Hello Origin ! (This thread is very detailed, elaborate and took me several hours to complete. If you have no interest in lengthy reads. Please disregard)
Explanation on my reasoning behind this Idea
“Group Expedition!!!”
This would be something along the lines of a 1 once per week expedition you can only go on with your allies, off course with a limit of 16 players involved. Even potentially a maximum of 10 or 5. Personally, I would like this to be capable of involving many players and most alliances have around 20 players.
How this would work.
This would involve having an Expedition Leader. For example.
The Leader, Creates the Grouped Expedition Mission. This would not be a standard fleet mission what so ever.
It would work out like this. The Grouped player chooses the Expedition starting points (one of his local Colonies) and Invites all his allies which are available to join in the expedition. All players invited would receive a Request and would need to accept!
Then all players except the leader would need to do the following.
(go into Fleet tab, select all the desired ships and then do a standard cost/flight towards the leaders designated Starting points with the Grouped Expedition Mission selected, deut would be required as the players will need it to launch from the starting point, and also would require fuel in the expedition itself)
The ships would then arrive several hours later or even a few hours later depending on the timing these players decided upon (Flight time etc.)
The leader Has the responsibility of “Launching the Mission” Which would cost Deuterium and have standard flight time (each player would then burn deuterium to fly towards Expedition position 16.)
So overall, assuming players brought all ship types. You’re looking at a somewhat or a organizational group activity requiring good timing and coordination, promoting good ogame skills of organization and timing.
In order to give the leader executive powers. He would be able to revoke the invitation (For example if the player can no longer be online during the expedition due to IRL issues or just got a booty call) And likewise a player can cancel the expedition.
The fleet would then turn around head home at no cost. Since like a stationary mission, the deuterium burnt = 100% flight time for 1 way and 1 way back. Upon landing you save 50% of your costs. In this case, the return deuterium would be used upon the end of the expediton and returning home (Hence a two way trip including 100% of the original deuterium spent)
The deuterium would be lost just as standard missions. (Fitting the Role Play of Ogame).
I have an alternate easier way of organizing this type of mission, but I am going to stick to this way For now! As too me, this type of activity is to develop skill level in standard ogame play for all involved players! (Coordinating Group attacks, relying on your teammates, communication at key timings, being aware of your potential need to be online at the time for this Mission!)
Few details to Note! Grouped expeditions would be covert missions, not detectable by Phalanx because of the nature of this mission! Because it involves a lot of players, and most likely close positioned planets, it would be unfortunate to have all your spoils be ruined by one High Ranking fleeter nearby with a Moon. Who just simply camps and exploits one player being vulnerable upon his return of this grouped mission!
Secondly, this would have a large cooldown! So it would not be a daily thing, but more like a weekly or bi-weekly group activity! Reasoning for this is to allow for preparations, much needed organization and regular ogame play in between! And to be able to allow for big profit which would promote this considerably as it would be fun / profitable.
So if you spent the time to read up to now, you either are Interested, or just baffled.
Either way let’s continue.
So now We’ve arrived at Destination Unknown!
So as oppose to regular expeditions, you don’t just get a Neat message stating you have Found Animals worthy of joining your Empire.
This would be radically different!
First of all, you would actually reach a New Galaxy with your Fleet!
Your individual fleet would have an Anchor Point. Something like, “Abandoned Colonie XYZ”
At this point, each player would have his reach a New Location. (New Planet on your Ui)
So that knowing you arrive would be easy to see and would be easy to go between your regular empire and your expedition empire.
You would then be able to select a New Galaxy tab, which would be your G E!
Some specifics too note.
In the G E, you would have access to all standard fleet abilities, and your fleet slots would be available to you. Essentially giving you an NPC controlled area where you could use all types of missions based upon the scenario Encountered.
How do you Leave the G E?
To make this as friendly as possible, each player can withdraw from the Grouped Expedition at any time. By having all your ships together (at anchor point), and clicking Recall Fleet in the fleet tab (As your Grouped Expedition fleet will take 1 slot until fully returned to your home planet)
If the player wants to recall his Grouped Expedition he will be given a Prompt to not make it super easy to accidentally cancel the mission.
