Will exploration require escorts?

[FoxChard]

To me, @Doopsums, in many cases the extra ships increase the relative risk.  Ultimately we'll have to see.  We can't have it all, security and low risk and high payoff, but we can learn the system and leverage it to suit us.

 

[EavrusM]

8 hours ago, Fizzlefuse said:

Oh man, I'd love to explore a derelict bengal with a few people. I imagine walking around on the massive flightdeck and countless hallways in complete darkness would be the ultimate exploration/salvage mission. Oh boy.

Oh man I didn't even think of a BIG dark spooky ship to explore!! I feel overly excited right now, or maybe just the right amount of excitement for how amazing this will be. I will have to put this on the SC bucket list. 

[faquarl25]

14 hours ago, EavrusM said:

Oh man I didn't even think of a BIG dark spooky ship to explore!! I feel overly excited right now, or maybe just the right amount of excitement for how amazing this will be. I will have to put this on the SC bucket list. 

Got to 2nd this. Though exploration won't be my main career, as I believe it will take long hours to find anything interesting, I would love to go and have fun looking for something like that.

 

[evilbyte]

escort mission be like

[Fizzlefuse]

36 minutes ago, evilbyte said:

escort mission be like

Lol!

[FoxChard]

Nobody will pick on our convoys if they're are 50 escort fighters lol.  

[Fizzlefuse]

On 16-7-2016 at 11:43 AM, FoxChard said:

Nobody will pick on our convoys if there are 50 escort fighters lol.  

It depends... what is the convoy hauling and is it worth the risk for the pirates to attack?
I imagine a convoy with a sh*tload of fighters can justify the costs of everyone's time and fuelcosts.. I mean a convoy like that MUST be carrying something valuable, right? It all depends on what information about said convoy trickled down to the pirates and if they choose to act.

Also, they could just be looking for a good fight. I imagine people using some interresting tactics to draw away the bulk of the escorts to later come in with boarding vessels or whatever.

[Teefy]

depends on where you go i suppose.

[Fintz]

Call @Doopsums , from what i hear he has some great space escorts.

[Nord]

Remember, the escorts also need escorting...

[Nocmad]

Quote

It'd be hard to find an escort to keep up with a dedicated explorer probably.  Having an intel ship like the terrapin or herald to keep and eye on things might not be such a bad idea though

 

[Noncreditgold26]

Remember, the it all depends on the region of space you are in and if its controlled by the UEE or other Life form. In  my personal opinion think that Exploration ships aka:

-Aquila          -Anvil Carrack

-Terrapin       -Freelancer DUR

-315p          -Reliant Sen

Would be fine as long as the stay in within relative safe areas. Obviously Larger ships such as the carrack and Aquila can go deep deep  . But real talk, its probably going to be ok with the information we have from streams and forums you will be fine as long as you don't get over swarmed by pirates.

[Levophed]

The beauty and tradgedy that is exploration comes in that unkown. Do you make it to deep space, avoid mass swarms of pirates or hostile orgs and find the riches that are out there waiting to be seen? I for one can't wait to get out there and carve out a notch in the SC history manifests for the things I found, charted, or brought home. Escorts are undoubtably necessary for the protection of certain assets. Far less protection will be available for those taking the plunge into the far depths. I like that challenge!

[Porcupine]

Whenever I have my explorer hat on, if you want to find me just head for the absolute most deserted corner of space there is - you can't miss. If you see any escorts... you missed.

[Sky Captain]

My hunch is that escort missions will be a major form of game play.
And there is no reason that it has to be NPC-driven either. 
We can run escort missions within Imperium ourselves.
I think this will be a lot of fun in low security space.

 

 

[buzby x]

I heard that the Carrack is designed to be out in the middle of nowhere for months at a time...if we're able to control a shitload of NPCs  I might try a Carrack with a Gemini and Hammerhead as escorts, so fuel and protection won't be issues.

[FoxChard]

Since this is being discussed again, I'll offer up that no, I don't think escort gameplay will be required for anything.

Lets say it simply. I think the chance of being in combat while doing any sort of exploration is fairly low unless you're in densely populated space. You're exploring who else is going to be as far out on the fringe as you? Your ship has extended fuel tanks-who else can even get out that far without a starfarer?

