Three cheers for the exciting compulsory FSS gameplay - hip hip
Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?
- Thread starter CMDR Karrde Sun
- Start date
- Status
I can’t mash Like enough here. Thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking. I’ve nothing agaist Coke-bottled-glasses-wearing nerds. I just don’t want to play their way. I want to play my way. Problem: our ways are not compatible, they’re exclusive. For me to play my way means they have to change theirs.
Since sodium and water don’t mix, someone has to win out, and the creators have decided who that is.
Edits: Typing on an iPhone sucks. It makes things up and annoys me.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
I'm using parallax almost exclusively to explore at this point, so I've been trying to figure out ways to integrate the 'blue blob' aspect of the FSS with the main HUD display, without making parallax itself redundant - which simply making the blue blobs visible in the HUD would do.
If I'm reading your suggestion correctly, you're still intending to utilize the tune-n-zoom aspect of the FSS - which is the functionality that I particularly despise.
My current thinking is more along the lines of X4 - which is sending a pulse out in front of the ship, which returns 'echoes' of objects which fade out over time. Being able to trigger a directed FSS pulse (60 degree cone in front of the ship - engineerable) which highlights bodies with blue blobs (in the main HUD) which fade out after a few seconds. This puts body discovery under the control of the player, without instantly populating the system or requiring playing of the minigame. There would be some kind of cooldown period between pulses and possibly some kind of heat or fuel penalty - otherwise it becomes a pointless spamming process (hello DSS!) with no tactical component.
This idea is still a work-in-progress and I have no hope or expectation that FDev will even consider it, but it's nice to daydream about these things.
Add healthcare to the military in the rapidly growing list of professions you should not engage in
This one has passed me by, what do you mean & when was this? I spent Oct16-March18 out on an anti-clockwise tour of the galaxy and a lot of that was spent searching planet surfaces for fumeroles both in the SRV & in the ship. I didn't see a large blue circle for nearly a year because I was on the other side of the galaxy. Since I returned I've generally used the SRV to find things like cargo & skimmer spawns, and the ship to find blue circles from >1.5km altitude. Are you referring to the LOD pop-in for small non-persistent POIs? I'm not aware of any loss of functionality from the way I play.
I am using the FSS, I don't have really a problem with using it, it just doesn't do a function the old one did do and the removal of functionality without good reason several years into the life of a game is not okay with me. It can be fixed with no loss to other players, so it should be fixed.
Last edited:
“These brave men and women gave their lives to meet the objectives given to us, the field commanders, by our superiors at the Pentagon. Our orders have been released to the appropriate Congressional Oversight committees.”
There have been many battles with staggering casualty counts - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_by_casualties
D-Day was close to 10%, other battles were much higher on all sides.
But again, this is a game, not a war.
That's not the assumption that I made, the assumption is that there are more people wishing for the FSS to come back compared to those who do not want it back, the majority only want the FSS to stay and don't care about much else.
There are plenty of people who also hate the FSS who have left already or don't bother to post.
And you guys keep feeding threads like this, on another note, I know for a fact that grown ups can still cling at a few things so there's that.
Last edited:
I’m referring to surface prospecting in order to determine what materials were on the surface of said planet during the Horizons Beta and for a brief while after it’s release: examining the colors of the surface features of a planet to determine what materials may be there, landing on said planet, deploying the SRV, reading the the wave scanner to find surface deposits, and then taking samples to see what’s actually there.
There was a whole group of us dedicated to unraveling this particular mystery of the Stellar Forge. We were happily scampering across the surface of planets, taking samples, entering and collating data, and just starting to see certain patterns (the 3-2-1 rule in particular) when Frontier decided that the DSS would just reveal everything as part of a Level 3 Scan. You didn’t even need to get within visual range of the planet, let alone land on it.
Frontier could’ve kept the SRV necessary for this reveal, either by filling in the blanks as we revealed them, or just after sampling something on the surface. They could’ve made collecting surface samples another type of exploration data to turn in, or even better, valuable cargo to carry back to the Bubble. Instead, Frontier killed the role the SRV had in exploration game play.
