im not sure that wouldnt then make the ADS too expensive to warrant it. so you might end up with less stuff scanned - or rather stuff scanned at distance slowly, unless the ADS price is dropped.
Explorers : would you consider giving up on the infinite honk for...?
- Thread starter Godsailsaqueen
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Cannot give rep to the same post twice.
Ha! Agreed 100%!! On all counts.
Your analogy is not even close to being in the same reality never mind the same universe...
There is not a single new feature that would justify removing/nerfing the current ADS mechanic.
Ok, are you saying that you're so attached to this non-mechanic that you can't imagine the game functioning differently? Well, that's an honest answer and I appreciate honesty. Though I would encourage you try to imagine any new mechanic as an addition to the game, and not a removal. And as Ziggy says, anything that replaced the honk would have to be something you could do a hundred thousand times, so basically it would have to be addictive somehow.
The only addictive element of the current honk is the tiny RNG dopamine release you get after each "random" system is revealed. Of course the systems are predetermined by the stellar forge, but for any new player coming into the system they are effectively randomized potential. So the honk is basically an RNG slot machine lever in a galactic casino. This is the simplest possible form of "addictive" gameplay. So I can see a little why you may be attached, because the current dopamine drip has a very simple and quick reward. Anything that delayed the release of pleasure response from your adrenal gland could be seen as an existential threat. I get it. I really do. But try to imagine something that released your dose in a more complex and satisfying way. Like a sensual dance instead of a peck on the cheek. Or high-stakes poker, instead of the current slot machine mechanic.
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The easiest thing for FD to implement is making no changes whatsoever. What many people want is more stuff to do and find, not just finding ways of making things take longer.
I disagree - it just adds busy work. The real interesting stuff is only got from surface scans and surface exploration.
Like I said, there are plenty of ways the surface scan stuff could be improved to enhance the experience and potentially add a sense of mystery/discovery.
Nerfing the ADS is a bit like saying everyone that wants to play a ball game has to do so either on one leg or with their legs tied together just because some like to play ball games that way.
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most systems are well within 40000? may i ask how many systems you have looked at? because my experience has been to find many many systems with secondary or tertiary, or quaternary or more stars WELL beyond 175000. i have seen a lot of systems with a secondary 200000 up to 500000 ls away - i wouldnt call them common but neither would i call them rare. if any changes are made i agree with some suggestions earlier - to let us determine the properties of belts - well more specifically to GET PAID MORE THAN NOTHING for finding metallic belts or ones with a high % of rare stuff, to point out radio sources and other POI on planets, to make mining mats on surface a little quicker by pointing up areas on planet surface with high concentrations of deposits. that kind of thing. point up anomolous signals, on planets and in semi persistent USS - and have interesting things to see in them.
So. We do nothing. NEXT! Sorry mate - that's the quick answer. This topic is about how fundamentally flawed the Honk itself is. Gotta keep it on track. We all want that. What everyone is trying to do is make a much richer experience for the average player. What im looking to do if you can read - is not take a moment off your time, yet at the same time reward your gameplay experience for doing so.
NO TIME IS LOST FOR YOU.
See. you have to understand something here. In the current implementation of Elite... Everything is found almost instantly. NO matter what it is. These guys are trying their best... and they cant keep up.
They need their buffer zone.
What we are basically asking for is a way to not only to "Slow our progress" and make it more interesting, but to give the devs a chance to expand more.
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I'm like totally tunneling towards you. The problem is, creating addictive gameplay elements is quite hard. Not an exact science. In the past I created slot machines. Whenever a successful concept was found, we of course tried to recreate it, but that hardly ever worked. You see the same in other games and mobile apps.
If against the odds, such a feature however is implemented, I'd be all for it. But too often these attempts miss the boat and it goes stale pretty quick. And then a large part of exploration is ruined. On the other hand, if you build on a simple concept leaving the concept in tact that's in my view a safer solution. Since it's only the composition of a solar system that is revealed, I feel that further exploration based on that could bring more interesting elements. The honk would be the first part of a larger process.
So you get the ...ahem ... release of pleasure response from your adrenal gland, right ... and also a sensual dance high stakes poker.
verminstar
Banned
Ye be glad to know Im staying outta this one because I already stated my thoughts on it way back when the pages were single figures. This right here is exactly my own thoughts on how the honk works and what it does. Replacing it with something else is just...no. Am I addicted to it? Ive been addicted to worse things, why not a honk too?
Expand more on what we do with what we find in the initial scan, not in the initial honk. Thats what interests me a helluva lot more than replacing the honk with something that wastes more time just to see what a honk reveals in one hit. Put stuff on the planets...stuff to find...actual stuff that engages one grey matter a bit more than sifting through rubbish when ye got no cargo hold to carry them in the first place.
