Allow use of pre 3.3 Advanced Discovery Scanner

[Ziggy Stardust]

I see and understand the problem that interesting orbits and configurations are harder to see in the new FSS than they formerly were. Finding those requires the additional step of going to the system map, which indeed could load a bit faster. But really, if the honk would once again complete your map, then why use the FSS at all?

Easy, if after the honk, the system map only shows a visual representation of the system, you'd still need the FSS to fill in the blanks.

Cherry pickers would honk, look at the system map, fly to the interesting places and map those, without ever touching the FSS.

Cherry pickers now see the EM signature, and take seconds to locate them. If needed, the ADS system map could be non-interactive. So you'd still need the FSS

Those interested in vistas and the likes would also never touch the FSS, as the proposed change aims at exactly that: eliminating their need for the FSS.

I'm interested (among other things) in vistas. And the best way would be to determine via the ADS whether a system potentially hold something of interest. If so, use the FSS to get information like orbital periods and such. Use the orrery to determine potential eclipses (can't be done with ADS)

Completionists, you may have a point. But, having been one myself, my method would be to use the FSS and then fly towards each to map them. I'd be far to curious to have to wait until I'd fly past each and every one of them.

This topic have been discussed a lot in the last months. Plenty of people contributed in those old threads. And while there were some people very passionately fighting against the FSS, i couldn't remember any suggestion which would not in the end result in what i just described: the FSS becoming absolutely optional and being a time wasting minigame while things can be done more efficiently by not using it.

Then you have not read all the suggestions. I have been arguing against the complete removal of the ADS. The only issue I have with the FSS is the frequency which I have to use it. If I could use the FSS in a focused directional manner, I would love having the FSS.

In my mind, the ADS and FSS could work together very well indeed. The trick is to have them perform separate functions.


edit: and then I find out I just wasted my time

Translated: in those threads it also were always the same handful of people screaming against the new system, while many players stated that they actually are happy with the changes. But perhaps the people who are happy with the new system just get bored explaining the same things again, so this could be the thread where the crying and complaining could finally happen freely.

Never mind Sylow, never mind.

 

[Faded Glory]

I was watching the April Update livestream this morning and couldn’t help but shake my head a little when they were talking about exploration...

“Only 0.036% of the galaxy has been discovered by the community....”
“So get out there...”
“you’ve not even done 1%!!”

If all FD provide explorers is endless systems of rocks and dust and we have to use this nauseating tool to inspect them all with I suspect it’s going to reach 0.045% at best.

The numbers are stacked against them...

Even if millions of players explored all the time it would hardly make a dent in the 400 billion system game world. The FSS was designed at least in part to help speed up exploration, but it won't make any difference, the galaxy is just too big.

That said, giving players with different exploration goals and different exploration styles the means to achieve them would probably be more encouraging and likely have more success too than suggesting on a live stream that players get out and explore.

Also worth noting that if FD prioritize the basic credit and rank style of exploration, while it may well get players who want credits and rank to go out and explore, it's entirely possible that those same players, who's motive was perhaps only credits and rank, will stop exploring once they've got what they came for. Much better IMO to make exploration as wide and varied a play style as possible and give it some staying power.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

What's required nowadays to reach Elite Explorer?

 

[Old Duck]

Oh. How could I forget! I'm really getting old... on a more positive side it's a strong indicator that I'm totally immune to any brainwashing attempts.

It's also a strong indicator that Frontier is totally inept at fixing their game, hence the futility of this thread.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

It's also a strong indicator that Frontier is totally inept at fixing their game, hence the futility of this thread.

Any thread really.

If it passes the time, it has a use.

 

[Old Duck]

Any thread really.

Unless that thread is about Drag Munitions.

 

[biot]

It's also a strong indicator that Frontier is totally inept at fixing their game, hence the futility of this thread.

Many Bothans died to bring us this information

 

[Maymo]

What's required nowadays to reach Elite Explorer?

I’m guesstimating 200m in exploration data...

Source: I’m currently Pioneer at 30-40%, done about 150m in data on my new acc...

 

[Faded Glory]

I’m guesstimating 200m in exploration data...

Source: I’m currently Pioneer at 30-40%, done about 150m in data on my new acc...

