- There's still no proper planetary navigation. We can't search for, pinpoint or bookmark planetary coordinates. The current method (flying around trying to comprehend how the two coordinates change and trying to turn in the proper direction) is ridiculous. There have been no improvements on this whatsoever, even though the community has requested this feature many times.
You'll now be able to probe a planet's surface and generate POI's of various kinds from orbit, so I'd say that's progress.
- Still no changeable HUD colors. This is, again, a much requested feature by the community. Now not only do we get new HUD/UI elements, codex, but also lighting improvements and graphical tricks. But still no way to change the HUD color. This is a major disappointment.
Is that
really a priority? To call a colour change a "major disappointment" seems a bit OTT.
- Confusing exploration mechanics. The new system may be faster for people who want to scan everything but it's way slower for "honk and jump" players. Simply honking will not reveal anything so it will not give money for the player.
No it's not. Firing the ADS (or the 'pulse', whatever the new name for it is) will still net you the same amount as last time.
...and with a
tiny glimmer of effort and actual gameplay engagement, 'travelers' will still be able to cherry pick systems as before - and it will likely save them time, too, given they won't have to approach a body for a DSS. It'll be immeasurably faster to find surface POI's due to probes, too.
Added complexity and engagement - but faster/better results. Not sure I see the downside, all in all.
Also, just for honking we will have to change into exploration mode which is an extra button press while it was instantaneous before.
...do you want participation in your game or not? I gather you'll still be able to fly around in SC whilst using the primary scanner, so people will soon nail down a fairly swift method of gauging whether they want to cherry pick or not, or just move on. Provided they learn the basics of the scanner - just as players learned the SRV's wave scanner.
Also, if a system has been scanned before all the bodies will be already revealed. Which, in itself is a good thing, but again reducing the possible money explorers can earn by honking a system, which will probably be 0 most of the time anyway (since only the main star will be revealed by a honk).
Barely anything will really be changed from how it works now - 'cept the game now has gameplay systems.
As in; currently you drop, fire the ADS, and usually reveal a screen full of Discovered By bodies. At the moment the player must approach in SC and use the DSS.
If the new system works as you've described (which I think it does?), then this is what'll happen; you fire the ADS/pulse, potentially generating the system map. If you jump, you still get the same amount of pay. If you approach and probe/map worlds? You'll get the increased detailed scan pay out (plus bonuses for system clearing and efficient probing, oo er).
...so it's pretty much identical. 'Cept now the effort to build the system maps is communal. Players will still be able to do exactly what they're currently doing, i.e. jumping and ADS'ing, or approach bodies to generate far more revenue (it seems you'll be able to probe ELW's, too, if the stream info was correct).
I think my favourite little detail was that the audio cues for the radio signals of each body are either actually extrapolated from real sound files, or those have been used to build the audio cue used in the game.
Completely agree with this - Elite is more of a space flight sim - similar to those flight sims you can get where there is occasionally a mission to take a package to certain airport etc. People may say that being a courier for small packages in a light aircraft is a boring concept for a game - which is true because it is a sim not a game.
A sim is still a game. And Elite is a relatively very casual, very accessible game, at least by true sim standards. It's a sci-fantasy/pop sci-fi videogame cosplaying as a sim. I'd love it to be more than that, but I'll take its accessibility and simplicity - and nonsensical physics limitations and weird cockpit and ship designs - over nothing at all, especially on console.
while they can be done at once if I am going somewhere I tend to travel and not explore. However, if I am going out to explore then that's what I do and travel is then the byproduct of the exploration. Strange I know but it takes all sorts 
