So why do we need to face a ship to tell who's in it?

[Jex =TE=]

I pointed a ship at a star once, apparently I was exploring.

Yeah I know! I did it a few times too and the thrill of it was almost to much for my nappy to bare. Just the sound of my scanner jingling away was so much fun!

When exactly is exploring going to be a game and not just a trip through boresville and jump after jump after.....


and now that planetary rings are ugly and nerfed, not even one of those to stop by and immerse yourself in for 10 minutes.

 

[Jex =TE=]

I assume you only ever load your ship with turrets and use the docking computer too?

Out of interest, which way do you face when you play tennis?

You would assume wrong then but yes, I was thinking of adding the pointing my guns at things but that's a fun thing to do and it's not "with nothing to do".

Never watched star trek then?

 

[SpitTheDog]

You would assume wrong then but yes, I was thinking of adding the pointing my guns at things but that's a fun thing to do and it's not "with nothing to do".

Never watched star trek then?

Yep - read some of my earlier comments. So it only makes sense to point the ship at thing YOU want to point them at then? Cool.

Now Star Trek is a good example. Why do you think they don't need to turn the ship to scan everything in detail? Do you think it is because the technology to do that makes absolute sense or because as a plot device it is pretty cumbersome if they needed t turn the ship each time they wanted to scan someone?

In action sequences they still fly the ship around while pointing forwards with far less focus on things like side-strafing. The weapons still seem to be at the front although seem to have quite a bit of a gimbal/turret effect. Impulse engines don't appear to have a thruster outlet of any kind (normally) yet they tend to fly in the direction they are facing (with some exceptions where it seem to fit the story they are telling even though the deflector dish is at the front). Then when they really want to scan something in detail they fire a probe that then has the benefit of acting as a plot device when it gets blown up or lost or something.

Besides which, using Star Trek as an example of what makes sense isn't really that good. I know, lets put our communicators as a little badge on our chest that we touch when we want to speak. However we only need to touch it when we want to start a call, we don't need to touch it when we receive a call, everything we receive is automatically on loudspeaker, yet somehow no-one ever gets the captain killed by calling him/her during a part where he needs to stay really really quiet. Nor do we ever see more than one conversation happening at the same time.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I don't mind having to do things that 'in the future' should be automatic, being a game and all.

But it would be nice if you could just look at your target go scan it. Not point your ship at it.

It would be most useful for scanning CMDRs in supercruise.
I always like to know who's about. But 99% of the time they're not on my flight path. So I can't be bothered to turn my ship around to look.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Yep - read some of my earlier comments. So it only makes sense to point the ship at thing YOU want to point them at then? Cool.

Now Star Trek is a good example. Why do you think they don't need to turn the ship to scan everything in detail? Do you think it is because the technology to do that makes absolute sense or because as a plot device it is pretty cumbersome if they needed t turn the ship each time they wanted to scan someone?

In action sequences they still fly the ship around while pointing forwards with far less focus on things like side-strafing. The weapons still seem to be at the front although seem to have quite a bit of a gimbal/turret effect. Impulse engines don't appear to have a thruster outlet of any kind (normally) yet they tend to fly in the direction they are facing (with some exceptions where it seem to fit the story they are telling even though the deflector dish is at the front). Then when they really want to scan something in detail they fire a probe that then has the benefit of acting as a plot device when it gets blown up or lost or something.

Besides which, using Star Trek as an example of what makes sense isn't really that good. I know, lets put our communicators as a little badge on our chest that we touch when we want to speak. However we only need to touch it when we want to start a call, we don't need to touch it when we receive a call, everything we receive is automatically on loudspeaker, yet somehow no-one ever gets the captain killed by calling him/her during a part where he needs to stay really really quiet. Nor do we ever see more than one conversation happening at the same time.

Star trek scanners scan all around, just like radars do today. You don't need to point anything. Try reading up about the 2nd world war. It was this small event on earth when they were invented. To think radar technology hasn't increased with time is so monumentally idiotic that it's not worth a discussion - the point still remains we have the most basic and boring way of scanning things.

