Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?

[Winterwalker]

That’s why I don’t mind if they add back in an optional version of the ADS. It has no real advantage at finding most things, and the one area it’s good at is a field so esoteric most players wonder why anyone would even bother with it.

This is quite meta but I don't think the esoteric experience is necessarily the whole of the story. FDev are also building a galaxy simulation.

If you go out deep space the galaxy already has 5 years worth of pre-3.3 discovered systems, some fully explored, many many more cherry picked. Some are completely untouched. Adding FSS there will be a tendency (I think) to complete more systems, where the emphasis now shifts into surface mapping. A period of time without ADS will - I believe - increase the number (percentage) of fully explored, partly mapped systems.

It's this variety in the amount of exploration done in system, clumped around nebulas, more complete in traffic lanes, that I think has a value, it's what DBOBE would call 'richness'. I know there are completionist explorers, who discovered whole systems prior to 3.3 but given you had to fly to every single planet I'd say that's more the exception than the rule. I think you can argue that the current FSS no ADS set up will restore the balance somewhat, giving a more explored (and less exploited) galaxy, in terms of the galaxy having a character, being backdrop of the game.

Little comfort to ADS fans maybe but given that inclusion of ADS with FSS in current form would enable cherry pick exploration without even needing to fly out to the planet, I think there's a stellar forging factor that doesn't trump gameplay but does affect it.

 

[ChipStar65]

Thanks for that.

That's one thing I haven't been doing: waiting for the FSS scan to complete fully. I've just been quickly initiating the scan and clicking off without waiting. I'll start exercising a little more patience on some of the land-able planets in future...

The FSS will also identify Guardian sites, in terms of numbers but not specific type, so if you're into deep exploration there's still the need to get within 1000 elsecs to find out what' s what. Doing the Ram Tah mission out of Meene (100 mil payoff, but it does get tedious after while) I did not find any uncatalogued Guardian planets (there are extensive databases) but many were new to me and worthy of a landing and drive-throughs. Great opportunities for screenshots as well.

 

[Riverside]

Thanks for that.

That's one thing I haven't been doing: waiting for the FSS scan to complete fully. I've just been quickly initiating the scan and clicking off without waiting. I'll start exercising a little more patience on some of the land-able planets in future...

If you get frustrated with the wait try uncapping your framerate in the graphics settings - the geological POI count is tied to framerate.

 

[Faded Glory]

So those people use can FSS .. and then look on the System Map, no problem.

Rare unicorns became more valuable, more difficult to find but no actual barrier to finding, with the FSS emulating the sort of astonomical measurements you would have to had to have made, to determine if a regular icy body really is the size of Neptune.

Well, here's the thing... They could do the same with USS's and go back to having to manually target them to resolve them one by one. Then perhaps finding HGE's would become moere valuable again.

Or they could not identify mission targets, you just have to keep scanning NPC's until you find the one with the right name.

Or they could not identify which body a planetary scan location is on, and you have to fly to every body and probe it to find it.

In theory, all of these would make finding the target more difficult (and time consuming), so perhaps more rewarding. Or perhaps it would just make it much more frustrating and deter players from bothering.

For clarity, I'm not suggesting FD should do this - they are rightly moving away from that and towards being able to identify what you want to interact with. It would be nice to give explorers looking for this kind of thing the same capabilities.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

You do realize that you're arguing against feelings and what people find fun, right? These are two completely subjective things. It doesn't matter what you think of the FSS, there's going to be people who use the FSS and think, "I'm analyzing sensor readings on a space ship! This is awesome!"

I gave obvious facts regarding the tech level of the FSS. If those facts alter someone's feelings because they become more informed, then count me guilty as charged.

In addition, I'm one of those players who prefers less automation in her games, especially in a flight sim, not more. What's the point of owning a game where you operate a science fiction spaceship if you don't operate the science fiction spaceship? When I'm out exploring, I want what I consider to be the full exploration experience: from analyzing sensor readings, to charting the system, to flying to alien worlds, to mapping their surfaces, to landing on them to take surface samples. Heck, in order to fully capture that experience, I've even added navigating uncharted systems and parallax discovery to my list of things to do while exploring a system, which is only possible because the FSS is an active discovery system, which won't automatically give me unwanted information when I'm getting the information I do want.