And if he has ships in flight, it will give the (X) message saying its not possible at this time.
What about the Duration within the Expedition?
The duration would be determined by the leaders Astrophysics technology divided by two. For example level 16 = 8 hours.
What about near the end, what if you have ships in during the end Time.
This is a very interesting question. In order to keep things simple, your fleet would wait at anchor point until the very last ship returns. And at that point would return naturally directly to your home planet.
So to Recap,
All members need to arrive at the Starting Point (Leaders Colonie) Before Launching.
(And would consume deuterium also (Requiring that one building no one Uses))
At the end of the mission, everyone returns separately directly to their home planet.
What would be in the Mysterious New Unexplored region!
Here are some ideas of what you would see in Unexplored Galaxy XYZ!, planets, planets with moons, asteroid fields, and asteroid fields with space stations. Entirely Computer generated random interactive environment.
So here is a small example.
Arrival point = Middle of the G E Galaxy. (Total solar systems explorable determined by various mathematical formulas and some random chance)
So the Solar system to the left looks likes this,
1-----Asteroid Belt-----
2-----Empty---------
3-----Small Asteroid Belt----
4-----Rocky Jungle Planet----
5-----Large Asteroid belt-----
6-----Empty-----
7-----Empty-----
8-----Water Planet----Moon
9-----Water Planet-----
10----Small Asteroid Belt----
11----Large Gasy Planet-----
12----Large Ice planet---Space Station
13----Empty-------
14----Spaceyard----
15----Empty--------------
So looking around you would see various types of solar systems.
Ones with planets and asteroids with perhaps Inhabitants!
What would be the purpose of Asteroid Belts!
Well, you would be able to send probes to each Belt, the probe report would give you basic information.
For example, you would get a reading on what resource is present!
“You’re probes have detected a high amount of crystal floating in the asteroid belt x:xxx:x, the density of the field is highly dangerous to navigate through”
So what this type of message would mean is that sending a fleet there would be searching for crystal, and would have a chance of losing Cargo ships. To counter this effect you can send your cargo convoy with offensive ships to help prevent unexpected asteroid impact destroying your ships.
What random factors could come into play at an Asteroid Belt?
-Well you could Encounter Asteroid Mines! Which were left in an Ancient war destroying all ships involved!
-You could be Ambushed by Pirates, which then you would fight them if victorious you would proceed to extract minerals from the belt.
-You could simply mine resources and have a percentage chance of losing ships based on your shielding technology and the composition involved which best deals with asteroid belts.
-You could find a giant asteroid leading to an unexpected amount of resources!
And there is a lot of room for imagination here, many more probabilities and outcomes can be thought of that fit the lore of space mining and interesting outcomes.
What about Planets!
So on Planets, you would also be able to send probes to see some basic information.
Some things you can see on a Planet.
-Mines with Stored Resources! Ancient mines created by a no longer present civilizations.
-Robotics Facilities, Ancient robotic artificial intelligence.
-A indigenous population which has been recently attacked by Pirates. They have significant defense and a small fleet at bay. (the point of this would be to make contact and defending them for a reward)
-A highly advanced alien society, with an enormous fleet, technologically advanced defenses! (Recycling scenario, except debris from impact would be less then 30%)
-A ruined planet with no sign of life only wrecked infrastructure. (Salvageable resources)
-An unexplored planet with no life (Can only be used as stationary point for other NPCs which may have avoided detection) (possibility of intercepting attractive loot (requiring extensive surveillance)
-A very passive race of aliens who are will have ships for sale, can trade resources.
(limited quantity off course)
These Planets would have the capabilities of providing like-wise regular ogame scenarios. Since a lot of players do not like disturbing other players (Mineurs etc.)
This would Also provide low level players “Training” and experience with more then just managing there account! For advanced players this offers a fun group activity and the ability to really test their skills and discuss debate scenarios during the expedition.
For me, the point of these G E planets is to give very new interesting points of interaction. The likelihood of finding habited planets would be low.
Planets would have different types of scenarios involved. For example, ravaged planets could be the location for Pirating! Going there would trigger Pirate battles.
