FSS vs. ADS – and Alternative or Additional Options for Compelling Gameplay

[Faded Glory]

Neither of them is difficult or challenging. But the ADS was "hold button for 3 seconds, success".

The new equivalent of fully scanning a system now is called mapping it. Look at the use cases:

Actually, I think that's pretty subjective. It depends what you're looking for. Of course if you are looking for POI's then mapping is the thing, but mapping for the sake of it - not so sure.

And after explaining this, i can go back to the "challenge" thing. It's a bit out of context the way you see it there. We have some users here who in many threads were all like "but now it's impossible to find such stellar oddities". Where in fact it's just as well possible, but now you have to do a bit of gameplay for it.

For me it feels a bit like they are looking for diamonds. But only if they can have a magical diamond-finding-rod. Without magic to give them diamonds, they don't care for them any more. And that's why i sometimes point out the "oh how challenging the old ADS was". A number of postings here are all about eliminating newly introduced gameplay.

Again, this is the view that having seen what's in a system it is then explored, which is obviously not the case. Both the FSS and the ADS have equivalent gameplay up to the honk. The difference being that the FSS actually scans a bunch of stuff, like it or not which the ADS never did.

Nobody is arguing that the FSS doesn't add active gameplay, I acknowledge that in plenty of posts. And I also don't think anybody is asking for the FSS to be changed or removed, just have the ADS reinstated as an alternative way to get a system overview. The issue however of having to do gameplay for the sake of it, not because there's a specific goal or reward at the end is IMO poor game design.

The FSS doesn't expect players to have to scan a whole system just in case there's an ELW in it. A player will know as soon as they glance at the spectrum if an ELW is present without having scanned anything. Likewise if players are looking for POI's, they don't have to fly to the planet and map it in the hope that something might be there, they will know that for certain by scanning with the FSS before they decide if it's worth engaging in the gameplay of flying to the planet and mapping it.

Why is it so unreasonable that players looking for oddities shouldn't have the same experience. To be able to know something interesting is there so engaging in the gameplay has a purpose. To expect players to scan every system in the hope that it contains something interesting (and that something is far more rare than ELW's!) is bizarre and surely not good game design.

I mean, if you want to use combat as an example, that's like FD saying an assassination mission target is out there somewhere in a system (and specifying one system is making it far too easy, but we'll go with it), however we're not going to tell you anything about it, you'll just have to destroy every NPC you come across in the hope that it's the right one - it may take some time. You know what, I reckon there'd be some complaints...

 

[Sylow]

Why is it so unreasonable that players looking for oddities shouldn't have the same experience. To be able to know something interesting is there so engaging in the gameplay has a purpose. To expect players to scan every system in the hope that it contains something interesting (and that something is far more rare than ELW's!) is bizarre and surely not good game design.

But why is "back to the ADS" the only way to do this? It's always the same here, "back to the previous" and "undo all progress". Why not improving on the FSS? Instead of going back and eliminating gameplay, why not improve the FSS by displaying even a bit more information and improving the gameplay? I mean, a part of what some back-to-the ADS people claim that is not there actually is. It's hidden in the arrow patterns when you go around and scan. We could build upon that.

We could make a list of things which might be added to the display. There are hooks and pointers to things and FD could make them much more visible and add some more. It would be constructive, improving the FSS, without demanding to hide it behind the old ADS mechanic.

But apparently that's too much to ask for. I guess it's simply more fun to demand that FD would go back to the old, than to support suggestions which would improve what we got.

But realistically: it's very unlikely that FD will undo the FSS or go ahead and hide it behind an old school ADS module just to please a few voices here. At the same time, these voices currently clog any possible communication, where suggestions for improvement could be made. It would be so much better it people (those who actually tried the FSS would be at a huge advantage) bring in their experience and explain, what additional new signs and information they would need in the FSS to help their way of exploration. Doing so would be beneficial for everybody. The game, the players who are not aware of these things yet, FD and especially those who want these new features.

But unfortunately i know i am too optimistic here. Why be constructive, when complaining is so much easier?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

But why is "back to the ADS" the only way to do this? It's always the same here, "back to the previous" and "undo all progress". Why not improving on the FSS? Instead of going back and eliminating gameplay, why not improve the FSS by displaying even a bit more information and improving the gameplay? I mean, a part of what you claim that is not there actually is. It's hidden in the arrow patterns when you go around and scan. We could build upon that.