And I'm one of those players who believes the amount of automation should be appropriate to both the context, and the repetition of the new game play. This is where your comment about subjectivity/feelings is very relevant. IMO FDev got their game design wrong w.r.t. context, since (again IMO) explorers shouldn't be subjected to a tedious fine-motor skills mini-game on a totally unrealistic tool that would never be used on a real exploration vessel in its current form, which at best could be described as a learning toy. IMO they also got it wrong by not properly considering the amount of repetition.

It's fine for those who enjoy this type of game play, but there's nothing in FDev's game design to allow explorers to avoid the new mini-game if they don't like it. And that's the crux. So much for blaze your own trail. And that's why so many players are continuing to highlight the issue. We can't expect it to stop any time soon.

Yes, if Elite: Dangerous were actually realistic, then none of this analyzing sensor readings would be necessary. You shouldn't even have to hold a button down for a few seconds to analyse the system, it should automatically happen the moment you arrive. Flying to planets and probing them should also be an automatic process. In fact, it makes no sense to have a flesh and blood Commander on board, with their fragile meat bodies and need for life support. Unmanned drones could do a much better job exploring than we could.

The old chestnut about the game playing itself. And I totally agree with you if there were no other game design choices. But there are plenty of others, including those that keep the FSS functionality exactly as is, but allow additional levels of control, strategy and choice. Those I won't go into again, as myself and many others have already described in some detail.

FDev have settled for one of the simplest solutions - it's the "lets change the position of the game camera" solution - and that's all. As opposed to the much more difficult solution of providing a whole new explorer centric eco-system of new modules, engineering, and player choice/strategy.

So it's no surprise that many players are asking for the ADS back. I'd like to give it back to them too, in modified form, mostly so that FDev's placeholder is again a reminder to them that they still have to introduce better exploration game design. Their combat game design is great. IMO they need to spend the time to do likewise for exploration. YMMV.

 

[ChipStar65]

...a totally unrealistic tool that woud never be used on a real exploration vessel in its current form...

Really? Really?!? Well, as long as we're filling the basket with unrealities, let's also toss in: space-folding ship drives with less mass than even a small moon, 99.99% or better fuel efficiency, scooping said fuel from the coronae of stars where temperatures generally top a million degrees, drifting within a few tens of elsecs from a black hole but experiencing almost zero gravitational effects, direct-to-surface planetary landings, no mass exchange in close binary star systems, station entrance designs that are so cramped as to guarantee the occasional jam-up that, instead of damaging the mail slot, just gets the ship blown, and that with no station damage, and, and, and... the list can go on from here to Io and back.

It's a game.

Don't use an imagined level of realism or lack of it to justify your dislike of the FSS, it just won't (pun intended) fly, Cmdr.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Really? Really?!? Well, as long as we're filling the basket with unrealities, let's also toss in: space-folding ship drives with less mass than even a small moon, 99.99% or better fuel efficiency, scooping said fuel from the coronae of stars where temperatures generally top a million degrees, drifting within a few tens of elsecs from a black hole but experiencing almost zero gravitational effects, direct-to-surface planetary landings, no mass exchange in close binary star systems, station entrance designs that are so cramped as to guarantee the occasional jam-up that, instead of damaging the mail slot, just gets the ship blown, and that with no station damage, and, and, and... the list can go on from here to Io and back.

It's a game.

Don't use an imagined level of realism or lack of it to justify your dislike of the FSS, it just won't (pun intended) fly, Cmdr.

You missed the point entirely. The FSS is unrealistic because it DOESN'T have some of the most fundamental of 20th century technologies. Unlike all of the "future technology" tropes you list which sci-fi enthusiasts are happy to imagine, FDev have decided to nerf the FSS to the 1950's to force explorers into their own version of pew pew. And yes, to a technologist such as myself, it's cringe-inducing. Again, YMMV, and obviously does.

As to realism, do I need to remind you of Braben's original videos and his description of a realistic galaxy simulation. As someone else on this thread said, the FSS would never have happened if Braben was still involved. And I wouldn't be posting anything like this for any other game.

