Can we please stay on topic.
FSS improvement thread
- Thread starter ThatSmileyGuy
- Start date
I have seen some people say it, but nothing to suggest that most people hate it. But we digress, yes this is to do with the FSS, the DSS should be in another thread.
I see the trolls are once more out in force attempting to deliberately derail a constructive feedback thread.
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
Yes please, keep things on discussing the improvements to the FSS. You want to know why the other thread was closed? Because you lot can't stop having a go at each other and turning any discussion into petty bickering.
Exploration took the longest to get any kind of improvements to it. Since it was released it's been very buggy and there have been no responses from FD on the improvements that have been requested since day one. I have been an explorer since the first day of Gamma, aside from Racing and Science with Canonn it is all I do in this game. So do me a favour, do not give any mods any reason to close this thread, and if you keep kicking off about the old ADS then you'll just lose your right to post here.
I want there to be improvements to this area as much as most of you and more than some
The only thing I would say is it would be nice if the OP could add a list to the First Post so that if a Dev reads it, it will be easy for them to see the hot topics.
Exploration took the longest to get any kind of improvements to it. Since it was released it's been very buggy and there have been no responses from FD on the improvements that have been requested since day one. I have been an explorer since the first day of Gamma, aside from Racing and Science with Canonn it is all I do in this game. So do me a favour, do not give any mods any reason to close this thread, and if you keep kicking off about the old ADS then you'll just lose your right to post here.
I want there to be improvements to this area as much as most of you and more than some
The only thing I would say is it would be nice if the OP could add a list to the First Post so that if a Dev reads it, it will be easy for them to see the hot topics.NPCs having ranks in Combat, Exploration, and Trade would be nice to see.
And the ability to assign them to a specific task which they rank up in. Seeing them sitting in my cockpit, and hearing their voices like you do fighter pilots as they begin performing their particular assigned role would be nice, because the larger bridges can feel somewhat bare when your friends aren't multicrewing with you (And when exploring there's no chance of that until our friends can participate in using the FSS, so maybe sort that out, Frontier?)
NPCs assigned to the exploration station could gradually ping items with the FSS for you, one at a time, working outward from the nearest.
Those on Trade duty could compile trade reports on nearby systems, populating the galmap with local trade data.
I would love a full NPC system in the game, which would give improvements depending on rank to various aspects in the game like combat, exploration, mining, trading and so on, but that should be for another thread.
Just to clarify, does this mean new threads about the ADS will get the poster banned?
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
What? No. That would be ridiculous.
Yet the SLF is not a "launch fighter, NPC does the fight, you have to do nothing" mechanic. Even if your ship launches the SLF, the NPC only controls one of the two, where the other one is still in your hands. And both vehicles can get attacked and destroyed in combat.
You still very much have to fight and do your job. While the FSS-NPC would just mean you press a button and the NPC does the job. That's just another version of returning the ADS.
Plenty has been written about that topic. We should not poison this thread with it again. But between "module to have the ADS again" and "NPC emulating the ADS" I would rather pick the first.
Among other reasons, because if would have actual game play effect: you'd have to spend a slot for it. For the NPC, you could hire it, use it to can hundreds of systems, then sack before turning in exploration data. So you'd get all of this for the mere price of hiring and firing a harmless rated NPC, which in scope of the games economical system is "for free".
Aye. It already happened to me, that I was interdicted while in the FSS. I was doing an assassination mission, I used the FSS to locate the target. While in the FSS, the target actually interdicted me and, as the ship was stationary, it was immediately successful.
So yea, in this specific case it turned out allright, but it still left the bad taste: was completely oblivious of what was happening around my ship and had no way to defend myself from interdiction.
And as the DSS also was mentioned in this thread by now: it could use the very same upgrade of getting the radar. Giving the pilot the chance to know what is happening around him is extremely valuable.
Also, while what you wrote includes being able to use the FSS while moving is mentioned, I actually consider this and the radar the most important things. Mind you, we know that the FSS can handle ship movement.
It's rathereasy to see: accelerate your ship for a while. Bring the throttle to zero, enter FSS. Your ship is still moving, you can see that nearby objects are still in motion. Selecting them might be a bit hard when they are rather close, but the FSS does work.
And based on this, I would actually also like two additional functions to the FSS:
- Snap to target. When your aiming circle gets close enough to a selectable object and your movement speed is below a certain value, your circle should move and lock to the target. This needs to be optional, so it can be switched off. Even better it would be if you could in the options set the threshold values for range and movement speed.
- Toggle through targets. When you selected something and another selectable object is within certain range, just press the button and the crosshair jumps to the next object.
Having these two would be nice to have in the current system but not of much impact. But it would make FSS use on the move much more convenient or, at higher speeds, possible at all. Thus I think that having them would be very helpful.
It certainly does give the appearance that the moderation is taking the view that complete censorship of the subject is preferable to addressing the specific posters who are most prone to flinging personal abuse and deliberately derailing the subject.
If that is the case it would be a shame, and we may as well all decamp to Reddit which, by virtue of its happy campers approach to the game, does seem to get more attention from FD.
Ninja'd by Ozric - it's specifically about this thread which is fair enough.
However, the overall feeling that things are not entirely even-handed does persist.
