Geo/bio POI scanning changes in the next update

[marx]

This was posted in the January update announcement (which was originally called the December update, but hey), but I thought I'd post a separate thread for it here, so the info and feedback don't get lost in the noise there.
Here's the relevant part:

FSS: Long delay when scanning planets with geological sites

• As it currently stands, in order for the geological/biological sites to be placed on the surface, the entire stellar body must be fully generated (we then know the topography and can place sites where they will be accessible). This can take tens of seconds.
• As part of the January Update, we aim to address this with an alternative process. We have run tests on thousands of in-game planetary bodies and by using this data, we're able to extrapolate the likelihood of geological/biologic sites being present on similar stellar bodies. We then use this data and indicate if the planet is ‘Unlikely’, ‘Likely’, or ‘Very Likely’ to have a geological/biological sites.
• It is not 100% guaranteed that there will be a geological/biological site on the planetary body, but does give commanders a much faster indication of probability. This will enable commanders to quickly ascertain if the planet's worth a visit.
• As this is an alternative way to display information, we would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.
• Please note: this will not affect Thargoid or Guardian sites, which will show up instantaneously.

Also, there was this important bit in a later reply (emphasis mine):

This approximation will help to identify the likeliness of the geological/biological site, but for a full confirmation, you will have to get closer to the planetary body and scan it using planetary probes. We would love to hear your feedback on it to determine whether or not it is better than the current process.

So, your thoughts and feedback on this?


Personally, I think it's one step forward, one step back. It really depends on how many false positives this will produce, when you'd waste time flying to and pewpewing a planet only for there to be no bio (/ geo) sites.

My suggestion would be to include a button to perform the complete scan after the approximation. Waiting on the full 20-40 seconds for it to finish would be better than spending several minutes to fly there and DSS the planet, only to find that it's empty, the approximation was wrong and you wasted your time.

 

[Orvidius]

Yeah, I have mixed feelings too. Rather than "one step forward, one step back", I might think of it more like "3 steps forward, 2 steps back", or something like that, in that it might be mildly better. I agree that being able to still get confirmation without the supercruise would be ideal, but getting a probability before waiting on the scan will be useful too.

What I originally hoped they would do is simply add an icon indicating that something is there, as soon as a slower scan starts, giving us a good way to check back on it without having to remember which ones were taking time to scan. I was thinking an icon in the Nav panel, but there are many ways this information could be presented.

But considering the technical limitations of having to render the planet first, I can understand why they're proposing this new system. Hopefully their statistical model is well trained to minimize false positives and false negatives.

 

[iain666]

I think it could be better.

I've not waited for one of the current scans to actually finish in months, I zoom through the FSS in-out-in-out and occasionally look back to see if any bio sites were turned up. If I'm looking for geo sites I just go and map whatever airless body has volcanism and I always find sites.

I expect I've missed stuff but I'm not sitting watching that blue blob spin hundreds, or thousands, of times per thing found.

Assuming "very likely" puts the likelihood of finding something reasonably high I'd much rather have one or two supercruise trips in five that turned up nothing than waiting for the FSS.

 

[Mengy]

So, your thoughts and feedback on this?

I think it's a terrible concept which would pretty much ruin POI exploration for me. The FSS already slows down exploration a ton but at least it gives us a plethora of information to work from. This new proposal results in even less info, not more.

Frankly I'm shocked that Frontier is even considering it, that's how bad I think it is.

Forcing us to do both the FSS AND the probes just to find out if a planet has anything of interest would probably make me hang up my exploration wings in Elite for good. I'm not even exaggerating, I think I'd just move on.

 

[Old Duck]

I completely support the change. The FSS is OP, and the DSS struggles to have a purpose. A long-distance scan shouldn't resolve all the details that the FSS currently does, but it is totally plausible that it would give us reliable probabilities, requiring us to visit the planet for a more detailed scan to get the exact stats.

And remember, the "cool stuff" like ruins and abandoned INRA bases will resolve instantly, so it's not like you're going to miss anything important. How many geysers or brain trees do you need to see?

ps - I actually would like the DSS to receive a buff, telling us what type of geological or biological are on a planet without having to fly down to every single one.