But here, I'll reply for you... move on Cmdr, that horse has bolted.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

You missed the point entirely. The FSS is unrealistic because it DOESN'T have some of the most fundamental of 20th century technologies. Unlike all of the "future technology" tropes you list which sci-fi enthusiasts are happy to imagine, FDev have decided to nerf the FSS to the 1950's to force explorers into their own version of pew pew. And yes, to a technologist such as myself, it's cringe-inducing. Again, YMMV, and obviously does.

As to realism, do I need to remind you of Braben's original videos and his description of a realistic galaxy simulation. As someone else on this thread said, the FSS would never have happened if Braben was still involved. And I wouldn't be posting anything like this for any other game.

But here, I'll reply for you... move on Cmdr, that horse has bolted.

Wow. I didn't know we had tech like the FSS in the 1950s. I have to wonder why we send all these probes to planets when we can just look at them in seconds and fine out about them that way.

Now I have to beg the question, why does NASA and all those other countries do it. Must be a massive waste of money.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Wow. I didn't know we had tech like the FSS in the 1950s. I have to wonder why we send all these probes to planets when we can just look at them in seconds and fine out about them that way.

Now I have to beg the question, why does NASA and all those other countries do it. Must be a massive waste of money.

Yes, and NASA has a guy with a joystick to control the servo-motors on those probes, and another guy twiddling a radio dial to keep those probes tuned in, and a whole team interpreting and recording squiggles to decide what to do next. It's all a well oiled machine to ensure they hone their fine motor skills.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Yes, and NASA has a guy with a joystick to control the servo-motors on those probes, and another guy twiddling a radio dial to keep those probes tuned in, and a whole team interpreting and recording squiggles to decide what to do next. It's all a well oiled machine to ensure they hone their fine motor skills.

And ED it's now all done by one person without the need for probes until we want to see the finer details.

So it's not like 1950s tech. It's the opposite. Or do you mean it should all be automated? If so then maybe we should automate ships combat. The computers of the future should be far better then us. Maybe we should automate trade. A computer will be able to work out the best trade routes. Maybe we should automate flying our ships. Autopilot of the future should be able to do it far better then us. Maybe we should just automate everything and sit and watch while the game plays itself. Sounds fun.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

And ED it's now all done by one person without the need for probes until we want to see the finer details.

So it's not like 1950s tech. It's the opposite. Or do you mean it should all be automated? If so then maybe we should automate ships combat. The computers of the future should be far better then us. Maybe we should automate trade. A computer will be able to work out the best trade routes. Maybe we should automate flying our ships. Autopilot of the future should be able to do it far better then us. Maybe we should just automate everything and sit and watch while the game plays itself. Sounds fun.

Radio dials are 1950's tech. Phosphor persistence is 1950's tech. Servo-motors likewise. You're just making yourself look silly.

Ship combat is automated if you want it to be. Commanders can choose turrets.
Flying can be automated if you want it to be. Commanders can auto dock, auto launch, auto supercruise.
Notice how the above gives choice?
Notice how the FSS gives no choice?

FDev didn't have time to produce the proper explorer game play. Two months was the estimate given by someone else on this thread. I agree.

As to automating everything, you need to keep up with the thread. I already addressed that chestnut earlier today. Go and have a read about appropriate automation, based on context and repetition, and more importantly giving players choice.

 

[Winterwalker]

Yes, and NASA has a guy with a joystick to control the servo-motors on those probes, and another guy twiddling a radio dial to keep those probes tuned in, and a whole team interpreting and recording squiggles to decide what to do next. It's all a well oiled machine to ensure they hone their fine motor skills.

Neither do they just push a button. Data collected is analysed and squelched and interpreted.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Radio dials are 1950's tech. Phosphor persistence is 1950's tech. Servo-motors likewise. You're just making yourself look silly.

Ship combat is automated if you want it to be. Commanders can choose turrets.
Flying can be automated if you want it to be. Commanders can auto dock, auto launch, auto supercruise.
Notice how the above gives choice?
Notice how the FSS gives no choice?

FDev didn't have time to produce the proper explorer game play. Two months was the estimate given by someone else on this thread. I agree.

As to automating everything, you need to keep up with the thread. I already addressed that chestnut earlier today. Go and have a read about appropriate automation, based on context and repetition, and more importantly giving players choice.

