Absolutely not - they could quite happily coexist, enabling a choice of methodology for system exploration.
Last edited:
Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?
- Thread starter CMDR Karrde Sun
- Start date
- Status
Absolutely not - they could quite happily coexist, enabling a choice of methodology for system exploration.
- Visualisation of the audio component - a focused illustration of the frequency spread/pattern relating specifically to where you are pointing and what is currently only represented in audio form. The SRV scanner could be considered close to what I am referring to but I am really referring to something more like a classic oscilloscope readout.
- Pan/Zoom of the tuning bar - this should be self explanatory and is a common feature of current oscilloscope type readouts. Essentially allows for more accurate tuning and less pot-luck faffing.
- Tuning memory - Every time you enter and leave the FSS screen it resets, arguably this should be a manual feature requiring interaction (or a per user setting) and not universally automatic.
Last edited:
1) Hmm.. ok. That might improve things a bit.
2) Oh, you mean fine tuning. Yeah, it can jump around a bit. But wouldn't that require even more keys? Or a modifier key?
3) Ah, right... yeah, i suppose it would be a nice option.
I think you misunderstand me. The point was just that i would like the ping to show the planet types and then FSS/DSS to reveal more details. So basically take some of the stuff out of the FSS (showing body types) and putting them back into the ping.
The problem with this of course is, you get that, then you don't need to FSS, you would just fly to the planet and DSS it anyway.... hmm.... unless the DSS only gave POIs and nothing more so the FSS was still required for all the planet stats. That could work... maybe?
I'll post here what I think of the FSS. First, it's not a bad system at all, but i think it was made in an odd way, a bit unrealistic, and thinking about the coming space-legs event, a loss of oportunity.
So, FSS is a higly complex machine to scan a system. As a previous aeronautical navigator, the most approachable tool we had was the sextant with virtual horizon.
It worked somewhat like a periscope, so you had to move from the pilot's seat and go somewhere in the ship where it was installed, and work it while looking through the lens.
FSS could work in a similar way to give huge immersion.
Before space-legs, it would just show you the image view through it, with 360 rotation around x-y axis. Not the quaternion rotation that it has now, unbound to any z axis. It's horrible to rotate around and loose the initial point of reference.
Now, about the scans, instead of different frequencies, it should have different lenses, to filter different kinds of radiation. Each lens would show vague shadows where material would reflect that kind of energy, and you would mark these areas, change to another lens, and refine, until it would identify each kind of body.
Then it would allow you to send a precision pulse in that detailed direction, and retrieve all the information about the body.
That detailed information should separate starports from geological sites, crash sites etc.. So you could choose which bodies to approach for a detailed surface scan.
USS in space should require a specific filter for detecting beacon emissions, some of the previous scans could detect debris from them, and others even detect different types of canisters. (metals and minerals, manufactured, organic, etc...)
With an FSS like this, any space jock would love to spend some time with it.
Note the hard part that using the FSS would take you away from the pilot's seat. So you should have the option of putting a crew member in control of it, in case of an interception, or any other trouble, until you return to the seat. (It could use an animation like the srv entering the ship)
Cheers.
So, FSS is a higly complex machine to scan a system. As a previous aeronautical navigator, the most approachable tool we had was the sextant with virtual horizon.
It worked somewhat like a periscope, so you had to move from the pilot's seat and go somewhere in the ship where it was installed, and work it while looking through the lens.
FSS could work in a similar way to give huge immersion.
Before space-legs, it would just show you the image view through it, with 360 rotation around x-y axis. Not the quaternion rotation that it has now, unbound to any z axis. It's horrible to rotate around and loose the initial point of reference.
Now, about the scans, instead of different frequencies, it should have different lenses, to filter different kinds of radiation. Each lens would show vague shadows where material would reflect that kind of energy, and you would mark these areas, change to another lens, and refine, until it would identify each kind of body.
Then it would allow you to send a precision pulse in that detailed direction, and retrieve all the information about the body.
That detailed information should separate starports from geological sites, crash sites etc.. So you could choose which bodies to approach for a detailed surface scan.
