The Era Of Cherry Picking Might Be Over.

[CMDR Carbo]

Not sure I agree with that. If it's a brown or red dwarf, mostly I'm done with it after a quick glance on the FSS.

And I have to map a whole system yet with the DSS. Currently only mapping landables with POIs I want to visit, terraformable HMCWs, waterworlds and ELW. Yeah, I'm terribly picky.

 

[Iron Body]

See, this is where people seem to have some kind of cognitive dissonance related to the new FSS.

They claim the old ADS was over-powered and it sucked the way it instantly provided you with all the info' about a system.

Thing is, the FSS is worse in both those regards.

Under the old system, you'd arrive in-system, honk, look at the system map and then you'd have to visit any planet you wanted to tag.
With the new system, you can honk, look at a crappy radio-tuner and then you can twiddle the mouse for a couple of minutes to "scan" an entire system without even looking out the window of your pretend spaceship.

For those interested in cherry-picking, the only difference is that you now get to look at a radio-tuner rather than a system map.
For anybody interested in tagging everything in a system, the FSS is way more overpowered than the ADS ever was.

Totally agree. My cherry picking is now worse than it was before. I suppose I'm a traveller only looking for ELWs.
But other than systems with ELWs I will only zoom in on WWs and even then not bother looking at them.

<<edit: I described my cherry picking as "worse", but actually it is "better". I see nothing wrong with cherry picking. I don't have time for ice worlds (yet!) >>
<< Also, I have spent all my time since 3.3 more than 10kly from the bubble and visited thousands of systems, in all that time I have only seen one POI show up on the scanner. >>

 

[Fedora Master]

i still cherry pick, even with the FSS

with the DSS i cherry pick even more so, especially mapping gas giants with rings which take 40 odd probes which dont tell me anything because i cant land there.... no thanks.

This. There's no point in scanning every single rocky body in a system to begin with, much less map them. Not like that exploration data will be put to good use anyway.

 

[Stealthie]

I have read the OP but I fail to see what actual problem is being discussed here.

I think the point is that the new system means it's easy for people to scan entire systems so it's more likely that people will do that and there'll be less chance of finding anything undiscovered.

Course, mapping is definitely the new scanning. That's what takes the effort and what's most likely to find you something properly interesting.

Also, when you're out exploring there's simple things you can do to maximise your chances of finding unvisited systems.
If I'm travelling between, say, the bubble and Sag A or Colonia and I start finding myself in pre-explored systems I just bung a 90° turn, travel for a couple of hundred Ly in that direction and then turn back toward my previous destination.
If somebody's already been where you are, chances are it's cos they're on the way to somewhere so making a "side-step" will put you in a fresh bit of space.

 

[Morbad]

Just getting to the DW2 second waypoint I found scores of systems (I was in a 20ly ship, so it took quite a few jumps) that were only partially scanned and several that weren't scanned at all.

With the new system, it's actually easier to tag a whole system than to cherry-pick, cos you don't have to frantically waggle the mouse (or whatever your FSS directional control is) looking for the source of a specific signal.

If I were looking for ELW's only, I'd set the tuner to ELWs, grab those, and go.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

"What is your name?"

"Ralph Vagr!"

"What is your Quest?"

"To seek a virginal planetary system!"

"What is the speed of an unladen swallow?"

"African or European?"

Don't you mean jump range of an unladen Swallow?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I agree that the new FSS will probably mean more systems are scanned entirely once discovered, but I don't think running out of new systems to discover will be a prpblem. I recently set out on an exploration trip. Started finding undiscovered systems within half an hour. Flew off to an interesting looking nebula. It had been thoroughly explored, but the surrounding systems had not. A couple of days ago I arrived in Colonia. I got within 200ly before finding a previously discovered system.
That's just the first leg of my journey, but all ready I am 200 million richer and have my name on many more stars and planets, two of which are ELWs. Even if someone follows my exact path they will discover more. With a 60ly jump range, I missed many more systems than I found.

I agree entirely. But, this makes the new player experience worse, since they have to go quite some way to put their name on things.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Mapping will be the new cherrypick

Already is.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

You can scan an entire system in a minute or two once you can a hang of it, so I guess that cherry-picking behaviour has shifted to the DSS and “first mapped”.

There’s still plenty of undiscovered regions. Over the course of an evening I had a solid run of 30 or 40 systems that were untouched (I scanned maybe 50% of them, fully mapped a few). This was just travelling in a "straight line" in my 66ly Phantom towards a Nebula that I hadn’t visited before, so I imagine that most of the surrounding systems were undiscovered as well. Admittedly, it was a fairly nondescript region on the way to a more obviously interesting place. Departing from Maia I pulled about 60 million in exploration, made a large number of first discoveries and reached my Nebula in an evening (pretty casual).