What about flight sticks. They are earlier then 1950s tech. The flight model in general is old school. Everything about elite dangerous is old school and that is what makes it fun. See it as fashion of the time. They don't need to look like that, but old school retro look is in.

 

[Winterwalker]

They don't need to look like that, but old school retro look is in.

Aye. There a couple of things about that. One is the steampunk design .. and the second is that Elite 84 is a game often cited for teaching you something, while you had a laugh. If nothing else that's buy-low sell-high but in this case that the physical world isn't digital. Analogue signals are the only ones you can trust and CERN only talk about partciles because the maths is so complex in wave theory. Ultimately though even they admit everything boils down to probabilities and, without a rework, the ADS is digital, the FSS introduces real world fuzziness.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Here's a challenge. Find someone inside frontier, familiar with the fss, that goes home and plays elite in anticipation of using the fss to go exploring or find signal sources. Get them to come on stream, and use it over an extended period, sharing insights about what they're enjoying about the experience, and critically what they're thinking thoughout its use. Ever since its launch, i can't do it, and i've tried seriously... i'm very fond of elite, and all i've ever wanted to do was make it work....

I don't use it because it's fun, I use it because it's useful. The previous system was boring and useless, so we can say it's a step forward. If exploration gets boring is not FSS fault but is the lack of interesting thing that you can discover with the FSS.
As I already said during the beta: FDEV added a powerful tool but gave us nothing to find with it and the rare stellar phenomena are already marked and resolved when you find them.
FDEV should add new things to discover that are not damn rare and that you could find regularly along your journey. The challenge should not be the rarity but the difficulty to spot and to resolve them.
When you honk and scan 50 systems and you always find the same icy and rocky bodies with a couple of gas giants, well that's not FSS fault...

But yes, it's a terrible grind to use it to resolve the USS's so these should be resolved by region, like the asteroid belts.

Nonsense.

It's called Dialectic. He used the logic to demonstrate that you're wrong and he succeded. There's nothing else you can do but reframe your previous statement. For example replacing the word "everyone" with "many"

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

What about flight sticks. They are earlier then 1950s tech. The flight model in general is old school. Everything about elite dangerous is old school and that is what makes it fun. See it as fashion of the time. They don't need to look like that, but old school retro look is in.

Good point. I expect in 3305 if we will really be able to fly in space that all flight procedures will be automatic. And that would make the space travels very boring when you can't even get up from your seat!
Pilots are still doing their job because they can take-off and land manually. Many pilots fear the day they will be forced to look the autopilot doing these.

 

[Enderby]

I don't use it because it's fun, I use it because it's useful. The previous system was boring and useless, so we can say it's a step forward. If exploration gets boring is not FSS fault but is the lack of interesting thing that you can discover with the FSS.
As I already said during the beta: FDEV added a powerful tool but gave us nothing to find with it and the rare stellar phenomena are already marked and resolved when you find them.
FDEV should add new things to discover that are not damn rare and that you could find regularly along your journey. The challenge should not be the rarity but the difficulty to spot and to resolve them.
When you honk and scan 50 systems and you always find the same icy and rocky bodies with a couple of gas giants, well that's not FSS fault...

But yes, it's a terrible grind to use it to resolve the USS's so these should be resolved by region, like the asteroid belts.


It's called Dialectic. He used the logic to demonstrate that you're wrong and he succeded. There's nothing else you can do but reframe your previous statement. For example replacing the word "everyone" with "many"

Yeah, well done. Everyone knows that

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Good point. I expect in 3305 if we will really be able to fly in space that all flight procedures will be automatic. And that would make the space travels very boring when you can't even get up from your seat!
Pilots are still doing their job because they can take-off and land manually. Many pilots fear the day they will be forced to look the autopilot doing these.

I would have thought that we would have direct neural interfaces. Maybe that's what the FSS, System map and galaxy map are and in reality they are highly advanced.

 

[Darkfyre99]

It's fine for those who enjoy this type of game play, but there's nothing in FDev's game design to allow explorers to avoid the new mini-game if they don't like it. And that's the crux. So much for blaze your own trail.

Except for the fact that's not true. You can avoid the proverbial mini-game. I do it all the time, by using the FSS not as a mini-game that must be played, but instead as a multi-sensor suite whose readings need to be analysed.

