Just out of curiosity....

My guess is that its introduction made the little bit of skill/knowledge/experience obsolete that used to be needed to classify the planet types via the system map.

Personally, I also don't really enjoy zooming in/out several hundred times per session, but I'm also not completely put off by it - but on this one the mileages very considerably.
 
Have a read. Also multiple other threads elsewhere, but best not to discuss it anymore.

Also, according to your sig, you're Pioneer in exploration: by the time you get to around three billion Cr or so earned from exploration, I think you'll see for yourself why.
 
Try using Kb+M - It is a big PIA to use that way - MOO

I use WASD to move the cursor and the cursor keys to zoom in and out (up/down) and scroll the frequency doodad left and right. Works perfectly well, try experimenting with bindings and you'll find something that works.
 
Have a read. Also multiple other threads elsewhere, but best not to discuss it anymore.

Also, according to your sig, you're Pioneer in exploration: by the time you get to around three billion Cr or so earned from exploration, I think you'll see for yourself why.

Should be Elite when I get to Colonia. I guess it helps that I didn't start any kind of exploration until after the FSS was released.

If I were to gripe about exploration, it's that there's nothing really interesting to discover; not the tools.

It was a good read, and I appreciate the link.
 
I've found the absolute axis mappings to really make the difference. I use my throttle axis for it, and can instantly tune with the HOTAS that way. Makes it go quickly.
 
Yeah... I use the paddles on my HOTAS for tuning. I'll look into the absolute axis mappings.

So, how did exploration work before the FSS?
 
So, how did exploration work before the FSS?

It was simpler, but scanning/tagging required supercruising around the system. After doing the honk, the entire system map would be revealed, but nothing was tagged or scanned. For that, you would have to target each body, and fly within a certain distance (mostly determined by the body's radius), and let the scanner do its thing. So unless the object was super close, such as the arrival star, there would be significant travel time to each object, and the scan could take anywhere from about 12-ish seconds at point-blank range, to upward of 30 or so for objects that were just barely in range, assuming you had the fast-scanning mod on your Detailed Surface Scanner. Otherwise it could be even longer. However the scan would accelerate as you continued to approach the object. Small systems, such as an M-class star with 6 or 7 planets might not take long at all, but some of the larger systems could take 30 minutes or more to scan entirely. This meant it was pretty common for explorers to cherry-pick only the more valuable planets to scan/tag.
 
Seems like the FSS is more efficient, then. Once the system map is revealed after using the FSS, one can still cherry-pick planets for DSS.

But, as I said, there were some good points in the thread. I think it's not a bad foundation upon which to build, assuming FDev wants to improve it.
 
Seems like the FSS is more efficient, then.

Well, yes and no. Most people got pretty adept at figuring out which systems had something interesting* and which could be ignored, all within a few seconds of opening the sysmap. Under the old system, I spent an average of two minutes in each system. Under the current system, I spend an average of three minutes in each system. So if you really wanted to nit-pick, it's not more time-efficient (for me).

Just to clarify, I'm fine with the FSS. I was also fine with the old system.

* "Interesting" means different things to different people.
 
For me, the specifics of how I handle each system have changed, but my overall exploration style wasn't affected much at all. I can travel around the map at a similar speed while scanning more things under the new system, but that's because I don't usually scan entire systems unless they catch my eye somehow. The trade-off is that I'm now more likely to miss something interesting (to me) since I can't see the entire system layout at a glance after the honk.
 
The (minor) issues I've experienced with the FSS, is that
1: When I tune the frequency, it sometimes jumps from one end of the scale to the other, so that I have to tune back. This happens frequently for me, and as I've understood it, it comes down to the fact that...

2: ...the time it takes to find out if there's any POI's on a planet is based upon how strong your GPU is. I have a GTX1070 in my rig, and I experience stuttering on the FSS tuning far too often for a card as strong as that. I never wait for the scanner to finish before I look for the next body in the system(it finishes in the background), and when I scan systems with 40+ bodies, there can be a fair share of stuttering until it catches up. I know that I have a prev gen GPU, but the game is far older than the card. It shouldn't happen. I find it kinda odd, actually, that Frontier has made it like that, but I do understand that it would probably take far longer if all of it were to be a server-based rather than client-based load.

Other than this, I'm very happy that I no longer need to "waste" a lot of time travelling 400+KLS in supercruise for a scan that MIGHT be profitable, only for it to be worthless in terms of scan value. It was REALLY frustrating to see something that looked like an ELW, only for it to be a non-terraformable HMC instead :p

When it comes to the DSS, I realized that I probably should have engineer-modded it before I headed out, but I didn't check if it even WERE engineerable before I was 400+ jumps out on my (current) trip. Having to fly around a massive Class II Gas Giant to scan the other side is a drag, especially when it has rings(which most of them have). But I don't scan many of the gas giants anyway, so it's not a major issue :p :)

O7
 
Other than this, I'm very happy that I no longer need to "waste" a lot of time travelling 400+KLS in supercruise for a scan that MIGHT be profitable, only for it to be worthless in terms of scan value. It was REALLY frustrating to see something that looked like an ELW, only for it to be a non-terraformable HMC instead :p
You could have learnt to tell them apart either by their icons when targeted, or the sounds on the system map. Of course, recognizing body types is much easier now, and also much speedier to just scan things, but finding the really rare (and for many, the most interesting) stuff has been made much slower. In a sense, the FSS is like wearing floaties while swimming: good for beginners, but they hinder more experienced swimmers. The crucial difference is that you can take off floaties.

On the other hand, for going through the crowdsourced data, body scanning having been made much easier and stars getting auto-scanned is great. So when your exploration gameplay is analysing what others have found, that did improve, as the sample size for bodies and stars did get much larger. I look forward to when Frontier will make scanning things even faster, but in my opinion, body scanning shouldn't be where the focus of exploration gameplay is anyway. (And especially not by clicking blobs while stationary.)
So, I await the day when the devs will move on from it... although seeing the development history of exploration to date, I worry that it may never happen before the game reaches the end of its life.
 
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You could have learnt to tell them apart either by their icons when targeted, or the sounds on the system map.

I did learn the visual difference of the bodies, but I often mistook what I saw, and the visuals didn't tell if a HMC were terra or not(at least noy for me), the audio thing was something I never looked into, as I have spotify running in the background while flying :p

O7
 
You could have learnt to tell them apart either by their icons when targeted, or the sounds on the system map.

I have started to figure that out (the sounds). The easiest thing to do is just look in the bottom right corner and it tells you what it is.

I worry that it may never happen before the game reaches the end of its life.

Perish the thought!!
 
Biggest problem with FSS is trying to find bodies that are not on the orbital plane. It's a big old sky out there and after getting RSI waving the mouse around for a bit trying to find that off centre gas giant, I tend to give up.
 
I used to take a glance at the system map to decide if I stay or not, can't do that now unless I use the FSS, after some hundreds of systems it's unbearable, in short, we loss a functionality given by the ADS.
 
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