You're making some bad assumptions there and you're coming off a bit selfish. They aren't valuing anyone more than anyone, they're trying to improve on something that a lot of people have been asking to be improved on for a while now, taking ideas that have been previously brought up and making it their own. Sure, maybe the new system will always be slower when it comes to making a quick judgement on what to investigate, but as you get used to it and learn signal characteristics, you'll be able to determine what is in system quickly (as I understand it anyway).
News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal
You're making some bad assumptions there and you're coming off a bit selfish. They aren't valuing anyone more than anyone, they're trying to improve on something that a lot of people have been asking to be improved on for a while now, taking ideas that have been previously brought up and making it their own. Sure, maybe the new system will always be slower when it comes to making a quick judgement on what to investigate, but as you get used to it and learn signal characteristics, you'll be able to determine what is in system quickly (as I understand it anyway).
Feedback: the new system will add a real sense of mystery to exploring. Instead of honk and check out the System Map, each system is a real 'black box' and you won't know what's there.
Question: For non-planetary things to discover (such as generation ships, or guardian beacons etc.) will they be found by the same scanner method? Or do they automatically appear on entry? Or is it simply a matter of luck if you fly close enough to passive scan them?
Suggestion: It would be good if there was some kind of vague hint on entry that there's something to discover, without having to manually scan 360 x 360. E.g. "the stellar wobble indicates the presence of multiple gas giants orbiting this star" etc....
Question: For non-planetary things to discover (such as generation ships, or guardian beacons etc.) will they be found by the same scanner method? Or do they automatically appear on entry? Or is it simply a matter of luck if you fly close enough to passive scan them?
Suggestion: It would be good if there was some kind of vague hint on entry that there's something to discover, without having to manually scan 360 x 360. E.g. "the stellar wobble indicates the presence of multiple gas giants orbiting this star" etc....
There were over 8K when I glanced at it whilst I was at work earlier, including over 1,000 forum members and a fair smattering of devs/other Fdev employees.
So yeah. The discovery probe stuff sounds great and I can't even begin to say how good it will be to do something other than just setting my supercruise speed to minimum and reading a book in order to find USSs.
I didn't imagine the ADS would no longer give the basic overview of a system that it does at the moment, totally blindsided me with that one. I can see that getting the level of info a detailed scan currently gives (materials etc) may be quicker overall, other than for systems with only a few bodies that are close to the star, since that information comes from interpreting the scan map and zeroing in on things.
However I can't possibly say how I feel about the loss of the basic system overview from an ADS scan until we have some proper idea of how long the process of scanning/interpreting the map screen takes for a system with a reasonable number of bodies. Since the separation between just getting a quick visual overview of what is in a system and getting detailed information about the bodies is effectively removed with these changes (you get nothing until you find something using the map screen scan but then you get everything that a current DSS scan would give you) there is pretty obvious potential for it taking a long time to discover that there's actually nothing much you want to look at in a system. Let's be realistic - there are considerably more pale blue icy moons orbiting brown dwarfs out there than there are binary ringed earthlikes
Without seeing exactly what the initial scan map view will tell you (will the indicators make it relatively obvious that a system may have some water worlds, a binary pair orbiting very close to each other or possibly a high-G landable planet that means you'll then want to sit there tuning your scanner for a while to find them?) and getting a sense of how long the process will be, it's impossible to really say much about it. Right now, you can get a basic sense of whether things like the examples there are in a system within a minute of arriving and then decide whether you're going to be there for a while scanning, or whether you're going to shoot through.
I mean say it takes me an hour in the game today to detail scan every body in a 30 body system and using the new map scan it will still take an hour to fully reveal all of those 30 bodies using the map scan, which will give me the equivalent information that the detailed scanner does now.
On the face of it, that's exactly the same time to do exactly the same thing, so there's no net gain or loss.
In reality though, if my ADS honk on arrival today showed me that the system has six similar icy worlds, each of which has five small icy moons, chances are I wouldn't have DSS scanned all of them to begin with, so I'd never have spent that hour in the system - I might have detail scanned a couple of bodies closest to the star to see if they had any useful materials I might need, then jumped out after five minutes and found something awesome in the next system.
