Allow use of pre 3.3 Advanced Discovery Scanner

Its going to be terrible for you and the rest of the forum grinches if the ADS did come back isnt it? It will be great for me.

In the unlikely case that it happens: no, it wouldn't hurt me at all. I would only be surprised. But based on how things usually run, i consider it more constructive to rather look at how things can be improved, instead of how progress can be undone. Guess that's how "grinches" like me just are.

As a sidenote: yes, i also find that amusing, how some people here cathegorize others. I don't hate the ADS or anything like that. Yet several postings here are now like "you ADS haters" and the likes. I just have some experience how software development (no, not game development) is done and how it turns out if you split off code, etc. Thus i consider it extremely unlikely that what some people here ask for will happen. I just think that we should look forward and be constructive, instead of wishing the old times back. But hey, maybe that's just me...
 
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In the unlikely case that it happens: no, it wouldn't hurt me at all. I would only be surprised. But based on how things usually run, i consider it more constructive to rather look at how things can be improved, instead of how progress can be undone. Guess that's how "grinches" like me just are.

Given how long it took FDev to update exploration, it seems unlikely that they'll actually spend any time improving it for another few years at least.
The path of least resistance for getting FDev to make exploration into something I enjoy doing (again) is to request that the ADS gets reinstated.

My actually wishes for exploration improvements are wildly different.
 
In the unlikely case that it happens: no, it wouldn't hurt me at all. I would only be surprised. But based on how things usually run, i consider it more constructive to rather look at how things can be improved, instead of how progress can be undone. Guess that's how "grinches" like me just are.
No progress would be undone, an oversight would be corrected, an the 3.3 changes to exploration & discovery would add to the (pre-)existing game.

As you say, if you chose not to fit one it wouldn't affect you.

Unlike the modes debates or any number of other balancing changes there is do downside to this, only a reduction in schadenfreude.
 
i consider it more constructive to rather look at how things can be improved, instead of how progress can be undone.
Please, try and understand that I am not aiming to undo the progress. I did admit that I like the FSS mechanic. What I am trying to achieve is to reintroduce the only aspect of ADS that would allow for more gameplay styles for explorers : reveal of system map on initial honk. Incomplete reveal. No key info. No discovered tag. With proposed change being introcuded as an optional module have it not yield credits for those fitting the module.
I would like to see that introduced to make photo explorers' gameplay loop viable again in less reasonable time(given there is a reasonable time trying to explore entire galaxy)
TheYamiks has just recently posted a video where He explains the issue of finding wonders within Elite and asks the audience to participate in a debate how a progress should be made in the right direction.
I would like this thread to be viewed as a feedback on allowing players to find more interesting systems in a more viable time frame. With elements that already exist within the game. That have been extensively tested over time. That need not much alterations.
 
Please, try and understand that I am not aiming to undo the progress.

I get that and believe that that's your goal. I interpreted some stuff wrongly earlier in the thread and am sorry for that. My statement was not aimed at you, but rather based on the "campaign" some other people were and still are fighting.

On if your suggestion would improve things, i am not sure. There is some merit to it. My only hesitation to the suggestion, the way you post it is, that it would effectively eliminate some game play (not speaking about the quality, only that it exists) which FD spent time and effort to implement at the first place. So yes, your suggestion would make some things more convenient again, but it would also just move things back to the "press button and be done" level. Which i would guess that from a design point of view is not really desirable.

Mind you, again for those who don't get it. (Which is not you. ) The ADS was also more convenient for me than the new FSS is. It also adds extra effort for me. But i also see that the extra effort and extra game play time is intended. So i doubt that FD will ever undo that part.
 
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Well, the steam player charts dont look so rosy these days. The game is on sale again in an attempt to try and bring new players in i guess, or give the fanboys a chance to buy more accounts. Maybe if they gave people what they wanted rather than pandering to antis people might have better things to say about fdev. Might even bring that sad cliff edge of player numbers back up again.
 
I think you are oversimplifying this, especially when applied to ADS because it was indeed something that was in use and would continue to be in use if Frontier hadn't taken the time to remove it from the game. Now let's consider a classic example of legacy in ED itself - legacy engineered modules.

The ADS was deemed legacy because it had served as a placeholder before exploration was majorly looked at again in Beyond.

