After reading what detail is available from the devs, and watching the Livestream last night, I'm more convinced that the ADS change in function is not one that I will enjoy or want.
At it's most fundamental, it doesn't add anything to the game-play. It isn't going to reveal anything different in a system to what we could see with the current ADS, it just adds a layer of time-consumption to achieve the same result. I can see it being mildly interesting the first time of use, and irritatingly cumbersome by about the 10th time.
It seems to encourage not actually flying your ship, which to me is one of the most enjoyable parts of exploring: Travelling to distant objects and resolving them with the current DSS scanner. Instead, it appears to be possible (and indeed obilgatory) to travel nowhere on arrival and spend time looking at waveforms to attempt to work out what is there.
In effect, this is taking away the current useful facility of knowing the system layout immediately that helps me direct my game time and replaces it with a time-consuming chore that I have no choice in completing if I want to see the whole system.
I would rather fly my ship to objects to scan them thoroughly, rather than not flying anywhere and conducting tedious scanning activity in the vicinity of the arrival star. For me, this will reduce the enjoyment of the beautifully constructed systems, and make me far less inclined to travel around a system when I am there.
I'm looking for the unusual or interesting bodies to go and look at; the massively ringed worlds or stars, the close-orbit mini-systems of worlds, the gas-giants with eccentric / retrograde moons, the binary systems with unusual apsides, multi-barycentre systems etc. Such locations provide awe-inspiring photo opportunities, and it is primarily this reason that I explore now. The sights and feelings of being in particular locations are what draw me into the game now - I've gazed into the emptiness beyoned the Perseus fade, where only the Magellanic clouds shine in the darkness. I've sat in my SRV surrounded by geysers illuminated by nothing but the glow of a nebula, with a ringed gas-giant rising above the mountains beyond. I've marvelled at the air-glow surrounding the first Earth-Like that I discovered. Such things have no credit value, they are priceless. A fully populated system map on scan is a key component to being able to search out such locations, and hiding what was once freely available will no doubt deny finding some of them.
In summary, I see the ADS as adding nothing to the game but a layer of obfuscation and unavoidable busy-work, which will diminish my enjoyment of game-time.
The probes element of the DSS, on the other hand, is a genuine enhancement, and one which introduces both skill and anticipation excitement of what the probe will reveal.
I would have liked to have seen the ADS and DSS remain as they are now, but with the DSS having the probes added - that would be a genuine addition to quality time in game-play rather than a mix of time-sink and time-saver.