Robotic life forms, for deuterium only could build ships for you! They could even be hostile and have a giant stash of resources if you come out victorious you could loot the unstable robots!
Passive Aliens could be like a trading post, where you can exchange your recently found resources for instantly built ships! There would also be the Big Bad Alien Base which would be the “Grouped Attack Strategy!”
Space Stations, these places would offer fleet battles for rewards! Ships to be specific and deuterium, you could have things like a RIP fleets with other types of ships all guarding the Space Station. Upon Victory you would gain enough to be profitable if you engaged with a good composition. But not always getting resources, you could gain Fleet as a reward!
I think this type of Ogame addition would be revolutionary to the game. It would add a dimension the game never had. This would promote team play, and there would no losing player which up till now is the case. All ogame activity revolves around your own account/assets, and in game interaction with others. Usually hostile actions, since trading is rather less frequent.
This offers a heavily focuses team activity which would be most likely boost the games experience for all. Also there are many things you could incorporate into 3rd party npcs which would make for more space lore game.
The motivation I saw to this create this new addition to Ogame is making it Cost Dark-Matter.
The two ways I saw this is either creating a New Officer, For example, for 200K DM for 3 months.
Or have this be a 1 time cost Dark-Matter to launch the mission much like Relocation a Planet With a Prompt,
and only charged upon "arriving". Both ways could lead to a cost effective addition to a "Free to play game"
This should not be something free in my opinion, because this would promote all players to purchase Dark Matter,
this concept is probably not favored by Players But then again, changes that can generate money for Gameforge have been
Also I thought that this idea, since there is so much room for imagination and new concepts of encounters. That the community could be given this idea and feedback could become very helpfull in fully making this concept appealing adding many new ideas for Player vs Environment Encounters.
Most of my concept ideas are just spin offs of regular mechanics.... But There is so much space that could be filled with awsome additions.
I want to add, if anyone actually read the whole thing please feel free to add feedback or ask questions on this Idea.
I know how drastically radical this is, but as a Long term player, this type of concept interests me greatly. I tend to drift away from my teams and focus on my Own account.. As many others do.
Explanation on my reasoning behind this Idea
“Group Expedition!!!”
This would be something along the lines of a 1 once per week expedition you can only go on with your allies, off course with a limit of 16 players involved. Even potentially a maximum of 10 or 5. Personally, I would like this to be capable of involving many players and most alliances have around 20 players.
How this would work.
This would involve having an Expedition Leader. For example.
The Leader, Creates the Grouped Expedition Mission. This would not be a standard fleet mission what so ever.
It would work out like this. The Grouped player chooses the Expedition starting points (one of his local Colonies) and Invites all his allies which are available to join in the expedition. All players invited would receive a Request and would need to accept!
Then all players except the leader would need to do the following.
(go into Fleet tab, select all the desired ships and then do a standard cost/flight towards the leaders designated Starting points with the Grouped Expedition Mission selected, deut would be required as the players will need it to launch from the starting point, and also would require fuel in the expedition itself)
The ships would then arrive several hours later or even a few hours later depending on the timing these players decided upon (Flight time etc.)
The leader Has the responsibility of “Launching the Mission” Which would cost Deuterium and have standard flight time (each player would then burn deuterium to fly towards Expedition position 16.)
So overall, assuming players brought all ship types. You’re looking at a somewhat or a organizational group activity requiring good timing and coordination, promoting good ogame skills of organization and timing.
In order to give the leader executive powers. He would be able to revoke the invitation (For example if the player can no longer be online during the expedition due to IRL issues or just got a booty call) And likewise a player can cancel the expedition.
The fleet would then turn around head home at no cost. Since like a stationary mission, the deuterium burnt = 100% flight time for 1 way and 1 way back. Upon landing you save 50% of your costs. In this case, the return deuterium would be used upon the end of the expediton and returning home (Hence a two way trip including 100% of the original deuterium spent)
The deuterium would be lost just as standard missions. (Fitting the Role Play of Ogame).
I have an alternate easier way of organizing this type of mission, but I am going to stick to this way For now! As too me, this type of activity is to develop skill level in standard ogame play for all involved players! (Coordinating Group attacks, relying on your teammates, communication at key timings, being aware of your potential need to be online at the time for this Mission!)