If it's considerably faster to scan those 30 bodies from the map scan screen than it would have been to DSS them all in the game today, then the pendulum swings the other way. Yeah I'll still be spending more time than I would previously in a system just to get a grasp of what bodies are there, but not that much longer and I'll have considerably more data.
I like the underpinning ethos of the changes in terms of introducing skill/actual gameplay but it's just not possible to get a proper sense of how it's going to compare with the current experience without checking it out in beta and getting a fuller understanding of the time/reward curve and I don't mean credit rewards specifically, just so we're clear about that; yeah I like earning credits from exploration but it's never been my primary motivator for doing it.
I do like the idea of discovering things on planet surfaces by probe lobbing. I couldn't even begin to guess at how many planets I've visited and flown over since the geysers/fumaroles/brain trees etc were put in the game and do you know how many such sites I've found myself without the aid of a tourist beacon? Exactly one, so anything that means we can actually discover some of this stuff that you spent time creating for us without spending literally hours flying over barren planets has to be a good thing.
Interesting times.
Last edited:
Interesting. I didn't realize wanting more engaging or complex mechanics made someone casual. I'm so confused right now.
Wait, I have to find planets now? A discovery honk no longer puts the planets on the system map for me to decide which ones I want to give closer scrutiny?
This is horrifying. I hate this.
In a galaxy of 400 billion star systems you're going to make us manually search each one just to find the planets before we can even start the mapping process? This is worse than the system we have now! This will increase the amount of time per system, not decrease it! We've not even visited a tenth of one percent of the galaxy and this process will slow that down even further!
I am all in favor of the new probing process for detailed surface investigations and finding resources in rings. I am all in favor of overhauling the USS gameplay. But if I have to manually find the locations of 100 bodies in every system I am vehemently opposed to the changes to discovery scans.
This is horrifying. I hate this.
In a galaxy of 400 billion star systems you're going to make us manually search each one just to find the planets before we can even start the mapping process? This is worse than the system we have now! This will increase the amount of time per system, not decrease it! We've not even visited a tenth of one percent of the galaxy and this process will slow that down even further!
I am all in favor of the new probing process for detailed surface investigations and finding resources in rings. I am all in favor of overhauling the USS gameplay. But if I have to manually find the locations of 100 bodies in every system I am vehemently opposed to the changes to discovery scans.
the weak spot
That's how it sounds to me too. That's a mistake, I think.
The "new mini-game" shouldn't detract or provide less reward/info/gameplay than the old one.
Perhaps honking could still work as it does currently, but the "discovery" tag be withheld until the new minigame is played.
Is the main difference between the new system and the old one that before the change I had to distinguish between 30 colored circles and after the change I will have to distinguish between 30 squiggly lines?
That's how it sounds to me too. That's a mistake, I think.
The "new mini-game" shouldn't detract or provide less reward/info/gameplay than the old one.
Perhaps honking could still work as it does currently, but the "discovery" tag be withheld until the new minigame is played.
Is the main difference between the new system and the old one that before the change I had to distinguish between 30 colored circles and after the change I will have to distinguish between 30 squiggly lines?
Say we pop into a system with four gas giant, each with 7 icy moons. If we locate one of the gas giants in this way, will all of its moons be lumped into the "icy moons" section of the energy spectrum? Will acquiring information about a planet's orbiting bodies require that we isolate each individual planet in the spectrum (even in cases where there could be a dozen or more of the same type of planet)?
Another scenario (assuming the above to be true): Say we filter the energy spectrum to just show us the icy frequencies. Will we be able to glean any information about a planet's size or mass from the energy spectrum alone or will this require that planet to be isolated as above?
There were over 8K when I glanced at it whilst I was at work earlier, including over 1,000 forum members and a fair smattering of devs/other Fdev employees.
So yeah. The discovery probe stuff sounds great and I can't even begin to say how good it will be to do something other than just setting my supercruise speed to minimum and reading a book in order to find USSs.
