exploration minigame 6 months later

Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust
Sergio Smegolia said:
So when all the "the ADS is boring repetitive gameplay that needs removing" threads abounded were you one of the alleged many who defended it? Because honestly, I don't remember anyone actually doing that.
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You're also making the mistake of lumping in: "the ADS is boring repetitive gameplay" and "that needs removing".

The ADS in combination with flying towards a planet and looking at it for 20 seconds to complete the scan was boring gameplay. That doesn't mean it must be removed, it means it must be developed. It must be expanded upon. The actual investigation of the system needs additional tooling (like the FSS)
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Sergio Smegolia said:
To my mind the FSS is infinitely better, if not perfect. I haven't really explored much since the update but that's not because of the FSS. It's because I've been doing other things.
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To a two-dimensional mind, the FSS will be perfect :p.

I wonder if you would think the same after a few weeks of using the FSS :unsure:
 

Shir

Shir
Since the OP asked for opinions, and because this exploration minigame is something I sincerely hope gets changed at some point, add me to the players that really dislike it. I like surface mapping a lot, I think it was a great addition to the game, but this 2d minigame is boring. I think exploration could be better, maybe replace it with something that doesn't alienate such a big percentage of players.

Or simply keep it in game, but let the honk reveal planets and bodies, that appear unexplored. Then you use the mini game to see what they are, do mapping also if you like, everyone is happy!
 

StuartGT

StuartGT
The next update coming in September may hopefully have some fixes for the FSS bugs being encountered by some CMDRs. I'd prefer a minor patch to fix them sooner than that though.
 

Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust
DrewCarnegie said:
Actually, I enjoyed the 'flying towards a planet' to scan in gameplay. In fact, I still do it. I just have to find the little buggers by parallax now.
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Which is a perfect example how it's erroneous to split the forumites here in two camps. Your and my methods of exploration are very different indeed, and still we get lumped together under the same denominator.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Ziggy Stardust said:
Which is a perfect example how it's erroneous to split the forumites here in two camps. Your and my methods of exploration are very different indeed, and still we get lumped together under the same denominator.
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Totally agree. The barebones nature of pre-3.3 exploration tools allowed a huge range of playstyles to develop - evidently far more than the dozen that FDev identified. In a way, that was actually the greatest strength of the ADS - it didn't force a particular process onto players, just let them blaze their own trail.

The exploration update should have expanded upon this, rather than replacing it. The FSS is clearly a great tool for people who want to be Spock, but it shouldn't be the ONLY tool.
 

marx

marx
StuartGT said:
The next update coming in September may hopefully have some fixes for the FSS bugs being encountered by some CMDRs. I'd prefer a minor patch to fix them sooner than that though.
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For the record, the exact same thing was said about the update in April, and it didn't fix plenty of the bugs and issues with the FSS identified during Chapter Four. There's no guarantee that the cosmetics update will be different.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
StuartGT said:
The next update coming in September may hopefully have some fixes for the FSS bugs being encountered by some CMDRs. I'd prefer a minor patch to fix them sooner than that though.
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I'd hope that (whenever it comes) it includes a QoL pass to improve things like the intrusive warning messages and (my own personal gripe) the FSS tuning not persisting between FSS sessions.
 

StuartGT

StuartGT
marx said:
StuartGT said:
The next update coming in September may hopefully have some fixes for the FSS bugs being encountered by some CMDRs. I'd prefer a minor patch to fix them sooner than that though.
Click to expand...
For the record, the exact same thing was said about the update in April, and it didn't fix plenty of the bugs and issues with the FSS identified during Chapter Four. There's no guarantee that the cosmetics update will be different.
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Agreed. While the April Update notes mentioned "This update includes over 800 fixes for various issues", with it and the subsequent patches listing a few FSS bug fixes, surprisingly few reported bugs were corrected.
 

JustJon

J
Skip Rockbounder said:
I see here another one of the old dismissive "hold down a button for a few seconds isn't engaging" arguments again, very few found it engaging to press a button, but that it could be done while spooling up the Jump drive and at full chat are compelling plus points, and points that are all too readily overlooked by the specialised ELW, WW, AW hunters... the ones generally after fame and credits... the FSS is right up your street as it gives both in the bucket load.

