Im standing on the ledge of a vast chasms on the other side a sheer rock wall but I cant see if there is ore. If so the payoff could be tramendas. I pull my binoculars out and scan the dstant wall. There be gold!!
Or I just want to make my first warp to a new planet. Wait for a clear night an scan for just the right spot.
5 Likes
It could be crafted with wood Crystal and a base metal.
This idea has been tossed around before and I love the potential utility of it, though I wonder if the level of detail feature might negate the usefulness or over complicate implementation of such a feature.
1 Like
I also like the idea of the feature especially for prospecting interesting place to Warp to on remote planets. I loved the telescope in Windwaker especially.
But… (there’s always a but!!)
I’m concerned about the extra bandwidth. The game is configured to present all the visual detail it has at any time. We (roughly speaking) only download the exact fidelity of the world and planets as presented. If we allow the player to scan the horizon or remote planet at higher fidelity we’ll need to send all this extra data. This is definetly possible but not free.
4 Likes
The devs of The Division talked about having the exact same problem while implementing sniper rifles.
(Speaking about sniper rifles, how about a sniper augmentation for the Slingbow? 
)
What they did was to implement a “mini loading screen” whenever you zoom in, turning your screen black for the fraction of a second to give the game some time to load the additional terrain/details.
Dunno if this would be a suitable solution for Boundless as well, but it definitely works over there.
2 Likes
Interesting to hear. Although I would image that our challenge is a little more, as we need to stream the voxel environment as required - whereas the environment in The Division is fixed. (But I don’t know exactly their setup.)
I think one of the planned slingbow enhancements or variations is a trade off between sniping and rapid fire. So this is planned in a form.
2 Likes
I like the idea of a viewing crystal / binocular of sorts.
What about then an ability to purchase binoculars and/or telescopes as an exchange cash feature?