ANNOUNCEMENT January Update - Beta Announcement

[Oldviboy]

Funny how people seem to get this impression. I think its either organised troll feed back or somebody whos opinion matters more than the average player thats driving the game in this direction. Iv said it before, its like somebody got a grudge against explorers and has been suggesting changes that are designed to ruin peoples fun. Might aswell accept that ED is all washed up at this point.

What I don't understand is how it seems that they only pay attention to a part of the community.I don't have any of the problems they announced they will correct.
I have seen more problems that have to do with the players and not with the game. For someone who plays alone, who does not have "friends" in the forums and who is not part of any group, it is difficult to be heard by frontier.
Many of the players who do not enter the forum, do not do it because their game works well. Hell, I was not aware of mistakes for a year until I entered the community! and I never had to ask anything!

How is it possible that they try to fix something without first checking if those failures are true? It is something that I have done on my own several times, and I have tried to help with solutions to several people. They didn't seem to care about any "solution" or that they were wrong.
How is it possible for a company to get carried away by only a small part of the community?
Not to mention players who think they understand the game better than the developers themselves, when its graphic engine is a mystery.
Sometimes you come in here and come out wondering if people play the same game as you. It is to freak out.
There are many very unusual things within elite.

Edited:


I'm sorry, I'm still a little frustrated by the FC´s , the truth is that I've never spent 2700 hours at all, and although I've enjoyed it, it feels like you haven't enjoyed every second as you would playing 300 hours at skyrim, I don't know if I explain .
Everything is going very slow, and I truly believe that all the fault is not just frontier.

 

[CMDWhitesnake]

If I take part in the beta, will I be using a copy of my CMDR or my actual live one? To clarify, if I do some beta testing and in the process blow up my ship, spend all my cash and get myself a gigantic bounty will this carry over to the main game?

Just so I know how vigorously I should be testing things ...

 

[Burke]

What I don't understand is how it seems that they only pay attention to a part of the community.

Im sure there are many who would like to know the answer to this.

 

[Soron Silin]

If I take part in the beta, will I be using a copy of my CMDR or my actual live one? To clarify, if I do some beta testing and in the process blow up my ship, spend all my cash and get myself a gigantic bounty will this carry over to the main game?

Just so I know how vigorously I should be testing things ...

You are safe.

They've taken a snapshot of the main servers a couple of weeks ago. So when you first go into the beta it will be like going back in time. When the beta is finished the beta servers will be deleted and nothing will be copied to the main servers. As Steven said on Monday's stream, "what happens in the beta, stays in the beta."

In fact you will be able to chose to use the beta servers or the main servers any time you start playing. It will be like having two commanders -- a real one and a mysterious clone who is doomed to die.

 

[Bier00t]

so - are we getting patch notes today?

 

[Rubbernuke]

so - are we getting patch notes today?

I expect tomorrow. Which is trying to tempt fate so they come out today.

 

[Bier00t]

I expect tomorrow. Which is trying to tempt fate so they come out today.

I just wanted to encourage the Devs

 

[Soron Silin]

What I don't understand is how it seems that they only pay attention to a part of the community.

I don't think they are, or at least, not a consistent part. It is always true that the squeeky wheel gets the grease but I haven't seen Frontier playing favourites; everyone complains that they are not being heard.

How is it possible that they try to fix something without first checking if those failures are true?

Apologies if you are not talking about the FSS.

FSS is broken. It should not take 30 seconds to scan each planet. That is the next best thing to objectively a bug. Even if you don't care about it, I would expect that you can see that it is not ideal. The problem here is that the fix is not obvious. It would be nice if they could wave a magic wand and make the delay go away, but they can't. It takes that long to generate the data.

Every solution they have (other than reworking all the code to not depend on the FPS) is imperfect. It would have been better if they had come to us and asked for our opinion before implementing what they thought was the best solution. But we've got a beta phase at least and a decent time after it for fixes to be made. They are listening to us more than they were a few months ago. Let's take that as a win and move forward.

 

[Xenia_K]

to give my two cents to the FSS/Geo/Bio-Site discussion:
I am playing ED on three different systems (PC) and it clearly occurs to me that the scan-time is depending on the graphic-cards capabilities.
On my Office-Lap it takes around 100 sec for 5 Bios and 15 geo-sites, on my home desktop (older model graca) around 45 sec, on my high end private Lap around 7-10 sec per body.

