Really disliking this from an Explorer's perspective.

[CMDR S Endusn Udes]

I'm 26.5 KLy out on an exploration run in a relatively remote area.

* Why are Geological and Biological features now covered by a heatmap that spans a huge area of the surface? Its a massive timesink to try to find a few features that were relatively straightforward before. I don't understand removing simplicity and inserting complexity.

* Why are there so many random crash sites or structures? It really brings down the immersion level...a LOT. I now move through a game with obviously, pointlessly, randomly generated features that offer nothing to the overall story. Because it's so random and pointless, I now know I'm in a computer game. The galaxy was massive and interesting finds were treasured, but now I'm picking up public data points on a random moon, in a random system, with 3 crash sites...why? What on earth is the point of these other than the sheer grind of investigating them?

* Is there a better payout for all these extra steps? Exploration takes weeks of IRL time to earn what can be earned in a day or two with mining or combat. These extra ground features are IMO unneeded, the extra time and effort required to investigate them really slows down exploration in a galaxy that a minuscule percentage of all bodies have been charted over several years of IRL gaming, so what's the benefit?

* The galaxy map. While I really like the new look, I hate having symbols replacing the previous menus. I'll get the hang of it eventually, but it sucks having to click trough a bunch of stuff wondering where the heck something got moved to. That...and can we please get multi-stop route planning? I'd like to set routes that I can keep a primary destination but can insert a waypoint in to a POI or just something I want to check out. I'm sure it'd be useful for miners, or traders as well, one could plot round trip to a mining hotspot and back to a station to sell at.

* EDIT: And the FSS map - why change the colors? Water worlds are yellow now? Why can't they be blue?

* Explorers are now needing to stop and collect items to feed SRV fuel and suit power needs in order to investigate surface features?

* Lol, tens of thousands of LY out, discovering impact sites with satellites that require an arc cutter, and the suit doesn't come with one. Just pop into the corner store and get one, right? My suit's out of power...guess I'm done with investingating ground features until I get back.

 

[PontifusRex]

I'm 31K Ly out right now and I landed on a random moon yesterday in a previously undiscovered system.

The planet had three crash sites. The second one I went to vanished as soon as I was close enough to land lol.

I'm going to stick with Horizons a while longer I think...

Edit: Water worlds are yellow now? You found an extremely rare urine world.

 

[Rooster Podunk]

I wish I could upvote you both about 10 more times. I isn't my goal to go land on a planet 65,000 ly away to find littered soda cans.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It only slows down exploration if you're out to farm something. Just visiting interesting locations is fine.
It's when you try to mine the cancerous engineer upgrades that you may need to cover more ground and take more time for it. And once you're there you'll find out it spawned the wrong material so all the time spent finding and going there is wasted. That's what FD are really good at.

 

[HRDiagram]

Have you tried to map all the landable planets?

I have discovered a number of new systems and, upon mapping the landable planets, I've found that ALL have 3 to 6 Points of Interest (wreckage, power source, structure, distress beacons, crashed ships, etc.).

I've posted somewhere a screenshot of "First Footfall" in front of a building guarded by sentry drones somewhere in the black.

 

[Amy Pendergast]

At least I'm not the only mainly explorer playing.
The crash sites on every planet/moon really kill my immersion - why in an unexplored system which has never seen any player before on the fringes of the galaxy should that be?
This already killed the immersion in NMS for me, but now also in ED? Thank FDev, again...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I wish I could upvote you both about 10 more times. I isn't my goal to go land on a planet 65,000 ly away to find littered soda cans.

Humanity, give us enough time we will trash the universe.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

At least I'm not the only mainly explorer playing.
The crash sites on every planet/moon really kill my immersion - why in an unexplored system which has never seen any player before on the fringes of the galaxy should that be?
This already killed the immersion in NMS for me, but now also in ED? Thank FDev, again...

