Okay, Scanning needs to become more fun

smintili · Jan 20, 2015

Hi there,

I've been exploring the vast galaxy for about a month now and scanning is on the one hand simply not fun or engaging in any way and on the other it's way not lucrative enough. I've steadily worked my way from the Sol System (with a slight detour to Shinrarta Dezhra) towards the center of the galaxy and have traveled roughly 250 Ly away from Sol (I'm only flying in an Adder), I just left civilised space behind me, and scanning all these unknown worlds becomes boring pretty fast when there are no stations around to do a little missionrunning here and there to pep up the scanning. Besides, when there are no stations and no signs of life besides an occasional single ship, the game becomes a little depressing - sort of like I am alone in this ****ing vastness of space.

A game like this, whose main selling point is the impossible-to-grasp big playing area (as in THE GALAXY), should a) reward scanning and braving the unknown more and b) should also find a way how that would become more fun. Hell, even the scanning minigame in Mass Effect 2 was more fun than pointing your ship for a minute or so at close range at some hunk of rocks (ie an asteroid field).

Telnets · Jan 20, 2015

well, it is space.. and you are alone..so...... not sure what you expected?

I dont even know why they spawn a ship.. personally once outside regular space, you should maybe see a ship exploring every 30 systems or so.. people should become rare.. just as stations do

I think its good there is only a select area of civilized space and the rest is nothing.. it shows a game where we have not advanced to the point of taking over every system in space, but moreso, we are expanding into it. and down the road could lead to amazing gameplay.. the civilized area expanding into new areas.. a new faction expanding into ours.. ect ect.

As with most complaints you also go to say "make it more fun" but dont provide any sort of suggestion on how to do that.. Suggest something.. what would YOU like to see, if you were programming it, what would you change?

Conestoga · Jan 20, 2015

I think a little more sizzle would go a long way. Graphics on your HUD of different scans and detections. Showing life detected, minerals, ices, magnetism, tectonics, etc., data popping as the scan goes on.

Kind of like Starflight did.

Thomas Jefferson Jones · Jan 20, 2015

I'd like to see greater player interaction with their sensors, so a skilled operator could tune them to quickly find all planets, belts, suns, moons etc in the local area.

Listening to the sensor returns would give you an idea of what kind of bodies you've discovered and if there's likely to be anything interesting there.

Say you're accustomed to what a metal rich planet 'sounds' like on the sensors. So you single it our for a detailed surface scan. This detailed scan means you have to fly to the planet, and pilot around it to 'sweep' it in supercruise to cover the surface.

As you do this points of interest on the planet are marked, and you can target those and do a further focused scan to determine particualrly rich pockets of resources, or life signs or whatever.

As this would take some time, the data would be valuable, but at the same time you wouldn't have to bother flying to every body in the system, because right from your hyperspace exit you'd know which bodies merited further investigation.

It gives the explorer more to do, interjects some player skill as you learn what different phenomena sound like, and wards away tedium with higher rewards and a more objective based appraoch to surface scanning.

Telnets · Jan 20, 2015

I like your ideas.. I could totaly see having some fun listening to your Space Horn return with selected sounds all playd back at once or very close to the same time, and having to pick them out from listening to it's return echo to figure out whats out there.. if you heard a certain pitch you could be like "Oh i know thats a metal planet" then tune it to find metal planets, and then bounce another echo out to return thier locations or something narrowing it down..

having stats pop up in a window after you find a M class planet, and get close to it to scan the surface, could display things like population, evolvement levels (are they advanced or not).. that sort of thing..

and yes.. I agree with exploring needing a boost in gameplay.. they need to make it a game in itself almost.. and if a player chooses to spend say, 20 min exploring a single system to bring back detailed data, it should reward them with a good 300-500K reward which would be on-par with trading.. considering the risk they take being out there and the possibility of loosing thier data on the way back home to turn it all in..

mojonaut · Jan 20, 2015

Telnets said:
I dont even know why they spawn a ship..

Because otherwise the forum would be filled with 'This game is Sooooo empty, why can't we have more ships spawning'?

Thomas Jefferson Jones · Jan 20, 2015

mojonaut said:
Because otherwise the forum would be filled with 'This game is Sooooo empty, why can't we have more ships spawning'?

You're probably right, but I hope these ships stop spawning eventually.

I'm also very disturbed that ships start appearing in my area after I exit into a random spot in a planetary ring....how are they finding me??? Are they really that interested in my FSD wake? Just let me mine in peace!

Telnets · Jan 20, 2015

haha.. and after you kill them, there seems to always be more!

kamenjar · Jan 20, 2015

Not that I disagree, but you can "find fun" in figuring out what to scan and what not and being able to quickly make a call on what to scan (See my FAQ in sig about habitable zones and related payout threads).
If you are good at it, you will be doing this:
Enter a system.
Charge advanced scanner while scooping (with a large scoop).
Get on outbound trajectory.
Set destination (or not if you are mid-hop)
Charge FSD
Look at the system map
Warp out (90% of the time).

If you are doing it right the process of going from system to system should not take longer than 1.5 minutes.

ste · Jan 20, 2015

With landing on planets and maybe discovering life forms it might be worth venturing outr of civilized space. If thats ever going to happen

Telnets · Jan 20, 2015

would be amazing, but lets be honest.. landing on planets will mean finding a small "city" somewhere that has a few platforms to land on instead of a ship.. I doubt i will ever be alive when i see a game so detailed that I can fly from planet to planet AND interact FPS wise with the local "Aliens"

Ravenov · Jan 20, 2015

While i agree that exploring needs some more work put into it..

smintili said:
. Hell, even the scanning minigame in Mass Effect 2 was more fun than pointing your ship for a minute or so at close range at some hunk of rocks (ie an asteroid field).

