I still hate the new style of exploration even after adjusting to it.

[Northpin]

For me it does feel that is has a lot more common sense to drop in an unknown system and see only the nearby star and nothing more.
Then the honk reveals the number of bodies and the rest of the stars. Then you have to work a bit to reveal the bodies. Or after a brief look at the FSS bar you can move on - but there is that tiny worm of a thought that keeps saying one of those ice planets might have something interesting...

ADS was shallow and limiting.at the same time... to put it gently

 

[Gut Rumble]

I've said it before..........They took the ' Soul ' out of exploring when they added this time sink.

 

[marx]

Because holding down a button for 10 seconds was sooooo much better

Oh yes. The "hold down a button for 5 seconds" part was changed to... "hold down a button for 5 seconds". Wanna try that again?

And hey, we can discuss and debate the topic all we like (until the moderators step in, of course), but the fact remains that, hm, to put it mildly, exploration is not a priority for Frontier.The overwhelming majority of the serious exploration bugs added in Chapter Four, 2018. December, are still there. Do you believe that they would improve the body scanning gameplay loop before they'd start fixing the bugs of the "newest" content?

 

[Steyla]

It's ungodly slow VS how it used to be, rewards people who only care about money/cherrypickers, and hides 99% of the information I had before the update behind the dumbest "minigame" I have ever seen. Maybe some people have standards low enough that spinning around and zooming in is considered "fun and engaging" and "exciting" but I sure don't.

Spending usually 3-15 minutes just to get one damn system mapped isn't exciting. Not when you have hundreds of specific places to visit, now I have to decide when to skip a system entirely and when to take a chance because their is literally not enough time to do both.

I used to be able to jump into a system, scan, and look at every body. I could see distance from the main star, proximity to other objects, size of the object, whether they were binary or trinary and the like, I could guess if it was mountainous or flat, large or small. I found hundreds of interesting systems just based on the initial ads scan.

For example, I found a planet that orbits so close to the rings of a gas giant you could fly into its atmosphere if that were possible, it also orbits around the gas giant fast enough for it to be noticeably moving. And I figured it was a interesintg place because the ads honk showed it was the exact same distance from the main star as the gas giant was, so i knew it had a very close orbit to the gas giant. I didn't need the new exploration system to find that out, I literally just figured it out based purely on distance from the main star. And it took about 10 seconds to do so, I didn't have to spend what would have been probably over 15 minutes scanning a 80 body system just to find the one area that was interesting.

Now I have to spend 5-10 minutes playing a stupid mini game just to get the same information I had before. And God forbid I miss one.

FD killed an entire way of exploration, knew they were doing it, and didn't do anything about it.

I cared about every system I jumped too. I gave every system I jumped to a chance.

Now I can't do that. The only thing that saves me is that I'm really really good at finding interesting systems from the galaxy map.

Whereas before I explored every system in some form or another, now I only can only pray I didn't waste 10 minutes scanning something useless every now and then.

I wish FD would bring back the old ADS, let it do what it did before but give no credit reward unless you do a detailed scan of the planet up close.

Given a choice between money and exploration, I'd choose exploration every time. I hate this current system. It rewards people who care more about money then ever before and timegates the number of systems you can look into detail for by a absolutely massive margin.

It's not about "adjusting" like so many people who didn't understand what I was talking about said so long ago when the changes were in beta, I adjusted the day it came out. I just DON'T LIKE IT. The mere fact that I might miss an interesting system because I don't have time to spend 3-15 minutes to scan and look over every system eats at me to the point where I haven't gone exploring in over a year.

I am 100% with Crusina here. And yes, it is not about adjusting. What's there to adjust anyways ? It ain't rocket science. Two things I hate the most are 1. The blocking of the interface with irrelevant messages. 2. The blocking of objects behind the star. I already left systems half scanned because I got sick and tired of it. Bring back the ADS and stop that nonsense.

 

[Crusina Luachra]

This is really all they'd need to do. And frankly they could even make it so that it's not possible to target anything from the system map, it's not like the FSS is difficult to use once you've determined that there's something there you'd like to scan or investigate.

And to me that's always been the point. I don't mind doing the FSS game if there's something I'm interested in, I don't want to be forced to do it to find out if there's something I'm interested in. So my exploration gameplay now has become scanning a system if it has AW, ELW or WW, all of which can easily be identified before scanning anything, and that's basically it. If I find interesting planetary layouts or other things (and I do sometimes), that's a bonus, but I'm sure I'm missing plenty also.

As I've said often before, adding more depth to exploration, different tools that let you identify if a system is of interest (since different people are interested in different things) would have been a really good move. Assuming that everybody is interested only in typical high value bodies, all of which are identifiable before you need to scan anything and forcing everything through the FSS - not so much.

