News Chapter Four - Exploration Reveal

[Marc_Hicks]

I am ready to spend MY time scanning objects that MY interests are for, i wont spend MY time to scan fuzzbals in hopes that from all gas giant fuzzies i might find one with big rings, especially because i CAN do it currently in few moments.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. One less person in the game demanding an "I Win" button can only do the game good going forward. My point is that once you've resolved the initial image, you learn *EVERYTHING* about that planet-including material content & presence of surface features.......something that the insta-honk cannot do.

Still, no surprise that some people struggle with basic comprehension.

 

[Red Anders]

I can't help but to me this computes to some sort of 'bulk exploring' where happiness is directly proportional to the number of systems scanned per minute.

For me happiness is down to finding something rare, beautiful or unique as I said yesterday. You have considerably more chance of doing that when you can get a quick overview (without detailed information) of what is in a system in ten seconds. With 400 billion stars or whatever it is we're not going to run out of ones to check any time soon but a hell of a lot of the systems they're in are going to be a) similar and b) not particularly thrilling. That's space for you.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. One less person in the game demanding an "I Win" button can only do the game good going forward. My point is that once you've resolved the initial image, you learn *EVERYTHING* about that planet-including material content & presence of surface features.......something that the insta-honk cannot do.

Still, no surprise that some people struggle with basic comprehension.

Second time you've mentioned materials now. Really Marc, what is the thrill of materials for you? I mean my interest in them basically extends as far as the occasions that I want or need to collect some and the material distribution across the galaxy is so balanced that I can't remember the last time I had to check more than three planets in each of three systems to find what I needed. I've only spent about an hour and a half in the last six months on planet surfaces specifically looking for materials (I was killing time on the Wednesday night before the Gnosis jumped) rather than just bagging what I stumble across when doing other things and yet I constantly have a full load of the 100% jumponium materials and everything I need to make ammo, repair and refuel the SRV etc.

As for discovering surface points of interest yes that does sound great but you're not getting it as part of the ADS/DDS replacement scanning minigame, that's what the drones are for after you do your 27 detailed surface scans of 27 near-identical balls of ice, all of whose presence you would previously have detected in ten seconds with a honk and then had the option to DSS if you felt that you wanted to.

Regardless of whether you play the game the same way or not, suggesting that people who want to do something other than just scan absolutely everything to current DSS levels just to know its even there to begin with are looking for an 'I win' button is just absurd. What do they 'win' exactly? A game experience that they find entertaining? Wow what a bunch of losers, what sort of idiot wants that from a computer game?

 

[MightyBOB]

For some, it may be a "poison pill", for others it's a definitive boon that distinguishes "travelers" from "explorers" and thus rewards gameplay accordingly, based on actual involvement and engagement as opposed to "causality". Just because you "happen to be" moving from point A to B doesn't make you an "explorer"- anymore than going on holiday to Brighton Beach makes you a cartographer.

It really is about time Frontier helped people to recognize that. The "Crayola Payola" trend needs to go, with a quickness.

Wanna know how I can tell you didn't even read the post? Because all the use cases I cited are ones that an actual explorer--who is interested in doing more than scanning ELWs and running--would be interested in doing.

 

[mossfoot]

The reactions of some people here takes me back to the 2.2 Beta. As you may well recall, there was a bug in one of the beta updates that left the interior of honked planets blacked out. FDev promised to remove the bug in the next patch, but all the explorers screamed "NO!!!!!", as they wanted it kept in. Thus followed a very long debate between FDev & the Beta Testers about what they wanted from the exploration mechanics. My feeling is that what we see in the OP is a direct result of that conversation, almost 2 full years ago.

I will admit to being one of those who wanted the blacked out planets kept in. I was so desperate for something that felt like exploration and discovery that even that tiny detail would have helped.

Looking back, I'm completely indifferent about it, it seems almost inconsequential. I'll take an overhaul over a tweak. Just a shame we had to wait so long for it.

