This app was initially constructed as an activity to use while walking in order to make the activity of walking itself more rewarding and interesting and serve an additional purpose. It uses GPS to track your movement in 10 meter increments with a limiter to ignore 25 meter ‘jumps’. GPS can be somewhat erratic, however, and a hardcoded +10m (10 meter) button was added for testing purposes. I decided to keep this feature in-game for the release for accessibility reasons, adding a ‘Disable GPS’ button for this purpose, and also to allow players who do not wish or are unable to walk the option to explore the game at their own pace. To play the game as it was originally intended you should go out for a walk and see what you can find. The chance for finding objects to scan increases gradually the further you walk, while the chance to find a mineable resource depends on your current mining level.

Facility upgrades can increase the chance of a variety of factors such as initial scan percentage, chance of better resources being found and even the chance of finding a better facility in the first place. The facility screen is also your interaction point for accessing news broadcasts which are released as you level up, and for mission activity when your reputation reaches a high enough level (Rank 3) with a particular Faction, Guild or Species.

Reputation is the core mechanic which unlocks further game features such as missions and the ability to join a primary faction, these being the ASC, CC, SC, EF, IN and MH. Currently the only playable primary faction is the SC (Scouting Confederation), unlocked upon reaching Rank 3 rep (16 Rep points) for the SC.

There is a default fuel consumption for each ship which is affected by the mass of current modules (In the case of the mining ship, this consumption also rises as you fill your cargo hold), and your consumption will rise as the mass of your ship increases.

Currently the percentages for finding an in-flight item are set at 2% per every 40m walked, with a chance for an object that can be found to scan triggering every 50m. This is a game balance that has been tested and that seems to provide the most consistent progression to date, but may change in later versions (Current version 6 Beta, screen display incorrectly states that it is version 5 Beta).

My initial hope was that there could be community involvement to enhance the range of events and encounters, and I am constructing a special forum for this purpose, but until this has been set up if there is anything you would like to add with regards to features or encounter/reward ideas please post them in the relevant faction section.

Update: Well, I did that quicker than expected. All set up now with sub-forums for bug reports, new content and wish list.

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