Orrery concept and current orrery

The concepts are a lot more detailed. The only thing I want for the current Orrery map in-game is that we can see all the celestial bodies with textures. Because wireframes are boring.
 
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Other than opening it once or twice to see what all the fuss was about, I've never even opened the orrery. Just can't see what use it is in its current form.

If it ever gets a "fast forward/rewind" option so you can see how the system actually operates, then I could see its usefulness. Until then, it'll remain unused on my PC.
 
The actual state of orrery is useless.
I'm not using it at all. Too much zoom in and zoom out.

Remove the scale, make it more schematic and colorful like in the concept.

AND PUT IT ON THE HUD RADAR! The HUD radar is completely useless to navigate the stellar system in its current state!

Really? Because it works perfectly well to plan a mapping route. Or do you just fly to one end of the system to map A only to find out you need to fly back in order to scan B (that you just passed)?
 
Other than opening it once or twice to see what all the fuss was about, I've never even opened the orrery. Just can't see what use it is in its current form.

If it ever gets a "fast forward/rewind" option so you can see how the system actually operates, then I could see its usefulness. Until then, it'll remain unused on my PC.

I once proposed the notion of being able to fit exploration probes to your ship. So you'd arrive in a system and then work out if/what you wanted to scan. You could do this in person by flying your ship to a body, or send of any probes you have.

How would you decide this? Look at the orrey may and specify the bodies your probe(s) would go to. You'd then fly off. Once you and your probes had all finished, back to the orrery map to pick/plot a sensible central meeting location before you leave the system.

If you have multi-crew they could use the orrey map to plot/control the probe(s), and look at the scans (& live video feeds) coming back from them.


ie... A functional purpose for the orrery map ;)
 
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The actual state of orrery is useless.
I'm not using it at all. Too much zoom in and zoom out.

Remove the scale, make it more schematic and colorful like in the concept.

AND PUT IT ON THE HUD RADAR! The HUD radar is completely useless to navigate the stellar system in its current state!

I think something like a childrens' orrery is the wrong goal. It is useful to get a sense of the structure in relatively simple systems like Sol, but too many systems with multiple stars and dozens of satellites would make even these "simple" representations unwieldy. I like that we get an "out of ship" perspective of the real scales.

The only thing I would like to see in the orrery view is the current position of the ship updated in real time. I would not mind textured bodies either but don't see that as important.

I agree that the main scanner display could be improved. Some filter options to only show ships and the current target for example, since I noticed that in certain situations planets or stars get in front of ships that might try to interdict me.

Just got an idea: a picture-in-picture mode to get an overview of a certain subsystem (moons of a gas giant etc), what do you think?
 
I understand the concept of an orrery. But whenever I find an interesting system and look at the game's orrery for it... I don't know what i'm looking at.
 
Other than opening it once or twice to see what all the fuss was about, I've never even opened the orrery. Just can't see what use it is in its current form.

If it ever gets a "fast forward/rewind" option so you can see how the system actually operates, then I could see its usefulness. Until then, it'll remain unused on my PC.

Same here, not something I have a use or need for, it lacks a USP.
 
The implementation is extremely rudimentary.
It should be populated with USS that are discovered, and selected USS/bodies should show as selected.
I hope they flesh it out sooner than later.
 
The implementation is extremely rudimentary.
It should be populated with USS that are discovered, and selected USS/bodies should show as selected.
I hope they flesh it out sooner than later.

Transient as well as static signal sources would be interesting to see, but it is still a secondary map view. The action has to happen in the cockpit (other ships, course corrections etc), not too many features should be put inside this mode in my opinion.
(signal sources could be shown in the system-tree as well, but I think that would be more confusing than helpful in most situations)
 
If they could simply add orbit lines to the FSS (as a toggle-able option), and let you zoom out more, then that would be fantastic, IMO.
 
the funny thing is that when they showed those pictures those were not named concepts but they outright lied to us that its an almost finished work lol... the only thing that needed work was that the comet`s (lol commets, good one frontier) trail was facing the wrong way

it`s even more pathetic than the fact that FE2 had more impressive orrery map in 1993.... (and i still kinda like what we have now, but yeah, they are slow and lazy and dishonest)
 
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I just think it needs developing. Overlays for different sorts of info. It would be particularly fun if you could see ships moving around a system on it, perhaps with them leaving trails so you could see the general traffic and the type of pilots they're likely to be.

Also a system state view that visualises the local politics.
 
Before the first step: Have the Orrery stay in the same place when you close and re-open it so you don't have to Zoom into the same mini star system in a full star system of several mini systems to check which is the best route to map the planets or moons you want to get to.

I definitely agree with this. It took quite a while to zoom in all the way to the bodies, each time.

RivJWoJ.png
 
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Really? Because it works perfectly well to plan a mapping route. Or do you just fly to one end of the system to map A only to find out you need to fly back in order to scan B (that you just passed)?

I really like the orrery just for this use, seeing the relative locations of a star or body to plot out the most efficient route. I would add the ability to mark bodies as waypoints and plot a single route through the system. I would also have the view remain where you last had it, position and zoom factor should be retained until you jump to a new system.
 
The concept for the orrery look awesome to me. There is a background, you can actually see how suns and planets are and there is even your current location displayed among other things. They can of course improve it over time, but in the mean time, what do you think?

Concept:





Current:

I like, that the distances are a model in same size-relation. When out exploring and i find multiple bodys of intrest, i use the orrery to plan a route in-system for saving time and getting as less slowdowns through gravity as possible.

Yes, the eye-candy could have been a bit better but the scale is important for me. It has improved my gameplay a lot!
 
I never wanted it in the first place, and don't use it now. Don't see any use for it.

It's just another part of Fdev's epic trolling of explorers:

Promise exciting new exploration gameplay - deliver a repetitive blue-blob minigame.

Promise cool looking orrery view - deliver simplest implementation possible.

To complete the set, in 4.0 they will release a new 'Imperial Explorer' ship with a 20LY jumprange and 4x class 3 internals.
 
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