Nah, you have it wrong. People pretend to dislike it, as an excuse to have a pop at Fdev.
Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?
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But Max, the ADS was a 'placeholder' remember? Of course it was simplistic, all it did was provide a schematic. The FSS is the culmination of 4 years and 100 developers, informed by countless suggestions and discussions, by hundreds of players in these very forums, with support from NASA. It's 'science' Max, proper science.
And yet, according to FDev it was explicitly designed to make exploration simpler and easier. Simpler and easier Max, the very definition of dumbing-down.
It's nice that you enjoy it, but don't try to pretend it's in any way complex or challenging. It was designed to be dumb, and dumb is what it is.
Is it? If you say so. I would be very surprised if the whole 100 person team worked on the FSS. Yes they were informed and this is what they came up with.
That is not what they said.
Never said it was complex or challenging. It doesn't need to be either.
You really need to stop putting 2+2 together to make 5. But it's the forums, happens all the time.
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I “like” the FSS the same way I “like” Elite as a whole: mostly great ideas, mostly good design, largely terrible implementation made even worse by bugs.
The core mechanisms and interface of the FSS is in my opinion terrific. Main problem is that planets with POIs take ages to load, which breaks the flow of play. Another problem is that you can’t use the FSS while moving, which REALLY kills a lot of the fun - instead of adding a cool multitasking action to perform while heading towards a destination, the feeling is less that you’re using a feature of your ship and more like you’re switching over to a mini game interlude. It really is that jarring. At this point they might as well make you log out of the game to perform FSS. Or let you do it on your phone. I don’t understand how Frontier deluded themselves into thinking this was OK. Imagine if you had to zero your throttle to open the galaxy map, or view your cargo manifest, or read galnet; it would make those features infuriating to use, and it’s no different with the FSS.
The core mechanisms and interface of the FSS is in my opinion terrific. Main problem is that planets with POIs take ages to load, which breaks the flow of play. Another problem is that you can’t use the FSS while moving, which REALLY kills a lot of the fun - instead of adding a cool multitasking action to perform while heading towards a destination, the feeling is less that you’re using a feature of your ship and more like you’re switching over to a mini game interlude. It really is that jarring. At this point they might as well make you log out of the game to perform FSS. Or let you do it on your phone. I don’t understand how Frontier deluded themselves into thinking this was OK. Imagine if you had to zero your throttle to open the galaxy map, or view your cargo manifest, or read galnet; it would make those features infuriating to use, and it’s no different with the FSS.
Would one way out of that be to make the FSS a HUD overlay and you use it like a weapon, aiming the ship to 'scan'?
Maybe they should only scan for POIs after 2 or 3 seconds of being zoomed in. A small delay. Then you have time to zoom in and out if you don't want to scan. Or have a manual scan toggle function. Toggle switch of some sort. Might make less hiccups that way.
Not if you still have to zero the throttle to use it. I don’t care if it’s a HUD overlay or if it’s got its own interface, the issue is having to zero your throttle. Personally I think the existing interface is fine, and if you had to aim the ship it wouldn’t be that useful since the ship turns so much slower.
Sorry, I was not clear in my suggestion- I mean yes, you aim it like a weapon in SC at whatever speed. I was thinking that it would then make SC agility an extra consideration for explorers, and that brick ships would give more space, but make scanning more challenging.
Maybe they should just resolve POI planets at the same speed as everything else instead of wasting our time. If that’s not an option due to some god-awful technical incompetence, then sure I guess presence/absence of POIs could be an additional “layer” of scanning, but for this to work you would absolutely, positively, no if’s-ands-or-buts, need to have a visual indicator showing which planets have and have not been POI scanned. It would have to be instantly obvious at a glance which planets still need a POI pass, and this information would need to be conveyed in the side panel, the system map, and the FSS interface itself.
I watched that video of how the galaxy is built on their YouTube channel. I bet you have to load them or they have to be procedurally generated. Technical limitations no doubt.
I see. Well I don’t really see how aiming the ship instead of a cursor adds to the benefit of removing the throttle restriction. The planets and stars aren’t really interesting dynamic moving targets so I don’t think differences in ship agility are going to make for interesting play choices or varying levels of challenge, it will just make everything slower and clunkier across the board, with some ships being even slower and clunkier than others.
