Why I percieve the "new" scan as broken

[-VR- Max Factor]

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.

This is not the case as all you need is to look at the wave forms to tell you what is is the system. And you also talk about non-landable. You are assuming that these will remain non-landable in the future.

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.

Possibly, but if the experience is fun and engaging, does it really matter?

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.

Think of it as a virtual reality overlay. We can do this today.

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.

That is no different to know. In fact it is worse at the moment as you need to eyeball every landable planet. With the new system you will know if there is anything worth investigating on planets well before you get there and only then will you need to do the probe game.

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.

What do you mean less return? In its a fun and engaging activity, does it matter?

No, I mean making the decision that it is worth hanging around to do that.

The new system is better for that depending on what you are looking for.

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.

See above.

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.

Again, you are assuming that non-landbles will remain so. I see this new system as future proofing.

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.

It could still take 20 seconds.

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.

Don't care how long it takes for the whole journey as long as I have had fun in the way.

 

[gooddoc]

@Chrystoph. Yes it's fair to say that getting the info on an uninteresting system will take longer than the honk & look method we have now.

The balance though is that when you jump into a system that HAS interesting Planets (not just Ice/Rock worlds) then these systems appear to be scanned far quicker than SCing to each in turn.

So this will hopefully counterbalance the extra time spent in scanning the uninteresting systems on long trips.

Only proof will be for me to Explore between two systems using the new method in Beta & then exploring between the same two systems in the current game....then comparing each time taken.

I suspect that the new system may actually be quicker, once Iv got used to recognising the graph patterns.

I was one of the cmdr's whose first impression of this new method was that it would kill my Exploration playstyle, now seeing it in action, albeit in a simple system, it may not be as bad as first feared.


Planetgolf though is a new level of Exploration that is many many times quicker than MK1 eyeballing an entire Planet.

 

[M00ka]

I think a lot of players are going to have to re-evalutate how they classify a system as either interesting or uninteresting. As the OP has stated in this thread, one of his concerns is having to spend time scanning a system only to find it contains a primary star and 10 icy/rockies bodies, in effect a system that would be instantly bypassed by 99% of the players after the honk under the current system.

But now we get to find out more, even straight after the new 'honk' on the same system we might find their are ancient ruins or volcanoes or 'whatever' revealed on one of those worthless icy or rocky bodies, something we all would have missed previously. For me, that is the bonus of the new system!

 

[gooddoc]

I think a lot of players are going to have to re-evalutate how they classify a system as either interesting or uninteresting. As the OP has stated in this thread, one of his concerns is having to spend time scanning a system only to find it contains a primary star and 10 icy/rockies bodies, in effect a system that would be instantly bypassed by 99% of the players after the honk under the current system.

But now we get to find out more, even straight after the new 'honk' on the same system we might find their are ancient ruins or volcanoes or 'whatever' revealed on one of those worthless icy or rocky bodies, something we all would have missed previously. For me, that is the bonus of the new system!

That's probably the part that could get boring very quickly for me.

My interest in Vents, brain trees & other Geological formations are zero, it's eye candy, once Iv seen a couple my interest is gone. That's not FD, it's just me!

Ancient sites, I'd always take a look at those.

I just hope that the information we get will clearly distinguish between the two. I'd hate to keep playing Planetgolf thinking I was looking for sites/structures & all I got was brain tree forests.

 

[M00ka]

That's probably the part that could get boring very quickly for me.

My interest in Vents, brain trees & other Geological formations are zero, it's eye candy, once Iv seen a couple my interest is gone. That's not FD, it's just me!

Ancient sites, I'd always take a look at those.

I just hope that the information we get will clearly distinguish between the two. I'd hate to keep playing Planetgolf thinking I was looking for sites/structures & all I got was brain tree forests.

Without going back and reviewing the LievStream, I think you will have that information. From memory, the new scanner showed 'x' number of geological POI, which would enough information for you to disregard that planet. I would think (well I hope so) that if there were structures discovered they would be listed differently.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I think a lot of players are going to have to re-evalutate how they classify a system as either interesting or uninteresting. As the OP has stated in this thread, one of his concerns is having to spend time scanning a system only to find it contains a primary star and 10 icy/rockies bodies, in effect a system that would be instantly bypassed by 99% of the players after the honk under the current system.

But now we get to find out more, even straight after the new 'honk' on the same system we might find their are ancient ruins or volcanoes or 'whatever' revealed on one of those worthless icy or rocky bodies, something we all would have missed previously. For me, that is the bonus of the new system!

And of course they can still skip over a system with ten icy bodies, because the spectral analysis will show you everthing that's present in the system.

