Geo/bio POI scanning changes in the next update

[-VR- Max Factor]

I prefer the new proposal over what we have. I don't mind a bit of uncertainty. To me, that's all part of exploring.

Saying that I would be also be happy with a straight yes or no and the DSS gives us the number and type.

Also the nav panel and system map needs to be more consistant with what the FSS discovers.

I will wait to see how it works to give a proper judgement. If the very likely is 9 times out of 10 to be correct, that's fine by me. If people don't want to go to a place which may not have a geo/bio site, then don't go to the likely and not likely ones, just fly to the very likely ones as you will be virtually guaranteed to find one.

The others are a much bigger gamble and if you don't want to gamble, move on and leave it to people that do. It gives you choices which I much prefer. It may be able to do be done better, like having a "none", a "maybe" and a yes. So there is only one gamble, the other two are certainties. If you don't want to gamble, move on.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

There is a reason it refuses to die. But the people who are happy with FSS are often entrenched in their "I like it, therefore it must be good" religion and refuse to acknowledge any argument that casts a shadow on it.

Anyway, on the topic.
I am indifferent about the change. Not interested in bio sites, so it doesnt affect me. If i was, probably the change would frustrate me. FSS is a huge time sink already and adding more to that is not welcome.

What i see as a very positive sign is that under the leadership of the new Lead Designer, this time they ask the community before implementing a controversial change. Even a minor one like this. They didnt ask and didnt listen back then when implemented the FSS. The fact that the former Lead Designer was fired shortly after this was implemented tells a lot.

Nobody was fired from what I can gather. Sandro left before the FSS was introduced. As to listen, who didn't they listen to. There were plenty praising it, a few that were not. It's virtually the same few that keep on going in every forum about the FSS.

 

[Para Handy]

You'd very likely be waiting even longer if they chose to go that route. Even with the current limitation of performing discrete chunks of work each frame, the calculation throughput of your GPU is likely significantly higher than the throughput of your CPU, at least for the kinds of simple-but-repetitive calculations that seem to be involved here.
..........

The point I was making was that the algorithm for determining the presence and type of surface features need not be locked-in to what appears to be the current situation - actually rendering the whole moon / planet. If they can't do this then fair enough but I am surprised if they cannot determine what, if anything, is going to be on the body without going through the whole rendering process.

 

[marx]

It's virtually the same few that keep on going in every forum about the FSS.

Says the guy who only posts in the exploration subforum if the subject of the FSS being bad comes up I mean, varonica just mentioned that a choice now would be good just as a choice back then would have been good, and bam, here you are.
This is all off-topic, but let's lay it to rest quick.

As to listen, who didn't they listen to. There were plenty praising it, a few that were not.

Hm, let's see some threads... There's this, this, this and this... and so on. Not just "a few" that were not praising it. And well, nearly a year later, more than a few stopped playing.

What i see as a very positive sign is that under the leadership of the new Lead Designer, this time they ask the community before implementing a controversial change. Even a minor one like this. They didnt ask and didnt listen back then when implemented the FSS. The fact that the former Lead Designer was fired shortly after this was implemented tells a lot.

Adam Bourke-Waite was the lead designer for Elite then, and Max Factor is right in that Sandro Sammarco wasn't fired, he was moved to another game. But otherwise, you're right: the FSS was designed and put in testing during the last days of Sammarco. However, it seems to have been Bourke-Waite's call not to act on any of the feedback on it before it went live - or at least, he was the one who posted so.

However, let's not forget that on this current matter, we still have yet to see if they'll act on any of the feedback. Of course, we are before the (very short?) beta.

 

[Thatchinho]

What I mean is, you can never be 100% certain with the new system, so you risk missing likely candidate bio sites on bodies unless you probe them. Even now some bodies that return geo positive don't actually have any sites, how many that return geo negative do actually have sites? So even if the FSS says no, you can't be certain until you fly up to probing distance and probe the body. Which is time consuming because you have to get so close, probe the body, then fly out of the gravity well if you want to check a second body. I don't know how other people feel but how much exactly do you trust FDEV to get the new system right given their track record of things not always working as expected?

