It was effectively impossible for players to find things before, because there was no way to know if any of the billions of systems had something on the surface of one of the many planets and moons. How to find 'things'? Turn the graphics down so the object stood out more, and fly low over the surface. The whole surface. Of one huge planet.
You want to go back to that? In that system, fdev wouldnt have added the new things to discover, because, well why bother.
I'd really like it if you could actually go back and try the old system ...
No, as I wrote earlier, I agree that the FSS was an improvement over the ADS, and I can see how it was necessary. Even though I never tried the ADS, I understand that it made finding new content impossible without probing everything, so it's really not what I'm looking for.
I just think the OP is asking for the bare-bones-wild-west-prospecting-needle-in-a-haystack process back again, without perhaps realising what it actually was. The hardcore python 'you had it easy' veterans might want to go back, but I suspect there are a lot more players now doing exploration that would never have bothered, and going back to a system where it was very difficult to find anything on surfaces ... no.
No, no. I'm asking for a fun way to find that content, because I find that what I have now is disengaging.
FDev has added content, so of course they want us to find it and enjoy it and it shouldn't be a pain to look for it.
I wish that they opted for a way to make the research fun, to make it a game in itself, and I believe that if they did they would have also achieved their goal of making more people engage in it. However, I've learned that to many players exploration with the FSS is fun as it is, so maybe I'm just not doing it right, or I'm not looking for the right things.
I mean, to me the research had to offer a challenge per se. Not an overwhelming challenge, but a challenge that's fun to overcome. Just like a game. There is some games that are just about exploration, and what do they do? They give a hint, a trace, a path to sniff. But I'm not sure that such mechanics could apply at a galactic scale. And then the game is probably there already, I just have to look for the right things.
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then what's fun comes down to personal preference of course, so if I don't find this kind of exploration fun, that's fine, it's not like I'll force it on me. There's plenty else to do, a huge game FDev has made.