Frontier you talked about the "traveler" style of exploration and misunderstood one key thing

[Spaceman Si]

Yes. It's going to be a skill based system. When you understand it enough - if you only want a snap shot, then you will be able to look at all those lines and squiggles and not have to fiddle with the dials.

Really?

So I can tell what colour and pattern a gas-giant clouds have, how many moons of what distance and colouration it has, whether a multiple star system has a family of planets orbiting a common barycente some distance from the stars, etc, all from the squiggly lines.....?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

To think about.. these are words from the explorer be like:

Going into system A

Using ADS

Fast look at the system map, nothing of interest. Credits for every stellar body is achieved. (oh yea sure, you are not for credits, you are explorer..)

Going into system B..

Again, again..

That kind of Explorer.

Much exploration.

Is that's it? "Explorer" ranting about ACTUAL EXPLORATION being added to the game first time in 4 years?

That's just silly.

New system:
honk FSS - get credits for all objects in the system
look at wave from
nothing of interest
move to next system

No actual exploration involved with the FSS.

What is added is faster credit earning as now if a player spots something valuable the player doesn't have to fly to that object to surface scan it.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

If you're looking for 'interesting' planetary configurations, there'll be absolutely no need to scan the entire system.

Just pan around the orbital plane and only stop to look at blobs that are close to each other.
Initially, that'll yield a lot of gas giants and moons but I think you'll pretty quickly be able to identify the ones that are somehow different.

How many systems have objects at a *vast* inclination to the plane of the ecliptic?

How many places have secondary star systems, let alone more?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

And.. if the interesting thing was the arrangement of bodies i.e. that a gas giant had a metallic body or similar then the new system has you covered, the signals will layer in such a way that a trained eye will be able to spot those "at a glance" as a "snap decision".

Don't think that's the case. From the signals you can only tell there's a metallic body in system, not where it's located. Only after you zoom in on the gas giant you will discover there's metallic bodies.

Since 99 out of a 100 gas giants have rocky or icy moons, you need to do a lot of work for that elusive hit.

 

[[SI] Bobdelion]

Ask them to re-enable polls, then.

1 <- my vote in favour of the new system.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Did you learn the times table by rote? That's memory. Memory might be considered a skill I suppose, but the way some folks on here refer to the minigame, it's as if we're all going to be Einsteins because we know to dial to Radio ELW or dial to Radio Gas Giant or Radio High Metal Content. That isn't the definition of skill I know about.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/skill

Skill: an ability to do an activity or job well, especially because you have practised it:

Ruth had/possessed great writing skills.

I have no skill at/in sewing.

More examples:
the skill of negotiating
His skill lies in his ability to communicate quite complex ideas very simply.
This job demands a high degree of skill.
He seems to lack basic conversational skills.
My job doesn't allow me to fully use my skills.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

How many systems have objects at a *vast* inclination to the plane of the ecliptic?

How many places have secondary star systems, let alone more?

Many and many - but neither of those things necessarily makes the objects in question 'interesting' in the sense that the OP and others seem to mean.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

The times they are a-changin' and some are bound to be left behind. I understand where you are coming from but there is simply no way for the old and new system to coexist, and frankly (so far) I prefer the new one.

Another tune is the one from the end credits of Kelly's Heroes: Burning Bridges Lost Forever More....

 

[Drazkul]

Yes I wonder about this "snap decision" too. I don't think it was ever that snappy to be honest.



Agreed. The initial all seeing honk was a vapid mechanic which had to go.

In a single star, star system you can pretty much tell before your FSD is charged whether there is any planets worth any value if your only hunting ELWs/WW's/AW's. Multiple star systems take about 3 seconds longer as you zoom out and move around the map

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I guess you will have to learn all the intricacies of the new Filtered Spectral Analysis.

I learned them forty years ago, looking at Russian radar emitters....

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Another tune is the one from the end credits of Kelly's Heroes: Burning Bridges Lost Forever More....

That tune got played out when ED launched with completely open travel and infinite range insta-scan discovery.

It's taken 4+ years to rebuild that bridge - find your nerve and cross it with me - I'll hold your hand if you like.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Ok, let's call it "knowledge" based then. Or "The ability to read a spectral analysis".

The ability to identify different visual patterns is required in the new and the old system.

The old system might be at the first glance easier as it isn't as abstract as the new system, but that's all. And I think anybody making comments on a forum or playing a computer game has the rather basic ability to differentiate between visual patterns.