 

[Old Duck]

Forcing us to do both the FSS AND the probes just to find out if a planet has anything of interest would probably make me hang up my exploration wings in Elite for good. I'm not even exaggerating, I think I'd just move on.

Can I haz your probes?

 

[Sysmon]

That change is a good start in the right direction. The FSA is too efficient at resolving geo/bio PoIs (as well as too annoyingly slow). False positives (and even false negatives!) are mainstays of exploration in RL - half of what I do for a living includes filtering through such. The probability could be backed up with a gas/vapour-type (or mixes) estimate as well to stir our curiosity even more.

Now I'm even more sad I'm travelling during that beta...

S

 

[BradHann]

From an in-universe perspective I rather like it. From a gameplay perspective it sounds tedious and boring.

 

[Mengy]

The FSA is too efficient at resolving geo/bio PoIs (as well as too annoyingly slow).

How is the current FSS too efficient? It tells us whether there are geo or bio sites on the surface but we still need to probe the planet and actually fly down there to find out what types are present. That's the uncertainty in Elite exploration currently.

Under the new system we wouldn't even know if there were geo or bio sites from the FSS, we'd just get a vague probability that "something" is there. Often times we'd likely probe a potential planet just to find nothing at all. Finding bio under the new system would be extremely difficult without that FSS indication.

Doesn't sound like an improvement to me at all, it would only serve to make exploration more cumbersome than it already is.

 

[Sysmon]

How is the current FSS too efficient? It tells us whether there are geo or bio sites on the surface but we still need to probe the planet and actually fly down there to find out what types are present. That's the uncertainty in Elite exploration currently.

Under the new system we wouldn't even know if there were geo or bio sites from the FSS, we'd just get a vague probability that "something" is there. Often times we'd likely probe a potential planet just to find nothing at all. Finding bio under the new system would be extremely difficult without that FSS indication.

Doesn't sound like an improvement to me at all, it would only serve to make exploration more cumbersome than it already is.

Currently, if the FSA says there's volcanism, then there is volcanism 99.9999% of the time when carpet bombing the planet with probes from the DSS. So we already know there is geo PoIs and what kind before we have to go to the planets to probe further. That I find a bit boring.

We don't know what the cut-offs for the fuzzy descriptors will be, but 'Unlikely' could be 0.1, 'Likely' could be 0.9 and 'Very Likely' could be 0.99. Meaning that 9 times out of 10 the system would be correct in saying nothing is there for 'Unlikely' and 1 time of 100 it would be wrong saying volcanism is 'Very Likely'.

That would add a bit of gambling to exploration - a first step to make it more like RL exploration, and therefore it gets a thumbs up from me. Of course, if the probabilities were not as bipolar as I wrote them out to be, it could become frustrating unless we had more exploration tools to improve the probability with. Which this change opens up the possibility for adding!

S

 

[Mengy]

Of course, if the probabilities were not as bipolar as I wrote them out to be, it could become frustrating unless we had more exploration tools to improve the probability with. Which this change opens up the possibility for adding!

The proposed method removes a current exploration tool, and you are stating that it somehow opens up the possibility of adding new exploration tools in the future?

How?

 

[Sysmon]

The proposed method removes a current exploration tool, and you are stating that it somehow opens up the possibility of adding new exploration tools in the future?

How?

As others have stated above, EDSM already gets the PoI information very quickly compared to the resolve time within the FSA. And we have all had varied degrees of gripes with the time it takes for geological PoIs to resolve with the current somewhat inane mechanic. The update will lift out that mechanic and replace it with a probability mechanic instead. The tool itself (the FSS/FSA interface) is still there. I wonder how EDSM will fare with the changes though (not that I really care, I don't use it).

How will that open up possibilities? I assume we will get the scan result near-instantly, but for the natural PoI aspect of it, we will get a probability instead of dead-certainty. Having a probability instead opens the potential to tweak that probability towards bettering the odds.

My RL work is to increase that probability for success in mineral exploration. The chances of a prospect on a map becoming a mine is around 1:10,000 or even 1:30,000. By looking at historical data, structural setting and geological history, that chance can be increased even to 1:10. The ED equivalent at the moment jumps straight from no knowledge to nearly 1:1 chance. But if FDEV changes the mechanic so we end up with an initial, say, 1:5 chance, they could give us filters to fiddle with or maybe zoom in on the spectrum of the body itself to resolve peaks in relevant gasses, to increase the probability to 0.9 or better.

