And I would pay a few billion credits to boot....just sayin'
FSS - my opinion
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And I would pay a few billion credits to boot....just sayin'
I explore -- it's not the only thing I do, but I've done a fair bit of it -- and I like the FSS, personally.
I have to be honest, though; I like the FSS because it eases one of my compulsions. I used to waste incredible amounts of time while exploring because I felt compelled to scan everything. It was an act of will to make myself not scan everything in a system. I have first discovery on a ridiculous number of snowballs out there because seeing "UNKNOWN" on my navigation panel drives me a little batty.
Now, scanning everything isn't nearly such a chore, which means I can spend more time actually looking at stuff that interests me instead of flying out to every planet in every system and getting just close enough to get a detailed scan on it. Now, I can scan all the planets in a system, look at them, think, "hmm, that looks interesting, maybe I'll take a closer look", and go do it.
I'm not saying the FSS is perfect. It's not. But it's far, far better than the ADS was (truth be told, I enjoyed exploration more before I ever got an ADS, when I used to have to squint my eyes against the stars looking for the one that moved relative to the others to find the secondary or tertiary star of a system. That was cool. Of course, it also took ages and made no money, so it was hard to do very much of it if one wanted to do anything else in the game also. But it was fun).
Is the FSS gameplay itself fun? Not really. But it gets the chore out of the way a whole lot quicker so I can get to the fun stuff -- the real exploration. Also, it makes it so that when I'm travelling through deep space (for example, when returning from an A* Challenge run as I am doing currently!), I can scan everything on the way (and not end up feeling guilty for skipping stuff) and still get where I'm going in a reasonable number of days
And honestly? Logging all the bodies is, in its own way, kind of fun for me. Or, well... more gratifying than fun. I feel like I'm contributing to the sum total of human knowledge in the game universe. But mostly, the FSS allows me to get the logging out of the way faster so i can get on with what I really want to do - whether that happens to be looking for cool and/or beautiful things out in the void, or sometimes simply getting back home.
I have to be honest, though; I like the FSS because it eases one of my compulsions. I used to waste incredible amounts of time while exploring because I felt compelled to scan everything. It was an act of will to make myself not scan everything in a system. I have first discovery on a ridiculous number of snowballs out there because seeing "UNKNOWN" on my navigation panel drives me a little batty.
Now, scanning everything isn't nearly such a chore, which means I can spend more time actually looking at stuff that interests me instead of flying out to every planet in every system and getting just close enough to get a detailed scan on it. Now, I can scan all the planets in a system, look at them, think, "hmm, that looks interesting, maybe I'll take a closer look", and go do it.
I'm not saying the FSS is perfect. It's not. But it's far, far better than the ADS was (truth be told, I enjoyed exploration more before I ever got an ADS, when I used to have to squint my eyes against the stars looking for the one that moved relative to the others to find the secondary or tertiary star of a system. That was cool. Of course, it also took ages and made no money, so it was hard to do very much of it if one wanted to do anything else in the game also. But it was fun).
Is the FSS gameplay itself fun? Not really. But it gets the chore out of the way a whole lot quicker so I can get to the fun stuff -- the real exploration. Also, it makes it so that when I'm travelling through deep space (for example, when returning from an A* Challenge run as I am doing currently!), I can scan everything on the way (and not end up feeling guilty for skipping stuff) and still get where I'm going in a reasonable number of days
And honestly? Logging all the bodies is, in its own way, kind of fun for me. Or, well... more gratifying than fun. I feel like I'm contributing to the sum total of human knowledge in the game universe. But mostly, the FSS allows me to get the logging out of the way faster so i can get on with what I really want to do - whether that happens to be looking for cool and/or beautiful things out in the void, or sometimes simply getting back home.
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@marx @Ziggy Stardust ,
Here's what I mean when I refer to the FSS as a multi-role scanner.
