Deep Space : A Question of Depth

[csaba]

> csaba

Wouldn't something with the feel of that Battlestar Galactica supply base inside a radioactive gas giant (Ragnar I think it was called) be a spooky find? Something hidden among the rocks and gas of an asteroid belt, maybe.

Of course. I was just referring to ingame assets. I've seen them all already and I guess that's what Moonrat will be using. From those abandoned stations only 1 is accessible in your suit. Some shipwrecks have airlocks as well but get quite boring after a while and not worth the trouble for the small loot they give.

Kinda takes away from the excitement when you can tell by a quick look what the thing is. Although still nice eyecandy. I'd suggest putting some lockboxes inside said structures with really good loot like random rare mods and a host of hostiles. It would be a nice alternative to crafting which is rather bland to be honest.

[Angsaar]

100% agreed in particular for deeper space, at least a chance of mods, a LARGE cache of adv. sat. or high tier production parts like claytronics...

Maybe there's a way to spawn missions from signals there or even lockboxes (simulating the player hacking into a data point) and use the mission system to make more complex things optional to the player:

- Mock Mission Briefing:
In the wrecked ship's mainframe you find an encrypted drive among mentions of some interesting cargo shipment or a stranded ship's location. For more shady characters, dirt on a faction representative for blackmail?

Possible choices could be alerting the owner faction of the wreck for a reward or attempting to break the encryption risking bad rep/alerting hostile forces looking for it

edit: possibly even a 2 or 3 piece mission chain

[csaba]

100% agreed in particular for deeper space, at least a chance of mods, a LARGE cache of adv. sat. or high tier production parts like claytronics...

- 50 EMP mines
- data leaks that give random blueprints
- virtual seminars that actually work...
- cool skins

You know stuff you can't just buy in bulk. Claytronics and advanced sats are nice at the start but later I just buy bombers with 100 adv. sats to cover the map... I can teleport around pirate bases and maybe buy 3 EMP at a time, but finding 50 saves a lot of time. Or imagine hitting a jackpot on an XL shipyard blueprint.

Missions are nice but a lot harder to implement probably.

[Angsaar]

Very true, especially if loot tables can vary with sector depth there should be loot otherwise unobtainable relative to the effort.

The otherwise easily obtainable but expensive I meant just for the easier encounters as a way to make exploration/outlaw-hunting/raiding a more viable income source.

Funny that a cache of paint cans would be more exciting than vanilla loot, ain't it?

[csaba]

Otherwise hard or unobtainable loot, that is appealing in some way is always a draw.

If Egosoft ever releases an exploration focused patch or DLC it should be aimed at this. They have a better resources than the modders after all.

They could have unique weapons, ships, mods, missiles with unique traits, unique station module blueprints, interesting NPCs like a drunkard or comedy relief character captain for your fleet, ship and spacesuit upgrades, a ship full with 5 star crew, ship/station decorations, 1 jump wormholes linking to unique sectors, etc.

This is how taking the off-path is rewarding.