The amount of coding added to the game in order to allow a small group of players to keep their LEMs is way more than what it would have taken to keep the ADS in the game, at least that's the way it appears at first glance. Frontier had to program new UI to deal with these LEMs. To add insult to injury, this entire legacy system only benefits players who owned the game before Beyond. Anyone who purchases the game today gets absolutely zero benefit from the complex LEM system.
You don't really know how much more work it was to keep the LEM's. The secondary effects and values that are no longer producable in the new engineering could be still in the same object code and the new engineering UI accommodating all the new values and effects as one implemented effort. It wasn't any insult or injury about letting old engineering modules persist. It was consideration for a segment of the playerbase who had spent a lot of time in the old system on their modules. True, that some secondary effects and range values of the old modules are no longer producable in the new system, but continuing MMO"s are often full of this kind of leftover eras of past mechanics. Usually if a particular item or set was deemed too overpowering then they would be later nerfed. Besides a scant few complaints from PvP's , it doesn't seem to be that big a set of outlier effects upsetting the general playerbase where several of the new effect ranges actually exceeded the old max engr ranges.

Compare and contrast this to the ADS, which a player who buys the game today could benefit from, if it existed. Legacy Engineering is truly "not in use" any more, but the ADS would definitely be in use if it had remained in the game. Not by me, mind you, I have zero interest in the ADS, but it seems a fair share of people do, maybe even more than those who care about LEM.
I think it's more the case many were used to using the ADS as it was and forgetting or missing that it served as a placeholder. I would bet new players are not noticing the lack of the old ADS full system map populating and merely see it as a "fog of discovery" mechanic. I don't mind the ADS being gone either.

Well, the steam player charts dont look so rosy these days. The game is on sale again in an attempt to try and bring new players in i guess, or give the fanboys a chance to buy more accounts. Maybe if they gave people what they wanted rather than pandering to antis people might have better things to say about fdev. Might even bring that sad cliff edge of player numbers back up again.

I wouldn't worry about the steam numbers. The average will probably still stay on par with EvE and NMS or beter until 2020. Everyone will be back guaranteed, then anyways. ED had beat the competition even by "decades" in some developer opinions. For now I believe FD are working quietly on the new milestones and just letting the useless naysaying cycles exhaust themselves in this salt mine of a forum, lol.
 
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The ADS was deemed legacy because it had served as a placeholder before exploration was majorly looked at again in Beyond.


You don't really know how much more work it was to keep the LEM's. The secondary effects and values that are no longer producable in the new engineering could be still in the same object code and the new engineering UI accommodating all the new values and effects as one implemented effort. It wasn't any insult or injury about letting old engineering modules persist. It was consideration for a segment of the playerbase who had spent a lot of time in the old system on their modules. True, that some secondary effects and range values of the old modules are no longer producable in the new system, but continuing MMO"s are often full of this kind of leftover eras of past mechanics. Usually if a particular item or set was deemed too overpowering then they would be later nerfed. Besides a scant few complaints from PvP's , it doesn't seem to be that big a set of outlier effects upsetting the general playerbase where several of the new effect ranges actually exceeded the old max engr ranges.


I think it's more the case many were used to using the ADS as it was and forgetting or missing that it served as a placeholder. I would bet new players are not noticing the lack of the old ADS full system map populating and merely see it as a "fog of discovery" mechanic. I don't mind the ADS being gone either.



I wouldn't worry about the steam numbers. The average will probably still stay on par with EvE and NMS or beter until 2020. Everyone will be back guaranteed, then anyways. ED had beat the competition even by "decades" in some developer opinions. For now I believe FD are working quietly on the new milestones and just letting the useless naysaying cycles exhaust themselves in this salt mine of a forum, lol.

I think people who call the ADS a 'placeholder' are forgetting that it was in place for 4 years and that people spent literally thousands of hours enjoying the gameplay it provided.
 
You don't really know how much more work it was to keep the LEM's.
You are correct, but it definitely has the appearance of requiring more work. I'm not talking about keeping the stats, I don't think that was hard, but Frontier did have to add specialized UI for displaying that you have a legacy module, and for asking the player if they want to keep it or convert it over when trying to upgrade a legacy module. It sure seems like this was more work than what would have been required to keep the ADS in the game, as all the UI for ADS (and I'm mostly talking about the outfitting and module screen) was already done.

It wasn't any insult or injury about letting old engineering modules persist.
You're hitting me on semantics, but the point I was making is that the entire legacy module UI, mentioned above, was created for a select group of players, which I suspect is pretty small by now, a group that is truly legacy (the topic I was specifically replying to) since new players will never even see this legacy module UI. ADS, on the other hand....