Furthermore, once you've decided that a system is worth exploring, the new system will make it much easier to find locations like this (credit Obsidian Ant)

 

[Darkfyre99]

That's probably the part that could get boring very quickly for me.

My interest in Vents, brain trees & other Geological formations are zero, it's eye candy, once Iv seen a couple my interest is gone. That's not FD, it's just me!

Ancient sites, I'd always take a look at those.

I just hope that the information we get will clearly distinguish between the two. I'd hate to keep playing Planetgolf thinking I was looking for sites/structures & all I got was brain tree forests.

IIRC, Frontier said that any artificial structures on a planet, both human and alien, would be revealed through the FSS. Mapping a planet is only required to get its exact location. I believe I read somewhere that artificial structures would also reveal their presence on the spectral analysis, but I'm not certain if that was from an official source or not, so we'll probably have to wait nine more days to find out for certain.

 

[Stigbob]

Add another iteration to your case

I asked your physics teacher to help me find it, no luck though dude seems lost.

 

[gooddoc]

Without going back and reviewing the LievStream, I think you will have that information. From memory, the new scanner showed 'x' number of geological POI, which would enough information for you to disregard that planet. I would think (well I hope so) that if there were structures discovered they would be listed differently.

Yeah it was difficult to tell from the stream, FD wouldn't be stupid enough to show us a system containing sites & geo features in their stream.

However, when they went into the Nav Panel, those 9 discovered featured showed up as unidentified. Indicating that you still have to visit each to discover what it actually is.
So I hope too that structures are listed differently......we'll know in a couple of weeks!

 

[Kaltern]

So, a few things I picked up:

* Scanning a system (which takes exactly the same amount of time as it does now), reveals what there is. Glancing at the readout confirms immediate interest or not.

* Scanning signals and resolving these into planets will take LONGER than opening the system map.

* The INFORMATION gathered by resolving signals will be HIGHER than what we get now after an initial scan.

* The amount of time taken to gain information after initial scan, recognition and resolving is SHORTER.

* Information currently gained by system scan: Number of bodies, basic makeup of bodies, relative location of bodies.

* Information gained from NEW system scan: Number of bodies.

* Information gain by scanning bodies in system: Number of bodies, exact make up of bodies, Geological and other POI on body, exact location and visual of body (via orrery), orbital locations of other bodies in relation to each other (via orrery)

* Looking at live stream, the amount to time it takes to scan an average system to gain the information mentioned is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than it is in the current system.

Now I think the last few points are what is getting a lot of people hot under the collar. They WANT to see the WHOLE system in one go, no more work, no more fuss, they want to see at an immediate glance what there is in the system without having to press a few extra buttons, or do a little more work.

In other words... they want nothing to change AT ALL because changing will ruin the current playstyle.

This has nothing to do with the time taken to do anything. This is purely about convenience, and speed scanning. The new tools are referred to by some as 'mini games', which I think sums it up completely. If that's the way things are looked at, then EVERYTHING in the whole world is a mini game. Airport controllers are all playing mini games when reading radar and watching transponder information. CCTV operators are playing a mini game.

A mini game seems to be used now for 'the procedure to follow to gain information'. The only reason it is being called such is that it is now a necessary step to gain data, where it didn't exist previously.

People complained about the interdiction system being changed to a 'mini game'. It had to change, of course, because being able to simply push everyone out of SC was ludicrous. And it's a similar story here. We SHOULD have to work a bit to find data within a system. The initial scan was never intended to be what it is now, it was just never really prioritised as something to be improved. And the introduction of geo-scanning from the initial scan is a very good an exciting way of introducing new POI content and extra reasons FOR exploration.

So no, I can kind of see some of the objections behind the new system. I simply don't agree with them, as I believe an addition to a game that INCREASES content and actually has a point, is far more important than simple timesaving and convenience for a smaller select group of people. Unlike Multicrew, Thargoids involvement, RNGineers, PowerPlay and Wings... this specific feature sounds like it's been worked on properly, and should enhance the gameplay for those who WANT to explore properly.

 

[M00ka]

So, a few things I picked up:

* Scanning a system (which takes exactly the same amount of time as it does now), reveals what there is. Glancing at the readout confirms immediate interest or not.

* Scanning signals and resolving these into planets will take LONGER than opening the system map.

* The INFORMATION gathered by resolving signals will be HIGHER than what we get now after an initial scan.

* The amount of time taken to gain information after initial scan, recognition and resolving is SHORTER.

* Information currently gained by system scan: Number of bodies, basic makeup of bodies, relative location of bodies.

* Information gained from NEW system scan: Number of bodies.

