Ideas for scanning planets.

Does it still exist? How would it work?

from StarControl Forums

Here is an idea regarding planets and the scanning thereof. I definitely agree that extremely exaggerated features should not be viewed from space. That aside, it doesn't mean that the world is boring or featureless, quite the opposite actually. The world can be incredibly diverse and beautiful, some with thick atmospheres, mountains, lakes spires, and a whole bunch of exiting and sometimes exaggerated features, but in order to see them fully the player must initiate a scan.

I don't know about you, but one of the things that made SC2 great was exploring. And a big element in that was the scanning experience. The look of the planet from space gave you a general Idea of what to expect, but to truly delve deep and understand what the planet had to offer you, you had to fire up your incredibly advanced scanners to penetrate the atmosphere and scan the whole surface, to find your minerals, biology, and your artifacts. 

I imagine that SCR can have a similar experience, in order to see the planet in all its glory you have to scan it first. Perhaps going along with the idea and plan of upgrading the mothership (another important factor of SC2) you can give your ship better and better scanning tech, allowing you to scan from further and further distances, with the scan taking less and less time to complete, and perhaps revealing more detailed information on the planets contents, and surface. The joy of finding, and mining, and hunting on many interesting worlds and places was part of what made SC2 (in my "humble" opinion) a great game that was fun to play. 

Please bear in mind that this is just an idea, and a simple one at that. I do not wish to offend. If you wouldn't mind thinking about, and posting feedback about it, that would be great. 

(Originally posted in planet design thread, decided to post here for more detailed discussion and so not to derail that thread) 

74,056 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

It'd be nice to not have to press the scan button. Auto-scan with nice graphics effect triggered by planet proximity would be perfect IMO. If we'll have the planet features hidden before scanning then during the scan the exaggerated features can be revealed in a nice graphic effect manner (like mountains growing out of the planet surface taking their shape, trees bloom into their full tiny 3D model glory etc.) That might solve the problem of visited/unvisited planets visually. No need for markers to signify it since the planet features will stay revealed.

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

As a bit of a tangent I'd say I'd love to see the rainbow worlds fluff carried to it's conclusion, that is, planets that are unscannable from orbit, May be high risk! Might have very high reward! Perhaps both!

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Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Myzimensi, reply 2

As a bit of a tangent I'd say I'd love to see the rainbow worlds fluff carried to it's conclusion, that is, planets that are unscannable from orbit, May be high risk! Might have very high reward! Perhaps both!

Sounds awesome! But those should be the exception, not the rule. 

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting TheUr-quanMaster, reply 3


Quoting Myzimensi,
reply 2

As a bit of a tangent I'd say I'd love to see the rainbow worlds fluff carried to it's conclusion, that is, planets that are unscannable from orbit, May be high risk! Might have very high reward! Perhaps both!



Sounds awesome! But those should be the exception, not the rule. 

Or what about things on the surface that cannot be scanned or are undetectable by sensors at all until you have better sensor modules?  This might be an anti-gameplay pattern though...

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 1

It'd be nice to not have to press the scan button. Auto-scan with nice graphics effect triggered by planet proximity would be perfect IMO. If we'll have the planet features hidden before scanning then during the scan the exaggerated features can be revealed in a nice graphic effect manner (like mountains growing out of the planet surface taking their shape, trees bloom into their full tiny 3D model glory etc.) That might solve the problem of visited/unvisited planets visually. No need for markers to signify it since the planet features will stay revealed.

 

I like this idea.  There is no reason for the player to have to manually activate the scanner, it can just auto-scan went you enter orbit.

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

The current plan for scanning a planet involves actually scanning the planet and being able to filter on the resources and objects you find. From there you will be able to choose the landing location you would like to try and land at. 

While you will be able to scan and see many things from orbit you won't be able to get specifics until you visit the planet and visit them up close. 

 

As an example, you will detect the locations of the resources on the planet and get a distribution readout of them. However you will need to visit the surface to discern the exact location of the minerals and to discover the other anomalies and life forms. 

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Vaelzad, reply 6

The current plan for scanning a planet involves actually scanning the planet and being able to filter on the resources and objects you find. From there you will be able to choose the landing location you would like to try and land at. 

While you will be able to scan and see many things from orbit you won't be able to get specifics until you visit the planet and visit them up close. 

 

As an example, you will detect the locations of the resources on the planet and get a distribution readout of them. However you will need to visit the surface to discern the exact location of the minerals and to discover the other anomalies and life forms. 

 

And are you planning on the same RU / Credit system, or are you going to expand on that?

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

Planet scanning should be effected by weather, ship sensor level and time in orbit. a slow methodical scan will give greater detail vs a quick wide sweeping scan.

Reply #9 from StarControl Forums Top

Will there be different levels of tech for scanning?

 

Perhaps some special minerals or deep core deposits would need more specialised scanners to detect properly?

 

It is not a problem that the tech is not there but rather in costs.

A very powerful scanner would cost much more and perhaps need more resources to operate than a simple one that only penetrates 1 km into the ground uni-directionally (in a cone) or omnidirectionally (circular area from the source).

