FSS - my opinion

[MattG]

Out of interest though, why couldn't you find another system like that with the new mechanic? Nothing about the planets or systems has changed, and all the same information is there. It's just how you find that information that has changed.

To use a bad analogy - previously the cover of the book was interesting and piqued an interest. Now, you have to read the whole book to find that interesting bit on page 49, paragraph 5, line 8. Not everyone has the time or patience to read the whole book.

That said, there are things you can do to help find some of the unicorns. If the OP example was the main star, then it's highly likely the body was proximity scanned - check everything that gets proximity scanned, it could be interesting (and it doesn't happen too often). If it's not the main star, or if you're looking at a gas giant, it's going to be the 'a' moon (or 1st body). These are usually pretty easy to get first time, often the cloest blob. You don't need to scan the other 8 moons because if the first isn't interesing(*) it's unlikely the others are. Similarly, pair it up with something like Elite Observatory and you'll get notifications to tell you about anything potentially interesting.

This is far from perfect, but you can limit the annoyances and monotony to an extent.

* for some value of interesting, anyway

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Surely the ADS was a god-scanner anyway? Infinite range on a scan that instantly shows you all of the bodies in a system and how they relate to each other. MB always said his biggest regret about Exploration was giving the ADS infinite range. Now certainly scanning all of those bodies is a hell of a lot easier now, but the initial results were far more "god-mode" with the old system than the new.

So, what are your concerns regarding the infinite range of the FSS? Would you not dub that a god-scanner as well?

 

[Ozric]

But I'm curious: by the "Erimus listed me as one of the pioneers of Exploration", did you mean the instance where he listed here for travelling to the Crab nebula in February 3301, or did he post something else I missed?

Yeah that's the one, I just thought it was a quick way of giving you an idea of how long I'd been exploring and maybe if I'd been exploring since the first day of gamma, which I have, for the vast majority of my game time it might show I have used both systems a lot

Well, I'm not on a first-name basis with any of the developers, but Mr. Brookes certainly commented about regretting how simple the ADS was, and Mr. Bourke-Waite was in charge of designing it, so he was certainly responsible for signing off on it. Plus he was the one who posted that they are entirely happy with how the FSS is.

Hehe I'm not either for the most part, but I'm on a phone and typing Adam is easier than Mr Bourke-Waite.

Not quite. Perhaps that was the initial intent, but Frontier had to have realised once the feedback (even before the FSS was out in the beta) came in that it's going to displease a lot of players. Unfortunately, instead of trying to please everyone, they doubled down on what they had and refused to implement even minor changes based on the feedback. Some of them could have gone a long way. They also said that they realise the changes are going to throw some groups of people under the bus, but that's that: well, that's not quite pleasing everyone, is it?

I didn't say they succeeded

To use a bad analogy...

Yes I agree to find a similar thing now takes more effort, but it is still possible.

So, what are your concerns regarding the infinite range of the FSS? Would you not dub that a god-scanner as well?

It is indeed, and the fact you can accurately find out all the information from a body over 300k Ls away is not something that I am overly keen on myself. I was just pointing out that the ads was equally OP.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

It is indeed, and the fact you can accurately find out all the information from a body over 300k Ls away is not something that I am overly keen on myself. I was just pointing out that the ads was equally OP.

Considering the alternative, limited ADS/FSS lets say 100,000 ls for argument's sake. I believe the result would be that binaries beyond that limit would be largely ignored. Few CMDRs would repeatidly travel those distances just to discover what's there.

MB might have regretted unlimited range, the FSS's equal range indicates that the alternative is a worse option, also accoording to the developers it seems.

To make it a better option would mean making traveling in system between stars an enjoyable gameplay mechanic.

 

[schlowi123]

I dare to say that trojans are much more easy to find than before the FSS … I would consider them interesting.

Also, the sheer amount of planets that is actually scanned now increases the number of interesting stuff (see the sentence above). Just look for it in the EDSM data and pay these planets a visit. Or isn't this about interesting stuff but about vanity "being first and putting my name to it"? Well, most interesting stuff is not mapped. So map it.
Otherwise … I can imagine that I have seen more extraordinary stuff than most other pilots and probably a lot of that just because somebody else discovered it before me … did I put my name to them … well, to a few of them I did.
But I admit that this is a different type of gameplay.

And "repetitive gameplay, that actually hinders me from finding interesting stuff" … well … I misunderstand that deliberately … but these witchspace tunnels … are we talking about them? Maybe not, because these are no game_play_ at all.

