Could or should Frontier enhance the FSS or add in and incorporate an optional ADS-like expansion module?

[Riverside]

You can simulate it yourself. Go to a system you haven't been before but is pre-discovered. You can find these in and near the bubble. Once you've honked the system you will have a system map of undiscovered bodies which simulates having the ADS.

It just makes scanning the system too easy. I mean, why stop there? Why don't we just have everything in the system all discovered just by honking? Who needs gameplay or effort to get a system fully scanned?

Please, if you could provide some estimates of your own it would be helpful. I'd like to get an idea of how much of an advantage you think it would provide to have both mechanisms (as we already have in explored space).

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Scenario 3 - FSS + ADS combined: Once you've selected the Earth-like after honking and lined yourself up with the planet in supercruise which is quick and easy to do, you bring up the FSS and it's instantly directly in front of you. No effort required to find it or fly to it.

How is turning your ship to face the earth like any different to fidgeting around the fss for the same thing? Almost certainly doing it in your ship will be slower and require more effort and time. Turning your ship to face something makes sense in elite where panning around just to be busy does not.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Ok, imagine you jump into a system which has an Earth-like which you obviously want to scan. Following are 3 scenarios which explain what happens if you have only the FSS, or only the ADS, and if you have both working together.

Scenario 1 - FSS only: You need to hunt around for the Earth-like within the FSS. You might find it quickly, however, you have to put some effort into finding it if it's not directly in front of you.

Scenario 2 - ADS only: Once you've selected the Earth-like after honking you need to fly to the planet to scan it. It might be really close or it could be far away, however, some time is required to fly to it.

Scenario 3 - FSS + ADS combined: Once you've selected the Earth-like after honking and lined yourself up with the planet in supercruise which is quick and easy to do, you bring up the FSS and it's instantly directly in front of you. No effort required to find it or fly to it.

Don't forget Elite: Dangerous is supposed to be a game, where everything isn't supposed to be handed to you on a plate.

I’ve bolded what I see as the key part.
That effort is neither difficult or for some people particularly enjoyable.

Tune the dial and pan left or right along the orbital plane until you hit it.
It is going to take a maximum of 30 seconds, if that.

Turning a ship in SC isn’t nearly as fast as panning, so even though you know where the target is, it’ll take nearly as long, and even then you’ll still need to open the FSS, tune and scan.

If there was any challenge at all in the finding part of the FSS, then your argument would be stronger, but there isn’t. It’s just a trivial time sink, albeit a brief one, but that time adds up quickly.

 

[Taimaru]

Please, if you could provide some estimates of your own it would be helpful. I'd like to get an idea of how much of an advantage you think it would provide to have both mechanisms (as we already have in explored space).

Ok, these are estimates whichincludes time to honk and are worse case scenarios:

Scenario 1 - FSS only: 5 minutes for a difficult to find object.
Scenario 2 - ADS only: 1 hour 20 minutes - Hutton Orbital distance.
Scenario 3 - FSS + ADS combined: 30 secs.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

You can simulate it yourself. Go to a system you haven't been before but is pre-discovered. You can find these in and near the bubble. Once you've honked the system you will have a system map of undiscovered bodies which simulates having the ADS.

It just makes scanning the system too easy. I mean, why stop there? Why don't we just have everything in the system all discovered just by honking? Who needs gameplay or effort to get a system fully scanned?

You’re actually more on point with this post than it first appears.
The act of discovery should be enjoyable - that is the point of gameplay.

If the ‘effort’ involved isn’t fun, then inevitably we stop doing it and wish there was an alternative.

 

[Soron Silin]

Ok, these are estimates whichincludes time to honk and are worse case scenarios:

Scenario 1 - FSS only: 5 minutes for a difficult to find object.
Scenario 2 - ADS only: 1 hour 20 minutes - Hutton Orbital distance.
Scenario 3 - FSS + ADS combined: 30 secs.

FSS with auto-track and auto-zoom -- 2 seconds per body, so 20 seconds to 2 minutes
And you've scanned everything in the system.

But you know that there is an ELW in the system, right? So someone already scanned the system. Why not just select it in the system map and then turn toward it. No need for a honk or ADS. [The problem is not that you get privileged information when you enter the system, rather that it is unreasonably withheld until you do. If the system has been mapped then Universal Cartographics has the map and should be able to give it to you.]

 

[Rat Catcher]

That's why i have to say apparently. I hear from many sources that FSS in VR is not pretty. I don't use VR, i can't tell myself.

