News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal

[Wyaston Hypatia]

Just finished watching the live stream. Thanks that's made some things clearer to me.

I think I'm going to like the whole analysis interface thing, it will add some much needed complexity to the whole exploration and discovery processes. As a follow up to this please don't dial back this complexity, let it run through the beta before you contemplate any simplifications, if at all.

 

[Siobhan]

I don't get it, FD offer us what is potentially many hours of extra gameplay, and the response is salt?

 

[Sierra_Hotel]

So, can we instead of removing completely the ADS honking, make it give us AT LEAST number of bodies and position? Remember this old bug with planets without textures on the system map? Showing just a black texture, not even the tooltip with all that info, just "SystemName - Planet", if you want to know the planet type, even the hologram on the dashboard, go scan it manually, but AT LEAST number of bodies and position so we can go to "Coolsystem Planet 5 Moon B" without needing to scan for 120 bodies in the system just to find a small moon.

Yup, something like that would be a great compromise. Orvidius (or maybe it was Mengy) also suggested at least an accurate representation of the size of the planet as well along with number of lunar bodies.

 

[CylonSurfer]

Not for space legs then I take it?

On the contrary, I'd love to walk around my cockpit more than I can now, hell i'd love to be able to walk to my SRV or fighter hanger. I wouldn't like for the game to fade to black then back to a new 'telepoop' camera with my commander in front of me in third person anti-glory bio turd with some lame ui imposed over it....

Back on topic. These tools, as many others should be available and viewable from within the cockpit on holo display panels. Tools should feel like tools not transitions to completely separate elements of the game, the cockpit should be what ties EVERYTHING together, not just a increasingly smaller facet of the overall game.

If FDEV insist on cheap implementations they should, at the very least, improve - BY A LARGE MARGIN - the transition from cockpit to them. Fading to and from black is poor beyond poor. Lets see the transition from cockpit to telepresence camera your FOV transitioning from one to the other much like how a holopanel opens or even just your helmet activating and then fading to another camera....

 

[Sierra_Hotel]

I don't get it, FD offer us what is potentially many hours of extra gameplay, and the response is salt?

Right?

 

[Dooguk]

Just want to bump this because I think this is the glaring downside to the new changes (which otherwise seem really great). As someone who spends most of their time exploring, I'm usually not jumping system to system just to find earthlikes and water worlds. When I pull up the system map, I'm looking for tiny planets, binary planets with close orbits, moons orbiting very close to gas giants, stuff like that. Seeing interesting configurations is what makes me want to stay in a system and poke around, not the fact that there is an eartlike world somewhere. If I'm focused in on a gas giant, at the very least I would like to get some information about its moons. I'm just worried that it will be extremely difficult to distinguish between the potential dozens of rocky/icy worlds that exist in a system when they are just lumped together in a section of the energy spectrum.

A potential compromise incorporating the new system: We're looking around in the new signal scanning view or whatever and we locate a gas giant. When we focus in on it (tag it), give us some basic info about its moons. How many, orbit distance...stuff that a regular old ads honk would currently give us.

If you look at the second picture in the OP, in the top right corner it appears to show two moons orbiting the gas giant. The graphic element is a bit small though so I could be wrong.

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

I'm really liking the sound of the updates... I also have one other probe suggestion for gameplay to find interesting systems to investigate (as well as the upcoming changes for finding interesting things within a system)...
ability to drop probes in three systems roughly equidistant for "quantum entangled triangulation" enhanced method of finding interesting systems to visit within that triangulation area, e.g. The deployer of probes can be alerted via messages of systems with high likelihood of valuable/interesting items (e.g. points of interest, alien artefacts, earthlike planets, mining opportunities etc., for systems inside the triangulation range). Probes would need to last a good few hours to enable placement and scanning before expiring. Probes are also high value, can be found in systems, scanned/hacked/deactivated and then stolen by Pirates.
This would all add to gameplay for exploration as well tying in with mining and pirating.
Finally, one more suggestion - like all explorers we all like getting our names attributed to things, sometimes I would like to drop a personalised beacon in a system for fellow travellers, or plant a flag on an interesting mountain, etc.

 

[Moonlord]

Does nearby star affect on visibility and usage of DSS? Blocking probe's route?

