I like a lot of these proposals. Just a thought, what Hotas do you use, as with my Hotas, I find the FSS extremely easy to use, but I don't use the joystick, I use the ministick on the back of my thrustmaster TWCS throttle (its what I also use for my thrusters). Seems to work a treat.Wow! What happened here? An FSS thread which is not all hate and bile, but actually contains constructive feedback? A miracle has happened!So thanks to everybody here for now going this way!
So i also add a few things from my side. There was some "what would i have had instead", e.g. those with the probes, where i also think that it would've been much better than what we got. Nice idea, if i had the choice, i'd immediately switch to that. But that's a pipe dream, won't happen.
So rather what i would like (most of them not my ideas, several already mentioned before, but i still like to list them):
That's just what comes to my mind right now. I very much hope that this thread stays constructive and that FD actually reads it and considers some of the ideas here.
- More things to actually find. I am aware that this is a big deal, especially if some of it might even be hand-placed. But it would go for such a long way.
- Having some connection between FSS and normal cockpit view. The suggestion to have the wave scan displayed in the regular cockpit would be a nice start.
- In FSS mode have some info on what is happening around you. Probably the easiest way: display the ships radar while in FSS mode.
- Allow us to use the FSS while the ship is moving. Of course, targeting will be a bit harder, but it'd be a fair tradeoff.
- Implement an optional "snap to target" function. The FSS works fine when i use the mouse, but when using my HOTAS (which i still prefer, it "feels" more uthentic) it sometimes is a bit fiddly. What i would suggest is that if you bring the pointer close enough to targetable object (range might be set in ptions) and move the pointer slow enough (like below 10% joystick deflection), the pointe automatically selects the target. It would make target selection much easier when using a joystick.
- Possible: implement a "toggle" function. If you have several objects close to each other, you could press the button to toggle through them.
- Reduce the "blue hue" effect. The sparkling is a bit irritating at some time. At the same time, you could add some information by adjusting the color a bit. E.g. something of high mass could add a reddish tone to the blue color. While any object would add a tiny bit of green, so areas which contain many objects (which means they are much more likely to contain unusual stellar formations) would be green shaded on the FSS. (And yes, this is just a rough draft, a lot of improvement could be done, but you get the idea. )
How would you have implemented the FSS?
- Thread starter amadeus1171
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Just the ability to MOVE while using it!
So you can Supercruise towards a planet/body of interest, while then continuing to use the FSS en route to make good use of your supposedly valuable time.
And now with the Supercruise Assistant? Surely that would given even more benefit/depth? ie: Use the SCA to get to a destination while continuing to use the FSS?
But FD just don't seem to consider joined up gameplay and mechanics to create more depth and variety.
So you can Supercruise towards a planet/body of interest, while then continuing to use the FSS en route to make good use of your supposedly valuable time.
And now with the Supercruise Assistant? Surely that would given even more benefit/depth? ie: Use the SCA to get to a destination while continuing to use the FSS?
But FD just don't seem to consider joined up gameplay and mechanics to create more depth and variety.
Sorry. I won't switch into a discussion about HOTAS here now. The thread is too valuable and too constructive right now, to split off to this.
Okay no worries.
That would be good, but I think they would have to make some fundemental changes to how the FSS works to do that.
Well, to be fair, they have done some with the new mechanics. But there can certainly be more done in that regard.But FD just don't seem to consider joined up gameplay and mechanics to create more depth and variety.
You mean "an FSS thread in Dangerous Discussion which is not all hate and bile". Back when the FSS came, the threads in the exploration subforum were pretty good, even though they did what hadn't happened before there: attracted trolls.Wow! What happened here? An FSS thread which is not all hate and bile, but actually contains constructive feedback? A miracle has happened!
I think the last example of a thread there, with some very good points, was this one. Just to make it clear, I didn't mean my points there (since I did start the thread): posts like this one from Jackie Silver have summed things up better.
As for how I would have implemented the FSS: I've said it before, and you can find it in detail in the thread linked above. What has changed since then is that I'd do away with body scanning altogether, and make active gameplay for identifying POI types and numbers, and especially for pinpointing their location. At the very least, even the search zones we already have for missions would be an improvement.