Few details to Note! Grouped expeditions would be covert missions, not detectable by Phalanx because of the nature of this mission! Because it involves a lot of players, and most likely close positioned planets, it would be unfortunate to have all your spoils be ruined by one High Ranking fleeter nearby with a Moon. Who just simply camps and exploits one player being vulnerable upon his return of this grouped mission!
Secondly, this would have a large cooldown! So it would not be a daily thing, but more like a weekly or bi-weekly group activity! Reasoning for this is to allow for preparations, much needed organization and regular ogame play in between! And to be able to allow for big profit which would promote this considerably as it would be fun / profitable.
So if you spent the time to read up to now, you either are Interested, or just baffled.
Either way let’s continue.
So now We’ve arrived at Destination Unknown!
So as oppose to regular expeditions, you don’t just get a Neat message stating you have Found Animals worthy of joining your Empire.
This would be radically different!
First of all, you would actually reach a New Galaxy with your Fleet!
Your individual fleet would have an Anchor Point. Something like, “Abandoned Colonie XYZ”
At this point, each player would have his reach a New Location. (New Planet on your Ui)
So that knowing you arrive would be easy to see and would be easy to go between your regular empire and your expedition empire.
You would then be able to select a New Galaxy tab, which would be your G E!
Some specifics too note.
In the G E, you would have access to all standard fleet abilities, and your fleet slots would be available to you. Essentially giving you an NPC controlled area where you could use all types of missions based upon the scenario Encountered.
How do you Leave the G E?
To make this as friendly as possible, each player can withdraw from the Grouped Expedition at any time. By having all your ships together (at anchor point), and clicking Recall Fleet in the fleet tab (As your Grouped Expedition fleet will take 1 slot until fully returned to your home planet)
If the player wants to recall his Grouped Expedition he will be given a Prompt to not make it super easy to accidentally cancel the mission.
And if he has ships in flight, it will give the (X) message saying its not possible at this time.
What about the Duration within the Expedition?
The duration would be determined by the leaders Astrophysics technology divided by two. For example level 16 = 8 hours.
What about near the end, what if you have ships in during the end Time.
This is a very interesting question. In order to keep things simple, your fleet would wait at anchor point until the very last ship returns. And at that point would return naturally directly to your home planet.
So to Recap,
All members need to arrive at the Starting Point (Leaders Colonie) Before Launching.
(And would consume deuterium also (Requiring that one building no one Uses))
At the end of the mission, everyone returns separately directly to their home planet.
What would be in the Mysterious New Unexplored region!
Here are some ideas of what you would see in Unexplored Galaxy XYZ!, planets, planets with moons, asteroid fields, and asteroid fields with space stations. Entirely Computer generated random interactive environment.
So here is a small example.
Arrival point = Middle of the G E Galaxy. (Total solar systems explorable determined by various mathematical formulas and some random chance)
So the Solar system to the left looks likes this,
1-----Asteroid Belt-----
2-----Empty---------
3-----Small Asteroid Belt----
4-----Rocky Jungle Planet----
5-----Large Asteroid belt-----
6-----Empty-----
7-----Empty-----
8-----Water Planet----Moon
9-----Water Planet-----
10----Small Asteroid Belt----
11----Large Gasy Planet-----
12----Large Ice planet---Space Station
13----Empty-------
14----Spaceyard----
15----Empty--------------
So looking around you would see various types of solar systems.
Ones with planets and asteroids with perhaps Inhabitants!
What would be the purpose of Asteroid Belts!
Well, you would be able to send probes to each Belt, the probe report would give you basic information.
For example, you would get a reading on what resource is present!
“You’re probes have detected a high amount of crystal floating in the asteroid belt x:xxx:x, the density of the field is highly dangerous to navigate through”
So what this type of message would mean is that sending a fleet there would be searching for crystal, and would have a chance of losing Cargo ships. To counter this effect you can send your cargo convoy with offensive ships to help prevent unexpected asteroid impact destroying your ships.
What random factors could come into play at an Asteroid Belt?
-Well you could Encounter Asteroid Mines! Which were left in an Ancient war destroying all ships involved!