* Information gain by scanning bodies in system: Number of bodies, exact make up of bodies, Geological and other POI on body, exact location and visual of body (via orrery), orbital locations of other bodies in relation to each other (via orrery)

* Looking at live stream, the amount to time it takes to scan an average system to gain the information mentioned is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than it is in the current system.

Now I think the last few points are what is getting a lot of people hot under the collar. They WANT to see the WHOLE system in one go, no more work, no more fuss, they want to see at an immediate glance what there is in the system without having to press a few extra buttons, or do a little more work.

In other words... they want nothing to change AT ALL because changing will ruin the current playstyle.

This has nothing to do with the time taken to do anything. This is purely about convenience, and speed scanning. The new tools are referred to by some as 'mini games', which I think sums it up completely. If that's the way things are looked at, then EVERYTHING in the whole world is a mini game. Airport controllers are all playing mini games when reading radar and watching transponder information. CCTV operators are playing a mini game.

A mini game seems to be used now for 'the procedure to follow to gain information'. The only reason it is being called such is that it is now a necessary step to gain data, where it didn't exist previously.

People complained about the interdiction system being changed to a 'mini game'. It had to change, of course, because being able to simply push everyone out of SC was ludicrous. And it's a similar story here. We SHOULD have to work a bit to find data within a system. The initial scan was never intended to be what it is now, it was just never really prioritised as something to be improved. And the introduction of geo-scanning from the initial scan is a very good an exciting way of introducing new POI content and extra reasons FOR exploration.

So no, I can kind of see some of the objections behind the new system. I simply don't agree with them, as I believe an addition to a game that INCREASES content and actually has a point, is far more important than simple timesaving and convenience for a smaller select group of people. Unlike Multicrew, Thargoids involvement, RNGineers, PowerPlay and Wings... this specific feature sounds like it's been worked on properly, and should enhance the gameplay for those who WANT to explore properly.

Repped, excellent synopsis of the situation.

 

[Kaltern]

Oh and one last thing - the mention that is is going to be very repetitive to have to do this for every system....

Yes. It is. It is also repetitive to have to jump, scan, refuel. Except for one crucial difference. The chances of actually finding something 'interesting' has increased by a large margin. Sure, we'll have to scan a fair number of systems before we see something like 'unknown planetary signal detected'. But when that happens, that'll make the time spent worthwhile - and you can't do THAT from jump, scan, refuel.

 

[gooddoc]

The thing is....it's different!

Whether the new system will actually be better than the current one really depends on how any particular cmdr explores the systems they jump into.

For some it'll be better.....for others it won't.

For my own particular style, at first my thoughts were that it would kill exploration for me.
Now Iv seen it in a livestream, I'm more at ease with the new method & with practise I feel it will quicken my exploration of systems - depending on what other things will be found.

It doesn't make my style of Exploring right.....or wrong either!

 

[Old Duck]

Why I percieve the "new" scan as broken

Why I perceive the "new" scan as cool - because I do

 

[lenna]

The current system goes like this:

1. Jump into the system
2. Hold down your keybind to start the scan/maneuver for fueling if you are going to
3. Scan completed, pull up the system map
4. Make a decision on whether or not to invest more time on the system
5. Take other actions in system or plot course and jump out

The new system, if I understand it correctly, works like this:

1. Jump into the system
2. Hold down your keybind to start the scan/maneuver for fueling if you are going to
3. Scan completed, you now know more about the primary star
4. Activate the analysis system, manually maneuver your forward only facing sensor onto each body individually, performing a full scan on it to determine what it is
5. Make a decision on whether or not to invest more time on the system
6. Take other actions in system or plot course and jump out

While the write up of the two sequences is almost identical, the new system requires that you scan EVERY body in the system BEFORE you can make an informed decision on whether the system is even worth additional activity.

In effect, Frontier has removed the ability to make a quick decision and replaced it with what is going to be another round of repetitive, boring game play. I say this because, once you master the technique, it will become cumbersome. While you are learning it, it may or may not be entertaining, but doing it over and over again is not going to provide excitement for most people after the first hundred times.

Worse than that, statistically, the majority of that scan time is going to be used to look at objects that are not worth the time because you will still need to scan bodies which are not landable to determine that they are not landable.

No matter how impressive a skill set you develop in reading the scanner, this is not going to be a faster process for making a decision on whether the system is worth further investigation. Consider a system with multiple stars with subsystems of small, non-landable moons and planetoids. You could spend a lot of time on that system only to conclude that it was an exercise in futility.

