To others the current honk jump mechanic is a waste of time and frustrating.
Proposal: alternative to outright removal of ADS instascan & system map minigame for explorers
- Thread starter StuartGT
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To others the current honk jump mechanic is a waste of time and frustrating.
I'll play.
Enterprise enters a new system.
Capt. Picard: "Ensign, full stop, don't want to crash into anything".
Helmsman cheerfully taps console.
Picard: "Quick, target the big, bright, hot, unidentifiable thing, let's find out what it is!"
Lt Cmdr Data: "Captain, it is most probably a star."
Picard: "Again Mr. Data? We don't know that it's a star, it could be a life form, which is why we're here exploring, so please keep your assumptions to yourself."
Data pings the unknown big, bright, hot thing.
Data: "Captain, instruments report that the object is in indeed a star."
Picard: "Very good Mr. Data, now we're getting somewhere."
Agreed. Would prefer more things to do, more ways to do things, and more things to be done, instead of stepping on toes in new ways to the same old song.
[video=youtube_share;AKKqLl_ZEEY]https://youtu.be/AKKqLl_ZEEY[/video]
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I'm mostly done responding to these exploration threads until we at least see some video of the new system in action. But, as an actual trained astronomer, this made me smile.
Yes, of course anything with remotely the capabilities of our beloved ADS is powered by high-grade space magic handwavium. Not because there's any specific property that is implausible to observe via remote sensing, although several of the things the scanners tell us would legitimately be pretty hard to get with today's technology. But the idea that almost any of these things could be measured instantly -- for values of "instant" that include anything less than several hours -- is fantasy. The astronomically reasonable version of this game would look something like "Fly a quick loop around the star with the telescope ports open, and the nav computer will point out the distance and direction to any detectable bodies. Detectability depends on distance, size, and temperature, and the longer you fly your loop the fainter your detection limits. From Sol you'll locate stuff like Jupiter or Venus almost immediately, distant gas giants and large asteroids in a few minutes, Pluto or Sedna or small moons in maybe a few hours because we're being generous and this is future-tech. No information about bodies beyond approximate size and maybe color."
Precisely this^^^
Also an astronomer by degree, and yes you're absolutely right, being able to detect things like orbital paths or mass on short time scales (using modern tech, ie no pocket sized graviton detectors) is complete fantasy. And while I agree the game is based on several sci-fi mechanics, it's also fair to say that the new system at least attempts to come closer to the actual process of measurement than the old magical one. For one thing, it requires a non-zero amount of time to detect gravitational bodies and more time still to scan their physical properties, and perhaps more importantly it takes into account properties that are at least reminiscent of black body peak wavelength. It does it in a way that increases gameplay and reduces wasted time spent vegetating.
Tbh, I am mostly just thrilled that they included a telescope-like interface that filters for energy, zooms, and somehow focuses for distance (ok this part is a bit magical given the small angle trig involved, but I'm choosing to overlook it!
)The honk takes several seconds, though admittedly not arbitrated by your movement in a system. For me at least though, I'm rounding a star fuel scooping or if it isn't scoop-able moving on out away from it at full throttle. How far do I travel in several seconds? Yes, regarding gameplay, perhaps these sort of specifics are more of a moot point. It's a concession we all make. We're flying WWI fighters or dirigibles in space, after all.
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But I don't wanna be Spock!
I wanna be Indiana Jones flying the Millennium Falcon.
Kirk had all the fun. Spock was just a walking database.
I am not assuming that we need to fly at all. I am allowing for the game-ified sci-fi mechanic that our sensors can detect doppler shifts of spectra with enough accuracy and backed by 3304 quantum computers to get an extremely fast n-body calculation of relative motion that leads to (in the aggregate) a map of orbital paths and hence masses. However, this information wouldn't be available until you actively scan objects because it requires a rather deep analysis of the spectra coming from each of the bodies. Whereas the current ADS apparently does all of this spectral, gravity, and orbital analysis before it even knows anything about the spectra of any of the bodies in question??? That's the astronomy equivalent of wearing your underwear outside of your pants (or in the UK, wearing your pants outside of your trousers) while running backwards.
Precisely this^^^
Also an astronomer by degree, and yes you're absolutely right, being able to detect things like orbital paths or mass on short time scales (using modern tech, ie no pocket sized graviton detectors) is complete fantasy. And while I agree the game is based on several sci-fi mechanics, it's also fair to say that the new system at least attempts to come closer to the actual process of measurement than the old magical one. For one thing, it requires a non-zero amount of time to detect gravitational bodies and more time still to scan their physical properties, and perhaps more importantly it takes into account properties that are at least reminiscent of black body peak wavelength. It does it in a way that increases gameplay and reduces wasted time spent vegetating.