Escorts are pilots who are being paid by someone to be bored. I think that very few pilots who are "hardcore" will fly the direct routes that are easy to interdict. This alone will probably reduce your chance of interdiction to near zero until you're arriving at, or departing a fixed destination. There will probably be enough "casuals" and NPCs trafficking the direct routes that nobody will even bother looking for you in deep space. Even if you are somehow interdicted, that won't guarantee you'll get into a fight. The people doing the interdicting will have the choice of engaging or fleeing. Having escorts will probably deter some people from attacking, while those who do come at you are either stupid or believe they actually have a chance at winning. If its the later, you should be worried. If you're going into space that you absolutely know is dangerous, then weight your risks versus rewards. If you happen to find pirates in the middle of nowhere in deep space, chances are they weren't looking for you and may not even be aware that you are there. They'll have assumed that they're just as safe as you are in deep space surrounded by eons of nothing.

So if that is the basic situation, how can an explorer even afford to pay for an escort? (Your guess is as good as mine, because right now we have no idea if exploration is a money making prospect). You may get lucky and find that you join an exploration squadron that wants to provide its own escorts, or if you have friends that want to play escort for you. Some T&I types may have the cashflow to pay escorts, but they'll be running huge operations with big ships that could actually have the profits necessary to buy an escort.

For escorts to be used in the first place, you should assume that the escort is going to want a share in whatever rewards come from the activity. I honestly think that most players will be astonished by the price tag of paying a few players to ride shotgun on your mission since if they actually want to fight-there are better places for them to go in order to find combat and rewards. I do not regard AI as a good substitute. If the market works the way it should, even NPC escort pilots could turn out to be expensive. Then they need ships that are kitted out for a long duration flight. At the moment that means Banu Defender and the Aegis Vanguard. And depending on how long you're out for, will you need a starfarer or a vulcan to go out with you as well! 

Like it or not, the most sensible gameplay option that most players will opt for is to take the risk and go without an escort, and they'll probably be doing it without a full crew too. Most players will probably try to risk it all for the chance of a greater gain. And since the chance of something going wrong is relatively low, why not take that risk most of the time? Especially with exploring! If you found a derelict that starts giving off the xenomorph vibe, there is nothing wrong with hopping on TS and the portal to recruit some backup. 

[Brightmist]

Most profitable trade routes will likely require escorts. You'll also likely to be making enough money to pay escorts.

Like even now, hauling WiDoW from Jumptown(Drug Lab) to Hex, you make 1000 UEC/SCU. That's 96k profit for a fully loaded Freelancer and 576k worth of profit for a fully loaded Cat.

Now look at this from a pirate's perspective:

With disabling/boarding/stealing mechanics in game, you can make 235k by stealing a Lancer and selling its cargo(or 1.41M for a Cat) excluding any other gains from selling ship parts/components and the like. All by just disabling a ship, boarding and killing its pilot. You can also just disable the ship and ask the pilot to pay a ransom, something in the range of 500k to 1M for a Cat after scanning the ship and appraising its worth. Pilot will likely choose to cut losses and not engage pirates in FPS combat if they made a good show of force.

Pirating is likely gonna be the single most profitable profession in the Verse. Risks related to pirating can be lowered by good organization, skill and overwhelming force.

Hijacking Explorer ships tho, isn't likely to be as profitable unless they have valuable cargo in their hold. Something like Carrack that has 1000 SCU capacity isn't likely the be carrying around the most expensive item in the Verse in its hold, but just a plethora of cheaper stuff to trade around the Verse for higher margins while keeping an eye out for pirates with higher powered scanners. Explorers will also likely to be able to either disengage and run away from NPC encounters or they can just take them out if they have their turrets manned by people etc.

So I don't think explorer ships will require escorts unless they plan to explore an area where there's a high density of NPC patrols.

I'd expect Explorers to pay for their crew by sharing Jump Point and other scanning data. Likely all the crew will be making a similiar amount of profits, by sharing everything pretty much. It also doesn't really make sense to run around in a Carrack solo, hoping to dodge combat while you can handle most NPC combat encounters and have more fun playing together with other people.

I also wouldn't expect UEE space to be safe for solo players. It might be lower risk because profits are lower but any area that has the highest profits is likely to be frequented by pirates. We can even see this trend now at 3.3 PU, where the highest profit trade route is PO <-> Tram & Myers Mining@Cellin when people don't have enough info on how to find Jumptown.