The common sense stuff you refer too says that the FSS honk knows the details so it allow you to point (in the bluescreen) and get your result... if it knows the details why not fill in the map as a matter of course.

The Handwavium is accepted by the anti ADS crowd because they don't want to know how a signal 1000s of light seconds away gets to them in the blink of an eye with the FSS just as it did with the ADS, the only reason for this is that they would rather sit still and get given stuff for nothing that travel in space (oh the grind) space is big, yeah, unless you have the FSS to shrink it.
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The signal is not travelling 1000s of light seconds - you are just seeing the signal from that planet as it was 1000 ls ago.

Like when we look at the sun - you are seeing it as it was 8.5 minutes ago not as it is now

May have exploded but you won't know for another 8.5 minutes!

I do understand that the old system meant you had to fly to objects to get the detailed scan which was better for the 'I want to fly my ship 'kind of people - which I am not against at all and so maybe if there was an easier way (than parallax) to see where the distant planets are you could then have the choice to travel to them - or hit the FSS and scan from a distance.

I just feel that to be able to see the make up of a planet from a single honk was a bit shallow - maybe it could be vague and after the honk show somehow on the cockpit scanner where the bodies are and whether it is either a gas giant or a solid body for example but to get more info you either need to fly to it or FSS it.

Is the FSS a grind? Not sure but there needed to be a difference between exploring where you are genuinely intending to spend some time in a system and simply travelling a long distance and therefore going through lots of systems.
 

biot

biot
CMDR Carbo said:
Well, I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, after being several weeks out in the black during DW2, I had the craving to do something else for a while.
Didn't have a chance to try out the new mining stuff, so I'm doing that currently.
In my case it has nothing to do with the FSS per se. Love the concept of it, not so much the bugs in it that Fdev simply refuses to fix.
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Same here. I needed a break from both exploring and ED. DW2 is probably the longest unbroken ED playing streak that I have had. I have played ED only sporadically since getting back to the bubble at the end of May.
 

CMDR Carbo

CMDR Carbo
The current state is: Frontier doesn't want to change the way the FSS works, some people prefer the ADS.
My preferred solution which would please both of the above, and has been mentioned countless times in previous threads by different players, would be to offer the ADS as an additional module. Simple, honk reveals the system map. No first discoveries upon honk, no data shared with other players. Bodies can be selected in system map and targeted. That's basically it. FSS does it's magic when you get close to the body anyway, scanning all bodies close to you at once, which IMO is way more convenient than the old you have to have the body in front of you to scan shenanigans.

Simple.
 
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SystematicChaos

S
JustJon said:
Is the FSS a grind? Not sure but there needed to be a difference between exploring where you are genuinely intending to spend some time in a system and simply travelling a long distance and therefore going through lots of systems.
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But it's not as binary a choice as you imply. Some of us travelling explorers travelled a long way to actually start exploring. You've now got to stop in every damn system on the way and play space binoculars or see practically nothing for hours on end. It's ironic really given that the biggest single complaint about the game is grind.
 

marx

marx
To be fair, most people (at least the ones with reasonable arguments, not just a simple line of "this is carp, I want the ADS baaack") suggested bringing it back because it would have been the lowest effort "solution" to the problems the FSS introduced. Back when the FSS plans were revealed, and back when it was let loose in the beta, plenty of people gave detailed feedback and suggestions on how it could be improved. Simple changes too, not unrealistic stuff like reworking the whole thing. Frontier didn't act upon the feedback though (neither the positive nor negative ones), and over time, many gravitated towards the minimal-effort suggestion of "add the ADS back alongside the FSS".

Now, Frontier have said they aren't going to do that, so we're back to where we originally were at the start of it all: suggestions to solve the issues. All of which would involve more work for the developers, so even less likely they'll ever happen.
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
To be fair to all the folk that hate the FSS.

It does seem like it went from a placeholder mechanic, to a prototype.

Maybe it'll get finished one day.

It's weird, it kinda seems like analysis mode was made to be a part of it, and it was going to be a bigger thing, integrated into the cockpit at some point in design, and the team working on mining knew about it, and used it, but the exploration team got so far through making their thing, and hit some kind of design blockage - found they couldn't integrate it with the rest of the normal gameplay, and then just chucked it onto an overlay due to time constraints.

I dunno, just how it looks to me.
 
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