 

[Rojo Habe]

There's something in that livestream that gave me cause for concern.

Adam said that first you open up the Discovery scanner screen and "then you do the honk" (I'd like to give an exact quote but for some reason the video is now coming up as restricted).

This really will break things for me. After the initial wave of people arriving in a system, reflexively pressing their scanner button and immediately blinding themselves to the massive star they're just about to fly into, it will become a case of:-

Jump into system
Steer away from anything you can see that you're in danger of hitting
Throttle back to 30km/s

Only THEN will you press the scan button, after which you can honk and discover the star that you're sitting right next to, and then look at the Energy Distribution thingy and decide what to do next.

Id like to see it more like this:

Drop into the system and honk as you are used to doing.
This brings up the Energy Distribution scale on your HUD, which you can analyse while you continue to be able to see where you're going. If you then decide it's worth investigating you can park yourself by the star as above and open up the full interface.

Ideally I'd prefer to see the whole thing as a HUD overlay, as others have already mentioned, but I don't think that's what we're getting.

 

[mossfoot]

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. One less person in the game demanding an "I Win" button can only do the game good going forward. My point is that once you've resolved the initial image, you learn *EVERYTHING* about that planet-including material content & presence of surface features.......something that the insta-honk cannot do.

Still, no surprise that some people struggle with basic comprehension.

It's like some people have blinders on, willfully ignoring the positive and only seeing the negative. As you pointed out, there is a lot more gained than lost in this process, than the current method, both in terms of time and content.

It won't be the same as before. You will have to adapt. But you'll find a pattern and method that works for you and I'll be you my Krait it won't be a burden in the long run. Hell, within a week there will be a dozen YouTube videos with people showing exactly HOW to min-max the system best for your playstyle.

 

[Six6VI]

nobody wants all that info from 100 rocky planets in a system.

Objection: My OCD disagrees, and you don't speak on my behalf.

 

[mossfoot]

Ideally I'd prefer to see the whole thing as a HUD overlay, as others have already mentioned, but I don't think that's what we're getting.

Yeah, I would like that too. Assuming it's a graphical processing issue - or at least have it as a display option for systems that can handle it. I'd love to see the galaxy map overlayed within my cockpit view.

(although, I'd even settle for a graphical effect that shows your view dissolve into orange triangles like on our various HUDS as it shifts to the sensor or map, to show a virtual visor taking up the your view... but that's just the artistic side of me talking)

 

[Eben Sheti'ya]

Now we are talking been waiting for this since Premium Beta. Nice one FD.

 

[Dbrn47]

I think that sounds great. It's the fact that knowing they're they're there to be scanned to begin with currently takes about ten seconds. All the new stuff like detail scanning with the new map interface, being able to get further info like locations of interest by using probes sounds great, I love it. I just don't want to have to spend ages getting to a point when I can do all that new fun stuff when there's currently a game mechanic that gets me to that point pretty much immediately.

I'm not trying to categorise players here, this is just an observation about the way we use language I guess but for me 'discovery' and exploration' are not the same thing. I explore things after I discover them. Discovery = finding out they're there. Exploration = checking them out.

The thing with making discovery a game is that this is a reasonably realistic representation of the galaxy. That doesn't mean NMS-style worlds with tens of thousands of odd things to be found. The thing with rarity is that by definition it means there are a hell of a lot of things that aren't rare at all just sitting out there making the rare stuff rare. That's how it works.

Anything up to three quarters of the stars in the galaxy are estimated to be red dwarfs. There are a hell of a lot of snowballs. No particular shortage of boulders. I don't scan or explore many of them to begin with unless they have (for example) an interesting orbital pattern giving interesting views. Most don't.