Another big problem with exploration that I don't see raised very often is how interstellar travel is implemented. Personally, as I've written several times elsewhere, I'd much prefer it if we had an alternative(!) for long-distance travel, having to fly our ship through an "obstacle course" to get to our distant destination. Which would include a possibility of failing and dropping out somewhere else.
On the whole, I'd say that exploration needs more flying gameplay, and I don't count "turn at target and go forward in a straight line" as that.
Prior experience shows that's not going to happen. What threads like this are useful for is to give players some things to discuss among themselves, but if Frontier ever get around to improving the FSS in any way, then it's going to be on their terms.That's just what comes to my mind right now. I very much hope that this thread stays constructive and that FD actually reads it and considers some of the ideas here.
How it works was pretty much how Ziggy Stardust summed things up back then:
You missed that? Shame, it was hilarious.
First livestream, they showed of the mechanism, and assured everyone the honk would still pay.
After the first livestream the most heard criticism they got was: long range/traveling explorers would be missing a way to quickly get an idea of what kind of system they are going through. That's important, not the pay.
Second livestream: "We listened to your feedback, and we increased the pay of the honk.
Bless 'em
I find it unlikely that they'll touch the FSS beyond bug fixes before the next expansion, so it's best to manage expectations. However, even if they do, then like all the other reworks, it'll just show up in a beta (if there even is a beta, that is), and what we see there is what we're going to get. Some minor modifications perhaps, but nothing major.
Although there is one thing that might make them take a look at it again: the upcoming minor updates are mostly focused on new players, and the FSS has been confusing for them. (Little wonder, as it's rather unintuitive, and doesn't fit in well with the rest of the game either.) So there is a chance that it'll get a QoL pass, and most likely be made easier.
Actually i think not too much would be needed. You can trick the FSS into moving objects already now: Accelerate to high speed. Set the throttle to zero, activate the FSS. The FSS is not locked behind "ships does not move" but "throttle is set to zero". So this way you can enter the FSS while the ship is still taking a while to decelerate. Objects in the FSS thus still move for a while when entering it this way.
The drawback of course: if you still move fast when in the FSS, objects in the FSS also still move fast. It can become quite hard to actually select them for long enough to zoom in, especially if they are nested and you have to zoom in several times to get to a specific object.
But the above mentioned "snap to target" function would also help here. You wouldn't need to be as accurate any more. If you move your pointer close enough to the object in question, it would snap to it and you could do all the work, while your ship is still moving.
So being able to use the FSS on the move and perhaps having the mentioned "snap to target" feature to make it easier to use would go a long way. Among many other things, it would be the one thing still necessary to make multi-crew exploration actually useful.
Edit: Even better of course would be something like a "slew mode". You lock your camera to one central object or something. The FSS would automatically keep that centered, no matter how fast you move. Then you would have the crosshair to be moveable, so you could select and interact with other objects nearby, while the camera would be stabilized. But that's probably too much to ask for in the near future.
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When you say "lots", you mean the same ten people since the first "I hate the FSS" thread, yes?
Don't mind me - I'm just jealous. I wish I had ten people to start new "How would you implement graphic shaders on PS4?" threads every week since Frontier ruined the visuals on my platform. Alas, I'm only an army of one.
We're both doomed, however. The FSS and EBL are here to stay.
The general positivity in this thread comes from the realism that pie in the sky revamps will never happen, so we can discuss them freely.
ED is in maintenance mode other than the mystery DLC in 18 months which should not really revisit exploration unless it's a key part of the core feature in the DLC (atmospherics might justify another look for example, whereas legs would have a completely different focus).
The backlash and negativity comes when the only realistic options come up, which involve either doing nothing, or the minimal development option of bringing back a previous iteration ADS to sit alongside the FSS as it is.
Those are the only real options and either one provokes strong distaste for more than a few people.
ED is in maintenance mode other than the mystery DLC in 18 months which should not really revisit exploration unless it's a key part of the core feature in the DLC (atmospherics might justify another look for example, whereas legs would have a completely different focus).
