Learning Curve of 3.3 Exploration in Beta?

[khaos526]

How are people that were in Beta feeling about the new Exploration changes after doing it for sometime? Was the learning curve long and tedious or was it something people generally picked up pretty quickly?

Also, how does it feel compared to the old way after you passed the learning curve? Does the new mechanics feel like it takes too long now to find anything worth of value in a system? Or is fast once you learn the new signal and such?

Just curious, as I'm way out in the deep dark regions and not sure if I should start to meander back to cash in on my stuff right now, or wait. If I wait, it might take me a lot longer to return back scanning via the new system and I'd rather test it out closer to civilization if that's the case. If it's fairly speedy, I'll continue going forth further away...

 

[Clicker]

The changes are simple enough to pick up, however...it’ll take a while to get used to the changes.

The hardest part is wrapping your head around all the new key bindings and determining which of them you’ll actually need/use and need to map.

Cheers
Clicker

 

[Orvidius]

I agree, the hardest part is setting up your control bindings. I use a highly customized set of bindings for my HOTAS, and probably spent 30+ minutes setting up the bindings and tweaking them.

But yeah, the new tools are pretty straightforward to use. It's both faster and slower than the old system, depending on what you're comparing. You'll probably just have to try it out to decide for yourself. When you do, make sure you give it some time, and get used to it first.

 

[varonica]

I agree, the hardest part is setting up your control bindings. I use a highly customized set of bindings for my HOTAS, and probably spent 30+ minutes setting up the bindings and tweaking them.

But yeah, the new tools are pretty straightforward to use. It's both faster and slower than the old system, depending on what you're comparing. You'll probably just have to try it out to decide for yourself. When you do, make sure you give it some time, and get used to it first.

Agreed. I actually tried a couple of different key binding setups for the FSS, I finally settled on one that was quick and efficient when using the FSS, then tested it with a long exploration run. For sure it's not going to suit everyone, but once you get it set up and practice a bit it becomes second nature. So don't hesitate to try different setups when initially setting up and testing, it's worth it to get a comfortable and quick key binding setup.

 

[khaos526]

Ok, thanks for the heads up guys. I am a heavy keyboard user with mouse, so for me keybindings are huge and have very little room for more. I'll have to see where I can possibly fit more of them in. Roughly how many new binds are there?

 

[varonica]

Ok, thanks for the heads up guys. I am a heavy keyboard user with mouse, so for me keybindings are huge and have very little room for more. I'll have to see where I can possibly fit more of them in. Roughly how many new binds are there?

I have mine nearly all set up on joystick so I can be of little help. I started off joystick and keyboard but as I said I changed and found I could do the entire FSS one handed on the joystick. Maybe some fellow keyboard and mouse users can post their bindings to assist.

 

[space voyager]

I too am a K&M user. Any suggestion on what new gameplay tools I'll need to additionally keybind now? And what can I drop?

 

[avow555]

Key bindings aside, the new interface doesn't look like it belongs in the same game.
An interface you will be using a lot whilst totally detached from your ship.

Designed for consoles first again...

 

[SMcA]

I agree, the hardest part is setting up your control bindings. I use a highly customized set of bindings for my HOTAS, and probably spent 30+ minutes setting up the bindings and tweaking them.

But yeah, the new tools are pretty straightforward to use. It's both faster and slower than the old system, depending on what you're comparing. You'll probably just have to try it out to decide for yourself. When you do, make sure you give it some time, and get used to it first.

30 minutes, that’s good. It took me the best part of a day to do my bindings that and writing a macro to enter and leave FSS. Most of that was finding convenient and free keys and HOTAS buttons. A little bit of manually editing the binds file so that entering and leaving FSS used the same key.
As you say it is both faster and slower. I did a 2 kLy passenger mission just scooping, honking and jumping. I got just over 3 mil in payment for that. The downside is you don’t get a full system map. Only the stars and gas giants, if they are close to the star. Scanning the whole system could take a long time but I am sure that will get quicker with practice and time.
I think it is a good mini game.

 

[iain666]

Ok, thanks for the heads up guys. I am a heavy keyboard user with mouse, so for me keybindings are huge and have very little room for more. I'll have to see where I can possibly fit more of them in. Roughly how many new binds are there?

I ended up with an all keyboard control scheme for the FSS in beta (WASD to move the view, cursor keys to control the zoom and wavelength filter doodad) and you can reuse the same keys in FSS that you use outside it without a problem so you'll have most of the board to play with.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Does the new mechanics feel like it takes too long now to find anything worth of value in a system? Or is fast once you learn the new signal and such?

Depends on what you find interesting, but the new system makes it possible for the first time to find surface features (no, the old way of reducing graphics to minimum and circling around planets does not count in my book), and it's easy enough to tell what kind of rocks you have without even opening the system map.