Right now an ADS scan gives me a good enough idea about that and other considerations about a system's contents for me to work out whether I want to explore the system fully, or press on and maybe discover something incredible in the next system, which I will then explore. If that process goes from taking ten seconds to even 'just' ten minutes, it reduces the number of systems I could potentially check out in an hour from sixty (honk, scoop, system map, jump) to six, with no change at all in the percentage chance of finding something interesting because the galaxy itself seems to be completely unchanged in this update. With the exception of probably some new kinds of USSs, this is all new ways of finding exactly what in the game today and nothing more based on what has been said. The probe-lobbing in particular sounds really good, it will be great to get surface POI data at last and the new map scan system as a way of getting what is currently DSS data also sounds like it could be good - it's just that lack of a quick system overview that feels like it might wreck it for me.

As I said back when they first anounced it, it really needs a beta to get a proper flavour of how it's going to shake out but there is absolutely no doubt at all that it is going to take longer to simply discover what bodies exist in a system - it takes ten seconds now, no way is any scan map mechanic doing that and although you'll get the current DSS scan data as part of a combined discovery and scanning process with these changes, any time saving compared to current DSS scanning only exists at all if the things you simultaneously discover and scan are things you would have detail scanned anyway. If not you haven't 'saved' any time at all, you've spent time doing something that you wouldn't have done in the game as it is today, which doesn't bring any particular entertainment payoff for the additional time.

It's all opinions. I can only judge it against what I like to do and how I like to do it.

I'm hoping it goes beyond this change of course. To make it feel rewarding (not just credits, we've established that isn't the goal for many of us) enough to justify the extra work. Things like adding more to check out, to actually explore and scan, perhaps even making currently worthless planets a bit more worthwhile in general. I definitely don't feel like this should be the new exploration by itself, but a start to creating an experience that is wholly better than what we have. Make it more than just discovering and tagging the same types of planets over and over. If this is it, then perhaps it is a problem, though I do still like the idea of doing a bit more than just ADS honk and move on even if it's going to take longer.

The friction seems to mostly stem from just different types of explorers. We all get different things out of the idea of exploration. Many are happy with simply tagging and taking pictures, but I'm certainly not. I don't even get a kick out of sightseeing in real life, just doesn't bring me any enjoyment, there's no interaction, you take a picture and move on, doesn't engage my mind.

 

[mossfoot]

I'm hoping it goes beyond this change of course. To make it feel rewarding (not just credits, we've established that isn't the goal for many of us) enough to justify the extra work. Things like adding more to check out, to actually explore and scan, perhaps even making currently worthless planets a bit more worthwhile in general. I definitely don't feel like this should be the new exploration by itself, but a start to creating an experience that is wholly better than what we have. Make it more than just discovering and tagging the same types of planets over and over. If this is it, then perhaps it is a problem, though I do still like the idea of doing a bit more than just ADS honk and move on even if it's going to take longer.

Well all they're talking about right now is mechanics. They've indicated there will be more things to find and do, but, like the Codex can't say more at the moment other than it exists.

But the way I see it? Even if they didn't add new things to find yet, what they're doing is laying down the tools so that future exploration content can be added in a more interesting way. It's a big step forward. The tools on their own will be interesting for a while, until they become commonplace and normal, and then we'll have the same content problem--BUT, when they turn an eye to that content issue, I think it's going to be a lot more rewarding to find and discover because of these tools.

 

[Red Anders]

For some, it may be a "poison pill", for others it's a definitive boon that distinguishes "travelers" from "explorers" and thus rewards gameplay accordingly, based on actual involvement and engagement as opposed to "causality". Just because you "happen to be" moving from point A to B doesn't make you an "explorer"- anymore than going on holiday to Brighton Beach makes you a cartographer.

...or indeed than having an opinion makes you the arbiter of what an explorer is or isn't.

If I ever hit a point where I feel the need to create and apply categories of my own invention to other players, which I then use to devalue their activities in order to support my point, I like to think I'd take a step back and analyse whether my point actually has any value outside of the entirely personal construct within which I developed it.

