First, explorable planets can be seen as ‘Unexplored Planet‘ in the info panel when you come into range. These are the ones you can land on. They have an Orange Button marked ‘Land on Planet‘.
Landing Deployment Kit To land on a planet, you need a Landing Deployment Kit. Player crafted, and the Blueprints are available from the ‘Blueprint Store‘. It’s listed under Systems.
Craft yourself one and fit it to a Systems Slot. All ships, apart from the starter Marauder, have at least one Systems Slot.
Finding Explorable Planets?
I knew players would ask how to find them, so we gave you an easy way. I have added a new tick box on the Navigation Console. ‘Unexplored’ – tick that, and it will list any in your system. Can’t see any? No worries, ALSO, tick the Galaxy Search button. This will list all the unexplored planets across the Galaxy.
So to START Exploring, I suggest starting on an 11 or 10 planet, then working your way down.
So you have a Landing Kit, and you found a planet. Hit the ‘Land on Planet’.
Ground Crew
We can’t just let captains go willy-nilly exploring planets, so each captain is assigned some minders; think of them as your friends who will aid you to understand the events and also ensure the Galactic Bureau of Exploration pays you for your finds.
Should you wish to turn this panel off, you can do so in your Account Settings preferences. There is a toggle in there.
Exploration Screen
So you landed and have met the remote ground crew. Let’s look at the actual Exploration screen.
The screen is broken into sections.
Far left is the Navigation and Kit statuses. You move North, East, South and West on a planet, and the Map above will mark out where you are and where you have been and also mark where your ship was and any points of interest.
At the bottom of that panel, you can see how many Exploration Kits and Defence Kits you have in your consumables section of your ship. These two systems display a ‘Total count’ but also display the highest level kits you can use and how many you have.
Using Exploration Kits will top up your Oxygen, Hydration, repair your suit and lower any radiation you’re suffering from. Better kits have more effect.
Exploration Kits
These are gated by your Exploration Level, so today, as it stands, players can only use Basic Kits, but as you raise your Exploration Skill, you can slide into better ones. You can craft these via your Assemblers.
Defence Kits
Defence Kits act as your Ranged Weapon and Ammo kit. Basic is a Pulse Laser, Superior is a Laser Carbine and Advanced is a Serious Pulse Rifle. These are also gated by your Exploration Level. So basically, exploring raises your Exploration Level and that in turn allows you to use better kits. You can craft these via your Assemblers.
Captain Stats
The next section covers your stats, which will level whilst on a planet. Along with these are a location title and a brief bio of the location.
Captain Actions
The next section is the Captain’s Actions and the all-important Surface Log. As you move around, you will see the log update. Events from moving will be shown there, and when you locate a location that triggers one of the five actions in the bar above, the results will be placed in your log.
Each of the Captain’s actions can only be used when the icon/button is lit. All the events in Exploration are either tied to a skill or several skills, so over time, expect to get better at things, but expect to fail regularly in the early days.
The final block on the right needs no real explanation – that’s where you are. The title of the location and the descriptor are tied to the image.
Primary stats
Above these blocks, you have your Primary stats for exploring.
Health is your lifeblood; run out of it and you’ll fall unconscious and be airlifted back to your ship’s med bay and placed in orbit.
Health starts to be affected when one of the other four stats drop to a certain level or in the case of Radiation increase to a point where your health starts to be affected.
The Solution: USE an Exploration Kit.
There is a Take-Off button, and your ship will dust off, pick you up and return you safely to orbit.
Earnings
You will earn Captain XP, Credits and Skills Experience. Levelling up the primary Health, Oxygen, Hydration, Suit and Radiation skills will increase their stats.
Exploration Combat
You WILL run into bad guys on these planets. (I’m holding off on releasing the Flora and Fauna attacks at this time; the code is there, but let’s see how you get on with pirate human combat first.)
So combat is turn-based, but you may not be fighting 1 bad guy at a time so who you attack and how is down to you, your skills and some RNG thrown in.
Pirates have some stats on display: their Melee, Ranged and Evasion stats. Initially, these won’t mean much to you as all your stats are starting at zero 🙂 You’re going to be outmatched, but you will soon start to level up your skills, and these fights will start to turn in your favour.
You have five options
Fire Ranged (the Defence Kit Ammo will show in the bottom left and as you fire the magazine will drop and refill automatically as you slap in the next Defence Kit. Again, the Ship’s AI will automatically use the highest kits you have available and will auto-use as you run out.
Melee – level just like ranged combat by using it. Closing in and punching them on the nose or kicking them where the sun doesn’t shine can be gratifying. Plus you might run out of ammo lol!
Cover – this gives you a 50% evasion rating on the next move, use it or don’t; as you get better at it the action starts to have some cool effects, especially when facing more than 1 opponent.
Tactic – Fancy throwing a stun grenade at them or using distraction and guile to get the best of the bad guys before drilling them full of holes? Level this one for effect.
Stim Packs: Did you craft any (Assemblers)? Did you bring any? You get a free turn up to 3 times per combat to use them. They are not cheap, but a good way to survive more than one opponent.
Rewards
Killing Pirates / Bad guys are fair and will also give you Dog Tags 🙂
Notes on Loot:
Players will find that, apart from the Dog Tags, all loot found whilst exploring goes DIRECTLY to your CS. Yes, I’ve been kind and decided limiting you to cargo space was not needed.
The true limiting factor is event outcomes, combat outcomes and how many Exploration Kits you brought with you!
Dev notes: As with all major adds, there is likely to be some tweaking. I have a ton of the combat texts to add and a folder of some 400 NPC’s for you to shoot at (I need to filter through them and assign them so on release, you have a starter batch.)
I will appreciate bug reports being detailed and having images, or if possible, a video attached and placed as usual in Discord in the Beta Bug Reports.