So if they have the FSS using the new system, which is not 100% certain either way, then give us some functionality like the DSS where if you want to check a body anyway just to find out if they are right you don't have to probe to find out if it has bio/geo, just get a few ls away like the old DSS so it can confirm the original FS scan without having to probe and that will save a lot of time. The other question is, how do we bug test the system efficiently unless in the beta we fly out to check bodies, how accurate is FDEV's data, what sort of systems did they check on? Does it work on any system, even the unusual ones? As it stands we are just going to have to take FDEV's word that it works, there's no way for players to verify the accuracy of the system.

I can't help feeling that this playing around with a system that may be a little slow but works 100% for a system that's maybe a little faster but doesn't work 100% is not a good idea. My FSS scans usually take on the order of well under 10 seconds so if I FSS a body in a binary arrangement by the time I zoom in and out again to get the second body the scan of the first is only a few seconds from finishing. I can fairly quickly jump from one to the other and back and only waste a few seconds at most. I get very little delay but that's all down to hardware so changing the system over for me is not much of an advantage, how about a choice, I keep the old FSS functionality and players with slower systems use the new one?

We're right back to that old argument, "keep the old ADS functionality", how long has that been running now and it refuses to die?

Need to check something you were saying. When you say

"Even now some bodies that return geo positive don't actually have any sites, how many that return geo negative do actually have sites?"

Edit -----

Do you mean you're finding bodies that the FSS returns a 'None' signals result for which you've then found Geo sites on? Or are you talking about the bodies with Volcanism but no Geo sites?

Do you mean the bodies with volcanism which the FSS then comes up with 'None' for? Or do you mean you've found bodies which the FSS says has sites which you've then DSS'd and found to have no sites?

---- Edit

Assuming we're talking about whether a body has Volcanism or not as an indicator...

We should be able to take 'No Volcanism = No Geo sites' as 100% guaranteed. If a planet's not geologically active, then there shouldn't be any sites which are dependent on it being geologically active. I think we can assume that the coding only places sites if there's Volcanism.

While I've encountered the bodies with Vulcanism I've never seen a body with geo sites but no Volcanism, and I've never seen reports of one (unless you're saying you've seen them?).

Anyway, personally I would say that as things stand we can treat 'has Volcanism, yes/no?' as 'has Geo sites, yes/no?' with an accuracy of >99.9% for Yes and 100% for No. I'd say the time impact resultant from the tiny % that's yes to volcanism and no to geo sites would be largely immaterial, as for any significant impact it's resultant on it being one of those bodies (i.e. 0.1% or whatever the amount is), combined with the chance of it being that body that someone chooses to go to, combined with it being a long distance away.

If the proposed system has managed to work out which bodies that rare 'yes to volcanism, no to geo sites' occurs for and classifies them as 'unlikely' then that might make things better than a simple yes/no.

It's a more complex situation for Bio sites of course as there isn't that single general yes/no indicator like there is for geo sites.

 

[marx]

Do you mean you're finding bodies that the FSS returns a 'None' signals result for which you've then found Geo sites on?

I've heard of that happening from another person (LordFerret, I think), yes. You FSS the planet, the signals part says there's "None", then when you DSS (probe pewpew) the planet, geo sites show up on it. I haven't been able to reproduce this myself though, but it's not like I've spent a lot of time on it.

 

[Thatchinho]

I've heard of that happening from another person (LordFerret, I think), yes. You FSS the planet, the signals part says there's "None", then when you DSS (probe pewpew) the planet, geo sites show up on it. I haven't been able to reproduce this myself though, but it's not like I've spent a lot of time on it.

Hmm... That sounds odd. Might go and DSS the body next time I get one with volcanism and the FSS says there's not sites.

(Also, that's not actually what I meant to say in response to Varonica, so have edited it to make it clearer. Wouldn't have realised if you hadn't posted. Ta!)

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Says the guy who only posts in the exploration subforum if the subject of the FSS being bad comes up I mean,

Please don't post stuff about me that is factually not true.

varonica just mentioned that a choice now would be good just as a choice back then would have been good, and bam, here you are.

I've always been here. Never gone away.

