Proposal: Improve Relic and Data Site Despawn / Anti-Cherry-Picking Mechanics
I would like to suggest revisiting the despawn mechanics of Relic and Data sites.
While exploring today, I encountered dozens of partially completed sites where another player had cargo-scanned the containers, hacked the one or two valuable cans, and simply abandoned everything else.
This kind of cherry-picking is extremely frustrating for other explorers. A partially completed site can remain in space for a significant amount of time, leaving behind what is effectively dead content instead of allowing a fresh exploration site to appear elsewhere.
The player doing the cherry-picking gets all of the benefit, while everyone else is left with a field of worthless containers and fewer fresh sites to explore.
More importantly, the current mechanic creates unnecessary player frustration without adding any meaningful gameplay, competition, risk, strategic choice, or interaction.
It does not create interesting conflict between players. It does not reward skill. It does not create a meaningful decision for the next explorer. In most cases, the next player simply scans the signature, warps to it, discovers that the valuable containers are already gone, and wastes their time.
Cherry-picking itself is a legitimate player choice, and I do not think it needs to be prohibited. If someone finds a valuable container, hacks it and leaves, that is perfectly reasonable.
The problem is allowing the abandoned remains of that site to persist afterward.
My preferred solution would be a short abandonment despawn timer:
After at least one container has been successfully hacked, if no active uncloaked player remains on grid for several minutes, the site should despawn.
Something in the range of 5–10 minutes would probably be enough.
However, this is not the only possible solution. There are several other approaches that could solve or reduce the same problem:
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Mark partially completed sites as “Degraded Relic Site” / “Degraded Data Site”.
This would allow explorers to immediately recognize an already looted site in the Probe Scanner and decide whether it is worth investigating. -
Reward full site completion.
Completing every container could provide a small bonus, an additional container, an increased chance of valuable loot, or even a chance for an exploration escalation. This would give players a positive incentive to finish sites instead of simply punishing cherry-picking. -
Limit Cargo Scanner effectiveness on exploration containers.
Exploration containers could be immune to cargo scanning, or the scanner could provide incomplete information rather than revealing the exact contents. This would make every hack an actual decision rather than allowing players to identify the jackpot containers with complete certainty. -
Use a combination of these systems.
For example, reward full clears while also allowing abandoned partially completed sites to despawn quickly.
Some of these solutions would also have positive secondary effects.
Encouraging players to remain on grid longer while completing a site creates more opportunities for hunters and PvP interaction. Faster site turnover creates more exploration content. Marking degraded sites reduces pointless scanning and travel.
The exact implementation is less important than addressing the underlying issue.
At the moment, partially completed Relic and Data sites generate a significant amount of frustration while providing very little meaningful gameplay in return.
There are multiple ways to improve this without removing cherry-picking as a legitimate player choice.
Please consider revisiting this mechanic.