Rationale:
We do not have almost any exploration experience - the old tutorial was showing exploration of wreck, this does not exists in the game AFAIK - and this is a boomer because there is a lot of potential including late game and 'quest for a challenge'.
Design possibilities:
- simple (probably, maybe at the modding level, which may be treated as 'mod suggestion/idea')
there are anomalies already, what if some of them are leading to temporary spaces (stealing from EVE I said) which exists only as long as the player's ship exists in them? There may be just relicts (broken gates, etc.) maybe crystal bonanza, secrets, mods part or particularly nasty ancient nest of bugs?
Maybe some of them are really temporary, that means: the time for exploration is limited (Boso will run the timer), maybe even the 'entry' anomaly collapses sometimes and the player must find 'exit one' leading to the random place.
This might be high-risk/high-reward experience the players who already 'done everything' crave.
Implementation: one or two inaccessible sectors which are redecorated randomly each time the player pass certain random anomaly.
Complexity: assuming that the sectors can be redecorated on the fly, not very much, there is also a lot of assets in game already which may be used/reused without any additional art investment.
- complex (up to the expansion/dlc level)
all above plus:
- specialised exploration equipment (not necessarily new models, may be special 'software')
- specialised exploration ships (not necessaily new models, modified existing ones, from scouts to e.g. exploration frigates)
- exploration quest(s) (the 'data vaults' which are seemingly kind of abandoned/underdeveloped idea may be a start point)
- 'brave new worlds' semi-persistent or persistent space pockets accessible only through anomaly (but in automated way, too - unlike the Leap of Faith) with particular random/quest related features not present anywhere else (well, even X3 Kingdom End soundtrack can be such a feature
) maybe adding them through serious investment (see X3FL) to the 'normal' galaxy might be an option, too.- 'living on the edge' - permanent 'outside' spaces which can be only present in game if the player find/create one - the features may be completely open, from bountiful resources to angry 1st Xenon fleet which had been trapped there for hundred of years (you wanna crisis, right?) or just nice backdrop, just right for the personal PHQ placement maybe. Option with adding a permanent connection (X3FL style) is also possible.
All of this may be easily scaled from accessible even for the smallest-potato player which just started the game for the challenge needing the industry and fleet support which can sustain 10x(Xenon+Kha'ak) crisis with ease.