We could make a list of things which might be added to the display. There are hooks and pointers to things and FD could make them much more visible and add some more. It would be constructive, improving the FSS, without demanding to hide it behind the old ADS mechanic.

But apparently that's too much to ask for. I guess it's simply more fun to demand that FD would go back to the old, than to support suggestions which would improve what we got.

But realistically: it's very unlikely that FD will undo the FSS or go ahead and hide it behind an old school ADS module just to please a few voices here. At the same time, these voices currently clog any possible communication, where suggestions for improvement could be made. It would be so much better it people (those who actually tried the FSS would be at a huge advantage) bring in their experience and explain, what additional new signs and information they would need in the FSS to help their way of exploration. Doing so would be beneficial for the everybody. The game, the players who are not aware of these things yet, FD and especially those who want these new features.

But unfortunately i know i am too optimistic here. Why be constructive, when complaining is so much easier?

Asking for the ADS back is the easiest way to restore the gameplay that we're missing. It's not an optimal solution, but expecting FDev to fundamentally rework exploration AGAIN is unrealistic. Simply tweaking the FSS doesn't address my fundamental issue with it, which is that the act of registering a planet is coupled to the act of resolving it's detailed information. I don't want to do that. I want separate 'location' and 'scanning' steps, which allow me to explore a system by flying around it.

However, if the FSS was modified so that a body could be added to the System Map/Nav Panel without also scanning it, I'd probably be able to get past the out-of-cockpit minigame aspect of it. Especially if it was possible to use the FSS while flying around.

 

[Burke]

But apparently that's too much to ask for. I guess it's simply more fun to demand that FD would go back to the old, than to support suggestions which would improve what we got.

Thats cause all the suggestions generally dont address the issues caused by the loss of the old system map reveal. People want the ADS back cause thats the gameplay thats been removed. It doesnt matter how many clever ideas you can helpfully come up with when the issue is the removal of the required module.

 

[Faded Glory]

But why is "back to the ADS" the only way to do this? It's always the same here, "back to the previous" and "undo all progress". Why not improving on the FSS? Instead of going back and eliminating gameplay, why not improve the FSS by displaying even a bit more information and improving the gameplay? I mean, a part of what you claim that is not there actually is. It's hidden in the arrow patterns when you go around and scan. We could build upon that.

We could make a list of things which might be added to the display. There are hooks and pointers to things and FD could make them much more visible and add some more. It would be constructive, improving the FSS, without demanding to hide it behind the old ADS mechanic.

But apparently that's too much to ask for. I guess it's simply more fun to demand that FD would go back to the old, than to support suggestions which would improve what we got.

But realistically: it's very unlikely that FD will undo the FSS or go ahead and hide it behind an old school ADS module just to please a few voices here. At the same time, these voices currently clog any possible communication, where suggestions for improvement could be made. It would be so much better it people (those who actually tried the FSS would be at a huge advantage) bring in their experience and explain, what additional new signs and information they would need in the FSS to help their way of exploration. Doing so would be beneficial for the everybody. The game, the players who are not aware of these things yet, FD and especially those who want these new features.

But unfortunately i know i am too optimistic here. Why be constructive, when complaining is so much easier?

Again, all I can say is not once have I suggested undoing or removing anything about the FSS. I've used it plenty, it's fine for traditional credit / rank oriented exploration.

The problem with adding pointers that only appear after you've scanned something is simple. People don't, and won't want to scan something in order to see if it's something they want to scan. That's not good gameplay. As I've said before, were there no energy spectrum given after honking or charging the FSS, do you really believe people would like it? I'm not suggesting it be removed, just trying to point out that that seems to be what people are being advised to do.

Go and scan a system, once you've done that you'll be able to see whether it's interesting to you, and if it's not, well I guess that's tough. Having a post honk view that shows the presence of oddities is all that's being asked for. FD can certainly put that into the FSS if they want, and most people would be happy, although it would probably be far simpler to provide an optional module that did that, so players who don't enjoy using the FSS at all can simply target said bodies and fly to them.

 

[Sylow]

Asking for the ADS back is the easiest way to restore the gameplay that we're missing. It's not an optimal solution, but expecting FDev to fundamentally rework exploration AGAIN is unrealistic.

Yet it's much more likely that they will improve the FSS, than go back to the old. Also, note below that part of what you suggest would be just finetuning.

However, if the FSS was modified so that a body could be added to the System Map/Nav Panel without also scanning it, I'd probably be able to get past the out-of-cockpit minigame aspect of it. Especially if it was possible to use the FSS while flying around.