Yes, it *can* be done, but not by persons who are new, or short on time.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I think the point is that the new system means it's easy for people to scan entire systems so it's more likely that people will do that and there'll be less chance of finding anything undiscovered.

Course, mapping is definitely the new scanning. That's what takes the effort and what's most likely to find you something properly interesting.

Also, when you're out exploring there's simple things you can do to maximise your chances of finding unvisited systems.
If I'm travelling between, say, the bubble and Sag A or Colonia and I start finding myself in pre-explored systems I just bung a 90° turn, travel for a couple of hundred Ly in that direction and then turn back toward my previous destination.
If somebody's already been where you are, chances are it's cos they're on the way to somewhere so making a "side-step" will put you in a fresh bit of space.

I routinely zig-zag to miss the beaten track.

I had an uncle on PQ-13.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

As already mentioned, as you progress further the urge to pee on every rock you stumble upon subsides. I get that new system with it's "completion progress indicator" is compelling to scan and even map everything, but I think this will pass after people learn the new scanner enough to look only for bodies that interest them.

Moreover maths to the rescue. As we as a "species" expand our circle of fully discovered systems, there will be more and more stars in the ever-expanding "discovery radius". And if you want to avoid the beaten path, just notice that plotting is done algorithmically, and is the same method for everyone with slight variations due to jump range. So when I plotted long routes (to the max) I often "merged" with someone's else path. If you want to avoid this, plot shorter routes. Seriously, 400 000 000 000 star systems out there. It's shockingly big. We won't run out of them until the servers go down. It might be a bit harder for new players to get a tag, but I assume around the 5kLy mark palin requires discovered systems will be thin enough for everyone to find something for him/herself.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I can relate to this. With the new mechanic I find myself scanning everything. Before I would look at the map and only fly out if it was something interesting.

I think the New system means FD wants people to spend less time "looking" and more time "finding". There is something out there that needs to be discovered

 

[Hullreaver]

My OCD would not allow me to leave a system without scanning everything with the new FSS, part of that being I could not figure out exactly what I was looking at and the value with the new tools. Eventually, I was able to figure it out and force myself to only scan the high value targets and move on, but it hurt. I still had to map all of the terraformable, WW and ELW worlds, just could not help myself. However, I do think cherry picking will resume after people figure it out a little more.

I went out 1,200 ly from the bubble and got nearly $150M in exploration data by just sweeping an area 300, 300, 100 ly across with numerous WW, terras and 1 ELW. One system netted me $12M+ and I would say 90% were undiscovered. They are still out there and close to the bubble if you know where to look, but I agree that this update probably caused a huge increase in people heading out and exploring. I do wonder if the DW2 going on now removed a bunch of the explorers from the bubble area though?

 

[Mostly Awol]

Wow I still cherry pick. ELW, WW, and all Gas Giants as well as anomalies. Don't care about the rest really. With these I only map ELW and WW. I might map a Gas Giant but only if it looks interesting.

 

[rhiz]

Yes, it *can* be done, but not by persons who are new, or short on time.

I don’t mean to be argumentative, but as I said I discovered a ton of systems in a few hours of very casual play. I was heading away from the centre of the galaxy towards the periphery though, so that might make a difference.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

I was about to say that I tend to map everything, but I just jumped into a system with 48 undiscovered bodies in it and I'm gagging for a pint.

There goes that post firmly out of the window. :x

 

[Amargosa]

Cherry pickers have moved on to planet mapping.

 

[Aekero]

This can't be serious...it takes less than an hour to find unexplored systems in any direction. Hardly anything has been mapped, if you burned more than half an hour on this thread I guarantee you could have had some discoveries in that time.

 

[Stealthie]

If I were looking for ELW's only, I'd set the tuner to ELWs, grab those, and go.

Sorry, but you don't know what you're talking about. Both cherry picking and complete system scans are strongly supported by the FSS. The only thing the FSS can't do is taking these decisions away from you.

If you try to cherry-pick with the FSS, you just end-up scrolling randomly around the entire sky, looking for that one vague blob that will turn into a circle when you move the cursor over it.

I find it's actually easier to tag everything because once you resolve a blob into something it's no longer one of the potential candidates for whatever you're actually looking for.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I don’t mean to be argumentative, but as I said I discovered a ton of systems in a few hours of very casual play. I was heading away from the centre of the galaxy towards the periphery though, so that might make a difference.

Indeed. A few hours a day, in a lesser traveled area might be the thing. But, it won't appeal to many, who want to have more than one activity.