Holy frickin' crap ... an orrerery view ... well played FD you sly b@st@rds! 
Content Recap - Beyond - Chapter Four Livestream - Exploration and the Codex
Analysis of that image is going to get way out of hand!
- Resemblance to one of the types of Ancient Ruins
- Dyson Spheres
- Asterisms...
Still watching the recording, but already have some feedback:
* Please consider hiding certain elements when there is nothing to do there. In particular, in the comms menu's social tab, the "no pending invites" area - most of the time you will not have any pending invites to wings etc, so this is just wasted space and more scrolling. Also, in the inventory screen, now the refinery section is always shown. This means for the majority of players who don't always have one installed, this is now one extra step between the most important elements here: cargo, materials and data. Now you always have to tab over the empty refinery screen when going from cargo to materials or back. Or if you really want to keep this "little nod", at least move it downward below the synthesis section.
* Please consider enabling mouse input for the ship UI panels. A lot of this would be much more effective for mouse+keyboard users if we could just directly click on the things we want to do, instead of navigating with WASDEQ and space bar.
* Please consider hiding certain elements when there is nothing to do there. In particular, in the comms menu's social tab, the "no pending invites" area - most of the time you will not have any pending invites to wings etc, so this is just wasted space and more scrolling. Also, in the inventory screen, now the refinery section is always shown. This means for the majority of players who don't always have one installed, this is now one extra step between the most important elements here: cargo, materials and data. Now you always have to tab over the empty refinery screen when going from cargo to materials or back. Or if you really want to keep this "little nod", at least move it downward below the synthesis section.
* Please consider enabling mouse input for the ship UI panels. A lot of this would be much more effective for mouse+keyboard users if we could just directly click on the things we want to do, instead of navigating with WASDEQ and space bar.
Hey, just thought I'd give you an answer. This was answered before by the devs. There will only be a Basic scanner from now on and people who already have the advanced one will be compensated for the credit cost. They're basically reducing from 3 scanners down to 1. Cheers
I gave Kudos, now to some comments and quibbles.
Please add a countdown for the Efficiency target when shooting probes. Like 3/6 fired.
Session log is on the Status panel on the right, but the player stats info is in the codex view? Is the same info in both places?
The Status tab (and all the new Cockpit Interface arrangement) for a system / player is a great improvement IMHO to readability - goal achieved FD. But... it should be further tweaked to help players really understand the politics and activities in the system. This view is still confusing as to whose reputation and influence is represented- is it the Faction's or Mine with that faction? That may seem dumb but I always think that whenever I see those stats. Also the colors ranges are not so intuitive- how bad is bad and how good is good and how OK is the middle - this is drawn out in the single faction focused view but could we get it in the initial view? Current states seems to not indicate anything in the base view, but could as well. Finally, lots of BGS info and states are not shown- can we get more of the levers visible? And more of the faction rivalries somehow visualized and textualized?
I firmly believe this is easiest and best done with a combination of Status screen PLUS an Orrery view that includes graphic elements like the galaxy map and Power Play maps.
***>>Show a picture of the Tier 2 persistent NPC LEADER of that faction (this should be low-cost ProcGen work based on the mission giver model). Give the alignment to super powers and ethos info on the factions in quickly accessible view on these screens.
For BGS players including recent and casual BGS manipulator like me, having this information presented clearly and graphically would enrich the game.
What political faction is in control and which ones control which stations/ planets/ resource deposits, etc.
What ProcGen improvements could be made to stylize factions and powers and make it even more apparent than the limited billboards today, who is in charge? What are the controlling faction's colors and symbol, those should be highly visible on all installations and the status screen.
Graphically show me the system status of famine, boom, war (invasion), war (expansion), civil war, etc.
Allow the Orrery to have a limited time-window to show a quick synopsis of activities from say 4 weeks, summarized per BGS tick. This might have to be loaded from the server and given the volume of data it could be impossible to implement, but it would be very cool and FD could do it just for promotional purposes. Same for power play on galactic map.
Most of the core stuff ED needs like the above has been said long ago and multiple times here. I hope FD have the same conclusion and plans to continue tweaking and bringing out more of the BGS and "life" of the occupied systems.
With the new Scanner process, as soon as you Honk, you can move the slider to identify the "worthy" bodies, so if you're just scanning for earthlikes, you set the slider to that setting and lock in on those particular bodies.
From what we've seen, it won't be slower, just different, and overall faster in every way.
Loved everything about the new Exploration stuff - even the FSS scanning, which does indeed have a cool factor.
Except I'm not 100% sold on the idea that you now won't be able to make a snap decision on whether or not a system is worthwhile hanging around in. I'll need to play the beta and bash at it for a good long time before forming a final opinion on this, which was really my only real concern/wrinkle/issue with the whole thing.