The wiki still lists it as >318 million credits (which seems right, that's what it took me back in 2017).

For reference, after beyond dropped I undertook two short exploration trips to map my previously discovered ELW's, obviously exploring along the way and getting to know the FSS. Those two trips netted me just over 500 million in exploration data, well over doubling my 'income' from exploration...

 

[Maymo]

The wiki still lists it as >318 million credits (which seems right, that's what it took me back in 2017).

For reference, after beyond dropped I undertook two short exploration trips to map my previously discovered ELW's, obviously exploring along the way and getting to know the FSS. Those two trips netted me just over 500 million in exploration data, well over doubling my 'income' from exploration...

Yeah I just logged back in and checked...

Pioneer @ 24%
Total exploration profits are 163.6m

Assuming you pretty much have to do aimless to pioneer again to go from pioneer to Elite sounds like I’m on track.

 

[Maymo]

They tried hard with the compromise of giving them the old ADS behavior back in the bubble -

What does this bit mean?

 

[Faded Glory]

What does this bit mean?

It's not really bubble specific.

If you honk a system (anywhere) that has been previously discovered by another player, the bodies that have been already discovered will show in both the system map and the nav panel as unexplored (to you), but still visible.

At least, I assume that is what he was referring to.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

[

And this is where you've already lost me. In older discussions you were already told that if you enter a new, foreign system you would see close to nothing at first, besides a few center stars at best. At this point I usually get responses like "but technology in 3300 would be so much further ahead, it would be no problem at all". Lots of tin-foiling, ifs and whens and pure science fiction, very immersive. With this argument we should eliminate about half of the current existing gameplay, first of all manually flying a spaceship. You see where this thinking is heading.

I totally get that some love to be just visitors (in avoidance of the term tourist, though I still struggle to see significant difference, beyond semantics). My idea of exploring is a scientific approach in the first case though I'm aware of course, that we are just playing or pretending to be scientists, this part still has to be simplified and kept accessible for a huge part of the community, I get that. But still, as I'm pretty sure you are like me and also talking from a point of view of immersion, that's the subjective immersive part of those who want to play the scientific approach.

If we stay at this picture for a moment, then of course any scientist would love to get their objects of interest smashed right into their face. Unfortunately, that's not how science works as I'm pretty sure you long know by now. That's the point where an almost instant image of the local map clashes with the immersive part of playing a scientist and that's why simply stating both concepts can happily exist in parallel is either pretty selfish or downright ignoring.

The crucial part is indeed, whether the majority of players is either one or the other type: I could imagine very well, that FD tries to put both types into the same boat as this is a common theme throughout the whole game and some of these endeavors are already more than questionable and lead to design solutions that don't really please anyone. But in this case they would downright fail if they would support the visitors even further. They tried hard with the compromise of giving them the old ADS behavior back in the bubble - something I can barely accept - but that's apparently not enough for some of the visitors who want to be visitors throughout the whole galaxy. I guess you still don't see how screwed this vision is.

What you want is, in my perception and if we would talk about a halfway realistic racing sim, the Mario-Kart version of racing. Which is totally fine but also totally nuts if both would be in one and the same game. That's why I still support the one and only feasible compromise of a mutual exclusive ADS module, that would suppress any FSS function while installed.

And if you still want to be taken seriously, please don't repeat such nonsense like "you don't have to look at the local map if you don't like it" but IIRC and in your favor you never went that low...

That's an awfully long-winded way of saying "My headcanon says they can't coexist".

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

The only way to avoid comments like "that's totally irrelevant".
But if you'd like to go on with this topic in shorthand style, all power to you!
Grunts and oinks should perfectly do...

Nah, you're good.
No point in trying to argue with someone's headcanon.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I was watching the April Update livestream this morning and couldn’t help but shake my head a little when they were talking about exploration...

“Only 0.036% of the galaxy has been discovered by the community....”
“So get out there...”
“you’ve not even done 1%!!”



So I’m sat there thinking back to my own exploration experience this weekend...

Zoom in/out/in/out/in/out/in/out/in/out/in/out/in.....(temporarily bugs out/exit FSS/Enter FSS)
...in/out/in/out/in/out.

That’s one gas giant done, two more to go. Uhg, feeling a bit sick though...

