The Advanced Discovery Scanner is over powered

Grumtastic

Grumtastic
In the early days of elite dangerous, I really enjoyed finding solar systems outside the local star system by flying at odd angles to watch how some stars might move differently in the background. I think there is a technical name for it.
As I got closer to my target, I would blast the horn repeatedly till I got a hit. Then I got the advanced discovery scanner and suddenly it was like cheating and seeing the end of the story to see what happens.

I think we should have an ADS, but I think it should work differently, so perhaps it only gives a hint that there may be something far away to go look at. It would also encourage you to go closer to look if there is anything worth looking at.

My suggestion is that it will locate planetary bodies that are above a minimum size given the distance they are away. To quote Father Ted "No they are not little sheep, they are just far away".

So if the body is far away you might pick it up if it is a star or maybe a gas giant, but you will have to get closer to see if there are any planets or moons.

Maybe all the scanners should work the same way and the lower the scanner the lower the resolution it can deal with.

I am planning on putting my suggestion forward to the Chapter 4 development, but I thought I would post it here now to see if anyone else has any thoughts?
 

Riverside

Riverside
I think with the number of systems we have, having a tool to just reveal everything is fine. In fact I'd go the other way & say I'd like any area of interest (fumeroles, alien sites etc) to simply be visible from 1,000ls away as a RES or Nav beacon is.

Frankly it's hard enough to find any single system let alone any actually interesting content in it. I'm fine with how the ADS currently works. The DSS could have more uses (including revealing the POIs as I describe).
 

the source 0179

T
Sentynal said:
In the early days of elite dangerous, I really enjoyed finding solar systems outside the local star system by flying at odd angles to watch how some stars might move differently in the background. I think there is a technical name for it.
As I got closer to my target, I would blast the horn repeatedly till I got a hit. Then I got the advanced discovery scanner and suddenly it was like cheating and seeing the end of the story to see what happens.

I think we should have an ADS, but I think it should work differently, so perhaps it only gives a hint that there may be something far away to go look at. It would also encourage you to go closer to look if there is anything worth looking at.

My suggestion is that it will locate planetary bodies that are above a minimum size given the distance they are away. To quote Father Ted "No they are not little sheep, they are just far away".

So if the body is far away you might pick it up if it is a star or maybe a gas giant, but you will have to get closer to see if there are any planets or moons.

Maybe all the scanners should work the same way and the lower the scanner the lower the resolution it can deal with.

I am planning on putting my suggestion forward to the Chapter 4 development, but I thought I would post it here now to see if anyone else has any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I hate to say this but if you dont like it dont use it. There are 3 versions. You can always use the basic or intermediate scanner.
 

Arry

Arry
The ADS is rubbish.

It costs 1,500 time the normal scanner and you still have to fly to all the bodies it finds, to get a proper scan. Otherwise the bodies are just labelled as undiscovered. It is sold as having an infinite range; but it can only scan one system. How is that infinite?

Meh. That said, i never travel without one.
 

BarFly

BarFly
Hello,

Sentynal said:
I am planning on putting my suggestion forward to the Chapter 4 development, but I thought I would post it here now to see if anyone else has any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Do it, but don't count on my vote.
Elite is a game.
And the developer are building up enough hurdles to tread us badly. We shouldn't have more.
And we don't need any more chicaneries.
 

lokvette

lokvette
If only scanning a system was like doing it in Eve, or along those lines.

Yes yes ED is not Eve, Eve is satans spawn, I should go and play Eve, ED Is not the game im looking for yabba yabba.

I used to live in wormhole space and scanning a system was kind of fun, scanning a system in ED amounts to click here point there rinse and repeat., Yes done my fair share of that and for some reason still doing it.

Ohh yeah I like the ideas in the OP [big grin]
 
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trollson

trollson
I also remember the challenge of discovery in the early game - flying rings around a system trying to spot the dot which moved against the background stars. That was exploration, and a worthy game. The way the ADS currently works is not good gameplay.

I would prefer if discovery scanners worked on triangulation - or some heuristic approximation. A single "honk" would still detect nearby objects, but to detect more distant and smaller bodies you must travel within the system and make further "honks" - the total distance travelled between "honks" (linear sum) gives a baseline for further refined detection, as-if the scanner was collating views from different locations and looking for background movements.

So to explore a system you have to explore it.

Of course, the current ADS is the bolted horse, and such exploration has to be worth the effort...
 

Cmdr Nemo

Cmdr Nemo
Arry said:
The ADS is rubbish.