USS in space should require a specific filter for detecting beacon emissions, some of the previous scans could detect debris from them, and others even detect different types of canisters. (metals and minerals, manufactured, organic, etc...)
With an FSS like this, any space jock would love to spend some time with it.
Note the hard part that using the FSS would take you away from the pilot's seat. So you should have the option of putting a crew member in control of it, in case of an interception, or any other trouble, until you return to the seat. (It could use an animation like the srv entering the ship)
Cheers.
About L3 scans, or any of the scan numbers: you should disregard those, as the game has often bugged and counted many more of those than you actually did, and they didn't retroactively fix the numbers. For example, the game thinks I did 154,000 scans, while I've been to 61,000 systems. (56,000 done before the FSS.)
Plus scans before and after the FSS are far different anyway. Systems visited is a better measure, and that has always been the same effort.
As for the FSS gives more information: nope. A good part of the complaints against it aren't just due to how it was designed, but also how it hides information we used to have before scanning. Now, unless you're going for singular body types, you have to fully explore a system if you want to determine whether it would be worth exploring. Some examples of what are missing at an overview level: orbital hierarchies (for finding rare configurations), visuals (for finding Glowing Green Giants, plus other large surface features), distance to arrival point (for finding trojans), and perhaps something else that I forgot.
Oh, and just to make sure, for newer players: the ADS never scanned anything for you. The ADS honk revealed the system map, while the FSS honk reveals the tagged bodies on the system map. To scan bodies with the ADS, and thus explore them, you had to fly to them and once within scanning range, point your ship towards it until the scan would complete.
But the system map overview was plenty enough to get a good look at the system and decide whether it's worth exploring in detail. With the FSS, you have to scan everything to know whether there's something truly rare that you might have missed. Or, if you don't, because you can't stomach doing the same mini-game hundreds and thousands of times over, especially when the vast majority of scans have nothing worthwhile behind them, then to accept that there might have been something that you missed.
Plus scans before and after the FSS are far different anyway. Systems visited is a better measure, and that has always been the same effort.
As for the FSS gives more information: nope. A good part of the complaints against it aren't just due to how it was designed, but also how it hides information we used to have before scanning. Now, unless you're going for singular body types, you have to fully explore a system if you want to determine whether it would be worth exploring. Some examples of what are missing at an overview level: orbital hierarchies (for finding rare configurations), visuals (for finding Glowing Green Giants, plus other large surface features), distance to arrival point (for finding trojans), and perhaps something else that I forgot.
Oh, and just to make sure, for newer players: the ADS never scanned anything for you. The ADS honk revealed the system map, while the FSS honk reveals the tagged bodies on the system map. To scan bodies with the ADS, and thus explore them, you had to fly to them and once within scanning range, point your ship towards it until the scan would complete.
But the system map overview was plenty enough to get a good look at the system and decide whether it's worth exploring in detail. With the FSS, you have to scan everything to know whether there's something truly rare that you might have missed. Or, if you don't, because you can't stomach doing the same mini-game hundreds and thousands of times over, especially when the vast majority of scans have nothing worthwhile behind them, then to accept that there might have been something that you missed.
Last edited:
For anyone who suffers with audio impairment (e.g. tinnitus) or is unable to turn up the volume on speakers (or use headphones) for some reason it could have been a deal breaker.
To a degree, yes but it is not as if the FSS requires that many controls currently and you can't do anything else while you are using it. We would be talking 2 additional controls at most if done right and arguably should have been part of the original implementation.
When you are bouncing around known systems just scanning for POIs/signals it would be more than nice.
A possible alternative would be to implement an auto-tune feature but that would notionally require even more control mappings.
Overall though, FD really should revisit their implementation of the exploration changes that were introducing in 3.3 at some point and give it a MAJOR overhaul - the implementation was too rushed and stinks of a rushed attempt to placate a seemingly vocal minority of the community.
In the immediate term and as a matter of priority, they should be proactively ensuring all existing players have their codex's appropriate populated with pre-3.3 exploration data.
I disagree. As far as I am concerned, the ADS revealed the interesting stuff about a system at the press of a button, and in the process did the most important part of exploration for me.
