First off, it looks like a bit of clarification might be needed about what I meant with this part:
"Now, don't get me wrong,
exploration before didn't require much in the way of skills either, and was rather tedious too: the crucial difference is that
it didn't require my attention much, and since even if I found nothing interesting, I always progressed towards my goals at a decent pace, it didn't make me feel like I was wasting my time."
That should have been "the crucial difference is that
while still tedious, it didn't require my attention much." (I'll edit this in, but didn't want to make a stealth edit.) Put another way: it was still pretty bad, but at least it wasn't as annoying. I do enjoy it if an activity captures my attention naturally, like core mining does - but the FSS doesn't. It
forces more of my attention, on a tedious task. I don't really want to pay attention to point-and-clicking just to discover the information we used to have before.
If you enjoy the mini-game, that's good for you. Personally, I don't. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks - there isn't much to discuss on that.
So, moving on...
A bit more about the biological POIs. Having read the thread about the (lack of) new content, I decided to fire up my alt account that's still out there, check the region I was in, and see what organics have been discovered there. Turns out there are anemones around class B stars. So, time to target one! The very first such system that I checked had them already. So I guess I was either very lucky on this, or Frontier decided to "game" the system a bit, and seeded stuff to very specific places. Which also would explain just why we haven't been finding more Guardian and Thargoid stuff: they have their - rather tiny - defined areas, and we have no more clues about where more such areas might be. If there even are any. But if I wanted to look for biological POIs, I could follow in the footsteps of those who have found some already.
However, having seen the anemones up close... They are pretty, and the glow can be nice, but well, that was it. Seen them once, seen them all. They could make for some good
background scenery to spice up some nice views - but said nice views are procedurally generated. The galaxy is the meat, the POIs can be a bit of spice on top of that.
Another interesting piece of news. Using methodical scanning, someone has found a new Thargoid surface base that was unknown so far... in the Pleiades. So technically, you
can find new alien stuff out there, so long as they are in the already well-defined areas. I guess new ones simply aren't ready yet. (No rumours, after all.) Same goes for Guardian stuff, I imagine. It's still odd that none of the far-flung Guardian mini-bubbles have structures nor beacons. As for human POIs? Near the two bubbles.
In any case then, there's a lack of new content. The FSS interface is noticeably rushed, and of poor quality:
Jimbeau made some excellent points there, and well, I could go on about the errors it has, but I'd rather not have to pop a handful of chill pills
However, by and large, Frontier's interface guys do some pretty good work over time. (I mean, compare the interfaces we have now to what we used to have around the beginnings of the game. Or well, this isn't to knock on the latest game in the X series, but what struck me first there was "wow, I've gotten used to Elite having much better interfaces".) That's time that they didn't seem to have now. Mengy summed this up nicely. I believe that most of the work had gone into the backends for the Codex, then the DSS because that one's concept was easier to do, and the FSS was rushed together because they had to make a Q4 deadline. I suppose that delaying the entire exploration update wasn't an option.
Honestly, given the quality, and the lack of content so far, the new exploration tools feel like an Early Access version to me. In a released game. Sure, there are plenty of people who love to play EA stuff and are willing to put up with any and all flaws - that's just another matter of personal opinion, really. It was a bold move by Frontier, I'll give them that: the question is, how long will they stay in Early Access? (Or, to put it another way: when's the next major exploration update?) Perhaps it's also Early Access because we still can't land on many planets and look for stuff there.
One more point I wanted to make, prompted by
Matt's "[...] I've had more fun in Excel trying to work out the new payouts for exploring than I have done actually exploring." There is one rather big benefit to me to people using the FSS to scan complete systems, and also it auto-scanning all stars in a system: far more crowdsourced data on bodies. I've had fun analysing what we had in the past already, and found out some stuff that I hope was useful to others as well. Even if I don't enjoy looking for stuff now, I'll still enjoy having much more data to work with. There are some questions I'll certainly revisit, like how it seemed that ELWs are more frequent outside the core, but ringed ELWs are better inside it, or ammonia worlds, and so on. Although it's more likely that instead of these, I'll be able to look at system make-ups instead. For example, I have been annoyed at peoples' tendencies to not even scan the main star in a system where they stopped to scan something, let alone other stars: no chance of this happening anymore.
Or, to sum it up another way: while the exploration game worsened for me, the meta-game has improved.
Oh, and one last bit, from
AndrewCrisp's post: "[...] unless they're rich enough to afford a second account for their non-exploration wants." and "Again, some people deal with this by having more than one account; but I gather that the cost is almost the same as buying the game itself, and not all of us can afford to drop that kind of money more than once."
The game and Horizons go on sale fairly often, and on rather good ones too. It's even on a -75% sale right now, with both the game and Horizons costing five British pounds each. You can also get the Deluxe edition that comes with both plus a handful of paintjobs for ten. Of course, the matter of
time investment still remains the same: however, if you want a decent ship kitted out for exploration, you can get that done quickly now. Some time ago, it took me five (or six?) hours to go from the starter Sidewinder to a DBX all kitted out and engineered to the maximum of what Ms. Farseer offers. Meanwhile, kitting out for combat, trading, mining etc does take longer.
So yeah, money-wise it costs the same as buying the game, and when the next expansion comes, you'll have to buy it as well (if it's good, that is!): but for secondary accounts, one can be patient and eventually get it on sale for much less than it would normally cost at release.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
