Could or should Frontier enhance the FSS or add in and incorporate an optional ADS-like expansion module?

FSS is fine. Maybe a little polish. The original ADS pales.
No need to waste dev time on a beginner system.
Moving back to the ADS is like going back to scooping up mining mats.
 
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That would be true if all you're looking for is GGGs. But GGGs is just an example.

It's just one of the things players are looking for. You find GGGs while traveling to some far away destination for instance. Many explorers are looking for the oddities in the galaxy, of which GGGs is one. For me it's usually system configurations, but my last trip to the core I did find a Pink Gas Giant, which was a first. And nearly none of the odd system configurations in the galaxy can be determined by looking at the spectrum.

edit: credit to Sunyavadin for this example:
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Now I bet 9 out of 10 explorers notice the water world, fss it and move on. Missing out on the most interesting anomaly in the system.

The hit ratio for me for odd systems is about 1 in 50 (I can only give a rough estimate since I never counted them out). Before I would plot a route, usually somewhere towards the core of the galaxy, since I most enjoy that part, and it seems that's where the freaky systems have a higher hit ratio. With my T-6's jump range I do about 25 jumps per 1,000 LY. So anywhere around each 2,000 LYs I'll find a system which differs from the run of the mill. Which is about an hour. This is nice, since it breaks up the journey and gets me stuck in the system.

Nowadays, using the FSS, I will have to FSS those 50 systems for my 1 in 50 hit ratio. Which means I could have entire evening sessions with no hits. And that's just no fun for me.

edit: By the way, I do get a giggle out of people telling me the way I played this game for years is fruitless and I'd be better off playing the lottery. :)
I doubt many would just FSS earth likes or water worlds and move on. I bet most would FSS the whole system as they would have no idea where the water world is anyhow and then go and map it. And while FSSing the whole system you can see in much more detail how that strange configuration looks before even looking at the system map (except when in VR which still needs fixing).

For me, the FSS is slower but you get a better look then the system map for those kind of configurations.

There are pros and cons of both systems. I try to concentrate on the pros.
 
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There are pros and cons of both systems. I try to concentrate on the pros.

That's fine Max but it doesn't make the cons magically disappear. Also they're your pros and cons, which won't be the same as mine, Ziggy's or [insert player name]'s. I've nothing against positivity and it's great that you have that attitude. It's not an argument though, it's a state of mind.
 
That's fine Max but it doesn't make the cons magically disappear. Also they're your pros and cons, which won't be the same as mine, Ziggy's or [insert player name]'s. I've nothing against positivity and it's great that you have that attitude. It's not an argument though, it's a state of mind.
Never said that the cons disappear. But there are pros for that kind of exploration, they are not my pros, they are just there as has been described. To say that the FSS is poor for that type of exploration is just factually wrong.

What it is poor at is entering a system, honking, looking at the system map and deciding whether to go or stay. The FSS can't do that as well as he ADS and to be honest I don't find that's a bad thing.

In my view, there should be some investigation to find out if it's a system worth exploring or not, not just a 5 second press of a button.

I expect you to feel differently though, so no hard feelings.
 
Never said that the cons disappear. But there are pros for that kind of exploration, they are not my pros, they are just there as has been described. To say that the FSS is poor for that type of exploration is just factually wrong.

What it is poor at is entering a system, honking, looking at the system map and deciding whether to go or stay. The FSS can't do that as well as he ADS and to be honest I don't find that's a bad thing.

In my view, there should be some investigation to find out if it's a system worth exploring or not, not just a 5 second press of a button.

I expect you to feel differently though, so no hard feelings.

Hi Max

Perhaps you could remind me of what pros the FSS provides for people who wish to resolve planetary composition by flying to said planet? I must have missed the description of how the FSS improves that style of gameplay.

Thanks
 
I've come to like the current system since I modified "%APPDATA%\..\local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings\Custom.3.0.binds" like this <FSSMouseSensitivity Value="40.00000000" />. My mouse is now fast enough as I don't scan planets' surface with value < 1M cr.
 
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I expect you to feel differently though, so no hard feelings.

Indeed, and none here either.

It's a fairly simple calculation for me, broadly along the lines of scant leisure time / hugely increased time to get a basic visual overview of a system = happy meter insufficiently filled by log-off time. Sadly, no amount of positivity about what the FSS does offer will compensate for that.

There are lots of things that the FSS does very well. Mapping is a good idea and reasonably well implemented, sure the 'space golf' approach is fairly rudimentary but it's not hellishly bad or anything and the bonuses that the FSS provides in populated systems, in particular with regard to being able to identify USSs, is one of the best features they've introduced since engineering went live in my opinion - no more fruitlessly flying around in deep space for 20 minutes waiting for the RNG to throw me a bone. As someone who enjoys a spot of mining when I'm within range of somewhere I can sell my plunder, the ability to scan for hotspots in rings is also very good.

It's just unfortunate that the price I pay for those features is that the activity I've spent well over half my time in the game doing has been turned into a tedious exercise in endless blob-chasing in a separate interface, with almost no actual pay-off in terms of systems that I ultimately want to explore.

Like Ziggy, my interest in exploration is not primarily in pretending to be a scientist and keeping detailed spreadsheets of every class 3 gas giant I happen to have discovered, or marvelling at the fact that the snowball I just scanned has a radius 15m smaller than the last one, but in finding the beautiful unusual and unique. * Sadly the inability to see a system map without spending significant time in the FSS screen first (and for anyone who's thinking 'but it doesn't take that long' go scan a 76 body system and come back to me on that...), plus the obviously low hit rate that anyone searching for the kind of things I am will achieve to begin with, pretty much tore the guts out of exploration gameplay for me.

