as i was thinking about scanning, I want to put in my 2 cents on the notion of planetary scanning and discovery, it needs to be intuitive and easy to jump into. the LAST thing i want to do is use attempt to use trilateral triangulation techniques to discover a large body, i don't ever want to hit a calculator or look up google for help.
a planetary scanner should work like this:
player A runns a basic large body echo scan at 360 degrees, because of the widest view and large amount of data, this scan is going to take a while, but it shows the number of ships, planets, and asteroids in a searchable and easy to sort list by the player. all things are shown, but, the scan does not say how far something is, or what direction it is in. for an explorer this is the first scan he pulls when entering a new system.
Player A finds that among the publicly known list of planets and asteroid fields and anomalies, a large planetary body shows up on the list, looks like there's a hidden planet in this system!! but the player has no idea where it is.
Player A than attempts a 180 degree scan. the singled out body is preselected for direct scanning, meaning nothing else shows up in the list. list comes up empty, Its behind the player! player turns around and rescans. he gets a hit, and he's facing away from the systems star, planet type shows up, rarer planets still show up as unknown planetary types.
Player A attempts a smaller degree scan, lets say at 100 degrees. at this point a 3D circle has been up on his scanning hud surround his ship, showing the width of the scan infront or around the player. the hundred degree scan shows up as a yellow mark on the hologram. once a scan is complete the scanned area is held in relation to the players movement, so if the player moves after a scan, he/she still no's what direction they were scanning in. more planetary data shows up in this scan. type, size, and but doesn't show any information on whats on the surface.
player A repeats process down to 10 degrees. now the scans have been much faster and he gets a direct distance from the object, the scanner gives him a waypoint to the planet. the player has a general sense of the type, and resources on the planet, and is given a generic tech level, if any. the waypoint and scanning data are saved to the cargo hold as an exploration manifest and can be copied, sold, traded, stolen, encrypted to protect from piracy, whatever. but the player only has a B-grade knowledge of the planet in question, he must get closer to get the perfect scann.
Player A now loads a planetary scan pattern into his scanner and proceeds to the given waypoint. as long as the planets defenses don't kick in (unless your an ace explorer and can dodge and scan, which would need a Combat planetary scanner, which locks in the direction of the scanned object even if the player is moving) if it even has any, the player does a good long scan of the planet. he/she gets everything there is to know about the planet. whats on it, what resources it has available, life signs if any, tempature, gravity, geological and weather patterns. this ata is record and saved in the cargo hold, and can be copied, sold, traded, stolen, encrypted to protect from piracy, and is considered a Class-A planetary scan.
Player A than sells class-A scan to neutral faction A, at a high price. Player A then sells another newly minted class-A scan (just rescan above planet, takes awhile though, so the explorer needs a cloak) to Faction A's enemy, Faction B, at a decent price. than player A then proceeds to jump into his salvager ship with cloak module, and ninja salvages all the wreckage's from the carnage over the newly discovered planet. Player A was never caught due to the fact he used an information broker's for each transaction, ensuring his anonymity, although there were middlemen fee's, none of the factions knows who exactly sold them the data, as there were 2 anonymous freelance information brokers involved (double blind method).
this scanning example can also be applied to ships, anomalies, wormholes, almost anything really! you could scan enemy fleets while cloaked, you could scan for rich asteroids and rich asteroid fields. you could scan a blackhole and hire a hacker (note: really smart information broker) to modify the scan data to make it look like a desirable planet, sell the data, and watch fleets get completely destroyed as they try to see the planet for themselves XD.
although i would like a dedicated combat scanner for ship scanning, you could use the exploration scanner but its hard to scan a moving object. a combat scanner could allow a player to more easily zoom in on moving ships, acquire their location, and record their movement as long as the scanning is recorded. it would be most profitable if a player cloaked up, flew to the enemy fleet, used a thermal combat scanner, to quietly scan ship movement, tag along with the fleet and record its movements, and then disengage the scanner and sell the high class combat data. a difficult task in not getting caught or bumped into, as the player caught cloaked and scanning would be shredded or asked to drop their scanning data.
this would be intuitive and fun, too many space sims make exploration Extremely difficult and frustratingly scientific. we should not be aiming for realism, this is a video game, we should be aim for intuitive and fun gameplay, like one game dev said recently: "We're not aiming for realism, we're aiming for Awesome!"
for those that would want a harder difficulty in scanning, remember its a single player game, so it wouldn't be to hard to have an exploration difficulty setting, if you want extreme difficulty in exploration where you need triangulation. I agree that if it were a multiplayer game, it would need more difficulty, but its single-player.