See I'd say that someone who spends their time in the black seeking out strange new worlds and going where no man has gone before (yeah I went there) would qualify as an explorer just fine and that's exactly what I do. Some other people have the opinion that being a cartographer makes you an explorer. Cartographers don't filter according to personal interest, they record everything objectively attaching equal importance to it, which is exactly what we're going to be doing as soon as there is no longer any separation between an initial discovery scan and a subsequent detailed scan.

So yeah. Elite: Cartographer. Perhaps that's what they should call 3.3

 

[Six6VI]

Question:

It's been said you're considering an increased ammo blueprint for the new DSS... Will that be as well as, or instead of the current Fast / Long Range / Wide Angle?

To clarify, as I may be missing something in the OP, lets say I've arrived in a system, used the new ADS interface, located a planet I'd like to investigate further and flown towards it...

As I supercruise, will my DSS begin scanning the approach side of the body as it currently does when I get into range to map say, 40-50% of the object? Can I then choose if I want to make an attempt to lob a probe into it's gravity well such that it impacts the far side and reveals the remaining 50-60% or, can I elect instead to save my probes and simply fly past the body and turn around at a suitable distance to complete the remainder of the detailed surface mapping scan manually?

The new DSS proposal sounds like it might be a lot of fun but I would prefer not to log in one day and find my engineering decisions and efforts have been arbitrarily "handwaviumed" into something that may not be mission critical for my play style.

I can appreciate that you're all quite excited about the new toys, and thank you all for the time and effort you're putting into the product however, would it not be sensible to preserve as much of the current mechanic as possible to minimise community outrage and, not disadvantage players who may have been away from the game long enough to miss recent announcements and may get upset by the unexpected changes?

 

[Micha]

Great, thank you so much for the livestream Ed & Adam and going into a bit more depths about the mechanics. Really looking forward to seeing a livestream showcasing this and trying it in the beta.

Following the livestream I'd like to reiterate some of my questions/concerns:

"Honk"
+ maybe fill system map with already-discovered bodies submitted by other Commanders. Seems a little redundant to have to re-discover everything. But only provide additional monetary reward if player re-scans bodies. (lore for payouts: "payment for data verification submitted by other commanders")
+ this could tie in with the suggestion of being able to deploy a "micro nav-beacon". Not only would it indicate to other explorers that somebody has already visited this system even if they haven't sold the data yet, but it would let others access the already-gathered information on the system and spend their time and effort on any remaining bodies in the system. "Standing on the shoulders of giants" kind of thing.

Discovery Scan
+ allow the Discovery Scanner to be usable from normal space as well as Supercruise. Otherwise scanning will be very dangerous near inhabited systems (interdictions).
+ Please don't show detailed information such as relative resource abundancies from the Discovery Scan. By all means show -what- resources are available (and any special features?) but leave the details for the Surface Scan/Probes.

Display
+ Please just have a pop-up, not a full-screen display, to maintain some level of situational awareness while flying.
+ Increase the size of the UI elements for VR (or allow user to increase the UI scale). The sample screenshots seem to be quite small.

Surface Scan / Probes
+ Can you fire probes at multiple bodies at the same time? For example, in a tight system of moons around a gas giant.
+ Will you only see interesting POIs once you've mapped the entire planet, or will you be able to see the ones in a partially-mapped planet?
+ Please don't "pin-point" POIs but display search areas. Give us a reason to fly down and reconnoiter with SRV or ship/SLF.

Probe Synthesis
+ ensure required resources can be gathered by mining laser or SRV. This allows smaller ships to skip having to lug an SRV hangar and, of course, non-Horizons players need to be able to gather resources too.
+ materials and recipe should be very simple; think SRV fuel.
+ will higher-grade synth increase probe range and/or coverage?

Engineering Proposals
+ better coverage per probe
+ increased probe-speed / range
+ light-weight scanners
+ combined scanners
+ utility-mountable scanners

 

[WR3ND]

...or indeed than having an opinion makes you the arbiter of what an explorer is or isn't.

