Could Frontier please demonstrate how to use the FSS enjoyably?

[Agony_Aunt]

Unfortunately, "jump-scoop-honk-FSS spectrum-jump" is just one step better.
Like I said, Frontier could do better than both the ADS and the FSS. Also, as I have been saying for years now, they should revisit interstellar travel and add a more active alternative to it, not just "line up, press jump button, do nothing for 30-40 seconds, repeat hundreds of times". As it is, this is also a common complaint about exploration for new players.

Care to share specifics on how you would make it better?

 

[xondk]

Regardless of specific opinions about the FSS mechanics you are arguably padding the process out in the FSS case with mostly irrelevant personal "fluff" details. The same could be done in regards to the pre-3.3 ADS/DSS approach but to do so would be disingenuous.

By that logic games should simply be a button you click and then you win?

Most anything in a game can be categorised as fluff.
"Why must I go back and forth between two stations with this cargo to get cash? I am just pressing buttons, just give me cash when I press a single one, don't make me waste my time by going back and forth?"

Instead of outright dismissing people, maybe listen to what they see as a game, and what they enjoy with said game?
This is a game, it is entertainment, people play them to be entertained.
If you are playing a game simply to get from a to b, be it for game score, archivements or whatever. Then you aren't really playing the game.
Any statement that goes along the nature of "This is a waste of time" really has no place in entertainment, because entertainment IS a waste of productive time, by its very nature.
The point is to be entertained, to have fun, if people find FSS more fun then what was before then that is what they find entertaining.
If you do not, you do not, but your view is not universal or proof of anything, it is only our opinion, that is a fact.

The simple fact of the matter is that any information gleaned from the topological system map does not (and never has) carried the level of value to ED as you attribute to it.

This, is not a fact. This is your opinion.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I don't think people should be able to bang a system for "high-value" worlds. You shouldn't be able to immediately know what is in a system.

Ironically, this was my main complaint about the ADS. By holding down a button for a few seconds, you immediately knew what was in a system. At least with the FSS, I'm required to actually do something in order to tease out orbital hierarchies, mass concentrations, rare planetary combinations, and other interesting things.

 

[lenna]

This, is not a fact. This is your opinion.

Actually it is fact, the only exploration data that is applied value are L1/L2/L3 scans, orbital paths and system topology are ultimately not paid for in themselves.

 

[xondk]

Actually it is fact, the only exploration data that is applied value are L1/L2/L3 scans, orbital paths and system topology are ultimately not paid for in themselves.

Last I checked no one is referring to that? but about the mechanics and how they feel?

 

[marx]

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

this is mine: [...]

A lengthy opinion piece, but it seems you weren't going for as little bias as possible.
However, the difference this time is that Frontier actually showed us how they want it done! See their livestream. They were telling us to pre-select what body types we're looking for, jump into a system, call up the FSS graph, see if those signals are present. If not, move on. If yes, tune in on them, scan the body types we're looking for, maybe also the other signals we come across while we're looking for our original target. Fly to a planet and map if it has POI.

Let me quote them here: "You're right, the [FSS graph] system is learnable, but what, what we're jokingly trying to kind of get across is that very quickly you can jump into a system, perform the pulse scan, look at that bar and say "there's nothing there that I want", there's no Earth-likes, there's no whatever you're looking for, and get back out again." Video is here, time is around 53:03.

So yeah, that's what the system was primarily built for.

Using your suggestion, what we have now is effectively the active scan, you want it to have some risks, like......what? what would you add that wouldn't end up because of the nature of exploration simply become a hinderance, with how people react currently with the whole 'minigame' as it is referred to, how would dangers not end up in a similar category?

First, I don't want the FSS to be the active scan as I think you implied. I said that it should be the passive one, the safe choice that people are accustomed to.

As for the kinds of dangers: the same kind of dangers there are already in the game of course, but with considerably more uncertainty. They would have to be at least somewhat unexpected, so not be "active scan 5 systems and then you get a guaranteed hyperdiction by Thargoids". Rather, there should be at least an invisible timer, that gets decreased by a random (within a range, of course) amount. When it reaches zero, then a bad event is triggered. Most likely, you attract hostile attention. It might be human pirates, especially if you're closest to a human-inhabited area. It might be Thargoids, if you are closer to their areas: in fact, deliberately drawing attention to yourself and seeing who shows up first might actually become a good method of finding alien space.
Then you might be pulled out of hyperspace, or interdicted in supercruise, or attacked while planetside.
Or there could be other effects. Mysterious misjumps, module brown-outs, and so on. If you put your mind to it, I'm sure you could come up with some unexpected or unpredictable risks as well.
Not everybody would like having to deal with uncertain risks, of course, but here's the thing: it would entirely be optional.