The backlash and negativity comes when the only realistic options come up, which involve either doing nothing, or the minimal development option of bringing back a previous iteration ADS to sit alongside the FSS as it is.
Those are the only real options and either one provokes strong distaste for more than a few people.
I don't subscribe to this "maintenance mode" theory. BUT I would say I'm am utterly confused with the last few years output being the work of 100 people.
I guess the mystery DLC end of next year will be telling. If it's astounding atmospheric landings and a load of new involved mechanics, excellent. If it's a couple more half-baked, questionable bolt ons, could be you're basically right!
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
When you say "lots", you mean the same ten people since the first "I hate the FSS" thread, yes?
Don't mind me - I'm just jealous. I wish I had ten people to start new "How would you implement graphic shaders on PS4?" threads every week since Frontier ruined the visuals on my platform. Alas, I'm only an army of one.
We're both doomed, however. The FSS and EBL are here to stay.
Be fair Duck, there's at least 12 people now
The OP hasn't previously been involved in the FSS/ADS discussions and there have been a steadily increasing number of new faces showing up to support the idea of an optional ADS (or similar). We're still in a minority, for sure, but it's not just me, Burke and Riverside any more.
As for your PS4EBL problem, buy an Xbox
I personally like the FSS as it is now, there are a few adjustments I would make to it to polish it up a little bit. I don't mind that it's in a separate view, and I don't mind stopping while using it.
I do have some problems with one of the more popular proposals to "fix it" though:
- Changing the FSS to be an in-cockpit view, in my opinion would be too messy. To my mind there are a couple of ways of achieving it, and there are problems with all of them.
1. Overlay out of the cockpit window akin to the way orbit lines work (augmented reality view). While this would potentially achieve the most immersive view, and the widest (depending on the ship's window sizes), the downsides that I see are firstly that orienting the ship is a much slower process than orienting the camera, secondly, how would you arrange the controls to keep both control of the ship, all analysis mode modules/fire groups AND incorporate the radio tuning, and zoom features? Thirdly, zooming in would look a bit janky if it's done as though your ship cockpit glass is a viewscreen with magnification, but similarly if you put the zoomed view in the Info Panel it would lose a lot of its impact; IMO zooming into the planet in the FSS is the best part!
2. Large panel inside the cockpit akin to the way Starport Services work (holo-screen view). This would allow for the FSS in its current iteration to be present in full, but with the bonus that you can enable headlook and still look around your cockpit, or Focus on the normal cockpit panels as well as use the FSS. With this you can retain the current camera movement, or enable ship orientation to look around the FSS. However, as indicated above, I am really not a fan of having to orient the ship to move around the FSS view, as it's simply too slow. The disadvantage of using the camera movement as it currently is, but in this "bordered" view, is possible player disorientation.
Overall, I feel that while these could work fine, I don't see how they offer anything better than the current method of having an entirely separate view - there are just as many disadvantages in my opinion, and none of the options are objectively better than the others. I think FD went with the best approach they could with a separated view, because at least it keeps it somewhat clean - only the FSS controls are relevant in the FSS view, and there's less to potentially disorient you. Plus it's visually consistent with the Galaxy Map, System Map, Powerplay Powers, Galnet, Codex, Squadrons etc... all of which are handled in a separated view from the cockpit.
My Solution to the FSS View:
Animation.
We can't get out of our seats yet and walk around. The problem with the current FSS view is that there's no connection between being in the cockpit to being in the FSS view. It takes you "out" of the experience. So, how do you connect the cockpit to the separated FSS view? A similar way to how getting into your SRV connects from the cockpit - animation. Either animate our avatar getting out of the seat and walking over to a panel in the cockpit to enable the FSS view (like Spock looking down into that viewport thing at his science station), or animate something coming out of the seat over our avatar's eyes while still sitting in the chair. Just to be clear, the animation of walking over to a panel would not be manual but simply a pre-programmed "cutscene" if you like. This may work to connect us the player to the FSS and serve as an explanation as to why we can't move the ship during FSS mode, and why we have to throttle down. It would be a lot of work, considering the panel would be a different place in every ship, but I think it would be worthwhile if we're not getting to walk around anytime soon. As soon as we get to walk around our ships, we could do it manually, but a cutscene would suffice for now. It might be a rubbish and OTT idea, but think about it - all we get is a fade from cockpit to FSS right now, and it's that which I believe takes us out of the cockpit experience.
