Player Features and Ideas Discussion

For me, one of the most exciting things about a space sim should be the prospect of exploration. But exploration in the EVE Online sense doesn't really feel like that. It's essentially just a way of locating mini instances, for financial gain. I don't feel like a pioneer when I explore, it's not excitng. So I thought about how I would like for exploration to work in my fantasy EVE Online expansion.

Pilots would first of all consult the star map and identify a system on the edge of known space, one on the fringes of the chart, and not surrounded on all sides by other systems. They would take a gate to that system, which would likely be 0.0, straight away making it a trip not for the timid.

On arriving in the chosen 'frontier system', the pilot would set a course for the edge of the system, in the direction of the outer-edge of the star map. This would presumably involve some addition to the game UI, as I don't know how easy it would be to do right now. On reaching the edge of the system, the pilot could deploy probes to scan the space beyond the system. The scanning UI would have to be significantly changed for this as I'm not talking about narrowing down a cosmic signature to a precise location. I'm talking about sending the probe out, in one direction, into the great unknown.

At some point, the probe would signal back to the pilot, if it had found a new star system. Perhaps this could take several days, meaning that players could send out probes from several different locations, prospecting for new systems, and then sit back and wait for a positive signal. Probes would only have a limited range (though one of several thousand/million AU), so after a certain length of time with no signal the pilot could assume that the probe had not found anything within its signal range, and was thus just lost to the expanse of space forever. And this would usually be the case - finding new systems should be rare.

Every once in a while, though, the pilot would receive a signal from a probe, notifying him that it had found a new star system, and include some kind of indication as to where it was. At that point the pilot would return to the 'frontier system' from where that probe was launched. He could then either warp directly to the location indicated by the probe, or perhaps further narrowing down of the location would be required using more probes, in a revised version of the current scanning procedure. Either way, eventually the pilot would be able to fill up his cargo hold with whatever items a fearless pioneer needs to explore new territories, load up his weapons with a healthy supply of ammunition, and head off across uncharted, deep space to this new-found system. Reasonably speaking, this trip should take a long time. Maybe even hours. Yes, this would be tedious as a player, but at the same time, the excitement of finding a new system that only you know about should be worth it.

On arriving, the potential array of things to be found would really be up to how much effort CCP wanted to put in. Maybe these new systems would be spawned automatically, with a random number of planets of random types, perhaps some NPC pirates, and so on. But, much more excitingly, CCP could hand-craft these new systems, seeding some of them with encounters which would lead to world-changing discoveries like new alien races, or at least new NPC factions, new types of planet or asteroid, and so on, and then just sit back and wait for a player to find them, one day. Rather than world events like the Sansha incursions just being kicked off by someone at CCP flicking a switch, they could be triggered by a player discovering a new system, maybe months after CCP created it.

Anyway, once the pilot has arrived at this new system he has a number of choices. He can choose to share his discovery with the universe for the good of mankind, build a jump gate (obviously lots of new skills and money and materials would be required for this), report the discovery to some authority, perhaps Concord, and have it added to the star charts. Maybe he could even suggest a name for it which might be adopted, if it was sensible (because if player names are anything to go by, the universe would soon be full or ridiculously-named systems otherwise). There might be a large financial reward for making such a discovery.

Or, in a much more likely scenario, the player could keep his new system a secret. He could set up a POS, have all of the resources of the new system to himself to mine and plunder to his heart's content. Imagine having a base of operations for you or your coporation which isn't even on the star map! But could you trust everyone in your corp to keep this new system a secret? The financial gains for blabbing about its location to a rival corp might be too much to resist. Or maybe an egomaniacal corp member just wants a system named after him, so he reports it to Concord, seeing it added to the star map with his moniker, and receiving a financial bonus in the process.

Presumably new systems that were discovered would likely be 0.0, at least to begin with, and certainly if they remained secret and uncharted. But maybe systems which were added to the map could potentially be designated as losec, or even hisec, depending on their location, after consideration by Concord (read: CCP). Newly-discovered systems which were reported to Concord would obviously make headline news in your Captain's Quarters.

Some observations.
These would by definition be 0.0 systems.
Wormholes would only start spawning into these systems after they were discovered.
The probe would be a Cyno generator so you could jump to the system. One shot, so you would need to have a cyno generator with you to get anybody else to go too. So, the probe range should not exceed the jump drive range of any jump capable ship.

Also, The only solar body that you should be able to warp to is the Sun until you probe down the planets, moons, and anything else in the system.

If a W-space system is in range of the probe, that cyno generator should work for a jump drive. Only one ship for one jump. These probes should appear on the scanner. There would be no going back (unless you launched a probe back in the other direction and waited.)

If the probe goes 10 AU/s, it will take 104 hours to go 1 light year. (4 days 10 hours), so to make these something worth-while, I'd hope their top speed is closer to 25 AU/s if they peak out at 5 LY as below:

A Black Ops has a max range with max skills of 5 LY and is the most likely ship to be used to sample the system. Your next most likely ships are Carriers and Rorquals. I think a Rorq would be the best next option as you could get friends to clone jump into the system with you quickly.

Also, It would be cool if you could have "star name brackets" in normal space view so you could tell where you should aim and an overview option to list stars within X LY. Unknown stars would have estimated distances.

(The real danger is just making sure there is always a k-space lowsec or lower system within range of the system so you can get out) At least for those close enough to high-sec systems. These could nest deeper into space without difficulty.

As there are no K-space trappings, there would be no local like W-space.

I dub these systems U-Space for Unknown Space.

I like the idea.

