Adv. Discovery Scanner makes Exploration less 'fun' (for me).

Jericho

Jericho
Hey Exploration Guys and Gals,
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Disclaimer: I am by no means a professional Explorer, and until recently I hadn't done any exploration since Beta.
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BUT.....
Back in Beta, with my little ship and my basic scanner, I briefly tried Exploring and I enjoyed it.
I thought it was fun to have to thoughtfully fly through a system and visually search amongst the many points of light in the sky for the ones that were moving differently than the rest.
It seemed challenging to me and I felt a great reward when I would 'discover' planets and other stellar features on my own.
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Fast forward a couple months... I've been waiting to get back into Exploration until I could afford an Asp with some good equipment. Now I have a big ship and an advanced discovery scanner, and the whole process has suddenly lost its 'fun' for me. I simply don't feel like I'm discovering anything anymore.
I arrive in a system, I honk the horn once, and then EVERYTHING is revealed (well, not everything, but 95% of things).
Then, if I want I can swing by for a closer look and get some detailed info on the 'discovered' objects (thanks for exploring for me computer!)
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Where is the 'discovery'?
Where is the 'fun'?
Where is the 'skill'?
Where is the 'challenge'?
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Yes, I can certainly appreciate the awesome views, and I'm not minimizing that form of 'reward' from the profession of Exploration.
...and Yes, I could downgrade back to a basic or intermediate scanner and role-play as a pauper, but there's a competitive part of my brain that won't allow me to do so.
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Am I missing some part of Exploration that can bring back the feeling of 'discovery'?
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Thanks in advance for not flaming me or turning this thread into a rant.
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Cheers,
Jericho
 

RadimentriX

RadimentriX
well, yeah, flying with a basic scanner is fun. as long as it's a small system with maybe 5 planets. but as soon as there are more objects it's just annoying because I'm flying in circles forever to see where a spot moves a bit
 

felicitous blue

F
Completely agree, when I first read the ADS pings *everything* in a system I was a little sad. I'm sure people will jump in and point out that otherwise exploration would take "too long" and how exploring would be even more worthless as a way of making money. I can see that point, but don't necessarily agree (there are other ways of fixing that, through increasing payouts for complete system data or based on "rarity", as just one solution).

I think also people want to explore outwards, but don't like the idea of not having fully explored every system they've passed through - Pokemon syndrome, gotta catch em all.
 

Alvatore

Alvatore
Poy said:
Then, don't use it :)

Problem solved, have fun !
Click to expand...

Basically this. Those really massive journeys people undertake would be ridiculous without the system-wide ping to kind of speed things along a little so they can finish before they die IRL of old age.
 

TriumphANT

TriumphANT
Having just got "out there" and found my first undiscovered stuff, I'm ecstatic about Exploration. It's a really relaxing, but sometimes thrilling experience. I think the problem here is that:
Basic Discovery Scanner: 500Ls @ 1,000Cr
Intermediate Discovery Scanner: 1000Ls @ 505,000Cr
Advanced Discovery Scanner: Inf @ 1,545,000Cr

It just doesn't add up at all! It would almost be better if Intermediate was size/distance dependant, e.g. it could detect a 1 solar mass star at 250,000Ls, but not 0.003 Earth Mass planets until within 1000Ls. That would make discovery and exploration a bit more involved, as you'd get the stars easily, but still have some "but what next?" when you get there. The idea that I can find a tiny rock just as easily as a binary star isn't really very realistic as it stands.

Mad?
 

The Natoorat

The Natoorat
Agree.

There should be something like "professional discovery scanner" with 2k radius. Also it's easy to find out how many planets are in a system without ADS: go to system map and pan view to the right, the farther you go from main star, more abjects are in the system. Of course it gets hammered when there are >1 stars in the system, or "rogue" planets.
 