I freely admit I never liked the FSS even before I tried it - simply because, to me, exploration should involve flying one's ship around. The 'finding the bodies' aspect I could live with if it was separated from discovering what those bodies are. By tying the two parts together it breaks the flow of how I want to explore.
Mechanics-wise it's not complex - the spectrum is easy to memorize and moving the mouse around and sliding the frequency setting around takes no skill at all. 'Gitting gud' would only reduce the time it takes to scan a system and time obviously isn't a problem for me, since I'm happy spending it in supercruise to visit the planets. The repetitive nature of the task, together with the way it removes any sense of scale from a system means that using it is a grind for me.
Oh, and obviously the fact that in the (literally) 10 minutes I've spent using it (since my initial evaluation) I've discovered two separate bugs where the FSS lies about the system layout.
Your suggestion would at least introduce an element of skill to the gameplay, but it doesn't address any of the other issues I have with the FSS - not that it was intended to, obviously
Naturally all of this is just personal preference, but you did ask what was so bad about it - and honestly the answer currently is 'pretty much all of it'.
Errm, tell you what? Sounds like something I could really love! And with me 2 or 3 other players. Perhaps, with some luck...
Sounds like a pretty time consuming method, something I've no issues with. Though trust me, I'm in a very tiny minority here.
I can spend all the time in the world flying my pretend spaceship around a system - my current exploration process doesn't even require me to stop my ship
I’m referring to surface prospecting in order to determine what materials were on the surface of said planet during the Horizons Beta and for a brief while after it’s release: examining the colors of the surface features of a planet to determine what materials may be there, landing on said planet, deploying the SRV, reading the the wave scanner to find surface deposits, and then taking samples to see what’s actually there.
There was a whole group of us dedicated to unraveling this particular mystery of the Stellar Forge. We were happily scampering across the surface of planets, taking samples, entering and collating data, and just starting to see certain patterns (the 3-2-1 rule in particular) when Frontier decided that the DSS would just reveal everything as part of a Level 3 Scan. You didn’t even need to get within visual range of the planet, let alone land on it.
Frontier could’ve kept the SRV necessary for this reveal, either by filling in the blanks as we revealed them, or just after sampling something on the surface. They could’ve made collecting surface samples another type of exploration data to turn in, or even better, valuable cargo to carry back to the Bubble. Instead, Frontier killed the role the SRV had in exploration game play.
Well it's all part of exploring, what you are describing is what I call black-boxing - you are inferring the inner workings of a device from observations. I understand how you feel about the challenge being removed, I felt a similar way about using 20,000ly route plotter and a high jump range ship to return to Beagle Point (and beyond) being trivially easy (plotted a straight line across the abyss) compared to spending three months picking my way assisted jump by assisted jump, creeping out the end of the Carina arm to eventually reach Beagle Point in my Corvette without using external help (ie googling a route), only the in-game tools.
I don't know whether you could still infer the mat ratios on a planet but it seems to me the game telling you (in an optional way) isn't removing functionality, you just enjoyed the challenge and the game was made easier as has happened so many times. Power Creep. Once it had been worked out the challenge would be done & all players using external tools would know how it worked too. I've never really farmed mats, I just pick up what I find and if I can't find something where I am I look elsewhere until I do. I spend days on small moons looking for fumeroles, more often than not forcing myself to give up. I once popped over to the star to refuel my 'vette so I could stay longer, usually an empty tank would be the sign to move on.
You can still research & catalogue rocks just as I can still hunt by eye for fumeroles, there just isn't the motivation because you can just equip a module to tell you the thing. I don't mind this, it is too easy now but before it was arguably too hard (as you might feel about surface deposits).
With the removal of the old modules I cannot do what I did, and I must use the new stuff. I haven't quit, and this is a minor point that should have been quickly addressed (or franky, never have come up in the first place). It just needs to be put right and not happen again just as it (afaik) has not happened before.
