How would you have implemented the FSS?

[Rugbyfan1972]

As someone who is disabled (cerebral palsy), I simply do not have the fine motor skills for the radio tuning aspect of the FSS. I much preferred the old method of flying to the planets - however having said that I like the idea of the DSS as it is now. I also don't see the point in having to switch between combat and exploration/discovery modes. The old system worked fine for me. FD seem to have a habit of implementing idea's in this game that make it less enjoyable (engineers springs to mind).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

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.

That is how I would have added it in.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

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.

The focus is on those massive events because they are the easiest to detect.
According to Einstein, the rotation of the Earth is twisting spacetime - he's been doing pretty well on this subject so far, so I've no reason to doubt him on that.

 

[amadeus1171]

I probably wouldn't have an FSS at all. I think I would have preferred some kind of management game, sending probes out to other places while I Investigate other places. Then managing those probes as they go from planet to moon to planet. That could be a good use of the orrery map.

I would likely have the honk produce blank spheres in the system map of the main planets, moon signals are obscured by the main planet, you will need to visit them or send a probe out to see whats there. Possibly the better the system you have the more probes you can launch and control. Also the probe launcher should be a hardpoint. The bigger, the more probes it can hold.

I don't mind the FSS and have learnt to enjoy it and use it in a way thats good for me, it manages to cater for many different exploration styles. It's not the best system, but it's far from the worse system.

Unfortunately, what I would have added would slow down exploration even more and the travel type exploration would disappear. But I was never a fan of that type exploration, even though I did and still do it. I do have it because I can, but I personally think that type of exploration should have never been in the game. Exploration should take time in my view.

This is just my personal opinion and not an attack on others playstyles or trying to spite people, even though I am sure some will see it as such.

That sounds like a good idea as well.

 

[marx]

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).

There's also a marked downward trend in how many bodies people scan per system. This peaked at the launch of DW2 (average of 9-10 bodies per system), and earlier, at the release of Chapter Four (8 bodies / sys). Nowadays, it's 4-5. Maybe it's from new players giving up exploration, maybe it's from them getting bored with the FSS instead. Whatever the reasons, the usage of the FSS has halved, even though just as many systems are being discovered.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

I would have implemented the FSS in late 2014.

 

[amadeus1171]

I'm not sure how I would have done it, though MadDog and Stealthie's suggestions seem like a good place to start. One thing certainly wouldn't have added (unless there is some super secret perceived need for it in future updates) is the apparently superfluous mode toggle

Yeah, the mode toggle is like buns on a hamburger. Why the bun?

 

[CaptainKremmen]

But then again, I would also have implemented a Hyperspace System Scanner in late 2014. Trust me, 99% of you would string me up if I even described what that would be.

So just ignore me and my imaginary game world that never was.

 

[amadeus1171]

Having just come back to the game, I definitely find myself more interested in exploring with the FSS than I did with the old method.

I love some of the suggestions here, especially the idea of of the FSS screen being present inside the cockpit. Conversely though, having played a lot of flight sims with TrackIR, I can attest to the fact that trying to read gauges or manipulate knobs and dials inside the cockpit without real hands can get pretty frustrating and tiresome.

I suggested Leap Motion integration at one point, but it got shot down. It got shot down hard, and I don't think that bird will ever fly again.

 

[m0rl0ck]

I would make it actually work. I think given its FD thats the best we can hope for.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

There's also a marked downward trend in how many bodies people scan per system. This peaked at the launch of DW2 (average of 9-10 bodies per system), and earlier, at the release of Chapter Four (8 bodies / sys). Nowadays, it's 4-5. Maybe it's from new players giving up exploration, maybe it's from them getting bored with the FSS instead. Whatever the reasons, the usage of the FSS has halved, even though just as many systems are being discovered.

The peak was probably down to new explorers heading out for their first trip as part of DW2. Natural that it dropped off from that as the jump-honk-twiddle grind kicked in. It does with anything after the novelty has worn off.

Does that 4-5 number include the main star? Because that would drop active scanning down to around 3 (when you factor in multi-star systems and the close bodies you get for free). That looks about right for a small number of scan-everything obsessives and a large number of cherry-pickers hitting ELWs.

 

[Northpin]

I like it the way it is now, but i would make the zoom to be more forgiving with object centering.