While it is true that there were a few things left to be explored in a system after the honk, those activities were:
- Grind for credits by flying just close enough to a planet and throttling down, which also provided unimportant and potentially misleading "discovered by" tags, and trivia about whether icy body #138,271 has a surface gravity of 0.03g as opposed to a surface gravity of 0.04g
- Spend dozens of hours flying low over the surface planets in a futile attempt to find the geological features that are reportedly there
- Take selfies
- Creating maps of places I've visited
- Meeting survival needs such as food, water, medicine, and oxygen (in the case of space games)
- Some form of "Living off the land" mechanism which would allow me to supplement survival needs, and repair my vehicle should it become damaged in an accident or due to wear and tear
- Outfitting for an expedition, balancing the need for supplies to keep the body alive, spare parts to repair my vehicle, the tools necessary to live off the land, and the tools necessary to actually explore
- Sufficiently varied terrain that would require me to scout paths to go to places I haven't visited
- The ADS did this for me
- Does not exist in the game
- Does not exist in the game
- As a consequence of #2 and #3, combined with a dearth of exploration tools, meant that there were no real decisions to make in this regard. Pre 3.3, even a Hauler or Sidewinder could carry everything you needed to explore, and still have room left over for an optional extra.
- As a consequence of #2, #3, and #4, jump ranges could be maximized, flattening Galactic "terrain" to meaninglessness, and in-system travel required precious little scouting
The FSS shows body types as the waveform.
The issue is the removal of body location, requiring the trivial thumbwork in the FSS to 'find' them.
I would like the restoration of the system layout reveal, and population of the nav. panel with Unknown bodies for selection (basically what happens in discovered systems).
As long as bodies are selectable, and you can engage in targetted SC-flight centred system exploration - i.e. the FSS becomes an optional tool, I'll be happy.
Please don't do that to me again. One of the best part of exploring IMO is filling in the maps of the game, the gradual reveal of the secrets of the world hidden by the proverbial "fog of war." Let it be an optional extra. It's bad enough that systems others have visited get spoiled by unwanted information. I do not want a return of the bad old days where such spoilers were mandatory.
Ah. I'm using a physical controller and a bit of TARGET programming to control much of my FSS tuning, so I hadn't realized that this was an actual problem.
Please don't do that to me again. One of the best part of exploring IMO is filling in the maps of the game, the gradual reveal of the secrets of the world hidden by the proverbial "fog of war." Let it be an optional extra. It's bad enough that systems others have visited get spoiled by unwanted information. I do not want a return of the bad old days where such spoilers were mandatory.
This is why we just ask for the very straightforward restoration of the ADS module instead of upgrading the honk.
We know you and others don't like the reveal. The ADS is a module that you don't need to fit.
Your 'fog of war' is retained if you don't fit it.
I know, and that's why I'm fine with the inclusion of something like the ADS an optional extra, and why I usually refer to the FSS as an entry level system discovery multi-sensor suite. I want more exploration tools to choose from, even if I may never equip them.
To me:-
- Mapping in itself is an irrelevant and secondary concern - just a matter of record keeping rather than have ANY value in itself
- Disagree, though ED does have fuel scooping and FD did implement synthesis which does kind of meet your criteria
- Disagree, though could be argued is met by #2
- We have arguably always had that in terms of Heat Sinks, AFMUs, Fuel Scoops, and Fuel Tanks - though I see little or no value in gaming outfitting as you seem to want it to be.
- Arguably that is already there
However, don't forget that your priorities (creating maps) place you in a tiny niche, even less than those of us who explore(d) the deep galaxy.
You can put this in the game yourself, so to speak. I know, because I've done so. Require yourself to carry some measure of cargo for every X time you spend out there, to consume, multiply it by the number of seats you have, jettison the stuff you've "consumed". Self-destruct if you run out. If you include stuff like water, you could refill that out there, but other stuff (like food cartridges) would have to be bought, or delivered to you.
Interestingly, all of the above require you to build your ship(s) differently, considering other factors as well.
However.
I actually tried this, and found that after a couple of days, all it added was some tedious book-keeping, and not much enjoyment. Maybe it might fit your interests more, but it's not really appealing.
