There are ways to reduce your time in the FSS. If you find a cluster of planets, you only need to resolve one in the FSS, then you can fly there and the other planets will automatically be detected and scanned as you get within range of them.
Also, your FSS is not a 2D map, but rather it's a 3D view of what is outside your ship (you are essentially panning a camera / telescope mounted to your hull). What this means is that whatever your ship is pointing at will be front-and-center when you toggle to the FSS, so if you see something while looking out your window that's obviously a planet or sun, point your ship at it and then activate the FSS, and you'll not need to "hunt" for the planet using the FSS, you'll just need to zoom in on it.
By mixing short amounts of time in the FSS with flying around (instead of trying to scan the entire system in one go), you'll find the "pill" easier to swallow.
Yes, thats exactly it. Generally i find that if there are gas giants, discover that and proximity discover the moons. This actually is a great experience and you have much in cockpit choice once you get there of what to explore next, as well as the proximity freebies if that is all you want. It also clears up the clutter in the spectrum analysis if you're progressing through a system.
For ice ball / single body systems, most of these can be completely done in the fss without hitting the pain threshold so i don't mind that. The only real reason to keep going in these systems is the credits.. first mapping one of the traditionally valuable bodies gets millions of credits per body and you dont need 100% system mapped.
While in the fss, you can actually add agency back by approaching it spectrum first.. seek out all the bodies of a particular kind rather than letting the blobs lead you. This grows into something acceptable too.
If you're a tagging explorer, resolving that is probably one of the highest.. in the bubble you are only mapping, but out of bubble, you just have to not care about the mapping tag apart from its utility (credits and poi). You can also see from within the fss if someone has come in before you so if you're tagging first and ocd its actually quite quick to decide to move onto the next one. Duck, hows that for synergistic cherry picking?
Im not a visual explorer, but over a ciggy came up with a solution for that too.. see anything with a close orbit is going to require an adaptive zoom before it resolves. If you keep in mind the context of the zoom, ie, discover your planet, but then pull back and look at the zoomed in orbital level, you can quite handily see if there are any other blobs there, discover those, and see if all the bodies in that zoom level meets your interest criteria. I have a feeling this would work really well in practice, as long as you have leads to the base requirement for your interesting. Reading the spectrum is quite easy, and you don't need all the bodies. You can tell if any body is ringed or not from the arrows.
Yeah solving tagging and adding my own agency to clearing out the bodies (ie, NOT using it with the intention of just 100% clearing, this will.. kill.. your.. exploration) was the main difference. Sadly to add the agency you need a whole bunch of options and battle plans to provide it before you start.. and of course this isn't anywhere written on the tin.
BONUS: Also, as soon as you drop, fire up the fss and honk from there. If rng has dropped you with the star occluding the orbital plain, you'll want to scoop and fly somewhat perpendicular to the plan to ensure you don't have to do it again. If you honk from the fss.. well that's the only way to get an idea what direction to scoop in. Its also fairly common to drop in with the star not blocking anything as well, so might as well.
BONUS2: Using the fss spectrum first is so much better than tuning for every blob. The arrows only appear for that type.. which i thought was... but if you go spectrum first, this enables panning to feel completely different and you do feel like you are seeking and finding. Also its handy to look at the body number once discovered the fss over.. it actually communicates a map of the system and leaving this info unread somehow makes the experience worse. Again, do not go from blob to blob and tune. There's something wrong with that.