If the new system actually added new depth, like say, the ability to zoom in on a planet all the way to the surface and plot POI's and the like...I'd be okay with it. The reward for a longer scan would be the ability to in depth, look at every planet.

But we don't get that, we get the same information we had before, hidden behind a timegate.

Exploration means looking for interesting things and FSS can provide more information, way faster.


On PC, FSS it's a breeze - the fact that one can pump up mouse sensitivity can really make FSS 2-3 times faster than on XB

In the end, as i already said, FSS can find me interesting things way faster than fly-by to various bodies.
You have all the data, at a glance, in the system map plus the nice Orrerey views.

If you aren't going to read my post, then please don't respond to me. Don't waste my time.

Well, either that, or you are literally not comprehending what I am saying. I HAVE LITERALLY ADDRESSED for instance that yes you don't have to fly to a planet to get your name on it anymore but you continue onwards like I already hadn't addressed that.

And as I ALREADY SAID by giving an DETALIED explanation as to how much information the old ADS honk could give you, that was MUCH foster then the new system which forces you to individually zoom in and out of every body in the system to get THE SAME INFO you had with one honk. That is not FASTER, that is FACTUALLY SLOWER.

THE ONLY THING the new system is foster at, again, is the detailed scan. You don't have to fly to them anymore. But guess what? YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT WITH THE OLD SYSTEM 99% OF THE TIME EITHER BECAUSE OF THE INFO THE OLD ADS GAVE US.

Please don't respond to me if you are going to waste my time. I am not explaining for a 4th time what I've said multiple times already, IN DETAIL.

I actually like it. Spent a couple of weeks scanning and mapping gas giants only and that, targetting of bodies, for me adds a level of interest that a 'discover all' button was never equipped with. The worser thing about the update for me was the end of parallax scanning but I like the way the system unfolds - and you get clues about orbits - under FSS for the Orrery.

Yes because a FSS that literally tells you exactly whats in the system and then zooming in on them is so engaging...if you have incredibly low standards.

If the new FSS system gave more information, more detail, allowed you to zoom in to the surface, set POI's, and more then I wouldn't have a single issue with it. But it's LITERALLY the same information we got before.

I agree. The FSS is why I don't play Elite anymore, it killed exploration for me. And I tried to like it, I explored over a thousand systems with it, but eventually the minigame wore me down and I just can't stand it anymore.

I hate saying this, but I miss the ADS.

The same people who like the new system voted for delayed ship transfer I bet.

Goes without saying that people who think waiting for a ship is immersion would also think zooming in and out is fun.

Oh yes. The "hold down a button for 5 seconds" part was changed to... "hold down a button for 5 seconds". Wanna try that again?

And hey, we can discuss and debate the topic all we like (until the moderators step in, of course), but the fact remains that, hm, to put it mildly, exploration is not a priority for Frontier.The overwhelming majority of the serious exploration bugs added in Chapter Four, 2018. December, are still there. Do you believe that they would improve the body scanning gameplay loop before they'd start fixing the bugs of the "newest" content?

No, sadly I think we will have to wait for the new expansion for the FSS system to actually make sense with all the new things that will be added.

I am 100% with Crusina here. And yes, it is not about adjusting. What's there to adjust anyways ? It ain't rocket science. Two things I hate the most are 1. The blocking of the interface with irrelevant messages. 2. The blocking of objects behind the star. I already left systems half scanned because I got sick and tired of it. Bring back the ADS and stop that nonsense.

If they made it so that you didn't have to slow down and it wasn't blocked by objects that alone would be pretty nice.

But... But... It's OA! I must be right, u know!


Serious guys,
another fss discussion!?
Everything is said.
Nothing will change.
Sry.

In case people thought my way of exploration was a minority or that I was the only one who played that way, I wanted to give credience to my style by giving the name of people know well just for that, exploration. It was not intended as a "gotcha" it was a supplement to what I was saying.

Also, nice try, but I'm not going to be quiet just because you can't prevent yourself from commenting on it.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

Didn't asked you to be quiet, did I?
Still, nothing will get changed

 

[Steyla]

Didn't asked you to be quiet, did I?
Still, nothing will get changed

Nop. Nothing gets changed. It's just a dream in a dream within a dream.

 

[Faded Glory]

If the new system actually added new depth, like say, the ability to zoom in on a planet all the way to the surface and plot POI's and the like...I'd be okay with it. The reward for a longer scan would be the ability to in depth, look at every planet.

But we don't get that, we get the same information we had before, hidden behind a timegate.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I'm agreeing with you.