A few adjustments to the current FSS and probe launchers
I do have some problems with one of the more popular proposals to "fix it" though:
- Changing the FSS to be an in-cockpit view, in my opinion would be too messy. To my mind there are a couple of ways of achieving it, and there are problems with all of them.
1. Overlay out of the cockpit window akin to the way orbit lines work (augmented reality view). While this would potentially achieve the most immersive view, and the widest (depending on the ship's window sizes), the downsides that I see are firstly that orienting the ship is a much slower process than orienting the camera, secondly, how would you arrange the controls to keep both control of the ship, all analysis mode modules/fire groups AND incorporate the radio tuning, and zoom features? Thirdly, zooming in would look a bit janky if it's done as though your ship cockpit glass is a viewscreen with magnification, but similarly if you put the zoomed view in the Info Panel it would lose a lot of its impact; IMO zooming into the planet in the FSS is the best part!
2. Large panel inside the cockpit akin to the way Starport Services work (holo-screen view). This would allow for the FSS in its current iteration to be present in full, but with the bonus that you can enable headlook and still look around your cockpit, or Focus on the normal cockpit panels as well as use the FSS. With this you can retain the current camera movement, or enable ship orientation to look around the FSS. However, as indicated above, I am really not a fan of having to orient the ship to move around the FSS view, as it's simply too slow. The disadvantage of using the camera movement as it currently is, but in this "bordered" view, is possible player disorientation.
Overall, I feel that while these could work fine, I don't see how they offer anything better than the current method of having an entirely separate view - there are just as many disadvantages in my opinion, and none of the options are objectively better than the others. I think FD went with the best approach they could with a separated view, because at least it keeps it somewhat clean - only the FSS controls are relevant in the FSS view, and there's less to potentially disorient you. Plus it's visually consistent with the Galaxy Map, System Map, Powerplay Powers, Galnet, Codex, Squadrons etc... all of which are handled in a separated view from the cockpit.
My Solution to the FSS View:
Animation.
We can't get out of our seats yet and walk around. The problem with the current FSS view is that there's no connection between being in the cockpit to being in the FSS view. It takes you "out" of the experience. So, how do you connect the cockpit to the separated FSS view? A similar way to how getting into your SRV connects from the cockpit - animation. Either animate our avatar getting out of the seat and walking over to a panel in the cockpit to enable the FSS view (like Spock looking down into that viewport thing at his science station), or animate something coming out of the seat over our avatar's eyes while still sitting in the chair. Just to be clear, the animation of walking over to a panel would not be manual but simply a pre-programmed "cutscene" if you like. This may work to connect us the player to the FSS and serve as an explanation as to why we can't move the ship during FSS mode, and why we have to throttle down. It would be a lot of work, considering the panel would be a different place in every ship, but I think it would be worthwhile if we're not getting to walk around anytime soon. As soon as we get to walk around our ships, we could do it manually, but a cutscene would suffice for now. It might be a rubbish and OTT idea, but think about it - all we get is a fade from cockpit to FSS right now, and it's that which I believe takes us out of the cockpit experience.
A few adjustments to the current FSS and probe launchers
- Make moving the camera feel better with the HOTAS joystick - at the moment it's a bit fiddly, and you have to be too accurate - snapping to the point when you get close would be a great solution to this.
- Camera slows down too much when panning past bodies quickly - just feels like your camera's turret has seized up; I would prefer snap-to-point but no camera movement slowdown.
- Resolving planetary POIs takes too long - for all the time-saving that the FSS does in the long-run for a full system scan, there's still the 30 second timer for scanning surface POIs. If they're not present, I find that it says "none" almost immediately, but if there's something there it takes a long time to resolve. Thankfully you can move on to scan other bodies while you wait for it to finish, but still... I would also love to see some more sci-fi flare going on with scanning - rather than just a whirring chevron saying the equivalent of "please wait, loading...", have those nice megaship scan animations apply to the body.