@OP - you do mention a lot of current 21 century techs - but the action is takin place in 34 century. A good deal of techs that look like handwavium for us should exist.
I'm thinking our current technologies would look like magic to someone from the 16 century.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

I’d make it as a deployable limpit. Then you can fly scan.
I’d also give an option for all scanning duties to be done by a multi crew cmdr or hired crew.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I think it is ok as it stands, not bothered whichever tool I have in front of me to do the job of 'knowing' what is in any particular system.
Apologies to those who are passionate about feature "X" or "Y", this is just another game for me, it is in development still, includes plenty of features that I have zero interest in (so I don't play them - no issue) and I stop playing it when it gets tedious and go do something else.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

The focus is on those massive events because they are the easiest to detect.
According to Einstein, the rotation of the Earth is twisting spacetime - he's been doing pretty well on this subject so far, so I've no reason to doubt him on that.

What you've described is frame dragging, it's like if you let a ball sink into a net and spin the ball, the spin will cause the parts of the net closest to the ball to get caught on it and stretched out a little in the direction it's spinning in. Gravitational waves would be like if you bobbed the ball up and down on the net, or, even better, if you let two bubbles on the surface of some water bump into each other and merge, causing a ripple. The ordinary effect of mass sinking into spacetime, and the effect of frame dragging doesn't generate gravitational waves.

What might generate gravitational waves at a planetary scale would be two planets or moons circling in toward each other. The acceleration would cause tiny ripples in spacetime due to two spiralling gravity wells stretching and contracting it as they get closer, that, in 1300 years, we might reasonably be able to detect.

Again, this is as far as I understand it, could be wrong, of course.

 

[marx]

Does that 4-5 number include the main star?

Nope, it's bodies only, not stars.
By the way, the average there is around 1.5 stars per system. (The daily variations likely depend on how players are distributed over various areas of the galaxy.)
The 4-5 average likely means a smaller set of systems fully scanned, and most having only a couple of valuables scanned. Unfortunately, we don't have access to the percentages to be able to tell this.

It might be a problem for Frontier though. The Chapter Four updates have been focused on having players find the hand-crafted POIs better (shifting away from discovering the generated galaxy better), but if players are scanning less and less bodies, the chances of them finding whatever might be out there also decrease.
Of course, in the six months that have passed since, nobody has found any new Thargoid / Guardian POIs in new areas (just a few ones left out in already known areas), and no Human ones outside of the bubble's immediate vicinity. If there's nothing to be found, then players not finding them isn't exactly a problem.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Nope, it's bodies only, not stars.
By the way, the average there is around 1.5 stars per system. (The daily variations likely depend on how players are distributed over various areas of the galaxy.)
The 4-5 average likely means a smaller set of systems fully scanned, and most having only a couple of valuables scanned. Unfortunately, we don't have access to the percentages to be able to tell this.

It might be a problem for Frontier though. The Chapter Four updates have been focused on having players find the hand-crafted POIs better (shifting away from discovering the generated galaxy better), but if players are scanning less and less bodies, the chances of them finding whatever might be out there also decrease.
Of course, in the six months that have passed since, nobody has found any new Thargoid / Guardian POIs in new areas (just a few ones left out in already known areas), and no Human ones outside of the bubble's immediate vicinity. If there's nothing to be found, then players not finding them isn't exactly a problem.

I think it would have been better if FDev hadn't decided to concentrate (almost) all the interesting stuff in nebulae. There's very little point in scanning stuff in 'regular' space when there's no chance of actually finding anything unusual - so it's jump-honk to a nebula then scan what the codex tells you to scan, then jump-honk to the next one.

 

[Old Duck]

I think it would have been better if FDev hadn't decided to concentrate (almost) all the interesting stuff in nebulae. There's very little point in scanning stuff in 'regular' space when there's no chance of actually finding anything unusual - so it's jump-honk to a nebula then scan what the codex tells you to scan, then jump-honk to the next one.

Funny that, since Earth (Sol) is likely one of if not the most interesting thing in the IRL Milky Way, and we're nowhere near a nebula.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Funny that, since Earth (Sol) is likely one of if not the most interesting thing in the IRL Milky Way, and we're nowhere near a nebula.

Sol in-game is not particularly interesting.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

A first-person turret-mounted device with zoom. Aim it like you’d aim a turret in multi-crew. Scan and zoom and look and see, and have a nice bit of augmented reality - like our ship HUDs already have, right on top of the view.

But that’s me, and my kind of thinking, which is not compatible with the Frontier style of thinking.