It costs 1,500 time the normal scanner and you still have to fly to all the bodies it finds, to get a proper scan. Otherwise the bodies are just labelled as undiscovered. It is sold as having an infinite range; but it can only scan one system. How is that infinite?

Meh. That said, i never travel without one.
Click to expand...

Honk the system with the ADS, then scan the NAV beacon, your really gonna like the results.
 

Mjr Brownstains

Mjr Brownstains
If you guys want to use parallax with a basic/intermediate scanner then go for it, but please don't nerf the ADS.
Exploration can be tedious enough as it is especially when trolling planets for lifeforms, lets not make it worse.
 

Arry

Arry
Mjr Brownstains said:
If you guys want to use parallax with a basic/intermediate scanner then go for it, but please don't nerf the ADS.
Exploration can be tedious enough as it is especially when trolling planets for lifeforms, lets not make it worse.
Click to expand...
This^^:
The ADS needs an improvement, not nerffing. I would go with the 'mid range scanner' option.
 

Retrograde

Retrograde
I also liked the old scanning system. It felt very rewarding and made the systems seem bigger. But once players are used to a more powerful version, any nerf is seen as terrible (cf selling used modules at full price bug). As a compromise, the ADS could have lower resolution at a distance as suggested, but perhaps higher resolution in a 30 degree cone in front of the ship.
 

Hooplah

Hooplah
The Advanced Discovery Scanner costs 1.6 million credits. The payoff is that it shows every planetary body in a system. What it doesn't do is give details for planetary bodies requiring a Detailed Surface Scanner. The Basic and Intermediate scanners are limited in their range. These are the ones used to fly around in a system and discover new bodies when they get in range.

The OP is totally missing the point. The lesser Basic and Intermediate Scanners already fulfill the OP's limited scanning range. This is one aspect of the game that actually works very well! No need to change it.
 
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stephen_usher

stephen_usher
I've been saying this since the beginning.

The current set of limits for the discovery scanners are so patently obviously place holder quick fixes as "distance" is very quick to measure.

What it should have been is "visibility", i.e. a combination of angular size, albedo and illumiation or luminosity depending upon whether it's a planet or a star. These all have easily calculated proxies in game angular size depends directly upon diameter and distance, the albedo is the brightness of the surface and the illumination can be calculated using nearest star brightness/(distance to star ^ 2). All quick to calculate, especially if you cut of size beyond certain distances for small moons.

The three discovery scanners would then have different limits for these quotients. The advanced discovery scanner would not be "infinite" as it is now, but would find all stars and large planets up to hundreds of thousands of light seconds away and be sensitive enough to find all moons within a couple of tens of thousands light seconds.

Far more believable.
 

Lucius-Darcia

Lucius-Darcia
Riverside said:
I think with the number of systems we have, having a tool to just reveal everything is fine. In fact I'd go the other way & say I'd like any area of interest (fumeroles, alien sites etc) to simply be visible from 1,000ls away as a RES or Nav beacon is.

Frankly it's hard enough to find any single system let alone any actually interesting content in it. I'm fine with how the ADS currently works. The DSS could have more uses (including revealing the POIs as I describe).
Click to expand...

I have to disagree to OP and to agree here.
With the "old method" it was nearly impossible to discover anything beyond 200.000 ls distance because you had to fly HUGE swirls and circles and spend dozens of hours in supercruise to find something out there.....for what? A brown dwarf with 5 snowballs?
The game lacks of content already now and this little bit that we have takes already now hours to find. I'd like to see the same than Riverside giving the Detailed Surface Scanner more meaning instead and reveal surface POI's from orbit. Still needing to check them out down on ground but to actually getting a hint for them.

At the moment we cruise hundreds of hours above a planets surface to find some fumaroles, you want to add cruising even more hundreds of hours in supercruise to actually find that planet? That would be insane.....[knocked out]

25 million systems in EDSM registered, 0.006 % of the galaxy and 46.000 years still needed to explore the whole galaxy. And you want to add some more 0's to those numbers.......
 
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Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Lucius-Darcia said:
At the moment we cruise hundreds of hours above a planets surface to find some fumaroles, you want to add cruising even more hundreds of hours in supercruise to actually find that planet? That would be insane.....[knocked out]

25 million systems in EDSM registered, 0.006 % of the galaxy and 46.000 years still needed to explore the whole galaxy. And you want to add some more 0's to those numbers.......
Click to expand...
^^^^ this

I think it's a terrible idea.
 
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