And I completely agree with a lot of posters here - giving a probability of occurence as a result of FSS would be a perversion of the mechanics implemented recently - hence for me a no-go....

 

[Soron Silin]

I wonder if it is possible for the probability estimate to be replaced by the actual numbers once the surface generation has completed.
Then at least nobody could complain that it is worse than what we already had.

 

[CMDWhitesnake]

I wonder if it is possible for the probability estimate to be replaced by the actual numbers once the surface generation has completed.
Then at least nobody could complain that it is worse than what we already had.

This is how I would assume it would work - at the moment I know if I need to fly 50k ls to a planet because it has a site on it I'm interested in. If this is replaced with just a 'quite likely' and I have to fly there to find out, this would be worse than what we have.

Having both seems like the ideal solution - give an indication but then also scan in the background and update the display when the actual number is available. That way I have a choice whether to wait or not.

Obviously I have no idea how the game works on a technical level - but I wondered if this issue could be dealt with in the code differently. For example, if the planet is just assigned a number of sites and then it has to find places for those sites afterwards (the cause of the delay) - couldn't the number of sites be determined when the system is first generated (when entered for the first time) - and then, in the background, have the server work out where to put these sites and send that to the client? The idea being that by the time the user gets to that planet most, if not all, of the data is already available.

You could perhaps streamline this somewhat by only doing this at the point the user opens the FSS - as you can assume they are going to scan the planet at some point.

 

[Oldviboy]

I don't think they are, or at least, not a consistent part. It is always true that the squeeky wheel gets the grease but I haven't seen Frontier playing favourites; everyone complains that they are not being heard.


Apologies if you are not talking about the FSS.

FSS is broken. It should not take 30 seconds to scan each planet. That is the next best thing to objectively a bug. Even if you don't care about it, I would expect that you can see that it is not ideal. The problem here is that the fix is not obvious. It would be nice if they could wave a magic wand and make the delay go away, but they can't. It takes that long to generate the data.

Every solution they have (other than reworking all the code to not depend on the FPS) is imperfect. It would have been better if they had come to us and asked for our opinion before implementing what they thought was the best solution. But we've got a beta phase at least and a decent time after it for fixes to be made. They are listening to us more than they were a few months ago. Let's take that as a win and move forward.

I believed that the generation of procedures happened while you were in withspace between jumps, but I think I was wrong ... I really don't know how it works, but I fully trust any developer.
But in the last statements they seem somewhat lost, something that I do not understand after what they have created, and that may be due to feeling overwhelmed by so many reports of errors, which in reality are not.

About the fss. (I don't know if it matters, but I have a 970 that still works fancy)

I never believed that the time it takes to scan each planet was a mistake, I see it as logical considering the size of a planet or moon, and the amount of information, and distances of millions of kilometers.

I explain myself, when I play, I think my scanner has hidden tools that use things like spectometry, mass measurements, topography ... (and a lot of things I don't really understand,but I prefer to think this and not how I think it works, only they know it)

and finally all that information would be processed (after a few seconds) and would give me exact locations of biological, geological or volcanic places, a LOGICAL time, given the difficult task that should be for the internal processor of our on-board computer. (Imagine not only scanning the surface of our Earth, but locating small forests or whatever, even with Google Earth it would take a few seconds xD)
I am happy believing that my scanner works like this.
Also, if you are spending time just exploring, that should be normal, since it is supposed to be a quiet experience and you are likely to visit those planets just for the sake of doing so.
But now with this kind of lottery that they want to implement, I see wasted time in visiting planets that seemed to have something and finally not, resulting more extensive time than waiting a few seconds as now.
Say that currently FSS is broken, it seems a bit excessive IMO.

 

[Six6VI]

Im sure there are many who would like to know the answer to this.

How does the old saying go, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."
(Not to be confused with the far more recent, "Twitter is not reality.")

 

[Six6VI]

I wonder if it is possible for the probability estimate to be replaced by the actual numbers once the surface generation has completed.
Then at least nobody could complain that it is worse than what we already had.

Think I'd prefer to see the FSS return a definite yes or no but not how many or where until DSS scanned.

 

[Soron Silin]

Think I'd prefer to see the FSS return a definite yes or no but not how many or where until DSS scanned.