There are four distinct types of information presented on this screen, which is presented in six different formats:
From this screen, with zero zooming, and minimal strategic tuning, I can determine the following information about the concentrations of mass within a system:
If a world is a binary+ world:
Whether a world has a moon(s):
or not
(Note the distance and temperature reading, useful if you're searching for terraforming candidates)
Furthermore, the NFMSA's has a rather wide band where it's able to detect different types of worlds reliably:
Notice that the chevrons displayed are a rocky/ice world type, and the FSA is tuned into Icy World band. Even if it wasn't the last two worlds resolved in this rather dull system (the only thing remotely interesting is the binary icy world), I would be able to tell that it's a rocky/ice world with an icy moon, simply due to the fact that the only chevron displayed is an rocky/ice world.
It's also a useful way of detecting gas giants with moons without having to perform a second tune, to give me a relative bearing to them. I prefer to resolve gas giant moons via flyby, especially when the gas giant has rings. Only downside to this method is I have to leave the cockpit and look at the system map if I want to view their information.
And the finished system map:
And yes, I did play marx's "lockpicking minigame" for this system, because there wasn't anything worth my time to stop and head out for a closer look. If I had been been in a hurry, I would've just completed my pan and jumped back out, after resolving one of the two worlds in that binary, and not seen any geological activity. But currently there's nothing in this game's pipeline at this time to make me want to hurry.
Oh, and for the record, I timed how long it takes to do a quick pan, and its ten seconds, not five. Still incredibly fast IMO, but its still twice as long as the ADS. The horror!
actual edit:
Oh, and as I've stated repeatedly, this method will not detect GGGs or other strangely colored worlds. For that, you need something that functions like the ADS. However, that rocky/ice world on the FSA? It could've been a potential super-sized icy world. That possibility was eliminated as I moved the tuner towards it and saw it was a rocky/ice world.
edited again to fix word choices
Here's what I mean when I refer to the FSS as a multi-role scanner.
There are four distinct types of information presented on this screen, which is presented in six different formats:
- Visible Light display
- Temperature
- Distance
- Wide Field Witchspace Anomaly Detector - the blue blobs
- Narrow Field Mass Shadow Analyser - focused Witchspace Anomaly Detector capable of separating and identifying individual mass shadows
- The Filtered Spectrum Analysis - omni-directional Witchspace Anomaly Detector
From this screen, with zero zooming, and minimal strategic tuning, I can determine the following information about the concentrations of mass within a system:
If a world is a binary+ world:
Whether a world has a moon(s):
or not
(Note the distance and temperature reading, useful if you're searching for terraforming candidates)
Furthermore, the NFMSA's has a rather wide band where it's able to detect different types of worlds reliably:
Notice that the chevrons displayed are a rocky/ice world type, and the FSA is tuned into Icy World band. Even if it wasn't the last two worlds resolved in this rather dull system (the only thing remotely interesting is the binary icy world), I would be able to tell that it's a rocky/ice world with an icy moon, simply due to the fact that the only chevron displayed is an rocky/ice world.
It's also a useful way of detecting gas giants with moons without having to perform a second tune, to give me a relative bearing to them. I prefer to resolve gas giant moons via flyby, especially when the gas giant has rings. Only downside to this method is I have to leave the cockpit and look at the system map if I want to view their information.
And the finished system map:
And yes, I did play marx's "lockpicking minigame" for this system, because there wasn't anything worth my time to stop and head out for a closer look. If I had been been in a hurry, I would've just completed my pan and jumped back out, after resolving one of the two worlds in that binary, and not seen any geological activity. But currently there's nothing in this game's pipeline at this time to make me want to hurry.
Oh, and for the record, I timed how long it takes to do a quick pan, and its ten seconds, not five. Still incredibly fast IMO, but its still twice as long as the ADS. The horror!
actual edit:
Oh, and as I've stated repeatedly, this method will not detect GGGs or other strangely colored worlds. For that, you need something that functions like the ADS. However, that rocky/ice world on the FSA? It could've been a potential super-sized icy world. That possibility was eliminated as I moved the tuner towards it and saw it was a rocky/ice world.
edited again to fix word choices
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At least the PoIs are easy to find now.
S
That's honestly one of my beefs with the FSS and new exploration mechanics.