Care to share specifics on how you would make it better?

Sure, see my later post after the one you quoted.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

If I may ask you a simple question: How are your opinions about a possible future extension of space legs then? Is this in any way compatible to this statement?

If the 'new era' introduces space legs then I won't be purchasing it as a DLC. Unless, by some miracle, FDev introduce some kind of interesting, mentally stimulating 'scientific investigation' gameplay as part of the package. However, I'm confident that FDev will instead produce another "scan these 4 objects before the timer runs out so you can shoot the 5th object to get a new mat' variation.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Ah, a true purist then (without a LTP I guess?). I take my hat off to you. Guess you never entered a SRV as well. Would be consequent at least. Or even more consequent, you never should have purchased horizons in the first place.

If I hadn't purchased Horizons I wouldn't have my exclusive Cobra IV

And no, I'm hardly a purist, since I do drive the SRV on occasion. However landable planets are much more than just SRV playgrounds - there's surface bases, canyons to race through and you can even scan surface biological and geological features without getting out of the ship (though I wouldn't recommend this on a high-G world).

So right now I have space (3D) to play in and I have a 2D alternative if I want it. Space legs isn't going to add to those, it'll simply reduce the scale. I don't personally see the need.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

C'mon now, don't elude dude (sorry, couldn't resist the rhyme ). You where the one poking on "flying a space ship", already forgotten?

I never claimed to be perfect! But if somebody was just driving around and around a station, complaining about having to waste time flying to a different station, then I'd have to wonder why they'd chosen to play ED.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Regardless of specific opinions about the FSS mechanics you are arguably padding the process out in the FSS case with mostly irrelevant personal "fluff" details. The same could be done in regards to the pre-3.3 ADS/DSS approach but to do so would be disingenuous.

Actually, I couldn't. Believe me, I tried everything I could think of to salvage what I would consider to be an enjoyable exploration experience pre-3.3, I backed this game during the Kickstarter with the promise of exploring a to-scale Milky Way galaxy, after all, but if I wanted to start mapping a system, I had to honk, which would in turn would reveal everything else around me, even using the BDS. And even more frustrating was that there was nothing that could reveal if there was something in a system to even find without honking in the first place.

The simple fact of the matter is that any information gleaned from the topological system map does not (and never has) carried the level of value to ED as you attribute to it. Your level of disdain for the pre-3.3 ADS/DSS approach to exploration is also quite palpable. I understand why even if I disagree with the reasoning.

I agree. A system's orbital configuration has zero credit value in Elite: Dangerous.

However, if one's goal is to navigate through a system, you'll want a map of the system to make it easier. The process of creating that map is why I explore, not for the credits, not for the screen shot opportunities, and certainly not discovered by tags. Those are just bonuses. And while I do create that map in a way that is less than efficient than "playing the minigame", it's much more fun that way for me.

And quite frankly, individual planets, even gas giants or earth like worlds, start blurring together after a while. It's how they're arranged within a system that makes them unique.

The FSS has been poorly implemented - I think there is quite a significant level of agreement on this point, but where it is deficient is where there is significant disagreement and fragmentation.

The only real problem I have with the FSS is the artificial requirement to throttle down to use it. I like the fact that reading it is a bit of an esoteric art. You're talking to someone who merrily spent several months before Frontier ruined it in her SRV tracking down meteorite samples to learn about the surface composition of a world, one eye glued to the wave scanner, the other trying to keep the SRV from crashing into everything, all the while wishing that there was some way to filter out the sound of the SRV's engines. Analysing FSS readings to discover things without resolving them is a genuine pleasure, and even occasionally discovering that I'm wrong can be quite enjoyable, given that I think rare planetary alignments are rather interesting in and of themselves.

Ultimately, the take away is that re-introducing something along the lines of the ADS would be the right thing for FD to do overall. There is too much ill feeling and disagreement over how exploration should feel and over what does and does not qualify as exploration. If FD are to show true commitment to their laudable product evolution guidelines then they should re-introduce the ADS (or something similar) as they arguably should never have removed it in the first place.

On that we agree. I don't know what their reasoning was, but it was clear from the introductory live stream that it was intentional, and that that they knew that some styles of exploring simply wouldn't work using the FSS.

