With a ship equipped with a Basic Scanner exploration is a fun and gameplay rich experience that has been totally nullified by the Advanced Scanner. In my trusty Eagle I would jump into a system, scan to see if there was any planets close, and if not align myself with the stars spin and set off into the void and try and find those stars that weren't stars but planets because they moved. I chose an Eagle because of its large viewing screen and I would use this to fly under the system plane and look up to find those elusive planets. And when I had found the whole set there was a sense of achievement of a job well done. But now it's RUINED! Now I jump to a system, Blap the scan once, and that's it. Every thing its discovered! NO!!! How could they destroy all of that gameplay? And make a mockery of all the exploring that's gone before. What's the point of flying around to examine everything? Money? - NO! Exploring is like fishing. Plenty of people love to fish, and the more difficult the catch the better. But who wants to work on a fishing trawler? Exploring is supposed to be hard. It's more fun! So I'm fed up and I think the following would have been a much better solution.
The Range of the Exploration Scanner should curtailed to 1,000ls and be used in connection with the System Map. The System Map would be altered to Star centred with concentric planetary rings along with the Goldilocks Zone. When the Scanner is used in Super Cruise, Firstly the planets in range are discovered as normal. Secondly, information is gathered about the rest of the solar system and would be displayed on the system map in the form of likelihoods with possible positions of planets, their possible size and possible make up. The likelihood of a planet being in a place would become less certain the further away the planet is but the accuracy would become greater with closer scans or with better scanners. The pilot would then select an area of space on the System map which would be transferred as a target onto the Navigation Compass. This would allow the pilot to actually decide which targets to prioritise. i.e. planets in the goldilocks zone or gas giants, and the pilot would have to use those skills gained to find those planets. I would also limit the Surface Scanner to be used in normal space in a planet low orbit. As this takes time the pilot would have to pick and choose which planets to scan to make the most profit. All of this allows for planets to be hidden in already explored outer solar systems, as promised.
I wish I had the money to be in at the Beta because this is something I would have definitely wanted implemented.
The Range of the Exploration Scanner should curtailed to 1,000ls and be used in connection with the System Map. The System Map would be altered to Star centred with concentric planetary rings along with the Goldilocks Zone. When the Scanner is used in Super Cruise, Firstly the planets in range are discovered as normal. Secondly, information is gathered about the rest of the solar system and would be displayed on the system map in the form of likelihoods with possible positions of planets, their possible size and possible make up. The likelihood of a planet being in a place would become less certain the further away the planet is but the accuracy would become greater with closer scans or with better scanners. The pilot would then select an area of space on the System map which would be transferred as a target onto the Navigation Compass. This would allow the pilot to actually decide which targets to prioritise. i.e. planets in the goldilocks zone or gas giants, and the pilot would have to use those skills gained to find those planets. I would also limit the Surface Scanner to be used in normal space in a planet low orbit. As this takes time the pilot would have to pick and choose which planets to scan to make the most profit. All of this allows for planets to be hidden in already explored outer solar systems, as promised.
I wish I had the money to be in at the Beta because this is something I would have definitely wanted implemented.