We had kind of the same issue after Horizons first launched. After a year or so (don't really remember) FD changed it so manmade stuff would only spawn if within a certain range of an inhabited system. Guess they forgot to do the same for this.

Either that, or FD picked up on my dumping 30 escape pods on a planet on the other side of the galaxy and ran with it, so they are now out there trashing planets all over the galaxy.

 

[PontifusRex]

If that's the case, then that's kind of immersion breaking.

You're on the far side of the galaxy and you're coming across typical generic "bubble" related structures and activity.

Too bad it wasn't alien spacecraft parts or ancient ruins etc.

 

[Amy Pendergast]

We had kind of the same issue after Horizons first launched. After a year or so (don't really remember) FD changed it so manmade stuff would only spawn if within a certain range of an inhabited system. Guess they forgot to do the same for this.

Either that, or FD picked up on my dumping 30 escape pods on a planet on the other side of the galaxy and ran with it, so they are now out there trashing planets all over the galaxy.

Yeah, I hope they do. But being with ED since Beta/Gamma back in 2014 I don't have too much hopes.

 

[askavir]

I agree that remote planets shouldn't be littered with crash sites etc. This goes back to the ancient dark time when every planet in the galaxy had crashed anacondas and later got fixed.

However I prefer the heatmap to the old "stuff is exactly here!" yellow circles by many orders of magnitude. Things are much more spread out across the planets now, instead of existing only in a handful of places per planet. Every highlighted area in the heat map will contain the bio/geo thing you're filtering for, even if you need to fly low and slow for a under a minute or so to spot it. Just pick a spot in the highlighted area and fly down there, most times you'll spot it very quickly (unless it's bacteria, which is very hard to see from the air).

 

[CMDR S Endusn Udes]

If that's the case, then that's kind of immersion breaking.

You're on the far side of the galaxy and you're coming across typical generic "bubble" related structures and activity.

Too bad it wasn't alien spacecraft parts or ancient ruins etc.

Now THAT would be cool. Something really unusual and rare. Instead, it's the same old crashed probe-looking thing.

 

[Amy Pendergast]

Now THAT would be cool. Something really unusual and rare. Instead, it's the same old crashed probe-looking thing.

I feel like they really missed a lot of great in universe lore opportunity with this...

 

[CMDR S Endusn Udes]

I agree that remote planets shouldn't be littered with crash sites etc. This goes back to the ancient dark time when every planet in the galaxy had crashed anacondas and later got fixed.

However I prefer the heatmap to the old "stuff is exactly here!" yellow circles by many orders of magnitude. Things are much more spread out across the planets now, instead of existing only in a handful of places per planet. Every highlighted area in the heat map will contain the bio/geo thing you're filtering for, even if you need to fly low and slow for a under a minute or so to spot it. Just pick a spot in the highlighted area and fly down there, most times you'll spot it very quickly (unless it's bacteria, which is very hard to see from the air).

Could you point me where filters can be set for the heatmap? I've searched and searched and can't find any way to do it.

 

[Valorin]

I'm 26.5 KLy out on an exploration run in a relatively remote area.

* Why are there so many random crash sites or structures? It really brings down the immersion level...a LOT. I now move through a game with obviously, pointlessly, randomly generated features that offer nothing to the overall story. Because it's so random and pointless, I now know I'm in a computer game. The galaxy was massive and interesting finds were treasured, but now I'm picking up public data points on a random moon, in a random system, with 3 crash sites...why? What on earth is the point of these other than the sheer grind of investigating them?

* Lol, tens of thousands of LY out, discovering impact sites with satellites that require an arc cutter, and the suit doesn't come with one. Just pop into the corner store and get one, right? My suit's out of power...guess I'm done with investingating ground features until I get back.

That's horrible.
It might actually stop me from wanting to go out.
The fact that these systems and planets have never been touched by humans is what's to great in exploration.
Crash sites, crashed beacons and satellites pretty much destroy what exploration is all about.

 

[CmdrKull]

Have you tried to map all the landable planets?

