System map overhaul needed
- Thread starter Darkslayer
- Start date
Well, anyone who wants an orrery map of THIS level of precision can just fly 20kLs up and look at the system from above.
I've done this. I'm not proud of it though. [wacko]
There's a lot of factors to consider with something like this. What does it really add? I'm not disputing the fact that the orrery view would be immense and show things off in such an awesome way, but it has to be easily usable. There's so much data to show, so many different aspects of the game that need to be/could be visualised to give a greater experience. This is a huge technical challenge not just from a "how do we display the stellar/planetary bodies" angle, but also you have to consider what data would be relevant to explorers, what would be relevant to mission/passenger runners, combat pilots, system states, trading, and so on. There's so much data in the game, and it would be great to show it all. But each thing is a "cost" as far as development, querying the data, system resource, and also screen space. These are only the things that I can think of from the perspective of someone who doesn't really know the first thing about effective UI design, and that's already a tough set of questions to answer...
I wish I understood the finer points of UX/UI design to really engage in conversation here more... but I don't. Every so often the topic comes up internally and people think a bit more about it, but please don't hate me for setting a realistic expectation: it's an unlikely thing for us to see within the foreseeable future. Just know that I, and probably quite a few others, would love to see this feature in game. Actually, there's a lot of these kinds of features we'd love to see... hence the 'wishlist'.
A good point. I hadn't even considered this as one of the technical pitfalls.
I wish I understood the finer points of UX/UI design to really engage in conversation here more... but I don't. Every so often the topic comes up internally and people think a bit more about it, but please don't hate me for setting a realistic expectation: it's an unlikely thing for us to see within the foreseeable future. Just know that I, and probably quite a few others, would love to see this feature in game. Actually, there's a lot of these kinds of features we'd love to see... hence the 'wishlist'.
A good point. I hadn't even considered this as one of the technical pitfalls.
Thanks for replying, but wow, does that ever not sound promising.
It's a wanted feature not because it looks cool, but for usability.
First question I ask when entering a system, where am I in relation to everything in this solar system?
This map overhaul would answer that at a glance, instead of pitching and yawing 360degrees to manually look for all the object on this side if the star vs those on the other side.
It's a wanted feature not because it looks cool, but for usability.
First question I ask when entering a system, where am I in relation to everything in this solar system?
This map overhaul would answer that at a glance, instead of pitching and yawing 360degrees to manually look for all the object on this side if the star vs those on the other side.
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Dale the major thing for me with the orrery map is that it's a gateway to better missions gameplay. A 3D orrery with an in-system coordinate system would allow missions for example to set specific coordinates, or regions, of a system to search - so that mission locations can be made to have location context, and that it doesn't just result in us randomly flying about until a randomly-spawning USS turns up. The randomly-spawning USS has been a big bugbear with me ever since Premium Beta when people thought it was just a placeholder - but we're still living with it!
It will also give a much better sense of where we are in a system and where the planets are in relation to one another - something you can only really get at the moment by flying way up high above the solar system and looking down.
It will also give a much better sense of where we are in a system and where the planets are in relation to one another - something you can only really get at the moment by flying way up high above the solar system and looking down.
I was a tad on the stompy side with those hopes and dreams wasn't I? So let me try to explain. There's a whole load of improvements that can be made to the current system, some additions, some refinement. This could happen in the next year of updates, so I won't say no on that. There's a lot of buzzing going on in the office as people are working hard the game. Loads being done across the game. We don't have unlimited funds, resources, and time so we have to be smart about what we do. What is being suggested and discussed in this thread (by some people) is going into the territory of a 3D orrery map with data points and contextual information accurately plotted. Essentially a to-scale replica of the system as an interactive (or at least a move/pan-able) entity.
Rebuilding the entire mapping system is an unlikely thing right now, which is what would probably be required (again, speaking from the perspective of a layman) for such a gargantuan task. Improvements and refinement, I could see that happening as you sometimes see in milestone updates. Rebuilding...? not for the foreseeable.
Well, thanks for taking the time to post here Dale, even if you are the bearer of bad news!
You still get <a slap with a smoked haddock> and a /cry from me though.
The main problem with the system map is it's useless for route planning - there is no way to tell how far planet 1 is from planet 2 - the distances is shown is from the star - so planet 1 might say 400ls and planet 2 might say 450ls - but that could mean they are 50ly apart or 950ly apart - the system map 2d view gives no clues!!
Then you have the nav panel that shows all planet as UNEXPLORED - so from there your know one of the planets is 300ly from your current position and the other is 400ly away - but now you have no clue which is planet 1 and which is planet 2 ( from the system map view ) - it makes absolutely no sense ( either in game or from usable UI perspective )
It's like someone intentionally created a system of views designed to make life hard for the player for no purpose other than to make life hard!
Then you have the nav panel that shows all planet as UNEXPLORED - so from there your know one of the planets is 300ly from your current position and the other is 400ly away - but now you have no clue which is planet 1 and which is planet 2 ( from the system map view ) - it makes absolutely no sense ( either in game or from usable UI perspective )
It's like someone intentionally created a system of views designed to make life hard for the player for no purpose other than to make life hard!
Thanks Dale. That's terribly disappointing, but not too surprising as we've already heard before how the Orrery isn't on Frontier's schedule at all.
Improving the current flat system map isn't something I'd want Frontier to spend any time on, other than maybe improving loading times, but that was already done. I would rather they dedicate actual dev time to a better map, an Orrery Map. I would also highly suggest to Frontier that they re-prioritize the Orrery to be high on the list of new features to implement. It is something that the majority of players would use thereby making it a very high value addition, so please place it higher than any other new bolt-on separate features (CQC or Multicrew like) planned for the future. I would think that development time could be better utliized on features people will use rather than features that sit idle and barely touched. IMHO of course.
Afterall, if Frontier Elite II could have an Orrery, then I'd wager so can Elite Dangerous.
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Yes! I would've thought a so-called map would allow you to see distances between the planets. At the very least. It's meant to be a map for crisake.
It's not a map, it's a picture of the bodies in the sytem. There's no scale.
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Ian Phillips
Volunteer Moderator
The current system map isn't a map, it's a summary, a listing of all stellar bodies at a glance. Elite II had this as well, but it also had the orrery map alongside it which was the main actual map used in the game. This is because it was so much more useful than the system summary, the flat map.
Elite Dangerous has the summary but is missing the useful map, unfortunately.
So... The thread has developed from "I don't like the old map" to "We don't have a map"
I wonder when we reach "Frontier don't know what they're doing" phase
I wonder when we reach "Frontier don't know what they're doing" phase
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
It appears the only answer to this is for someone to develop an external Orrery model/tool outside the game. If we can demonstrate that it is possible and most of all *useful* then perhaps Frontier will include the concept in the game. I believe this is the only way to make this a possibility.
We need to demonstrate to Frontier that these ideas are not just requests from a handful of people but are instead desired by a large part of the player base. It's time to organise and back ourselves!
We need to demonstrate to Frontier that these ideas are not just requests from a handful of people but are instead desired by a large part of the player base. It's time to organise and back ourselves!