The stars you see in the distance in space, actually match up to stars in the game. I'd like the option of displaying the names of the known stars like anything else in space. The squares and circles you see for star gates, planets, stations, etc are called brackets. I'd like those for known stars. That way I don't end up with a probe in Jita. If you watch the jump gate activation animation, the streak fires directly at a star, the one you're going to.

Black-ops is currently a 72 day training for me, so jump drive capable ships are not a next-day kind of thing.
I could get into a Rorqual in 28 days or so.
Carriers are over 80 days or so.
A jump freighter would be tricky to use since you'd have to set up a POS before you could do anything else. (39 days)

Using the probes to do alt-less jumping would be an interesting change, but you'd have to plan ahead since they have a travel time. (Unless you can shoot them at the current system you are in and can jump from anywhere within range.)

Can I bump my own thread? Worth a try - I was hoping for slightly more discussion on this!

Ideas like this to expand known space have been considered before; couldn't be bothered to find and link the threads though, and most of them are probably in the old forums.

My take:

- Concord is non-existent in Nullsec, so you would have to get an Empire or Faction sponsor. Standings required to arrange for gate construction would be in the 8.0 range, and possibly as high as 9.0

- Local would be non-existent in these systems; even were a gate buiol;t to connect them with the rest of Nullsec.

- Sov would not be immediately available. Gates would have to be in position and active, linking current Nullsec to the new system, before such could happen. Once a gate is deployed at the destination, and its coordinates locked in to the Nullsec end of the gate system, activation of that gate system would allow travel and communication for Sov puposes.

- I think any new gates and systems developed and added to the game should be player discovered and player developed. New gates should require players to place them and make them available and usable. It should require quite an undertaking, involving freighterloads of construction components at the very least.

Unlike the wormhole gate kind of idea, these have to actually create a bridge to the new system; rather than taking advantage of an existing Wormhole and stabilizing it. This should require new sleeper technolgy, or a combination of Jovian and sleeper technology.

- There has to be a way to create gates on both ends. This may take months. Compared to your sensory probe, an automated gate deployment transport would be much slower. Only when it has successfully made it's journey and completed deployment, could you finalize construction and lock down the near gate to the destination gate.

This is something that would require a great deal of time, resources, and energy. Every additional gate linking to systems discovered further out, would require the same amount of effort and dedication of time and resources.

- We need a ship that is player piloted, and has the ability to reach AU/s speeds without actually warping to a destination. A new type of probe, (similar in deployment to a moon scanning probe), would have to be introduced, along with a new Scan probe launcher capable of deploying it.

This would ideally be a Tech 2 Destroyer or Cruiser size vessel capable of cloaking, but without much combat capability. It would be the only ship capable of fitting the new Probe Launcher and travelling at such high rates of speed; potentially, it could be limited to this means of travel, and not actually have warp capability. A new sub-warp propulsion technology could be introduced; where this ship would function as a 2nd generation prototype show-casing this technology.

Edges of systems could be made tangible with the Oort Cloud and Kuipur belt idea. Masive areas filled with particles of ice and rock too small to make use of, but damaging to ships. All ships systems would send back warnings indicating the hazard, preventing pilots from proceeding into them under normal circumstances. Any pilot who chooses to, would effectively be sacrificing his ship, while taking AoE damage from the debris based on spped of travel.

This ship, and it's probe technology would be designed to navigate these debris fields. The probe much more capable than the ship of course. Slow travel could be achieved by the ship into the debris field for probe deployment, at speeds that would destroy another vessel.

Sensors on the probe would of course allow it to navigate freely at high AU/s trevel using the same new sub-warp technology as the new ship. Upon reaching its destination, (pick a bright star center it in your view and launch at it), the probe will send back coordinates and navigation information using EVE lores FTL communication technology. These paired particles would of course only be in the launching ships Probe launcher and the launched probe.

The New ship could then accelerate to Sub-warp velocities to carry it through the cloud surrounding the current system, and travel between at incredible velocities, (may still take hours), then decelerate and pass through the cloud surrounding the system on the other end to arrive at the Probe at the edge of that system. Dscanning the system could then commence, and true exploration could begin.

- Any player could do this, and nobody needs to build gates to connect these systems. Many, might prefer not to. The only means of travel without the gates will be these ships however. No wormholes will spawn in these systems, unless they lead somewhere else. The original wormholes were designed as a quarantine area with routes to known space; there is no reason they should lead to these systems.

- Some form of danger should exist in these places, and maybe not always consistent. Some of these hazards should be incapable of being overcome with these ships and what little combat capability they might field. Others may be environmental hazards, or challenges that yield reasonable rewards for the pilot of this new ship.

Really, I could just keep going with this idea; but I'm going to stop for now.

What about things like Stargate Construction?

Also, is there a possibility of being able to find Super-Wormholes that could take you into what remains of the Milky Way?

If Eve ever returned to Earth, it would need to be an unknown system (not named Sol), have the 8.5 planets and Earth would need to be either a Shattered planet or a Barren planet and labeled "U006942 III." The only way you would know that it was the Earth's solar system is by noticing that the size, order, and orbits of the planets are remarkably familiar.

1) We know an awful lot of stars around Earth: http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ is a 3d program to fly through the known milky-way on your own PC! Just because we haven't been there yet doesn't mean we don't have a label for them. (If they ever do add our Galaxy to Eve, I would hope they get data from this or its sources.)

2) That's why I'd want it limited to those within so many light years.

3) I do want a clue as to where to probe. I don't want to wait 7 days and be told my probe was lost in deep space.