No one was asking for "easy to find" POI's with the revamp, we just wanted tools we could use to find them. Before the revamp you had to scout entire planets visually to find POI's due to no tools whatsoever, but after the revamp they are now pinpointed for us 100% and easily flown directly down to. It went from one extreme to the other. They didn't add any game to finding the POI's, they are now simply located for us.
What's even more sad is the game already has a mechanic in place which could have easily been utilized to search and find POI's: the surface salvage bouncing locator mechanic. Instead of precisely locating POI's the probes could locate the general areas of POI's, which we would then have to fly down and do some ship piloting at the surface level to narrow down and actually locate.
I wish the exploration revamp had been handled more like the mining revamp. Mining is now my favorite playstyle in the game. It requires the concurrent use of several different tools WHILE FLYING from the cockpit, no face down minigames that take you out of the game proper. Mining feels like part of the game, while exploration feels like something different tacked onto the game. At least to me anwyay.
This is the Way of Frontier.
I hope that they revise the FSS in the future, dial it somewhere in between, perhaps like the surface salvage mechanic you described.
Won't be holding my breath though!
I'm not really sure there is a middle way, and personally I loathe the bouncing target mechanism (I'm assuming it's the same one used for planetary scan missions, haven't done a surface salvage in years). After the first couple of times when it may appear novel, it's just a predictable and repetitive time sink put in front of the actual gameplay, which is whatever the mission is.
The scale of the game, the speeds we travel, the difference in instancing between SC/OC and normal flight, and of course the fact that for most things (although not geological or biological sites), they are simply not there until they spawn for us when we get there means that searching for things is probably not a viable option.
The SRV scanner is probably the closest thing we have to searching for stuff in the game. Perhaps a similar scanner could be added to ships that activates above the sensor display when in normal flight and with a range commensurate to the speeds we can be traveling which can be well above 1,000 mph.
I would've loved to be able to find surface POIs with something similar to the SRV's wave scanner. I think Frontier missed an opportunity by making probes infinite, as well as not providing us with an alternate way to find surface POIs, even if it's just getting within a certain range.
Not really bothered by infinite probes, all that would mean is that on an occasion that you really want to map a body but have run low on probes you'd have to stop, go find whatever was needed to synthesize them, and then get back to the gameplay you were actually interested in.
But yes, an SRV type wave scanner with a range of perhaps a hundred kilometers (that might be a bit much, at 400 m/s that's still about three minutes flying time) would at least give the opportunity (and feeling) that you are tracking something down.
And yes, a HUD target 'materializing' when you are within a certain range, the same way that they do in SC, might work well also.
True, but I've always been a fan of being required to make interesting decisions, even if that decision is whether its worth my while to launch a probe at something or not. Right now, its a no brainer to launch them at anything I want to land on, even the tiniest icy moon. Having to choose between finding a POI by searching for it, or launching probes that need to be replaced, would make the game a little more interesting IMO.Not really bothered by infinite probes, all that would mean is that on an occasion that you really want to map a body but have run low on probes you'd have to stop, go find whatever was needed to synthesize them, and then get back to the gameplay you were actually interested in.
Yeah, that's not multi-role. As I mentioned before, the FSS's role is to scan bodies and signal sources, represented as blue blobs. At best we could say that it's a multi-sensor suite, if we prescribe to your fanfiction that you just detailed.
Elite's scanners are pretty much all built for a singular purpose anyway. You can't use a pulse wave analyzer as an alternative to a wake scanner, for example.
As for the rest of your post, I somewhat appreciate the effort you took to make screenshots and explanations, but I don't appreciate that you're presenting basic things as if they were something that's complex for us. I'll give you the benefit of doubt, and assume that you did this because you thought these are advanced techniques, and not because you think we need simple things explained to us.
You did play the mini-game, every time you fired the FSS up. You didn't play my mini-game, I never worked at Frontier.
Moving on then...
If you look at the contents of Chapter Four, it's obvious that the intent was to bring new players to exploration, and existing explorers were at best an after-thought - paid lip service by the "community exploration" aspect of the Codex. (Don't get me wrong, that was at least one step in a good direction.)