The first thing would be just a small modification of the FSS. And i dare to say: why not? You actually ask for a downgrade of the FSS there, which might be easy enough to do. (Then the "and completely scan in the FSS" functionality might actually be an optional module. )

And on the FSS being useable while flying: that was what asked for many times. I also would want that a lot. Unfortunately it's one of the many things which, while stated often, was also burried in a pile of "back to the old ADS" postings.

So all in all, if what you just wrote is your baseline, I think it would be very much possible and reasonable to push for that. It should be quite easy for FD to actually implement that. Even simple enough that it might be within their capabilities in the year of "lower scale updates".

FD can certainly put that into the FSS if they want, and most people would be happy, although it would probably be far simpler to provide an optional module that did that, so players who don't enjoy using the FSS at all can simply target said bodies and fly to them.

Simpler for them: maybe. Not even sure on that one. It depends on how much the recycled old ADS code intot he FSS and how much they modified the underlying libraries. But that's going off topic now.

The question is: do they want to go back to something, where they first spend a lot of work to replace it with something new? I consider that unlikely. It's much more rewarding for them to rather upgrade on something they just recently built. That's even before considering that upgrading the new thing would add more to the game and thus be more valuable.

 

[marx]

If what you want are credits (as the developers thought), then an FSS vs ADS debate would be mostly irrelevant: the most profitable way is still using the DSS. With the rare exceptions of systems with lots of bodies, and valuable ones too. In that case, the fast body scan of the FSS is of course superior.

If what you want are tags, then the FSS is far superior. You even get them automatically.

If what you want are rare finds, then the ADS was superior. It seems that people who are relatively new to exploration don't understand just how rare we're talking about: an explorer would have to visit thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of systems to find a really rare one. So whenever one found something really good, then the reward didn't come from the feeling of opening up the system map after holding down a button, as Sylow had mistakenly put it, but from the persistence of exploring so much having really paid off.

If what you want now are NSPs, then glancing at the left panel is superior.

It would be so much better it people (those who actually tried the FSS would be at a huge advantage) bring in their experience and explain, what additional new signs and information they would need in the FSS to help their way of exploration. Doing so would be beneficial for the everybody. The game, the players who are not aware of these things yet, FD and especially those who want these new features.

But unfortunately i know i am too optimistic here. Why be constructive, when complaining is so much easier?

No, you're not being too optimistic here: this has already happened.
See, before the beta, during the beta, after the beta, we did all that. Before the beta, we explained our concerns. During the beta, we gave initial feedback, and offered up constructive criticism, along with suggestions on changes that would be easy to implement but still help explorers. After the beta, we did the same. Long after it, same. And it's not just about your remarks on "those who actually tried the FSS": no offense, but several of the veteran explorers have explored more with the FSS than the vocal proponents of it in this thread combined have. (Besides, the trend from the numbers is clear: among those who explore, people tend to use the FSS less and less. The average of bodies scanned per system is going down.)

As we can all see, none of it mattered though. Frontier had barely touched the FSS so far. So, in reply to your question: is it any wonder then if people tend to complain when constructive criticism is being ignored?

 

[Sylow]

So, in reply to your question: is it any wonder then if people tend to complain when constructive criticism is being ignored?

Is it ignored? Or did they just decide not to stop everything, bench the planed upgrade and work on it for some time, before trying to get things life again? I can say so much from my time in IT: if you want to roll something out when it's perfect, you will never deliver. So you better deliver in "good enough for the current rollout" state, then see what the users want and upgrade later.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Yet it's much more likely that they will improve the FSS, than go back to the old. Also, note below that part of what you suggest would be just finetuning.



The first thing would be just a small modification of the FSS. And i dare to say: why not? You actually ask for a downgrade of the FSS there, which might be easy enough to do. (Then the "and completely scan in the FSS" functionality might actually be an optional module. )

And on the FSS being useable while flying: that was what asked for many times. I also would want that a lot. Unfortunately it's one of the many things which, while stated often, was also burried in a pile of "back to the old ADS" postings.

So all in all, if what you just wrote is your baseline, I think it would be very much possible and reasonable to push for that. It should be quite easy for FD to actually implement that. Even simple enough that it might be within their capabilities in the year of "lower scale updates".



Simpler for them: maybe. Not even sure on that one. It depends on how much the recycled old ADS code intot he FSS and how much they modified the underlying libraries. But that's going off topic now.

