Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

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Argonaught.
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Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Argonaught. » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 19:16

The lfl doesn't cover the entire sector in detection range and it really should...let me explain.

I used an old TC script that semi worked in FL to detect all crates in the x universe to see where everything was and then visited those sectors.
The spawning range on some of the discoveries and special D's were out beyond 250km+ , the lfl does no detect anything at that range until you are near.

Would it be possible for you guys to limit the spawn range so that the detection ranges are within whatever the lfl range is from the center of a sector.

I understand you guys wanted to make FL interesting to explore but having things outside of the LFL range makes it more a grind than anything else to search way out for, and most will just forgo that and it'll end up a useless mechanic after a certain stage.

Asking politely,

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atroces
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by atroces » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 20:20

I saw what you were talking about, after reading your post, (and I thought I had found everything), I used ejfindwares to discover a ton of crates and a ship I hadn't even remotely come close to finding, and yes the crates are far beyond any reasonable distance.

I would say

A. Increase LFL to sector wide, or
B. Put all crates within LFL detection of one of the gates.

Right now, after finding a crate nearly 300km from 0,0,0 I think a change is probably necessary. Having to fly almost 200km just for it to begin to tick on LFL is absurd. This, considering that if pandoras/discoveries respawn, and they have the potential to spawn so far away, eventually you could explore everywhere and never find a respawn.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Snafu_X3 » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:02

Personally I disagree with the above proposals that LFL should be some sort of 'Sauron's Eye': if that is implemented then there's little point in (eg) sector-mapping beyond the last asteroid, as there's no hidden discovery to be made. Likewise limiting the discovery spawn points to the range of the LFL

However, perhaps (if possible) /new/ spawns (if only crates & not ships) could have their spawn radius reduced to (say) 300Km to prevent tedious re-mapping already discovered areas to 500Km+ to pick up respawn locations? IIRC respawns only start happening once the initial seed spawn (30 items?) has been completely picked up (& at a v slow spawn rate), so I reckon it'll be a fair amount of game/play time before respawns start to be of significance..
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atroces
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by atroces » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:36

Snafu_X3 wrote:
Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:02
Personally I disagree with the above proposals that LFL should be some sort of 'Sauron's Eye': if that is implemented then there's little point in (eg) sector-mapping beyond the last asteroid, as there's no hidden discovery to be made. Likewise limiting the discovery spawn points to the range of the LFL
That is exactly what it is described as, a special tool to find things at long range.

"Most objects can only be detected by a ship's normal scanners when at relatively close range. The Low Frequency Locator provides a means to detect such objects from a much greater distance."

The tedium of personally exploring a 700*700*700 cube of every sector multiple times just to find something that *might* be there is pure nonsense. That is not fun gameplay. As a matter of fact, I can imagine that is not the intent of exploration. When Cycrow stated previously that one could feasibly farm 1mil exploration points every 10 hours of play, that is completely impossible when having to search every sector thus. I would even be ok with the LFL not posing a direction, just flagging that something *IS* in the sector, until you get closer where it will then point.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Chaos Master » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:42

Snafu_X3 wrote:
Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:02
Personally I disagree with the above proposals that LFL should be some sort of 'Sauron's Eye':
You'd still have to continually visit all sectors. It just means you don't have to do a 300km radius mapping on 10x seta over and over again.

I feel like doing that for the 5th time in the same sector to see if there was a respawn will get old real quick.
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Snafu_X3 » Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:46

atroces wrote:
Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:36
I would even be ok with the LFL not posing a direction, just flagging that something *IS* in the sector, until you get closer where it will then point.
That sounds reasonable
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chip56
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by chip56 » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 00:00

I suggested it in another thread and i suggest it here too:
Make the explorers guild a permanent subscription instead of the 25k giving a hint for a single discovery sector.
If it would actually give you a sector with a discovery every x hours it would be far more worthwile. And that would solve the issue with far out spawns. Since those spawns are from what i have seen always near the edge of the sector map when zoomed out. So if you just fly around the edge of a sector you know that there is a discovery you find them reasonably fast. Even better if you drop advanced sats near the edge since those can spot the discoveries and even show them in the early sat warning system.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Hwitvlf » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 00:14

The suggestion for LFL to flag something IS without pointing till near seems like the best suggestion I've heard so far. Personally, I don't bother looking anywhere outside 100KM as it's just worth the time, but I don't like the idea of whole-sector coverage as that's too easy.