I didn't imagine the ADS would no longer give the basic overview of a system that it does at the moment, totally blindsided me with that one. I can see that getting the level of info a detailed scan currently gives (materials etc) may be quicker overall, other than for systems with only a few bodies that are close to the star, since that information comes from interpreting the scan map and zeroing in on things.
However I can't possibly say how I feel about the loss of the basic system overview from an ADS scan until we have some proper idea of how long the process of scanning/interpreting the map screen takes for a system with a reasonable number of bodies. Since the separation between just getting a quick visual overview of what is in a system and getting detailed information about the bodies is effectively removed with these changes (you get nothing until you find something using the map screen scan but then you get everything that a current DSS scan would give you) there is pretty obvious potential for it taking a long time to discover that there's actually nothing much you want to look at in a system. Let's be realistic - there are considerably more pale blue icy moons orbiting brown dwarfs out there than there are binary ringed earthlikes
Without seeing exactly what the initial scan map view will tell you (will the indicators make it relatively obvious that a system may have some water worlds, a binary pair orbiting very close to each other or possibly a high-G landable planet that means you'll then want to sit there tuning your scanner for a while to find them?) and getting a sense of how long the process will be, it's impossible to really say much about it. Right now, you can get a basic sense of whether things like the examples there are in a system within a minute of arriving and then decide whether you're going to be there for a while scanning, or whether you're going to shoot through.
I mean say it takes me an hour in the game today to detail scan every body in a 30 body system and using the new map scan it will still take an hour to fully reveal all of those 30 bodies using the map scan, which will give me the equivalent information that the detailed scanner does now.
On the face of it, that's exactly the same time to do exactly the same thing, so there's no net gain or loss.
In reality though, if my ADS honk on arrival today showed me that the system has six similar icy worlds, each of which has five small icy moons, chances are I wouldn't have DSS scanned all of them to begin with, so I'd never have spent that hour in the system - I might have detail scanned a couple of bodies closest to the star to see if they had any useful materials I might need, then jumped out after five minutes and found something awesome in the next system.
If it's considerably faster to scan those 30 bodies from the map scan screen than it would have been to DSS them all, then the pendulum swings the other way. Yeah I'll still be spending more time than I would previously in a system just to get a grasp of what bodies are there, but not that much longer and I'll have considerably more data.
I like the underpinning ethos of the changes in terms of introducing skill/actual gameplay but it's just not possible to get a proper sense of how it's going to compare with the current experience without checking it out in beta and getting a fuller understanding of the time/reward curve (and I don't mean credit rewards specifically).
I do like the idea of discovering things on planet surfaces by probe lobbing. I couldn't even begin to guess at how many planets I've visited and flown over since the geysers/fumaroles/brain trees etc were put in the game and do you know how many such sites I've found myself without the aid of a tourist beacon? Exactly one, so anything that means we can actually discover some of this stuff that you spent time creating for us without spending literally hours flying over barren planets has to be a good thing.
Interesting times.
Then perhaps the next goal should be to make Icy Planets worth scanning. If everything is worth scanning in some way, the additional time taken to scan everything isn't a loss. Though, again, once the signals are learned, people can begin to skip signals they recognize as not worth their time, much like people do with the SRV wave scanner.
We need customisable honk sounds. Or perhaps the sound could be different depending on the system.
I suggest the following sound templates - squelch, crispy, follow through, silent but deadly (for systems containing gas giants), aromatic, parp...
Rafe Zetter
Banned
Hello Will and FDev:
Changing discovery scanner insead of adding yet another module to grind for - good call #1
Making USS - PRE SPAWN - in fixed locations instead of randomly - good call#2
Upgrading Detailed surface scanner - good call #3 (LOVING the gravity assisted flight trajectory possibility for the mini probes - great idea whoever that was)
"first mapped by" is a nice touch and helps those who are not ready to leave the bubble and add some more indepth lore. - good call #4
WELL DONE [yesnod][yesnod]
Changing discovery scanner insead of adding yet another module to grind for - good call #1
Making USS - PRE SPAWN - in fixed locations instead of randomly - good call#2
Upgrading Detailed surface scanner - good call #3 (LOVING the gravity assisted flight trajectory possibility for the mini probes - great idea whoever that was)
"first mapped by" is a nice touch and helps those who are not ready to leave the bubble and add some more indepth lore. - good call #4
WELL DONE [yesnod][yesnod]
Uneducated question but I'm guessing you need a full system map to do that effectively?
