FSS Vs ADS

[VR tazbert]

I preferred the ADS, for very subjective reasons.

Travelling around the Galaxy, I could jump into a system and honk, and the System Map would show me roughly what was there.
It may not have told me much, and it certainly didn't make much money, but it was pretty - it gave me the feeling I had actually travelled to another star system.

With the FSS, I jump into a system and get exactly the same blue oscilloscope screen I got in the last system, so why bother going there?

 

[UTU2TM]

For me, exploration isn't a race.
I prefer FSS, as I can use a variety of techniques with how much I want to uncover, before I leap to the next system. (Yeah, you can do it in ads)
I just remember that feeling of disappointment with supercruising to something I thought had value, in the ADS, and then it turned into more of the same ol' doo doo.
Until they come up with an improvement, I'll take FSS.
I'm on Xbox, if there is one thing I'd like to see is the ability to improve the slew speed in FSS. The PC folks can look at the system quickly, while the Xbox is a slog.

 

[Para Handy]

Oh lord, here we go again...

 

[Ydiss]

I preferred the ADS, for very subjective reasons.

Travelling around the Galaxy, I could jump into a system and honk, and the System Map would show me roughly what was there.
It may not have told me much, and it certainly didn't make much money, but it was pretty - it gave me the feeling I had actually travelled to another star system.

With the FSS, I jump into a system and get exactly the same blue oscilloscope screen I got in the last system, so why bother going there?

I've found it's quite different every time. Particularly if you're in a different region of space or near a neutron or white dwarf star.

That said, I'd prefer it if it had no blue tint at all.

I always look at the system map after I've finished a system. I like seeing it all once it's done. And I'll usually fully map high value targets so get to see them up close.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I will once again caution against cherry picking things that are nothing to do with the fss - here mentioned, we have planetary poi and extra things to find in space - as if they were integral to it and so justify the other junk. These things could and should have been added to the existing system, and the time wasted on implementing crappy minigames spent instead on adding fun things.

 

[Jackie Silver]

One other side effect of the FSS is that it significantly damaged the Exploration message board.

(eta) Q. E. D.

 

[znôrt]

Elite has changed from a relatively rare rank to being the second most common exploration rank, with Aimless being the first.

great analysis, crushing realization, right to the core.

I prefer the old system , it may have been slower.....But it had a soul.

exactly.

sadly, i feel the same about combat (after engineers). i don't see how engineers fundamentally improved it besides wrapping it in a catch'em all collection game. it actually made it worse, just catering to a wider audience that is more keen of been given menial tasks to entertain themselves and get a misplaced sense of "achievement" rather than playing around with what they got.

i'd like to humbly weigh in with my incredibly short experience as an explorer. i would have explored much more by now if it weren't for the fss. missed the train, should have done it sooner. i still plan to do (right now waiting for my new vr gear), but after using the senseless ball mini-game quite a bit (in the bubble) i don't like it at all. rather than going into arguments way over my greenhorn explorer's pay grade ... it's just a (another) glorified collectors game. it "lacks soul".

my idea of frontier's long postponed "fleshing out" of exploration was in the line of more types of bodies, maybe visual improvements and above all more tools to learn and understand the structure and dynamics of planetary systems or whole galactic regions, their formations, compositions and consequences thereof. this would have been incredibly engaging and great value. instead we got exactly what there already was, now buried beneath a pop-the-bubble game optimized for grind fans. plus the codex, which could have been (in my naive imagination) the equivalent of an interactive encyclopedia but is basically the ubiquitous and inane "achievements" leaderboard.

big followed by big

then again i will explore, except instead of the mechanics being a tool for that i'll dig up some astronomy atlas and reference books to come along as tools, helpers and companions, to explore what was already there since 2014. the fss will be an inconvenience i'll use as little as possible, data be damned. a bit just like engineers, actually.