I think people have mentioned that you can buy a crate location using discovery points, but aren't discovery points limited in the game? Without a potentially endless supply of points, I wouldn't spend them on a crate which may be a dud. If you could occasionally buy a crate location with credits, I'd say it's good as it (ie 300KM spawns).

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by chip56 » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 00:33

No, the discovery points are not limited.
Each newly spawned discovery gives between 5-20k discovery points so you would get a small amount. However since showing the loaction of a crate costs 25k you would make a net minus if you want to get discovery points unless you get lucky and its a special discovery worth 100k.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Snafu_X3 » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 01:14

Hwitvlf wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 00:14
The suggestion for LFL to flag something IS without pointing till near seems like the best suggestion I've heard so far. [...] but I don't like the idea of whole-sector coverage as that's too easy.
Yes, agreed: that's my concern above!
think people have mentioned that you can buy a crate location using discovery points,
Yes you can
but aren't discovery points limited in the game?
Effectively no: you can /gradually/ gain Disco Points from simply (manually) flying around (already discovered) sectors, but it's an /extremely/ slow gain (presumably to prevent automated SETA exploits). AFAIK Disco points are only awarded for <player> actions (unless there's a crate that awards Disco points, but that wouldn't make sense..)

Could someone correct me if my thinking is wrong? My current thoughts are that remote ship discoveries within known sectors don't contribute to the DP 'bank': it requires <playership> to travel to that location to gain DP. This makes sense (at least to my mind): remote exploration may give a target, but personal intervention is required to gain the reward (hence no (eg) remote 'roid scanning for quick DP-gathering). Likewise a new sector discovery may be made by a remote ship with Explorer s/w, but doesn't provide DP unless <playership> is the first entrant (so keep remote explorer ships finding gates rather than travelling thru them.. altho IIRC there's a DP reward for finding gates..?)
Wiki X:R 1st Tit capping
Wiki X3:TC vanilla: Guide to generic missions, Guide to finding & capping Aran
Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

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Midnightknight
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Midnightknight » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 02:38

Personally i just stopped looking for those discoveries and one thing i love in this game is exploration, but this is no exploration. Flying in space for hours with nothing around cause the discovery might be over the "map borders" is really boring and annoying. Cause yeah maps have a limited size in X3. Of course you could explore endless in all directions, but there is nothing past a certain square, even the map refuse to display your ship above this limit.

So yeah i bought one of those hints telling you were is the interesting thing at the Discovery gild, it told me what sector, i went there, used the explorer command with my 500m/s Ocelot set to explore 200km from the center and no ping at all. So half an hour lost doing nothing and i finally got bored and went to do something else.

Clantron
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Clantron » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 04:11

Early on I got excited over the tunings and the comments in forum about them continuing to spawn. So I got my Advanced Discoverer up to 1300m/s. Even at that speed searching becomes pointless.

The suggestion I see here of at least the LFL notifying there is something somewhere in the sector, without pointing to it until you get close enough is an idea I wish to support as well.

Ramdat
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Ramdat » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 05:19

The LFL is a great feature in a fresh universe. It gives the player an extra incentive to thoroughly explore each sector, and is fun the first time.

After you've explored every sector, it becomes tedious. Solutions to fix this have already been suggested, such as extending the LFL range or reducing the box spawn radius. But, this does not really solve the problem because you still have to personally fly to every sector in the universe over and over. Nothing in the sector will change, except perhaps station presence from GOD or war. And, you are probably already aware of these changes via your satellite network. There is nothing to "explore". Instead, you are just driving around looking for a box. This is not a fun or engaging gameplay loop.

Possible alternative solutions:

1. Allow SEWN to detect the presence of a crate in the sector. It encourages a player to have a good satellite network and make use of the SEWN features. It would likely need to be accompanied by a radius reduction, since deploying satellites to cover a 500x500km area in every sector seems a bit excessive. And, likely a reduction in spawn rate since it will be much easier to find the crates. However, it will probably become a chore to jump to the sector as soon as a crate is detected to collect it. It is far less tedious than the current system, though.