And yes, I've played before the FSS and I like the FSS better. I found it actually a bit funny when it was released, because a couple of weeks before I thought about a similar device for scanning planets (instead of flying there). So … maybe I'm biased because of my different playstyle.

All of that does NOT mean that I think the FSS is perfect. Far from it. But I would say that its exploration utility is higher than with what we had before. For most of the pilots that is.

 

[marx]

I wonder why he (M. Brookes) would say he regretted the infinite range of the ADS though. It's not like it scanned the bodies for you. With the BDS and IDS, you had no way of knowing whether there might be distant stars and bodies outside a small range, only by doing time-consuming parallax exploration. Very few people would have wasted their time with that, so many "secondary" systems would have remained entirely unknown.
Now, "MB always said his biggest regret about Exploration was giving the ADS infinite range."? I'm surprised that was his biggest regret. Very few people actually complained about it, and the most common complaint was, and still is, summed up as: JJJJJJJJJJ. The "jump in, scoop, press a button to look up system map, fly to bodies of interest if there are any, point at next star, jump" routine was modified to "jump in, scoop, press a button to look at a barcode, click on blue blobs if there are any body types of interest on the bar, point at next star, jump". Plus it also includes the fact that interstellar travel as it currently is is simplistic and quite boring.

And, well, I think that looking at many of the design decision documents about exploration and regretting that the parts of it that weren't implemented didn't make it in should be a bigger regret than "if only we didn't give the ADS infinite range".
Undoing that didn't lead to a lasting increase in exploration activity, in any case.

The good thing about Chapter Four is that it gave the beginnings of what could be some new exploration gameplay: finding, cataloguing and examining how spaceborne life behaves. It is, however, let down by the quality of the content, the distribution of it, the lack of gameplay tie-in to other places, and the general lack of rewards as well. On the other hand, if Frontier finally fixed all the bugs related to them and would expand upon the above more, that would be some good gameplay. The base mechanics are at least there. But yeah, Frontier doesn't seem to be in any rush to even fix the bugs that were released in 2018. December.

 

[Ozric]

Considering the alternative, limited ADS/FSS lets say 100,000 ls for argument's sake. I believe the result would be that binaries beyond that limit would be largely ignored. Few CMDRs would repeatidly travel those distances just to discover what's there.

MB might have regretted unlimited range, the FSS's equal range indicates that the alternative is a worse option, also accoording to the developers it seems.

I wonder why he (M. Brookes) would say he regretted the infinite range of the ADS though. It's not like it scanned the bodies for you. With the BDS and IDS, you had no way of knowing whether there might be distant stars and bodies outside a small range, only by doing time-consuming parallax exploration. Very few people would have wasted their time with that, so many "secondary" systems would have remained entirely unknown.
Now, "MB always said his biggest regret about Exploration was giving the ADS infinite range."? I'm surprised that was his biggest regret.

I always enjoyed the parallax exploration, but then I'm a bit strange like that. I am slightly concerned MB might not have said it was his biggest, and may have just said a big regret. I do think it's worth remembering as I said earlier that he left Elite long before the FSS was probably even in the design stages, so I'm not sure how much input he would have had on the new system.

The good thing about Chapter Four is that it gave the beginnings of what could be some new exploration gameplay: finding, cataloguing and examining how spaceborne life behaves. It is, however, let down by the quality of the content, the distribution of it, the lack of gameplay tie-in to other places, and the general lack of rewards as well. On the other hand, if Frontier finally fixed all the bugs related to them and would expand upon the above more, that would be some good gameplay. The base mechanics are at least there. But yeah, Frontier doesn't seem to be in any rush to even fix the bugs that were released in 2018. December.

Agreed.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Enjoying finding distant binaries through paralax is one thing.

Making the journey towards them however...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Nothing gave me such a good feeling for space and large distances as parallaxing. Since then I have not had a comparable feeling in other activities, except perhaps during some close flights above surfaces. In my memories I still consider parallaxing one of the least artificial activities in ED. When I say "in my memories", it's because it has completely lost its relevance to the game. I can understand though, why in a modern gaming world such long lasting activities have no place anymore. Sad, but true.

Even though I hated parallaxing, you did experience the fact that you're not just looking at a pretty night sky, but each of those dots represents an actual star. Sure you can jump to another system, but that's interrupted by a loading screen. When finding and travelling in-system, you're along for the entire ride. Which was exciting ... at first ... maybe at second ... at eleventh though .... But the impression was made, I was amazed by the Stellar Forge and it no doubt was the first step in my exploration career.

