Remember Weak Signal Sources?

Sure you do.
It was not so long ago they decided to remove those. Do you miss that feature? I do and here's why:

Let's say I'm in SC, traveling to a target body/station. Like many amongst you I use head tracking to look around, others play in VR but the point is the same, you look at something to see what it is like the name of a planet, sun, station etc. But if you look at USS, you can no longer tell what it all about, most of them are unidentified and to find out what it is you have to:


  • throttle down (otherwise you'll often overshoot it)
  • point your ship at USS and select it
  • wait for a scan
  • decide if you're interested in it or not
  • if not, select your target destination again
  • throttle up and point to it to continue your journey.

Call me lazy but this game mechanic makes me often disregard any USS on the way because of all the things I have to do mentioned in the list above.

Wouldn't it be better to know what signal source is about by just looking at it?
And if you scan it, you get more info about it, like threat level etc.

Weak SS is for cargo, black box, stuff like that like it used to be.
Distress call is visible without scanning, threat level after a scan
Emissions signals should be visible also. If you want to know more, you scan it and see if it's encoded, decoded, degraded, high grade emission...

Well, you get the idea..

So what do you think?
 
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I hardly ever investigate USS, purely because if the faff in resolving them.

If these would resolve as an indicator type like you suggest, I may detour from my destination and drop in....
 
Sure you do.
It was not so long ago they decided to remove those. Do you miss that feature? I do and here's why:

Let's say I'm in SC, traveling to a target body/station. Like many amongst you I use head tracking to look around, others play in VR but the point is the same, you look at something to see what it is like the name of a planet, sun, station etc. But if you look at USS, you can no longer tell what it all about, most of them are unidentified and to find out what it is you have to:


  • throttle down (otherwise you'll often overshoot it)
  • point your ship at USS and select it
  • wait for a scan
  • decide if you're interested in it or not
  • if not, select your target destination again
  • throttle up and point to it to continue your journey.

Call me lazy but this game mechanic makes me often disregard any USS on the way because of all the things I have to do mentioned in the list above.

Wouldn't it be better to know what signal source is about by just looking at it?
And if you scan it, you get more info about it, like threat level etc.

Weak SS is for cargo, black box, stuff like that like it used to be.
Distress call is visible without scanning, threat level after a scan
Emissions signals should be visible also. If you want to know more, you scan it and see if it's encoded, decoded, degraded, high grade emission...

Well, you get the idea..

So what do you think?

Yes I like it. It's a subtle change but it would add a much needed layer of depth to the supercruise experience.
 
Agreed. Just enough info to differentiate them and perhaps entice you to take a closer look. As they are it's easy to just let them go by, unless you're actively looking for them rather than traveling somewhere on purpose.
 
jaw drops to the floor?

what? have you not played the game since 2.1???

before hand we had weak sources, and strong sources, and pot luck even after a scan when we dropped out into a random incounters.

Now we get an indication if it's wreckage (and type of wreckage, post combat ), distress signals, convoys,......threat assessment.....
 
jaw drops to the floor?

what? have you not played the game since 2.1???

before hand we had weak sources, and strong sources, and pot luck even after a scan when we dropped out into a random incounters.

Now we get an indication if it's wreckage (and type of wreckage, post combat ), distress signals, convoys,......threat assessment.....

That's true there is much more variety which is a great thing, but until you target the USS as described it's just an 'Unknown Signal Source'. The issue is whether you bother to target it, then retarget your destination, then target the next USS, then retarget your destination, etc. When you're flying somewhere on purpose (mission, cargo, whatever) it's become easier to just let them go rather then check them out. A small hint as to their contents would probably make them more attractive to passing Cmdrs.
 
I hardly ever investigate USS, purely because if the faff in resolving them.

If these would resolve as an indicator type like you suggest, I may detour from my destination and drop in....

Same here when I played. The gank the player mechanic that usually resided at the other end of the USS always kept me from enjoying any aspect of them when randomly encountered. I think the main issue is the design of the game from SC to real flight. That lack of seamless travel has caused the design to be a joke for gameplay in many regards. FD having to do the RNG USS, which when thought about seems fine, but after using it becomes obviously limited. Still hoping they can figure this stuff out. Braben did make the greatest game of all time after all, he should be able to do it again with the tech we have today.
 
jaw drops to the floor?

what? have you not played the game since 2.1???

before hand we had weak sources, and strong sources, and pot luck even after a scan when we dropped out into a random incounters.

Now we get an indication if it's wreckage (and type of wreckage, post combat ), distress signals, convoys,......threat assessment.....

Yes, definitely the scenarios are more varied and that's a +100 good thing. The USS now scans with a threat level, and that's a good thing too generally speaking but I recognise what the OP says because of the mystery element that weak and strong had along with them .. you had to drop and take your chances and in a way now it's 'almost' too much information. You still don't really know what you're going to get though.

I think Frontier did a good thing by tightening up the USS somewhat (and definitely by adding more categories) but could (maybe) be a case for dropping the words "threat level" off the USS source (so 1-4 stand more for signal strength than actual 'threat level' which is a shade prescriptive?). I don't know whether it helps newbs to do that though. Or maybe add another .. unknown threat (maybe there's a signal jammer or something, that means some sources are a total mystery).

Distress Calls are the most interesting of all of them for me at the moment (maybe because they really are pucker time). So not massive for me but interesting definitely.
 
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That's true there is much more variety which is a great thing, but until you target the USS as described it's just an 'Unknown Signal Source'. The issue is whether you bother to target it, then retarget your destination, then target the next USS, then retarget your destination, etc. When you're flying somewhere on purpose (mission, cargo, whatever) it's become easier to just let them go rather then check them out. A small hint as to their contents would probably make them more attractive to passing Cmdrs.

Exactly this, thank you. Variety is great and welcome but the new mechanic of it is really bad. Kind of a downgrade of what we used to have in the past.
 
It'd be especially good for those with head/eye-tracking or VR. Keep on moving towards your destination, but 'soft lock' by looking at it and it starts to resolve into a convoy/distress call etc.

It's not laziness - don't get me wrong I'd love to have more detailed/nuanced sensors and encounter possibilities. But as long as scanning involves targeting, pointing the nose of your ship at something and waiting, I'd prefer a simple improvement like this.
 
I also am not a fan of the scan approach implemented but do like that there's more variety in the USS's and that each type (once scanned) tells you what you may or may not find there. I'm not sure the devs do much with USS's when they play as I think they have the ability to magically load whatever mats onto their ship that they want in order to test something. If they played without their cheat codes, I think the current method would get some improvement. I also think the Earth is round, so call me crazy. :D
 
The main thing that puts me off USS is the looooooonnnnnggggg time it takes to drop in.

It would be much more user friendly if they acted like a wing beacon and pulled you out of SC if you had resolved the contact and had it targeted.

Dropping in on a wake signal could also be improved this way.
 
It'd be especially good for those with head/eye-tracking or VR. Keep on moving towards your destination, but 'soft lock' by looking at it and it starts to resolve into a convoy/distress call etc.

It's not laziness - don't get me wrong I'd love to have more detailed/nuanced sensors and encounter possibilities. But as long as scanning involves targeting, pointing the nose of your ship at something and waiting, I'd prefer a simple improvement like this.

Yeah, I like that "soft lock" idea. One could use that to scan passing ships too, without unlocking the destination.
 
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