Nothing really was done with longevity of gameplay in mind, and the DSS is no exception to this. It gets old much faster than the FSS does, so it's a good thing one needn't use it with nearly the same frequency as the FSS.
Generally, people asked for new content (see why DW2 was originally organised), and perhaps new tools to find new stuff. Plus the need for actual tools to find surface POIs was a constant (and valid) complaint. I wouldn't even be surprised if Frontier originally planned to do something better than what we got, but then things changed and they didn't have time to design and implement them, so they quickly cobbled together what they could and called it a day.
Not just to you. Deep core mining, flying your ship and actively looking for things, feels more like engaging exploration than much of Elite's exploration does. Something similar could have been much better than what we got.
Of course, the whole mining update wasn't entirely without fault and well-designed either. For example: displacement missiles.
The FSS as a gameplay mechanic and an exploration tool is nothing but bad to offensive to very offensive. The only way it works is to basically forget about its existence, especially frontiers intention for it, and just use it to find what you want. The critical part is you have to really let go of everything else associated with it because of the rubbish.
If you want gas giants to see what they look like, just go in there and look for the gas giants. At least for single star systems you can do this reasonably enough and can get what you want. The trick is, once you're done, completely forget about it and move on.
If you want gas giants to fly there, do the same. You can setup hardware macros to zoom out quickly so its in your navigation panel but you don't see it from the fss, a mandatory thing to do for spaceship explorers.
If you only want lava worlds, tune into those only, keep an eye on the distance if you need to, and only go for those. The point is the second you have your data (like the fss) you need to forget it exists.
Because even a second extra is excruciating if you're a millimeter out of line in your head, you have to be brutal about getting what you want and leaving.
If you can do that, i found it possible to pick up the average into a workable solution. Just get a really huge marker, do the middle finger at, whatever you need to do, to distance yourself from the fss being "designed for you" and "in the spirit of exploration" and "worthy of being in elite dangerous". That's the hardest part.. and accepting the fact that you have to live with it and not enjoy spending hours detailing things.
One click and its all over, that's what they built.
Also other people are much nicer than me to not say it, but anyone who has got the fss to work for them has this implicitly part of the solutions they describe.
If you want gas giants to see what they look like, just go in there and look for the gas giants. At least for single star systems you can do this reasonably enough and can get what you want. The trick is, once you're done, completely forget about it and move on.
If you want gas giants to fly there, do the same. You can setup hardware macros to zoom out quickly so its in your navigation panel but you don't see it from the fss, a mandatory thing to do for spaceship explorers.
If you only want lava worlds, tune into those only, keep an eye on the distance if you need to, and only go for those. The point is the second you have your data (like the fss) you need to forget it exists.
Because even a second extra is excruciating if you're a millimeter out of line in your head, you have to be brutal about getting what you want and leaving.
If you can do that, i found it possible to pick up the average into a workable solution. Just get a really huge marker, do the middle finger at, whatever you need to do, to distance yourself from the fss being "designed for you" and "in the spirit of exploration" and "worthy of being in elite dangerous". That's the hardest part.. and accepting the fact that you have to live with it and not enjoy spending hours detailing things.
One click and its all over, that's what they built.
Also other people are much nicer than me to not say it, but anyone who has got the fss to work for them has this implicitly part of the solutions they describe.
Also as a positive inverse to the above:
- Flying out somewhere and dss a body leaves you in the exact same state as you previously were with minimal exposure to the fss. That's a good goal to somehow try and achieve.
- What i've really started to like doing is flying out to a gas giant, and when its in close range, fssing all the moons to save getting caught in the gravity wells, then going from there. The sense of exploring is still maintained that way, and you avoid panning and its negatives.
- If all you see yourself as is a cartographer then the fss is perfect for you and don't let anyone else say otherwise. If that's all you want to be for an ice balls system it works for that too.
- If you spend a second more in the fss than you need to, its natural to question what you're doing. Its not playing elite dangerous thats for sure.
- Just in case, only fire off the fss once you've started scooping. You don't have to get the rate very high because the time you're in there is a relative eternity compared to scooping time. Just kick off the fuel scope, zero throttle and fss. Min max to taste.