If for some reason I had to choose between “ship aiming+free throttle” vs “cursor aiming+throttle zero,” I would choose the first option, but only because I think throttle zero is so dumb and annoying that I’d be willing to accept an overall downgrade in exchange for unrestricted throttle. However the ideal for me is being able to cruise towards a chosen destination while also using the FSS to resolve surrounding system bodies and POIs along the way (or better yet having a second crew member do this while I’m piloting, and a third crew member watching the radar and scanning local ships, plotting our next jump path, etc - but that’s another discussion).
If they knew from the get go that this was going to happen then I guess I don’t have much respect for the FSS design anymore. If it was already known and understood that POI-planets would take an unknowable amount of time to load then this needed to be fixed or accounted for at the outset. I’d LIKE to give Frontier more credit than that and call it a bug which needs fixing (and can be fixed), but who am I kidding you’re probably right.
The other option I suppose would be to use the free aim like you get in multicrew turret mode, where you spin round the ship.
I think possibly - what stopped FDev doing this - is that instinctively if ship is at throttle > 0, then the FSS screen would need to be dynamic to match your changing ship position. I think too though, that there is a pretty good case for not worrying about that and just have the FSS operate off a snapshot (add shutter sound) from where you were when you fired it up, even though that's no longer your position. Exit and re-enter to refresh.
Also agree with your point about quick-look indication of whether a planet in navigation tab is mapped/unmapped. The info abviously is available from the System Map but it all needs doing (and I'm pretty sure FDev will also wary of lag in panels, which are secondary to HUD but still need rapid access). Again I think hierarchies are in some flux still, for no other reason as not all planet or POI types are necessarily all defined yet. There is potential for having analysis mode operate in the left-right panels though to tailor the display. Mapped/unmapped is not relevant in combat mode. It ALL needs doing though - we ARE in analysis mode 1.0 - and for me is not equal to a dumb down.
Greetings,
Frontier uses experienced players and 3rd party support websites to support ED. Financially per the quarterly statement that is probably a wise decision as adding to a game in 2019 is unbelievably expensive in the millions. My opinion is a group of Frontier Devs come up with FSS figuring out that they have covered all the bases. They spend hundreds of hours developing this and the last thing they want to do when they go home to the family is to play the game using FSS. So they let the world wide player base to figure out what they missed. Still someone in PR was smart sending out emails promoting the Forum on all platforms so a player can come here and find out what is going on. With that being said...
Getting the FSS controls setup correctly makes all the difference. Using the Logitech X-56 grey...
"Honk" in a fire group on the joystick fire button 1. A toggle switch to goto weapons in case being interdicted while in FSS. It sometimes happens especially in anarchy or war systems.
Enter/Leave FSS is on a throttle toggle switch. Also great for leaving the Detailed Surface Scanner.
Analog/Combat is on a throttle toggle switch. Going to combat also leaves the FSS.
The joystick takes care of the FSS camera pitch and yaw.
The important one is an analog thumb stick on the Logitech X-56 throttle to control the following:
Fwd/Rev zooms in/out of the target. Could be called rgt/lft but with it's physical position fwd/rev works better.
Up/Dn tunes the bar right/left.
Analog is the key as it allows fast and precise placement on the tuning bar. An all-or-nothing 4-way digital hat makes using the tuning bar very frustrating...for me anyway. Once your brain and thumb quit fighting each other a player can scan small systems in seconds and large systems in minutes. The first time I scanned a system with 30 bodies it took a long time as I hadn't figured out what I was doing. Now 5 minutes and I'm not even pushing it.
Signal source identification is very easy AFTER one has scanned many thousands of them! The brain remembers where each type of signal is on the tuning bar and with experience can tell if a system has planets of interest. Main ringed planets are always on the right and their satellite planets are in the middle with several types in close proximity. Note that waiting for a planet scan to complete biological or other anomalies is a waste of time. Once the planet shows up move on as they will be fully reported in the system map later. Then pick-n-choose at your leisure.
USS signals are even easier as they are in groups. Far left on the tuning bar is the typical degraded, encoded, HGE, convoys, distress etc. A little to the right and we get non-human Thargoids if they are around. Somewhat more to the right shows up orbiting stations and outposts.
Initially look at some of the amazing graphics others have provided but don't worry about memorizing them or Frontier's "pointy" graphics for each. Just get an idea as to what is going on and go for it. Once past the learning curve a player can find exactly what they want or quickly move on knowing what they seek isn't there.
