Creating and Selling Maps - Explorers Making Money

[Fraycore]

it is true that exploration can be enjoyable for the activity itself, but currently it is obvious that explorers have to either mine and sell their mined good to maintain their hobby or hopefully set-up an out of game network selling information.

 

But...what if the could create and sell maps in-game?

 

Basic Idea:

- Placing a crafted or purchased beacon on a newly explored planet creates a "map" that they can then sell to other players who can use said beacon/map to travel to that location.

- Survey planets and identify mining ore deposits. Finding their general location and placing this information on a map item. This item can then be sold. Maps before purchase would include number of each resource mapped on it and how old the map is (player may want to avoid older maps b/c they could be outdated, but older maps can be cheaper as well)

 

These two things at the very least would allow explorers to do what they do best... explore...and then sell the information they find if they want. In addition it would allow them to do this in a much more game mechanic form, rather than relying on dubious external game systems created by players.

 

As for skills:

 

- Skill that increases # of maps they can create from one beacon

- Skill that increases # of maps they can create from one "survey trip" (Survey trip would be defined by the player with a start and end command in their efforts and then it generated x maps if they have the items to do so)

 

This idea can be fleshed out, but I truly think this would provide explorers a viable way to be an actual explorer, and would provide organizations, miners, and more a way for them to utilize explorers to find resources.

[Emptiness]

5 hours ago, Fraycore said:

Survey planets and identify mining ore deposits. Finding their general location and placing this information on a map item.

This is already a thing. Territory scanners give a scan result item which lists total resource amounts in a hex and a convenient 'set destination' button which sets that hex as a destination. The scan results can be traded to other players.

[Fraycore]

5 hours ago, Emptiness said:

This is already a thing. Territory scanners give a scan result item which lists total resource amounts in a hex and a convenient 'set destination' button which sets that hex as a destination. The scan results can be traded to other players.

This can be placed on a marketplace?

[Aiwhisper]

Not quite sure about OPs idea but some kind of exploration features that could make you money once the new systems are added would be great. Maybe instead of selling planet maps something like warp locations to new planets or maybe getting exp for discoveries would be nice. Of course there would need to be something to prevent to much reselling or the original finders won’t make much.