- If there's something more you want to do in the system, just fly towards your next jump point and do it before you go.
- If you're travelling first and exploring second yeah fair call you're probably going to quit the activity of exploration all together, nothing works like it used to.
We're going to have to agree to disagree then, because quite frankly the way it was designed, it has more uses than just scanning bodies and signal sources. It provides way more information than is necessary for this role, and presents it in such a way that it can be used for other purposes.
For example, it can be used, in principle, as a navigation aide. As a navigation aide, its better than the system map or nav panel, due to how it presents this information, and it would also perform this function better than the system orrery, which is clunky to use IME. In practice, the artificial throttle restriction makes it impractical except in a limited number of circumstances.
First and foremost, in most circumstances, time that could be saved through this use is smaller than time lost due to the need to throttle down in order to use it. Second, it can't be used in VR, thanks to the frelling orbit line bug!
Fix your game, Frontier!!! I never assumed that you're unfamiliar with what I posted above. I've always assumed you choose not to use them, because the things you're most interested in cannot be spotted in this way, so why bother wasting precious seconds on it?
It was more for the benefit of the inevitable lurkers who might be unfamiliar with these concepts. As long as they're not searching for the proverbial rare unicorns, these "basic" techniques, which I feel a lot of people ignore, can be used to assess a system quickly, to see if there's something they consider worth their while for a closer look.
Its an alternative to resolving the entire system as quickly as possible and then looking at the system map. Not only is it much quicker, but the system map also doesn't show things like potential eclipses, rare alignments, and other ephemeral events.
This is another area where we're going to have to agree to disagree. Claiming I play the "lockpicking mini-game" (as you called it) simply by firing up the FSS to use some of its functions is like saying that I play the system map mini-game every time I open it up looking for information or to plot a route. There is a mini-game to be played on the system map, a "pattern recognition" mini-game that absolutely ruined exploration for me pre-FSS, but that does not make the system map a mini-game in and of itself, nor does that make it the system map's sole function.
Just a note on that. The passive range of the scanner was increased substantially with the FSS. Just swoop by relatively close to the moons/giant, and you'll sweep all of them with you instantly. Then you can have a look at them in the system map while you fly to the next planet.
The range is so far that you'll be nowhere near the strong gravity well effects, and you can go at any speed you like.
This is how I enjoy doing it. Of course, I prefer to majestically skim past the rings view, which is why I wish we could look at body information on the navigation/targeting panel. Unfortunately the requirement of entering the (ugh) system map to do so, or alternatively the artificial requirement of throttling down to enter the FSS, kind of ruin the effect.
Frontier developments: makes a game that creates realistic alien systems and worlds, often time with stunning views, and if you want more information about a body, it hides it behind ugly interfaces or artificial throttle restrictions.
But that is the key point, isnt it? Basically you are saying that FSS works great for everybody, except for the majority of the dedicated explorers
I appreciate there are those who enjoy fully scanning every system they are jumping in, including some who posted in this thread. Fair enough. But i have reasons to believe these are minority in the exploration community. We all start our exploration career by scanning everything. I was doing that too. But at some point most of us switch to cherry picking mode.
I follow this forum for a long time, before the Engineers update was launched. I have seen what kind of things people post here. Please take a look yourself if you dont believe me. The 31 page (think it is second edition) thread Show us your interesting discoveries is still around. Glowing Gas giant thread, etc. Have a look at EDSM POIs. Rare unicorns is what people are looking for. Nobody is posting pics of fully scanned totally unremarkable systems. I think it is safe to assume that people are posting things they are interested in and it is an indicator of what explorers are looking for. Dont you agree?
But that is the key point, isnt it? Basically you are saying that FSS works great for everybody, except for the majority of the dedicated explorers
I appreciate there are those who enjoy fully scanning every system they are jumping in, including some who posted in this thread. Fair enough. But i have reasons to believe these are minority in the exploration community. We all start our exploration career by scanning everything. I was doing that too. But at some point most of us switch to cherry picking mode.