Note that my settings with the X-56 will not work for every controller on every platform but use the info for your best results. I easily set this up on a basic DualShock 4 controller on a PS4. Those on the PC owing a Logitech G13 or several other manufacturer's versions also have an analog thumb stick.
Elite Dangerous is always about a learning curve which at times seems impossible especially with their "traps" and other secondary skills such as combat or experienced exploration part of the current goal. But when a player figures it out some post on the Forum per, "This is it? It's TOO easy! Here's my 18 suggestions.".
Enjoy the Game
Frontier uses experienced players and 3rd party support websites to support ED. Financially per the quarterly statement that is probably a wise decision as adding to a game in 2019 is unbelievably expensive in the millions. My opinion is a group of Frontier Devs come up with FSS figuring out that they have covered all the bases. They spend hundreds of hours developing this and the last thing they want to do when they go home to the family is to play the game using FSS. So they let the world wide player base to figure out what they missed. Still someone in PR was smart sending out emails promoting the Forum on all platforms so a player can come here and find out what is going on. With that being said...
Getting the FSS controls setup correctly makes all the difference. Using the Logitech X-56 grey...
"Honk" in a fire group on the joystick fire button 1. A toggle switch to goto weapons in case being interdicted while in FSS. It sometimes happens especially in anarchy or war systems.
Enter/Leave FSS is on a throttle toggle switch. Also great for leaving the Detailed Surface Scanner.
Analog/Combat is on a throttle toggle switch. Going to combat also leaves the FSS.
The joystick takes care of the FSS camera pitch and yaw.
The important one is an analog thumb stick on the Logitech X-56 throttle to control the following:
Fwd/Rev zooms in/out of the target. Could be called rgt/lft but with it's physical position fwd/rev works better.
Up/Dn tunes the bar right/left.
Analog is the key as it allows fast and precise placement on the tuning bar. An all-or-nothing 4-way digital hat makes using the tuning bar very frustrating...for me anyway. Once your brain and thumb quit fighting each other a player can scan small systems in seconds and large systems in minutes. The first time I scanned a system with 30 bodies it took a long time as I hadn't figured out what I was doing. Now 5 minutes and I'm not even pushing it.
Signal source identification is very easy AFTER one has scanned many thousands of them! The brain remembers where each type of signal is on the tuning bar and with experience can tell if a system has planets of interest. Main ringed planets are always on the right and their satellite planets are in the middle with several types in close proximity. Note that waiting for a planet scan to complete biological or other anomalies is a waste of time. Once the planet shows up move on as they will be fully reported in the system map later. Then pick-n-choose at your leisure.
USS signals are even easier as they are in groups. Far left on the tuning bar is the typical degraded, encoded, HGE, convoys, distress etc. A little to the right and we get non-human Thargoids if they are around. Somewhat more to the right shows up orbiting stations and outposts.
Initially look at some of the amazing graphics others have provided but don't worry about memorizing them or Frontier's "pointy" graphics for each. Just get an idea as to what is going on and go for it. Once past the learning curve a player can find exactly what they want or quickly move on knowing what they seek isn't there.
Note that my settings with the X-56 will not work for every controller on every platform but use the info for your best results. I easily set this up on a basic DualShock 4 controller on a PS4. Those on the PC owing a Logitech G13 or several other manufacturer's versions also have an analog thumb stick.
Elite Dangerous is always about a learning curve which at times seems impossible especially with their "traps" and other secondary skills such as combat or experienced exploration part of the current goal. But when a player figures it out some post on the Forum per, "This is it? It's TOO easy! Here's my 18 suggestions.".
Enjoy the Game
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What about if you could zoom out, another stop from the initial view?
To the point where you can see the whole solar system on one screen? Or at least half of it?
That would take away the need to search for the blue blobs at all? (though you'd still need to be tuned to them?).
To the point where you can see the whole solar system on one screen? Or at least half of it?
That would take away the need to search for the blue blobs at all? (though you'd still need to be tuned to them?).
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LOL. Everyone knows that? Are you sure? It makes me remember great writer lines in the movie Two Weeks Notice (c2002).
George Wade:
Before you came into my life I could make all kinds of decisions. Now I'm addicted I have to know what you think. What do you think?
Lucy Kelson:
I think you're the most selfish human being on the planet.
George Wade:
Well that's just silly. Have you met everybody on the planet?
Regards
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