2. Bring back the Unfocused Jumpdrive. Remove the chance to damage equipment upon jump, make the crates exclusive to these sectors, change the LFL to be able to detect crates in the entire sector, and tweak the settings of these sectors to make it more appropriate for FL. Maybe add extra goodies like derelict ships and blueprints. The asteroids in these sectors will be useful for the improved mobile mining system in FL. The randomness will make it "true" exploration, and could lead to some interesting gameplay. It could also be expanded to effect the normal universe.
For example:
Spoiler
Show
Unfocused jumping upsets the Khaak, which causes them to be more active and aggressive in the normal universe and more likely to spawn in unfocused jump sectors. This could be used as a counterbalance for the powercreep from the pandora boxes, and make the universe more dynamic through the pressure the Khaak exert on the player and other races. This aligns with the design philosophy of the Xenon incursion system introduced in FL.

atroces
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by atroces » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 06:28

Ramdat wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 05:19
2. Bring back the Unfocused Jumpdrive. Remove the chance to damage equipment upon jump, make the crates exclusive to these sectors, change the LFL to be able to detect crates in the entire sector, and tweak the settings of these sectors to make it more appropriate for FL. Maybe add extra goodies like derelict ships and blueprints. The asteroids in these sectors will be useful for the improved mobile mining system in FL. The randomness will make it "true" exploration, and could lead to some interesting gameplay. It could also be expanded to effect the normal universe.
For example:
Hard disagree with this. I liked the UFJD for its time, but it was just as tedious, repetitive, and boring to flap in and out of sectors for loot. That and without a mechanic to reverse the mentioned spoiler, it doesn't seem too feasible. I'd like to work with the mechanics available and see if they can be made more reasonable before adding extra work and options like this. In X3ap, this would have been a great suggestion and UFJD was sort of mid-endgame luxury, but since I have opened a certain sector in X3FL, the
Spoiler
Show
KHAAAAAAAAAKKK have been super aggressive, ruining the nearby sectors for trade, far worse than the Xenon.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Ramdat » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 06:47

atroces wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 06:28
Hard disagree with this. I liked the UFJD for its time, but it was just as tedious, repetitive, and boring to flap in and out of sectors for loot. That and without a mechanic to reverse the mentioned spoiler, it doesn't seem too feasible. I'd like to work with the mechanics available and see if they can be made more reasonable before adding extra work and options like this.
It is fairly tedious and repetitive, but I'd consider it an improvement over the current system of driving around the universe hoping for a crate. It might just be a problem with the game's limitations though. There's not much you can do to make it interesting.
atroces wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 06:28
Spoiler
Spoiler
Show
I know they already exist, but I've not experienced them yet as I've been waiting a while for the 1.2 patch, and restarted after patch 1.1. Glad to hear they actually do stuff though.

The aggressiveness from my original spoiler could be reduced by destroying their assets, which require resources and time to replace, similar in concept to OCV/Phanon in Litcube or the races in Mayhem 3. It is perhaps too much work for the FL dev team though. And, as I said before, maybe a game limitation. The implementation of Litcube in particular shows the potential weakness of such a system, as it was rather easy to exploit Phanon, and OCV was basically just superships spawning on a timer.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by chip56 » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 09:46

Snafu_X3 wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 01:14
Hwitvlf wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 00:14
The suggestion for LFL to flag something IS without pointing till near seems like the best suggestion I've heard so far. [...] but I don't like the idea of whole-sector coverage as that's too easy.
Yes, agreed: that's my concern above!
think people have mentioned that you can buy a crate location using discovery points,
Yes you can
but aren't discovery points limited in the game?
Effectively no: you can /gradually/ gain Disco Points from simply (manually) flying around (already discovered) sectors, but it's an /extremely/ slow gain (presumably to prevent automated SETA exploits). AFAIK Disco points are only awarded for <player> actions (unless there's a crate that awards Disco points, but that wouldn't make sense..)