If I ever hit a point where I feel the need to create and apply categories of my own invention to other players, which I then use to devalue their activities in order to support my point, I like to think I'd take a step back and analyse whether my point actually has any value outside of the entirely personal construct within which I developed it.

See I'd say that someone who spends their time in the black seeking out strange new worlds and going where no man has gone before (yeah I went there) would qualify as an explorer just fine and that's exactly what I do. Some other people have the opinion that being a cartographer makes you an explorer. Cartographers don't filter according to personal interest, they record everything objectively attaching equal importance to it, which is exactly what we're going to be doing as soon as there is no longer any separation between an initial discovery scan and a subsequent detailed scan.

So yeah. Elite: Cartographer. Perhaps that's what they should call 3.3

From one proud space vagabond to another. o7

Spoiler

 

[yianniv]

Yeah, I would like that too. Assuming it's a graphical processing issue - or at least have it as a display option for systems that can handle it. I'd love to see the galaxy map overlayed within my cockpit view.

(although, I'd even settle for a graphical effect that shows your view dissolve into orange triangles like on our various HUDS as it shifts to the sensor or map, to show a virtual visor taking up the your view... but that's just the artistic side of me talking)

If I understand the new procedure correctly, in the new screen you have a 360o rotation freedom. By having a separate screen it allows ships like the conda to have the same rotation speed as more agile ones, thus eliminating frustration for the gamer.

I didn't watch the live stream, so I don't know if I'm correct in my assumption.

 

[Kaltern]

Some very strange objections still floating around.

* Popups instead of full screen interface. I don't understand this. The Galaxy/System maps are already in a full screen format, and this really is the only obvious (and easiest) way to do it. Why would we suddenly need a similar screen in a popup? It won't break the game.

* I keep seeing people talking about 'flying around' in the scanner view? You don't need to fly anywhere; you can scan for all planets right at the base star without moving an inch. Only when you see planets of possible interest (such as Earth like or Water) would you then go and take a closer look. Don't forget, the initial scan reveals the type of planets in the system by the electromagnetic waveform - it was alluded to that we'd be able to understand what type of planets there are depending on the location across the spectrum, and by pinpointing a specific signal, we'd be able to figure out what it probably is - much like the SRV wave scanner.

* Surface scanning appears to be done completely through normal cockpit view, and only shows the scan results via another screen - so you don't lose situational awareness during the scan. This has not been 'officially' confirmed via any screenshots however - I'm only going by what was said during the livestream.

* It will be QUICKER over all to determine the type of planets in a system. Currently, the 'honk' simply shows outlines for how many planets there are, and a very broad idea of what they could be. You still have to visit and scan them to find exactly what they are. The new system will allow you to figure out what each planet is as you scan - which is how it probably should have been in the beginning.

* The original concept of honking once and magically knowing everything you need to know about a system was, as we ALL know, a placeholder mechanic that has sadly been in place for far too long. It might be inconvenient for some, but this new set of tools makes far more sense in the grand scheme of things. I for one look forward to visiting a new system, scanning, and finding there are.... things out there to find, rather than not knowing until you accidentally come across it. Discovery via exploration using tools is definitely more interesting than randomly flying around until you physically spot something.

* Noone who has visited systems in the past is losing anything. Their names will always remain as they are now. They will just be joined by people who have used new tools to find out a bit more. Just like Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, those who came after him were able to discover a lot more using newer and improved tools. This is exactly the same, and makes absolute sense. Your initial discovery will never be taken away from you - but you never discovered everything about those systems because the tools were not invented at the time.

* Much like every other mechanic that introduces more activity, people are resistant to change. I think while opinion is useful, directly opposing such changes is futile, because they ARE going to happen. The best use of your energies is to suggest improvements, and accept you will need to compromise. After all, explorers HAVE been asking for such things for years, and now we finally have our moment. Just don't expect it to be SPECIFICALLY how YOU want it, because it's not our game to decide. They've asked for as much feedback as we can give.. let's do that instead of just fighting change.