I'm suggesting that the ability to use different tools to see whether a system was 'of interest' would add depth and be a good thing, players could equip the tools that enabled them to find what they are specifically looking for before they get down to the business of actually scanning a system.

But no, the FSS doesn't give you the same information behind a timegate, it provides you with all the information if you are willing to scan the whole system - much, much quicker than getting all the information previously - but actually gives you quite a bit less information than the ADS gave before you scan a system. Unusual planetary orbits or formations, GGG's as examples, these you will only find if you decide to fully scan a system with zero indication of their presence to help you make an informed guess, and you are going to have to scan an awful lot of very dull systems before you are lucky enough to stumble upon something interesting.

However, what it does give, it gives with much less ambiguity, and in my experience / opinion, much quicker. I can tell with 100% accuracy if the body I am looking at on the frequency bar is an ELW in a fraction of the time that it took me to achieve that certainty under the old system.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Back in my day it took five minutes to load the damn maps, and 30ly was fantastic range!

Also, you had to fly that 800,000ls to scan a rock on occasion. I don't miss that. You still have to fly there to map it, I guess, so if falling asleep in supercruise is your thing you still get to do it.

I'm retired from exploring now, so I suppose it doesn't bother me much anymore.

 

[graflex22]

i like the new system.

FSS forever!




or until the next update.

 

[freddyhard]

I'm on console 99% of the time. But even on PC it still takes far longer.

Using a console rules out using 3rd party apps? Which shouldn't, but really help the game immensely. i don't know that you can or would want to connect a mouse either.
But i am like you in that i am looking for interesting bodies to see. Although the new system allows you to view the body in the system map where you can rotate it. For example i saw this high peak using the system map. It only turn out to be 23Km high, but still.

Maybe the only bit of advice i can give is when scanning a system with a lot of bodies is to scan the Gas Giants first, because their signals block out the smaller bodies orbiting them.

i can understand if this happens though.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4ycZ509Wxk&t=0m43s

 

[Telegan]

Nop. Nothing gets changed. It's just a dream in a dream within a dream.

... but now with Fleet Carriers!

 

[askavir]

The FSS was the typical FD solution to any problem. First ignore many dozens of great suggestions, and then address the wrong problem by adding something nobody ever asked for. Exploration was mostly an empty bottle, and FD took that feedback and fixed it by throwing away the corkscrew. Now we spend much more time opening bottles with our teeth, just to peek inside and realize there's still nothing to drink.

I wouldn't mind having to use the FSS or similar system to occasionally obtain details of bodies or other things (like in other activities like locating mission destinations or USSs), but having to play space whack-a-mole every single time one enters a system just to see the map and then stil not having anything else to do, I prefer not to explore at all.

I also wouldn't mind having to use the FSS in all systems if then there were hours of potential gameplay in that system, but for that FD had to address the original issue with exploration, the almost complete lack of exploration gameplay, especially on planets. I mean, half a decade after horizons launched, there is still not a single reason, from exploration perspective, to even descend and land on a planet.

I have very little hope this will ever change (at least for the better), so my only wish is that whoever decided to implement this were doomed to use the FSS 8 hours a day for a full 6 months.

 

[duckofdeath]

I agree that the FSS and new DSS is a novelty. It's fun the first few times. It however wrecked the revenue from exploration. A seasoned explorer could easily spot valuable planets from a honk with the old system, now we have to scroll around and tag all high metal contents and rocky worlds to know their location and size. Add to that the amount of time it takes to DSS a planet, getting stuck in its gravity sink and all that.
It's maybe not all bad, I have looked at more gas giant moons than I used to, but that is literally a small plus.

Edit: One easy fix for the DSS issue would be to give it a long zoom so you won't have to fly all the way up to planet to map it. Keep us at maybe 1-5Ls distance. The FSS could be tweaked to filter for distances, it's a simple science as the speed of light is a constant.

 

[VirtueXOI]

I kinda dont understand.

The way it worked before you had 0 info and had to visit each planet to do scan of it , DSS was not even a thing at theses time and to spot surface structure you had to loop over and over and over.

Maybe I dont remember well but you had to honk , come close to every planet you'd see and could miss some very far.

While I agree FSS is not that fun , You can still if you want visit every planet old style.

I also agree that FSS should display more information like terraformable , DSS too.

If you thune the FSS right you can be very fast. But i guess that's not the point here.

How i explored before : Honk -> looking for planet one by one if they look like metal / water /earth like world. result : many system half discovered , and many missed things, and more time to travel to each planet to have a scan.
How i explore now : Honk -> FSS -> look for unusual planet->DSS the terra/water/earthlike world. Result : all system discovered , nearly nothing missed , travel only at planet that are not totaly useless.