That's just me dreaming. But if we keep the current almost absolute certainty of PoI presence from the initial scan (regardless of how boring it is to wait for it to resolve), there is nothing that can be added between the FS analysis and the DSS to make exploration more interesting.

S

 

[Zieman]

FSS should tell immediately with absolute certainty if there are any type of POIs on the scanned body.
The amount and locations of those POIs should need DSS to reveal.

 

[Sysmon]

FSS should tell immediately with absolute certainty if there are any type of POIs on the scanned body.
The amount and locations of those POIs should need DSS to reveal.

That sounds so boooooring though...

S

 

[Zieman]

That sounds so boooooring though...

S

Nope.
But supercruising countless times to check if some body has POIs or not when the FSS tells us it may have them, that's BOOORIIIIIIG...

If I know that a body has certain POIs on it, I will happily supercruise to it and use DSS to determine the count & locations.

 

[Sysmon]

Nope.
But flying countless times to check if some body has POIs or not when the FSS tells us it may have them, that's BOOORIIIIIIG...

But Elite Dangerous is about flying in space...

S

 

[Zieman]

But Elite Dangerous is about flying in space...

S

Now you're just trolling.

The FSS tells us now if there's a reason to 'fly' somewhere, their proposal takes away that knowledge and replaces it with vague (probably also bugged) probabilities.

 

[Sysmon]

Now you're just trolling.

The FSS tells us now if there's a reason to 'fly' somewhere, their proposal takes away that knowledge and replaces it with vague (probably also bugged) probabilities.

Yep I was!

To me, the issue is adding "gamey" aspects to the parts of Elite Dangerous that is otherwise built on realism. Detecting relatively small things with 100% certainty at great distances to me is one such gamey thing. We have that now with the volcanic PoIs in a rather annoyingly locked-to-screen-refresh-frequency way. If the slow resolve is taken away, we will just have a gamey thing faster. Convenient, perhaps, but not really something that can be built on.

I'm fine that other things like the flight model stays gamey - one of the biggest drags of the Frontier games was the Newtonian nonsense we would often end up in.

Adding probability can be built on, and the player can then weigh up whether it is worth going to a planet with "likely" chance for volcanic PoIs if these are venting an interesting gas. Granted, that's about it for excitement at this time. But as more than just geothermal vents are added (eventually I hope) such as volcanoes and lava lakes, this could become a very exciting part of the exploration decision making process! And keeping the process aligned to what we know of science and remote sensing engineering today should keep immersion in the centre still.

S

 

[Deleted member 38366]

To me, getting reliable and certain Data was one of key breakthrough Details of the entire FSS concept.

Getting this washed out and replaced by something like "maybe, possibly, probably" would be a huge step backward.
High chance of then investigating some distant Moon or Planet, only to have the Mapping result in "None" - since it all was based on a mere few thousand data Points to create a simple Probability the Game now goes by.
Could easily result in feeling like RNG and end up being a waste of time (especially on distant bodies).

At least for i.e. a "Biological - {nn}" I know what I'll get and travel 500.000Ls
For a "Biological - maybe" though? I doubt that'd make sense and motivate for such a trip. No later than eating a few duds, that motivation would easily be killed off.

PS.
I'd be okay if they'd replace fixed numbers with a simple "Detected" and "None".
That could maybe still accelerate the de-seeding process considerably, while still leaving sufficient certainty.
I could live with not knowing if it's 4 Geo sites or 28. Or 6 Bio sites or 16. But knowing if there IS or NOT - that's where the money is at for me.

 

[CMDR Eryn Liamson]

My first reaction to this was "yeah, that's just going to be annoying", but having read through the comments here and in DD, and thinking about how this would affect planetary scans and giving us something to do while exploring I'm a bit more in favour of it, even just for the "all hands on deck, shiny thing alert!" factor.

Thinking about stellar phenomenon for example. When finding one, there's no indication of what it might be, we still need to go investigate. Why should planets be any different?