Given the way it works already:

• Some bodies scan instantly with no POIs
• Some bodies scan in 2-3 seconds with no POIs
• Some bodies take 20-30 seconds with POIs

I would think there is the possibility of a three-stage notification. First you get a "Likely", then you get "Present" and then "24 Geological".

That would mean getting information from the running GPU process though, and I think that would be a problem. It might be possible to do it based on run-time, just as we do now, but we wouldn't know if the extra time was because of Geo sites or Bio sites -- it couldn't differentiate them.

All in all, I'd prefer the proposed system with additions to report on the number of sites on the System Map.

Having the surface generation wait until DSS makes logical sense, but it's a big change to the game-play and it's unnecessary. FD have always prioritised game-play over simulation veracity. Look at multi-crew for example; you don't have to be in the same place to join a ship. Holo-presence is the only interstellar FTL information transfer that exists in the game.

Additionally, it makes no sense that the number of POIs is only reported in the FSS. It should always have been in the System Map.

 

[Han Zulu]

Given the way it works already:

• Some bodies scan instantly with no POIs
• Some bodies scan in 2-3 seconds with no POIs
• Some bodies take 20-30 seconds with POIs

I would think there is the possibility of a three-stage notification. First you get a "Likely", then you get "Present" and then "24 Geological".

Or having an extra "deep scan" button in the FSS when a planet is focused. Let's say the FSS reports the basic information, but to get the scan you have to press another button. Granted, it adds one extra click-step to get the info, but then you have a choice to wait the 5, 10, 30 seconds or whatever. And you can actually make the choice based on the volcanic activity. Currently, I'm only interested if there are POIs on specific geysers/magmas, and don't care about the other. Perhaps this extra button could be something you can turn on or off (automation, i.e. works the way it works now, auto-scan without pressing button), giving people who want to scan everything at all times the chance to turn on the auto-scan.

That solution doesn't require any changes to how Frontier is resolving the map and POIs at all. It's only an extra "auto-scan" option in the system panel for the FSS, and add one button in the controls that you can assign. People who wants to keep the current system: turn on auto-deep-scan. People like me who only want to scan specific planets: turn off auto-deep-scan and assign a button to "deep-scan" giving me the control in the FSS when to do it or not.

All in all, I'd prefer the proposed system with additions to report on the number of sites on the System Map.

And yes, if you do a deep-scan the count should be put in the sysmap. DSS not needed.

Having the surface generation wait until DSS makes logical sense, but it's a big change to the game-play and it's unnecessary. FD have always prioritised game-play over simulation veracity. Look at multi-crew for example; you don't have to be in the same place to join a ship. Holo-presence is the only interstellar FTL information transfer that exists in the game.

Additionally, it makes no sense that the number of POIs is only reported in the FSS. It should always have been in the System Map.

Also, after making the FSS assigning the locations, I think they can scrap the DSS. Only purpose is to make extra credits. Unless they could add more things that could be discovered with the DSS that actually would be fun to find.

 

[Thatchinho]

Given the way it works already:

• Some bodies scan instantly with no POIs
• Some bodies scan in 2-3 seconds with no POIs
• Some bodies take 20-30 seconds with POIs

I would think there is the possibility of a three-stage notification. First you get a "Likely", then you get "Present" and then "24 Geological".

That would mean getting information from the running GPU process though, and I think that would be a problem. It might be possible to do it based on run-time, just as we do now, but we wouldn't know if the extra time was because of Geo sites or Bio sites -- it couldn't differentiate them.

All in all, I'd prefer the proposed system with additions to report on the number of sites on the System Map.

Having the surface generation wait until DSS makes logical sense, but it's a big change to the game-play and it's unnecessary. FD have always prioritised game-play over simulation veracity. Look at multi-crew for example; you don't have to be in the same place to join a ship. Holo-presence is the only interstellar FTL information transfer that exists in the game.

Additionally, it makes no sense that the number of POIs is only reported in the FSS. It should always have been in the System Map.

Generally what’s going on with scan times is:

- Non-landables - instant response (because there’s no surface POIs currently, so there is no dependency on the planet generation system for the POI info).

- Landables without volcanism - scan time is always short and takes roughly the same time regardless of whether POIs are there and the type.

