the FSS, watching paint dry....

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Took a while to get used to, but once you have the controls set, - I use a mix of mousewheel for zoom and fine tune, and joystick for scan, it's really enjoyable, and oddly relaxing. Do whatever floats your boat.
 
I'm 20000ly from the bubble and can't work out how to exp,ore anymore!

Give yourself more time to learn it. The honk gives you a nice overview of the contents of the system - it does not give you pretty pictures, or the arrangement of planets, but it does tell you at a glance if there is an ELW or WW, or if the entire system is rocky.

Anyone seen an ELW?

They are easier to find now. I'm not kidding. In the past, you might mistake an ELW for a WW or vice versa. Each time you make a mistake, you just wasted some amount of time flying out to the planet to scan it. Hilariously, you scan it without even getting close enough to see it. With the new system, you instantly know if an ELW exists. If not, you continue on your way. If one does exist, you use the scanner to find it, and that's more rewarding than flying out to it (but not close enough to see it) in supercruise.

At that point, you have the same amount of money as you would have had under the old system. You can now decide if you also want to map it and get more money.
 
Not played more than a couple of hours in the last few months. Had a sniff at beta and wasn't keen with the faffing (for exploration). Updated the game yesterday, logged in, found all my custom keybindings had gone although I only had an XBOX pad plugged in. Will have another punt over the weekend with the HOTAS but in all likelyhood I've probably reached the end of my ED journey o7
 
Nopes.

Probing planets is a new layer... When you scan planets via the , you get exactly all the data you got prior to this update. Also, scanning allows you to see if there are any geological or biological hotspots on the planet. If you don't see that, there is no point going to it to probe it.
This fss system feels more like I'm getting 'probed', but enough of that I'm happy that you are happy.
 
It's not as Instant as before and including the 1980s 8bit Probes you have to fire at the planet it simply takes longer, I get it, some people like this new mechanic but I just cannot get my head around it,sorry.

I am sorry, but you still don't really understand how the system works. :) The FSS replaces BOTH the ADS and DSS. So where in the past you had to honk, then fly to the planet (even if it is 700k LS away); you now get the same result from using only the FSS. Yes, that includes 'first discovered tags'. It is MUCH faster. The probing is optional, and is a whole new layer.
 
New FSS mode makes my exploration take longer time... cause now I wanna scan each system, can't help myself. No more honk and go for me.
 
I haven't managed to complete the key mapping required to get it to work :(

Lesson in life, don't use controllers without understanding how they work and interact with the game.
 
It's not as Instant as before and including the 1980s 8bit Probes you have to fire at the planet it simply takes longer, I get it, some people like this new mechanic but I just cannot get my head around it,sorry.

perhaps try it before making an incorrect statement. i was 10 jumps from Great Annihilator when the update dropped. i hit the GA (and crapped myself with the distortion effect of that gigantic singularity and aborted my trip to Sag A* lol) and headed for one of the colonia truck stops to change underwear - er i mean to sell data. yes nothing to do with underwear.

anyways. you jump in, set yourself refueling and the honk should have gone off. you go to FSS mode AND LOOK AT IT. there is even a little thing comes up when you move the line left and right that tells you what lines in that area mean. right in the middle is riocky bodies and ice bodies slightly left, and just a micron right, a peak there indicates ELW then right of that is amonia worlds and right of that place is for water worlds. keep going right its all gas giants. any signal sources would be on the left end.

i have seen plenty of waterworlds in the new system and one of my first five jumps i found an ELW. and all without moving from refueling! then i flew to the ELW and used the probes to MAP it. thats all new and all EXTRA credits. plus i enjoy the little challenge game of trying to get the eifficiency bonus.

i have plenty of experience with the old system. i could never tell if that blue world on sysmap was an ELW or waterworld or just a high metal with atmosphere pretending. only way to find out and get the credits was to FLY there even if it was way the hell 500,000 LS away. lots of time wasted flying from one star through empty dead space to another on a MAYBE which mostly turned out to NOT BE. not any more. i wish i had this system when i was out at horsehead before it all went permit lock or on my other trip i had to abort at 14000 ly out because i lost a fight with a secondary star on the way to the drop in at the primary, and hadnt fitted a repair module...
 

sollisb

Banned
Correct. Once that's done it gets a little better. Also the boring side all depends on how you decide to use the new tools to explore.

Everyone has their own views at the end of the day and some will find it very tedious and monotonous, others will enjoy it. If its not for you then at least there are other aspects of the game to enjoy.

On that note!
"Fly safe Cmdr's"
o7

Very good reply, which sums it up pretty well.
 
New FSS mode makes my exploration take longer time... cause now I wanna scan each system, can't help myself. No more honk and go for me.

i know. it gets easier when the novelty wears off though, it has for me. almost. i caught myself stopping a jump to map a metal rich that was so close i saw it moving as i charged today. i must be more disciplined.
 
