System map overhaul needed

So instead of coming up with a justification for the work involved in developing this app to increase either it's importance or urgency, the direction has moved to minimising the work involved, leaving it no more important or urgent than it is now.

I'm pretty sure that if they were to put their mind to it, FDev could come up with a workable orrery. But WHY? Maybe focus on that ;)
 
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So instead of coming up with a justification for the work involved in developing this app to increase either it's importance or urgency, the direction has moved to minimising the work involved, leaving it no more important or urgent than it is now.

I'm pretty sure that if they were to put their mind to it, FDev could come up with a workable orrery. But WHY? Maybe focus on that ;)

Why? Because exploration hasn't had its share of features since Elite came out and it was also a promised feature.

Didn't you read the rest of the thread?
 
Why? Because exploration hasn't had its share of features since Elite came out and it was also a promised feature.

Personally, there are a lot of other exploration features I'd much rather see first, starting with: Planetary surface bookmarks and improved scanners that use "heat maps" to highlight interesting areas. An orrery map is only really useful for simple systems. I've seen systems with 5 stars, over 70 bodies, and at least 10 moons around a planet (not all in the same system). That really complicates things.

I'm honestly not sure why people want a system map like this. The current one is perfectly functional and when I want to see the body relationships, I just look at the ship's radar.
 
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Personally, there are a lot of other exploration features I'd much rather see first, starting with: Planetary surface bookmarks and improved scanners that use "heat maps" to highlight interesting areas. An orrery map is only really useful for simple systems. I've seen systems with 5 stars, over 70 bodies, and at least 10 moons around a planet (not all in the same system). That really complicates things.

I'm honestly not sure why people want a system map like this. The current one is perfectly functional and when I want to see the body relationships, I just look at the ship's radar.

I never get a very clear picture of complex systems as the ones you mention and the ship map doesn't help either. Regardless, it was promised and I don't think we need to add other stuff before getting what was supposed to be implemented on the development road.
 
I never get a very clear picture of complex systems as the ones you mention and the ship map doesn't help either. Regardless, it was promised and I don't think we need to add other stuff before getting what was supposed to be implemented on the development road.

I don't believe that clinging desperately to a 3 year old development plan or what was 'promised' is the best way forward.

It was sticking to 'promises' the gave us the half-bottomed MultiCrew implementation. If FDev had instead said 'you know what? MC doesn't work with the way we've structured ship control around a single commander, so we need to develop the functionality for other roles within the ship first, then allow other Cmdrs to join in' then somewhere down the line we'd have had something that made sense for more than just casual pew-pew.

One thing I've learned in my time in software development is that what looks easy at the planning phase can often turn out to be spectacularly difficult when it comes to implementing it.
 
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I don't believe that clinging desperately to a 3 year old development plan or what was 'promised' is the best way forward.

It was sticking to 'promises' the gave us the half-bottomed MultiCrew implementation. If FDev had instead said 'you know what? MC doesn't work with the way we've structured ship control around a single commander, so we need to develop the functionality for other roles within the ship first, then allow other Cmdrs to join in' then somewhere down the line we'd have had something that made sense for more than just casual pew-pew.

One thing I've learned in my time in software development is that what looks easy at the planning phase can often turn out to be spectacularly difficult when it comes to implementing it.

I don't believe that clinging desperatly to a 0 year old promised feature is helpful either.

I'm not a kickstarter backer but if I was then I'd feel quite entitled to ask for somethind they said they were gonna do relatively soon after the release of ED. I mildly understand things don't go as planned but the least they could do iis tell us what happened or what exactly stopped them from implementing the orrey map or pretty much drop the idea entierely.
 
promised

entitled

soon

It could still be on the cards, we don't know :) But it's not a priority.

We currently have the galmap, which is 3D, you 'fly' around it, it's distances are scaled accurately, and is capable of showing the most basic info on an unvisited system (main star class, and in realistic view, whether there are multiple stars).

We have a zoom function that allows you to zoom way out far beyond what is essential, because it's cool to be able to look at the whole galaxy sometimes, even though we would never need to be able to navigate to a star so far away, and to select a star that far away we have to zoom way back in anyway.

In the current system view for landable planets if you keep zooming in it switches to single body view, which again is 3D. The close end of the zoom here is a little more restrictive, it goes as close as is required & no more, it's functional but although it would be pretty cool to fly around the surface in the map, you can only get so close, and only view the body head on.

So what stands out as incongruous is that the system view, the middle bit, is a 2D hierarchical view rather than a realistically scaled 3D representation. But it's a practical way to organise all the known info about a system, we don't need more than it provides.

