Detailed Scanning....

[BigBadB]

Higher spec scanners / faster scans maybe?

I've only seen C3 scanners so far...

I don't want faster scans, I want them to make scanning an active experience rather than sitting and waiting. Even a simple 'mini game' would be better than staring at a swirly.

Sitting and waiting is not enjoyable gameplay, no matter how long you have to do it for.

 

[o2thaZ]

yeah way more <3 for exploration and mining please.
i'll keep the faith in FD will expand on this in a few months time.

 

[teaurn]

I bought the advanced scanner, yet it's not any faster, it only finds the companion star as well. I guess it is a useless expense, flying 40K ls or more to scan the second star is probably not worth the time, mind numbingly boring too. I alt-tab out of the game while it's going, listening for when the fsd starts to sound like it's approaching too fast. Yet one time it crashed on switching back and placed me back at the start :/ My highest payout for mapping a system is 40k so far. Most of the time it's sub 10K. In the same time to scan one system I can make over 300k trading in a Type 6. Still hopeful I'll find something interesting some day. Flying around a star fuel scooping looks pretty anyway. But really, how long can looking around the cockpit or browsing through the stats screens stay entertaining while waiting for the scanner to do its thing.

I have the advanced scanner also, and think it's great!
It's all down to range of scan for me - the advanced finds everything in the system with one scan, right out to 100's of thousands of Ls.

It saves all that tedious mucking about with parallax to find stuff, when you only have a poxy 500ls range on your scanner

My question is: Is it worth doing detailed scans on anything at all?

For example...

Last night I got to an unexplored system, hit the scan, found 29 objects, and then spent an hour(!) scanning the lot.

It was a mixture of 2 belts, 3 gas giants and a rocky planet, with various moons etc..

The whole thing paid out just over 8000cr at UC.

So, just for a laugh, on the next system, I did the scan, found 23 objects, and then scanned none of them further.

When I got 20+LYs from there I checked UC, and they were happy to pay me.....8000cr

So, as I said, is it worth spending hours trawling round, scanning stuff close up?

Does anyone have any data/experience with this?

 

[CMDR Carbo]

As a scientist I have to say that most research in real life is really repetitive and includes a lot of waiting, too.
But what makes up for it is the excitement to find something really interesting and the feeling of achievement you get when you do so.

Thus maybe an easy way to make exploration more worthwhile would be to up the payout, but randomly.
e.g. by incorporating rare planets/clusters/asteroids that are special and give a high payout (like 100k +):

- Some inhabitable plants could include primitive forms of live, or ancient architecture of a deceased forms of live.
- Some clusters could contain pure gold (or whatever) making them highly valuable.
- Clusters could be debris of a destroyed alien space ships/stations containing alien tech.
etc.. (insert crazy ideas here).

An other easy fix would be to make better scanners with better reach so that you don't have to target every object to scan and can scan several objects at once within a certain distance. (idk if that already exists, never upgraded the basic scanner)

 

[Maiakaat]

While I understand the complaints in this thread, I have to say that I and many others are enjoying exploration a lot - it's just a different mindset of playing, close to what non-combat flight sims offer. And there's more content to come, though it may take a while...planetary landings etc. Go for combat, trading or smuggling if you're a more action-oriented player who doesn't care for sightseeing

Currently the planetary graphics are nowhere near good enough to get much out of the exploration and it is a major interest to me. Eve has mineral maps for example, better scanners could produce some sort of map for resources, exploration could also make use of the landing on planets upgrade to massively enhance the range and appearance of things to explore, such as relics, crashed spacecraft, animal species, plant species, things which would require you to learn what interesting features look like from low earth orbit to then investigate from high altitude/low altitude, or with a telescope. The financial returns on everything other than trading is so hopelessly bad. I cannot understand how and why some people think the game is good as it is, I've been making good progress but I am already starting to get deflated with the game, there is only so many times you can see an Earth like or Mars like planet at low detail before it loses its edge.

I am hoping Elite grows, and loses some of the repetitive mechanics, at the moment though No Mans Sky may be far better when it arrives for anybody who isn't happy with spending the whole game in a repetitive space with nothing of interest beyond stellar bodies you cannot get close to, or masses of USS that turn out to be nothing more than ships, and ships generated for you rather than generated and managed as full active agents within the story/environment

 

[Nathan60]

I don't understand why belts are worth nothing. Surely they are one of the main things that would be looked for - mining opportunities?

I am confused about this aswell. Surely miners would like to know where belts are and what they contain.

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I just dont like to leave anything unexplored. Got to get that very last rocky or icy planet or it will look untidy! I personally dont find the waiting time in any way tedious or boring. But what do i know...

I just catch up on some reading, when scanner is running you can still hear the 'I am almost done scanning' sound when alt tabbed.

 

[Gorf]

There's no way, it seems that FD think that waiting while doing nothing is fun. Maybe they are trying to help monitor manufacturers, as this game is almost unplayable without a second monitor to do things on during times when the game doesn't require any input.

Yep - I spent last night watching Burn Notice on the second monitor while exploring. One binary system had stars 390,000ls apart!

 

[Skip Intro]

I was pootling around last might, and found found myself in that love / hate zone when the scanner goes off any says "Found 29 New Objects".

Before you ask, yes, I did 'collect them all'

 

[Zieman]

I was pootling around last might, and found found myself in that love / hate zone when the scanner goes off any says "Found 29 New Objects".

Before you ask, yes, I did 'collect them all'

How about when it says 64 new objects?

I skip the belt clusters and sometimes also rocky/icy looking planets/moons. And if I'm on a long exploration trip, I skip most stuff farther than 10000 ls away (a black hole, neutron star or a star with several planets that look valuable are the notable exceptions).

 

[Nathan60]

Yep - I spent last night watching Burn Notice on the second monitor while exploring. One binary system had stars 390,000ls apart!

My furthest to date has been 554k(ish) ly apart. I played solitaire and waited to here my engines slow down as I hit the other starts gravity