Could someone correct me if my thinking is wrong? My current thoughts are that remote ship discoveries within known sectors don't contribute to the DP 'bank': it requires <playership> to travel to that location to gain DP. This makes sense (at least to my mind): remote exploration may give a target, but personal intervention is required to gain the reward (hence no (eg) remote 'roid scanning for quick DP-gathering). Likewise a new sector discovery may be made by a remote ship with Explorer s/w, but doesn't provide DP unless <playership> is the first entrant (so keep remote explorer ships finding gates rather than travelling thru them.. altho IIRC there's a DP reward for finding gates..?)
There are new discoveries spawning (up to 5 at a time). If those are for example credits or energy cells they will reward between 5k and 20k discovery points. If you got lucky and it spawned within range of an adv. sat. you can order any ship to pick them up and you will get those discovery points.
For asteroids you indeed have to scan them yourself.
For station discovery i didnt pay enough attention to verify it either way.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Argonaught. » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 19:07

Snafu_X3 wrote:
Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:46
atroces wrote:
Fri, 11. Jun 21, 21:36
I would even be ok with the LFL not posing a direction, just flagging that something *IS* in the sector, until you get closer where it will then point.
That sounds reasonable
I agree with this as a really good implementation...a notification when you enter a system to say something is detected but no pointer showing you where until you get close enough for the lfl pointer to kick in.
Maybe let your SEWN network do the same, a detection but not telling you what or where in the system.

Make it more interesting to look for respawns if more rare things were added to the crates, like things you can't buy in the normal universe, possible adding in the odd unfocused crystals, quantum processors, blueprints and ultra rare things.
It would make it more rewarding with less grind tediousness.

Suggestions I'd hope would be looked at with interest from the devs.

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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Snafu_X3 » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 20:58

Argonaught. wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 19:07
Make it more interesting to look for respawns if more rare things were added to the crates, like things you can't buy in the normal universe, possible adding in the odd unfocused crystals, quantum processors, blueprints and ultra rare things.
DEVs have already stated that the cap on UC & QP is deliberate & won't be changed (to prevent multiple manufacture of genuinely unique ships such as KM), but blueprint drops etc may be possible & sounds like a reasonable idea maybe?
Wiki X:R 1st Tit capping
Wiki X3:TC vanilla: Guide to generic missions, Guide to finding & capping Aran
Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

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Argonaught.
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Argonaught. » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 21:18

Snafu_X3 wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 20:58
Argonaught. wrote:
Sat, 12. Jun 21, 19:07
Make it more interesting to look for respawns if more rare things were added to the crates, like things you can't buy in the normal universe, possible adding in the odd unfocused crystals, quantum processors, blueprints and ultra rare things.
DEVs have already stated that the cap on UC & QP is deliberate & won't be changed (to prevent multiple manufacture of genuinely unique ships such as KM), but blueprint drops etc may be possible & sounds like a reasonable idea maybe?
I'm aware of that, but nothing is written in stone.
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Re: Special discoveries + discoveries + lfl problem

Post by Midnightknight » Sat, 12. Jun 21, 21:33

Even with a bip telling you something is around in a sector. I don't see the point to fly 30 minutes in seta with autopilot cause you are supposed to look 343 million km3 (yes 700x700x700) to locate this create of e-cells completely off map where there is no station, no ship, nothing except this lost "surprise box".

I loved exploring the universe in every Xgame cause you discover this pirate station behind the gate that was trying to be sneaky, or flying around you saw something "cover" a star for a second and you wanted to check it. Or those disabled gates that shone half a second when you were flying around, this lost factory far away from the center cause you saw a trader going there in nothingness and wanted to check what it was doing there.

Here the goal is to try to make an Elite Dangerous experience, but in elite dangerous you are truly in open space, if you fly hours in the direction of a star, you will end visiting this said star. You don't go randomly in nothingness just in hope to get random trash lost during a fight. Here it's pointless, the planets, moons can't be landed on, not even approached and most of what you "see" can't ever been reached, all those stars are only a skybox. But we introduced new creates that spawn when you are close enough and can be seen only with a short range scanner. That was really not my definition of exploration.

I really loved all the first part to fill the encyclopedia, to map all the sectors, to be able to have all the factories, ships listed, even scan those asteroids, even if its tedious and a lot of farm, you can say "Ok i scan a sector here and there" and you will end up completing it. But this, is even more artificial than UFJD was and it's a lot more tedious in the end. Cause you were bored by an UFJD sector, ok skip to the next, no consequences, a new one is generated with potential loots inside. Here you need to collect improbably placed loots to have more to be generated.

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