Difference between revisions of "Exploration"

Revision as of 18:15, 25 February 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 right amount of Fuel needed, if the Fuel isn't correct and the Daedalus moves, the planet will be lost forever.
• Your Captain has to turn the Daedalus in the right direction and then engage the trip. See: Navigation.
• Optional: Finish the scan if you didn't already, for a cheaper cost and in order to make sure you won't encounter things you don't want to see (generally this means Volcanoes, Mankarog and Seismic zones).
• Assemble your expedition crew in Icarus Bay and take off.
• The Expedition will happen automatically. U-Turn skill allows to abort an expedition in progress.
• When you're 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 Captain has to move out of orbit.

You can't launch an expedition under these circumstances:

• The planet is 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:

• If someone dies during the expedition, everything they were carrying is permanently lost.
• If the Icarus is still on the planet when 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.

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.

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.

Rope: Cancels 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.

Non-sudden death Combat takes place 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.

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.

Health points of the crewmembers who joined the expedition are always at 12 in the public expedition log page. It does not reflect what their actual HPs are.