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And here we are again, now on the next level. Yet another constructive thread, which was in danger of being killed by the "rah, rah, I never even tried the FSS, but I am sure that I hate it and it has to be undone" guy. And when that guy now gets a warning that it might actually be an awesome idea that instead of doing the same foolish crap again and again, you come in and try to turn the thread into a discussion about censorship?
I am sorry, but I can't tell you what I think of what you just do here right now and yourself at this very moment. Writing it out would get me banned. So please, do yourself a favour and think things over. Do you really dwell and enjoy the reputation of being unable to leave any thread to be constructive? Wouldn't it feel better if you'd try to add constructive feedback instead?
See https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/fss-improvement-thread.526419/post-8081619
Censorship is a valid topic when the ban-hammer is threatened just for mentioning a former feature.
Thankfully Ozric has set the record straight very quickly that the comment is specifically about keeping this thread on-topic.
You'll note in previous posts in the thread I've tried to avoid ADS discussion and also called out anti-ADS posters who also can't resist bringing it up.
You can be as constructive as you like but, unless an activity involves shooting things or blowing things up, FDev are not interested anymore. Not that they were ever interested in exploration anyway.
Some of the things proposed already have been since beta.
Sorry for the negativity.
Its all good anyway. I didnt mean to start this up in here. I agree with what you say but have wisely decided to keep my peace
I first have to say this sounds like a mouse and keyboard problem.
I am a HOTAS user, and have zero problems selecting and zooming in on a body using a HOTAS.
In my configuration I use my flight stick to maneuver the FSS, which takes over my normal flight maneuvers.
I use a hat switch on my throttle to zoom in and zoom out.
It just plain works. The only time my zoom fails is when I'm not actually on the body I'm scanning, which in turn only happens when I'm trying to scan a body that is occluded by another - usually the main star in a system.
I find using a mouse for any kind of flight operations to be both imprecise and awkward - and I started out flying mouse and keyboard.
There are just too many things to control at the same time for the awkwardness of a mouse and keyboard for me.
As noted above, and doubtlessly to be noted below, Frontier has heard the voices of the tens of individuals who have cried out, and made a decision. It isn't the decision they wanted, but they cannot help themselves but to badger Frontier via the rest of the community that has grown weary of them about 14 locked threads ago, so we can expect this thread to follow suit with all the others and degenerate into 100's of pages of bickering and finally ending in a mod-lock, with no optional ADS or ADS-like function added by then either.
I am a HOTAS user, and have zero problems selecting and zooming in on a body using a HOTAS.
In my configuration I use my flight stick to maneuver the FSS, which takes over my normal flight maneuvers.
I use a hat switch on my throttle to zoom in and zoom out.
It just plain works. The only time my zoom fails is when I'm not actually on the body I'm scanning, which in turn only happens when I'm trying to scan a body that is occluded by another - usually the main star in a system.
I find using a mouse for any kind of flight operations to be both imprecise and awkward - and I started out flying mouse and keyboard.
There are just too many things to control at the same time for the awkwardness of a mouse and keyboard for me.
As noted above, and doubtlessly to be noted below, Frontier has heard the voices of the tens of individuals who have cried out, and made a decision. It isn't the decision they wanted, but they cannot help themselves but to badger Frontier via the rest of the community that has grown weary of them about 14 locked threads ago, so we can expect this thread to follow suit with all the others and degenerate into 100's of pages of bickering and finally ending in a mod-lock, with no optional ADS or ADS-like function added by then either.
That's one way to see it. But I also dare to say that we already had plenty of attempts to give constructive feedback on the FSS. They always ended as the same pile of biowaste, by the same people. I am absolutely not surprised that nobody of FD was ready to dig out the gems of actually good suggestions out of them.
Right now we have a thread here which still has an acceptable signal to noise ratio. If FD acts on it, we'll see. I also would be happily surprised if we'd see improvements still this year. But as long as we fail to even just give feedback in any halfway acceptable rate, we can't blame FD on not acting on it.
And in the end, if FD does nothing else but give us the radar while in FSS/DSS and removes the "throttle has to be zero to enter it" requirement, we'd already be a huge step ahead.
That's especially as I consider the current "crew member can use it" implementation to be terrible. Formerly exploration was a single person activity, anybody else along could just look out of the window and be bored. Now the crew member can use the scanners. But the pilot has to throttle back and do nothing. So still always only one person is active, while the other one is bored.
Being able to do both crew members do something at the same time (one scans, the other one brings the ship towards the next planet) would be so awesome.
Mind you, I am not so much of an explorer. But I still sometimes, although by now very rarely, have people join me in the game. And at the moment combat is the only thing which you can actually do together. Any other thing you could do together would be absolutely awesome for me.
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I've won plenty fights in a ship with nothing mounted on hardpoints, just a fighter.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
This is SUCH a big drawback to the FSS. I honestly can't understand what FDev were thinking when they implemented it this way.
Failing to do the promised Focused Feedback on Exploration really screwed the pooch.
Yet you know what i mean. Your ship still is there, fighter or not. And some defensive flying (even if done by an NPC) just is more helpful than your ship being a motionless target. So no matter which of the two you use, ship or fighter, the NPC does add to the gameplay instead of replacing it.