I follow this forum for a long time, before the Engineers update was launched. I have seen what kind of things people post here. Please take a look yourself if you dont believe me. The 31 page (think it is second edition) thread Show us your interesting discoveries is still around. Glowing Gas giant thread, etc. Have a look at EDSM POIs. Rare unicorns is what people are looking for. Nobody is posting pics of fully scanned totally unremarkable systems. I think it is safe to assume that people are posting things they are interested in and it is an indicator of what explorers are looking for. Dont you agree?
I don't know what the proportions of different playstyles are, but FDev will have access to those stats. What do you see when you enter systems that are far from populated systems? Do you see the system usually completely scanned & mapped, completely scanned but partially mapped, or only the shineys & nearby bodies scanned?
First off, the smaller replies:
Unfortunately, we don't have data to draw a histogram of the percentage of bodies per system scanned, nor a breakdown of it over various total ranges. (For example, % of systems scanned in systems with 1-15 bodies, 16-30 bodies, and so on.) It's likely that the average is this way because most of the time, people only pick out valuable body types, and none if there aren't any, or sometimes they'll do full scans. For example, I'd expect that 1/56 and 56/56 would be more common than 20/56.
This is just scanning, mind you. No data about mapping.
Moving on to Darkfyre then, and I believe we're about to be wrapping up:
Speaking of basic skills, which you might have an issue with (you tend to use quotes to signify that you use terms derisively), let me go into a bit more detail there:
I don't think docking is difficult, for instance. It may be, until you figure out how to fly your ship; I'd say that docking is a basic flight skill. In comparison, an advanced flight skill would be shaking off a (non-beginner) player in CQC. Maybe telling apart a moon from a binary partner is difficult for someone who just fired up their FSS for the first time, but I'd say that within an hour, they'll likely figure it all out. But again, maybe it's me overestimating the average player. I'd still rather do that than to assume they can't figure such things out on their own.
But see, the thing is, I don't enjoy the FSS. I generally don't enjoy simple tasks that could easily be automated, unless they are relaxing - but the FSS isn't. (Again, hello, sudden blue grid overlay with cascading effects!) The FSS doesn't provide any sort of enjoyment for me, but it is a time sink I have to get through to find what I want, so that presents me a dilemma: I either repeatedly do a monotonous task, or give up on finding what I want. I don't want to do the latter, so that leaves me with the former.
It used to be better, and it could still be better, if only Frontier would make some small changes.
Now, I have been playing since the alpha and I've found at least one of pretty much everything that I wanted, with the only exception of GGGs. (At least with those, I don't have to scan entire systems, "just" gas giants. At least that provides a bit of interesting metallicity data too.) I'd like to find more, but not at any cost. I do mind thought that there are plenty of things that I'd no longer be able to find in a reasonable amount of time - not spending hundreds of hours scanning entire systems. (That's not hyperbole, mind you. Try calculating how much time it would take to find something that's 1 in 5,000 systems, if we go with a generous estimate of two minutes per system spent. Then consider that there are finds several times more rare than that.)
There were NSPs I could look into, and for finding those, not using the FSS is not just an option, but the better option too. I think I'm nearly done with them now though. So instead, these days when I find myself interested in playing some Elite and I'm out exploring (I don't think I've spent more than a couple of days in the bubble this past year), I find that I get bored with having to use the FSS and yet again find nothing of interest in 15-20 systems or so, at which point I either fire up CQC or close Elite entirely, my initial interest in playing this game having been spent. (Where does my assumed impatience enter here?)
Which is exactly what I warned about ever since the FSS was first revealed: that its gameplay is not going to be good for the longevity of exploration.
That's not just me though. Read through this thread, and focus on what the people who say they prefer the FSS enjoy about it. Most of them said that they enjoy that rewards are easier to get now: it's just that they care about the increased data more than they care about the increased credits and tags. Other than those, there's the reward of surface sites getting pinpointed now, although I'm doubtful whether that can be attributed to the FSS. How many people say that instead of the rewards, they enjoy the gameplay of it, enough for the sake of the gameplay? Well, there's you, and... you. Although maybe Ozric does too, I'm not entirely sure from his posts. As a moderator though, he has to be more careful about what opinions he voices.
