Marko Yelich (Facebook)

Just listened to Ep122 and Chris asked for feedback on the plot reveals in ED. I concur, that how they are being done are largely for the benefit for the 1% of players while the rest of us just hear about it afterwards and at best get to visit the wreckages after the fact. And the notion that Frontier have to so heavy-handely almost lead us by the nose to these sites is poor game design.



Frontier could really do way better with allowing us to discover such things on our own accord, if we were given adequate discovery tools. The “Detailed Surface Scanner” is hardly that, if it can’t report that there are alien structures or signals on a planet! Surely Frontier have watched Star Trek and can recall Lt. Ohura telling Cpt. Kirk she is picking up a “strange signal” from below? Or Spock giving detailed account of what planetary civilisations he just scanned.



Right now, I am in the black. I honk when I get into a new system, Scan the star (to get my name tagged on it), I go to the System Map and check for planets that kind of look “Earthy” to fly to and do a detailed scan. Why: because I get more money and get my name on them.



Really? Money (ranking) is my primary driver? Shouldn’t it be discovering new civilisations or artefacts? But in reality, how would I do this? Well with current tools i would need to low fly the entire surface of every airless planet in the hope a blue circle comes up on my radar, land, drive around in my buggy and maybe discover something more than some abandoned tea canisters. Just ridiculous!



Frontier needs to quickly improve the feedback one gets from both the discovery scanner and from the detailed surface scanner. The former should highlight any planets that have “items of interest” on them.



The latter giving coordinates of any artificial/biological matter on the surface so we can fly directly to it. Because without those coordinates… I tell you even with them, the first time I went to a barnacle site it was TOUGH to spot the things from the air!!



Anyway, enough ranting from me… Love your show and apart from the pretty poor sound quality of 122, well produced too. And please keep the GalNet News being read at the end of them.