Post
Sun Dec 09, 2012 6:45 am
#2
Re: Exploration and scanning
One thing that makes sensors / scanning so boring in X3 is it's absolute, instant, precise detail.
Anything within your RADAR range is perfectly visible with 100% accuracy.
With such a not-even-binary system, any sort of stealth is flat out impossible.
Go-boom mines are an exception but they are not really part of the gameplay. They either instakill you or they are inconsequential, neither of which offers any interaction.
Long ago I scripted the BIER Scanner for Reunion.
It would tell you that "something is out there" but it is intentionally inaccurate.
(and I can tell you, it's a lot of work to make a computer work inaccurately =P)
Your "long range scan" might mistake a large wing of small ships for a capital ship. If you want to know more - send a scout to find out what's going on.
It also gave carriers excellent long range RADAR, allowing them to make use of the fact that they can deploy fast fighters to "do stuff" in a wide area. Without that they are merely bad destroyers.
Scanning type / accuracy / range is an important factor if you design ship roles / classes.
In X3 it's a wash. There is no difference between a 30m scout and a 4000m destroyer when both have the same Triplex Scanner installed. Meh.
Anything within your RADAR range is perfectly visible with 100% accuracy.
With such a not-even-binary system, any sort of stealth is flat out impossible.
Go-boom mines are an exception but they are not really part of the gameplay. They either instakill you or they are inconsequential, neither of which offers any interaction.
Long ago I scripted the BIER Scanner for Reunion.
It would tell you that "something is out there" but it is intentionally inaccurate.
(and I can tell you, it's a lot of work to make a computer work inaccurately =P)
Your "long range scan" might mistake a large wing of small ships for a capital ship. If you want to know more - send a scout to find out what's going on.
It also gave carriers excellent long range RADAR, allowing them to make use of the fact that they can deploy fast fighters to "do stuff" in a wide area. Without that they are merely bad destroyers.
Scanning type / accuracy / range is an important factor if you design ship roles / classes.
In X3 it's a wash. There is no difference between a 30m scout and a 4000m destroyer when both have the same Triplex Scanner installed. Meh.
There is no "I" in Tea. That would be gross.
Post
Sun Dec 09, 2012 10:10 am
#3
Re: Exploration and scanning
Sounds great, I am in favor of things like this!
But only to a point: closerange I should be able to have precise radar, if only to alleviate repetition in scanning mechanics and viability to play as a non-scanner oriented theorist (or whatever players in limit theory are called). The special scanning described above should imo be limited to finding really hidden, or really longrange, or really anomalous things.
But only to a point: closerange I should be able to have precise radar, if only to alleviate repetition in scanning mechanics and viability to play as a non-scanner oriented theorist (or whatever players in limit theory are called). The special scanning described above should imo be limited to finding really hidden, or really longrange, or really anomalous things.
Post
Sun Dec 09, 2012 12:54 pm
#4
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Re: Exploration and scanning
It only makes sense that larger ships have more space to dedicate to sensors/scanners and thus have a further range and are more accurate. This also means you can't equip a small ship with the super mega ultra deluxe scanner w/ pizza maker, but if you want to equip the large ship with a simple Mr. Scanner, you can, its range may not even be big enough to see the bow of the ship.
The idea of 'something is out there' sounds really cool too. Adds a bit of mystery when flying blind.
The idea of 'something is out there' sounds really cool too. Adds a bit of mystery when flying blind.
Early Spring - 1055: Well, I made it to Boatmurdered, and my initial impressions can be set forth in three words: What. The. F*ck.
Post
Sun Dec 09, 2012 6:46 pm
#5
what I'm suggesting is for specific exploration scanners that are for exploration, and not close range scanning.
Re: Exploration and scanning
thats exactly the nature of my suggestion. close range combat scanners on the vast majority of ships are highly accurate, radar or other sensor system based systems that show everything close to you, but have limited range. mainly, if you cans see it with your eyes, even if its a speck, save for distant stars or anomolous objects, you can see everything.Godwin wrote:Sounds great, I am in favor of things like this!
But only to a point: closerange I should be able to have precise radar, if only to alleviate repetition in scanning mechanics and viability to play as a non-scanner oriented theorist (or whatever players in limit theory are called). The special scanning described above should imo be limited to finding really hidden, or really longrange, or really anomalous things.
what I'm suggesting is for specific exploration scanners that are for exploration, and not close range scanning.