TL;DR

FDEV are heading to the correct direction with exploration contents for Q4 but I really hope that they will focus mainly on planets exploration from the surface, where it is required to land and to perform some activities using also the SRV.





When I bought Horizons I was happy to be able to land on a planet but when I started Exploration I've been quickly disappointed because it didn't introduce any specific exploration content, not even an additional reward for landing on an undiscovered planet. The exploration job was still done by the ship scanners from the distance, so to "discover" a planet you didn't even needed to approach to it. The planets were mainly sandboxes.



I've seen some new concept for the Q4 about the new probes and I like them, but it's again gameplay from space, which is ok for Gas Giants and Atmospheric Planets since we won't be able to land on them with the Q4 update , but what about the planets and the moons where we can land?



SUGGESTION #1: Natural Phenomena

The new probes are supposed to highlight POI's, so this is a wonderful introduction and it would be great if these POI would be natural phenomena like earthquakes , erupting volcanoes , anomalies , places where you can find rare materials with a risky prospecting . Not only something that you could see, but that you could interact with and analyze and that would increase the exploration data value.



SUGGESTION #2: SRV Exploration Modules

I also wish that FDEV will focus more on SRV exploration modules rather than ship modules. Ships already have 2 scanners and the new probes. SRV needs some probe to dig into the terrain to analyze the geology and sismic activities (one probe specific for rock and one for ice for example). Some mech arm to collect materials and precious stones from dangerous/inaccessible places (magma puddles). A mining laser to mine big rocks formation to look for minerals and eventually fossils that would witness the presence of primordial life and atmosphere in the past. An integrated camera to add illustrations of discoveries. Extra payout if you take a picture with a certain quantity of features in it (ringed planet with neutron star for example).

A new SRV for exporation could even be developed to include all these features where the turret with telepresence is replaced by this mech arm, also this operated with telepresence. These are few examples that could be discussed to see what'more interesting.



SUGGESTION #3: Payout for planetary exploration

At the moment the most common "high value bodies" are Atmospheric High Metal Content World and we can't interact with them until we have atmospheric landing. The highest payout is provided just by random luck in finding very rare undiscovered Earth Like Worlds.

So this is a typical case of high reward for poor gameplay. Adding exploration activities and contents on the planets surface would be a good reason to increase the exploration value of rocky/ice planets that at the moment are worthless . Every activity performed on the surface should add value to the exploration data, so landing would not be good only for gathering materials or scan some remote data point. Give me some job to do and pay me for this. This is in general what this request is about.