This is all off-topic, but let's lay it to rest quick.

Hm, let's see some threads... There's this, this, this and this... and so on. Not just "a few" that were not praising it. And well, nearly a year later, more than a few stopped playing.

Thanks for prooving my point.

 

[varonica]

Also the nav panel and system map needs to be more consistant with what the FSS discovers.

Maybe we will get a rework of the nav panel and system map, it certainly appears the system map update when they introduced the FSS was almost an afterthought. I mean the system map displays Geo after you FSS but not Bio or human? I haven't checked that yet. Seeing as they are fixing bugs I hope they go through and sort it out.

Hmm... That sounds odd. Might go and DSS the body next time I get one with volcanism and the FSS says there's not sites.

If you scan a body that has crystal spikes you get a report of bio sites but not geo sites, because the crystal spikes are classed as bio but always appear in the same place as geo sites because they rely on volcanic sites for support. The system info says volcanic, it has volcanic sites, but unless it has volcanic sites where no crystal spikes appear it won't report any volcanic sites. There are other anomalies I have encountered, but one of the problems with anomalies like this is, if you rely on your instruments to be always correct then you are never going to come across them.

For instance how many people scan airless landable bodies that don't have bio, geo or human/alien signals? No-one? Then how do you know your instruments are actually correct, you have to trust the instrument makers, and they have just told us for the convenience of a group of players they are going to make the instruments a little less accurate. Honestly I don't 100% trust the instruments now, but at least they can say they are doing there best to get them accurate.

 

[varonica]

varonica just mentioned that a choice now would be good just as a choice back then would have been good, and bam, here you are.

I honestly don't really expect a choice to be a workable option, that then increases the code base where things can go wrong, it increases complexity and time required to debug. If the system changes I can work with it and it won't drive me away from the game, but this is the time we have to express our opinions of how it should be done, now is the time we should be expressing doubts, dislikes and problems so these can be taken into account. I would like it to stay as it is, that's my opinion and desire.

 

[marx]

Please don't post stuff about me that is factually not true.

Oh, now that you mention it, it looks like you made two posts here that weren't related to the FSS. I'm not going to count how many you've made here in the past when the, khm, feedback was going on, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went over a hundred. Of course, you have almost 20,000 posts in total.
But I was just calling the irony of this out when you said "It's virtually the same few that keep on going in every forum about the FSS.": you keep going on about it the same.
Say, I'm curious: how many systems have you visited and how many bodies have you scanned in this last year?

Thanks for prooving my point.

If you read the threads and think I proved your point that only a few people didn't praise the FSS, then we must be operating under different definitions of "few".

Anyway, I'm done with this matter, feel free to have the last word if you want it. Moving back on topic:

I honestly don't really expect a choice to be a workable option, that then increases the code base where things can go wrong, it increases complexity and time required to debug. If the system changes I can work with it and it won't drive me away from the game, but this is the time we have to express our opinions of how it should be done, now is the time we should be expressing doubts, dislikes and problems so these can be taken into account. I would like it to stay as it is, that's my opinion and desire.

Personally, my favourite solution to this would be to implement a "second scan" option, that once the initial scan is complete and you get the new approximate results, then if you wanted the full results and would be fine with waiting them out, you could press a button to have the game do the "old" scan again. That shouldn't be difficult to implement. After all, the new code in all of this is the new approximation, and the "old" method of rendering the full planet is already in the game.
Of course, this would require implementing a new button to the FSS, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if just putting the full rendering off to the DSS were less effort than that.

 

[Orvidius]

The most interesting aspect of this (to me) is the fact that it's 100% coupled to rendering the planet. They're generating distinct location points from a continuous "fractal" landscape. They could have decided just to add geo/bio sites at random locations, independent of the actual terrain, but then they might need to partially render the planet anyway to make sure they don't end up on the sides of cliffs or other inappropriate locations. My suspicion is that they have a set of rules for altitude, material concentration (which supposedly exists but we don't see obvious evidence of it), and so on, to choose reasonable locations. As long as they keep it coupled to the terrain generator, it will need to render the planets before giving us locations and number of sites found, which presents a technical limitation of rendering time. And I agree, this would be far worse on the CPU than on the GPU.