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The new FSS is ten times better then the old system, why? Just read all posts by Sleutelbos.
Yeah scanning a system with 65 bodies takes a while but try getting all the info you get in the old system.
It takes only seconds to check the FSS after the honk for ELWs or WWs or USSs if that's what you're looking for, imho it's a huge improvement.
You can still honk and jump and still get payed too if your in for the credits, which I'm not btw.
 

sollisb

Banned
The new FSS is ten times better then the old system, why? Just read all posts by Sleutelbos.
Yeah scanning a system with 65 bodies takes a while but try getting all the info you get in the old system.
It takes only seconds to check the FSS after the honk for ELWs or WWs or USSs if that's what you're looking for, imho it's a huge improvement.
You can still honk and jump and still get payed too if your in for the credits, which I'm not btw.

It completely ruins any immersion that there my be in my opinion. One minute (VR) im sitting in my ship, the next I'm sitting on nothing, in nothing, looking at some FSS screen, then I'm back to my ship when I exit the screen. At the very minimum the screen should be overlaid on the main HUD.

I know it's 'just a game' but it's unbelievable that any pilot would bring up a screen which completely obscured his external view. At the same time, they [fdev] want us to believe that we're under attack from aliens.

Totes'lols
 
Found the keymapping pretty easy myself.

One button to switch mode (analysis on, analysis off same button), one button for FSS on and same button FSS off, primary fire to enter DSS (same to fire probe) secondary fire to back out of DSS. All the rest point and zoom controls as usual. (I use same buttons as SYS and WEP pip control to move the FSS tuner left and right).

I've discovered that - as part of the community exploration - if planets have first discovery on them, they autopopulate and appear as unexplored (same as used to follow honk) and you can still fly up to them to discover, same as before. The nice thing being you don't have to and can tell what they are, before you travel.

To me it feels like proper exploration, not so much distance covered maybe, but more granular - higher detail. Spent an hour tonight in one system, logging geological sites. I knew what was in the system inside 30 seconds though, the rest was for surveying and surface mapping all planets, then flying down to scan composition on 4 different planets. I find the UI intuitive, space age and an actual activity .. that honk and endless supercruising never, ever was.
 
Hm. You really only need the FSS for body scanning if you are exploring. For everything else you just need to scan signal sources. I love it, by the way. :D
 
Ok I watched this video (below) from OA to help me better understand the process and I've come to the same conclusion as before, it's a mess and a huge time sink compared to what we used to have.
Simply jumping into a System, HONKing, quick check of the System Map to see if an ELWs or such like where there and then decide to stay or Jump- Job Done.

Now it seems you have to spend half an hour faffing around blindly scrolling around to see what's in the System, now this is alright for those that want to do that, after all the Option is great...but do we still have the Option to do it the old way? It took me long enough to get around before and as a father of two my play time is extremely limited, but this "new" discovery mechanic means 10x longer at least per system and that's just no fun and such a time sink it's not even worth it.

...and seriously, firing those probes off as seen at 5:30 in the video, why are we reverting to 8bit graphics from the 1980s?! those look horrific in game, I'm bitterly disappointed and as an avid fan of Elite for many years this is such a shame, a once great game has been turned into a convoluted mess it seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A8HvjEidNA

Why should exploring be a quick affair? Its not supposed to be a race...
Note; im not saying the new system is perfect, it could definitely be expanded, adjusted and streamlined, but im happy exploration isnt just "jump, honk, repeat". I welcome the codex giving us something to "chase", and the new system taking some player interaction to actually explore a system and I hope they expand on it a great deal down the line.

Im glad the placeholder that was the old system is gone with, for a main activity of the game it was just a disaster.
 
Hmm, was hoping this was going to be a whine about the 20 seconds to resolve POI in the FSS, but it's just another who can't even get past the training wheels - nvm

nTCj1FI.gif


Hey man, some people need it.
 
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It completely ruins any immersion that there my be in my opinion. One minute (VR) im sitting in my ship, the next I'm sitting on nothing, in nothing, looking at some FSS screen, then I'm back to my ship when I exit the screen. At the very minimum the screen should be overlaid on the main HUD.

I know it's 'just a game' but it's unbelievable that any pilot would bring up a screen which completely obscured his external view. At the same time, they [fdev] want us to believe that we're under attack from aliens.

Totes'lols

I can understand that this in VR doesn't feel "connected". For anyone not playing VR, it is like watching a monitor feed.

Hard to balance I guess, between VR and flat-screen players.
 

Achilles7

Banned
None of anything you said makes sense.

Boring? More boring than flying around HOPEING for the signal source youre looking for will spawn?
Too many controls to bind? Ive mapped 4 new bindings for the FSS - What are you on about?
Confusing? Which part..moving the slider left or moving the slider right?

Honestly people wil literally complain about anything on these forums.

These forums are pure cancer.

Just leave the condescension to those of us who are able to spell "hoping", okay?! [big grin]
 
Judging from the tone of this thread I'd surmise that the old status quo drove all the real explorers away from the profession and there are few left to take up the mantle.
 
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