Difference between revisions of "Exploration"

Revision as of 12:24, 23 June 2014

The crew of the Daedalus can embark on Expeditions to foreign planets, restocking the ship's resources and discovering various adventurous zones and artifacts. Some precautions need to be taken before an Expedition can be started, and a larger number of characters will need to work together to load fuel, send the Daedalus on its course and embark on the journey.

Launching an Expedition

Expedition procedure:

• You have to find a planet with the Astro Terminal.
• Someone has to put the correct amount of Fuel into the Combustion Chamber. If the Daedalus moves to a wrong position, the planet will be lost forever.
• Your Commander has to turn the Daedalus in the right direction and then engage the trip. See: Navigation.
• Optional: Everyone can look at the planet and finish the surface scan now, if you have not done so already, for a cheaper cost. Do this in order to confirm that the planet really contains what was reported, and you won't encounter things you do not want to (generally this means Volcanoes, Mankarog and Seismic zones).
• Assemble your expedition crew in Icarus Bay and take off.
• The Expedition will happen automatically. Exception: The U-Turn skill will allow you to abort an expedition in progress.
• When you are on an Expedition, all discovered items, fruit and food appear automatically in the Icarus Bay. TODO: confirm When on a patrol ship they appear when the patrol ship gets back.
• Once the Expedition is done, someone will have to put 1 in the Combustion Chamber, and the Commander has to move out of orbit before you can scan for new planets.

You can't launch an expedition under these circumstances:

• The planet has been fully explored
• An expedition is currently happening
• If the Crew Lock is on [Pilot], the one who launches the expedition has to be a Pilot.

Miscellaneous notes:

• As long as there are Mush on board, it is wise to both secure the Hacker Kit and take the acting Commander along for the expedition, to prevent them from moving the ship and abandoning the away team.
• For the landing, it does not matter who launches the expedition as long as a Pilot is part of the crew.
• If someone dies during the expedition, everything they were carrying is permanently lost.
• If the Icarus is still on the planet when the Daedalus moves, the Icarus and all expedition personal will be lost forever, unless Magnetic Return project is completed. Then the Icarus will be returned... but not the crew.
• After exploring the planet in a patroller, you will be returned to space rather than a bay.
• Bug: You can be hit by a steel plate while on a planet.
• Bug: A member of the Expedition can die due to lack of in the Daedalus

Useful Skills

Certain characters' skills lend themselves to Expeditions especially well, granting the exploring crew various bonuses. Expedition gains from multiple same skills do stack.

Botanist: +1 to fruit gained from Harvests.

Diplomat: Disables Combat outcomes from alien meetings. It won't protect you from accidents or from getting smashed by a Mankarog.

Sprinter: +1 area visited per Sprinter. (Even if they go missing during the mission.)

Survivalist:

• Personal damage to the survivalist is reduced by 1 point.
• The event Provision gives 1 more Alien Steak.
• Last to die in case of fatal events. It means that if you had to die (in case of some fatal event) someone else will.

Useful Equipment

Quadrimetric Compass:

• Protects the group from the Wandering event.
• Protects the wielder from the Lost event.

Spacesuit: Allows explorers to go on a planet without oxygen. If you don't have a spacesuit on such a planet, you won't take part in the expedition, and you will wait in the Icarus.

Rope: Cancels 3-5 personal damage that can happen to you in the zones of Seismic Activity, Caverns and Mountains. Does not prevent sudden death.

White Flag: Cancels the chance of Combat in the Intelligent Life event.

Echo-Locator: Chance to explore Hydrocarbon Deposits zone is multiplied by 5.

Drill: Double any Fuel gains during the expedition.

Babel Module: The chance to gain an artfact in the Intelligent Life event is doubled.

ThermoSensor: Chance to explore Ruminants, Predators, Intelligent Life, Mankarogs, Insects and Lost zones is multiplied by 5.

Post-Its: Can be used to fill empty inventory slots to reduce the chance of losing an important object during exploration.

Weapons

Blaster: +1 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Knife: +1 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Natamy: +1 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Lizaro Jungle: +1 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Old Faithful (Machine Gun): +2 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Rocket-Launcher: +3 added to the strength of your team during Combat.

Grenade: +3 added to the strength of your team during Combat. (one time use and consumed at the 1st Combat). If a crew member carries more than one, one will be used per fight.

Gameplay Mechanics

The exploration occurs automatically, one zone every 10 minutes.

• 9 of the planet's zones explored with the Icarus ship, and 1 more for each Sprinter in the group.
• 3 with a patrol ship, 4 if you are Sprinter.

Each zone can be explored once, but a visit may fail to explore in case of Wandering event.

Each zone has 4 possible outcomes. (for details see Zones)

Item gains (Steaks, O2, Fuel, Fruits) reported by the game already include the bonuses from any Skills and inventory items mentioned above.

Fight

Combat events are calculated as follows:

• The creature's strength is determined by the zone, the Shipwreck encounter being the exception.
• The strength of the crew is 1 per member plus any bonuses from skills and equipment.
• If the group's strength is inferior to the creature's strength, the difference in strength is spread across the group as damage. (not necessarily in an equal way)
• If the crew wins, they simply don't take any damage, there are no other effects.

Return

After an expedition is finished, anyone who joined the expedition will be offered to see the expedition log page. The link to this expedition log page can be shared with the rest of the crew.

The health of the crewmembers who survived the expedition is always shown as 12 in the public expedition log page. It does not reflect their actual status.