I get what you're saying, but my main objection to Frontier obviating the SRV's role in exploration was that before Frontier expanded the functionality of the DSS to detect material distributions, if you wanted to learn nearly everything you could know about a world, you actually had to land on it. Afterwards, you didn't even need to get close to that world to learn nearly everything you could know about it. Yes, there remained geological POIs to find, but that was kind of like trying to explore via parallax even with a basic discovery scanner: you could spend hours trying to find something that may not even be there to begin with.
Feelings are funny things. During the Horizons Beta and before the DSS change, I spent about three or four months exploring, almost entirely on the surface of worlds, cataloging what I found there. The ennui I'd felt trying to explore previously was gone. After the DSS change, it came back stronger than ever. I'd still zip along the surface of worlds in my SRV from time to time, but it was less about exploring, and more about me keeping an eye on the ground level scanner as I approached surface ports while carrying completely legal commodities to upstanding citizens of the Federation without getting scanned in the process, and investigating any POIs I saw while doing so, then checking for meteorites while I happened to be down there. But that was not exploration gameplay. That was engineering gameplay.
With the FSS, I'm back to taking completely unnecessary surface samples from many of worlds I've visited so far, easily spending an entire game session on a single interesting system. But this is not exploration gameplay. This is just me messing around. The SRV is not an exploration tool, it's a toy you bring along just for the fish, similar to the fighters some people bring so you they can go fast and low through canyons without risking their motherships. It's fun, it adds variety to my game session, it gives me materials with which to engineer when I get back, but it is not exploration gameplay.
Which I guess is where we fundamentally disagree. As far as I'm concerned, Frontier excised something that should be a fundamental aspect of exploration gameplay, and replaced it not with something that performs the same role, but replaced it with nothing. Their justification for this change was that people didn't want to explore in order to engineer. On the flip side, Frontier excised something that automatically did something that should be a fundamental aspect of exploration gameplay, and replaced it with actual gameplay. Their justification for this change was that "reinstating the ADS would be detrimental to the experience of exploration as it is now."
There is nothing to fix in Frontier's eyes. They removed something that shouldn't have been there in the first place, and I for one am glad they did. While I'm of the opinion that restoring something ADS like wouldn't have a detrimental effect on me, given that I'm exploring without playing the "minigame" in the first place, I would much rather Frontier add in something that can provide navigation data in a system that has actual game play attached to its use, as opposed to holding down a button for a few seconds... ideally something that consumes ammunition that would not only result in interesting decisions, but also might add in other aspects of exploration gameplay that I consider essential, but are all but missing from this game: logistical considerations and living off the land.
I personally favor launching a probe that provides navigation data for everything within a certain radius of its flight path, that can be launched at bodies, or simply fired in whatever direction you happen to be facing. Deploying a navigation beacon would also be an interesting alternative, especially if the player who built it could add points of interest later on. Suggest things that would enhance the exploration experience, as opposed to repeatedly asking for something that Frontier considers detrimental to it.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
![[VR] Merkir](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/141/141091.jpg?1553527154){kind=avatar}