So DSS is basicly the same thing we had to do before , when coming close to a planet to scan it .
FSS is basicly the old HONK + SCAN in one.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Because holding down a button for 10 seconds was sooooo much better

hold down your button as you wish, I preferd to fly to the planet to scan it, I could be bothered you see, unlike the many that prefer to sit still with their nose in a blue screen swatting blobs and getting overpaid... oh no!, now look what you made me do.

 

[ick]

Exploration is a lot more interesting with the new system.

Old system:
Honk and fly towards each interesting planet in order to have your scanner analyze the body took a looooong time.
There was too much guesswork. If you wanted to detail scan you had to fly to every body before I really knew if I wanted to fly there.
Flying to each body in the most efficient pattern was a pain.

New game additions.... with the new system the following are key additions to enjoying exploration:
The supercruise assist means I can do other things whilst I play like laundry, tea, work....etc.
The "star-filter applied route" helps me hone my hunting skills in order to improve my results.
The 3D system star map allows me to visualize the most efficient route between bodies.
Exploration in an ASP Explorer is even cooler visually.

Furthermore, I think the new system is more believable than the old "honk and fly towards" system.

 

[freddyhard]

Exploration is a lot more interesting with the new system.

Old system:
Honk and fly towards each interesting planet in order to have your scanner analyze the body took a looooong time.
There was too much guesswork. If you wanted to detail scan you had to fly to every body before I really knew if I wanted to fly there.
Flying to each body in the most efficient pattern was a pain.

New game additions.... with the new system the following are key additions to enjoying exploration:
The supercruise assist means I can do other things whilst I play like laundry, tea, work....etc.
The "star-filter applied route" helps me hone my hunting skills in order to improve my results.
The 3D system star map allows me to visualize the most efficient route between bodies.
Exploration in an ASP Explorer is even cooler visually.

Furthermore, I think the new system is more believable than the old "honk and fly towards" system.

The OP was referring to acquiring nice visuals from bodies and not mapping them. By knowing instantly where every body was she could quickly decide to travel out to one or not.
Making a game mechanic more believable doesn't translate to enjoyable game play. Just look at Fleet Carriers.
You are joking about Supercruise Assist - if you are doing work or laundry while playing the game that says a lot about the game mechanics.
The new exploration tools have brought positive additions for most, but the OP has no use for those.

 

[Red Anders]

I kinda dont understand.

The way it worked before you had 0 info and had to visit each planet to do scan of it , DSS was not even a thing at theses time and to spot surface structure you had to loop over and over and over.

Maybe I dont remember well but you had to honk , come close to every planet you'd see and could miss some very far.

While I agree FSS is not that fun , You can still if you want visit every planet old style.

I also agree that FSS should display more information like terraformable , DSS too.

If you thune the FSS right you can be very fast. But i guess that's not the point here.

How i explored before : Honk -> looking for planet one by one if they look like metal / water /earth like world. result : many system half discovered , and many missed things, and more time to travel to each planet to have a scan.
How i explore now : Honk -> FSS -> look for unusual planet->DSS the terra/water/earthlike world. Result : all system discovered , nearly nothing missed , travel only at planet that are not totaly useless.

So DSS is basicly the same thing we had to do before , when coming close to a planet to scan it .
FSS is basicly the old HONK + SCAN in one.

The old system used to show you a visual representation of all the planets in a system on the system map from just a honk.

The new system requires you to scan all of them with the FSS in order to see them on the system map.

If you're looking primarily for visually interesting or distinctive planets, close orbits etc, there is now no way to have any idea about that until after a full FSS scan of a system.

The result for me is that I now get first discovery tags on probably 50x as many planets as I used to. However I don't give a crap about the fact I discovered them because what I'm ultimately discovering is that they are of no interest to me.

This is progress apparently.

 

[Spaceman Si]

The only good thing about the FSS is that it made me become a better combat pilot by forcing me to give up exploration because it became too dull.

Tellingly, it is rather fun to use when in an inhabited system, as the USS targets have background radio chatter and noises that add a certain level of engagement. I always got the feeling it was something that got shoe-horned into exploration, and was originally intended to just be a more engaged USS hunting tool, which is entertaining for 30 minutes or so until you realise that hunting specific USS types with it is even more tedious than hunting planets, and you go and scan the nav beacon to get all the information you want in about 30 seconds.

Good to see you @Crusina Luachra - I'd love to ask if there will be a new video out at some point, but I guess the drudgery of trying to find interesting locations doesn't inspire you. Your work was truly awe inspiring in it's majesty and obvious love of what you were doing!