 

[Darkfyre99]

However, the difference this time is that Frontier actually showed us how they want it done! See their livestream.

It wouldn't be the first time players of Elite Dangerous took something Frontier developed, and not only use it differently from how they intended it to be used, but used it in ways they didn't even expect.

That's a major source of my frustration with the artificial requirement to throttle down to use the FSS. There's several ideas I've had to use the FSS that simply don't work, or are the very least pointless to do, when throttled down.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I second that motion.

For entirely different reasons, with opposite feelings about the ADS, we've arrived at a very similar way of (barely) using the FSS. By using the spectrum to determine our interest level in the system, then eschewing the tune-n-zoom aspect, we both moderate the 'difficulty' of exploring the system (by flying our spaceships - Hi Pico) to enable us to enjoy the experience.

It's the infamous 'emergent gameplay'

Edit
Ha! Ninjad by Darkfyre

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

That's a major source of my frustration with the artificial requirement to throttle down to use the FSS. There's several ideas I've had to use the FSS that simply don't work, or are the very least pointless to do, when throttled down.

Indeed. I want to be able to view the spectrum at speed - it doesn't matter whether I can resolve a blob or not - since that's the only way to determine what's left undiscovered in a system. I'd be happy for it to be displayed in the System Map, since that's telling me everything else avout the system.

 

[marx]

If a counter question to the OP might be allowed (and since you expect something like an enjoyable experience with the FSS shown in a video or maybe lots of words if it must be): How about you or someone else demonstrates what the enjoyable part of the ADS was?

I'll take that up then.
You could travel through the galaxy, looking through those very rare finds that haven't been discovered in the hundreds and thousands already by others, while also perhaps researching how Elite's galaxy generation might work, to improve your chances. Often, you'd have to discover thousands or tens of thousands of systems to find that one rare gem. And people did, and you'd find something unexpected, which others would also want to see and visit. There have often been finds that were the extreme cases of the Stellar Forge, where procedural generation would produce results that even the devs themselves didn't expect.
Oh, sure, you can in theory still look for these. It's just that earlier, it took one minute to find out whether a system might have something rare, while now it would be at least five. Can you see yourself as playing the FSS minigame for a thousand hours?

However, I realise that I wasn't the target audience for the new exploration system, same as how Darkfyre99 isn't either. Which means that Frontier can, and likely will, discard how we used to explore in favour of how they want us to explore. The focus these days is on manually authored "POIs": templates of hand-crafted assets seeded through-out the galaxy. The target audience is those who explore for body types, credits and tags. Even the locations of said POIs depend on the types: look through the Codex, and most of the time, the requirements boil down to "system contains X type(s) of stars and/or Y type(s) of bodies". Since these can be highly specific, the FSS was designed for cherry-picking: to locate either suitable candidate systems, or just valuable body types for credits.
None of the above take advantage of Elite's greatest asset when it comes to exploration though: its galaxy generation. No other space game comes close to it (NMS is in an intentionally unrealistic universe), yet when was the last time Frontier expanded the accessible galaxy? Back at the very first release of Horizons. Now, if the rumours are true and the expansion will really be space legs, we can expect some more small hand-crafted locations and no new environments.

If Frontier isn't really willing to give us new places to explore, they could at least improve the tools we explore the galaxy with, in every way. Plenty of good suggestions have been made for that, in this thread as well. The current plan is to improve the new player experience before the next expansion: we'll see if they remember to improve upon exploration there as well.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I'll take that up then.
You could travel through the galaxy, looking through those very rare finds that haven't been discovered in the hundreds and thousands already by others, while also perhaps researching how Elite's galaxy generation might work, to improve your chances. Often, you'd have to discover thousands or tens of thousands of systems to find that one rare gem. And people did, and you'd find something unexpected, which others would also want to see and visit. There have often been finds that were the extreme cases of the Stellar Forge, where procedural generation would produce results that even the devs themselves didn't expect.
Oh, sure, you can in theory still look for these. It's just that earlier, it took one minute to find out whether a system might have something rare, while now it would be at least five. Can you see yourself as playing the FSS minigame for a thousand hours?