Personally, this is when I stopped playing. Not because I felt it so bad that I had no choice, but I play 100% in VR and it really takes me out of the game world in how its implemented. I'd rather have seen it as a screen in front of me (such as the trading screen when docked) then totally take me out of the game.
I look at my Oculus now and then and dream of it. Well, not really, but Elite was the only game I played with the Oculus so its getting dusty now.
(I've not read any other posts in this thread. Only came here to comment because of Mr ants video)
I play on a 24", 144hz monitor picommander. It's just down to personal preference & all that's needed is a choice. It isn't complicated.
Indeed.
I'm fully old-school - monitor, keyboard and mouse - and I still don't like the 'out-of-cockpit' feeling of the FSS. It would be less intrusive if I could use the FSS at speed - since I'm usually just looking at the spectrum.
While we're being all helpful to each other, does anyone who isn't using the mouse to control the FSS 'headlook' find that if you move in circles the FSS orientation rotates (at a slower rate)?
I think having the FSS scanner as an optional overlay (leaving the separate screen to be used while parked and as a HUD element at speed & requiring the ship to be pointed at the thing) would have been fine, I'd still want to be able to see the basic sysmap but it would solve a lot of issues.
But it would be much, much easier on dev time to just put the old stuff back in, then the colour-blind, the VR user, the motion sick and the curmudgeons would all have a quick, simple solution that just works.
I don't use the issue tracker. I find it detrimental to the experience of the forum as it is now.
I play in VR exclusively, and other than a few bugs (which frankly I don't notice), it's not particularly difficult to use the FSS in VR.
Sure, the FSS takes one out of the cockpit, but that was pointed out during the beta. Some people don't like it, others don't mind. As I've said before, I don't like the idea that I am taken out of the cockpit, but then since I don't scan every system that I pass through, and since scanning systems when I do is so fast, I can live with it.
I don't use the FSS at all in the bubble, because there are choices in how I can do things, and when exploring I spend so little time in the FSS screen that I can live with it.
As has been said many times before, it's mainly down to players having a choice of how they do different things in the game, it's not (for me at least) hating the FSS despite what some would like to think, I can use it just fine.
I do think though that in a supposed sandbox type of game, having less choices rather than more in how we can do things is a weakness, not a strength.
Sure, the FSS takes one out of the cockpit, but that was pointed out during the beta. Some people don't like it, others don't mind. As I've said before, I don't like the idea that I am taken out of the cockpit, but then since I don't scan every system that I pass through, and since scanning systems when I do is so fast, I can live with it.
I don't use the FSS at all in the bubble, because there are choices in how I can do things, and when exploring I spend so little time in the FSS screen that I can live with it.
As has been said many times before, it's mainly down to players having a choice of how they do different things in the game, it's not (for me at least) hating the FSS despite what some would like to think, I can use it just fine.
I do think though that in a supposed sandbox type of game, having less choices rather than more in how we can do things is a weakness, not a strength.
Did you quote the wrong post?
They don't have to explain it, they can just put the stuff back into outfitting. I've been bouncing this off some pretty determined devil's advocates for months now, I'm pretty confident their removal cannot be justified. Whether they are obliged to do some climb-down over what was in November a minor point easily addressed is largely immaterial, really they just need to put the old discovery modules back into outfitting & the problem is solved. Then if they want to spend another year reworking the FSS to suit the colour blind, the VR user and the curmudgeonly they can.
Oddly, I have the exact opposite feeling in VR. Maybe it’s because I’m a fan of the cyberpunk genre, but I feel like I’m seeing Augmented Reality, as opposed being taken entirely out of the game world. I feel the same about the galaxy map, but not the system map, oddly enough. Haven’t played around with the system orrery enough to see which that feels like.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to have the entire game able to play from the cockpit only, but only because I don’t like losing situational awareness like that.
The only thing that I have concerns about is the systems are in a certain state. And the materials that spawn, are not corresponding with the ones that are supposed to be there. Outbreak spawns anything but Pharmaceutical Isolators.
- Status