Anyway...what he said so nuff said afaic ^
The current mechanic is so insubstantial. It's like a pop music song that isn't even catchy, it exists only to not offend. But let's see if Frontier decides to take a risk & create an interesting left-turn mechanic. Maybe an onboard telescope that gives us a cool interactive surface scan. Imo something like that should have an infinite range, but have more detail the closer you get, as in real life. Kind of like the wave scanner, but with way better hologram-based graphics
In current game terms, my ideal solution would be like this: both the ADS and the DSS should have infinite range, but the ADS would only tell you where everything is and how big it is, nothing else. And then you could use the DSS from infinite range to reveal an image, the closer you are (or the better/bigger your DSS) the better the LOD and the more accurate the system map info. Imo, the process should be interactive so that if you do it well, you will get a quicker and more accurate result. The credit reward for each scan should be based not only on the object, but also on the accuracy of the scan. The rewards would be rebalanced so that average explorer income/hour is the same as now, but income for more accurate exploration data would be higher.
The accuracy could even be skill-based for the basic DSS (basically filtering out noise and focusing on real signal) but also DSS should come in bigger sizes and flavors similar to the current engineering recipes that would more automatically generate more accurate data from the same distance. Wide-angle DSS scans should be changed to encompass both a gas giant and any moons that fall in the detection range.
And most importantly, the graphics of the DSS needs a HUGE upgrade. Should feel like a CCD equipped telescope!
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Honestly if you want change, the onus is on you to suggest something better. So far the sum total of suggestions from the change side is variation on 'fog of war' and parallax scanning, neither of which give improved gameplay. As for the devs, we've had Sandro giving a vague hint about maybe at some undetermined point, far in the future they might want to change things. Compare that with the crime and punishment thread where he makes numerous suggestions but with his usual caveats of no promises and no eta.
Nothing you've suggested adds content, the ADS is NOT the problem. We aren't running out of galaxy to scan. The problem is that most of it is pretty dull. It doesn't matter whether it takes 5 seconds or 5 hours to find out if system consists of a dozen boring beige rocks, it's still a dull system. Most people would rather find that out quickly and move on to the next system. Give me a reason to give any one of those boring beige rocks a second glance. Give me a reason other than credits to bother with a DSS. Give me a reason to land even if I'm not looking for engineering mats or jumponium. That's where the gameplay potential is.
Most of the planetary content outside of the bubble has either been 'breadcrumbed' or people have stumbled across it. If you don't follow the forums your chance of finding anything by yourself is negligible. We lack the tools to find anything without being told where to look. Even then it's down to eyeball searching except for Guardian sites. Want to see volcanic phenomena like ice geysers, fumaroles or lava spouts? Your best bet is to trawl the passenger mission boards. Many people have limited gaming time, it's little wonder that some resort to things like 'the Road to Riches'
I'm liking the ideas in this thread. Exploration does need more depth and I would welcome more engaging mechanics. However I feel that part of the issue is the blandness of space travel itself. Sure there is risk when you jump into a system, alcohol helps increase this but that's about it. I'd like there to be more to supercruise. Some effort required to find the best route to a planet. Ok, this may slow us down, may mean we don't see so many systems in a session but it will make those you do see more rewarding. And this doesn't just apply to exploration, the whole game would benefit, all professions.
I am proposing making gravity more of a thing in supercruise. Something that has a significant effect on our speed. It already does and you can use the orbital lines to help you avoid those effects. But it is inconsequential, most if us ignore it most of the time. Boost the effect, make it reduce you to a crawl. Increase the radius. Suddenly you are aware of those planets and their pesky moons. You think about the best way to get around the system that avoids the gravity wells around planets. No more straight lines, netflix becomes a hazard rather than a distraction. You've reached location xx,yy,zz time to change course and set your heading for xx,yy,zz. The honk would populate the system charts with gravitational data that would show where all the bodies in the system are. You would decide which ones were interesting, based on some mechanic, and plot a course to them. I'm imagining a system chart like those graphical representations of how black holes affect the fabric of space time.
Space travel is fun.
So for other professions this adds tactics to the game. To interdict someone you must catch them. They can use these wells to avoid you. If they understand them better or can keep you to one side of a well then you won't catch them. Perhaps those wells could affect your sensors, allowing you to use them to hide from your enemies, or your prey.
I think you get the idea, bed time for me.
