So I was watching star trek the other day (The next generation) and then I wondered something,



Why doesnt this game have deep space exploration?



Isnt this game called 'endless space'? So why ISN'T space endless?



Alright enough of my nonsensical blabbering, lets talk about it in the games term. Why dont we have a technology that will unlock the ability for us to equip a 'special' engine that will allow us to go deep into space in order to see whats outside of the current galaxy our star systems are in. This technology should come somewhat mid-late and the 'special' engine should cost alot (thus spamming deep space ships a nonsensical thing).



So say you build the ship, guess what happens? Now it can go into dead space sectors! These sectors are found at the edges or far outsides of the galaxy and cant be accessed by normal means unless you have the deep space technology AND a deep space ship. When you go exploring into these sectors, you can have alot of random events occur and most of the time since the sector is dead space you really wont find anything of interest (such as colonizable star systems). These areas remain as a place for more of the exploration part of the game! Also get this, when you go into dead space more sectors of dead space can be navigated to(after all it is just 'space') as well!



This opens up alot of possibilities for the current event types we have in games as it doesnt just have to be in your own galaxy, it can happen to your exploration vessels. Things like alien hostile/friendly encounters, ships abandoned by the endless that could be salvaged, dead planets/moons aimlessly wandering to be gravitated into a star system or weird anomalies and things like that(I am not a very great thinker about this part). Since there are no real colonizable systems in this part of the region it doesnt really influence the game that much, you can still defeat your enemy by conquering his systems in the galaxy and the enemy doesnt really get huge bonuses for going out and exploring the dark regions of space.



If a space battle does occur in this part of the region it should have no planets off in the distance, no asteroids. Just the wide empty space, the stars, galaxies, and our own galaxy being the largest (since its the closest) thing we can see.







Something like that maybe as the background for the space combat.



Remember since its endless space, its usually endless to explore and you can NEVER navigate through dead space to get back to the galaxy through some sort of weird connection, it just keeps growing outwards like a tree(so you cant jump from point A of your starting position to end up into point B in your home galaxy, but you can always go back to point A (where you started from)). So each branch of a tree cant really connect to the other branch.



Honestly im just throwing an idea out here, dont know if its already been suggested, but the playability on this part is 'endless' so to speak

I like the basic idea, one thing they may need to add to make that even work is allow the building of a set number of 'space stations' so you can claim certain benefits of those deep space sectors otherwise it may just become a bit of an issue in that level of exploring. Because someone may be able to gain endless benefits from just zipping around doing practically nothing. And I don't think the space stations should be cheap by any means.

VulpesWalker wrote:
I like the basic idea, one thing they may need to add to make that even work is allow the building of a set number of 'space stations' so you can claim certain benefits of those deep space sectors otherwise it may just become a bit of an issue in that level of exploring. Because someone may be able to gain endless benefits from just zipping around doing practically nothing. And I don't think the space stations should be cheap by any means.

Hmm an interesting idea to add in, I would love for you to elaborate it a bit more as it really sounds something that can be very well incorporated into my suggestion! By the way, when you go off exploring deep space it wont always be 'benefits' that you come across

Gaurav251 wrote:
Hmm an interesting idea to add in, I would love for you to elaborate it a bit more as it really sounds something that can be very well incorporated into my suggestion!

Well... think of it as a 'wonder' like in the Civilizations games where you have to devote a certain amount of time to building it, rather then physically task a ship and watch it fly around, maybe have it be kinda like the 'industry to research' option to devote time to exploration which increases your chances of finding something worth claiming... then use something similar to the 'planetary exploit' on something that you found that you would like, and have to build a space station off in that direction, and bind it to a planet possibly by building a 'communication array' on said planet. either way it would have to be incorporated into this game engine in a workable fashion, it cant just spawn endless amounts of deep space 'zones' otherwise a lot of computers wouldn't be able to handle it. Especially on this graphical scale. the only game that currently supports that kind of game play is minecraft and I don't think the dev's would like to shoot their graphics in the foot to that degree...

VulpesWalker wrote:
Well... think of it as a 'wonder' like in the Civilizations games where you have to devote a certain amount of time to building it, rather then physically task a ship and watch it fly around, maybe have it be kinda like the 'industry to research' option to devote time to exploration which increases your chances of finding something worth claiming... then use something similar to the 'planetary exploit' on something that you found that you would like, and have to build a space station off in that direction, and bind it to a planet possibly by building a 'communication array' on said planet. either way it would have to be incorporated into this game engine in a workable fashion, it cant just spawn endless amounts of deep space 'zones' otherwise a lot of computers wouldn't be able to handle it. Especially on this graphical scale. the only game that currently supports that kind of game play is minecraft and I don't think the dev's would like to shoot their graphics in the foot to that degree...

I like this idea, if the game cannot manage to have ALOT of deep space areas (due to memory and processing power) then that idea could work very well.