Added to that is the idiotic notion that I need to point the nose at everything as if I am using a FLIR instead of a sensor suite that can scan in all directions when it is dealing with starships but cannot see system bodies unless they are directly in front of it. Oh, wait, it can see them persistently once you have scanned them, which means the internal logic isn't consistent.

In summary, while the mechanics for in depth MAPPING seem to be worthwhile, I feel the value of the new scanning system is going to be negative because it takes choice away from the player and puts in an procedural/RNG mechanic.

I tend to agree that after the muscle memory and recognition knowledge (hopefully not just in audio form) has been achieved it will most likely be subject to the same degree of criticism as the current system from at least some quarters.

The current sector map does not give you anything solid and unequivocal to go on and you have to spend time to fly there to find out if your assessment is right.

I agree that the initial decision making process is likely to take more time but the identification process (currently required for first discovered bonuses) should be ALOT quicker on balance. I personally think the habitual cherry pickers (like yourself?) will find the new system more time efficient for them on the whole. Not that I believe that is a good thing.

The key point will be how the exploration data sharing impacts on the bigger picture, that could mitigate any concerns about having to waste time looking for stuff that has already been found by someone else.

 

[DaveB]

The thing that blows my mind about this whole discussion is how many of the people who were "honking on" (intended) about how lacking in depth and involvement the current exploration mechanic is are the same ones objecting to having more to do in exploration now.

If you want more depth than "hold the trigger and fly on, job done!" then didn't it occur to all you rocket scientists that if you're getting that extra depth you will have to do more to play through it?


"We want more gameplay around X"
(FD develops more gameplay around X)
"Ewwww! Minigame!" "Respect our game time darn it" "This takes too long!"

FailFlail.

 

[lenna]

The thing that blows my mind about this whole discussion is how many of the people who were "honking on" (intended) about how lacking in depth and involvement the current exploration mechanic is are the same ones objecting to having more to do in exploration now.

I think you will find that it is not necessarily the same group. What FD are proposing with the FSS is effectively to throw the baby out with the bath water rather than refreshing the bath water and adding bubble bath. Not the best analogy but it serves the point.

There are some that have been anti-honk, others that have been pro-improvement-to-exploration, and others either in both or neither camps. The combined impact of the new systems is at best unclear and will only truly become obvious with the Beta.

The impact of the DS/FSS change has wider implications, but these implications could already be mitigated - if not, FD have a chance to mitigate them before release.

 

[DaveB]

I think you will find that it is not necessarily the same group. What FD are proposing with the FSS is effectively to throw the baby out with the bath water rather than refreshing the bath water and adding bubble bath. Not the best analogy but it serves the point.

There are some that have been anti-honk, others that have been pro-improvement-to-exploration, and others either in both or neither camps. The combined impact of the new systems is at best unclear and will only truly become obvious with the Beta.

The impact of the DS/FSS change has wider implications, but these implications could already be mitigated - if not, FD have a chance to mitigate them before release.

"Mitigated" Really?

Ok, riddle me this...

Assume that a hypothetical generic player wants changes to the honk. Whether they are "anti-honk" or "want more depth" or it's for some other reason, they find the honk unsatisfying.
If the change does not add more depth or gameplay then it's effectively just a new UI on the honk. A different button to press or a different sound triggered but still just the honk wearing different lipstick. Whatever reason a player had for wanting changes will apply equally, will they not?
If the change does add more depth or gameplay, then the players will have to play through that additional stuff. They will have more to do. "Mitigating" this would be mitigating the entire change.

You cannot have more "depth and gameplay" without having (duh) more gameplay! "We've developed a new balance weight... it weighs nothing..... "

 

[lenna]

Assume that a hypothetical generic player wants changes to the honk. Whether they are "anti-honk" or "want more depth" or it's for some other reason, they find the honk unsatisfying.

That is just the anti-honk brigade position. There has always been more to the exploration mechanics than just the honk though the anti-honk brigade insist that is not the case.

You cannot have more "depth and gameplay" without having (duh) more gameplay! "We've developed a new balance weight... it weighs nothing..... "

The FSS could have been added with out removing the basic benefits of the Honk. Keeping the honk would have not prevented the FSS being used to discover space based POIs nor would it have prevented the addition of probes to discover surface based POIs.

No, the only people that truly benefit from the FSS completely replacing the DS are the anti-honk brigade. The rest of us may have to suffer the consequences, or not if FD implement (or have implemented) the exploration data sharing the way I believe they should.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The thing that blows my mind about this whole discussion is how many of the people who were "honking on" (intended) about how lacking in depth and involvement the current exploration mechanic is are the same ones objecting to having more to do in exploration now.

The thing that blows my mind is the poor quality of reading comprehension on this forum causing inane comments like this.