Using the Detailed Surface Scanner is almost a pointless exercise

[NeilKD]

As a game mechanism, the DSS is almost pointless. Other than revealing the locations of Surface Features and HotSpots in Rings, using the DSS provides no additional details about a planet. Everything there is to know comes from the FSS so, other than additional Credits, what is the point of spending the time flying from planet to planet and firing probes at them?

I know this suggestion will not be popular but I think it would make a lot more sense if the FSS provided the basic information about a planet such as its location and type - Gas Giant, Icy, High Metal Content etc. The actual details, whether you can Land, whether it is suitable for Terraforming or is an Earth-like planet, etc should only be revealed by a Detailed Surface Scan. That would make Exploration a far more interesting exercise than just another Credit Grind.

 

[metatheurgist]

Dear god, no. Then we might a well go back to having to fly to each and every planet pointing the ship at it and waiting.

 

[Old Duck]

As a game mechanism, the DSS is almost pointless. Other than revealing the locations of Surface Features and HotSpots in Rings, using the DSS provides no additional details about a planet. Everything there is to know comes from the FSS so, other than additional Credits, what is the point of spending the time flying from planet to planet and firing probes at them?

I know this suggestion will not be popular but I think it would make a lot more sense if the FSS provided the basic information about a planet such as its location and type - Gas Giant, Icy, High Metal Content etc. The actual details, whether you can Land, whether it is suitable for Terraforming or is an Earth-like planet, etc should only be revealed by a Detailed Surface Scan. That would make Exploration a far more interesting exercise than just another Credit Grind.

We can identify earth like planets in other solar systems in 2020, so this makes no sense IMO.

Though I do agree that some things like material composition (what mats are available to harvest), atmospheric pressure, temperature, etc. should be moved to the surface scanner. I also think "Biological POI likely" be kept to the FSS but the "22 Biological signals confirmed (sic)" ought be moved to the surface scanner as well.

But as with everything in ED, nothing will change for the better (edit - except Galnet and CGs, kudos that). Frontier can't be bothered to fix well-documented bugs, so I don't expect them to make small QoL changes.

 

[varonica]

As a game mechanism, the DSS is almost pointless. Other than revealing the locations of Surface Features and HotSpots in Rings, using the DSS provides no additional details about a planet. Everything there is to know comes from the FSS so, other than additional Credits, what is the point of spending the time flying from planet to planet and firing probes at them?

That's the entire point of the DSS!

The FSS tells you if there is anything worth scanning the body for. You don't fly from planet to planet firing probes, you scan with the FSS and then decide based on the results whether anything is worth probing, for instance if it's an ELW, or if it has biology and geology. 95% of the systems I visit with planets I never probe anything.

 

[Elliot Coleman]

Have to agree with the OP to an extent.

The FSS shouldn't show as much information as it does. It makes no sense that one can see a planet has 25 geological sites from 300k ls away. The FSS saying "geological sites likely" and leaving it at that would be sufficient. Also, materials and densities should be DSS only.

 

[varonica]

Have to agree with the OP to an extent.

The FSS shouldn't show as much information as it does. It makes no sense that one can see a planet has 25 geological sites from 300k ls away. The FSS saying "geological sites likely" and leaving it at that would be sufficient. Also, materials and densities should be DSS only.

We went through this during the beta, please keep up! Also why would materials and densities be probe only, that makes no sense at all? We can measure the percentage of elements in a star on the other side of the galaxy, why on earth wouldn't we be able to do that with planets? And density is super easy, gravity/radius gives density, these are things that should be detectable from a long way away.

 

[Elliot Coleman]

We went through this during the beta, please keep up!

I wasn't here for the beta. I'd stepped away from ED for a while.

Just admit you want to honk and scoop and reap the full benefits of exploration. God forbid someone offer a more in-depth way to do anything in Elite that makes the game feel like you're actually doing something other than staring at jpegs all day.

 

[Para Handy]

I wasn't here for the beta. I'd stepped away from ED for a while.

Just admit you want to honk and scoop and reap the full benefits of exploration. God forbid someone offer a more in-depth way to do anything in Elite that makes the game feel like you're actually doing something other than staring at jpegs all day.