 

[SystematicChaos]

It's a fact that the FSS destroyed entire play styles and FDev knew that's exactly what they were doing, despite any number of promises over the years that they would never remove existing gameplay they went and did just that. Exploration was my mainstay in the game, on two accounts, and I haven't done it since the FSS reveal. I log in from time to time to do a bit of mining with my main and that's about it.

The ability to see the system layout before I decide to scan and to target unknowns and fly to them would largely fix it for me.

 

[Mr T]

I like the FSS and did since I first experienced it. I prefer it to wondering around the whole system in SC, especially where the 2nd star is like 200,000 odd ly away.
At first I hated the DDS but now that I realised I only want to scan those planets that require 5 to 7 probes I don't mind it. I avoid scanning gas giants and the like because 20 or so probes is just painful.

 

[Numenor1379]

The FSS destroyed my exploration style. I am far more interested in potato moons, deep canyons, high mountains, etc... than the usual body type.

Now to find that stuff I HAVE to scan everything. So no, the FSS is not better.

 

[Sapyx]

I didn't know you could see if a planet was terraformable in the system map after an ADS without a close-up scan? That's better, if so.

This part wasn't directly addressed, so I'll answer it. Because it does give a bit of an insight into the doctrine that "the FSS has dumbed down exploration".

You couldn't directly see if a planet was terraformable in the System Map after the honk; it would just say "Unexplored". But terraformable planets only show up within the "Goldilocks zone" of a star. You could use a third-party tool to calculate the Goldilocks Zone for you, or you could simply guesstimate it by personal experience (eg. "this is a G class star, about the same as Sol, so the GZ will be about the same as Sol's: 450-700 Ls"). Using the "old ADS way", on the post-honk system map, you could get distances to all objects, so you could see at-a-glance which objects were likely to be "in the zone" and which were not; you'd then fly out to the suspected terraformables to scan them and see if you were right or not. And because of some quirks of the Stellar Forge, you never really knew if you were right or not, until you flew up and scanned. An experienced explorer could "get it right " maybe 90-95% of the time.

Using the "new way", you cannot know how far away a possibly-terraformable is, until you scan it with the FSS. Yes, it does pop up a distance measurement in the FSS right before you actually scan it, but you have to go to the trouble of finding it and tuning it, so you may as well take that last half-second to zoom in and scan it anyway. So if it's terraformable-hunting you're after, you need to scan every single HMC, Waterworld, Rocky and Metal-Rich planet, just on the off-chance that they're terraformable.

So, finding with certainty the terraformables is quicker with the FSS, but it removes the element of skill and luck it used to have, and also eliminates the ability to see at-a-glance that a system definitely contains no terraformables. Actually scanning the terraformables is quicker, since you don't need to fly all over the place. You can then decide to Map them or not.

Another "complaint" I've heard that's ancillary to the FSS debate: FD finally gave us an Orrery View system map option, at the same time as they removed one of the primary reasons people were asking for an Orrery View: so we could easily plot an efficient route to scan the bodies of interest in a system.

 

[Ydiss]

This part wasn't directly addressed, so I'll answer it. Because it does give a bit of an insight into the doctrine that "the FSS has dumbed down exploration".

You couldn't directly see if a planet was terraformable in the System Map after the honk; it would just say "Unexplored". But terraformable planets only show up within the "Goldilocks zone" of a star. You could use a third-party tool to calculate the Goldilocks Zone for you, or you could simply guesstimate it by personal experience (eg. "this is a G class star, about the same as Sol, so the GZ will be about the same as Sol's: 450-700 Ls"). Using the "old ADS way", on the post-honk system map, you could get distances to all objects, so you could see at-a-glance which objects were likely to be "in the zone" and which were not; you'd then fly out to the suspected terraformables to scan them and see if you were right or not. And because of some quirks of the Stellar Forge, you never really knew if you were right or not, until you flew up and scanned. An experienced explorer could "get it right " maybe 90-95% of the time.

