exploration minigame 6 months later

[Skip Rockbounder]

Tic-tac-toe is also a game, it does't mean that adding a tic-tac-toe to the docking procedure would make it better.

To be honest, these discussions between the ADS and the FSS make me imagine a bunch of people arguing around 2 dog turds about which one stinks the less, even though they're both turds.

Neither the ADS nor the FSS have any gameplay value in themselves. The only real difference is that one took 3 second, the other 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The really bad part, is that after the ADS/FSS there is still the same old nothing as before, we still have to imagine the gameplay in our heads. The introduction of the FSS just delayed our imagined gameplay for a lot longer, without giving absolutely anything worthwhile in return.

I sometimes imagine Frontier making an RPG, there would be a vast landscape to roam, but every single building, fort, cave, castle or ruin would be closed, no way to get inside anything. After years of people asking FD to be able to explore building interiors, FD would finally take a bit of time to address that. There would be teasers and streams, a community discussion about interior areas would be announced, delayed and then cancelled, then a group of loyal youtube streamers would be invited for a private reveal in frontiers HQ, and leave at the end of the day, minds completely blown. Hype skyrocketed...

Then the actual release would come, and all that was done was adding a lockpicking minigame to open the building doors, but there would still be nothing in the interiors. This is the FSS in a nutshell.

Looking at it you ain't far off being 'Bang on'

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Tic-tac-toe is also a game, it does't mean that adding a tic-tac-toe to the docking procedure would make it better.

To be honest, these discussions between the ADS and the FSS make me imagine a bunch of people arguing around 2 dog turds about which one stinks the less, even though they're both turds.

Neither the ADS nor the FSS have any gameplay value in themselves. The only real difference is that one took 3 second, the other 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The really bad part, is that after the ADS/FSS there is still the same old nothing as before, we still have to imagine the gameplay in our heads. The introduction of the FSS just delayed our imagined gameplay for a lot longer, without giving absolutely anything worthwhile in return.

I sometimes imagine Frontier making an RPG, there would be a vast landscape to roam, but every single building, fort, cave, castle or ruin would be closed, no way to get inside anything. After years of people asking FD to be able to explore building interiors, FD would finally take a bit of time to address that. There would be teasers and streams, a community discussion about interior areas would be announced, delayed and then cancelled, then a group of loyal youtube streamers would be invited for a private reveal in frontiers HQ, and leave at the end of the day, minds completely blown. Hype skyrocketed...

Then the actual release would come, and all that was done was adding a lockpicking minigame to open the building doors, but there would still be nothing in the interiors. This is the FSS in a nutshell.

All mechanics will look like turd if you take them down to the basics. Regarding the FSS, what I find worthwhile is the feeling that I am finding this stuff myself instead of it being handed to me on a plate, the mechanic itself is no whats important. So to me it has value.

The old ADS had none for me. In fact I didn't see the need to press the button for five seconds, that was just busy-work as it didn't hold any purpose and had no value in itself. I think it was put there in a tragic attept to make you feel you were doing something. The ADS could have gone off automatically when you jump to a new system.

What the game does need though is much more interaction with the game world when it comes to exploration. There just isn't enough of it.

 

[askavir]

All mechanics will look like turd if you take them down to the basics. Regarding the FSS, what I find worthwhile is the feeling that I am finding this stuff myself instead of it being handed to me on a plate, the mechanic itself is no whats important. So to me it has value.

The old ADS had none for me. In fact I didn't see the need to press the button for five seconds, that was just busy-work as it didn't hold any purpose and had no value in itself. I think it was put there in a tragic attept to make you feel you were doing something. The ADS could have gone off automatically when you jump to a new system.

We could turn it around and say that before you had to find the POIs by yourself, and now with the FSS they're given to you on a silver platter... It's all a matter of perspective.

What the game does need though is much more interaction with the game world when it comes to exploration. There just isn't enough of it.

In this we're in complete agreement. I wouldn't mind having to put up with the FSS, if after using it I would have good gameplay reasons to spend 1 hour or more doing stuff (assuming there would be stuff to be done) in a system.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

We could turn it around and say that before you had to find the POIs by yourself, and now with the FSS they're given to you on a silver platter... It's all a matter of perspective.

The FSS doesn't find the POIs, it just tells you that they are there. But I do agree that it gives too much information. I would much prefer if the FSS just said if geological, bioloical and technology activity was reported but not type and amount, the probes would give you some more details.

I would also prefer if the FSS didn't give you the percentages of the materials found. I just said materials detected and you use the probes to get the finer details, giving you reasons to fly to planets that don't have POI on them and probe them.

Now we come to the probes. I don't mind the activity of it, but again it gives too much information. It should give search areas so that you need to search for these places yourself and only get pinpoint coordinates after using the scanner on them. It allows us to find them ourselves and it gives more reason to use the scanner.

In this we're in complete agreement. I wouldn't mind having to put up with the FSS, if after using it I would have good gameplay reasons to spend 1 hour or more doing stuff (assuming there would be stuff to be done) in a system.

