Eliminate the need to click on a USS to find out what it is about

[The Chairmaker]

One of the most annoying features of the game is the need to select a USS and have it reveal what it contains.

This in my opinion contributes nothing to gameplay and in many respects hides game play opportunities, specifically for newer players, who may not be aware of the variables they contain.

The game would appear a lot more natural if when flying through space we just saw "Distress Call", "Convoy dispersal pattern" , " weapons fire" etc.

This then gives us more incentive to investigate such things rather than divert from our course to target a signal only to find out it is not something we may be looking for.

If i was roleplaying a rescue pilot for example i could fly into systems and search out distress calls, this would save me the frustration of clicking on multiple useless USS.

From a gameplay perspective frontier could also potentially modify the conditions on which certain USS's occur (this may already be in the game) Hence if system is in famine we would see far more Convoy dispersal patterns, or if its an anarchy system Weapons fire detected would occur with a higher percentage.

 

[FoxFire Ayderan]

Like most people who play Elite I no longer bother checking USS's. Not worth my time or effort.

Supposedly there are game-play reasons a player might need to search USS's for something they are looking for, but other than that, who goes around checking out USS's.

As I stated in a previous post, this is terribly unengaging game-play. It's utterly unbelievable that Frontier developer's don't understand this! In fact it's quite disturbing that they don't understand this and does not bode well for the future of Elite from a game-play standpoint (as a galaxy simulator it's great though).

They could take the rubbish USS mechanic and totally transform them into something great simply by revealing what they are upfront 95% of the time. How much more engaging is it to be flying in Super Cruise and to see come across your comms "Distress Signal Detected". I'll tell you how much more. 100% more! The same with most other USS's.

And how much more engaging is for actual USS's then to be a rare event. So when a Unidentified Signal Source is detected it's an unusual thing, something rare and/or unique is going down. Suddenly the player becomes MUCH more intrigued by it and wants to scan it out to find out what it's all about.

At any rate, what's MOST discouraging about this.... I, as a new player, made this observation and noted it in a post a couple weeks ago, making the same above points. Then just the other day I was listening to some old Lave Radio podcasts from 3 years ago, and one of the early backers, Elite fanatic and Lave Radio host, was saying this EXACT same thing about the boring and uninviting USS mechanic, back then! He literally said how much more exiting and interesting it would be to see things like "Distress Signal detected" or "Weapons fire detected" come up on your screen instead of a USS that you need to stop what you're doing (have targeted) in order to scan, only to find out it's a wedding barge. Hilariously he said he wanted to go there just to blow them all up in frustration over this mechanic.

So, this has been a known issue of rubbish game-play going back to the very beginning and Frontier has done NOTHING to make it any better. So.... basically don't hold your breath on Frontier actually making an engaging game. They don't know how to do it, and they don't listen to even the original dyed-in-the-wool fans of the game going back to its inception.