I am proposing making gravity more of a thing in supercruise. Something that has a significant effect on our speed. It already does and you can use the orbital lines to help you avoid those effects. But it is inconsequential, most if us ignore it most of the time. Boost the effect, make it reduce you to a crawl. Increase the radius. Suddenly you are aware of those planets and their pesky moons. You think about the best way to get around the system that avoids the gravity wells around planets. No more straight lines, netflix becomes a hazard rather than a distraction. You've reached location xx,yy,zz time to change course and set your heading for xx,yy,zz. The honk would populate the system charts with gravitational data that would show where all the bodies in the system are. You would decide which ones were interesting, based on some mechanic, and plot a course to them. I'm imagining a system chart like those graphical representations of how black holes affect the fabric of space time.
Space travel is fun.
So for other professions this adds tactics to the game. To interdict someone you must catch them. They can use these wells to avoid you. If they understand them better or can keep you to one side of a well then you won't catch them. Perhaps those wells could affect your sensors, allowing you to use them to hide from your enemies, or your prey.
I think you get the idea, bed time for me.
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False logic - ADS ping does not actually make "first discovery" tags plus what you are proposing would not actually change anything just introduce aggravation.
While nerfing the ADS may make the process of discovery slower, it is false logic to claim it would make any significant difference to the relative rate of exploration between players.
Besides which while first discovery bonuses are nice, they are not exactly the be all and end all.
How about this for a counter proposal, increase base discovery rewards and reduce/remove first discovery monetary/progression bonuses.
How long you been exploring? I can tell an ELW from a HMC from a WW without even looking at the screen. I just need to hear the planet.
The different planets all make different sounds, and by selecting it, you can "hear" what it is. One of the few fun and skill based parts of exploration. If the whole "black planet on system map until scanned" thing had gone through, it would still have been possible to tell ELW's from all else at 500k Ls.
Z...
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I have done exploration on-and-off since release, and if what you say is true (I have enough trouble with SLF audio distinction) then nerfing the ADS as some suggest would actually change nothing in regards to the cherry picking/discovery mystery aspects which some seem to claim are essentially the primary justification for the proposed nerf.
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Yes, unless you disable the system map sing-song because you use external music and it's jarring as hell not to, and then suddenly you can't hear it. Neither can hearing impaired (which I am not) so good work with massive assumptions. And black planets would not have improved anything as cherry picking would be worse not better.
I'm all for adding, I detest the notion of just endlessly ripping stuff out; there isn't much left to remove. Perhaps if we try adding mechanics, that might improve the experience a tad; just a thought.
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This is because a lot of people confuse cause and effect; and assume the solution is to simply remove the outcomes, and ignore the cause, and we're all good. This is called the process of reduction. This can sometimes be beneficial, eg in design, massively reducing clutter or complexity can create beauty in simplicity. But it's exceptionally difficult to do well.
Because, there's a certain point whereby you can remove enough functionality, that the outcomes are no-longer elegant simplicity; rather it becomes basic mechanics, with mindless repetition. We can have different outcomes, with different causes; so look at adding mechanics and shifting how things work, to me will always lead to better outcomes.
But yes, we were told black planets would solve everything, despite essentially being reduction, that would create greater cherry picking and less actual exploration occurring. Again; folks here have major issues linking cause and effect. Thankfully, the developer is a little less challenged in that respect - they have a long way to go - but do grasp cause and effect, as a concept.
True - but it would make it skill based. Though, it's not needed, as ELW's are a very distinct shade of blue, different to WW once you get the hang of it. There are one or two Ammonia World variants than can be confused with HMC's, however, once you figure out what to listen for...
There is actually a whole thread on that very topic (audio) in the exploration section, I'll try and link it later.
Z...
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Yes, unless you disable the system map sing-song because you use external music and it's jarring as hell not to, and then suddenly you can't hear it. Neither can hearing impaired (which I am not) so good work with massive assumptions. And black planets would not have improved anything as cherry picking would be worse not better.
I'm all for adding, I detest the notion of just endlessly ripping stuff out; there isn't much left to remove. Perhaps if we try adding mechanics, that might improve the experience a tad; just a thought.
Oh look, let's all get offended for no reason. I'm pointing out tools that are already in game.
To be honest, I'd love to see it expanded on, because, yes, I too play the game with music in the background, which means shutting off the music so I can listen to planets, which, yes, is annoying. So let's not all start taking pot shots, because the thing is, the concept is a cool one.
I agree with you actually, regarding taking stuff out, instead of dealing with the root cause.
Now... tot he point, imagine the audio thing was expanded on? Wouldn't it be cool to have a spectrum analyser on your HUD? You could point it at a planet, and not only would you hear it, but, there would be a visual representation of the audio on screen, which means you could be def, listening to music - or whatever, and still get the information needed.