It is very pretty - sadly there is a recurring bug that puts a 'cage' around the 'page' - it could be better had they curved the page, and of course ' perfect' if orbit lines were put back.
Oh, I do have VR so am not commenting by hearsay

 

[Yaffle]

Stay on topic.
Stay on topic.

 

[myothershipisacobraiv]

Stay on topic.
Stay on topic.

Loosen up!

 

[Sunyavadin]

Exactly how would it be OP?
Could you discover more, more quickly, gather more tags or credits?
What advantage would it actually provide?
It’s a common argument, but it does need to be fleshed out more than just being a statement.

This is the thing, I think the assumption is in many cases based an an idea that it would necessarily have to reveal all the blobs in the FSS screen when you honk, were a similar mechanic to part of the lost functionality of the ADS to be implemented as a new module, or engineering mod for the FSS, or whatever.
But that's not the case. the FSS is the FSS. You'd have planets remain unscanned after a honk just as they do now.
Being able to choose to fly to objects to scan them instead of having to play the minigame in many cases would actively take longer. Knowing they exist is no more information than already having the blobs in the FSS screen. You still need to target the blobs and filter the spectrum correctly to get the tags, or locate them and fly to them as many do with parralax already (Personally, since the FSS was implemented, I will only FSS for gas giants, then fly to them in order to discover anything orbiting them and see if there are any interesting systems, since it's more enjoyable than sitting tuning the FSS to every possible body orbiting each giant). The cherry-pickers the FSS caters to can still drop into a system, tune to the ELW band, scan, and leave, while those of us interested in personally visiting interesting features can look at the sysmap and decide if it might potentially be likely to be worth flying to anything. We might also choose based on that data to drop into the FSS and scan a couple of things to see what exactly they are before making that decision, nobody loses anything, but we gain options.

 

[Sunyavadin]

Scenario 3 - FSS + ADS combined: Once you've selected the Earth-like after honking and lined yourself up with the planet in supercruise which is quick and easy to do, you bring up the FSS and it's instantly directly in front of you. No effort required to find it or fly to it.

So, assuming this ADS functionality works exactly like the old ADS did - you honk, you switch to sysmap, you see an unexplored planet that looks kinda like it might be an earthlike, but could be a WW, or maybe one of those dodgy HMCs that look kinda like them. You target it, you switch back to the cockpit so you can compare the hologram and see if it looks like it actually is an earthlike, not one of those impostors, if it is, then you align your ship with it, which on larger ships can be a slow, ponderous affair, and even on smaller vessels cannot be said to be faster than the panning in the FSS, then after all that's done, you switch modes AGAIN to the FSS, and scan the body in front of you.
Congratuations, you just invented a slower means of scanning than just going straight into the FSS after the honk and panning around tuned to ELWs.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

This is the thing, I think the assumption is in many cases based an an idea that it would necessarily have to reveal all the blobs in the FSS screen when you honk, were a similar mechanic to part of the lost functionality of the ADS to be implemented as a new module, or engineering mod for the FSS, or whatever.
But that's not the case. the FSS is the FSS. You'd have planets remain unscanned after a honk just as they do now.
Being able to choose to fly to objects to scan them instead of having to play the minigame in many cases would actively take longer. Knowing they exist is no more information than already having the blobs in the FSS screen. You still need to target the blobs and filter the spectrum correctly to get the tags, or locate them and fly to them as many do with parralax already (Personally, since the FSS was implemented, I will only FSS for gas giants, then fly to them in order to discover anything orbiting them and see if there are any interesting systems, since it's more enjoyable than sitting tuning the FSS to every possible body orbiting each giant). The cherry-pickers the FSS caters to can still drop into a system, tune to the ELW band, scan, and leave, while those of us interested in personally visiting interesting features can look at the sysmap and decide if it might potentially be likely to be worth flying to anything. We might also choose based on that data to drop into the FSS and scan a couple of things to see what exactly they are before making that decision, nobody loses anything, but we gain options.

Most cherry pickers will also map the planets too. Well that's been my experience in my exploration when I have come across a cherry picker planet.

What, I like about the FSS is the feeling I get from finding these places myself, it's not about scanning or tags or cash, I feel like I am discovering them. If the ADS functionality is built in, that whole premise is destroyed for me.

That would in one single blow completely destroy exploration for me. It's why that as soon as I come across a system that is already scanned, I jump to the next system as the whole process is ruined. That's I why I don't explore in the bubble. It's just rubbish for me.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Most cherry pickers will also map the planets too. Well that's been my experience in my exploration when I have come across a cherry picker planet.