If they were to decouple it from the terrain rendering process, then the site selection process would change, and it would invalidate anyone's recorded locations that they might want to return to. I don't usually visit these sites twice, and if I do, I use the probe waypoints to do so. So I'd be OK with them replacing the algorithm, but I suspect this is more than they want to do in this case. They would rather alter the gameplay than change the rendering process.

 

[Para Handy]

The most interesting aspect of this (to me) is the fact that it's 100% coupled to rendering the planet. They're generating distinct location points from a continuous "fractal" landscape. They could have decided just to add geo/bio sites at random locations, independent of the actual terrain, but then they might need to partially render the planet anyway to make sure they don't end up on the sides of cliffs or other inappropriate locations. My suspicion is that they have a set of rules for altitude, material concentration (which supposedly exists but we don't see obvious evidence of it), and so on, to choose reasonable locations. As long as they keep it coupled to the terrain generator, it will need to render the planets before giving us locations and number of sites found, which presents a technical limitation of rendering time. And I agree, this would be far worse on the CPU than on the GPU.

If they were to decouple it from the terrain rendering process, then the site selection process would change, and it would invalidate anyone's recorded locations that they might want to return to. I don't usually visit these sites twice, and if I do, I use the probe waypoints to do so. So I'd be OK with them replacing the algorithm, but I suspect this is more than they want to do in this case. They would rather alter the gameplay than change the rendering process.

However, if they could just indicate if there are any surface features and what type without having to do the rendering then we could have a FSS scan result telling us if there are geo or bio features (no need for number of them) without the long delay - you can then decide to investigate further if you want. I really don't see why this determination of the existence of surface features cannot be accomplished by the game without resorting to rendering the body.

 

[Iskariot]

This was posted in the January update announcement (which was originally called the December update, but hey), but I thought I'd post a separate thread for it here, so the info and feedback don't get lost in the noise there.
Here's the relevant part:

Also, there was this important bit in a later reply (emphasis mine):



So, your thoughts and feedback on this?


Personally, I think it's one step forward, one step back. It really depends on how many false positives this will produce, when you'd waste time flying to and pewpewing a planet only for there to be no bio (/ geo) sites.

My suggestion would be to include a button to perform the complete scan after the approximation. Waiting on the full 20-40 seconds for it to finish would be better than spending several minutes to fly there and DSS the planet, only to find that it's empty, the approximation was wrong and you wasted your time.

I think that is an excellent suggestion!
1st. We do a superficial probability scan
2nd. We can then decide whether we want to do a detailed deep scan.

I support this.
I also like this because we get to make a decision about what we want to do. I like more agency in game mechanics.

 

[Thatchinho]

Maybe we will get a rework of the nav panel and system map, it certainly appears the system map update when they introduced the FSS was almost an afterthought. I mean the system map displays Geo after you FSS but not Bio or human? I haven't checked that yet. Seeing as they are fixing bugs I hope they go through and sort it out.

Mind if I just clarify this?

The FSS as a first point only returns the same info as the DSS used to (including the volcanism info). AFAIK that info is stuff that is all generated while in hyperspace as it's to do with system formation and orbits. Composition and tidal forces are functions of those for example, nothing to do with the rendering of the actual planets. Tidal forces are one of the primary factors in whether a body has volcansim. Age will be another one. But all things which fall out of the initial system generation.

The signal/POI info is separate (at least for Bio/Geo) and not returned instantly as it's not part of the system generation. All POIs are treated the same in terms of results. Geo POI results aren't treated any differently.

Consider non-landables for reference. The same info is returned for non-landables as landables, except the surface POI/signal info. The info for non-landable returns virtually instantly.

Also, initially in the 3.3 beta that info wasn't displayed on the system map whatsoever.

I (and I'm sure others) asked for the POI info from the FSS to be shown on the System Map. I don't know why, but it was done for the DSS rather than the FSS. I've chased this many times since. No joy. (I've asked again in the main thread.)

Edit - posted that in a bit of a rush. When I said mind if I clarify, I meant to add a bit at the end to check whether what I was saying was also what you were also experiencing/meaning. Hope it didn’t come across badly!

