Probe, to send through space to scout

It would be nice to get to use what TW players got to use to scout out trade routes and find ppl. They used what was called a Probe, that you send to almost any point in the system and find out what was on the way there, like ports, players and NPC ships in space, and whether or not it ran into mines or turrets.

Now what could be done in Starport could be based on the same principle, but no chat output would be shown unless it blew up (from mines or turrets), or ran across a ship (NPC or other), but allow all the systems it went through to be set as explored, so you could look at all those systems and find how many planets or if it has a starport. The Probe could be somewhat expensive, say about 5-10k, and maybe have a limited distance it can travel, say something like 15-25 in warpfuel, and use up about 1-2 warpfuel between systems. This would help to reduce the massive amount of fuel the normal user uses up at the start to even find a decent trade route, and allow more ballanced amounts left throughtout the game.

For instance the chat output could be like this:

Probe sent to Delta Gamma (473,521):

ran across Commander Dead Weight, Robber Willey Pete in Alpha Theta (455,600)

ran across Major Ralph Nader in Epsilon Phi (460,575)

Blew up while trying to enter Gamma Phi (462,550)!, due to either mines or turrets.

Now this brings up another idea, have a planet scanner or probe to find out the planets scanned amount of material, like a normal ship scan of a planet (when the ship is on the planet), and also if the landing area is clear of turrets or cannons. Now it should not tell what is actually on the whole planet just whether or not it was shot at (or would have been shot at, as if it were a ship), and the amount (in tons) of material on the planet. This would probably be somewhat expensive as they would be used from about 1/3 of the way into the game, so they should cost about 15-35k

For instance this could be shown on the chat as follows:

Planet Probe deployed on Epsilon Beta IV, scanned 555 tons of unidentified material, and landed safely.

or

Planet probe deployed on Eplsilon Alpha III, scanned 1025 tons of unidentified material, and landing was unsucessfull!,  due to turret or cannon fire.

These probes dont need to be seen when they are deployed so there is no graphic and transmittal (to other players) overhead, other than maybe a note with the owner of the planet or mine/turret (if it happens to be deployed in space and was in sufficient range to have shot at it), that a probe entered this <area> (either the system name or planet name).

Dude®