Player Features and Ideas Discussion

My idea is to make a new miniprofession that is a hybrid between exploration and PI.
The idea is to probe planets for buried treasures, or to be more precise, old buildings. This should be done by probing a planet using a ship with a probe launcher. This should be done in the PI screen where you simply click on the planets surface to choose where to send down a probe. Probes should be 1 use only so you'll have to bring a bunch. After finding the approximate location (getting the exact location with probes should be impossible) of a buried base you'll send down an archeology team (a new item that works like a command center) that then locates the site and begin excavation. Finding and excavation a site should take a while, from a few days to maybe over a week depending on how far from the site you ended up putting the excavation team.

After the excavation is complete you'll be able to send whatever is found up in a container similar to the launching capabilities of a CC. The rewards should range from BPCs, datacores, ships, modules, maps (new item) minerals, PI materials and commodities. The type of rewards will depend on the local NPCs and sov holders and what type of site is found , these in turn will range from military bases, to research facilities and storage facilities. So for example An amarrian research facility might contain a BPC but more likely amarrian research items. If a serpentis military base is found and searched through, you can get something like a BPC, a module, a maps or just salvage.

Maps should be new items that work like bookmarks, once retrieved you get a bookmark to a deadspace site that can not be found through normal exploration. Several maps giving the same bookmark should be able to exist at the same time so there might be competition on who gets there first. What kind of site is found will depend on what type of site the map was found in, combat sites for military bases, radar sites for archives and research facilities, grav sites for mining and storage facilities and so on.

The likelihood of finding a site on a planet should depend on sec status, but not like normal, 0.0/WH space should be the least likely place to find a site and the chance of finding something good wont be any better than lowsec. The reason for this is that 0.0 and especially WH space wont have been very populated and wont contain that many old facilities. highsec on the other hand wont be much better because while having been heavily populated now and in the past, anything worth finding will already have been found. So that leaves lowsec, where there will both have been civilians and pirates in large quantities over time which also means that finding abandoned sites will be much higher there while at the same time not many will have dared traveling to these areas to find these old buried treasures.

The idea behind all this is that I've always wanted a type of exploration that doesn't always require combat but rather stealth and patience. Having to sneak around lowsec, probe planets while uncloaked (otherwise you can't launch probes), wait for the excavation to finish and then sneak back to get your reward, that sometimes require more cargo than a cov ops frigate.

This feature could also be combined with Dust, taking over other peoples excavations and stealing their loot.

Comments and further ideas are appreciated.

Also, this idea probably isn't that well worded because the forums ate my first post and I wrote this while slightly annoyed.

This would make exploration more in depth and add in a type of tresure hunter mini profession.

Excavate a planet find a crashed pirate ship from few hundred years ago with an intact data core that leads to a stash of stolen goods. Could also have the potential to find jovian tech that could be used in resaerch as well.

Great idea. I would love to see this implemented.

The idea has merit, though I'd still explore in highsec or 0.0, regardless of any boni, instead of tangling with the gankfest lowsec usually is.

+1. Interesting idea.

+1

Exploration needs "crossover" points.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Nullsec supposedly where all the ancient dead civilizations that drop the good Archeology loot come from anyways? And isn't WH space where the Sleepers, another ancient dead civilization, came from? What, exactly, is the rationale here for having hisec, the safest part of space, have the best loot here when hisec is already overrun with civilian investigators more then happy to look over this stuff, where nullsec and WH space are largely unexplored wilderness areas home to dozens of ancient civilizations?

Given all that, and given that this goes against the general thematic intent of the whole game, this sounds like "let's buff hisec for no reason". It's not a terrible idea, but it should absolutely not be something that's better in hisec then anywhere else.

how about some reading comprehension? I said that lowsec will have the best loot, not highsec. And yes, 0.0 and WH space most likely have been filled with ancient civilizations a long time ago, but those things will pretty much have been completely destroyed by now. The stuff I'm talking about isn't loot from ancient civilizations but rather stuff from the empire and pirate factions that have been lost and forgotten during the last century.

I like this too.
will you continue to use the planetology and adv planetology skill to find these archeology sites?
it could even be further linked with pirate escalations.
anomolies could escalate into these expeditions to find pirate buried treasures instead of being solely reserved for combat expeditions.

Sounds like a great plan. It gives low sec a little bit more meaning than just a place where pirates are. You can actually see the handy work of pirates and mistakes :P I support this through and through.