Allow use of pre 3.3 Advanced Discovery Scanner

[Stigbob]

You could read the OP

Now your turn, how does other players using an ADS (the most powerful of the three) impact your game?

Move the conversation forward Stigbob.

How does the lack of ADS detract from the game given the FSS has all of its functionality plus extra bells and whistles ?.

 

[Duck & Jenny]

I sure wish I could have multiple threads about EBL all going at the same time for months on end

 

[Riverside]

How does the lack of ADS detract from the game given the FSS has all of its functionality plus extra bells and whistles ?.

You could read the OP

Dear community.

I do realise that such topic has already been done to death. But please, hear me out. I've ben reading forums for a while and found quite a group of those like me, missing the old method of carrying out exploration. To put things simple : jump, honk, glance at the system map, jump away / stay.

What do i bring with me to support my request?
1 ) Miners are able to choose their playstyle :
a) Use old method of mining by beaming asteroids
b) Incorporate new modules to increase payouts and add some variety / challenge
2 ) A modlue slot is freed after the update therefore how about introducing a new module type(charter?) that would upon honk reveal system map, the way it used to happen with Advanced Discovery Scanner providing as little details as it did. I do recon though that such module should be balanced i.e.
a) be expensive
b) consume more power
c ) provide less credits per "honk"
3 ) Many new players alongside those who have already played significant amounts of time do seem to enjoy the new scanning method however main complaints i've come accross(myself included) is that
time to find that one, magnificient system is noticeably increased by enforcing players to perform whole scan and gauge whether it's worth staying(and now the important part - not for the credits but for the views). Oddities such as quaternary systems of moons and stars, odd orbits, bodies orbiting very close to eachother. As one of the comanders put it about exploration "a honk and a little brainpower would tell me if i wanted to stop. now im forced to stop ".

I am asking You, the Reader to look at this post as a proposal rather than me saying : "You should play my way, as i'm right". I only want to allow players who enjoy exploration to have a choice, same way miners do. Should You preffer FSS, sure, it's Your way. Do You see Yourself as a honker? Neat, buy a module and carry on. Allow choice.
If You do find my arguments reasonable please help this thread reach enough attention that we hear from the developers themselves.

Please, let's keep this conversation civil. I want to hear opinions, ideas and eventually - feedback.

Now your turn, how does other players using an ADS (the most powerful of the three) impact your game? It doesn't, does it?

Move the conversation forward Stigbob.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Just a footnote to remind any lurkers still reading that this is a dispute between those that are proposing a solution with no downsides and those that wish others to go without, but not themselves.

I favour the solution where everyone wins.

What a load of cack. This is about getting your own personal tools back in the game. I don't get mine and probably never will. I use what Fdev decide to put into their game. While the FSS is far from perfect IMO, I still use it and don't continually moan about not getting my tools in the game.

Just a footnote. This is Fdevs game and they make the decisions whether you like it or not.

 

[Riverside]

What a load of cack. This is about getting your own personal tools back in the game. I don't get mine and probably never will. I use what Fdev decide to put into their game. While the FSS is far from perfect IMO, I still use it and don't continually moan about not getting my tools in the game.

Just a footnote. This is Fdevs game and they make the decisions whether you like it or not.

This is the suggestions section Max, you are posting in a thread discussing a proposal to change the game.

 

[Burke]

I try to imagine being an alien while trying to pull out a usable pattern from all of it.

I thought thats why it gets done? To try and drown out other peoples feedback? It reads to me like some are creating a thoroughly unpleasant atmosphere around FSS threads, particularly this one.

 

[Stigbob]

I thought thats why it gets done? To try and drown out other peoples feedback? It reads to me like some are creating a thoroughly unpleasant atmosphere around FSS threads, particularly this one.

They have focused feedback threads whenever they think its useful, I doubt they read threads like this. Especially not the umpteenth iteration of something they already decided against way back.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This is the suggestions section Max, you are posting in a thread discussing a proposal to change the game.

Yup. And.

 

[lenna]

Answer was already given in this post:

Allow use of pre 3.3 Advanced Discovery Scanner

From my perspective as a player who plays the games I enjoy, the masochists hang around the forums of games they dislike constantly complaining about other people having fun. Nah, not constantly complaining - just supporting constructive ideas that put the games I paid for and used to enjoy that...

forums.frontier.co.uk

That was not a true answer, it is just the usual anti-honk rhetoric with little or no basis in fact.

As has been pointed out, the proposed revised ADS module would NOT give the same benefits of completing the FSS process without ALOT of extra flying or using the FSS process itself.

 

[lenna]

You can call it as you like, this honk will render all local map images and that's what I simply don't want (and already have to accept in the bubble).

This is closer the answer that myself and others were looking for as opposed to the off-hand subjective nonsense.

However, there is more to the FSS than the local map and where the FSS is concerned the additional information is not segregated. In essence, what this means is there is an ultimate impass.

To myself and others, that map is not as valuable as the detailed scan data but even if it takes longer it is a better solution for our playstyles than the FSS, especially given the problems there are with the FSS implementation itself.

Fundamentally, any information unveiled by the proposed revived-ADS would (or should) have no additional monetary value over what the nominal FSS system honk provides. The detailed scan whether by near-body-approach or use of the FSS are the only aspects that would provide any tangible gains. The only difference would be how the location of the body is identified. The only other option would be to stick two fingers up at your playstyle and make the map unveiled as part of the initial honk regardless.

At least the option proposed in the OP allows you to preserve your playstyle and others to make a build choice in order to gain just the positional data and then be able to make a choice about how we gain the rest (and the associated discovery and monetary rewards that go with it).

