Beacons are a bit hard to find

[korvash]

So yesterday I found all three beacons on 0.4.cumulus, and apart from the northern beacon it was pure chance that I managed to stumble across the others.

The northern beacon was alright, as there was a NAV station within range of it - I saw it on the map and flew over to investigate. The other two however, will not display on any nav stations (Or at least I didn't find any nearby. I didn't search the eastern one too hard /for/ said stations but at the local hotel cluster just north of the beacon therewas no nav) meaning that unless you chance across them you won't even know you're in the correct area.

I think maybe a system should be implemented to make then a little easier to find. Maybe they could make radio transmissions similar to the boot/jackers, and you could follow their blue wave thingy right to them. Alternatively, you could alter the map generation to only place a beacon if it is within range of a NAV station. Other ideas could work also, I think that the game just needs a little something to clue the player in.

[Farbs]

Yeah, you may be right there. I tried re-enabling the EMG system a few days ago and just using it to find beacons, but with that turned on I found the first beacon in about 10 minutes. I was still flying an alpha ship at that point so I couldn't do much when I got there, but it still felt weird finding what's supposed to be the super elusive end goal so very quickly.

[sfsdfd]

I really don't think it's so bad. Sure, it takes some searching and luck, but isn't that the point?

Some ideas:

1) Since auto-generated space always gets flakier around the corners - i.e., fewer nav stations, and occasionally *no* nav stations - then you could adjust the auto-gen to put them far out, but not in a corner. So ask the auto-generator to choose three of (450,0), (0, 450), (-450, 0), and (0, -450), and put them somewhere around those parts. (Actually... would it be interesting to do all four of them? Nice symmetry?)

2) You could have each beacon *occasionally*, and on a totally random time frame, send out one high-power pulse that anyone within a certain (much larger than average) range receives. The contents are unimportant (actually, junk would be better because it's a bit enigmatic and provokes curiosity). But it should be enough to encourage players to explore in a particular large area or general direction. Triangulating would be an option, too ("it came from this way this time, and from that way this other time...")

3) If you really want to encourage players to explore the fringes of space... one word: OXY MODULES. They still appear so infrequently and randomly as to be practically nonexistent. A *slight* bump up in the frequency, so that they are predictably trickled out to the player over time. A player with a J-class ship *should* be able to have found two or three of them in the course of the game, and therefore *should* be able to explore deep space better.

[korvash]

I tend to find that I find oxy modules right at the start of the game, on alpha/bravo ships. When I get to taking out juliets they're always covered in repair kits.

[Captain Michaela Nul'dolaer]

Me too. Juliet ships are barges, so that's expected.