We also have two people who used to like the FSS and defend it in public now saying that over time, they've become fed up with it. See: not good for the longevity of exploration.
There was one thing that Romeo India Charlie said earlier on in this thread, and now that I look at it again, it also ties in to what you're advocating (not playing "whack-a-blob" to completion): "FSS is a convenient tool but it rewards me for ignoring parts and at times even full systems."
No offense, but I'm getting confused about what your definition of a game and a mini-game might be, because it doesn't seem to fit the standard one(s). You say that if you launch a mini-game, then engage with it by using "some" of its functions, which also implies most of its controls, is not playing the mini-game? By the same token, launching Elite, engaging with it by loggin in and looking at some menus, maybe flying around a bit, would not be playing Elite.
I'm also unsure by what you're saying about the system map. Are you saying you believe that pattern recognition is a mini-game? And, just to be sure, you're not saying that the system map is a mini-game, are you?
There's data to support this. Take a look at EDSM, which already selects for more engaged explorers. After the FSS, on average, people have been scanning 4-4.8 bodies per system, while depending on where in the galaxy you're looking, systems tend to have 10-12 bodies on average.
Unfortunately, we don't have data to draw a histogram of the percentage of bodies per system scanned, nor a breakdown of it over various total ranges. (For example, % of systems scanned in systems with 1-15 bodies, 16-30 bodies, and so on.) It's likely that the average is this way because most of the time, people only pick out valuable body types, and none if there aren't any, or sometimes they'll do full scans. For example, I'd expect that 1/56 and 56/56 would be more common than 20/56.
This is just scanning, mind you. No data about mapping.
Moving on to Darkfyre then, and I believe we're about to be wrapping up:
I've written about my constructive criticism and opinions of the FSS extensively, and you've read those posts, or at the very least some of them. Now here you are, saying that instead of everything I talked about, my problem is that I'm so impatient that I'd consciously choose not to employ basic observational skills? Please make an effort to keep an open mind, and listen to what people are saying before you start making assumptions about them - especially when those assumptions are negative.
Speaking of basic skills, which you might have an issue with (you tend to use quotes to signify that you use terms derisively), let me go into a bit more detail there:
Ah, so you feel it, but you don't know it. I believe you're quite underestimating how players are, but then again, who knows? Maybe I'm overestimating them instead.
I don't think docking is difficult, for instance. It may be, until you figure out how to fly your ship; I'd say that docking is a basic flight skill. In comparison, an advanced flight skill would be shaking off a (non-beginner) player in CQC. Maybe telling apart a moon from a binary partner is difficult for someone who just fired up their FSS for the first time, but I'd say that within an hour, they'll likely figure it all out. But again, maybe it's me overestimating the average player. I'd still rather do that than to assume they can't figure such things out on their own.
But see, the thing is, I don't enjoy the FSS. I generally don't enjoy simple tasks that could easily be automated, unless they are relaxing - but the FSS isn't. (Again, hello, sudden blue grid overlay with cascading effects!) The FSS doesn't provide any sort of enjoyment for me, but it is a time sink I have to get through to find what I want, so that presents me a dilemma: I either repeatedly do a monotonous task, or give up on finding what I want. I don't want to do the latter, so that leaves me with the former.
It used to be better, and it could still be better, if only Frontier would make some small changes.
Now, I have been playing since the alpha and I've found at least one of pretty much everything that I wanted, with the only exception of GGGs. (At least with those, I don't have to scan entire systems, "just" gas giants. At least that provides a bit of interesting metallicity data too.) I'd like to find more, but not at any cost. I do mind thought that there are plenty of things that I'd no longer be able to find in a reasonable amount of time - not spending hundreds of hours scanning entire systems. (That's not hyperbole, mind you. Try calculating how much time it would take to find something that's 1 in 5,000 systems, if we go with a generous estimate of two minutes per system spent. Then consider that there are finds several times more rare than that.)