I accept that they did what they did with it. I'll never be happy about it though, nor will I stop missing the enjoyment I used to get from the game.


*Note - I'm not suggesting that's where you get your fun from either, it's just an example of the kind of gameplay that I could understand the FSS enhancing, as opposed to my own which was effectively destroyed by it.
 
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Indeed, and none here either.

It's a fairly simple calculation for me, broadly along the lines of scant leisure time / hugely increased time to get a basic visual overview of a system = happy meter insufficiently filled by log-off time. Sadly, no amount of positivity about what the FSS does offer will compensate for that.

There are lots of things that the FSS does very well. Mapping is a good idea and reasonably well implemented, sure the 'space golf' approach is fairly rudimentary but it's not hellishly bad or anything and the bonuses that the FSS provides in populated systems, in particular with regard to being able to identify USSs is one of the best features they've introduced since engineering went live in my opinion - no more fruitlessly flying around in deep space for 20 minutes waiting for the RNG the trow me a bone. As someone who enjoys a spot of mining when I'm within range of somewhere I can sell my plunder, the ability to scan for hotspots in rings is also very good.

It's just unfortunate that the price I pay for those features is that the activity I've spent well over half my time in the game doing has been turned into a tedious exercise in endless blob-chasing in a separate interface, with almost no actual pay-off in terms of systems that I ultimately want to explore.

Like Ziggy, my interest in exploration is not primarily in pretending to be a scientist and keeping detailed spreadsheets of every class 3 gas giant I happen to have discovered, or marvelling at the fact that the snowball I just scanned has a radius 15m smaller than the last one, but in finding the beautiful unusual and unique. * Sadly the inability to see a system map without spending significant time in the FSS screen first (and for anyone who's thinking 'but it doesn't take that long' go scan a 76 body system and come back to me on that...), plus the obviously low hit rate that anyone searching for the kind of things I am will achieve to begin with, pretty much tore the guts out of exploration gameplay for me.

I accept that they did what they did with it. I'll never be happy about it though, nor will I stop missing the enjoyment I used to get from the game.


*Note - I'm not suggesting that's where you get your fun from either, it's just an example of the kind of gameplay that I could understand the FSS enhancing, as opposed to my own which was effectively destroyed by it.
Well I'm all up for improvements to the FSS that would hopefully alleviate your pain. My idea wouldn't be as full proof as the ADS, but it would give you an idea that something interesting could be there before you need to start using the FSS.
 
So i went to a system i previously had no data on.
Upon jumping to it, i auto-resolved the star, then i used
the Discovery scanner from my firegroup in analysis mode. (Not FSS)
The result is contacts in the nav panel and the bodies on the system map are coloured.
Is that not what you guys wanted?
 
So i went to a system i previously had no data on.
Upon jumping to it, i auto-resolved the star, then i used
the Discovery scanner from my firegroup in analysis mode. (Not FSS)
The result is contacts in the nav panel and the bodies on the system map are coloured.
Is that not what you guys wanted?

You're in a system someone else has already scanned.
It doesn't work like that in 'virgin' systems.
 
You're in a system someone else has already scanned.
It doesn't work like that in 'virgin' systems.

It puzzles me, why there is a different behaviour in "virgin" systems then, as the system i was in had no beacon that could communicate the data on the system.
If FD consolidated the behaviour, that surely would put out the fire, aye?
 
It puzzles me, why there is a different behaviour in "virgin" systems then, as the system i was in had no beacon that could communicate the data on the system.
If FD consolidated the behaviour, that surely would put out the fire, aye?

Yes it would, however some relish the reveal of the FSS, so making it an optional module (as we had before) is the optimal solution.

I'm fine with how the process works in explored space now, I barely use the FSS and when I do (for BGS points) it is a chore. I just look at the sysmap, target the shiny things and go & map them. I'd like to be able to do that in virgin & partially explored systems too by fitting an optional module, just as we had before the 3.3 update, because guessing what type of planet it is from the picture and it's distance from the star etc is a nice little challenge, an opportunity to fail or use experience to make educated guesses. For me, there is no guesswork in the new process, just a chore to complete the sysmap as quickly as possible. I now only gather exploration data for it's BGS value, I used to do it for fun.

Just put the ADS back into outfitting please FDev, there was no need to remove it in the first place and doing so has only needlessly created problems, removing it solved nothing.
 
It puzzles me, why there is a different behaviour in "virgin" systems then, as the system i was in had no beacon that could communicate the data on the system.
If FD consolidated the behaviour, that surely would put out the fire, aye?
It was a compromise so people can quickly move on to the next system if they were looking for virgin systems. Personally I really do not like it.
 
If FD consolidated the behaviour, that surely would put out the fire, aye?

Makes you wonder why they didnt in the first place. The reason you can see in the bubble, or so i heard, was that people complained. Now im sure i have read that people complained about its effect on exploration aswell, so why did one group get their complaint heard? Feels like a lack of love for explorers to me :)
 
Not gonna lie, I’m a huge fan of the FSS. I explore for a sense of discovery, to see sights nobody else is likely to ever see, not for credits or “tags.”

The ADS catered to the latter IMO, while the FSS, when properly utilized, really enables former. Sure, you can use the FSS as a “minigame” to plow through for credits and “tags,” but if you know how to use it, you can easily locate eclipse candidates, binary+ worlds, roche worlds, and a host of other things that would never show up in the system map.

It also made discovering systems via parallax viable again.

Could it be improved? Certainly. I have a list of FSS techniques that require your ship to be moving to use, se being forced to throttle down to unnecessarily can be a bit frustrating. I’d like to be able to get body information and the FSS summary screen from the exterior panel in the cockpit, so I can make decisions during my braking maneuver. I’d like to be able to discover surface POIs when I get close to them, as opposed to probing them.
 
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