Exploration already takes a significant amount of time. People who are explorers in Elite measure time spend on their journeys in months or even years. Based on numbers FDEV released earlier, it'll take our community some 150 years til we've discovered 1% of the systems in the Elite Galaxy. I'd say it really isn't going too fast. Exploration doesn't need, deserve or benefit from a massive downgrade/nerf to it's overall speed.
I'd guess most people who've scanned few hundred (or thousand) systems can agree majority of the systems aren't extremely interesting. - This regardless of how you define "interesting." Whatever an explorer is after, it is likely most of the systems don't have it for him to find. This isn't meant as some complaint or such in itself; that's just the way space is. Because of this, it has been so very important and nice to be able to get a pretty good general idea of the system very quickly at a glance. Currently, gameplay starts happening once we know if a system is interesting or not.
"Does this system look fun?" "Is this system worth of my time?" "Am I going to spend time taking a closer look at things over here?" It is very good and important that an explorer has the freedom to ask these questions from himself. If you downgrade ADS and basically remove honking from game, freedom to answer such questions, to make such decisions is removed. With the downgraded ADS and it's minigame, explorer either WILL spend his time in every single system he jumps into -or-he doesn't explore at all. This set of choices is quite a bit bleaker than what we currently have. I'd imagine the overall experience with this new downgraded ADS can be pretty soul crushing for many explorers; Most systems aren't extremely exciting for most people. Timesinks and deeper gameplay should NOT happen when determining whether a system is exciting or interesting at all or not. Timesinks and deeper gameplay should happen once player -has- determined system -is- fun and interesting for him and decides to take a closer look. At this stage, stuff like mapping planet surfaces sounds great.
"I wonder if this system I just jumped in is interesting?" < - - -Getting any kind of a preliminary answer to this question currently lasts at least 6-20 seconds.(Honk, open minimap, take a glance.) If time needed to find out whether system is interesting at all or not bloats into 3 minutes/system...It sounds soul crushing to me. If we assume it'll take 3 mins/system, 10 jumps is 30 mins spend playing a minigame. 100 jumps would have you spending 5 hours playing a minigame alone!
FDEV, when clocking time consumed in your new radio minigame, please consider the amount of repetition involved. Step formely lasting six seconds taking 10 times as long is pretty bad news if you have to take this step thousands of times. Single step starting to take 10 times longer than it did isn't a big deal if you planned to walk two steps. If you plan for a 20 km journey...it is really bad news though.
So far, we've gotten 0.030% of the Galaxy explored. We aren't exactly a swarm of locust eating through the content at alarming rate. At this rate, lifetime isn't enough to explore 1% of the galaxy. It isn't going too fast exactly. Already explorers measure time their trips take in months or years rather than weeks. Why slow it down even further?
Suggestion: Leave current ADS as it is. Don't fix what isn't broken. Introduce a situation where cmdr must choose; either he rolls with the current ADS -or-he installs the new ADS and scans systems so much slower BUT has the ability to map the planet surfaces with em drones. Due to space scifi reasons, both can't be installed at once. This would also encourage explorers to form nice 2+ man wings so both scanners are brought in each time for optimal results.
Current ADS is great as it is.
Please don't ruin exploration.
I'd guess most people who've scanned few hundred (or thousand) systems can agree majority of the systems aren't extremely interesting. - This regardless of how you define "interesting." Whatever an explorer is after, it is likely most of the systems don't have it for him to find. This isn't meant as some complaint or such in itself; that's just the way space is. Because of this, it has been so very important and nice to be able to get a pretty good general idea of the system very quickly at a glance. Currently, gameplay starts happening once we know if a system is interesting or not.
"Does this system look fun?" "Is this system worth of my time?" "Am I going to spend time taking a closer look at things over here?" It is very good and important that an explorer has the freedom to ask these questions from himself. If you downgrade ADS and basically remove honking from game, freedom to answer such questions, to make such decisions is removed. With the downgraded ADS and it's minigame, explorer either WILL spend his time in every single system he jumps into -or-he doesn't explore at all. This set of choices is quite a bit bleaker than what we currently have. I'd imagine the overall experience with this new downgraded ADS can be pretty soul crushing for many explorers; Most systems aren't extremely exciting for most people. Timesinks and deeper gameplay should NOT happen when determining whether a system is exciting or interesting at all or not. Timesinks and deeper gameplay should happen once player -has- determined system -is- fun and interesting for him and decides to take a closer look. At this stage, stuff like mapping planet surfaces sounds great.
"I wonder if this system I just jumped in is interesting?" < - - -Getting any kind of a preliminary answer to this question currently lasts at least 6-20 seconds.(Honk, open minimap, take a glance.) If time needed to find out whether system is interesting at all or not bloats into 3 minutes/system...It sounds soul crushing to me. If we assume it'll take 3 mins/system, 10 jumps is 30 mins spend playing a minigame. 100 jumps would have you spending 5 hours playing a minigame alone!
FDEV, when clocking time consumed in your new radio minigame, please consider the amount of repetition involved. Step formely lasting six seconds taking 10 times as long is pretty bad news if you have to take this step thousands of times. Single step starting to take 10 times longer than it did isn't a big deal if you planned to walk two steps. If you plan for a 20 km journey...it is really bad news though.
So far, we've gotten 0.030% of the Galaxy explored. We aren't exactly a swarm of locust eating through the content at alarming rate. At this rate, lifetime isn't enough to explore 1% of the galaxy. It isn't going too fast exactly. Already explorers measure time their trips take in months or years rather than weeks. Why slow it down even further?
Suggestion: Leave current ADS as it is. Don't fix what isn't broken. Introduce a situation where cmdr must choose; either he rolls with the current ADS -or-he installs the new ADS and scans systems so much slower BUT has the ability to map the planet surfaces with em drones. Due to space scifi reasons, both can't be installed at once. This would also encourage explorers to form nice 2+ man wings so both scanners are brought in each time for optimal results.
Current ADS is great as it is.
Please don't ruin exploration.
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