What's your point?

Edit: So the Enterprise never did detailed scans of planets whilst in orbit then? Never scanned multiple ships (they did, an infinite amount in fact in the episode where infinite enterprises spawned.

 

[SpitTheDog]

Star trek scanners scan all around, just like radars do today. You don't need to point anything. Try reading up about the 2nd world war. It was this small event on earth when they were invented. To think radar technology hasn't increased with time is so monumentally idiotic that it's not worth a discussion - the point still remains we have the most basic and boring way of scanning things.

What's your point?

Edit: So the Enterprise never did detailed scans of planets whilst in orbit then? Never scanned multiple ships (they did, an infinite amount in fact in the episode where infinite enterprises spawned.

My point is that the Enterprise is a fictional ship that does things that suit the plot lines. You are using a sci-fi vessel to justify what Sci-Fi game vessel should do. Just because it does omni-directional scans is not a reason why Elite should. The fact Star Trek sends out probes to scan objects demonstrates that the writers see situations where the standard scanners need to be supplemented by something else. Elite has omni-directional scanners that give a significant amount of information without turning the ship but just like in Star Trek we have to do something else if we want more detailed information. We don't have a probe, we just point and click but either way it is a plot device or game play aspect that means something else must occur.. We have it easier, they have to have an entire bridge crew to manage all of these things.

P.S. You mention detailed scans from orbit. That means they pointed the Enterprise at the planet. Travelled there and once they arrived they used a scanner. We get the scan while we point at the planet and we don't actually have to achieve orbit before we do it!

 

[Phil^]

Rotating scanner antenna? That's just crazy talk. This is the future where common sense has long since been abandoned by mankind.

You mean like this?

 

[SpitTheDog]

You mean like this?
View attachment 93382

Why is that pink haired child about to eat your ship?

 

[Phil^]

Why is that pink haired child about to eat your ship?

Its Ross 154 - Merlin from Elite II - Frontier, on the amiga
The colours were... bright back then on some planets.

 

[DrakeAurum]

So my scanner picks up a ship 100 or so ls away, shows me the direction it's facing, make, model, can even produce a small image of it, showing all sorts of microscopic details as it flies about through supercruise, it's exact facing etc, and yet, until I turn to face it, can't look that ship up on the galactic database to tell who is driving it and what their legal status is ...

#doesnotcompute

There's no indication that your scanner is picking up much detail from a ship in supercruise. It can tell which direction it's facing because ships in supercruise leave those long comet trails, and maybe it gets enough information from a passive scan of its energy output to identify which ship type it is, but that's all. Ships of the same class all look alike aside from colour, so that little image it displays in your HUD isn't necessarily a live feed at all - it could just as easily be a pre-rendered model from the ship's data library.

 

[Monolith Preacher]

As much as I can understand needing to face ships to scan them when dogfighting or cargo scanning, I can't say I think the same when in supercruise. It'd be nice to be able to at least work out which ship is the CMDR messaging me without having to circle around like a nutter checking random AIs as the CMDR in question cruises out of range towards their chosen station.

 

[X-Terminator]

Why do you have to point towards the ship to even shoot at it I wonder...

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Another failed logic with the scanner working only when the ship is facing you: when you are interdicted, activating the Hostile command will select the ship interdicting you and you get all the information almost right away, even though that ship is BEHIND you...

 

[ChaosCloud]

I would prefer that you could buy a On Board computer with X slots, and then buy modules for these slots.

All of the want! Even if it's just to be able to get the docking computer without wasting the usual internals, and mostly because I'm lazy, less because I have problems docking (aside the occasional planetary mess up...)

Another failed logic with the scanner working only when the ship is facing you: when you are interdicted, activating the Hostile command will select the ship interdicting you and you get all the information almost right away, even though that ship is BEHIND you...

#elitedangerouslyinconsistent :>