Tbh, I am mostly just thrilled that they included a telescope-like interface that filters for energy, zooms, and somehow focuses for distance (ok this part is a bit magical given the small angle trig involved, but I'm choosing to overlook it!
See, this is why I would be OK with a science module. One into which you can feed your honk data, which can then eventually spit out a *crude* System Map. The more files you feed it, the longer the process will take to complete. However, the larger/closer the stellae body was to the scanner, the quicker you will get the info on those bodies, & the more likely you are to get a more precise determination of what the planet is.. This process would then generate the kind of system map we see in the OP. Not surprisingly, data obtained via this method would have less monetary & experience value than the use of the main FSS mechanic.
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Disagree for reasons I've already brought up in the thread. It's more believable than WWI fighters in space to me, leastwise as I have a bit more experience than most piloting some craft. Don't get me wrong; I agree that two wrongs don't make a right, as they say, but it still needs to be taken in context, given what we have, in my opinion.
Disclaimer: I love flying me some WWI fighters. The S.E.5A isn't necessarily the most capable, but it's one of my favorites. Thing is fairly solid and you can throw that tail around like nobody's business if you know what you're doing and it will hold the line when you ask it to.
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You know what would make me sit back and just laugh my butt off - if this happen:
When it turns out that mapping some airless rocky planet that everyone else overlooked because it isn't a high paying ELW reveals a bunch of POI that in the end pay more than discovering an ELW or WW. Suddenly everyone will be out carefully checking every floating bit of rock and jumping on the forums to brag about it.
When it turns out that mapping some airless rocky planet that everyone else overlooked because it isn't a high paying ELW reveals a bunch of POI that in the end pay more than discovering an ELW or WW. Suddenly everyone will be out carefully checking every floating bit of rock and jumping on the forums to brag about it.
That's partly why I mentioned the time it takes. Presumably this could be done over distance and is done over time, but presumably for the sake of "gameplay" that isn't a requirement.
Yeah, a fair amount might well be. That isn't how I get my kicks nor how I play the game though.
Sure but just look at some of the comments that are floating about where someone will say they aren't interested in credits but interesting things like ELW and WW (which coincidently pay the highest lol).
Actually it will be quite interesting to see how FD set the payments for mapping a planet. Since we can map all bodies in a system with the exception of a star, will mapping a non-landable ELW planet pay more than mapping an landable airless rocky body that is found to have numerous POI on it that we can visit right now? It will be interesting to see which way FD go on this.
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To be fair, it might just as well have to do with their relative rarity as their credit value. My cherry-pinking rangers are set a bit wider at interesting systems configurations themselves, however.
How well does flight assistance off work for you in supercruise? You want to talk about magnetically suspending rotating counterweights in a vacuum for normal space? Flight assistance off... come one now. Let's try and be reasonable here. It is a game after all; I admit it.
Interestingly, the planets I am most interested in are the ones I can land on......& I can totally wait a few extra minutes to find them......if the process involved in finding them is more engaging than honk, super-cruise, wait passively for scanner to automatically kick in.
Which is why I think the landable planets with various POI will be the ones rewarded the best for mapping. Simple because it will encourage players to actively explore what they discover via the probes.
Speaking of the probes, anyone else see a slight flaw in FD's concept? They have already stated that you can use the probes on any planets, doesn't matter if you can land on it or not, that would include not just ELW but populated ELWs right! So FD think it is good gameplay to allow us to shoot probes into heavily populated areas, probes that only work by impacting the surface. Can I foresee a new C&P crime added?
Is Frontier serous? I actually think it kind of works in a way. We just have to not take ourselves too seriously sometimes.
I get where you're coming from, but you can see how the analogy can be seen as kind of insulting to fans of this genre. Is it realistic? Not really, but it does tip its cap towards realism. Star Wars comes up with all kinds of SF explanations for their tech, rather than say it's Fantasy... IN SPAAAACE, because it adds to the verisimilitude.
So, supercruise, well, there's no reason for it to obey normal physics because we don't even know how it works - it's far easier to forgive the physics of Supercruise than the imposed speed cap in normal space, in my opinion. Just reverse the poliarity of the neutron flow!
(yes, I know that makes no sense, but at least half of you know WHO I'm referencing
)