Wow! What nonsense. Yes you have been away eh? The furore around FSS introduction and the loss off "pretty pictures" to cherry-pick from caused no end of animosity, low flying pram toys and seasoned explorers to quit. Maybe you just have not been away from already-discovered space since your return. In any event you owe @varonica a grovelling apology.

(I can't say any more than this as I don't want to be banned.)

 

[Elliot Coleman]

Wow! What nonsense. Yes you have been away eh? The furore around FSS introduction and the loss off "pretty pictures" to cherry-pick from caused no end of animosity, low flying pram toys and seasoned explorers to quit. Maybe you just have not been away from already-discovered space since your return. In any event you owe @varonica a grovelling apology.

(I can't say any more than this as I don't want to be banned.)

I think you misunderstand the point I'm trying to get across.

I'm on my second tour of nebulae, currently piecing my way through NGC 7822, taking my time with it this go-around, as my prior visit was more of a passing look. So, yes, I have left the bubble since the introduction of the FSS.

I like it as a feature. I believe it is useful. However, like the OP, I also believe that it's current information output is too high. It makes the DSS seem like wasted space on an exploration vessel. "Oh, but it gives you more credits for mapping," you might say. Indeed it does. It's also far more useful on a mining ship.

The suggestion, at least from my point of view, is to make POIs on the surface only discoverable via the DSS, along with what types of materials one might find. I don't think that's such a ridiculous thing. It is, after all, a surface scanner.

Instead I get told to keep up, as if I'm expected to pour over the doubtless hundreds of threads on exploration in the last two years. So, one might would understand if I'm a little incensed over it, especially since every single suggestion to improve gameplay is met with the same group of sad forum trolls going on about how the shallowness of the grind is so great.

So no, no apology owed. Besides, grovelling is for simps.

 

[varonica]

Instead I get told to keep up, as if I'm expected to pour over the doubtless hundreds of threads on exploration in the last two years. So, one might would understand if I'm a little incensed over it, especially since every single suggestion to improve gameplay is met with the same group of sad forum trolls going on about how the shallowness of the grind is so great.

So no, no apology owed. Besides, grovelling is for simps.

I don't grind, except for sad forum trolls into dust, that's always fun! Every single suggestion that has been made in the last week, as far as I can tell, has been made at least 30 or forty times in the last year, some of them pop up once a week, so yes it is up to you to acquaint yourself with the state of the game, not for us to repeat endlessly things that have already been discussed endlessly. I have found new types of biology in the Abyss I would never have found if not for the FSS telling me they were there and it was worth popping out to have a look. Removing that info from the FSS means that every single system you visit would need to have every single body probed or risk missing interesting stuff, such as the recently discovered ruins from the Ghost Ship event.

You complain about grind, then want to force me to probe tens of thousands of bodies? Talk about shallow and mindless grind. No I don't care about apologies, my record speaks for itself, I will rely on that to support me, you can continue on with your efforts to make yourself irrelevant or you can find out what's been happening while you have been away, your choice!

 

[Elliot Coleman]

We're all irrelevant. Thus is life.

And, might I add, I'm not the one who started the thread, nor did I force you to click on it, or read it. Don't wanna see the same thing over and over? Pass it over or petition FDev to remove suggestions from the forum.

 

[varonica]

We're all irrelevant. Thus is life.

And, might I add, I'm not the one who started the thread, nor did I force you to click on it, or read it. Don't wanna see the same thing over and over? Pass it over or petition FDev to remove suggestions from the forum.

Ooh forum police alert! No-one forced you either, yet here you are making silly suggestions that verge on trolling, that's not acceptable, there are forum rules, and one is that we try and stick to the subject as much as possible, and that is the FSS.

Personally I am not against some limitation in the FSS, but to remove functionality from the FSS that's already possible with the current state of science and technology would be rather silly. When Odyssey comes out there will be a far larger variety of planets and life to be found and explored, the FSS and its current function is a vital tool. Once you get out of the bubble the number of systems you find from the old days that were discovered but none of the bodies were ever run over with the old DSS is remarkable, people never bothered because it was so time consuming to fly up to every body and sit there for a a minute while the old DSS did its bit. Removing functions from the FSS would just lead to the same thing again, 99% of bodies will never be mapped so 99% of the data out there will never be collected and players will miss out on finding the interesting stuff out there.