Chris M Fortune

C
TriumphANT said:
Having just got "out there" and found my first undiscovered stuff, I'm ecstatic about Exploration. It's a really relaxing, but sometimes thrilling experience. I think the problem here is that:
Basic Discovery Scanner: 500Ls @ 1,000Cr
Intermediate Discovery Scanner: 1000Ls @ 505,000Cr
Advanced Discovery Scanner: Inf @ 1,545,000Cr

It just doesn't add up at all! It would almost be better if Intermediate was size/distance dependant, e.g. it could detect a 1 solar mass star at 250,000Ls, but not 0.003 Earth Mass planets until within 1000Ls. That would make discovery and exploration a bit more involved, as you'd get the stars easily, but still have some "but what next?" when you get there. The idea that I can find a tiny rock just as easily as a binary star isn't really very realistic as it stands.

Mad?
Click to expand...

I would be happy to see the "stars only" to the system limit but with a sensible range on planetary bodies. Perhaps all three grades could be reviewed in this manner with a stellar range and a planetary range, maybe even separated into giant and rocky ranges too.
 

LordKee

L
I agree as well. I sort of enjoyed the detective work you had to do to locate planets and other stars in a system. But it would also require a complete overhaul of the whole exploration, more rare and unique things to find etc to make it worthwhile and interesting.
 

The Natoorat

The Natoorat
Jst had an idea...

ADS "pings" a system, but does not "reveal" planets. Instead it gives a rough direction and appropriate distance to object and you have to "surface scan" it to find out what it is, so you can't just look at system map and say "nah, only ices and rocks, moving on".

Now that sounds like "exploration" to me!
 

Werner

Werner
Greetings,

I share concerns of the Author. I also see the ultimate scanner as a fun-taking factor, making the objects discovery trivial and non challenging.

I am still in the pauper stage (and I plan to stay there for a longer time, since I took an approach of undertaking absolutelly zero grinding activities) so I am far from being able to buy myself one. But having read the posts above I see that the advanced scanner is not my thing and it wouldn't make sense for me to save money for it. I rather stay by the manual searching.

My suggestion for Author: if you refuse to downgrade to a basic scanner, maybe you could shift your approach to, say, concentrate more on finding rare objects globally, judging by the external knowledge of system groups: what star types do they have, to what nebula they belong, maybe some astronomical literature studies... just an initial idea, I don't know if feasible.

I also agree that it would be good either to nerf the advanced scanner to take away the emotionless certainty of discovering everything, OR introduce some intermediate scanner type that would offer a bigger range than the two basic ones, or even a vast range with a limited probability of objects detection.

Regards,
Werner
 
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Kalpa

Kalpa
Initial reaction: Ugh, not another one of these...

OTOH: Refreshing, its been a few months since last time I saw an adv. discovery scanner thread on frontpage
 
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Genar-Hofoen

Genar-Hofoen
The Natoorat said:
Jst had an idea...

ADS "pings" a system, but does not "reveal" planets. Instead it gives a rough direction and appropriate distance to object and you have to "surface scan" it to find out what it is, so you can't just look at system map and say "nah, only ices and rocks, moving on".
Click to expand...


So you'd like to spend an awful lot of time finding out a system was comprised of 6 to 10 icy planets, before deciding it wasn't worth exploring?

Seriously, NUTS to that.

I'm currently 20k LY from Sol, having spent the last month or so exploring the galaxy via the Great Annihilator and Sagittarius A*. If it wasn't for the ADS, I'd probably have returned home before getting more than 1000 LY from inhabited space, because there was no way of finding out if a system was worth sticking around and spending some time on, because on the way to Sag A* there are an AWFUL lot of stars with nothing but icy planets in them.

I honestly do not understand the mind set of people actually wanting to make Exploration dreadfully tedious.

Here's why exploration isn't as bad as you think it is...

1) The ADS merely discovers the existence of a body - it also tells you basic information, like if it's an icy planet or something which may be an earth-like.

2) Because of (1), you can decide if a system is actually WORTH SPENDING YOUR GAME TIME IN.