Sure, you'll need to learn what an HMC looks like, what an ELW looks like... But how is the different to the SRV scanner? It's just kind of an expansion to it. Now we're all happy. And the basics (in the shape of the SRV scanner) already exists in game.
This is the thing, this is what explorers *are* crying out for. Meaningful, skill based in game tools that make this stuff fun.
As I said, right now, the audio from planets (and stars, if you listen to the galaxy maps, though the star types are already obvious) are w wonderful tool in game for exploration, and one of the very, very few that even exist, and it's actually fun, and skill based.
I enjoy exploration, I've started threads about wanting more interaction/tools for explorers, participated in others. I don't want to alienate anyone, what I do want is for explorers to enjoy long term exploration, and for new explorers to actually enjoy the process of learning - I remember the moment I figured out the audio thing. It was incredible, it was like a revelation, a "holy crap! That is awesome!!!" moment. I'd love to see more stuff like that, in ways that can suit all of us.
No reason it has to be restricted to deep space exploration, ships have individual and unique audio... Imagine if we had to scan a signal source, and work out what was in it based on the audio/spectral analysis?
Anyways... I'm getting ahead of myself now.
Z...
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Not really getting offended.
Sure, improve the audio, but that's it though. Expanding the experience. That's really what Frontier could learn to do. When they try (thargoid stuff) they can add really cool experiences. But I think a lot of the time they are a bit terrified and decision challenged around how to do that, despite there being eleventy million options presented to them at this point.
Sure, skill can be part of it, but the mechanics still have to be approachable. And driving audio-only changes, does cut out a portion of the player base (man if they'd let us add an external playlist in game, I'd love them for life) so I'd prefer to see a broader approach, using both sound and vision cues.
There's a lot that can be done; but I don't think that's ever actually been the problem. It's the willingness of the developer to do so. They are not short for ideas, or for mechanics, or for solutions. They just seem to be short on actual execution.
I don't know why a lot of good ideas haven't gone beyond basic though at Frontier. They get a huge amount of feedback for combat and take a decent portion of that onboard. Exploration? Not really. Apart from a buff in payouts, and the addition of POE like geyser and fumaroles (that you literally have to trip over to find, mind you) which aren't even something of value exploration wise, and should really be highly visible and dramatic, it's been the same basic mechanics since 1.2 or something.
That's a long time to not, essentially, do anything beyond improve the eye candy a bit. There's not a lot to exploration. Hiding stuff, doesn't make it more of a challenge. I'd rather see that there is the inclusion of more functionality, and something closer to what we do now; map resources, sample atmo & soils; actual exploration and study. Give people a reason to go. And not just for credits.
Sure, improve the audio, but that's it though. Expanding the experience. That's really what Frontier could learn to do. When they try (thargoid stuff) they can add really cool experiences. But I think a lot of the time they are a bit terrified and decision challenged around how to do that, despite there being eleventy million options presented to them at this point.
Sure, skill can be part of it, but the mechanics still have to be approachable. And driving audio-only changes, does cut out a portion of the player base (man if they'd let us add an external playlist in game, I'd love them for life) so I'd prefer to see a broader approach, using both sound and vision cues.
There's a lot that can be done; but I don't think that's ever actually been the problem. It's the willingness of the developer to do so. They are not short for ideas, or for mechanics, or for solutions. They just seem to be short on actual execution.
I don't know why a lot of good ideas haven't gone beyond basic though at Frontier. They get a huge amount of feedback for combat and take a decent portion of that onboard. Exploration? Not really. Apart from a buff in payouts, and the addition of POE like geyser and fumaroles (that you literally have to trip over to find, mind you) which aren't even something of value exploration wise, and should really be highly visible and dramatic, it's been the same basic mechanics since 1.2 or something.
That's a long time to not, essentially, do anything beyond improve the eye candy a bit. There's not a lot to exploration. Hiding stuff, doesn't make it more of a challenge. I'd rather see that there is the inclusion of more functionality, and something closer to what we do now; map resources, sample atmo & soils; actual exploration and study. Give people a reason to go. And not just for credits.
It is nothing to do with skill per se and besides what you are talking about actually gives the capabilities of the ADS more weight for being there and having the capabilities it has... if we can hear the distinction then a discovery scanner should be able to detect it and also detect the more subtle variations too.
I think too much emphasis is being placed on the body discovery part and not enough on other parts of the process. There is MASSIVE room for improvement in orbital/near object scanning and surface exploration yet some seem to want to focus on the finding of the bodies in the first place which has more impact than just exploration.