Introduction
With the 3.3 update the exploration mechanics have been revised, changing the flow of how systems are surveyed. As has become clear the last month, various concerns and objections have been raised by the community. While it is inevitable that changes will always result in polarized opinions, it seems worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to modify or add to the current system in a way to be more inclusive to people with varying preferences as to how to explore in Elite: Dangerous. This brief document aims to outline a proposal that would allow people who enjoy the current 3.3 system to continue as they are doing now, while adding more varied and diverse outfitting options to enable a number of alternative exploration styles.
Before this proposal is described in detail, the current system will be briefly describe, followed by the advantages of this system and a description of the two primary concerns raised. This will allow us to approach the proposal in a more structured manner while providing a clear argumentation as to why these changes might be beneficial to the community.
This brief proposal can be downloaded in a more readable format here: https://we.tl/t-MABkJkekQU
Brief overview of the current system.
Exploration as it currently stands is divided into numerous stages.
The primary design philosophy is that the new system allows people to explore locations (geysers, alien ruins etc.) more purposefully, minimizing ‘dead time’ (straight-line SC’ing, waiting for the old DSS scan to resolve). This is done by replacing them with an in-game mechanic (the FSS) to discover which planets are interesting to the player, allowing them to only SC to planets that warrant further investigation.
The two primary concerns
While there are, as with any change, a multitude of issues presented by the community, two concerns stand out. Both are related, but radically different as to how they can be mitigated. The issue in both cases is that the FSS stage contains too much functionality, and these issues will be described below.
Outlining the proposal
The objective of the proposal is to outline a system that would allow people to tailor their ship to support their preferred style of exploration, in a way that makes sense from general game design principles (i.e. a drawback in one aspect leads to an advantage elsewhere). A few changes are therefor needed, but all changes suggested below make exclusive use of functionality already present in the game.
The biggest change is changing the FSS from an ‘invisible free module’ to a free module in a new, dedicated, slot added to each ship. This makes it similar to the ‘planetary landing suite’ all ships have. In this slot various types of FSS can be placed, and the default is the current FSS we have in-game as of 3.3. The FSS also has a number of ‘slots’, in the same way the Fighter Hangar and SRV bay have. The choice of FSS influences how functionality the FSS itself has. This ranges from ‘all’ with the default scanner, to less functionality with alternative FSS. No functionality/buffs are added to the FSS stage itself at this point. All 'lost functionality' of the FSS is automatically obtained when probing a planet. In other words, no matter what the FSS does, if you probe a planet you end up with the same information as you currently would have.
The second big change is the addition of ‘utility slots’ to the FSS. Slots are used to buff the entire exploration process. For example, if you don’t want the FSS to reveal all the ‘DSS data’, you chose an FSS with less functionality and get an additional slot in return. If you also don’t want the FSS to reveal locations, that is yet another free slot. In short; the more functionality you remove from the FSS, the more slots you have to tailor other aspects of exploration. The most important type would be the ‘Energy Pulse modification’ modules. One such module would add all bodies as ‘black balls’ to the system map upon ‘the honk’. If you have this one, you can add an additional item to a second slot (if you have one) that would show ‘generic textures’ on the black bodies after honking. Other modules could increase the rotation speed of the FSS, allow for the filtering of specific signatures (only atmo ice bodies instead of all ice bodies, for example) and so forth. The default FSS comes with one free slot, alternative FSS with less functionality come with additional slots. This is a small buff to exploration across the board, allowing people to either add the ‘black body system map’ or any other change while keeping the current FSS. Any further changes require the ‘downsizing’ of the FSS.
These two changes combined would allow everyone to design their own exploration style. One ‘extreme’ is what we currently have. The other would be to remove a lot of functionality from the FSS, and add more to the honk, in effect returning to what exploration was in 3.2. To summarize, these are what I consider to be the advantages of this proposal:
With the 3.3 update the exploration mechanics have been revised, changing the flow of how systems are surveyed. As has become clear the last month, various concerns and objections have been raised by the community. While it is inevitable that changes will always result in polarized opinions, it seems worthwhile to investigate whether it is possible to modify or add to the current system in a way to be more inclusive to people with varying preferences as to how to explore in Elite: Dangerous. This brief document aims to outline a proposal that would allow people who enjoy the current 3.3 system to continue as they are doing now, while adding more varied and diverse outfitting options to enable a number of alternative exploration styles.
Before this proposal is described in detail, the current system will be briefly describe, followed by the advantages of this system and a description of the two primary concerns raised. This will allow us to approach the proposal in a more structured manner while providing a clear argumentation as to why these changes might be beneficial to the community.
This brief proposal can be downloaded in a more readable format here: https://we.tl/t-MABkJkekQU
Brief overview of the current system.
Exploration as it currently stands is divided into numerous stages.
- Entering the system. This reveals the primary star and any nearby objects such as asteroid belts.
