Discovery Scanner Ranges

Darrett · May 14, 2015

The current ranges of the Discovery Scanners seem a bit off. A better breakdown would be:

Basic- 500 LS (As currently)
Intermediate- 2500 LS (Increased from 1000)
Advanced- 10000 LS (Decreased from infinite)

As it stands, the Intermediate seems a bit pointless. It does help a bit, but usually it's better to just save up for the Advanced so you only have to fly in and hit the single scan button to pick up discoveries anywhere. This change would still let you pick up a lot in the immediate area, but require the use of parallax to find very distant objects.

Hell Razor5543 · May 14, 2015

Not sure I agree with weakening the ADS. I have had a few times when I have found things a very long way out (100,000+ls out), and taken ages getting there.

Holven · May 14, 2015

Discovery Scanners could exist in classes E through A, where E is 500 and A is unlimited. Just add a few more steps.

Basic - E - 500 Ls
Improved - D - 2000 Ls
Intermediate - C - 8000 Ls
Advanced - B - 64000 Ls
Ultra/Mega/Whatever - A - Unlimited

And just bring up the price range to match. As it is, I would never be in a situation where I fitted Intermediate, simply because its current 1000 Ls range just isn't much of an improvement. The least they could do, is to put the intermediate into a useful range. 500 - 1000 - Unlimited seems to be a very strange stepping. 500 - 5000 - Unlimited would at least be something.

Psycho Romeo · May 15, 2015

This has been brought up many times before.

Personally I think the class should denote range, and rating should correct a penalty based on planetary body size.

Something that is basically infinite (100,000 ls) could stay in the game if nothing but an anaconda with 80m spare credits could equip it.

Holven · May 15, 2015

Having done a lot of exploration, I think limiting it to an Anaconda would be too harsh, but pricy, certainly.

I like the idea, that body size enters into it. To be honest, a full rework of that system would be best. Even the simplest discovery scanner should be able to spot a very luminous object, like a K class or better star, at great distance, even if it missed the planets in between.

How about; instead of charging up for a ping, it scans as long as you hold it. Each second ads a number of "Ls Vs Body size/luminosity/gravitational influence", the cheapest scanner essentially being able to scan a huge system after an amount of time, say 5-15 min, while the best one can do it in 30 sec. Taking it further, at 5 min, the weakest scanner would know of any distant stars and very large bodies, but getting every body could take so long, that it is better to fly closer to that body and scan again.

Even for the best scanner, to be certain that you have found everything, flying closer and scanning could be the better option. A meter could be added that showed achieved scanning resolution. At 100% you know you have spotted everything. The closer you get to 100%, the slower the going, scan/processing speed being limited by rating of scanner.

I have been exploring and will do so again, but I would prefer having to look around to the current dumb-fire see-all ping.

Psycho Romeo · May 16, 2015

Holven said:
How about; instead of charging up for a ping, it scans as long as you hold it.

Personally I would absolutely hate this idea. I hate the idea of not being sure if I've held the button long enough. But, I think it is a good idea and would fit well within the context of the game, if other explorers like it.

Hell Razor5543 · May 16, 2015

I know of one location where crippling the ADS would hurt. Sol. If you currently do an ADS scan you will see that there is an object 2.5Mls out. No way would you pick that up, even using parallax scanning, unless you were there for a day or more. While I know what it is (and doing a search on the forum might let you know what it is) I will leave it up to readers to choose whether to go take a look or not.

Psycho Romeo · May 16, 2015

Hell Razor5543 said:
I know of one location where crippling the ADS would hurt. Sol. If you currently do an ADS scan you will see that there is an object 2.5Mls out. No way would you pick that up, even using parallax scanning, unless you were there for a day or more. While I know what it is (and doing a search on the forum might let you know what it is) I will leave it up to readers to choose whether to go take a look or not.

Considering that this object is real, can't you draw its vector and find almost its exact location?