Also, have you tried NMS? Sounds like that would be more up your alley - if you can stomach the cartoony universe, that is.
They have always rung true for me and seem about right. If anything, it is probably low given the number of systems I have visited.
What is not included in the stats is the number of "first discoveries" which would be a relatively small portion of my L3 scans.
(Deleted - Apologies, misread your post)
Last edited:
Please don't do that to me again. One of the best part of exploring IMO is filling in the maps of the game, the gradual reveal of the secrets of the world hidden by the proverbial "fog of war." Let it be an optional extra. It's bad enough that systems others have visited get spoiled by unwanted information. I do not want a return of the bad old days where such spoilers were mandatory.
Sorry! I promise not to change how the game works!
That's your opinion. Only Frontier knows how successful the FSS was at getting more people to explore the Galaxy.
I've done this myself, and I agree with you. When the game doesn't impose this kind of thing on you, trying to do it yourself does become tedious book-keeping.
Especially since the online, real-time nature of the game creates some interesting quandaries to consider. Thanks to two doses of real-life drama, I haven't been able to play this game since Tuesday, and quite frankly it doesn't look like I'll have enough time outside of work to play the game until next Thursday at the earliest, given that I'm barely spending any time at home today. Even some of my "forum time" is relatively limited.
The question is, do I consider the game "paused" when I'm not playing it, is my Commander sitting around doing nothing except consuming expendables when I'm not playing it, or do I try to create some kind of "time compression" rule where hours become days?
In the end I simply installed a first class passenger cabin, A rated my life support, and loaded enough food for the two years I planned on being out there, once I learned that the "new era" wasn't due until 2020, and called it "good enough."
Yes, I have. I found the game to be extremely grindy, and the cartoony universe got old really quick. Which is quite the accomplishment, since I very much enjoyed Subnautica, Fallout 4 in survival mode, Minecraft on Hardcore with health regeneration turned off, the MITE mod (Minecraft is too easy), and a host of other survival-based exploration games.
I found out later that the NMS early game is supposed to be unpleasant as a "tutorial" of sorts, but I prefer to play these kind of games in iron-man mode, because the beginning of such games are much more interesting than the late game in my opinion. I'll give it a another try once NMS adds in VR support. I already own the game, so the only thing I have to lose is my recreational time.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
That's your opinion. Only Frontier knows how successful the FSS was at getting more people to explore the Galaxy.
I've done this myself, and I agree with you. When the game doesn't impose this kind of thing on you, trying to do it yourself does become tedious book-keeping.
Especially since the online, real-time nature of the game creates some interesting quandaries to consider. Thanks to two doses of real-life drama, I haven't been able to play this game since Tuesday, and quite frankly it doesn't look like I'll have enough time outside of work to play the game until next Thursday at the earliest, given that I'm barely spending any time at home today. Even some of my "forum time" is relatively limited.
The question is, do I consider the game "paused" when I'm not playing it, is my Commander sitting around doing nothing except consuming expendables when I'm not playing it, or do I try to create some kind of "time compression" rule where hours become days?
In the end I simply installed a first class passenger cabin, A rated my life support, and loaded enough food for the two years I planned on being out there, once I learned that the "new era" wasn't due until 2020, and called it "good enough."
Yes, I have. I found the game to be extremely grindy, and the cartoony universe got old really quick. Which is quite the accomplishment, since I very much enjoyed Subnautica, Fallout 4 in survival mode, Minecraft on Hardcore with health regeneration turned off, the MITE mod (Minecraft is too easy), and a host of other survival-based exploration games.
I found out later that the NMS early game is supposed to be unpleasant as a "tutorial" of sorts, but I prefer to play these kind of games in iron-man mode, because the beginning of such games are much more interesting than the late game in my opinion. I'll give it a another try once NMS adds in VR support. I already own the game, so the only thing I have to lose is my recreational time.
Totally off-topic, but if fantasy floats your boat and you're on PC you might want to look at Conan Exiles. The survival rules are configurable (in solo mode), the crafting is logical and it's the only game where I've actively enjoyed base building (unlike Subnautica where I got bored quickly).
- Status