I have discovered a number of new systems and, upon mapping the landable planets, I've found that ALL have 3 to 6 Points of Interest (wreckage, power source, structure, distress beacons, crashed ships, etc.).

I've posted somewhere a screenshot of "First Footfall" in front of a building guarded by sentry drones somewhere in the black.

Oh yikes. Yeah, that’s essentially the worst case scenario for me. Did you submit a ticket? That’s very clearly a bug in the proc-gen, we’ve always had empty space out in space. Once I can confirm it I’ll do so on an existing ticket, or if no one else has made one I will.
I don’t like to engage in hyperbole, but is this.... I think this is...
LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE

 

[askavir]

Could you point me where filters can be set for the heatmap? I've searched and searched and can't find any way to do it.

In the planet probing screen you can use left / right to switch between signals (assumning there's more than one).

 

[Thatchinho]

* Why are Geological and Biological features now covered by a heatmap that spans a huge area of the surface? Its a massive timesink to try to find a few features that were relatively straightforward before. I don't understand removing simplicity and inserting complexity.

Because it never should have been made as quick and easy as it was in the first place. It went from having to eyeball scan the entire surface of planets to pinpoint accuracy in one update. All the challenge related to surface discoveries was removed. Now it's just been brought back to something more sensible rather than being at either of the extremes.

* Why are there so many random crash sites or structures? It really brings down the immersion level...a LOT. I now move through a game with obviously, pointlessly, randomly generated features that offer nothing to the overall story. Because it's so random and pointless, I now know I'm in a computer game. The galaxy was massive and interesting finds were treasured, but now I'm picking up public data points on a random moon, in a random system, with 3 crash sites...why? What on earth is the point of these other than the sheer grind of investigating them?

This just sounds like a bug. As I understand it the game was like this to start with and then changed so that human stuff on planets reduced considerably as you move away from human populated space (as it should do). Looks like some code went missing somewhere.

* Is there a better payout for all these extra steps? Exploration takes weeks of IRL time to earn what can be earned in a day or two with mining or combat. These extra ground features are IMO unneeded, the extra time and effort required to investigate them really slows down exploration in a galaxy that a minuscule percentage of all bodies have been charted over several years of IRL gaming, so what's the benefit?

Real explorers don't care about the payouts. <drinks>

 

[HRDiagram]

We had kind of the same issue after Horizons first launched. After a year or so (don't really remember) FD changed it so manmade stuff would only spawn if within a certain range of an inhabited system. Guess they forgot to do the same for this.

Either that, or FD picked up on my dumping 30 escape pods on a planet on the other side of the galaxy and ran with it, so they are now out there trashing planets all over the galaxy.

I believe that is the case: something inadvertently left out of the algorithm. I don't think it was done on purpose, but it's a pretty gross oversight.

A bit similar to the other bug that caused multiple collisions upon bumping on something, causing instant destruction.

Oh yikes. Yeah, that’s essentially the worst case scenario for me. Did you submit a ticket? That’s very clearly a bug in the proc-gen, we’ve always had empty space out in space. Once I can confirm it I’ll do so on an existing ticket, or if no one else has made one I will.

I think you're right. I haven't submitted a ticket, but will do. It's pretty much the death of exploration.


Edit: checked the Issue tracker and found this.

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/31933

basically, it was shut down as invalid.

I've opened a new one, if anyone wants to contribute.

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/32049

 

[Wonko_The_Sane]

I'm 31K Ly out right now and I landed on a random moon yesterday in a previously undiscovered system.

The planet had three crash sites. The second one I went to vanished as soon as I was close enough to land lol.

I'm going to stick with Horizons a while longer I think...

Edit: Water worlds are yellow now? You found an extremely rare urine world.

I am about 30k Ly out in the black and I am currently parked in front of an artificial structure guarded by drones. I think they managed to check a wrong box when they built the new features. Way too much stuff in parts of the galaxy that should be devoid of human influence.