The question is: do they want to go back to something, where they first spend a lot of work to replace it with something new? I consider that unlikely. It's much more rewarding for them to rather upgrade on something they just recently built. That's even before considering that upgrading the new thing would add more to the game and thus be more valuable.

The thing is, my personal reasons for not liking the ADS don't line up with many (any?) other people's, so an FSS tweak that works for me won't work for them. Green Gas Giant hunters, for example, won't be helped at all by a simple decoupling of location and scanning, since they'd still need to locate everything to figure out if they want to scan anything. The only change that would restore gameplay for ALL explorers who lost it when the ADS was removed is to restore the ADS as an optional module.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Is it ignored? Or did they just decide not to stop everything, bench the planed upgrade and work on it for some time, before trying to get things life again? I can say so much from my time in IT: if you want to roll something out when it's perfect, you will never deliver. So you better deliver in "good enough for the current rollout" state, then see what the users want and upgrade later.

My time in IT tells me that if you take away functionality after 4 years, no matter how cool the new stuff is, some people will want the functionality back. Best to not take it out in the first place.

 

[Burke]

The only change that would restore gameplay for ALL explorers who lost it when the ADS was removed is to restore the ADS as an optional module.

Thats right. It might nto make them all happy but at least they would not be any worse off than before.

My time in IT tells me that if you take away functionality after 4 years, no matter how cool the new stuff is, some people will want the functionality back. Best to not take it out in the first place.

Like windows really. It doesnt matter how new and advanced and better windows 10 might be, some choose to remain on windows 7.

 

[marx]

Is it ignored? Or did they just decide not to stop everything, bench the planed upgrade and work on it for some time, before trying to get things life again? I can say so much from my time in IT: if you want to roll something out when it's perfect, you will never deliver. So you better deliver in "good enough for the current rollout" state, then see what the users want and upgrade later.

Sure, I know the exact same things. However, reasonable suggestions that should have been easy to implement have been ignored during the beta. Some examples: "reveal the system map, just with uniform gray bodies", or even "add roll controls to the FSS", "list POI numbers on the system map after scanning, not just after mapping", and so on.

Then there are serious bugs that have still not been fixed yet. The latest update even introduced more of them. So yeah, it's being ignored.

For example: multicrew. A stated aim of the exploration update was to make multicrew exploration viable. A developer mentioned that crew will be paid with credits and rank progression (but not tags), but ever since the beta, this has been bugged. Which has pretty much killed multicrew exploration.

 

[WR3ND]

...

Don't get me started on the adware OS facade known as Windows 10...

 

[Faded Glory]

The question is: do they want to go back to something, where they first spend a lot of work to replace it with something new? I consider that unlikely. It's much more rewarding for them to rather upgrade on something they just recently built. That's even before considering that upgrading the new thing would add more to the game and thus be more valuable.

The idea that putting in an optional ADS module is going back doesn't really make sense to me. The ADS honk, and the FSS honk / charge are simply invitations to the player to explore if what they see there as a result is interesting to them. Neither of them are actually exploring...

Going forward, making exploration deeper, having more things to find and more ways to interact with those things would be great, and whatever tools FD choose to do that with, I'm sure the FSS, with its capability of alerting players to potentially interesting things on planets would be central to that.

And as plenty of us have said before, having choices in how you can approach exploration can surely only be for the good of the game. If there's only one way to do things, once you've done it a few times I reckon it loses some of its luster.

 

[Sylow]

The idea that putting in an optional ADS module is going back doesn't really make sense to me. The ADS honk, and the FSS honk / charge are simply invitations to the player to explore if what they see there as a result is interesting to them. Neither of them are actually exploring...

ADS formerly also was an optional module. Now we would have it as optional module again, doing the same it formerly did. How is that NOT going back to the old?

Going forward, making exploration deeper, having more things to find and more ways to interact with those things would be great, and whatever tools FD choose to do that with, I'm sure the FSS, with its capability of alerting players to potentially interesting things on planets would be central to that.

And as plenty of us have said before, having choices in how you can approach exploration can surely only be for the good of the game. If there's only one way to do things, once you've done it a few times I reckon it loses some of its luster.

On this part i agree. More things to find: awesome! More things to do there: awesome! Upgrading the existing toolkit to do so: awesome!

But reverting the existing toolkit to what we had before: not awesome at all.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

However, if the FSS was modified so that a body could be added to the System Map/Nav Panel without also scanning it, I'd probably be able to get past the out-of-cockpit minigame aspect of it. Especially if it was possible to use the FSS while flying around.

