This is probably suggested every other week, but have done a load of planetary scan missions recently and I wanted to add my plea. It adds nothing to the game play and is just plain annoying. Particularly annoying is waiting until you are committed to the glide before jumping the point 2-300Km away! Get rid of it or at the very least allows us to fix the point with a DSS.
General Get rid of the annoying POI jumping about on planetary scan and recovery missions!
- Thread starter F4fred
- Start date
nah - only thing about the missions that takes any skill
I thought it only did it once your dropped out of glide.
I don't recall any problems getting to those signal sources, just head down, aim for the source, it bounces around as you get close, and it takes a few seconds to reach the target.
Unless something has changed since the last time i did them (which admittedly was at least a year or more ago).
I don't recall any problems getting to those signal sources, just head down, aim for the source, it bounces around as you get close, and it takes a few seconds to reach the target.
Unless something has changed since the last time i did them (which admittedly was at least a year or more ago).
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
I like the fact that you are zeroing in on a destination, but there are two issues.
1. The amount the POI jumps around is indeed ridiculous, you have to be on such a shallow descent during glide to stand half a chance of not dropping out very far away from the target.
2. The FSS/DSS and it's idea of being able to pinpoint locations make it seem pointless.
If it's a human installation then I could get that they could have some scrambling going on so you couldn't pin it down exactly, and like I said I think the mechanic should stay, but the variance needs to be within no more than a 100Km square.
1. The amount the POI jumps around is indeed ridiculous, you have to be on such a shallow descent during glide to stand half a chance of not dropping out very far away from the target.
2. The FSS/DSS and it's idea of being able to pinpoint locations make it seem pointless.
If it's a human installation then I could get that they could have some scrambling going on so you couldn't pin it down exactly, and like I said I think the mechanic should stay, but the variance needs to be within no more than a 100Km square.
I'm with you - it was mildly intriguing the first time, but now I don't even bother with these missions anymore because of this stupid minigame of wack-a-mole.
No it bounces around all over the place. First one is when you are coming in, in Supercruise and if you are very lucky and it bounces before the glide you can pull up, gain speed and then head for it again. That is a big one over 200Km and can move in any direction. Then it moves again when you get about 30-40Km out. Then again as you get to about 6km and can bounce 2 or 3 times more. Last one when the installation finally pops up is usually behind you - so you have flown over it already, but somehow missed a bunch of buildings!
There is zero skill involved. You just follow the point on your compass. The only trick is to hold off going into the glide as long as possible in the hope you can pull up when it jumps 200Km away.
You won’t shoot anything down with that. Get a decent AA tank!
Well you can’t go too vertical or the glide aborts.
Hence the "as possible" part of my sentence.
So what do you do when the POI jumps 200Km away?
Can confirm what OP is experiencing and also agree that it's highly annoying...
Basically the search zone jumps 2-300km away just a second before you hit the exclusion zone, coming in vertical (or steeply) isn't an option because you can't pull up in time to correct your course. Not sure if it depends on the planet or something, it's a real troll if intentional...
So yes, I think they could do with a tweak. They didn't used to be like this...
...I’m ok with chasing the wotsit around once past the exclusion zone though, especially in a fast ship!
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Can confirm what OP is experiencing and also agree that it's highly annoying...
Basically the search zone jumps 2-300km away just a second before you hit the exclusion zone, coming in vertical (or steeply) isn't an option because you can't pull up in time to correct your course. Not sure if it depends on the planet or something, it's a real troll if intentional...
So yes, I think they could do with a tweak. They didn't used to be like this...
...I’m ok with chasing the wotsit around once past the exclusion zone though, especially in a fast ship!
That first big 'move' is intentional. It was added about a year ago, and in fact has been made shorter, at first it was always in the million meter range, last time I played (a while now) it was regularly just a few hundred km. I guess they realized that players did indeed feel trolled having to go back to SC because they dropped out just before it moved...
My guess is it was an attempt to make it more difficult or as others have suggested require skill, but IMO it's like much else in the game, predictable, meaning it's only even remotely challenging the first time (or two) you do it, after which, so long as you follow a procedure it's simply something in between where you are and where you need to be. In the case of the first move, it's simply a matter of going as slowly and shallowly as possible in orbital cruise, keeping the HUD target just visible, and when you see it get its 'spikes', you know it's going to move - usually when you are around 100km from it. That way you will still be in orbital cruise and it just adds a few seconds to the mission.
The rest of the moves are all small, and again they are predictable, coming once you get to within a few km of the target (well, the HUD marker). The last move always moves behind you so the target can spawn out of sight, and I do agree that it's perhaps a bit immersion breaking knowing you've literally flown right over where it suddenly appears only moments previously.
It's a shame that FD can't come up with a way to make finding things in the game more engaging, but I think the scale of the game makes that if not impossible, at least incredibly difficult, so we end up with lots of contrived challenge instead, which as I said, stops being challenging when you know how to approach it.
I don't recall it ever being an issue.
As I said though, it was over a year since last time i approached one of these.
Ditto. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me, ... ... ... fool can't get fooled again. (dodges thrown shoe)
I like the idea, it's just poorly executed.
I'm fine with it provided the first scatter happens with enough time before I hit glide altitude for me to come about and aim for the new position. As it is, if I'm unable to do that, it's quicker for me to hop back up into supercruise and drop down again to reach the new position.