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Oh, now that you mention it, it looks like you made two posts here that weren't related to the FSS. I'm not going to count how many you've made here in the past when the, khm, feedback was going on, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went over a hundred. Of course, you have almost 20,000 posts in total.

That's fine.

But I was just calling the irony of this out when you said "It's virtually the same few that keep on going in every forum about the FSS.": you keep going on about it the same.

Of course it's ironic. Deliberately ironic.

Say, I'm curious: how many systems have you visited and how many bodies have you scanned in this last year?

I left the bubble at the beginning of DW2 and still not back in the bubble. How many, I don't know, probably thousands though.

If you read the threads and think I proved your point that only a few people didn't praise the FSS, then we must be operating under different definitions of "few".

A few in relation to the games population.

Anyway, I'm done with this matter, feel free to have the last word if you want it.

You asked me a question, not to answer you would be rude. It's not about having the last word. That doesn't want bothers me whether it's you or me. It's not important. Not too sure why you had to bring it up.

 

[Han Zulu]

I completely support the change. The FSS is OP, and the DSS struggles to have a purpose. A long-distance scan shouldn't resolve all the details that the FSS currently does, but it is totally plausible that it would give us reliable probabilities, requiring us to visit the planet for a more detailed scan to get the exact stats.

And remember, the "cool stuff" like ruins and abandoned INRA bases will resolve instantly, so it's not like you're going to miss anything important. How many geysers or brain trees do you need to see?

ps - I actually would like the DSS to receive a buff, telling us what type of geological or biological are on a planet without having to fly down to every single one.

Agree.

I find it rather bothersome that the FSS can somehow reveal that there are 21 geological sties and 7 biological sites on a planet from distance, while the DSS has no use than to give some extra credits. If the FSS can just say, "there's something interesting there to look at", or even "geological sites found" but not how many, and then use the DSS to get the details, it would make more sense.

This change will probably speed up my exploration quite a bit. I currently can only use my older laptop, over wifi, and the FSS is extremely annoying. If I zoom in and get the scan thingy going, I just have to wait for it to finish, because if I zoom out, the scan is running in the background and the motion gets very jumpy and twitchy. The current design is bad for older and slower computers. It did get somewhat better after a couple of tweaks of the graphics settings, but still, some days the internet is too slow and I start a planet scan in FSS and go and do something else and come back later. It's not playing anymore.

Another way they could do it is to run the resolve routines on their own server and give the information back in a different way than the FSS, so at least the computer doesn't have to be held up with background processing.

 

[hems303]

OP Marx's suggestion would be to include a button to perform the complete scan after the approximation. Waiting on the full 20-40 seconds for it to finish would be better than spending several minutes to fly there and DSS the planet, only to find that it's empty, the approximation was wrong and you wasted your time.

Agree..agree...AGREE... the way to go mate!

 

[Han Zulu]

For the explorers who do still bother, especially bio hunters, it's a bad change.

I'm a bio hunter and I don't find it bad. Rather the opposite. It might speed it up. The time it takes for the FSS to resolve and scan the planets gives me a bit more time to actually fly and play the game. Right now, it's too much dead time waiting. Besides, the bio sites tend to show up on a certain type of planet, so the FSS POI scan is mostly useless.

 

[Han Zulu]

Who in the community came up with the idea that the current scanning of planets is a problem? I don't see a problem here. Patients is a big part of exploring. If one is not patient, perhaps one should do something else. IMHO, leave it as it is. There are bigger fish to fry.

On slower computers, the FSS POI scan does take a majority of the time. It's like move, zoom, wait....................................................., zoom out, move, zome in, wait .................................................., zome out, move, zome in, wait .................................................... On bad days, when the internet is slow or whatever pixies are bothering the computer, I start a scan and go and do some dishes, come back to see if it's done. Start the next one and go and do something else. And it's the POI scan that steals the time. Either make it instant or change how it works, because it's extremely annoying. Basically, I'm more busy doing other things than playing the game when I'm trying to play the game. So... if they at least could make the POI scan instant, then it'll be fine.