 

[LifesAJourney]

Can someone provide us with the list of necessary keys for the new exploration mechanics?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Ok, thanks for the heads up guys. I am a heavy keyboard user with mouse, so for me keybindings are huge and have very little room for more. I'll have to see where I can possibly fit more of them in. Roughly how many new binds are there?

There's only two new binds you need to fit into your main keymap
- swap between analysis and combat modes
- activate FSS screen

There are a lot of binds on the FSS and DSS screens but they don't conflict with any of your existing ones so you can use what you like for them. I played most of Beta on one computer, installed it on another for the last week, and was able to reset the FSS/DSS bindings once I knew what I was doing in a couple of minutes: the slow bit is that you have to bind the keys before you really know what they do, so my first attempt was badly off.

For the FSS I've gone for: pitch and yaw on mouse, tuning on left-right arrows, adaptive zoom on up-down arrows ... you don't really need the others all that much, so put them wherever.

For the DSS I've gone for pitch and yaw on mouse, and firing a probe on the normal fire button.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Key bindings aside, the new interface doesn't look like it belongs in the same game.
An interface you will be using a lot whilst totally detached from your ship.

Designed for consoles first again...

any design decisions based on the FSS being detached from your ship was not because of consoles

there were many suggestions in beta on how it could have worked / be improved / not be a separate mini game, especially on the topic of Key bindings, but blaming it on console users isn't really fair, button combos and contextual menus are far underutilized without needing to "leave the ship" - switching flight mode button doesnt work in SC for example. controls could be right there but thats a whole other discussion on how the FSS is / was implemented.

Its unfair to blame console users though; the designers chose a "telescope minigame" outside the cockpit and stuck with it - rightly or wrongly, UI should be a designers bread & butter and consoles dont restrict that with enough creativity.

@op - i would wait until live and im sure someone will be along to post a good key binding set up, i managed in Beta coming from a xbox controller so its not that difficult, Live might even bring defaults which are usable, with every update i have always used the defaults with 1 or 2 tweaks and its served me well rather than mapping my own and getting into a mess.

i played beta obviously on PC but im an Xbox CMDR and already have an idea of what i will use to switch into FSS mode (there are two required FSS & DSS) which then means all the buttons are free to use as you see fit.

 

[SMcA]

...and you can reuse the same keys in FSS that you use outside it without a problem so you'll have most of the board to play with.

That is true. I only had to use one extra key to enter and exit FSS. I use k/board keys via my HOTAS s/ware so I didn't have many spare.

 

[askavir]

Was the learning curve long and tedious or was it something people generally picked up pretty quickly?

The learning curve is very short, but the whole thing is tedious beyond belief.

 

[marx]

The learning curve? There will be even less of one now. Information we used to have will either be made easier to spot, or it will be hidden.

For example, if you were looking for ELWs or especially AWs, earlier you had to learn to recognize them, based on visual or aural clues. Come Chapter Four, you'll only need to memorize where on the scan bar they appear, and the game even confirms it for you. ("You are in the Earth-like Worlds range.") Earlier, you might not have recognised a "camouflaged" ammonia world: now, if they're there, you can't miss them.

That said, since the UX design is rather bad, you will have to modify the controls to make them passable for you. However, that's not a learning curve, that's just customization.


@ avow555: Yes, switching from flying your ship to operating a stationary FSS turret is rather poor design. No, it wasn't needed because of consoles. Rather, it was the "improve multiplayer exploration" part (see here): for multicrew exploration, a turret view is the most workable. (There's also "Replace flying time with gameplay".)

That said, with the absence of crew tags and not much reward in credits either, I don't see why many people would want to play a simple and quite clunky minigame as crew. I'd be willing to bet that MC exploration will remain even more of a niche activity than MC combat.
Unless the former two were just bugged all through the beta, and were actually meant to be included.

 

[iBR0WNY]

Has anyone tried it with an Xbox controller? Is it easy to use and set up?

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I only got to scratch the surface of some of the new things in beta due to currently having a lot of demands on my time IRL, however once you get past the pain of binding all the new controls, and start playing with the new mechanics, they become very familiar very quickly. It almost feels like the Full Spectrum Scanner has or should have been in the game since day one. For example when you find say a gas giant, you know there is unlikely to be another gas giant orbiting the first one, so when you are targetting the signal sources nearby to the gas giant you just discovered you know to stick to scanning the rocky/icy bodies part of the spectrum as its 95% that what those other signal sources will be.

So as others have said previously, the hard part is setting up the bindings, once thats done, it quickly feels very intuitive and rewarding.

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Has anyone tried it with an Xbox controller? Is it easy to use and set up?

as an Xbox CMDR dabbling with ED Beta on PC i used by XBONE controller as its Win10 compatible and works fine. Pita to customise and find something that works but theres plenty of buttons as you enter a different mode much like changing from standard to alternative flight controls

*fingers crossed* a preset version comes out with the release on the 11th

The learning curve is very short, but the whole thing is tedious beyond belief.

Will be interesting to see how people feel after 50 / 100 / 500 systems.