-You could be Ambushed by Pirates, which then you would fight them if victorious you would proceed to extract minerals from the belt.
-You could simply mine resources and have a percentage chance of losing ships based on your shielding technology and the composition involved which best deals with asteroid belts.
-You could find a giant asteroid leading to an unexpected amount of resources!
And there is a lot of room for imagination here, many more probabilities and outcomes can be thought of that fit the lore of space mining and interesting outcomes.
What about Planets!
So on Planets, you would also be able to send probes to see some basic information.
Some things you can see on a Planet.
-Mines with Stored Resources! Ancient mines created by a no longer present civilizations.
-Robotics Facilities, Ancient robotic artificial intelligence.
-A indigenous population which has been recently attacked by Pirates. They have significant defense and a small fleet at bay. (the point of this would be to make contact and defending them for a reward)
-A highly advanced alien society, with an enormous fleet, technologically advanced defenses! (Recycling scenario, except debris from impact would be less then 30%)
-A ruined planet with no sign of life only wrecked infrastructure. (Salvageable resources)
-An unexplored planet with no life (Can only be used as stationary point for other NPCs which may have avoided detection) (possibility of intercepting attractive loot (requiring extensive surveillance)
-A very passive race of aliens who are will have ships for sale, can trade resources.
(limited quantity off course)
These Planets would have the capabilities of providing like-wise regular ogame scenarios. Since a lot of players do not like disturbing other players (Mineurs etc.)
This would Also provide low level players “Training” and experience with more then just managing there account! For advanced players this offers a fun group activity and the ability to really test their skills and discuss debate scenarios during the expedition.
For me, the point of these G E planets is to give very new interesting points of interaction. The likelihood of finding habited planets would be low.
Planets would have different types of scenarios involved. For example, ravaged planets could be the location for Pirating! Going there would trigger Pirate battles.
Robotic life forms, for deuterium only could build ships for you! They could even be hostile and have a giant stash of resources if you come out victorious you could loot the unstable robots!
Passive Aliens could be like a trading post, where you can exchange your recently found resources for instantly built ships! There would also be the Big Bad Alien Base which would be the “Grouped Attack Strategy!”
Space Stations, these places would offer fleet battles for rewards! Ships to be specific and deuterium, you could have things like a RIP fleets with other types of ships all guarding the Space Station. Upon Victory you would gain enough to be profitable if you engaged with a good composition. But not always getting resources, you could gain Fleet as a reward!
I think this type of Ogame addition would be revolutionary to the game. It would add a dimension the game never had. This would promote team play, and there would no losing player which up till now is the case. All ogame activity revolves around your own account/assets, and in game interaction with others. Usually hostile actions, since trading is rather less frequent.
This offers a heavily focuses team activity which would be most likely boost the games experience for all. Also there are many things you could incorporate into 3rd party npcs which would make for more space lore game.
The motivation I saw to this create this new addition to Ogame is making it Cost Dark-Matter.
The two ways I saw this is either creating a New Officer, For example, for 200K DM for 3 months.
Or have this be a 1 time cost Dark-Matter to launch the mission much like Relocation a Planet With a Prompt,
and only charged upon "arriving". Both ways could lead to a cost effective addition to a "Free to play game"
This should not be something free in my opinion, because this would promote all players to purchase Dark Matter,
this concept is probably not favored by Players But then again, changes that can generate money for Gameforge have been
Also I thought that this idea, since there is so much room for imagination and new concepts of encounters. That the community could be given this idea and feedback could become very helpfull in fully making this concept appealing adding many new ideas for Player vs Environment Encounters.
Most of my concept ideas are just spin offs of regular mechanics.... But There is so much space that could be filled with awsome additions.
I want to add, if anyone actually read the whole thing please feel free to add feedback or ask questions on this Idea.
I know how drastically radical this is, but as a Long term player, this type of concept interests me greatly. I tend to drift away from my teams and focus on my Own account.. As many others do.
And the amounts of free matter are so crappy that it would be better to have no such encounter at all (increasing the frequency of meeting Merchants instead). 
I mean, limiting such a broad suggestion to only about 35% of players would be a waste of developer's time and user's expectations.