Does honking say how many bodies there are in the system like it used to, without using DSS or placing them in map?

Is there any chance that hyperspace jump time gets shorter? It would be nice if game could download next system's info beforehand, while you're cruising around, before starting jump. It could start downloading next system info right away when you jump into system or change your route. Assuming that jump takes 20 seconds, then I have already spent 223 hours of my life looking at hyperspace tunnel. It's beautiful but enough is enough

ps. Make black holes dangerous. At the moment neutron stars and white dwarves are dangerous. King of the gravity should get raise in danger status as well.

ps2. Add more map bookmarks. I ran out of them long time ago. ELW's that I have discovered take 2/3 of the available 128 bookmarks and rest are taken by some other rare finds.

ps3. It would be nice to see planets that you have visited before on galaxy map. Make filter for it please.

 

[Dooguk]

Does nearby star affect on visibility and usage of DSS? Blocking probe's route?

Does honking say how many bodies there are in the system like it used to, without using DSS or placing them in map?

Is there any chance that hyperspace jump time gets shorter? It would be nice if game could download next system's info beforehand, while you're cruising around, before starting jump. It could start downloading next system info right away when you jump into system or change your route. Assuming that jump takes 20 seconds, then I have already spent 223 hours of my life looking at hyperspace tunnel. It's beautiful but enough is enough

ps. Make black holes dangerous. At the moment neutron stars and white dwarves are dangerous. King of the gravity should get raise in danger status as well.

ps2. Add more map bookmarks. I ran out of them long time ago. ELW's that I have discovered take 2/3 of the available 128 bookmarks and rest are taken by some other rare finds.

ps3. It would be nice to see planets that you have visited before on galaxy map. Make filter for it please.

2 and 3 maybe replaced with the Codex. We shall have to wait and see.

 

[Flyinspaghetti]

**********************
** SUGGESTION **
**********************

I think we should be able to bring along extra probes in our cargo bays. For example, a one ton canister holds 100 probes (you pick the number). We could buy these the way we buy limpets. This wouldn't replace synthesis, but many ships have some extra cargo space, and it just makes common sense. I also can't image it being terribly hard to program into the game, though there should be some manual process to "reload" the probes - some menu to click on.

Off-topic but related - I first thought of this idea regarding ammunition for weapons, but never got around to suggesting it.

I think the idea of incorporating a small mining laser might be reasonable, a lot of people do this already and it's only a small addition to mass.

Secondly probes appear to be for only the optional "first mapped", for current first discoveries you don't need them however question is will we still get the same payment for first discoveries or will the entire system be nerfed to accommodate the new mapping system?

 

[Sacman]

This would be a great idea for expeditions and the like, along with being able to share surface locations to meet up at and similar.

I plan on taking a Vulture on DW2 and don't want to have to spend all of my time just jump-honking in order to keep up without having the time to check out some cool looking systems along the way.

Exactly what i also thought!

 

[Garand1987]

Does nearby star affect on visibility and usage of DSS? Blocking probe's route?

Does honking say how many bodies there are in the system like it used to, without using DSS or placing them in map?

Is there any chance that hyperspace jump time gets shorter? It would be nice if game could download next system's info beforehand, while you're cruising around, before starting jump. It could start downloading next system info right away when you jump into system or change your route. Assuming that jump takes 20 seconds, then I have already spent 223 hours of my life looking at hyperspace tunnel. It's beautiful but enough is enough

ps. Make black holes dangerous. At the moment neutron stars and white dwarves are dangerous. King of the gravity should get raise in danger status as well.

ps2. Add more map bookmarks. I ran out of them long time ago. ELW's that I have discovered take 2/3 of the available 128 bookmarks and rest are taken by some other rare finds.

ps3. It would be nice to see planets that you have visited before on galaxy map. Make filter for it please.

Getting a little too curious and undergoing spaghettigification could be interesting. They’d have to make a choice on some things like, is there a surface? Is there a fire wall? Do we get spit out somewhere else? Additng white holes to the galaxy could be cool as well. And maybe super rare (and albeit theroretical stars atm) strange stars and quark stars would be neat.