But, seeing that I really don't have a horse in this particular race, let's get back to arguing about my Korean PS4 Slim with Russian spyware that disables quality shadows in ED, all for the grand purpose of accelerating the fall of the British Empire 🤣
 
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I get that and believe that that's your goal. I interpreted some stuff wrongly earlier in the thread and am sorry for that. My statement was not aimed at you, but rather based on the "campaign" some other people were and still are fighting.

On if your suggestion would improve things, i am not sure. There is some merit to it. My only hesitation to the suggestion, the way you post it is, that it would effectively eliminate some game play (not speaking about the quality, only that it exists) which FD spent time and effort to implement at the first place. So yes, your suggestion would make some things more convenient again, but it would also just move things back to the "press button and be done" level. Which i would guess that from a design point of view is not really desirable.

Mind you, again for those who don't get it. (Which is not you. ) The ADS was also more convenient for me than the new FSS is. It also adds extra effort for me. But i also see that the extra effort and extra game play time is intended. So i doubt that FD will ever undo that part.

To be fair, the 'campaign' is really just people asking / suggesting (giving feedback) for an optional ADS module to be reinstated. Nothing more sinister, certainly not asking for the FSS to be removed or even changed at all. I am fully in favor of this, despite having used the FSS on two exploration trips now. I'm well aware of the advantages of the FSS, know very well how it differs from what we had before (I was Elite in exploration a long time before the FSS was introduced), and the two trips I've done since have more than doubled my income from exploration.

I believe an optional ADS would have the potential to add extra layers of gameplay. The FSS is great for finding traditional valuable bodies, very efficient at scanning those bodies, and is the only tool for discovering the existence of interesting things on planets from a distance. Nothing will or should change that. But having an optional ADS would allow those who are interested to look for system oddities, colored gas giants, strange orbits. To me that's extra gameplay at no cost to the existing.

While I'm aware that some people see the existence of both as some kind of easy mode or exploit, I don't agree at all. FD wanted exploration to be more accessible, and the FSS does that (primarily getting rid of some very long SC journeys). They also wanted to provide hands on rather than passive gameplay, again, the FSS provides that. There's no real reason though to force players into one way of exploring, the game world will be richer (IMO) for choice in how people can explore.
 
/yawn

So we're down to steam charts and doooom here? Take that to DD, please.

Just the bare facts of the chart. People expressing their opinion of the game by stopping playing.

You call that what the ADS provided "gameplay"? In all seriousness, I think under that circumstances ED might still be too complex for you.

Or perhaps you couldnt understand how to use the ADS to get enjoyment from it? I enjoyed using it as did many others.
 
You should submit the missing ADS as a bug. At least then people can confirm and up-vote it. Who knows, it might jump to number one!

I think Riverside has that nicely covered with his suggestion that removing it was an oversight...

I'm sure all the other bugs are oversights too. :)
 
To be fair, the 'campaign' is really just people asking / suggesting (giving feedback) for an optional ADS module to be reinstated. Nothing more sinister, certainly not asking for the FSS to be removed or even changed at all.
Spot on. We are looking for ways to satisfy all parties involved. Those loving the FSS and those preffering ADS.
Although most seem to miss the point about what we understand as ADS. It would be an optional say module / engineering effect / experimental effect that would do no more and no less than just reveal system map with all bodies undiscovered in a matter is did before the update. In the way it does in systems You find along the way that have been already explored by someone. Go into any system in the bubble You have no exploration data. Honk. You will see system map revealed. However all bodies will remain "undiscovered".
You will only see distances from the main star and the positions of the bodies in the system. That is what we are trying to have brought back into the game.
Maybe ADS is a bit misleading and so is the title of the thread.
Honestly we are looking at something more along the lines of "system charter module" / "spectrum charter"?

With no changes made to FSS. Finally the explorers got a tool that feels like a proper scanner to do their job. It's a wonderful exploration tool. But please understand that it's not true for everyone. Different groups of players seek something else in exploration. For those who say it's easier, faster and more profitable with FSS, sure, if You are looking for money or 100% system exploration everywhere. But please consider those who go deep into the galaxy to find amazing looking system. With galaxy of hundreds of billions of stars FSS only slows such endeavour.

That said, module / effect being optional, FSS not being altered and using components that already in the game I hope to have clarified some of the aspects of this request.
 
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