How would you make elite better?

Heya

First time in this subreddit but just felt inspired yesterday to talk about what I would love to see in elite to keep it fresh and worth playing frequently.

I watched a video from Obsidient ant about new ships and it prompted me to write about things id like to see in the game.

I picked up elite early this year, quickly got to know how it worked, spend most of my time trading as we do and got the ships I wanted, did a bit of engineering until I was a bit tired of the repetition, but was looking forward to odyssey as it might bring the facelift I was looking for.

Well, we all know how that came off so I wanted to share some stuff I think would make the game better, feel free to share your opinions too, would love to hear them 🙂

1: More ships. Ever played Forza? maybe a gotcha game? why would people go back to those games, always the same gameplay and things to do. The answer is simple, new stuff, carr or characters, you name it, the gameplay is the same, they aren't particularly better than the old ones, but it's new. One thing I loved when starting elite was going through all the ships, seeing what they could do, watching 'The Pilot's amazing reviews on all the ships and building them online to my spec. We need more ships, they don't need to be revolutionary, just new, new manufacturers and models and less 'same ship with a body kit type fo ships.

2: Small fleet carriers. Fleet carriers are an obvious way to go for the game, but I feel they act too much like bases, which isn't a bad thing but it's missing the 'battleship' vibe, the addiction of the interior might be nice but it isn't the same experience, the addition of small fleet carriers, similar to the Drake Kraken on star citizen would be good, they would operate more like normal ships, you can fly them around and would pilot them as normal, this would also push to the creation of different types of carriers, from exploration to combat based, 4 bays, one for each of your wingmates and yourself or just one for each type of ship your ant to carry, this can be balanced with different carriers having more interior slots or different docks, ei. exploration carriers only have 2 small and 2 medium docks while combat has 4 medium. You can go mining and take the carrier with you, and just pop in quickly to refuel and drop material, maybe spec it with strong defensive weapons so it can protect you from pirates while you mine. The possibilities are endless with enough imagination.

3: Actual exploration. Want to fix exploration? make it simple. instead of dealing around with the gun, make it actual exploration, stop thinking about it as a game, think irl, think simulator. You land and you have to actually collect data from the planet and fill a form out, temperature, humidity, toxins, what the soil is made out of, is their water, make players travel the planet looking for different data sources, make the player look for life signs, don't show them on them with the beams, make it puzzle-like, maybe life on warm planets only shows in caves and caves only shows in mountain ranges and you have to go out looking for them, we are talking about people that go around for hours scanning empty plants, it's not a lot of work, its actual exploration. keep it real, keep it interesting, in the end, you'd take the form to a station and get a reward based on how correct you were about it.

4: ship interiors, no need to talk about it, we all want it, it's a thing, just do it.

5: make thargoids more interesting. There was a time to introduce them, that scripted event back in the day, its cool and all but so much time has passed that they should be more, especially with oddissy. If we ever get ship interiors, maybe you will get to go in thargoids attacked ships to look for data, maybe one day we will see one outside their ships.

6: Might not be for everyone but, lore. I'm a sucker for lore, for me, lore can make a very simple game super interesting just because of the meaning of things and how long you can spend reading and learn about the universe, the elite has lore, but I feel like with a universe this big, it could be stretched further and could eventually influence in-game events as the story progresses.

​

Maybe I'm missing things, if I remember ill add them later, but lemme know what you think.