 

[Gravity Drive]

I see some very good and positive changes here, However as usual it will come with the Time Sink Grinds that always kill the Improvements.
Looks to me like this Game wants to Suck the Life out of my most precious resource, "LIFE TIME", which can not be replaced.

So you want to take Hours to do what now takes a couple of seconds, that is Insane.

FDev, please get off the Grind Mentality, and make things easier to progress, NOT add more Time Walls, and Extra things to string out, Playing this Game.

Why can't the Scanners just do their job?
Why do we need the addition of Probes, other than to add more unnecessary "Fiddling", Rather than just Reducing the Time it takes to Find Something.

Just think of the HOURS it takes to do anything in this Game.
Sorry but it feels like sinking into the Quicksand of Time Sink Grind, is all we Ever get from "Improvements and Patches"

Couldn't disagree more. It's okay for some games to have deliberate pacing.

I honestly think you should go play something else, because this game clearly doesn't work for you.

Elite's pacing is one of my favorite things about it, as it's like nothing else on the market right now. They're very clearly doing something right, then again I consider flying my ship "doing something" in the game and don't need a constant Pavlovian reward for every action I take to feel like I'm accomplishing something.

My "LIFE TIME" is just as valuable as yours, yet I'm happy to give mine to this game.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

For me happiness is down to finding something rare, beautiful or unique as I said yesterday. You have considerably more chance of doing that when you can get a quick overview (without detailed information) of what is in a system in ten seconds. With 400 billion stars or whatever it is we're not going to run out of ones to check any time soon but a hell of a lot of the systems they're in are going to be a) similar and b) not particularly thrilling. That's space for you.



Second time you've mentioned materials now. Really Marc, what is the thrill of materials for you? I mean my interest in them basically extends as far as the occasions that I want or need to collect some and the material distribution across the galaxy is so balanced that I can't remember the last time I had to check more than three planets in each of three systems to find what I needed. I've only spent about an hour and a half in the last six months on planet surfaces specifically looking for materials (I was killing time on the Wednesday night before the Gnosis jumped) rather than just bagging what I stumble across when doing other things and yet I constantly have a full load of the 100% jumponium materials and everything I need to make ammo, repair and refuel the SRV etc.

As for discovering surface points of interest yes that does sound great but you're not getting it as part of the ADS/DDS replacement scanning minigame, that's what the drones are for after you do your 27 detailed surface scans of 27 near-identical balls of ice, all of whose presence you would previously have detected in ten seconds with a honk and then had the option to DSS if you felt that you wanted to.

Regardless of whether you play the game the same way or not, suggesting that people who want to do something other than just scan absolutely everything to current DSS levels just to know its even there to begin with are looking for an 'I win' button is just absurd. What do they 'win' exactly? A game experience that they find entertaining? Wow what a bunch of losers, what sort of idiot wants that from a computer game?

The Materials thing was only to make a point. I could have just as easily mentioned Volcanic Activity, or a range of other stats, & still been able to make my point. I suspect that % Mineral/Metal content of rings might be included too. The point is simply that you don't need to fly all the way over to every single stellar body in order to get that detailed info.

I've already put forward reasonable compromises that they should put in to assuage the defenders of the "Mary Sue" Scanner, but sadly those defenders seem unwilling to meet half way.

I guess it really is a crutch.

 

[Cmdr John Lyn]

Say no to interstellar pollution Make probes *exclusive for finding poi's. Let commanders who have scanned their worlds already "map" them. (as if we hadn't already) I mean break down the name. Detailed. Surface. Scanner. Says it all right in its name, it scans the surface of a planet in great detail using advanced 3304 technology. How is a sputnik probe better than that? Hey I dont mind firing probes, cept pollution, but c'mon at least let us keep our records intact. it gives me alot of pride to know I alone discovered so many worlds, I tout Elite for this very reason.