually feels like an after thought. IE not really put in so much as just "there". The newest addition in the server-side objects could actually go hand in hand with more exploration focus. IE the players could expand the universe. This would also provide valuable money sinks that would give players some great "feeling" to the universe. IE they actually have to work to maintain their creations... they get to control their assets.

By the way sorry Aesir if this derails your thread a bit. I love your ideas all of em. But I do worry that there really isn't much out there TO explore.

[Earl]

Personally I feel like all of this is too complicated, and makes it all too easy.
How about a piece of equipment that simply expands your visible range in the nav map?
Using an equipment slot instead of secondary hardpoints keeps the balance and fun in it- you still have to build your ship for the job.

Also, there's been some talk about a hint/rumor system- What if we could report our discoveries to information brokers on nearby stations?
I see two ways: Either you can sell information for a one time fee, or possibly a player could continue to hold the rights to that info and make a small profit each time it was purchased from the broker.
The cool thing would be that players would still have to make discoveries- you would only be able to buy information that was actually reported- Meaning a player could fake info.
Or even allow players to write the text of the clue themselves and decide on the price that it would be worth, so we can toss out riddles-Even make our own questlines from individual stations.

[Aesir Rising]

Originally posted by EarlHow about a piece of equipment that simply expands your visible range in the nav map?

That doesn't address the same "problem". I won't disagree with your idea because it is tackling an entirely different issue than the one I'm trying to address.

I metioned this tangentially in prior posts, but to clear things up I'll try again:

There exists a set of players where the act of searching has value. Some of those players would enjoy a more interactive mechanism to seek out locations, monitor those locations, then eventually go there. For these players, expanding the nav map visibility and/or detection range does absolutely nothing at all except continue the existing frustrations with the current system.

There also exists a set of players where the act of arriving at a new location has value, where the act of searching is just a necessary evil. For this set of players, your idea has potential. But it is exactly the same approach that the game takes today: Fly around and look at the nav screen and hope to see a system name change or some other indicator that you've "arrived" at some place interesting.

Your idea (and I've seen similar ideas suggested in this and other topics) fails to address the issue that this type of gameplay approach to "exploration" is non-fun for a given set of players.

Hopefully that clears things up.


On a separate note, and not necessarily directed at any one player:

My role as a player isn't to decide development priorities for Vice. That's his job. My job as a player - our jobs as players - is to say what we like or do not like.

If you think my ideas, or those of others, are too much work to implement, that is both an unsupported opinion and an irrelevent one.

Unless you are responsible for the development budget (time/ resources) you do yourselves a disservice by trying to assume you have one iota of a clue about what can or cannot be done in terms of new features or changes to existing implementations. More importantly, you add 'friction' to the discusion topic that could otherwise help sift through the myriad suggestions and help Vice pick out the "good ideas". Feedback on the idea, not whether or not Vice has the time to implement it. Development isn't often a zero-sum equation where a new feature gets added and some other idea can then never be implemented. Sometimes easy stuff gets worked on, sometimes hard stuff. And for all anyone knows, expanding the exploration part of gameplay may already have been on Vice's radar.

You would help Vice more by advising on what you like or do not like about the game, as that feedback helps him to potentially grow his audience as he is more able to pick out the stuff that folks like, without having to consider whether an idea was rejected because someone that is not on the development team thought it would be "too hard" to implement, or that the implementation would mean the game can't run on his/her system - without even trying it out.

[reaper2040]

Aesir Rising - Your points are lucid, well thought and beneficial to the exploration discussion. I really have nothing to add, I am just lending my support to what you have said.

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Aesir Rising

... or that the implementation would mean the game can't run on his/her system - without even trying it out.

Some of the implementations might already be impacting my system ... and, if you read around, you'll notice some of the other players' systems might also be impacted.

[MindYerBeak]

I hate riddles. If I find one in a game I look for a walkthrough. To my mind everything should be black and white and understandable. What I like best about these types of games is the trading and exploration aspects. It's exciting taking goods from a to b, always running the risk of running into pirates or the police. Such a threat is always there and adds to the atmosphere of the game.

Care has to be taken that Evochron doesn't develop into another X-Series. There's always the danger of overcomplicating everything. Player stations/planets/cities would need to be protected and therefore would run the risk of going the way of the X-games.

Exploration to my mind is finding new things of interest. The Settler in the Civ series would always find something of value. The problem is that finding things of value in hidden systems run the danger of unbalancing the game.

A newly discovered system should have it's fair share of Baddies. There should be an element of danger always present. Is this possible with an infinite number of hidden systems? Is it possible to populate them all via global programming? Each hidden system would need to be different. I think building your own universal planets would be too god like. We're explorers not gods after all. I feel such a scenario detracts from imagination somewhat.

A hidden system should have the exploration 'feel' to it. It should have interesting planets/asteroid belts/nebulas/supernovas and the like coupled with a sense of danger, otherwise it won't be worth exploring. Discovery should provide some sort of incentive/reward to the discoverer. You don't want an empty hidden system after all. The problem is how would you make each hidden system different and unique? What reasons should there be to explore?

Exploration problems are what I feel should first be investigated, then you can concentrate on ways of detecting them. I don't want to buy an expensive probe and find a hidden system only to discover it's virtually empty or devoid of anything that could be useful to the exploring player. There must be a tangible incentive to go and explore.

[Aesir Rising]

Originally posted by MindYerBeak
I don't want to buy an expensive probe and find a hidden system only to discover it's virtually empty or devoid of anything that could be useful to the exploring player. There must be a tangible incentive to go and explore.