- Landables with volcanism - scan time is always long, regardless of whether there are POIs or not*. Scan time varies a fair bit but is always much longer than for non-volcanic landables. Scan time is not correlated with numbers of POIs.

*it’s rare but some landables with volcanism don’t have Geo POIs - it’s approx 0.1% to 0.01% (based on personal experience and reports from other cmdrs)

If you are seeing a long scan time, in general what that actually means is that you’re scanning a landable with volcansim. (Or that you’ve got a processing bottleneck while your GPU is dealing with the planet gen for a landable with volcanism you’ve already zoomed in on and not waited for the scan results for.

A long scan time does not definitely mean that there will be POIs.

It can be determined instantly whether there will be a long scan time, as whether a body has volcanism is info that’s returned instantly by the FSS.


On the 3 stage process, there’s not going to be any noticeable time between the 2nd and 3rd stage so the split’s a bit redundant. Could go for a 2 stage process though with likelihood first and then either ‘present yes/no’ or numbers as the 2nd stage.

Agreed on the FSS info going to the sysmap. (Been requesting/suggesting it for more than a year now! )

 

[Thatchinho]

I believed that the generation of procedures happened while you were in withspace between jumps, but I think I was wrong ... I really don't know how it works, but I fully trust any developer.
But in the last statements they seem somewhat lost, something that I do not understand after what they have created, and that may be due to feeling overwhelmed by so many reports of errors, which in reality are not.

About the fss. (I don't know if it matters, but I have a 970 that still works fancy)

I never believed that the time it takes to scan each planet was a mistake, I see it as logical considering the size of a planet or moon, and the amount of information, and distances of millions of kilometers.

I explain myself, when I play, I think my scanner has hidden tools that use things like spectometry, mass measurements, topography ... (and a lot of things I don't really understand,but I prefer to think this and not how I think it works, only they know it)

and finally all that information would be processed (after a few seconds) and would give me exact locations of biological, geological or volcanic places, a LOGICAL time, given the difficult task that should be for the internal processor of our on-board computer. (Imagine not only scanning the surface of our Earth, but locating small forests or whatever, even with Google Earth it would take a few seconds xD)
I am happy believing that my scanner works like this.
Also, if you are spending time just exploring, that should be normal, since it is supposed to be a quiet experience and you are likely to visit those planets just for the sake of doing so.
But now with this kind of lottery that they want to implement, I see wasted time in visiting planets that seemed to have something and finally not, resulting more extensive time than waiting a few seconds as now.
Say that currently FSS is broken, it seems a bit excessive IMO.

Ok, firstly there is a genuine issue. Perhaps it doesn't particularly effect you.

To explain.

• If a body is non-landable the scan results return instantly.
  
  
• If a body is landable but doesn't have volcanism, then scan results return in a few seconds.
  
  
• If a body is landable and has volcanism, then scan results return take a lot longer to return. It can run up to nearly a minute for me personally.
  

Also, while a landable with volcanism is being processed, that causes a bottleneck / block in processing, and if other landable bodies are scanned while that is still going on then they will also be effected and will slow down resulting in a long processing backlog if a system has multiple landables with volcanism.

It's also worth noting that the delays effect scan results for all types of POI, Human, Thargoid, Guardian, Other, and not just the Geo and Bio POIs.

Does that explain the problem, and why it can have significant impact?

 

[Maolagin]

Generally what’s going on with scan times is:

- Non-landables - instant response (because there’s no surface POIs currently, so there is no dependency on the planet generation system for the POI info).

Just FYI, from what we've been told, not only are there no POIs, but non-landable planets don't currently have a real surface. They only get a generated texture - terrain generation is not run at all.

The aspect of this that really puzzles me is that FSS results for planets with only bio sites can apparently be generated quite quickly. It seems like those would also depend on terrain generation for placement. I wonder if, for bio sites, there is a short circuit whereby their existence and approximate position is determined while the terrain generation is still at a coarse level. That would explain why the sites sometimes jump around on final approach - perhaps the exact placement is only determined when the fine terrain mesh is generated.

 

[Lightspeed]

Am I reading this correctly? Seriously? Only 5 days beta?

5 days is not long enough for beta testing ..... if FD are serious about the tests. It would take a couple of days to get out into the black , let alone test the FSS seriously out there