Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?

[-VR- Max Factor]

Indeed. Same for collecting materials, I would have preferred some kind of "surface scanner" to locate areas rich in minerals, and then use some kind of SRV soil driller for collection, instead of shooting chunks and driving over them. This of course for minerals, manufactured materials should stay as they are.

Sounds great and I totally agree. I also think that the probe launcher should not give pinpoint co-ordinates of the POI but instead have search areas which you then need to look for them with the scanner (maybe a bit like the SRV wave scanner but only for bigger POIs),have different toggle layers of results for minerals/metals/POIs.

You get the pinpoint locations of POI after scanning the area and discovering it.

I would also have added "first landed on" tags instead of "first mapped". Everybody knows Neil Armstrong, but few know the first guy who mapped the moon.

I would have gone for all three myself. First discovered, first mapped and first landed.

 

[marx]

Sounds great and I totally agree. I also think that the probe launcher should not give pinpoint co-ordinates of the POI but instead have search areas which you then need to look for them with the scanner (maybe a bit like the SRV wave scanner but only for bigger POIs)

This mechanic is actually already in the game, for specific planetary missions. The mechanic is called search zones. An example video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDMgX3Rwrg

By pinpointing locations though, an explorer doesn't need to fly their ship planetside (which is a fun activity), as they can just drop out right on top of what they're looking for.

 

[Darkfyre99]

The FSS, DSS and Codex make it very clear that FDev have no real idea about what explorers do - and more importantly, the RANGE of ways that they do it.

Quite frankly, I felt that way even before 3.3 and the FSS, while a huge improvement IMO, the artificial limitations, imposed by FD can get frustrating because I can’t use the entry level sensor suite to its full potential.

I want the game to give me a reason to install larger vehicle hangers, with specialized SRVs that be used to gather surface samples, which would be stored in specialized storage units that need to be brought back to civilization. I want sensor suites that can map planets from low orbits, probe launchers with limited ammo, and onboard workshops that can used to build probe and satellites.

Give me enough variety in outfitting that module slots, not jump range, could be the deciding factor when choosing a hull to explore with! Give me a choice between living off the land, and bringing supplies with me! There’s so much more to exploration than we have currently.

 

[askavir]

Thereby turning the probes minigame into a pointless timesink.
Of all the feedback to listen to, they listened to this?

But there's the "efficiency bonus", where the data is suddenly worth a little more because you didn't waste too many of your infinite probes.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

But there's the "efficiency bonus", where the data is suddenly worth a little more because you didn't waste too many of your infinite probes.

Just. Don't.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This mechanic is actually already in the game, for specific planetary missions. The mechanic is called search zones. An example video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDMgX3Rwrg

Those are not the search areas I mean. You would see them in analysis mode on the planetary overlay with regions not a moving thing to follow. So you fly to that region, and follow your sensors (wave type scanner) to the location. It just adds another form of investigation and gameplay. A nicer gameplay loop.

By pinpointing locations though, an explorer doesn't need to fly their ship planetside (which is a fun activity), as they can just drop out right on top of what they're looking for.

Which is precisely what I don't want.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

But there's the "efficiency bonus", where the data is suddenly worth a little more because you didn't waste too many of your infinite probes.

I completely ignore that function. Seems rather silly to me. I would have much preferred to have had ammo for the probe launcher with the ability to synthesize it while out in the black. That would give incentive to use as few probes as possible and and incentive to explore planetary surfaces to get synthesis materials.

 

[Riverside]

But there's the "efficiency bonus", where the data is suddenly worth a little more because you didn't waste too many of your infinite probes.

To be fair I use that target as an indication for the number of probes to throw at the body and in what pattern.

I don't need a bonus payment (what is the logic here?) but simply renaming it to 'estimated probes required' would be fine, and I'll just always try to use the least probes possible anyway.


ETA I understood the infinite probes thing to be for non-horizons players. I don't think infinite probes is a big deal (I appreciate that others do) & don't give it a second thought. I just assume they are so small they are effectively limitless which many things can be when you have a fusion power plant on board that can turn basic elements into higher elements as it's #1 day job

 

[PiLhEaD]

...The thing is though that Frontier often only releases the details when it's too late in their development cycle to do anything except minor modifications. This is generally true all the time, but was even more so for the exploration update, seeing that it was likely delayed and then later rushed.

But yeah, when they ask for feedback, it's mostly for just PR purposes...

Regrettably this seems the case - certainly my experience of beta testing is that the priority (rightly) is focussed on bugs that crash/break the game. Alas the QoL and minor-bug feedback seems to be largely ignored.

My least-favourite feedback to any hot topic is the 'working as intended' line. Dismissing the complaint and seeming to ignore any 'but it's not fun' feedback and suggested improvements.