 

[Muetdhiver]

I'm sure there will be duds (brown dwarfs with the usual 8-9 ice planets), but these maybe easy to spot. Difficult to tell to be honest. Even the current duds could end being spectacular with atmospherics and the ice world improvements that are coming in the future.

In the current system I get about 90% of duds* on "potentially interesting systems".

By that I mean that after the honk + look at the map for parameters of the bodies, 90% of the potenially nice ones end up being "duds" (aka underwhelming).
Often you have the right bodies but boring surface features. Or lightening that is bad, backdrop that is unimpressive and so on.

*Often they are still rather nice places, but not outstanding ones.

Outstanding places are the ones where I spend hours exploring on tiny moon or planet.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

In a single star, star system you can pretty much tell before your FSD is charged whether there is any planets worth any value if your only hunting ELWs/WW's/AW's. Multiple star systems take about 3 seconds longer as you zoom out and move around the map

And you should be able to do exactly that with the new system. You should be able with a bit of practive know if there are any WW or ELW in the system by looking at the wave forms after the initial honk. So in this respect it should be faster as you won't have to zoom out the map and look around in multiple star systems.

 

[Lightspeed]

Too many appear to be arguing a case based on the honk-n-jump system that we have had for far too long. It is too simplistic and reduces the challenge of discovery of planetary bodies to a quick glance at a screen. (Not for everyone, of course).

The simple method has lasted way too long, and OP and others will have to accept this. Exploration has been the simplest of the three main features (Combat and Trade being the other two) in which to become Elite because of this lack of development. It's dreadful that it took FD this long to address this issue, but exploration really has been the poor relation to combat as far as development was concerned.

Better late than never. A brave and necessary correction from FD [up]

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Here's the thing. There are billions of systems, you can't see them all, ever. If it takes you months to do something that you enjoy, why would you mind if it takes a bit longer, becomes more involving?

So now, you will see less, because of the extra time. You *will* get used to it. Maybe you will see more, because maybe there is more to see. Sometimes taking extra time to do something allows you to see more. Maybe the orrery will help to see things you'd have to look at numbers to try and visualise (like distance between planets and how close planets are in their orbit to other planets).

You'll learn to find the same if not more information in the new system, and maybe it'll take longer, but it doesn't matter. It's not a race. You will continue to enjoy your journeys. Don't worry.

You just explained my move to Colonia, and a much smaller sandbox.

The rest of the galaxy is yours....

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Really?

So I can tell what colour and pattern a gas-giant clouds have, how many moons of what distance and colouration it has, whether a multiple star system has a family of planets orbiting a common barycente some distance from the stars, etc, all from the squiggly lines.....?

Nope. You won't be able to tell those things. It's one of the things we are gonna lose. We all have different opinions on that, I'm sure. I'm totally the same type of explorer as the OP as evidenced by my videos from 2014 to the present day, so I will also find this a hard hitting change. That said, I'm totally ok with it, as I feel it will make the game better overall. Also, there's gonna be a lot of other things to discover that will make this change worthwhile. Just my opinion of course, but it's an opinion from someone who shares the same exploration style as Crusina.

 

[Ziljan]

It gave one the agency to come to a snap decision on whether one of those 400 billion star systems was worth time spending in, derp.

I would argue that A) the snap decision you're describing is still fundamentally possible with the signal spectrum, and B) players have more agency now simply because there are more decision branches with the new system then there were with the old simplistic one. The new system has three decision branches: 1) whether to scan, 2) whether to travel there 3) whether to land. In the previous simplistic mechanic, steps 1&2 are combined, resulting in fewer choices and hence less agency. Further more, the new system actually has meaningful consequences in its decision trees. Instead of making travel necessary to scan planet on a vague hunch based on an blurry image, the choice to travel there is now a consequence of solid and easily obtainable solid data. Likewise with the decision to scan or move on.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Too many appear to be arguing a case based on the honk-n-jump system that we have had for far too long. It is too simplistic and reduces the challenge of discovery of planetary bodies to a quick glance at a screen. (Not for everyone, of course).

Indeed. The old-system is terrible. But had upsides. It has to go.

I just hope it'll be more challenging than the SRV scanner which is 100% trivial after a little while.

 

[Maro-Val]

The longevity and success of the new mechanics of exploring a system upon arriving, depends entirely on the quality and quantity of new things/stuff/pois to discover.
Ofc we all got the hint that there are new and "exciting" things to discover (as always), but looking a bit back on the previously "exciting" things, i can pretty much predict that after a couple of months, the new system will become a new grind/time sink.
For me, i am 99% sure that even the best of the best exploration mechanics will fail to become adequate, without having a wealth of actual exploration content.