You also know more about the whole system. The spectral analysis graph is available right away and you will be able to tell, at a glance, some broad strokes about the size of the bodies and whether it's likely to be lots and lots of smaller bodies or a few large ones or what have you. If you really know the system inside and out you will probably have good intuitions about whether or not there are earthlikes or things like that.
Chrystoph said:
As an example, your course takes you through a Class M. The ADS reveals that the there are a total of 10 objects in the system. When you open the System Map, you find a typical Class M and nine non-landable, beige hunks of rock in various orbits. It is literally the stereotypical system that most of the galaxy is made up of with minor variations such as a Tauri instead of a Class M.
The majority of the galaxy that is composed of either stars without planets or my example in some minor variation. I have repeatedly tried to point out that the new system is going to require that you spend more time on these systems because you now have to look, regardless of the exact mechanic, at each body individually. The fact that you can learn to do that quickly once you have learned the new mechanics does not obviate the requirement to LOOK at it in the first place.
The end result of this is that you are going to waste a lot more time looking at objects that are statistically insignificant than in the current system. Yes, certainly it will only take a little, albeit variable dependent on the number of objects, while longer than it does now, but, when you are moving through hundreds if not thousands of systems, that time will accumulate to hours of time spent effectively looking at something useless BEFORE you can determine that the system in question is nothing except a gas station on the galactic highway.
Minor quibble - it's not a forward-facing sensor. You can point it independently of your ship's facing it is effectively a "turret" in fact a 2nd crew member can aim it while you are flying.
Yes, I have had the fact that the sensor is not forward facing pointed out to me. The fact remains, which you conveniently left out, that it is a directional device, and it is only directional for discovery. After you have identified the object, you SUDDENLY have omni-directional capabilities, ie the current sensor capability.
Not for most people. I guess it depends on what you mean by "additional activity"? If you mean "fly closer to the planet and scan it for a bigger Cr reward or possible first discovery bonus, then no. The very act of populating your system map with the bodies (by manipulating the Discovery Scanner) will give you all of those first discoveries and Cr rewards, all without having to fly any closer to the planets. What would have been "additional activity" in the old system is already DONE by the time you've identified all the planets with your scanner.
I specifically left out clarifications because I don't know what the additional activity would be; launching probes, landing on planets, mining for materials in a ring, or other activities that Frontier hasn't made public. Regardless of what those activities are, you cannot look at the system as a whole and determine that it is not worth additional effort until you have spent time scanning object that may not be worth the effort.
If you mean broad strokes "do I want to scan anything at all or just move on?" - well you can make an informed decision about THAT based on the initial readout you get in the scanner, just from the shape, size, and density of the different waveforms.
Repetitive, but I'll answer it again. I value my time and I feel that this is going to spend more of it on less return when you throw in all the things that end up being discards.
If you mean "fly to the planet, drop probes and get a mapping bonus" - well YEAH, you won't be able to make a completely informed decision on that one until after you've identified the planets in the system. But that's a whole new activity which wasn't part of the original sequence anyway.
No, I mean making the decision that it is worth hanging around to do that.
Still not sure what constitutes "worth the time" for you. I guess you're primarily interested in finding planets to land on and drive the buggy around? My guess is that you'll be able to make some good initial intuitions as to whether or not a system has laudable planets on it, just from the structure of the spectral analysis. You WILL for sure have to spend more time on average in identifying which particular planets are landable and where they are. Buuuut you'll have more information upfront (volcanism, surface temp, tidally locked, prospecting materials) much earlier, without needing to fly to them. And when you DO fly to them, should you choose to use the Surface Scanner (aka probe launcher) you will be able to find (and for that matter, confirm the existence of in the first place) specific points of interest (geological sites, brain trees, ruins, etc) MUUUUUUUCH faster. So, I dunno. It seems to me a much better and more fun (and complete) system of scanning and exploring, with very few downsides.
As I said before, it is more a matter of a negative decision, ie what is not worth hanging around for because it wastes my limited amount of time to look at a potato.
And just to reiterate, you don't need to point the nose at anything. That's how the old system worked, though!
What's the RNG part?
No, that is not how the part of the system we, or, at least, I, am discussing. I am talking about the current system of jumping in, honking, looking at the system map to see if it is anything more than non-landable rocks as compared to jumping in, honking, then looking, by whatever mechanism, at each body to see what it looks like before I can decide that it is not worth my time.
For me, that decision point currently takes about 20 seconds to reach because it starts when the insertion animation begins and I wait to put the ship on a stable vector relative to the star and the fueling process before pulling up the system map to evaluate whether there is anything more interesting that a bunch of beige rocks spinning around a star. The new system requires me to look at each object and decipher it before I can reach that point. Even if it only takes 60 seconds to do that, that is 40 seconds per system.
On a 20,000 LY trip using a 40 LY average (my ship is currently ~48 LY capable), that comes out to in excess of 333 hours of game play JUST to determine whether a system is worth additional attention, only to determine that, not to go do something, not to travel, merely to make sure the system isn't a rock garden. I will admit those numbers are SWAG, but the fact remains that you cannot eyeball those objects individually as fast as looking at the current system map for the simple reason that they are not all going to be in the same place.
, that will be the first iteration of atmospheric planets - hopefully not just gas giants).