So what would be cool would be if we could, from the galmap, select a (visited) system, and continue to zoom in until the view we have shows orbits and scaled distances, then continue to zoom in again into single body view as we have now. The galmap can show trade routes between systems, the orrery view could similarly show those trade routes within the system from the entry point to a body or station, or possibly between bodies.

But is the rule of cool enough on it's own to justify adding to an already complete set of views (as far as practical use is concerned)? Maybe. I don't think so, but it's not up to me.
 
Personally, there are a lot of other exploration features I'd much rather see first, starting with: Planetary surface bookmarks and improved scanners that use "heat maps" to highlight interesting areas. An orrery map is only really useful for simple systems. I've seen systems with 5 stars, over 70 bodies, and at least 10 moons around a planet (not all in the same system). That really complicates things.

I'm honestly not sure why people want a system map like this. The current one is perfectly functional and when I want to see the body relationships, I just look at the ship's radar.

While I agree with you, I can wait until other stuff gets sorted first, it's a bit much to call what we have at the moment a map. It's more like a pictatorial list.
Also having an orrey map can introduce a whole load of potential gameplay elements and also make exploration a more interesting affair.
 
I'd love an orrery map view, but as a short term fix, what I'd absolutely love right now is a keybind to "target next nearest unexplored system body". I've looked in the options to no avail, but I reckon this would save me days when I'm out exploring - rather than swing my head to the nav panel, hit space twice, hit "s" to move the highlighter down to the next body in preparation for completing the scan on the body I'm currently targeting and then rinse and repeat, I could just hit "k" or whatever once the scan was complete and my reticule would automatically move to the next unexplored body.
 
Just flying my ship around works for me ;)

An Orrery view would not accurately represent distance to scale, but would need to attempt to display the orbital paths of every body in what could be a very complex system.

The current system view conveys that information, only distance to a secondary star is not included. I can accurately gauge where in the system I am by looking out the window.

A properly designed orrery view doesn't need to display every orbital path at once, purely because of the vastly different distance scales involved.

For complex systems, you can have a multi-layer view:
- the system view - gives the highest level view of the stars in the system and their orbital mechanics - at this scale planetary orbits around a particular star are usually pretty insignificant and don't need to be shown
- the stellar view - zooms in on a star to show the orbital mechanics of its planets, in some cases this might be a binary+ with objects orbiting the pair+ as well - at this scale satellite orbits are usually insignificant
- the planetary view - zooms in on a planet to show the orbital mechanics of its satellites

This can be accompanied by a Nav Panel type view to zoom to any particular object in the system and the most appropriate orrery view.
 
My two penneth worth is that whilst some form of representative orrery view, even in 2D (given systems mostly spin in a plane), would be nice, there are many items higher up my 'nice' list, such as changeable HUD colours.

And hula bobbleheads.....
 
My two penneth worth is that whilst some form of representative orrery view, even in 2D (given systems mostly spin in a plane), would be nice, there are many items higher up my 'nice' list, such as changeable HUD colours.

And hula bobbleheads.....

We can already change our HUD colours unnoficially.

It could still be on the cards, we don't know :) But it's not a priority.

We currently have the galmap, which is 3D, you 'fly' around it, it's distances are scaled accurately, and is capable of showing the most basic info on an unvisited system (main star class, and in realistic view, whether there are multiple stars).

We have a zoom function that allows you to zoom way out far beyond what is essential, because it's cool to be able to look at the whole galaxy sometimes, even though we would never need to be able to navigate to a star so far away, and to select a star that far away we have to zoom way back in anyway.

In the current system view for landable planets if you keep zooming in it switches to single body view, which again is 3D. The close end of the zoom here is a little more restrictive, it goes as close as is required & no more, it's functional but although it would be pretty cool to fly around the surface in the map, you can only get so close, and only view the body head on.

So what stands out as incongruous is that the system view, the middle bit, is a 2D hierarchical view rather than a realistically scaled 3D representation. But it's a practical way to organise all the known info about a system, we don't need more than it provides.

So what would be cool would be if we could, from the galmap, select a (visited) system, and continue to zoom in until the view we have shows orbits and scaled distances, then continue to zoom in again into single body view as we have now. The galmap can show trade routes between systems, the orrery view could similarly show those trade routes within the system from the entry point to a body or station, or possibly between bodies.

But is the rule of cool enough on it's own to justify adding to an already complete set of views (as far as practical use is concerned)? Maybe. I don't think so, but it's not up to me.

Souns like a good idea.
 
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