Tried exploration today and found it real tedious, fast and tedious. I imagine it could have been a more involved process and require at least some planning like the OP suggests but no. Even probes are infinite. Maybe FD just wants us to finish explore the galaxy real quick so it can pull out something real magic next! Maybe...
FSS makes no sense
- Thread starter voidwalker
- Start date
Simple answer: it's a game.
Slightly less simple answer: Why the presumption that there's only one camera? You could position a number of small cameras about the ship and have fancy 34th century computers stitch the images together to produce a realistic representation of all bodies in the system. Throw in a bit of handwavium about how we get to see instant intricate details of planets that might be hundreds of thousands of LS away (which is already there), and bob's your oyster.
Slightly less simple answer: Why the presumption that there's only one camera? You could position a number of small cameras about the ship and have fancy 34th century computers stitch the images together to produce a realistic representation of all bodies in the system. Throw in a bit of handwavium about how we get to see instant intricate details of planets that might be hundreds of thousands of LS away (which is already there), and bob's your oyster.
It'll take thousands of years to finish exploring the galaxy, sorry. We're still nowhere near 1%.
Cool. Then why make exploration so quick and mindless? No one is exploring anyway, the FSS already knows everything, we're just supposed to aim it? Ugh!
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Imagine if you had some actual sensors to work with. You didn't get a plain text stating <geological (56)> and you just had to figure it out yourself through sound and color and better scanners could help you a lot but you had to buy them. At first you'd just go for educated guesswork, and so many times you would end up with nothing in your hands but that's just what exploration should be like.
With experience you'd become good. Exploration would be rewarding. It would go a lot slower, no more mapping the galaxy in a 1000 years but in ten times as much, but what's the point? Mapping it all tomorrow wouldn't make it a better experience.
And the scanners shouldn't be a pain to code at all, FD could have started with something really basic that gave minimal information, and then add better technology lorewise through updates, year after year. As it is now, it just feels pointless. I don't know. I'm back to trucking around.
With experience you'd become good. Exploration would be rewarding. It would go a lot slower, no more mapping the galaxy in a 1000 years but in ten times as much, but what's the point? Mapping it all tomorrow wouldn't make it a better experience.
And the scanners shouldn't be a pain to code at all, FD could have started with something really basic that gave minimal information, and then add better technology lorewise through updates, year after year. As it is now, it just feels pointless. I don't know. I'm back to trucking around.
Don't forget we have a very vocal part of the community here, who is all like "give us the old honk back". Because pressing a button for a few second is the apex of exploration gameplay, anything beyond that is not welcome. Imagine how things would be if you'd make things as complex as you'd like them to have.
lol 
btw, I just had to stard a flam ehr, a new thread on this, sorry!
btw, I just had to stard a flam ehr, a new thread on this, sorry!
That you mis-describe the issue does not diminish it. The old honk did not give everything, and needlessly removing the old modules was a change at the expense of existing players, leaving them in would have been at the expense of no one.
I think that went on a voyage of discovery to the sea bed.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://d2aefvhu2f0gi9.cloudfront.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
That would be me
Actually I was hoping that FDev would make exploration more complex than a point-n-click minigame. Asking for the ADS back is just so I can avoid the childish tedium of the new mechanics, and get back to exploring by flying my ship around.
I wanted DCS-in-space, but FDev seem intent on turning ED into Afterburner. (Yes, SuperSnooze Assistant, I'm looking at you!)
I guess it's possible that some people have asked for the return of the Mighty Honk but I think you're oversimplifying most of the criticism.
Overall, it seems, to me, that people explore for two basic reasons; firstly to see cool stuff and secondly to find and catalogue things.
The issue is that the ADS served the first group but not the second and it's now been replaced with the FSS, which serves only the second group.
The criticism is that it would have been possible to retain the Honk (in a diminished capacity) and supplement it with the FSS.
There's no reason why the Honk couldn't have populated the Sysmap so that people could quickly decide if there was anything worth visiting in a system without yielding exploration credits or details of the planet and then people could have jumped across to the FSS in order to "do the science" to establish the material make-up of planets, identify USSs, get the exploration credits and discover anything special that might be there.
That would have supported both exploration preferences while being a detriment to neither and would have added a bit more credibility to the operation of the FSS at the same time.
The credit earning part of the old honk functionality is completely retained by the new process. The player just doesn't get to find out what the money was for without using the FSS Scanner Screen to survey the system.
IMO having the FSS Scanner Screen survey reveal information to the same [unexplored] level of data as the ADS would have made sense. Then the player would travel towards the body (once they were able to target it & take an educated guess at what it was as before) for a closer look and to reveal the full (old) Detailed Surface Scan as before, then once the player is nearby they can make the decision to go one step further and map the body to get clues about the approximate location of persistent POIs.
The new process as implemented mechanically works but is unengaging (imo). The meta approach is not to be selective but to just scan everything from the system entry point with no regard required for distance or system structure. It is just surveying, then choosing to travel to a body knowing everything required to make the decision to map it. No guesswork, no benefit of experience, no real sense of achievement (imo) once the basic controls have been set up.
A great surveying tool though, and a great time saver for the completionist.
Uhuh.
My point was that the Honk could be reinstated just to provide a simple graphical respresentation of a system, while not providing any income, discoveries or details about the system.
It'd be there simply so players could see if there was anything cool in a system - for those who just want to look at cool stuff.
The FSS could then retain all of it's current functionality, for people who're looking for mat's, want to catalog things or who're looking for things.
Nope, not asking for 3rd person anything.
I'm exploring. I would estimate that almost 90% of my time in this game has been spent exploring, and I've been doing it since the beta. The FSS mechanic is great, I like it, it's involving and requires some attentiveness. In some ways, it's easier, in others, it's more tedious, but whether it's easy or not is irrelevant to me. I'm looking for immersive. I'm also looking for more choice. For example, explorers often don't fit much in their hardpoints, but some of us carry weapons on certain ships. Now imagine if we had a reason to put something else there. The choice would become a harder one, with more variables. It makes things more interesting. To me, at least, and I posted this to see who else it would interest.
Someone posted above that they want this to be more like DCS-in-space. And I would totally buy that game. Imagine each ship having its own unique start-up and shut-down procedure that you had to go through? That would be cool for me. But I understand that it's unrealistic for a game like this, and that DCS has an incredibly niche appeal, even more so than Elite does. I'm sure our DCS in space is out there somewhere, and will show itself one of these days, but that's not what I'm suggesting here. Not even remotely. A little more variability, and a more realistic application of optical technology for better immersion.
You have to watch the livestream where they introduced it at length for it to make sense. I remember the very first feature they sold about it was removing the need to fly your spaceship when you're exploring. Truly. Very soon after, they said something about it supporting multicrew gameplay.
Everything else to do the fss is an implementation detail.
This is what gets me about it still. Its not even optional, like everything else they've done before and in the future.
Everything else to do the fss is an implementation detail.
This is what gets me about it still. Its not even optional, like everything else they've done before and in the future.