[EDIT]BTW the level of information proposed to be unveiled by the revived ADS is only to the level of what is currently reported by the basic honk in ALL pre-explored systems, not just those in the bubble.[/EDIT]

 

[marx]

How does the lack of ADS detract from the game given the FSS has all of its functionality plus extra bells and whistles ?.

Oh, this has been repeated quite a lot of times, but let's do it one more time. The FSS does not have all the functionality of the ADS. There is information missing that we used to have at a glance, chief among them being the orbital hierarchy of the system and the visuals of the bodies in question. The FSS now hides such behind playing the mini-game, and in order to ascertain whether a system might be worth exploring, first you have to explore it in full. (The rest might only be mapping to reveal the exact location of POIs that you now know are there.)

One example of what's practically impossible to find now: a group of five bodies with shared barycenters. Very rare, but they do exist, and are quite curious. It took me 50,000 systems to find one, that being M36 Sector RI-T c3-5. Here's what it looked like after the ADS honk + system map combo:

Spoiler

It was of course immediately obvious that I found something extremely rare.
Thanks to Spaceman Si, here's how it looks like after the honk now:

Spoiler

You can no longer tell this special system apart from others, and to reveal that it would be worth stopping to scan this system of completely average body composition, you'd first have to scan the entire system.

You might not find such edge cases of the Stellar Forge important, but for those of us who do - or rather, did - the means of finding them are practically gone.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

But that's actually an interesting argument and seems to boil down to short-range versus deep space explorers. Or in other words, if you would consequently do what you're just trying to sell me as way too simplified by the FSS, then I only can assume you're no deep space explorer. Cause in this case you wouldn't have come along all too far by now. Nothing against bubble explorers (I'm one myself) but you probably should call a spade a spade.

Incorrect assumptions and 'true explorer' snobbery. Nice job.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Are you surprised?

About as much as much as I was when he stepped down from his high horse and started bumping the thread again

 

[space voyager]

So how do you define exploration, if sight-seeing tourism is not exploring in your view?

I didn't say it is not. Though I do prefer finding something that is not just an interesting arrangement of planets. I like finding that, too, naturally...

 

[Riverside]

I didn't say it is not. Though I do prefer finding something that is not just an interesting arrangement of planets. I like finding that, too, naturally...

I've done several big, extended trips. Some of that is travel to a region, some of it is more detailed searching (looking for life around a nebula being a good example). I'm looking for anything interesting along the way, and the definition of 'interesting' is very wide. Could just be a really distant gas giant in an M-class or brown dwarf system, could be anything.

Using the ADS when fast travelling is like being in a car & looking out the window as you drive around (ie something we naturally do). Using the FSS to travel is like driving through a tunnel. Gets you there but the journey is dull.

Sometimes I don't care, I just want to be somewhere, but usually I'm taking the trip for a bit of an adventure, not just for the destination. The new mechanism has turned me into a completion scanner - where before I might cherry pick one or two bodies to investigate, now I feel I need to scan (and therefore tag) everything then boringly know everything about the bodies I cherry pick to go & map. I miss that 'I wonder what that is, lets find out' opportunity, otherwise described as an 'ooh shiny' moment

 

[Stigbob]

If it wasn't him i'm sure Stigbob would've went for it.

You can set your watch by them

Gone not went.

 

[Jaggid Edje]

Relatively new to the game here, about 4 weeks in, and just wanted to chime in that from a new player perspective....I kind of agree with the OP, at least insofar as not liking the FSS.

To be blunt...the FSS is stupid....not just because it's a tedious time-sink that adds no (fun) value, but because it FEELS horrible and out of place. It totally feels like 1950's technology, where you have to turn various dials and knobs to accomplish the task. In a game universe with amazing advanced technology like Elite, it feels very much out of place.

It is also so very simplistic in what is being done (in terms of actions being performed, not end results) that it makes 0 sense that it isn't handled automatically by software. The same could be said for a few other systems in the game, but the FSS with it's 1950's feel, is the only one that really just grated on me from the get-go because it breaks my immersion instantly every time I use it. At least the other parts of the game that don't necessarily make sense don't jump out at me unless I stop to think about them.

Anywho...just wanted to throw that out there from new player perspective. I guess based on the original post, this FSS thing is already hotly debated. I don't know anything about that, I don't spend much time in forums...I honestly just came to give the developers my opinion about this FSS, to suggest replacing it with something that feels more consistent with the rest of the game. I then saw that another thread about it was already here so posted this.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game. Played Elite back in like the 80's and this is a pretty decent modernization of the concept. Some stuff in the game is annoying...I actually uninstalled it about a week ago after ~150 hours played, but then re-installed the next day, so it's a mixed bag (at least imo). Doing away with this FSS nonsense would be one step in a better direction though.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Riverside]

That's an interesting perspective, thanks

 

[Para Handy]

....
To be blunt...the FSS is stupid....not just because it's a tedious time-sink that adds no (fun) value, but because it FEELS horrible and out of place. It totally feels like 1950's technology, where you have to turn various dials and knobs to accomplish the task. ........

That is precisely the response that many of us (well me anyway) had when this thing fell on us in the Beta. However, in use, the speed of being able to do detailed scans (not mapping) of every body in a system from the arrival point, no matter how far away they were, certainly won me over.

 

[lenna]

That is precisely the response that many of us (well me anyway) had when this thing fell on us in the Beta. However, in use, the speed of being able to do detailed scans (not mapping) of every body in a system from the arrival point, no matter how far away they were, certainly won me over.

The problem with the FSS, is it is an absolute PITA to use - it could take less than 5 seconds to scan the system with it and I would still not like the way it is implemented.

I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way.