Agreed.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I would also prefer if the FSS didn't give you the percentages of the materials found. I just said materials detected and you use the probes to get the finer details, giving you reasons to fly to planets that don't have POI on them and probe them.

I'd prefer the auto-resolve to give percentages - like the old-DSS used to do. I think having to map a planet to discover whether you actually want to land on it (based on material composition) would be another case where you have to do something to determine whether or not it was worth you doing it. An equivalent would be hiding 'Wanted' status in supercruise so that you had to interdict a ship to determine whether you wanted to interdict it.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I'd prefer the auto-resolve to give percentages - like the old-DSS used to do. I think having to map a planet to discover whether you actually want to land on it (based on material composition) would be another case where you have to do something to determine whether or not it was worth you doing it. An equivalent would be hiding 'Wanted' status in supercruise so that you had to interdict a ship to determine whether you wanted to interdict it.

No as It would still give you what materials are there just not the percentages. So to your analogy, you would know they are wanted, but would have to use the KWS to get all the information, just like what we do now.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

No as It would still give you what materials are there just not the percentages. So to your analogy, you would know they are wanted, but would have to use the KWS to get all the information, just like what we do now.

Oh, I thought you meant hiding the entire composition, not just the percentages - that'll teach me not to scan-read while I'm supposed to be working
Yeah, I'd be totally okay with probes giving the precise details, so long as you already know that the elements are present

 

[Drelthar]

No as It would still give you what materials are there just not the percentages. So to your analogy, you would know they are wanted, but would have to use the KWS to get all the information, just like what we do now.

Actually, that's not entirely correct.

When passive scanning ships, you get their wanted status, and if you then check the left panel, you can see the amount they are wanted for in this jurisdiction.
The KWS is then needed to reveal exactly how much they have on them from any other jurisdictions (and also potentially any galaxy wide kill warrants allowing you to kill them in this jurisdiction without legal recompense)

So there's a couple more layers to the wanted scanning system.

So what might work... to push it, would be a list of materials ordered by highest to lowest percentage - then percentages exactly when you get closer(?) - then the probes show you any regions of interest (geo POIs etc.) - and ideally an additional thing with what I was hoping for when they made the probes - actual regions of the surface which simply have more of certain elements than in other areas - in the case of there being no GEO POI's etc.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Actually, that's not entirely correct.

When passive scanning ships, you get their wanted status, and if you then check the left panel, you can see the amount they are wanted for in this jurisdiction.
The KWS is then needed to reveal exactly how much they have on them from any other jurisdictions (and also potentially any galaxy wide kill warrants allowing you to kill them in this jurisdiction without legal recompense)

So there's a couple more layers to the wanted scanning system.

So what might work... to push it, would be a list of materials ordered by highest to lowest percentage - then percentages exactly when you get closer(?) - then the probes show you any regions of interest (geo POIs etc.) - and ideally an additional thing with what I was hoping for when they made the probes - actual regions of the surface which simply have more of certain elements than in other areas - in the case of there being no GEO POI's etc.

It wasn't my analogy and they don't really compare, but the KWS does give you more information which is my point, the basic scan gives you the basic info (materials present), the KWS gives you more detailed info (the percentage of materials present).

I just want a better reason to probe planets that don't have any POIs on them as at the moment the only real reason is tags and credits.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

So what might work... to push it, would be a list of materials ordered by highest to lowest percentage - then percentages exactly when you get closer(?) - then the probes show you any regions of interest (geo POIs etc.) - and ideally an additional thing with what I was hoping for when they made the probes - actual regions of the surface which simply have more of certain elements than in other areas - in the case of there being no GEO POI's etc.

Yeah, given that we now have mining hotspots in rings, it really makes no sense that we don't have prospecting hotspots on planets.

 

[WR3ND]

The fastest way to scan for planets is to work your cursor along the orbital plane, zig-zagging a little, while twiddling the radio slider back and forth between the band that covers planets. As long as you're near the freq band you can see the outlines or shadows of planets. Plus the little directional spikes around your cursor points towards those objects in the freq band that you're searching for. Then you fine tune it as you mouse over them shadows.

God help those using joysticks. It must completely suck.
At least I can still adjust the DPS of my mouse on the fly so I can basically fly all over the screen.

It's really a no brainer. Doesn't even need skill. It's completely procedural.
I could FSS a system pretty fast.

But it's still a boring feature. Yawn.

A bit of a hassle on my game controller's analog sticks. Could use some more acceleration on the high throws and a faster scan rate across the screen, for sure. I use the left and right top bumper buttons for the dialing bit at least though.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

All mechanics will look like turd if you take them down to the basics.

No.

 

[zimms]

Yes?

If you dismantle them completely, in the end there's always just one action left, technically.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Yes?

If you dismantle them completely, in the end there's always just one action left, technically.

If you dismantle them completely then they are no longer what they were. It's like saying that chess is only about moving pieces, you cannot play chess just by knowing that.