What, I like about the FSS is the feeling I get from finding these places myself, it's not about scanning or tags or cash, I feel like I am discovering them. If the ADS functionality is built in, that whole premise is destroyed for me.

That would in one single blow completely destroy exploration for me. It's why that as soon as I come across a system that is already scanned, I jump to the next system as the whole process is ruined. That's I why I don't explore in the bubble. It's just rubbish for me.

I can fully appreciate what you're saying... the bit about completely destroying Exploration in a single blow, many of us had that happen with the drop of 3.3 and though there are some work around's for me the effort is not worth it, the straw for me was the auto resolve... put in place as the cherry on top for those who want something for nothing.

 

[Burke]

Don't forget Elite: Dangerous is supposed to be a game, where everything isn't supposed to be handed to you on a plate.

Imagine a sandy beach, there you are with a pair of tweezers and a magnifier. Pick up a grain - no not that one, pick up another - no on that one, pick up another..... and you realise that its not "having each grain/system handed to you on a plate" but it is infact the search itself that is the work. When the game starts demanding the player jump thru these hoops just to see a single system the whole thing becomes a futile, boring experience that would drive away almost anybody.

 

[Ezren]

Imagine a sandy beach, there you are with a pair of tweezers and a magnifier. Pick up a grain - no not that one, pick up another - no on that one, pick up another..... and you realise that its not "having each grain/system handed to you on a plate" but it is infact the search itself that is the work. When the game starts demanding the player jump thru these hoops just to see a single system the whole thing becomes a futile, boring experience that would drive away almost anybody.

Yeah, it's rough having to explore when you're exploring. Can't you just get a picture of all the sand?

 

[Soron Silin]

Imagine a sandy beach, there you are with a pair of tweezers and a magnifier. Pick up a grain - no not that one, pick up another - no on that one, pick up another..... and you realise that its not "having each grain/system handed to you on a plate" but it is infact the search itself that is the work. When the game starts demanding the player jump thru these hoops just to see a single system the whole thing becomes a futile, boring experience that would drive away almost anybody.

What's wrong with the first two grains of sand? There's entire worlds in there. You could explore them for the rest of your life and still not see half of the wonders they hold.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I just wanted to add that the complete nuclear wasteland the fss leaves in its wake has in addition prevented appreciation of changes made to the game since.

Just been playing with supercruise assist... and im really starting to like it! There are certain activities where it can be a beautiful QOL addition (mapping a system eg). Its completely optional. Its a crutch, but its the least efficient way, if you take control its always better. There's a cost benefit consideration with outfitting to use it. (EDIT: Since the sept update its not even daft, you turn it on and off via the throttle at need). How perfectly designed is this other mechanic in elite dangerous. The fss is exact opposite of all the positives with this.

As more feedback, ever since ive been knocked down and bloodied by this mandatory panning and zooming mechanic, well i just proved to myself just then its been effecting everything to do with the game. Its just the fss.. frontier might not be doing so badly after all.. they even toned down the screen tinting..

EDIT2: Course to this day i keep trying to use the stupid thing because there's no choice. Apart from anything in the immediate cone infront of you, as soon as you start panning by any control method (ps4, hotas, kbm) it simply is crap. You have to synergistically cherry pick to not go mental with it.

 

[Ser Xav]

Feels like using an old wireless set to me, or AM radio. IMHO a really poor game mechanic. Even if it worked by pointing the nose of your ship at the skybox around you and then fiddling with the "tuning" whilst actually flying, rather than scrolling across a '2d picture' version of it, the whole thing would be a whole lot more interactive feeling and more immersive, especially if it required you to fly around a little to create the vantage points to the various distant objects.

 

[Ezren]

How perfectly designed is this other mechanic in elite dangerous. The fss is exact opposite of all the positives with this.

Saying stuff like that sure is easy when you don't need to explain it.

 

[Ezren]

Feels like using an old wireless set to me, or AM radio. IMHO a really poor game mechanic. Even if it worked by pointing the nose of your ship at the skybox around you and then fiddling with the "tuning" whilst actually flying, rather than scrolling across a '2d picture' version of it, the whole thing would be a whole lot more interactive feeling and more immersive, especially if it required you to fly around a little to create the vantage points to the various distant objects.

That's literally how the FSS works. You point towards things, you tune, you move to get vantage points.