 

[MintyBiscuits]

If I could make one change it would be to get rid of the probe mechanic. Make it a laser instead. You switch to the DSS and shoot at "scanning laser" at the surface. Depending on the class/engineering on your module it scans a wider radius, outwards from the focal point. Larger planets require you to scan from different angles. You would still have to get close to the planet to use it.

Also I would make it a cockpit overlay. While it would function like the current one (with a moveable aiming point) you wouldn't actually have to leave the cockpit to do it. It would simply toggle off your flight controls so you can move the reticle. Would be slightly faster when you need to change course (not much but still).

 

[varonica]

I will have one more say here and that's it, the discussion can go on without me. We have people complaining about the FSS and probe mechanics (this is not directed at you MintyBiscuits, once they made the number of probes unlimited that would have been a reasonable alternative) and one of the points made, which they seem to think is in their favour, is that they weren't here to discuss it when it was being strenuously argued about during the beta and after so therefore they get their say to argue for it being changed now.

I have been avoiding being blunt but enough is enough. No Elliot Coleman, you weren't here, you were off somewhere else doing something else while we were all testing and arguing and discussing the best way for the FSS and DSS to work, if it had been important to you, you would have been here with us. Others at the time argued your position and lost, but you weren't there, so no, you don't get a say on how the FSS and DSS works.

Sure you can argue all you like, and I will never tell anyone to go away and not comment on a forum, but your argument and your position is irrelevant and will always be irrelevant, the time for discussion came and went, decisions were made, and you weren't here, so no, you don't get a say in how it works!

 

[metatheurgist]

If I could make one change it would be to get rid of the probe mechanic. Make it a laser instead. You switch to the DSS and shoot at "scanning laser" at the surface. Depending on the class/engineering on your module it scans a wider radius, outwards from the focal point. Larger planets require you to scan from different angles. You would still have to get close to the planet to use it.

Also I would make it a cockpit overlay. While it would function like the current one (with a moveable aiming point) you wouldn't actually have to leave the cockpit to do it. It would simply toggle off your flight controls so you can move the reticle. Would be slightly faster when you need to change course (not much but still).

That would be worse because you can't bend lasers around a planet. I would now have to reposition my ship at least twice to fully scan a planet.

 

[MintyBiscuits]

Well the idea is that a scanning pulse expands outwards from the focal point of the laser much like the probes do now. If your scanner is powerful enough (either via engineering or different module grades) and the planet is small enough, the pulse could envelop the entire planet.

For larger planets if you target the poles as well as dead centre you could scan more of the planet and maybe only have to reposition once depending on how big the planet is.

Maybe I'm doing probes wrong but on larger planets (like gas giants) I have to fly around them anyway to get a complete scan.

 

[Mercury7]

Well the idea is that a scanning pulse expands outwards from the focal point of the laser much like the probes do now. If your scanner is powerful enough (either via engineering or different module grades) and the planet is small enough, the pulse could envelop the entire planet.

For larger planets if you target the poles as well as dead centre you could scan more of the planet and maybe only have to reposition once depending on how big the planet is.

Maybe I'm doing probes wrong but on larger planets (like gas giants) I have to fly around them anyway to get a complete scan.

It's a matter of technique and a bit of geometry, but done right and you don't need to move at all.

 

[metatheurgist]

Maybe I'm doing probes wrong but on larger planets (like gas giants) I have to fly around them anyway to get a complete scan.

Yep, you are doing it wrong.

 

[Jmanis]

It's a matter of technique and a bit of geometry, but done right and you don't need to move at all.

Exactly this.

On an aside... why not have the DSS reveal transitory signals on the planet? So instead of the blue- circle mechanic, which is pretty contrived and dumb... you get the equivalent of USS on the planet surface when completing a DSS scan. Of course, issue is 100%ing a planet is permanent, so that would need to be addressed... but would more of a reason for DSS too.

 

[stereoBear]

Besides, grovelling is for simps.