Ozric touched on this before, a major flaw in the exploration mechanic is the singular sequential way in which we are goaded to explore. There could be tools to assist explorers in their parallaxing ways, other tools would be used for those who are completionists (the FSS fits that role), other tools for those who look for anomalies, and again other tools for more scientific explorers who really want to get stuck in data. Look at the loadouts for those who enjoy combat. There is a meta, but CMDRs have preferences, or get creative in combinations of equipment. Most explorer loadouts look very similar, and the only part where they differ is in sizes and engineering. Explorers have very few degrees of freedom to work with.

 

[AdmiralXanos]

the statement that the fss can be boiled down to:

1. J
2. pull up bar graph
3. scan all blue dots or just the frequencies you're interested in
4. fly 5min to get a surface scan
5. repeat

forget the game play before was

1. J
2. honk
3. fly 5min for a single scan
4. grab a surface scan if you have the equipment (doesn't add to gameplay because its automatic so lets just cross this out)
5. repeat

To me, you can boil any gameplay mechanic down to just keypresses. Even the best games. That's just how we interact with video games. the extra layer they added to system scanning is as good as anything I could dream up. It gives you signals with a filter you control, set it right and you reveal it. Its like playing with your dad's oscilloscope as a kid. Anyone saying its slowing them down or its too tedious aren't exploring, they're the equivalent of the google maps car. They fly through systems letting the equipment handle the 'difficult mapping' parts.

 

[marx]

The problem with parallaxing would in my opinion be mostly the question of reward, time invested, and frequency. You'd have to spend a considerable amount of time in every system (but this could be negated by the scanner telling you whether there is something beyond its range or not!), only to find out that most of the time, you ended up with a few smaller stars, orbited by the usual barren planets.

Same also goes for the FSS, by the way. Although it's not the intended primary usage, if you were to fully scan every system, you'd have to spend a considerable amount of time, only to find out that most of the time, you ended up with yet another system with common bodies in common configurations, and the like. This is because the galaxy is as it is, and as it should be.
This is also why I tend to say that the main mechanic of exploration shouldn't be data logging of bodies.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Anyone saying its slowing them down or its too tedious aren't exploring, they're the equivalent of the google maps car. They fly through systems letting the equipment handle the 'difficult mapping' parts.

It's unfortunate you added this sentence after making some good points.

I am saying it is too tedious. And I am saying calling the FSS 'difficult mapping' equipment is an atrocious use of the word "difficult". I won't say it's slowing me down, since the FSS made me travel the 12 KLY I was away from the bubble when the update dropped faster than I ever did. When before I would be distracted by systems I'd fly through, now I ignored all but the shinies (ELW, WW, AW) and made more money that 12 KLY than I did in a whole year.

And I was most definitely exploring before. Exploration is simply to go in search of discoveries in unfamiliar areas. What kind of discoveries we're looking for differs per explorer. Mine happened to be oddities. Outlier systems. Unique configurations. And all those words hint at the problem. They are rare by definition.

Now I have to FSS each and every system I fly through, because I'd hate to miss an interesting system. And with that frequency the FSS does indeed become tedious. Not because it's a bad mechanic, but because it has become the primary gameloop. Alternatives aren't available. I can't analyse the spectrometer to determine whether a system deserves to be investigated. Which is why I gave up during those 12 KLY and gunned it for home.

I have to investigate in order to determine whether I want to investigate.

Well, at least I got a shot out of this. Bottoms up

 

[Pirin]

Parallax is not dead though. I use it a lot when surveying the galaxy map. Spend quite a lot of time doing this.

 

[Darkfyre99]

good luck finding anyone who explores more than the average and still likes the FSS

Congratulations, it’s your lucky day!

Of course, I still use the FSS as a multi-role scanner that lets me quickly analyze a system for further exploration, and to “clean up” the icy bodies after visiting the interesting parts of a system, as opposed to the proverbial “mini-game“ that must be completed before going anywhere.

My only real complaints remain a few long standing VR bugs, the artificial speed restriction to its use, and I can’t call up body information on my in cockpit target panel... but the last isn’t the FSS’ fault.

 

[Darkfyre99]

As for finding - and now not finding - some rarities, here's another. Before the FSS:

After the FSS:


Now you can't tell from the barcode that there's something out of the ordinary in there. I was at 55,000 systems discovered at the time IIRC, and to find it now would require me to fully scan every system: doing that many is not something I would wish on anyone.