There were NSPs I could look into, and for finding those, not using the FSS is not just an option, but the better option too. I think I'm nearly done with them now though. So instead, these days when I find myself interested in playing some Elite and I'm out exploring (I don't think I've spent more than a couple of days in the bubble this past year), I find that I get bored with having to use the FSS and yet again find nothing of interest in 15-20 systems or so, at which point I either fire up CQC or close Elite entirely, my initial interest in playing this game having been spent. (Where does my assumed impatience enter here?)
Which is exactly what I warned about ever since the FSS was first revealed: that its gameplay is not going to be good for the longevity of exploration.
That's not just me though. Read through this thread, and focus on what the people who say they prefer the FSS enjoy about it. Most of them said that they enjoy that rewards are easier to get now: it's just that they care about the increased data more than they care about the increased credits and tags. Other than those, there's the reward of surface sites getting pinpointed now, although I'm doubtful whether that can be attributed to the FSS. How many people say that instead of the rewards, they enjoy the gameplay of it, enough for the sake of the gameplay? Well, there's you, and... you. Although maybe Ozric does too, I'm not entirely sure from his posts. As a moderator though, he has to be more careful about what opinions he voices.
We also have two people who used to like the FSS and defend it in public now saying that over time, they've become fed up with it. See: not good for the longevity of exploration.
There was one thing that Romeo India Charlie said earlier on in this thread, and now that I look at it again, it also ties in to what you're advocating (not playing "whack-a-blob" to completion): "FSS is a convenient tool but it rewards me for ignoring parts and at times even full systems."
I'm not sure why you emphasized me calling the FSS a lockpicking mini-game, since my issue was with you saying that it's my mini-game. Those mean two different things.
No offense, but I'm getting confused about what your definition of a game and a mini-game might be, because it doesn't seem to fit the standard one(s). You say that if you launch a mini-game, then engage with it by using "some" of its functions, which also implies most of its controls, is not playing the mini-game? By the same token, launching Elite, engaging with it by loggin in and looking at some menus, maybe flying around a bit, would not be playing Elite.
I'm also unsure by what you're saying about the system map. Are you saying you believe that pattern recognition is a mini-game? And, just to be sure, you're not saying that the system map is a mini-game, are you?
No, I don't.But that is the key point, isnt it? Basically you are saying that FSS works great for everybody, except for the majority of the dedicated explorers
I appreciate there are those who enjoy fully scanning every system they are jumping in, including some who posted in this thread. Fair enough. But i have reasons to believe these are minority in the exploration community. We all start our exploration career by scanning everything. I was doing that too. But at some point most of us switch to cherry picking mode.
I follow this forum for a long time, before the Engineers update was launched. I have seen what kind of things people post here. Please take a look yourself if you dont believe me. The 31 page (think it is second edition) thread Show us your interesting discoveries is still around. Glowing Gas giant thread, etc. Have a look at EDSM POIs. Rare unicorns is what people are looking for. Nobody is posting pics of fully scanned totally unremarkable systems. I think it is safe to assume that people are posting things they are interested in and it is an indicator of what explorers are looking for. Dont you agree?
I think that the "rare unicorn hunters" are a tiny, though vocal, minority, primarily because those aren't the kinds of things you can actively search for. They're the kind of things you can only stumble upon.
I think what keeps explorers out there exploring are sights like these:
[DW2] Let's see your DW2 photography!
Aaaaaand we're back. It's been awesome over the past 6 Months, hope to meet you guys out in the black!
The Official Explorers Photography Thread.
After the Great Annihilator, I had the chance to visit Sagittarius A:
Horizons - Planet showcase - post your most beautiful shots that you are really proud of
As for recents, I am trying to find a shot I like of anemonies. A few come close, but not there yet. Still searching for that perfect location at just the right time.
And it is here, in my opinion, that the FSS can really shine. Because I can actively use it to search for things like these:
I really wish VR allowed you to easily take good screenshots. If I didn't have to switch to pancake mode to do so, I'd take more of them.
Before FSS seeing a fully scanned system away from the Bubble was almost unheard off. On contrary, many of interesting systems had 3,4, sometimes even more different tags in them. And still some untagged bodies. People would come, see the system is tagged, tag a body or two for themselves and leave the rest for next visiting fellow explorer. Not sure i can dig some examples atm, but can try.