Explore the Galaxy integration about stelnet HOT 7 OPEN

Feature idea: Remote exploration
Function: For a price based on distance and upkeep, select one ship form your fleet and send it off to explore a targeted system. The exploration returns only with remote survey data (rudimentary information). Exploration has a chance to fail resulting in ship loss.

• Basic exploration success chance is 55%.
• Chance of discovering additional information is 10%.
• The ship sent off still counts towards the ship limit (if it does not get destroyed).
• Minimum crew necessary to operate the ship (skeleton crew).
• Bonus from skills?

• Remove officer from selected ship.
• Alternate: leave officer to gain a chance of discovering additional info about the system (5% per officer level).

• Limit ship selection to frigates or leave it up to the user to decide?
• Alternate: Based on hull size, exploration success is increased (civilian 0%, militarized 5%, max. 20%), but mission time takes longer (base burn level) and uses more resources (basic upkeep and fuel).

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UI Design
---In progress---

Should a planet be set to surveyed once it matches the query? Or should it be anonymized like Planet A etc.
Sort systems and planets in the same way each time.

• System query
  • Tabs:
    • List Queries (most UI function to be copied from Market query)
      • By system name
      • By planet count
      • By star count
    • Add a New Query (most UI function to be copied from Market query)
      • Categories: Core World, Star type, Star count, Planet count, Planet type, AND/OR buttons for each category
      • Gate, Jump points, Stable locations, Hazard(?)
      • Planetary conditions and how many should a system contain

• Survey mission
  • Planetary survey or Sector survey
  • Copy UI from Market Viewer
  • Additional dialogue for ship and officer selection
  • Warning message if not enough resources/crew

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Feature idea: New ship type - Drone
Function: Cost effective way to do remote surveys and more.

Pros:

• Low resource usage: 1 supply, 0 crew.
• 20 base burn.
• Lowest Sensor profile.
• Complete survey.
• Success rate 95% or 100%.
• Bonus from skills?

Cons:

• Can be bought only from Tri-Tachyon, requires favorable, Black market purchases decrease relationship by 20 and set suspicion levels to High.
• High/medium cost?
• Surveys only ONE random planet from the targeted system.

Unique:

• Similar to Ogame's >Expeditions<, Drones can be used to explore the far reaches of the sector, usually bringing back blueprints, weapons and other valuable items (10%).
• Chance to bring back a small amount of supplies and/or fuel (10%).
• Expedition time can be set from 15 to 30 in-game days. The longer the expedition, the higher the chance to find valuables (15 days = 10%, additional 1% per day).

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• Coronal taps
• Cryosleepers

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Could be combined with / cross feature of - https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23428.0 (manned exploration)

The original Explore the Galaxy integration was meant as simply providing a search UI for already explored planets, with potential expansion to unexplored (but anonymized) planets / systems.

Still, I like the idea of some sort of drone ships / probes (unmanned). Perhaps various types:

• just drone ship, low supplies and fuel, - goes to system X and returns partial survey of planets (or just what planets are in)
• drone ship + gamma core + low supplies and fuel - pick a planet, get full survey
• drone ship + beta core + medium supplies and fuel - pick a system, get full survey of all planets
• drone ship + alpha + large supplies and fuel - multiple systems? Say, fully automated, works for a year then has increased breakdown chance

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Perhaps alpha core probes could search for reasearch stations, cryosleepers and coronal taps.

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Perhaps alpha core probes could search for reasearch stations, cryosleepers and coronal taps.

I'd suggest alpha cores on drones being able to scout a constellation instead of a system. It would be most beneficial for adjusted/grand sector players, as that was my whole motivation for the explore the galaxy mod in the first place. We can tweak it to our hearts desire later on after some testing.

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