Using the "new what are you doing way", you cannot know how far away a possibly-terraformable is, until you scan it with the FSS. Yes, it does pop up a distance measurement in the FSS right before you actually scan it, but you have to go to the trouble of finding it and tuning it, so you may as well take that last half-second to zoom in and scan it anyway. So if it's terraformable-hunting you're after, you need to scan every single HMC, Waterworld, Rocky and Metal-Rich planet, just on the off-chance that they're terraformable.

So, finding with certainty the terraformables is quicker with the FSS, but it removes the element of skill and luck it used to have, and also eliminates the ability to see at-a-glance that a system definitely contains no terraformables. Actually scanning the terraformables is quicker, since you don't need to fly all over the place. You can then decide to Map them or not.

Another "complaint" I've heard that's ancillary to the FSS debate: FD finally gave us an Orrery View system map option, at the same time as they removed one of the primary reasons people were asking for an Orrery View: so we could easily plot an efficient route to scan the bodies of interest in a system.

Thanks for the insights. I've found gauging the likely distances and chances of clusters of valuable objects somewhat intuitive in the FSS (understanding the arrow patterns helps a lot in conjunction of course). You can see almost immediately that you're looking at objects orbiting the nearest star or otherwise (and know the star type at a glance). The more I've used it, the more confident I've felt with my estimations.

I've found the thread useful. As I said in the OP, my intent wasn't to reopen an old debate about opinion (though I knew it might, regardless) but I did want to know the various drawbacks of the FSS... The sort that could be objectively stated.

I got what I wanted in that respect. Things like preferring to look at the pictures first? I get how that's preferred, particularly because it came first, but the new approach is just a different one. Certainly a somewhat more logical process in contrast to getting pretty pictures to pick from as the first port of call. I'd say I don't agree with any of these reasons, I don't bear any attachment to that old, rather fake, process. The idea that we instantly know what everything looks like in a neat picture, just from a single pulse wave that's returned to us? I am unconvinced that was less mini game than the fss.

This is all opinion, though. A preference for the old way. Which is to be expected.

I think there are compromises that could have been made and a good list of potential enhancements to what we have. Nothing wrong with those suggestions getting a bit more air time here so that's good too (even if this still very relevant area of the game has been referred to as an "antiquated" discussion, in this thread... I'd personally never give up that easily on something I was passionate about).

Ultimately though, the less subjective drawbacks to the fss (the "do the job worse" ones, not the "I preferred it when..." ones) are pretty few and very specific. I've not found any of them nearly enough of a hindrance and have taken to the fss and detail scanner systems really well. I find the task of exploring entirely enjoyable and will definitely do it a lot more than I ever intended after my first expedition in 2015 (which is to say "never again").

Whether that is the barometer for success, is debatable.

 

[SystematicChaos]

Another "complaint" I've heard that's ancillary to the FSS debate: FD finally gave us an Orrery View system map option, at the same time as they removed one of the primary reasons people were asking for an Orrery View: so we could easily plot an efficient route to scan the bodies of interest in a system.

Finding the most efficient way to go around a system (travelling salesman problem) to scan everything without criss crossing all over the place was actually a fun thing to do for some of us.

 

[Ydiss]

Finding the most efficient way to go around a system (travelling salesman problem) to scan everything without criss crossing all over the place was actually a fun thing to do for some of us.

Arguably you can still do this though? Unless you're never interested in mapping/visiting bodies.

 

[SystematicChaos]

After you've done the blob hunt. No thanks.

 

[Northpin]

You could use a third-party tool to calculate the Goldilocks Zone for you, or you could simply guesstimate it by personal experience (eg. "this is a G class star, about the same as Sol, so the GZ will be about the same as Sol's: 450-700 Ls").
...
...but it removes the element of skill and luck it used to have

Well, that's one view
Some other view is that we complain about lack of ingame tools and when they give us the tools, we complain even more that the new tools take away the "skill" of eyeballing along with the skill to use 3rd party tools.

On the same note, if we will finally get some ingame market tools (like inara or eddb) people will still complain that it takes away the skill of checking inara.
So yea, people will complain about basically everything.