I'm sure it's difficult sorting the wheat from the chaff - and FDev have always said they are making the game they want - but I'd have thought a few hours of playing the game would inform them on the feedback to implement/investigate.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

But there's the "efficiency bonus", where the data is suddenly worth a little more because you didn't waste too many of your infinite probes.

It’s called ‘par’ as designated by the Planetary Golf Association (PGA).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Oh yeah, that's true. I guess I was wrong, and there was one thing that they changed based on feedback. (Two for the honk giving credits, but personally, I don't recall anyone asking for that back.)
To be fair, now that we know how many more credits and tags the probes generate, having to synthesize them would be nothing but an annoying chore - especially if we would have to return to inhabited space for the materials.

They also did some changes during beta, like giving planetary numbers in the info panel after a honk instead of having to go into the FSS. Pretty sure there was another too, can't remember as it was nearly a year ago now.

 

[Sunyavadin]

To be fair I use that target as an indication for the number of probes to throw at the body and in what pattern.

THIS.
Lets you know roughly the size of the planet you're looking at, and how many probes you need to fire off at its periphery, front, and rear, letting you know if that pattern needs to be a cube, a dodecahedron, an icosahedron, etc.

 

[Darkfyre99]

This mechanic is actually already in the game, for specific planetary missions. The mechanic is called search zones. An example video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eDMgX3Rwrg

By pinpointing locations though, an explorer doesn't need to fly their ship planetside (which is a fun activity), as they can just drop out right on top of what they're looking for.

Those are not the search areas I mean. You would see them in analysis mode on the planetary overlay with regions not a moving thing to follow. So you fly to that region, and follow your sensors (wave type scanner) to the location. It just adds another form of investigation and gameplay. A nicer gameplay loop.


Which is precisely what I don't want.

I’d be fine with either, so long as it means that they would take away the infinite ammo for the DSS, and gave us the option to spot biological/geological POIs when we get close enough while in orbital cruise.

 

[Sunyavadin]

I still chalk the exploration changes we got up to a lack of development time.
There's no possible way all the ideas we keep seeing in threads like this didn't come up at the initial concept stage. It would defy all logic that the original idea wasn't something more akin in scope to the mining changes, but they got bogged down in other work, perhaps making the FSS work reliably, perhaps other stuff, and ideas like this just kept being axed.

Also I still cannot fathom how this far out from Horizons' launch we've not had a selection of additional surface vehicles. Just the money from selling skins for them alone would be worth the time to add them, surely?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I still chalk the exploration changes we got up to a lack of development time.
There's no possible way all the ideas we keep seeing in threads like this didn't come up at the initial concept stage. It would defy all logic that the original idea wasn't something more akin in scope to the mining changes, but they got bogged down in other work, perhaps making the FSS work reliably, perhaps other stuff, and ideas like this just kept being axed.

Also I still cannot fathom how this far out from Horizons' launch we've not had a selection of additional surface vehicles. Just the money from selling skins for them alone would be worth the time to add them, surely?

They were definitely running late - that's why we never got the Focused Feedback. The entire blue blob and probe golf 'gameplay' was designed and implemented in 3 months. It's actually surprising that it works as well as it does.

 

[marx]

Those are not the search areas I mean. You would see them in analysis mode on the planetary overlay with regions not a moving thing to follow.

Yes, I meant that they could have used a similar mechanic that was already present in the game, without needing to develop anything new. Your suggestion would involve more work than just using what's already in the game - but they didn't even do that.

 

[Galactic Fork]

Yes, I meant that they could have used a similar mechanic that was already present in the game, without needing to develop anything new. Your suggestion would involve more work than just using what's already in the game - but they didn't even do that.

They already have the wave scanner, they can just add a utility mount module that adds functionality to the ship's sensors. And they already have the big blue overlay on the planet. Just make the areas over the geological sites are colored red, and the biological sites are colored green. Make the area's fairly large so you do have to look to find it if you can't spot it. (I'd be happy without the wave scanner bit and just have the general area pointed out and have to find it on your own.)

 

[Galactic Fork]

For probes, I'd like them to be reusable and not just lobbed at the planet. Think about all the contamination by tossing them onto earthlike planets. It'd bee cool if you have to launch them to orbit the planet and return to you (and you retrieve it). If you aim wrong it can crash into the planet and you lose it (and you'd be severely limited in number). Or it breaks orbit and you have to chase it.

 

[BDelacroix]

Didn't we just have an fss is bad thread?

I don't agree, however, so the statement that "everyone knows it" is false.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Didn't we just have an fss is bad thread?

I don't agree, however, so the statement that "everyone knows it" is false.

This IS the 'FSS is bad' thread. It just got resurrected - ironically by somebody who doesn't think the FSS is bad. People are odd.