Planetary Scan Missions Need Fixing

[jstumberger]

Before chapter 4 was introduced, you'd jump into a system with your ship, honk the discovery scanner, proceed to the now-found search zone and continue on from there. Or if you didn't have a discovery scanner installed, go to the system's nav beacon and scan it, then go to the search zone.

Now, honking with the DS does nothing, not even approximate where the signal could be coming from, so in order to find it, you have to visit each and every landable planet and surface scan it until you scan the one with the installation's signal. The nav beacon's role stays the same though. You can scan it and it then finds the search zone. This poses the question why would anyone, even with a ship specifically outfitted for surface scan missions, use the discovery and surface scanner to find the mission target? There's a lot more (needless) work involved, since you can just use the nav beacon.

I think there are a few ways of going about this.
Option 1: The nav beacon is stripped of its search abilities, hence making surface scanning viable for finding the right planet.
Option 2: The discovery scanner gets the same function as the nav beacon - use it to find the search zone on a planet.
And finally option 3, which is the one I would prefer: both discovery scanner and nav beacon approximate on which planet the signal source could be coming from, but there would be no search zone. To find the surface installation, you'd have to surface scan the planet.

Also, there's a few issues with the search zone signals right now.
The search zone "corrects" its initial position right before you start your glide, making you miss your mark for hundreds of kilometers. Even when on the surface, the corrections are way to slow to be functional. Before the update, you could fly over the search zone and its position would update fairly quickly. Now I have to stop to find the next search zone's position, and even then it doesn't always work until I fuss about with my ship a bit. It's an inconvenience, but one can live with this.
The most game-breaking problem here is the apparent location of the search zone signals. About 50% of the planetary scan missions I've done since the update went live had search zone signals coming from underground. And I don't mean just barely underground, i'm talking 10 to 30 km underground, which basically ends the scan mission right then and there because you can't really find the next search zone without leaving the planet and coming back for another try. This wasn't a problem before chapter 4, so I'm not sure what's going on with this.

Sorry guys, it's a bit long. Hope this helps!
Otherwise, keep up the great work, chapter 4 is a blast!

 

[oflow]

This change sucks but I think its not a bug its done on purpose to nerf scan missions. They want you to either use the nav beacon or search each individual body in a system with a compromised nav beacon. I dont mind scanning the beacon, but the thing that reaally sucks is the search zone randomly moving 150-800km after you drop into glide.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Before chapter 4 was introduced, you'd jump into a system with your ship, honk the discovery scanner, proceed to the now-found search zone and continue on from there. Or if you didn't have a discovery scanner installed, go to the system's nav beacon and scan it, then go to the search zone.

Now, honking with the DS does nothing, not even approximate where the signal could be coming from, so in order to find it, you have to visit each and every landable planet and surface scan it until you scan the one with the installation's signal. The nav beacon's role stays the same though. You can scan it and it then finds the search zone. This poses the question why would anyone, even with a ship specifically outfitted for surface scan missions, use the discovery and surface scanner to find the mission target? There's a lot more (needless) work involved, since you can just use the nav beacon.

I think there are a few ways of going about this.
Option 1: The nav beacon is stripped of its search abilities, hence making surface scanning viable for finding the right planet.
Option 2: The discovery scanner gets the same function as the nav beacon - use it to find the search zone on a planet.
And finally option 3, which is the one I would prefer: both discovery scanner and nav beacon approximate on which planet the signal source could be coming from, but there would be no search zone. To find the surface installation, you'd have to surface scan the planet.

Also, there's a few issues with the search zone signals right now.
The search zone "corrects" its initial position right before you start your glide, making you miss your mark for hundreds of kilometers. Even when on the surface, the corrections are way to slow to be functional. Before the update, you could fly over the search zone and its position would update fairly quickly. Now I have to stop to find the next search zone's position, and even then it doesn't always work until I fuss about with my ship a bit. It's an inconvenience, but one can live with this.
The most game-breaking problem here is the apparent location of the search zone signals. About 50% of the planetary scan missions I've done since the update went live had search zone signals coming from underground. And I don't mean just barely underground, i'm talking 10 to 30 km underground, which basically ends the scan mission right then and there because you can't really find the next search zone without leaving the planet and coming back for another try. This wasn't a problem before chapter 4, so I'm not sure what's going on with this.

Sorry guys, it's a bit long. Hope this helps!
Otherwise, keep up the great work, chapter 4 is a blast!

If the system is one you have never scanned before, then using the FSS on the correct planet will reveal tbe mission target. Otherwise, only the Nav Beacon will work. This needs to be part of a broader overhaul of surface missions.

1. Mission PoI's should be more persistent.....fixed in place either at initial system entry or at the time of the FSS Scan.

2. The honk should always reveal what body the PoI is located, & the FSS Scan should reveal the presence of the general location of the PoI.

3. A probe scan should reveal a more specific location for the PoI.

4. Finding the specific location of the PoI should require skill, not just waiting long enough for the PoI to randomly pop into being.

5. Mission specific PoI's need to have much greater variety in size & complexity.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Actually, I have been giving things a bit more thought, & I now think the solution could be that Mission Specific PoI's should be on the same part of the spectrum as USS's, Scenarios & the like. Scanning planets randomly would reveal a mission specific PoI the way it currently does, but a planet containing a mission specific PoI would have orange triangles appear when you approached it on the orbital plane in the FSS.....as long as you had it tuned to the proper frequency. Maybe different types of PoIs could have different frequencies (so a Building or Outpost would maybe show up as a Concentrated Signal Source, whereas a crash site or supply depot might show up like a USS). Everything from 3 onwards, though, I'd keep the same as what I've written.