To which I will be broadcasting a livestream on the 30th October, probably on my Twitch channel, testing the new stuff out.
Except I'm not 100% sold on the idea that you now won't be able to make a snap decision on whether or not a system is worthwhile hanging around in. I'll need to play the beta and bash at it for a good long time before forming a final opinion on this, which was really my only real concern/wrinkle/issue with the whole thing.
To which I will be broadcasting a livestream on the 30th October, probably on my Twitch channel, testing the new stuff out.
I really, really hope that Frontier will consider four years of community efforts to make the Milky Way a non-PRIE AWOCS place. Hundreds of brave explorers have poured their findings over more than two hundred forum pages. If FD really want to create a "community shared exploration" it would be a good way to start.
Really liked new features! However, there was one major flaw.
Couple questions.
Will there be any difference in zoomed images depending on where i am in a system (close/far from star/planet)?
What if i scan a system not close to a star, but far outside of a system (or far above system plane). Will some of zoomed-in planet images show full dark side of a planet if a star behind a planet?
Regarding major flaw. The telescope image of a gas giant with rings looks incorrect.
The image looks like it was shot from close distance near the rings. However the planet was really far away. There should be no perspective projection in this case. Instead image should be shown in parallel projection, similar to images below.
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Couple questions.
Will there be any difference in zoomed images depending on where i am in a system (close/far from star/planet)?
What if i scan a system not close to a star, but far outside of a system (or far above system plane). Will some of zoomed-in planet images show full dark side of a planet if a star behind a planet?
Regarding major flaw. The telescope image of a gas giant with rings looks incorrect.
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Another question I have is with regards to those of us who choose to use tools like ED Market Connector to collect and upload data to EDDN/EDDB/Inara/EDSM.
In the current state of the game once we have discovered a planet and performed a detailed surface scan on it; or it was already revealed to us we can never scan it again. This means that we can not collected and upload material availability on a planet surface to the data networks once the planet is already discovered. Which raises the below concern.
With the new system of discovered and mapped data being made available to any commanders who arrive in a system discovered/mapped by another commander are we still going to be unable to scan these planets to collect and upload this data for the communities use?
If it hasn't been thought about, can we please have it enabled that you can still use the new ADS mechanic to "re-scan" already discovered planets to not only view the data on screen but also report that planets data to the CMDR's log as it current does now? This would be a huge benefit for those of us who choose to upload data for the communities use.
In the current state of the game once we have discovered a planet and performed a detailed surface scan on it; or it was already revealed to us we can never scan it again. This means that we can not collected and upload material availability on a planet surface to the data networks once the planet is already discovered. Which raises the below concern.
With the new system of discovered and mapped data being made available to any commanders who arrive in a system discovered/mapped by another commander are we still going to be unable to scan these planets to collect and upload this data for the communities use?
If it hasn't been thought about, can we please have it enabled that you can still use the new ADS mechanic to "re-scan" already discovered planets to not only view the data on screen but also report that planets data to the CMDR's log as it current does now? This would be a huge benefit for those of us who choose to upload data for the communities use.
Yeah, this looks really odd in the stream.
Really like the audio for each planetary body. It is a nice compromise to the waterfall software defined radio idea I had. I wanted them to use their talented team so that we could "listen to" a body and recognize it. Great idea.
I would really like to know how widely separated multi-star systems are handled. It sounded like there was something different about them from an off-hand comment.
Edit: Aaaand I'm totally wrong. Apologies everyone.
Time manipulation of the orrery would be uber cool! I wonder also about generation ships and Voyager probes and other "easter egg" style things.
Ah, I was wondering how basic and intermediate scanners would fit into all this.Hey, just thought I'd give you an answer. This was answered before by the devs. There will only be a Basic scanner from now on and people who already have the advanced one will be compensated for the credit cost. They're basically reducing from 3 scanners down to 1. Cheers
I wouldn't worry about it too much. It seems to me that the stuff we previously used a DSS for comes up with the normal scan still (maybe it still needs a DSS just being equipped for the usual "extra" info) but I doubt the probe launching mini-game will work at all for unlandables.
Nice thoughts here, +rep! May be too late to make it into this version, but still worth looking at.
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Good question. I'm sure they'll cap X amount in X amount of time just like any chat room for spam etc.
Mouse+keyboard concern regarding the new scanning UI: will we be able to move the view with the mouse? Will it be a 1:1 translation of mouse movement? Right now the closest equivalent here is the SRV turret view, which is utterly terrible with a mouse if you also set it up to fly your ship properly (regarding power curve, dead zone etc, sensitivity).