However, I realise that I wasn't the target audience for the new exploration system, same as how Darkfyre99 isn't either. Which means that Frontier can, and likely will, discard how we used to explore in favour of how they want us to explore. The focus these days is on manually authored "POIs": templates of hand-crafted assets seeded through-out the galaxy. The target audience is those who explore for body types, credits and tags. Even the locations of said POIs depend on the types: look through the Codex, and most of the time, the requirements boil down to "system contains X type(s) of stars and/or Y type(s) of bodies". Since these can be highly specific, the FSS was designed for cherry-picking: to locate either suitable candidate systems, or just valuable body types for credits.
None of the above take advantage of Elite's greatest asset when it comes to exploration though: its galaxy generation. No other space game comes close to it (NMS is in an intentionally unrealistic universe), yet when was the last time Frontier expanded the accessible galaxy? Back at the very first release of Horizons. Now, if the rumours are true and the expansion will really be space legs, we can expect some more small hand-crafted locations and no new environments.

If Frontier isn't really willing to give us new places to explore, they could at least improve the tools we explore the galaxy with, in every way. Plenty of good suggestions have been made for that, in this thread as well. The current plan is to improve the new player experience before the next expansion: we'll see if they remember to improve upon exploration there as well.

Would rep this twice if I could.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Would rep this twice if I could.

His post has been the best I've read in all the forum, it captured the essence for the reason why I explored and the true implications of this new system.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

His post has been the best I've read in all the forum, it captured the essence for the reason why I explored and the true implications of this new system.

The only thing I'd add is that there used to be 'mysteries' too. Hints of something to find that were out of the ordinary. Clues that had people flying all over the galaxy based on wild theories and crazy speculations. PMFs were founded on the basis of these stories and thousands upon thousands of posts were made in the forums.

Now we have a Pokedex of shiny things, with instructions of exactly where to go.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Well, I’ve just read the last 19 pages. Now I’ll ask the question that I expected (from the thread title) would be answered on the first page.
What really gets me about the fss (I’ll ignore here the pointless and tediously long time to resolve geo/biological signals!) is the actual scan mechanism with a hotas/hosas. I have the tuning bound to the hotas throttle or left stick Y axis; no real problem, it’s quite quick to tune into the signals I’m interested in. What gets my goat is the yaw speed around the signal space. I have pitch bound to right stick Y axis without any issue but the yaw bound to the X axis is slooowwwww!!! I look with envy at the yaw speed that Will gets in the FD livestreams using a gamepad. It seems to be that the fss was designed primarily for gamepad/mouse users, who have several parameter optimisations available (sensitivity, power curve...). So does anyone have a way to get round this issue?

 

[Winterwalker]

Well, I’ve just read the last 19 pages. Now I’ll ask the question that I expected (from the thread title) would be answered on the first page.
What really gets me about the fss (I’ll ignore here the pointless and tediously long time to resolve geo/biological signals!) is the actual scan mechanism with a hotas/hosas. I have the tuning bound to the hotas throttle or left stick Y axis; no real problem, it’s quite quick to tune into the signals I’m interested in. What gets my goat is the yaw speed around the signal space. I have pitch bound to right stick Y axis without any issue but the yaw bound to the X axis is slooowwwww!!! I look with envy at the yaw speed that Will gets in the FD livestreams using a gamepad. It seems to be that the fss was designed primarily for gamepad/mouse users, who have several parameter optimisations available (sensitivity, power curve...). So does anyone have a way to get round this issue?

Is there a rotate binding? Rotate 90 degrees and pitch up down <-- to yaw?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

The meta for the old discovery process wasn't to just scan everything as quickly as possible, it was to identify & prioritise targets.

What do you enjoy about the new process?

See: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...-to-use-the-fss-enjoyably.514074/post-7837436

I find the new, active scanners to be vastly more engaging. I can see a system take shape, planet by planet. I can spot irregular orbits, interesting nesting of co-orbital planets and moons, and all that "interesting stuff", all in real-time, all in a three-dimensional environment that you simply could not get from the flat, 2d System Map. I can tell at range if a stellar body looks interesting enough to warrant flying out towards, and even if it has any interesting features such as geological or biological formations I'm even more interested in taking a closer look at, without a 30 minute flight to spend hours eyeballing something that may or may not even be there.

From the composition reports I can tell at range if it's worth the fuel to fly all the way to a particular planet to search for materials I might need.

And I can spot both singal sources and notable signals without having to spend hours upon hours flying in slowing widening spirals hoping not to miss some little detail.

Most importantly, I feel like I'm using cutting-edge future technology in the process, not relics and antiquities scavenged from junk heaps of the 21st century. I mean, this IS supposed to be a high-tech, futuristic game, isn't it? Who wants old tech in the future?