As someone who has waited since PB for more exploration gameplay mechanics before properly setting off I'm not sure I agree with you (based on how I play other games), particularly if it highlights POI worth visiting.
I do hope that FD take your feedback on board though.
I agree- and from what I understand the "icy worlds" graphic enhancements (which are delayed, not cancelled) were one way to actually improve this. Sure, you might not get a huge credit turn-in from UC, but rather there maybe something else on them which you can explore/find, etc.
Perhaps the Probe interactivity is meant to rectify it? Who knows, until we have more detail from Frontier?
Last edited:
I'm hearing a lot of people with similar sentiments.
I'm curious, what makes water/earth-like/ammonia worlds interesting?
You can't land on them or interact with them in any way. So other than looking cool (which, let's be honest, once you've seen one...), why are they interesting?
Unless by "interesting" you mean "yields more credits", then ok.
But if we're actually exploring, and looking for interesting things that we can interact with, and have some gameplay attached to, then the proposed system is significantly better.
Rafe Zetter
Banned
Maybe it is. I wonder if they have a contingency plan just in case we get to beta and we don't like how it feels. Something needs to change though because it's currently a soul less feature that's only rewarding to ELW hunters and photographers.
Will the new scanner UI etc be displayed immersively in VR - i.e. like station services in an in game display window which you view from your chair, or are we going to get yanked into an unimmersive 'camera mode' like with the SRV turret/multicrew turrets?
Can't agree with this enough. Nothing wrong with ELW hunting and space photography... but for those who expect a bit "more" there's a bit of light in the darkness.
I'll reserve final judgement until I actually see this in practice, but I have mixed feelings now...
Changes to discovering stuff on planets/rings and the USS changes : awesome. Changes to locating bodies in the system... I'm torn. The process is indeed more interesting, and far less passive. It sounds great, on paper.
But...
We all know the majority of systems don't really have anything special about them (and that's fine, cool and special stuff should be rare, or it wouldn't be special), and I wonder if, after the novelty passes, if I'll still going to care about spending who knows how long fiddling with the scan view, just for the off chance of actually cool happens to be there, and not just yet another >60 rocky moon system with nothing special about it, or If I'm going to think "ah fart it let's keep going".
In the end, I have a feeling that on my way to some destination 10k ly way, I'm gonna end up scanning far less systems than before, and end up finding a lot less cool stuff than before, when I could quickly check if there's anything worth looking into before moving on.
But like I said, I'll withhold final judgement until I actualy see it (or better try it), so far it's just speculation over some paragraphs of text and I could be completely wrong.
Another thing is... is this it? I thought there was going to be new stuff, new things to do, new geological/environmental things to find and interact with, not just different ways to do the same thing.
Changes to discovering stuff on planets/rings and the USS changes : awesome. Changes to locating bodies in the system... I'm torn. The process is indeed more interesting, and far less passive. It sounds great, on paper.
But...
We all know the majority of systems don't really have anything special about them (and that's fine, cool and special stuff should be rare, or it wouldn't be special), and I wonder if, after the novelty passes, if I'll still going to care about spending who knows how long fiddling with the scan view, just for the off chance of actually cool happens to be there, and not just yet another >60 rocky moon system with nothing special about it, or If I'm going to think "ah fart it let's keep going".
In the end, I have a feeling that on my way to some destination 10k ly way, I'm gonna end up scanning far less systems than before, and end up finding a lot less cool stuff than before, when I could quickly check if there's anything worth looking into before moving on.
But like I said, I'll withhold final judgement until I actualy see it (or better try it), so far it's just speculation over some paragraphs of text and I could be completely wrong.
Another thing is... is this it? I thought there was going to be new stuff, new things to do, new geological/environmental things to find and interact with, not just different ways to do the same thing.
Last edited: