Cherry-picking, illustrated

[marx]

I've been looking into regional differences while I'm going 'round the galaxy, revisiting some of my old finds, and I noticed something. The distribution of many POIs necessitates heavy cherry-picking, heavier than ever before, and in my opinion that's why the FSS has been designed to make that much easier. (And it's a turret because it had to be made for multicrew too.) Let me illustrate with two pictures.

Suppose you're looking for amphora plants. According to the Codex, they need the following:
1. The system must contain an A star
2. The system must contain any of the following: ELW, Gas Giant with Water-based Life, Water Giant
3. The planet must be Metal Rich

With those in mind, here's the system map we would have seen pre-3.3:

How soon can you tell if that system is a candidate or not?

Now, compare with the FSS graph:


As you can see, it's much easier to tell without any doubt - can even be done at a glance - whether the system would contain suitable candidate planets or not.

Problem is, until there's more gameplay involved with finding such stuff, there isn't going to be more than a few people looking for them. Personally, I was bored of these plants by the second time I've found them. The only biologicals that are at least slightly interesting are Thargoid barnacles - too bad they are confined to a few close-by nebulae. I think I can see now why Frontier decided to make getting credits and tags much easier.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

That's why there are now 42 regions. You're not supposed to get bored until you've checked off all the items in the I-Spy book of Anomalies in ALL the regions. That's 'engaging gameplay' right there

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If you REALLY want it broken down...

I'll tell you you can start making these determinations BEFORE you even jump into a system, under either method.

Whhaaa?

That's right, BEFORE you even jump into a system.

Haven't even jumped into the system, and already I can eliminate this one.
Class K star.

But let's look at your images... we would have already seen the Class A star before we even jumped in, so now let's look at:

Circled are worlds that could very well be Metal Rich or Earth-like, based solely on their appearance. If the image wasn't so small, it would be much easier to tell.
1 and 2 are both likely candidates to be Gas Giants with Water Based Life, or potentially, though far less likely, a Water Giant.

X we know are asteroids, so that's out. The circled area is the range of Earth-like, so none of those.
The square, that's metal-rich. Still have to locate it, scan it, and fly to it, then probe it to see if it contains those plants though.

And, of course, let's not forget about Planet Sounds. In both systems hovering over a planet produces some tell-tell sounds that, once you know them, will tell you what sort of planet you're looking at, without gathering any additional data.

In the end, either system is equally suited and equally fast at everything EXCEPT...

The new method of planet mapping/probing will reveal where, on a planet, a particular type of POI is found, be it geological or biological.

Sure, someone might have enjoyed flying inverted, at low res, over a planet for hours upon hours, squinting to spot what might be something, or might just be a rock formation.

The rest of us have been clamoring for years for a more logical, more sci-fi means of pinpointing something, anything, on a planet.

 

[marx]

Circled are worlds that could very well be Metal Rich or Earth-like, based solely on their appearance. If the image wasn't so small, it would be much easier to tell.

I find it ironic that you assume I don't know about star class filtering and then try to lecture me on things, when you apparently can't tell an ELW apart from an MR or a HMCP. Then there are all the other mistakes in your post.

You appear to be missing the whole point though. It's to illustrate that with the FSS, "it's much easier to tell without any doubt - can even be done at a glance - whether the system would contain suitable candidate planets or not." Nobody even mentioned the DSS, it's irrelevant to this.

As evidenced by the new content, cherry-picking is the way forward, and since it has to be system-wide now, I wanted to illustrate why the new system is easier for it than the "ADS god-honk" would have been. You can no longer tell at a glance and without any doubt if a system has rare edge cases of the Forge, but you can tell without any doubt and at a glance now if a system contains any combination of planet types. Frontier want the content found.

If you can't tell from the graph that the system contains the necessary planets, you might want to refer to the diagrams and the overlays I just linked. EDJPO is a good way of easily setting up an in-game overlay, even.

Also, do you think cherry-picking is a negative term? This wasn't an attack on the new system or anything, but if you think it is, then I think I can better see why you'd think so.
Although I do still say a negative thing about it all, namely that the actual hand-crafted content that's meant to be found is boring and quite basic.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

I find it ironic that you assume I don't know about star class filtering and then try to lecture me on things, when you apparently can't tell an ELW apart from an MR or a HMCP. Then there are all the other mistakes in your post.

You appear to be missing the whole point though. It's to illustrate that with the FSS, "it's much easier to tell without any doubt - can even be done at a glance - whether the system would contain suitable candidate planets or not." Nobody even mentioned the DSS, it's irrelevant to this.

As evidenced by the new content, cherry-picking is the way forward, and since it has to be system-wide now, I wanted to illustrate why the new system is easier for it than the "ADS god-honk" would have been. You can no longer tell at a glance and without any doubt if a system has rare edge cases of the Forge, but you can tell without any doubt and at a glance now if a system contains any combination of planet types. Frontier want the content found.

If you can't tell from the graph that the system contains the necessary planets, you might want to refer to the diagrams and the overlays I just linked. EDJPO is a good way of easily setting up an in-game overlay, even.

Also, do you think cherry-picking is a negative term? This wasn't an attack on the new system or anything, but if you think it is, then I think I can better see why you'd think so.
Although I do still say a negative thing about it all, namely that the actual hand-crafted content that's meant to be found is boring and quite basic.

To be fair, more often than not, the term cherry-picking is used with negative connotations so Indigo probably was thinking of it as criticism of the system in general. I know I did when I first saw the thread title.

 

[marx]

To be fair, more often than not, the term cherry-picking is used with negative connotations so Indigo probably was thinking of it as criticism of the system in general. I know I did when I first saw the thread title.

Okay, fair enough. What would be a better term then?

 

[iain666]

Circled are worlds that could very well be ... Earth-like, based solely on their appearance.

There are definitely no earth likes in that picture, based solely on their appearance.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Okay, fair enough. What would be a better term then?

I can't think of a commonly used phrase, but perhaps "selective targetting" would suffice. It certainly wouldn't have the greed based implication.

 

[BlackMirror]

And, of course, let's not forget about Planet Sounds. In both systems hovering over a planet produces some tell-tell sounds that, once you know them, will tell you what sort of planet you're looking at, without gathering any additional data.

I never could hear those before. :/

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I find it ironic that you assume I don't know about star class filtering and then try to lecture me on things, when you apparently can't tell an ELW apart from an MR or a HMCP. Then there are all the other mistakes in your post.

You appear to be missing the whole point though. It's to illustrate that with the FSS, "it's much easier to tell without any doubt - can even be done at a glance - whether the system would contain suitable candidate planets or not." Nobody even mentioned the DSS, it's irrelevant to this.

As evidenced by the new content, cherry-picking is the way forward, and since it has to be system-wide now, I wanted to illustrate why the new system is easier for it than the "ADS god-honk" would have been. You can no longer tell at a glance and without any doubt if a system has rare edge cases of the Forge, but you can tell without any doubt and at a glance now if a system contains any combination of planet types. Frontier want the content found.

If you can't tell from the graph that the system contains the necessary planets, you might want to refer to the diagrams and the overlays I just linked. EDJPO is a good way of easily setting up an in-game overlay, even.

Also, do you think cherry-picking is a negative term? This wasn't an attack on the new system or anything, but if you think it is, then I think I can better see why you'd think so.
Although I do still say a negative thing about it all, namely that the actual hand-crafted content that's meant to be found is boring and quite basic.

I know my worlds apart, thanks. But due to low-resolution images, and limiting myself only to a brief glance, I was simply making a point - that it isn't hard under either system to glance and guess with a high percentage of accuracy - and I did state that, were the images larger and clearer, it would be much easier to tell.

Also, I was not lecturing you, as clearly you know everything about everything. I was addressing anyone else who might wander into here looking for information. Gods forbid anyone have any other perspectives than yours though.

I also didn't say "cherry-picking" was a negative thing. It's just A Thing. And people have been doing it since the first explorers launched into space. Countless still are the number of systems where the only things that have been First Discovered are the Main Star and any Earth-like worlds.

I would ask, however, for some details about these "rare edge cases of Forge", as I haven't any idea what this might be considered. I suppose I shouldn't expect an answer though, as you've made it rather clear that you shouldn't be questioned.

 

[marx]

I would ask, however, for some details about these "rare edge cases of [the] Forge", as I haven't any idea what this might be considered.

Simple, anything that's very rare, that only happens in extreme cases of the Stellar Forge's generation. Many of those could only be realistically found via the information that the system map used to give you, but which is now hidden behind completing the FSS. Technically, they can still be found, but now you'd need full scans of systems going into the thousands and tens of thousands - good luck with doing that. For example, I've been to 50,000 systems before I found one with a set of five barycenters. (See that one and some other excellent examples in this thread.) Then there are the glowing green giants, of which only ten or so have been found, and so on. If you're looking for specific examples, the GMP has them centralised, although you'll need to do some digging to find them among the less rare stuff.

In any case, the principle behind them all is the same: they are extremely rare, and some of the information you need to find them is now locked behind a rather large time wall, as opposed to glancing at anything and being able to tell. Like I said, you can now glance at the FSS graph and be able to tell without a doubt the exact types of bodies present in a system, but you can't glance at it and tell if a system has, for example, five planets orbiting shared barycenters.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Simple, anything that's very rare, that only happens in extreme cases of the Stellar Forge's generation. Many of those could only be realistically found via the information that the system map used to give you, but which is now hidden behind completing the FSS. Technically, they can still be found, but now you'd need full scans of systems going into the thousands and tens of thousands - good luck with doing that. For example, I've been to 50,000 systems before I found one with a set of five barycenters. (See that one and some other excellent examples in this thread.) Then there are the glowing green giants, of which only ten or so have been found, and so on. If you're looking for specific examples, the GMP has them centralised, although you'll need to do some digging to find them among the less rare stuff.

In any case, the principle behind them all is the same: they are extremely rare, and some of the information you need to find them is now locked behind a rather large time wall, as opposed to glancing at anything and being able to tell. Like I said, you can now glance at the FSS graph and be able to tell without a doubt the exact types of bodies present in a system, but you can't glance at it and tell if a system has, for example, five planets orbiting shared barycenters.

Yep, that's kind of neat, and in a system with 11 bodies, that's almost 45 seconds of FSSing before you can look at the system map and see it that way. So far, I've only seen 11,059 systems, probably be up to 11,064 or so by the time this is read, most of those have been in the past 6 weeks. I won't deny the information is accumulated a little differently now - instead of none of the information about all of the planets at once, you get all of the information about each of the planets one at a time.

So far, the longest stretch of scanning planets for me has been a 53 body system, at right about two minutes, and only because I had to track down a very wayward gas giant with a very off-the-orbital-plane orbit.

Personally, I like picking my cherries one at a time, instead of shaking the tree to pick them all at once and having figure out which ones are bad later.