- Don't tell me exactly where the POI is with a marker: I would much prefer a heat-map showing where, over a large area, I can expect to find the planetary POIs, so I can still do a bit of searching. In fact, give me different types of overlay for different types of POI: a heat-map or subsurface pressure map for volcanic features; an organic material overlay for biological features, an electromagnetic emissions overlay for technologial POIs (like bases and outposts). And to top it off, while I'm down on the planet flying through these regions, let me know if the signal is getting stronger as I get closer to the POI so I know I'm going in the right direction, until eventually I can see it.
- Give me a reason to go to all 40 geological sites. Once you've scanned one, most of the others are likely to be the same type of thing and you get nothing else for visiting them.
- Auto-populate the FSS view with planetary bodies that are already in the system map - bodies that other CMDRs have discovered already.
- Tone down the asteroid Geiger counter sound, it's really irritating.
- Let the FSS tell me if there are core deposits in the asteroid belt clusters, or better yet, let me lob a probe at a belt cluster like we can with rings.
I'm still okay with the idea of more tools vs. less when it comes to Exploration, as long as they are kept separate (don't change FSS to behave like ADS, but rather add an ADS and perhaps some even different tools closer to what OP dreams of). Compare the number of weapon choices we have, or even the number of mining tools now, to the choices we have for exploration, and I think the "ADS Dozen" have a compelling argument.
Every time an update is released, I'm thankful that I did not spend money on equipment just to run this game, because it has way more bugs than just EBL, and it is getting worse all the time. There are plenty of games that run flawlessly and look wonderful on my PS4 Slim, so I'll just have to take a break (again) from the space sim genre until Frontier finally gets some competition.As for your PS4EBL problem, buy an Xbox
Oh, and by way of reply to OP's idea, just to be really nitpicky: you're not going to be detecting Gravitational Waves coming from a planetary body, or even ordinary stellar object - gravitational waves so far have only been detected in the collision of black holes and neutron stars, though there is the possibility of detecting them from Supernovae. What you're detecting with the FSS - and what the blue blobs represent - are Gravity Wells, which are the ordinary effect that planetary and stellar objects have on spacetime due to their mass.
Don't forget the massive gravity wells caused by 3 cannisters of biowaste and a blackbox
This is rather shortsighted I think.
The breakthrough has been made and gravitational waves can now be detected.
Add the potential of 1300 years of refinement, miniturization, and increased sensitivity, doesn't make it beyond the bounds of possibility that such a sensor could exist, be small enough to fit on a ship, and be sensitive enough to detect the tiny disturbances created by planetary rotation and orbit.
As far as I understand it, gravitational waves are caused my catastrophic events causing ripples in spacetime that radiate outwards, which in turn means that where there's no catastrophic event to cause the ripple - such as where a planet is just sitting in its gravity well - there won't be any waves to detect.
Smash two planets together, then I could see the case for a detector with 1300 years of refinement to pick up gravitational waves from that event - something we can't do currently. We can only detect the gravitational waves now from black holes and neutron stars colliding with each other because they have such an extreme effect on spacetime. I'm sure that tiny gravitational waves might happen every time something with mass hits something else with mass, and that in 3300 we'll be able to detect it, but without that interaction, there wouldn't be a wave to detect.
Having the FSS screen an in cockpit view similar to the Station Services screen makes a lot of sense (especially in VR).
Having that in cockpit view available as a multi-crew activity makes even more sense and would add more purpose to that feature set as a bonus.
Only if you don't need to throttle down to have the FSS work!
Very true.
Thinking a little further I wonder if COBRA has "picture in picture" available i.e. one camera view (the FSS on a "screen") inside another camera view (the cockpit). The facility has certainly been in since DX9 iirc, but I can't think of an example in ED or any other COBRA game for that matter.....this would be a technology/code requirement and might also explain why the gunner view is also a separate camera view.