If all FD provide explorers is endless systems of rocks and dust and we have to use this nauseating tool to inspect them all with I suspect it’s going to reach 0.045% at best.

Why are on earth would you continuously zoom in and out on the same planet. Doesn't make sense to me, but whatever rocks your boat.

 

[Maymo]

A somewhat simplified description of the current state: If you enter an already known system the FSS honk will instantly fill the local map with images, similar to how it was before with a honk from the ADS.

Ahh right yeah...

You don’t even have to honk. Once any system in the galaxy is turned in to UCart it’ll pop up discovered on the sensors when you first arrive.

Some of the recent systems that have only been partially FSS’d are actually quite amusing, you can almost smell the lingering frustration of the previous CMDR that gave up half way through scanning.

 

[Maymo]

Not necessarily. Could have been a cherry picker who knew what he's doing. If you prefer the gleeful version, that could also be true of course. No harm in thinking whatever you like.

Ok, nice chat..

Seems to be getting passive aggressive around here, so I’ll take a bow.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Some of this comes down to 'what is there to find?'

The FSS is designed to focus on specific body types and then the POIs which is all tied in with the things there are to find in the Codex.
The trouble with those is that they are 'common' enough that eventually you'll find everything there is to find.

The much maligned 'tourist' explorer isn't specifically interested in that, although they will stumble on them along the way anyway.
What gets them interested are the anomalies and outliers that are the outcome of having to produce 400 Billion star systems using the Stellar Forge. The unusual and interesting combinations of objects that will be rare, or potentially even unique.

Finding those requires a method to quickly assess a system layout and then move on to cover more systems.
The ADS provided that, the FSS does not.

As pointed out in previous posts, we're not even close to 1% discovery.
The FSS may speed up the rate of body discovery through scanning from a distance.
It will likely slow down the rate of system discovery due to being unable to make that quick assessment.

The trophy cabinet that is the Codex can get checked off - 100% done.
The galaxy will never be fully explored though, so that next interesting system might just be the next one.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

The FSS automates the 'scientific activity' - the actual determination of the planet type - in exactly the same way that the ADS did. All it adds is a completely unscientific panning around a telescope looking for blobs. If this happened the other way around - the location of the bodies was automated and the determination of planet type was manual - so that there was some actual intellectual engagement required, then I'd be much happier with the FSS.

Totally agree. I can't emphasise this point enough, and I highlighted it months ago with example game designs FDev could have used. As did many others.

Primarily, that involved introducing uncertainty. The initial FSS/ADS honk should have resulted in a semi-ambiguous, incomplete, uncertain System Map or Orrery (preferably both) where not all planet types were initially known, eg. Rocky Ice World 90% / ELW 10% probability. Then allow the explorer to decide whether to concentrate on determining if that body is indeed an ELW, eg. by using an FSS to "zoom in". Or even make them fly closer, thus gathering enough valid data to resolve the uncertainty.

And introduce a range of new discovery sub-modules, and engineering, that could be strategically chosen by the commander to improve the sensor or analysis technology to more efficiently discover the types of things important to each commander:

A sub-module/engineering for enhanced Goldilocks Zone range resolution.
A sub-module/engineering for enhanced colour/visual resolution (more bodies given full colour on the System Map initially).
A sub-module/engineering for enhanced biological detection/resolution.
A sub-module/engineering for enhanced binary pair detection/resolution.
A sub-module/engineering for better USS resolution.
A sub-module/engineering for FSS persistent blue blobs.
A sub-module/engineering for FSS frequency filtering (as opposed to tuning).
... limited only by imagination

Most of the above sub-modules/engineering would reduce the initial ambiguity/uncertainty in some way, or automate better some processes, from which the commander decides if, or how best, to resolve the remainder of the system.

A modified ADS module should sit on top of the FSS to do this, allowing sub-modules/engineering. Although to prevent some of the dissent arising from the historic term "ADS", I'd call it something completely different. It certainly wouldn't work exactly like the old ADS.


TLDR; Make discover/exploration strategy based and intellectually engaging.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Probably because I would be happy with the old style ADS coming back under conditions. Some don't like those conditions. But that's tough. Thats my opinion and I will stick by it. That has always been my stance and it hasn't changed.