Reply #10 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Xenove, reply 9

Perhaps some special minerals or deep core deposits would need more specialised scanners to detect properly?

I like it, but be careful with this idea. I wouldn't want to have to re-explore an explored planet just because I didn't have the technology to fully explore it. I'd rather spend the time exploring a brand new planet.

 

That could be mitigated if the low-tech scanners detected something but couldn't identify it. That would make me flag the planet as one I'd want to re-explore.

 

You are probably asking yourself why I see a difference between the two approaches. Let me use an example. Imagine having explored 100 worlds. 10 of these worlds have a secret stash of special minerals buried deep beneath the crust. If high-tech scanners were required to detect special minerals, I'd have to re-explore all 100 worlds to make sure I didn't miss any of them. If low-tech scanners could detect but not identify special minerals, I would have flagged the 10 planets as ones to re-explore. The end result is that I'd spend less time re-exploring planets and more time exploring new ones.

Reply #11 from StarControl Forums Top

I insist on developing a mechanic where you don't have to pause or come to stop to scan a planet. A planet proximity auto-scan feature. Make the planet visit seamless. Judging from the presented planet exploration concept art pictures it seems very likely that landing can be easily made like so:

1. Top-down view of system exploration

2. Approaching a planet triggers zoom into it (your ship stays the same size)

3. Further proximity triggers camera to move back behind your ship zooming into it slightly (zooming into planet is still in effect too)

4. Scanning starts as your ship goes into planet's orbit (resource markers pop-up as you orbit around planet). Planet atmosphere information populates UI on the left and right sides of the screen. Readings can be color coded as green, yellow and blinking red to signify hospitability of the atmosphere elements.

5. Crosshair appears infront of the ship to mark landing location. You can land or leave the orbit at this point by pressing one of the corresponding buttons.

6. If you decide to land then your ship smoothly fades out down the screen leaving the lander in its place followed by the landing at the crosshair location (final zoom-in stage here). If you decide to leave then the planet fades out below the screen and zooming out with camera "straightening" into top down view happens.

 

Again, UI, UI and UI should be one of the major priorities here. I don't want to go through dam filter menus with drop-downs/pop-ups to see shizz I'm interested it. It is possible to make everything visible and readable without filtering, extra menus and unnecessary interruptions/pauses.

Reply #12 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting IBNobody, reply 10

You are probably asking yourself why I see a difference between the two approaches. Let me use an example. Imagine having explored 100 worlds. 10 of these worlds have a secret stash of special minerals buried deep beneath the crust. If high-tech scanners were required to detect special minerals, I'd have to re-explore all 100 worlds to make sure I didn't miss any of them. If low-tech scanners could detect but not identify special minerals, I would have flagged the 10 planets as ones to re-explore. The end result is that I'd spend less time re-exploring planets and more time exploring new ones.

Couple that with the premise of being unable to harvest deep stashes until you have the right technology and you could have a lot of repetitive planet visits.  I personally wouldn't want to visit planets more than once or twice unless:

- I'm talking to someone for whatever reason

- There is something really cool/unique to see

- I ran out of cargo space during my first visit

- Missions

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Reply #13 from StarControl Forums Top

^ There's no point in revisiting planets for resources when you can just go to a new planet and pick up the same shizz. It's not like you'll only have 120 planets to visit. ;)

What advanced scanning tech can solve is exploiting mineral rich locations to get rich fast at the game start and buy all the upgrades at once (my favorite thing to do when replaying SC2 XD). It might be fun for somebody, but it'll definitely kill sense of accomplishment and progression for me right there. Assuming you will have a wide variety of upgrades at the start (for "roleplaying" purposes?).

Reply #14 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Hunam_, reply 13

^ There's no point in revisiting planets for resources when you can just go to a new planet and pick up the same shizz. It's not like you'll only have 120 planets to visit.

You are right, but OCD behaviors entice people to completely harvest a planet before moving on.

Reply #15 from StarControl Forums Top

^ Take Prozac and you'll be fine.  :thumbsup:

Reply #16 from StarControl Forums Top

Hello didn't my 2 cents would would create a flurry of posts. That's what I call a good investment!  :star:

 

I like the idea that the minerals are scanned but not identified.

 

In my mind the special minerals would be of 2 kinds.

 

1. Concentrated deposits of high value minerals can be used as a source of money.

 - If you have been wasting money around or not exploring enough planets and are in a pinch then it is worthwhile going back to a planet for the cash boost.

 

2. Rare metals needed for A, B, or C.

 - In SC2 all minerals, regardless of what type, were changed in a universal currency the RU and used for all upgrades. If SCR follows the same path then there is no point in the second kind of minerals.

 - But if SCR doesn't follow that path and you need a number of different resources then these special minerals could prove useful. For example the special minerals could be called Philosonium after the Philosopher's stone and would be a universal mineral that can be changed into any other kind of resource thereby reducing the grinding needed for resources. This would be useful further into the game when you don't want to spend (waste) time mining for different resources. You would then go for the rare Philosonium minerals and use them to create the resources you need.