I've always said that when you search for stuff in the FSS, you find a gravity distortion and when you get to the circle in the middle to indicate where that something is, it should populate the system map with a blank body and an unknown marker in the nav computer. This will then give you the option to zoom in and discover what is there, or select the object in the nav computer and fly there yourself.

 

[Sylow]

I've always said that when you search for stuff in the FSS, you find a gravity distortion and when you get to the circle in the middle to indicate where that something is, it should populate the system map with a blank body and an unknown marker in the nav computer. This will then give you the option to zoom in and discover what it there, or select the object in the nav computer and fly there yourself.

A reasonable upgrade. And probably (mind you, i don't know how FD implemented it, so just a guess based on my experience) also not that hard to implement. I mean, the UI already now detects when you are close enough to an object. Triggering it to add the object to the nav panel should be (if properly designed) no more than sending one trigger to the database, to set that object as being spotted by the player.

 

[Darkfyre99]

This, beyond not being able to enjoy the game any more, is what frustrates me most. After 4 years of having only TWO pieces of exploration kit - both of which were essentially mandatory - FDev chose to 'expand' exploration by replacing them with TWO pieces of exploration kit, one of which is now free. There were so many opportunities for new modules - scanners and 'scientific' tools - but instead we got a scanner that automates the 'science' part but forces us to play an unnecessary and simplistic minigame in order to find the bodies it has already identified. Planetary mapping could have been at least slightly strategic, but instead FDev caved in and gave everyone infinite probes, rendering the whole process a pointless timesink. Oh, and then it removes any actual exploration from finding POIs.

It just could have been sooooo much better.

While I disagree very much about your complaints about the FSS (shocking,I know), it is very much a disappointment that the Hauler is a better exploration vessel IMO than an Anaconda, especially now that the two new size one slots lets you install even more optional equipment while still fitting a Guardian FSD booster.

Im not sure more scanners is what was really required tbh. Add 100 different types of things to find would have greatly improved exploration without bothering anybodys play style. We have listed such ideas on this forum before... caves networks, real volcanos, bits of debris from long lost civilizations, fossils, dryed up lakes/seabeds, glaciers, gem stones... i dunno i made those up in a few seconds.

NASA Revives “Weird Life Forms” Trapped in Gigantic Underground Crystals in “Hell” Caverns

For an estimated 60,000 years, strange life forms have been living inside gigantic crystals at a location in Mexico.

www.theinvestigative.com

Yeah, this touches on the other failing of the exploration update, the severe lack of interest in the Points of Interests.

Agreed. During the two years between the Kickstarter and the Alpha, I was very much looking forward to exploring the Galaxy: scouting Hyperspace routes, analyzing sensor readings, gathering navigation data, launching a variety of probes, landing on hostile worlds to take readings and samples, and keeping myself, my crew, and my ship in working order.

Instead, we got the ADS.

Exploring a new system should’ve had a variety of things to do, enough that it could easily take up an entire session. At least the current iteration is a step in the right direction. Even the way I explore, most systems take up less than fifteen minutes, and a large chunk of that is spent landing to take “surface samples” for role-playing purposes.

Still would like more tools to choose from, more things to find, and more things to do. No objection to including something ADS like, as long as I don’t ha e to install it on my ship.

 

[Darkfyre99]

When did the ADS ever scan all the stars in the system, no matter how far they might be from the entry point by holding down a button for 3 seconds? When did the ADS ever automatically scan any bodies within 10Ls (or thereabouts) of your location without pressing any buttons at all? When were you ever with the ADS, after spotting a remote ELW (if that's what you are after) able to scan it in just a few seconds? When, with the ADS were you able to fully scan a system with 20 bodies in it in less than two minutes, or a system with 100 bodies in less than 10 minutes?

Every single frelling time, unless by “scanning” you mean grinding for credits, “discovered by” tags, or trivia, by flying up to a body, throttling down, and waiting an eternity. The ADS discovered everything interesting about a system at the press of a button.

 

[Riverside]

Every single frelling time, unless by “scanning” you mean grinding for credits, “discovered by” tags, or trivia, by flying up to a body, throttling down, and waiting an eternity. The ADS discovered everything interesting about a system at the press of a button.

And I suppose that is why I miss it and why you want it to be optional

The prize is not the system itself for me, it is getting to the system. There are so many to check, I want to be able to eliminate ones that are uninteresting as effectively as possible while also watching for Shiny Things instead of travelling blindly through them.