...please no, just no. The scanning mechanic in ME2 was such a chore in an otherwise decent game.

ste · Jan 20, 2015

Telnets said:
would be amazing, but lets be honest.. landing on planets will mean finding a small "city" somewhere that has a few platforms to land on instead of a ship.. I doubt i will ever be alive when i see a game so detailed that I can fly from planet to planet AND interact FPS wise with the local "Aliens"

Maybe more none civilized life and you just land in the middle of a jungle. That other game what I forgot its name does something similar. Then you can record the data and watch them or see what happens if you try to mine them.

Lobstris · Jan 20, 2015

Points at the graphical loveliness and interesting functionality of Limit Theory's scanner, then walks out of the thread...

grae3107 · Jan 20, 2015

Although exploring does need to be filled out I do think it can be very lucrative considering once you pass about 500ly there are no other ships to threaten you. The only risks are your own mistakes.

Each trip I make is netting me about 1 Mil credits which was only about 100 systems scanned and all the interesting stuff detail scanned.

neXib · Jan 20, 2015

You are doing it wrong and nobody is forcing you either.

But yeah, the scanning is taking a tad too long atm.

SvennoJ · Jan 20, 2015

Exploration in ED is a bit like wandering through the desert while staring at random rocks for 30 sec at a time.
There is only a handful of descriptions and not a lot of variety in what planets, moons and rings look like either. It's still fun to wander the galaxy, see how big it is, look up the nebulae you pass by, and occasionally find some great sights. Scanning itself is boring. The only fun thing about is correctly predicting which are the worlds suited for terraforming.

Thomas Jefferson Jones · Jan 20, 2015

Lobstris said:
Points at the graphical loveliness and interesting functionality of Limit Theory's scanner, then walks out of the thread...

You're right that is nice, - something like this should be used to find USS's as well, because the current system of them spawning randomly in front of your ship as you fly around, and magically containing just the item you're looking for from that BB mission you just accepted, is pretty daft, very game-y.

Wouldn't it make more sense if you're looking for a black box for instance say to, - i don't know - *scan* for one and follow the sensor return?

There's so much potential for scanners to feel like a powerful and complicated ship's system.

Lodorenos · Jan 20, 2015

I can't wait for exploration as a whole to get some love from Frontier.

smintili · Jan 21, 2015

Telnets said:
As with most complaints you also go to say "make it more fun" but dont provide any sort of suggestion on how to do that.. Suggest something.. what would YOU like to see, if you were programming it, what would you change?

I would suggest something like I've already read here, with the sensor echoes, or maybe some form of minigame when scanning something, perhaps needing to direct your scan impulse at the target you're about to scan, thus making it possible to scan targets very, very far away instead of having to get as close as 5 Ls and then stand still in front of them. And for the "not making any suggestion" thing, that is right, but in forums, my approach is to first state my problem and wait for the response from the community to see if other people feel like me or if I am alone with my opinion. I've discovered it's actually nicer this way, because this will make other people come forward with their suggestions rather than saying "Your idea is bad". Thus, I prefer getting the discussion about the topic started by just stating my subject and then jump in when the wave of people who would just complain about my suggestion has passed

Thomas Jefferson Jones said:
I'd like to see greater player interaction with their sensors, so a skilled operator could tune them to quickly find all planets, belts, suns, moons etc in the local area.
Listening to the sensor returns would give you an idea of what kind of bodies you've discovered and if there's likely to be anything interesting there.
Say you're accustomed to what a metal rich planet 'sounds' like on the sensors. So you single it our for a detailed surface scan. This detailed scan means you have to fly to the planet, and pilot around it to 'sweep' it in supercruise to cover the surface.
As you do this points of interest on the planet are marked, and you can target those and do a further focused scan to determine particualrly rich pockets of resources, or life signs or whatever.
As this would take some time, the data would be valuable, but at the same time you wouldn't have to bother flying to every body in the system, because right from your hyperspace exit you'd know which bodies merited further investigation.
It gives the explorer more to do, interjects some player skill as you learn what different phenomena sound like, and wards away tedium with higher rewards and a more objective based appraoch to surface scanning.

That's the thing! Some pretty great ideas there. Also I would like to find some more anomalous stuff, like, say short-lived wormholes which let you jump 1000 LY or so (of course if you want to). Or space nebulae containing some sort of resource (even though that would be simply another form of mining then). All in all, FD need to fill space up with some more interesting stuff, because at this point it is just ships, rocks, bigger rocks and USS with ships and rocks. And a big piece of metal here and there (a station).

Ravenov said:
...please no, just no. The scanning mechanic in ME2 was such a chore in an otherwise decent game.

Really? I thought it was kind of nice - of course it got a little tedious if you were aiming for 100%, but if you played with a Lvl 60 imported Shepard from ME1, you barely had to scan anyway. And it was way better than that stupid scan pulse thing from ME3.

neXib said:
You are doing it wrong and nobody is forcing you either.
But yeah, the scanning is taking a tad too long atm.

Why am I doing it wrong? What is there to be done wrong about scanning? Because I am a completionist and like to scan every system very thoroughly? That's not wrong, that is doing a job responsibly.

Thomas Jefferson Jones said:
You're right that is nice, - something like this should be used to find USS's as well, because the current system of them spawning randomly in front of your ship as you fly around, and magically containing just the item you're looking for from that BB mission you just accepted, is pretty daft, very game-y.
Wouldn't it make more sense if you're looking for a black box for instance say to, - i don't know - *scan* for one and follow the sensor return?
There's so much potential for scanners to feel like a powerful and complicated ship's system.

Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to take a look at the scanning mechanics from EVE Online. They can get tedious too (at least the way I remember them, haven't played in about a year or so), but they actually give the player a sense of discovering something and not just getting random signals with just the thing you need.