Using the FSS in this way, I use to get the information I need to determine if a system is worth exploring, and what looks most interesting within a system, so I can fly there first. The actual resolving of planets is done by fly by. If a system is particularly complex, I'll resolve an icy body that isn't a moon of a gas giant using the FSS so I'll know approximately where the orbital plane and the system's Kuiper Belt is. This approach requires minimal tuning on my part, and perhaps one zoom. Although I do occasionally play the "mini-game" to clean up the last few icy bodies of a system, or systems that appear completely unremarkable.

So that's one way explorers can avoid the new mini-game.

Another way is never touching the FSS, and after using the honk to determine if there's anything else in the system, and discover planets via old school parallax.

So that's two ways explorers can avoid the new mini-game.

FDev have settled for one of the simplest solutions - it's the "lets change the position of the game camera" solution - and that's all. As opposed to the much more difficult solution of providing a whole new explorer centric eco-system of new modules, engineering, and player choice/strategy.

So it's no surprise that many players are asking for the ADS back. I'd like to give it back to them too, in modified form, mostly so that FDev's placeholder is again a reminder to them that they still have to introduce better exploration game design. Their combat game design is great. IMO they need to spend the time to do likewise for exploration. YMMV.

On that we agree. One system discovery tool (no matter how good) that's integrated into the ship, and one surface discovery tool, doesn't allow for interesting decisions, whether in outfitting or while exploring. The fact that neither requires consumables to function also doesn't allow for interesting decisions, both in outfitting or while exploring. I think the FSS is brilliant as an entry level exploration tool, but there's been times when I've looked at a distant secondary star, realized the last remaining bodies of the system are around it, and wished I had a third option besides "fly out there" and "mini-game." Like launching a probe that I have very limited numbers of.

Usually, I'll fly out there, and use the "down time" to plot my route out a little further.

 

[marx]

Looking at things some more, I think that if Frontier will want to add new exploration content via POIs, the FSS is fundamentally flawed. This is because it was designed for cherry-picking valuable planet types, none of which are landable. Just as before, this has conditioned people to just look for the blue / orange (WW/ELW/AW) and pass up on the rest. None of those are landable though. Now, since you have to scan a body to see if there are POIs on this (and wait out a long timer to see what kind, if there are), if things continue like this, then people will keep missing the planetary stuff.

So, if the new era will be space legs, and the new exploration content there would only be stuff like walking into crashed ships and alien sites, then many of those will be missed by players.
The current system doesn't really incentivise players for doing full system scans: the scan bonus reward is too low, much of the galaxy is the same (as it should be) and with the exception of very few systems, players are better off credit-wise to jump into another system instead. Scan the valuables and leave the rest.

The solution would be either to place new content on or in orbit of (if we still can't land) the planet types that people are looking for, or to have a system-wide scan that tells you which bodies have POIs and should be scanned. After which you can use the FSS/DSS to scan those bodies and identify them. Maybe you could fit an optional module which would reveal the system map and highlight the bodies with POIs present with an orange circle (instead of the blue one)

This is all assuming that the devs want all the new content to be found easily, of course, but they have said around the Chapter Four reveals that they do. Of course, they might have meant the NSPs instead, for which the FSS is the inferior discovery tool, the Navigation tab is better.


Also, something interesting about cherry-picking. I've recently been analysing EDSM data around ELWs again, and decided to look into the rate at which they were discovered and submitted. We can always safely assume that people would always cherry-pick them out, and only didn't scan them before either when they missed them (didn't recognise, didn't call up the system map) or they were too far away (rare scenario). Now, Chapter Four has made recognising and scanning them as easy as it gets, but here's the interesting thing: the ELWs submitted / systems submitted ratio remained almost exactly the same... except after DW2 began reaching BP and wound down, at which point the ELW / Systems ratio dropped like a rock, to less than half. Meaning for the same amount of systems players submitted, they would submit half as many Earth-likes. My guess is that this is mostly due to players hurrying back via neutron stars, or just hurrying back without exploring. Combined with the decrease in bodies scanned / systems, it doesn't paint a good picture of exploration activity retention.
But hey, we'll see where it bottoms out by the end of next year. Perhaps it already has.