I don't know what all of your lives are like, but I can only get to spend about 1-2hrs maximum on this game every day - if that. If the awful proposals here were to come to fruition, what incentive would I have to even play the game any more? Answer: none, because in a system with 15 planets and most of them were icy, and it took me an hour to find that out, that's basically 50%-100% of my game time for that day gone, And all because some of you wanted to make the exploration mechanic WAY more tedious. *golfclap*

3) Because of (1), you get to go on absolutely EPIC exploration journeys. After I reached Sag. A, I then went further into the core and swung east, where I chanced upon a completely pristine Nebula (pristine in that no one had ever surveyed it before, or had submitted data on it at least when I got to it at the time). Then I spent a lot of time exploring the nebula from top to bottom. This is only made possible by having an ADS.

If we had it your way, nothing would get done because once again, it'd take so long to survey just one star system, and it's be so dreadfully tedious, that most folks would just self destruct out of sheer boredom.

4) Just today, I managed to get some playing time, and stumbled across a system which had : BLACK HOLE, NEUTRON STAR, K7 VA, NEUTRON STAR, NEUTRON STAR, NEUTRON STAR, G4 VAB, M4 VA

Thanks to the ADS, I could proceed to more safely Detail Scan the neutron stars - imagine zooming up to a neutron star without realising it was one and simply running into it because you didn't know or realise it was one, due to the above suggestions.

Just.... no. Everyone who's wanting to "nerf" the discovery scanners - just... stop already. It's a bad idea. It'll make Exploration awful and tedious. It'll stop me playing the game because it's one of the final game play mechanics that is keeping me still loading the thing up.

There needs to be more DEPTH to exploration, that's for sure - perhaps encountering alien civilisations/technology. First encounters. Stumbling into and then running away from Thargoid systems. Planetary landings. There are LOTS of ways to improve Exploration without the silly and tedious ideas I've read in this thread and a few others.
 
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Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Ian Phillips
I do not use the Advanced scanner. It's a deliberate decision on my part because I enjoy actually finding the planets that are further away myself.

I have even found 2 black holes so far. That feels like an achievement :)
 
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The Natoorat

The Natoorat
@ Genar-Hofoen

I do not wholly agree with you, but I know where you are coming from. Just to let you know, what I proposed would not prevent you from reaching far-away nebulas or some other distant regions of Snickers (I never liked Milky Way), it would just slow down grinders, who must have highest profit/hour from exploration. If making money through exploration is what keeps you in the game... "whatever floats your boat".

But still, I feel for you. How about NOT nerfing ADS, BUT adding another tier of DS between Intermediate and Advanced, say... "Directional Discovery Scanner"? Let it cost some 750k cr and work like what I described (bear in mind that I just threw a quick idea, it's not refined and does require a lot of tweaking and detailing). What I proposed is not tedious, it just requires some effort and not merely pressing "I WIN" button.


But... that's just wild speculation and will never be in game.
 

Jericho

Jericho
Thank you everyone for all the replies and the advice.
Many of you have some really good suggestions (too many to 'multi-quote').
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Also, thank you for keeping this a positive and productive discussion.
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I'm not sure yet how I'm going to approach Exploration as I progress, but I had originally set out for a particular Nebula, and I do want to make it there to see what it looks like from up close in my DK2.
I'm still only about 1500 LY from populated space and have a long journey ahead, but I'll go there, 'Honking' along the way, and then decide what to do once I arrive.
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Cheers,
-Jericho-
 

(-o-)

Banned
O
fullly agree on advanced scanner making things too simple.. it leaves nothing unknown, no uncertainties, no surprises... i wish FD could change this to say perhaps a 5k radius, it will still make it a useful scanner over the intermediate one, while still leaving something for actual exploring

space is about exploring the unknown, not click once to find out imo!

for me the biggest fun in exploring is to try figure out where that last planet might be.. or if there is anything else... or when in a "explored system" just happen to find a previously unknown object!
 
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