From the barcode? No. But I've found that binary+ planets like that stick out like a sore thumb during my initial sweep of a system. Furthermore, in pancake mode, with its working (fix the VR part of your game, Frontier!) orbital lines, I would be able to determine the overall heirarchy simply resolving one or two bodies of that quintary world. Granted, it can never compete with holding down a button for five seconds, but pre-FSS finding that kind of thing would've kind of a "eh" moment for me. Post FSS, that's the kind of thing which makes me immediately exit the FSS and head out to take a closer look, while keeping an eagle eye out for any other bodies in the system that I can visit either on the way or afterwards.

It's that whole "feeling of discovery" I've always talked about. For me, the old ADS system was so anti-"feeling of discovery" that I didn't explore in a game where I'd looked forward to being able to explore the galaxy ever since the Kickstarter. Post FSS, I'm kind of pacing myself to arrive in Colonia when the "New Era" drops so I can pick up any new exploration equipment and then head right back out into the black.

edit:

Ozric touched on this before, a major flaw in the exploration mechanic is the singular sequential way in which we are goaded to explore. There could be tools to assist explorers in their parallaxing ways, other tools would be used for those who are completionists (the FSS fits that role), other tools for those who look for anomalies, and again other tools for more scientific explorers who really want to get stuck in data. Look at the loadouts for those who enjoy combat. There is a meta, but CMDRs have preferences, or get creative in combinations of equipment. Most explorer loadouts look very similar, and the only part where they differ is in sizes and engineering. Explorers have very few degrees of freedom to work with.

Given the heavy dose of parallax discovery in my style, I've found that the FSS to be quite the handy tool when I'm in the mood for some proper parallax exploration. Which is a big part of why I still like the FSS. It's such a flexible exploration tool in my experience... and it would be even more flexible if Frontier would get rid of that lousy, artificial, and completely unnecessary "you must throttle down to use it" restriction.


edit the second:

The problem with parallaxing would in my opinion be mostly the question of reward, time invested, and frequency. You'd have to spend a considerable amount of time in every system (but this could be negated by the scanner telling you whether there is something beyond its range or not!), only to find out that most of the time, you ended up with a few smaller stars, orbited by the usual barren planets.

Same also goes for the FSS, by the way. Although it's not the intended primary usage, if you were to fully scan every system, you'd have to spend a considerable amount of time, only to find out that most of the time, you ended up with yet another system with common bodies in common configurations, and the like. This is because the galaxy is as it is, and as it should be.
This is also why I tend to say that the main mechanic of exploration shouldn't be data logging of bodies.

Again, speaking personally, the main reason why my exploration style includes some parallax discovery (and sometimes doing entire systems that way for the lols) is for the reward.

For me, that reward isn't credits. I've got 375 million credits in the bank, a billion in assets, and EDSM's current estimate of my exploration data is another three billion... which I believe doesn't include all the worlds I've mapped, from tiny icy worlds with interesting geology, to mighty life bearing gas giants I've mapped because I'm hoping some other explorer will see my tag, and it'll keep them up at night wondering who in their right mind would their time on it?

That reward isn't "discoverd by" or "mapped by" tags either. I'm sure 99% of the systems where I've gotten "first" tags on will never be visited by another player, and I'm fine with someone else getting something I consider of dubious value.

My reward is that "feeling of discovery," that moment where you see a bright point of light moving against the starry background, and you realize that you're looking at an alien world. That's what's keeping me out here, when real life gives me an opportunity to play. If it wasn't, I'd be Buckyballing it Back to the Bubble, once again making making life difficult for the Evil Galactic Federation, and its ruling corporate oligarchy, and spreading the light of freedom and prosperity across human space, and beyond!

 

[Eahlstan]

And yes, I've played before the FSS and I like the FSS better.

Me too, and I'd say that I'm a 'more than average' explorer.
The sheer amount of lost data through the fact that scanning a whole system could easily take more than an hour before the introduction of the FSS still makes me sad. Now even systems with more than 80 bodies take me less than 10 minutes to scan.
The old way led people to only scan 'interesting' bodies, potentially leaving interesting or 'odd' bodies unnoticed. Beside CMDR ShadowWolfe I knew no explorer who scanned every body in every system he jumped to.
The sheer amount of data being collected since the FSS makes my inner 'yay data'-child smile of joy.

 

[iain666]

I've decided that, on balance, I like the FSS better and I've explored more than most.

Could it have a nicer UX? Yes.
If you're really interested only in things you could tell at a glance from the old honk is it worse? Yes.

