Finally someone provided an answer - thank you. But wasn't that one of the main complaints prior to 3.3, the time taken to fly to a body and then sit there and let the scan do it's work? I seem to remember numerous threads from commanders bitterly complaining about it, but then I do apparently only ever talk rubbish so I may be mistaken.
So in essence Commander, you would rather be forced to fly to each and every body in a system to discover what it is? Do you do that now with surface mapping? Did you do that for all bodies prior to 3.3? And since you don't want to be spoilt visually, I gather you didn't honk using the ADS as that would have given you all the information you didn't want to have.
Yes, it was one of the complaints. That somehow being forced to fly through space was a problem.
I guess enough people said it enough times in range of FDs ear for them to forget that many of their players enjoy the experience of discovery through spaceflight.
I’d be happy to have to do it again, but that’s not what we’re asking for.
The FSS is indeed an improvement over the old DSS as a body scanner.
Body scanning at a distance is indeed a very useful tool to have.
Sadly, the loss of the system overview and targettable nav panel, means that it’s also now a mandatory tool to use.
And as a bottom up incremental discovery mechanism, you are required to use it on every body in a system to obtain an overview of the system.
Except that it isn’t just an overview anymore, to get there you’ve already discovered all the bodies.
I certainly didn’t scan everything prior to 3.3, and that is largely the point. Getting the body scan was a value judgement - is it worth my time to fly out there to scan what very much looks like just another ice ball.
What we really want is the ability to make a snap judgement about a system - is it worth spending time here.
The wavelength only provides one element of that - body types.
If that isn’t your main criteria, then you’re stuffed - you need to use the FSS to find out.
There are many many systems, most of them are pretty run of the mill.
I’d like to spend my exploration time in the other systems, instead of in the blue screen.