I personally really like to get into a fresh system and after the honk to see only the number of bodies and a blank system map.
It certainly makes a difference compared to when i get into a previously discovered system and the system map is already populated with unexplored bodies.
It simply gives a more authentic New Discovery feeling.

For me the ADS was simply a placeholder for the real thing, which was the exploration package (in its entirety) that we got in December 2018

 

[Northpin]

Finding the most efficient way to go around a system (travelling salesman problem) to scan everything without criss crossing all over the place was actually a fun thing to do for some of us.

Arguably you can still do this though? Unless you're never interested in mapping/visiting bodies.

After you've done the blob hunt. No thanks.

Yes, after you scan the system and you get the Orrery view. It can really help plotting a course through the system
Ofc, you can still fly high above the orbital plane and eyeballing the bodies is still useable to plot a course.

From what i see, most objections are kind of nostalgic_memories - and i can sort of relate to that

Back then, when maximum jump range was 36ly and the gaps between the galactic arms were treacherous and we did not have a 20000ly route plotter...

 

[Zieman]

Back then, when maximum jump range was 36ly and the gaps between the galactic arms were treacherous and we did not have a 20000ly route plotter...

Yeah, we were REAL explorers then!
Too bad we didn't have all the tools. And when we got new tools, old were taken away.

 

[SystematicChaos]

Yes, after you scan the system and you get the Orrery view. It can really help plotting a course through the system
Ofc, you can still fly high above the orbital plane and eyeballing the bodies is still useable to plot a course.

From what i see, most objections are kind of nostalgic_memories - and i can sort of relate to that

Back then, when maximum jump range was 36ly and the gaps between the galactic arms were treacherous and we did not have a 20000ly route plotter...

We're back to the old 'you have to scan it to decide if you wanted to scan it territory'.

You can argue all you want. The FSS destroyed the game for some of us and that's the end of it.

I started parallaxing back in the day because I couldn't afford an ADS. I've no wish to do that again either.

 

[marx]

Oh lord, here we go again...

And again, and again. Threads about the FSS pop up every few months or so, and will continue to do so. Why? Because the underlying issues were never addressed, and the only way to stop them would be to finally create something new that's better for everyone than what we currently have.

(eta) Q. E. D.

Well, usually it takes about three pages. Or in DD, one

Ultimately though, the less subjective drawbacks to the fss (the "do the job worse" ones, not the "I preferred it when..." ones) are pretty few and very specific. I've not found any of them nearly enough of a hindrance and have taken to the fss and detail scanner systems really well. I find the task of exploring entirely enjoyable and will definitely do it a lot more than I ever intended after my first expedition in 2015 (which is to say "never again").

Whether that is the barometer for success, is debatable.

Mhm. We do have two more objective barometers for success: see the EDSM activity numbers and the official numbers in this thread. There's also data on squadron exploration activity, but squadrons came in the same update as the FSS did, so that part is not useful for comparison. The data on EDSM is very representative on the total data, because comparing them with the official numbers, we can see that in during the last 1.5 years for which we had the official numbers, EDSM activity made up a whopping 46% of the total activity.

The end result? In both, people used to explore more before the FSS was revealed(!) than they did after. There was a large spike with the Chapter Four update's launch, and a sustained peak period when DW2 was running, followed by activity dropping like a rock after it, to stagnation until the 2019 winter holiday sales, and a smaller but curious influx of new explorers this spring - the start of the Western pandemic lockdowns maybe? - with activity having been declining to previous and perhaps below previous levels these last few months. Oh, and fleet carriers brought no noticeable change, but it certainly appears that since then, Commanders explore more away from the galactic core than they did before.

So, if we were to take things as a whole, then after DW2, people explored about as much or just slightly below as they did before the FSS reveal. Whether that's good or bad is up to debate (it's certainly not a runaway success story though), but there's another thing to consider for context: since the pandemic, total player numbers on Steam charts have on the whole been increasing and hit a new all-time high with carriers (have gone down since, of course), while exploration barely budged.