What if you could buy a cheap probe, and if the results of that long-range low-resolution probe shows something might be worth investigating, then buy the more expensive probe to get additional details on that system or object? Would that be better than not buying a probe and blowing 3 hours flying in a random direction and finding "not a whole lot"? 3 hours of game time is pretty expensive. More expensive than probes, I would imagine.

I know that what I do not want is to have the only option for exploration be "pick a vector, go afk and make coffee, and hope you are watching the screen when something interesting goes by." That should (and would) remain an option, but I hope it doesn't remain the only option.


@Marvin: Start a topic and post your system specs in comparison with the minimum and recommended specifications for the game. Until you do this, no one - especially not Vice - have a clue about how much (or how little) to value your judgement. If Vice can't implement a certain feature without raising the minimum specs advertised for the game, he is *still* the one to make that judgement call - not you. And while this sounds selfish, because it is, I have to say that I don't care about your frame rates. This is *exactly* as selfish as you crapping on every idea I've seen posted these past few weeks by anyone - not just me - because of your PC's performance issues. So, as I hoped to get across previously, why not bash the idea itself - if you can- and let Vice do his job to determine what gets implemented?

[Edited on 10-17-2010 by Aesir Rising]

[Von Paulus]

Originally posted by Aesir Rising
What if you could buy a cheap probe, and if the results of that long-range low-resolution probe shows something might be worth investigating, then buy the more expensive probe to get additional details on that system or object? Would that be better than not buying a probe and blowing 3 hours flying in a random direction and finding "not a whole lot"? 3 hours of game time is pretty expensive. More expensive than probes, I would imagine.

I know that what I do not want is to have the only option for exploration be "pick a vector, go afk and make coffee, and hope you are watching the screen when something interesting goes by." That should (and would) remain an option, but I hope it doesn't remain the only option.
[Edited on 10-17-2010 by Aesir Rising]

+1
I still think that all these ideas can coexist, and will not necessarily unbalance the game. It will only add more playability. Only you can play it the way you pretend.

[Edited on 17-10-2010 by Von Paulus]

[MindYerBeak]

A cheap pre-exploration probe to begin with is a good idea. I wouldn't bother exploring the way things are at the moment. At present exploration is a chore rather than being fun. The main probe could give an indication of where an interesting object might be, but not give the actual location.

In Dragonage: Origins there is a hidden cache somewhere. There are simple 'x'es on the ground which you have to find and follow. I still haven't found the cache. In Evochron the x could be represented by a burned out hull, for example, leading you to further burned out hulls and finally to the source where there could be obstacles to overcome, with clues left at each wreck leading to the next wreck.

As you say, just idling through space waiting for something interesting to appear is boring after a while, and time is at a premium for most players. Probes could be used to find the markers eventually leading you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The pot of gold should more than compensate you for the cost of the probes, perhaps a lucrative mining belt.

Another scenario could be recieving a distress call, probing the area, rescuing the maiden in distress and finally entering the lair of the Dreaded Dragon, perhaps in the shape of protective sentinels. Let loose the Dogs of War and finally reap the prize. You could even name the hidden sector after your good self.

The exploration, in and of itself, should be fun whilst at the same time challenging, possibly with some variety to each endgame in different sectors, a Sector Boss if you will, with appropriate reward. If such scenarios required a lot of coding work then it could be made worthwhile for Vice by selling it as an addon to the game. I'm sure most of us would be interested.

[Marvin]

Bottom line:

Originally posted by Aesir Rising

If Vice can't implement a certain feature without raising the minimum specs advertised for the game, he is *still* the one to make that judgement call - not you.

And I'll still be playing the game if he can't. And try to play it even if he ups the specs. I assume you will too.

[TGS]

To be honest... I think currently things are too simple. Far too simple for the nature of the game. Also people have to realize that at the end of the day no matter how complex or complicated things get it would all be optional. It's just stuff to add depth and fun to the game. I know there are a lot of people that feel the game is perfect as it is right now but these are people that are 110% dedicated to the game and Vice and for the most part probably aren't thinking outside that box.

I also know from reading some previous threads that some people are weary of some of the more far-fetched idea's such as mine on the basis that they don't want this game to turn into something else. But if you look at a lot of the changes that have been made in mercenary they have been great. Although the territory system has created a little bit of tension and in some cases negativity. That is what it was designed to do. In EL the multiplayer scene was for the most part very friendly. "pvp" was opt-in opt-out. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it certainly didn't/doesn't feel like hostile space to me. Also I think as I hinted in my previous post and in a few threads in the past, this game no longer has to be a strictly "fighter pilot" simulator with nothing else. True freeform in space should mean if you want to be an intergalactic ruler that should be available to you which it currently isn't. Even if you place ton's of stations you still don't own them. You still can't do any management of them.

I do very much want to see exploration opened up though. It is currently far too limited.

Originally posted by Earl
Personally I feel like all of this is too complicated, and makes it all too easy.
How about a piece of equipment that simply expands your visible range in the nav map?
Using an equipment slot instead of secondary hardpoints keeps the balance and fun in it- you still have to build your ship for the job.

Also, there's been some talk about a hint/rumor system- What if we could report our discoveries to information brokers on nearby stations?
I see two ways: Either you can sell information for a one time fee, or possibly a player could continue to hold the rights to that info and make a small profit each time it was purchased from the broker.
The cool thing would be that players would still have to make discoveries- you would only be able to buy information that was actually reported- Meaning a player could fake info.
Or even allow players to write the text of the clue themselves and decide on the price that it would be worth, so we can toss out riddles-Even make our own questlines from individual stations.