 

[Qohen Leth]

Detail out of the blue:

Looks like the new scanner will be called Frequency Signal Scanner or something. Says FSS on the screeshots.

That's awkwardly close to F-F-S innit.

 

[CMDR Vanilla Eyes]

So, can we instead of removing completely the ADS honking, make it give us AT LEAST number of bodies and position? Remember this old bug with planets without textures on the system map? Showing just a black texture, not even the tooltip with all that info, just "SystemName - Planet", if you want to know the planet type, even the hologram on the dashboard, go scan it manually, but AT LEAST number of bodies and position so we can go to "Coolsystem Planet 5 Moon B" without needing to scan for 120 bodies in the system just to find a small moon.

I agree that the above would be a good compromise. It's important to know the hierarchy of bodies (how many moons does this ringed gas giant have?), in order to get me interested in a system in the first place.

I really love all the complexity added to exploration, by the changes presented by Fdev. But I also love my post-honk system map experience, when exploring. So I hope, Fdev, that you can deliver on compromising this balance of old and new, into a wonderful exploration experience, that doesn't get tedious over time. And is an electromagnetic wave form as aesthetically pleasing, as quickly eyeing the current system map? IOW, please make sure you retain the wonderful experience from currently opening a newly honked-up system map (including sound clues!), in whatever form you implement the new changes.

Another suggestion:
I would suggest levels of need/interest for further investigating a system. If a system (with all or some of its bodies) have already been discovered and mapped by another player, let a honk reveal the basic info on these bodies (after honking it yourself). If some, or all, of the bodies in a system have never been discovered by anyone... let it be necessary to enter the new interface in order to start mapping bodies (for discovery tag), and then planetary probe mapping (for mapping tags).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Oh, for Sandro's sake, don't link those!

 

[Highlander71]

I agree with this*) view. The new interface looks cool, but I'm afraid it will slow exploration down quite a bit. Currently the Advanced Discovery Scanner (ADS) allows me to quickly pick the bodies I wish to explore using the sound they produce on the system map when zoomed in. Most often there aren't any interesting enough to explore and I can move on.

Additionally, when on missions having the ADS allows me to quickly locate mission objectives. This new system sounds like I have to investigate each planet in a system in order to locate my mission objective. Please consider mission objectives in your new interface.

*) by "this view" I mean the post that I was replying to which I can't find now. It basically posted the same thing I wrote here.

 

[Kaltern]

Quick question, will the initial system scan reveal ... unusual electromagnetic radio sources of an ... alien type? So not pinpointing 'There's a Thargoid base at this exact location', but more like a background emission that would suggest 'something' is in this system, but it's entirely up to the pilot to find it?

 

[MacAllister]

"When you activate the discovery scanner you will now be taken to an all-new scanning interface and view."
Is switching to this view by automatic or something we have to select like the system map?
Can we ignore it and continue jumping and still get paid for this information?


"The system scan now returns an aggregated display of how energetic the electromagnetic emissions are in the system. Signals are sorted on a low to high scale by their apparent energy. For example, .... "
Can you please give us more examples.
IE.. Would Guardian Sites for instance peak this meter?
What about heavy ship traffic or settlement emissions?
I'm sure anyone using an active FSD to supercruise would blow the top off a gavitional meter.

 

[Azirphaeli]

@FDEV boiz, this update looks great but it's missing one thing.

I would give real $$$, cold hard cash, to be able to select a star to jump through via pointing at a star in my ship and selecting it instead of jumping into the gal map.

 

[Kaltern]

I agree with this view. The new interface looks cool, but I'm afraid it will slow exploration down quite a bit. Currently the Advanced Discovery Scanner (ADS) allows me to quickly pick the bodies I wish to explore using the sound they produce on the system map when zoomed in. Most often there aren't any interesting enough to explore and I can move on.

Additionally, when on missions having the ADS allows me to quickly locate mission objectives. This new system sounds like I have to investigate each planet in a system in order to locate my mission objective. Please consider mission objectives in your new interface.

Pretty certain mission objective USS's will always show up, and anything planet based will be in a system with a Nav beacon, negating the need to scan the system at all. It's highly unlikely that any current mission will require you to visit a system with no nav beacon that involves planet scanning.