For me, though, what it gives me over the honk for an acceptable investment of time is well worth it.

I scanned absolutely everything in my first seven or eight hundred systems before I couldn't take it any more. 60,000 systems later the FSS started letting me scan everything again and now when I open the system map I can see all the details, not just probably planet types and orbital configuration, and decide if I want to take a closer look at something. Combine that with Elite Observatory, and it's obviation of the idea that had been floating around in the back of my mind of adding a similar feature to EDD, and it's really hard to miss anything you might be interested in now.

 

[Anticon]

FSS or no FSS is like Vanilla or Chocolate : depends what YOU like. I find the FSS just great when used with Elite Observatory (kudos again). I've spent time exploring the world for fossil fuels, and now I've scaled up to stellar size, still with the same attitude - unless you believe there's something fantastic to find and/or learn out there, just stay home and do something else. But if you go and explore, look at everything along the way, and think about it. Otherwise you may never learn anything new, and you might miss "the big one" (whatever that is).
Then again, it's just a game.... so enjoy the willing suspension of disbelief, and appreciate your fellow cmdrs' enthusiasm.

 

[Riverside]

My view on this topic hasn't changed, and really time & experience over the past year & a bit has only reinforced my view that the old functionality should have been retained.

Couple of points though, firstly I thought the moderation of previous discussions was excellent (ie minimal), the essence of the threads were largely left undisturbed, and secondly the idea that infinite range was ever a factor to compare the before & after is ridiculous. Infinite range is clearly what players voted with their credits to get when they had the choice between Basic, Intermediate & Advanced Disco Scanners.

And as a tool to do a job the FSS & DSS are toy-like but okay (so was the old stuff really), but trivialises obtaining huge values of exploration data for tactical use. Pre-3.3 I returned from an 18 month grand tour of the galaxy with the better part of a billion credits worth of data on board and used quite a bit of it to flip my home system back to my preferred faction single handed. It wasn't easy to get the data, but in-universe I made good use of it and actually lost quite a bit (~300kCr I think) when I lost a hull in a CZ while flipping the system. Before it was really too hard, now it is far too easy. Many players were not up to the challenge before 3.3, but there was some challenge for the tenacious role player.

But now there are different challenges with a difference slice of the cake to work with. I have remained in explored space since early February 2019, I spent about a month using the FSS & DSS, ticking Codex boxes & reckon there's about 100hrs of play time in uncharted territory before it starts to feel samey & homogeneous (as procedural generation tends to do). In explored space (systems new to me but already tagged by others) it remains endless, and is now highly lucrative.

To me the answer is obvious, the new stuff should have built on what was already there in the whole galaxy, just as it does in the bubble & tagged systems so that everyone was better off than they were before 3.3.

 

[marx]

Congratulations, it’s your lucky day!

Erm, no offense, but you said you explore less than three hours a week, and that you aren't back from DW2 yet: are you sure that's more than the average?

From the barcode? No. But I've found that binary+ planets like that stick out like a sore thumb during my initial sweep of a system.

Okay, but that doesn't matter. The point is that you can't tell from the barcode, same as you can't tell if there's a GGG, and so on. If you start panning and scanning stuff, you've invested a considerable amount of time already. That one example, I'm not even sure how rare it is: what I do know is that out of 67,000 systems so far, I've found only this one, and I know people who did more than me and haven't found one either.

Moving on though, it's interesting to see how more people chime in that they like the FSS for what it is about: data logging. In other words, that's another kind of reward that has been made easier, not just in the form of faster credits and tags - what it was designed for - but also more full system scans. I suppose I should have worded what I meant better, so now I edited it: although they do like the increased rewards, once the novelty has worn off (hence my earlier comment about how much people have explored), not many people say that they still like the FSS's gameplay. Of course, some people like simple and repetitive gameplay more than others do (one person's "tedious" can be another's "relaxing"), so then we're in the field of individual preferences, likes and opinions.

Minor note:

Infinite range is clearly what players voted with their credits to get when they had the choice between Basic, Intermediate & Advanced Disco Scanners.

It also certainly helped that besides the initial cost in credits, there were absolutely no downsides to fitting an ADS instead of a BDS or IDS. If the former weighed more than the latter, I'm certain we would have seen them used on the edges of the galaxy. If it used more power, some people might have fitted it for min-maxing their jump range again - and so on.
It would be all about adding alternatives, not taking away choice.
Me, I'm just glad that I have an alternative for finding NSPs, and even more so that it's better than using the FSS.