- Sending the energy pulse (known as ‘honking’). This reveals all stars across the system (including first discovery status, if applicable), fills the energy bar in the FSS mode and reveals the location of all USS (though not the type).
- The FSS. This, using the 3.2 terms, both scans and DSS scans the bodies, provides the number and type of locations/anomalies on the surface, provides the surface map in the system overview, adds the body to the orrery and gives ‘first discovery status’ if applicable.
- Thee DSS. The DSS is used to ‘probe’ planets with geological/biological locations, revealing their exact locations. It also provides ‘first mapped by’ status, if applicable.
- Further discovery by approaching the surface, and using the SRV if needed. This is done to add locations to the codex, harvest materials from them or otherwise investigate the surface of planets.
The primary design philosophy is that the new system allows people to explore locations (geysers, alien ruins etc.) more purposefully, minimizing ‘dead time’ (straight-line SC’ing, waiting for the old DSS scan to resolve). This is done by replacing them with an in-game mechanic (the FSS) to discover which planets are interesting to the player, allowing them to only SC to planets that warrant further investigation.
The two primary concerns
While there are, as with any change, a multitude of issues presented by the community, two concerns stand out. Both are related, but radically different as to how they can be mitigated. The issue in both cases is that the FSS stage contains too much functionality, and these issues will be described below.
- Ziggy’s Blindness. This refers to the issue that too much functionality has been transferred from the ‘honk’ to the FSS. Specifically, many explorers want information available to them, to determine if the system may be of interest to them, before using the FSS. While the honk provides a lot of interesting information, explorers may not be interested in this type of information. To give an example: the honk reveals immediately if there are ELWs, but provides no information on how the system is structured, and what the odds are of finding deep canyons on a ‘moon’s moon.’ In short, what these explores want is an enhanced ‘honk’, providing some of the information on the system map, as it was previously provided.
- Drew’s Disappointment. This issue refers to the notion that the FSS reduces the need for exploring the system ‘manually’ by flying to each body in the system. While this was specifically one of the goals of the new system, some explorers simply do not appreciate it. So, as with Ziggy’s Blindness, the issue is that too much relies on using the FSS. The primary difference is that while the previous issue demands more functionality added (to the honk, in this case), the solution here is to remove functionality (from the FSS).
Outlining the proposal
The objective of the proposal is to outline a system that would allow people to tailor their ship to support their preferred style of exploration, in a way that makes sense from general game design principles (i.e. a drawback in one aspect leads to an advantage elsewhere). A few changes are therefor needed, but all changes suggested below make exclusive use of functionality already present in the game.
The biggest change is changing the FSS from an ‘invisible free module’ to a free module in a new, dedicated, slot added to each ship. This makes it similar to the ‘planetary landing suite’ all ships have. In this slot various types of FSS can be placed, and the default is the current FSS we have in-game as of 3.3. The FSS also has a number of ‘slots’, in the same way the Fighter Hangar and SRV bay have. The choice of FSS influences how functionality the FSS itself has. This ranges from ‘all’ with the default scanner, to less functionality with alternative FSS. No functionality/buffs are added to the FSS stage itself at this point. All 'lost functionality' of the FSS is automatically obtained when probing a planet. In other words, no matter what the FSS does, if you probe a planet you end up with the same information as you currently would have.
The second big change is the addition of ‘utility slots’ to the FSS. Slots are used to buff the entire exploration process. For example, if you don’t want the FSS to reveal all the ‘DSS data’, you chose an FSS with less functionality and get an additional slot in return. If you also don’t want the FSS to reveal locations, that is yet another free slot. In short; the more functionality you remove from the FSS, the more slots you have to tailor other aspects of exploration. The most important type would be the ‘Energy Pulse modification’ modules. One such module would add all bodies as ‘black balls’ to the system map upon ‘the honk’. If you have this one, you can add an additional item to a second slot (if you have one) that would show ‘generic textures’ on the black bodies after honking. Other modules could increase the rotation speed of the FSS, allow for the filtering of specific signatures (only atmo ice bodies instead of all ice bodies, for example) and so forth. The default FSS comes with one free slot, alternative FSS with less functionality come with additional slots. This is a small buff to exploration across the board, allowing people to either add the ‘black body system map’ or any other change while keeping the current FSS. Any further changes require the ‘downsizing’ of the FSS.
These two changes combined would allow everyone to design their own exploration style. One ‘extreme’ is what we currently have. The other would be to remove a lot of functionality from the FSS, and add more to the honk, in effect returning to what exploration was in 3.2. To summarize, these are what I consider to be the advantages of this proposal:
- Rather than making one or two ‘deal with it’ changes, this proposal allows for the individual customization of the exploration experience.
- No real 'competitive advantage' is obtained by deviating from the current FSS, other than any personal enjoyment people have from exploring in a different style.
- The entire proposal is based on mechanics and UI interface elements already present in the game.
- It adds modules and diversity to ship outfitting, which has been rather lacking for explorers.
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