About these new sensors (from an Intrepid main)

[Captain Gecko]

I love the update, it's great, I'm especially loving the DRADIS sounds. It looks nice and all, and new mechanics are very interesting... But in function though... It could get better. Between this and the larger map, we have new issues:

 

The max range on your sensors is now much smaller in relation to the much larger map. While ships do fly "faster" through these maps, sensor ranges are still the same. Taking the Intrepid for instance, the max sensor range of 7 now does not guarantee that you'll spot a planet (we'll come back to the planet issue), or a site even if there were little obstacles around (and currently, in the Badlands at least, there are lots.) Even worse, still on the Intrepid exemple, the average 1.5/1.6 sensor range coupled with the higher speeds means that you'll see VERY LITTLE as you fly around, making flight much riskier... Or at least much slower than before. Coupled with that, is the heat problem. Once again, I'm referring to the Intrepid, because of the previous issue, you will need to sensor sweep much more, which means more heat generated, and even if you were to turn off your sensors and not just lower them, it would take minutes to properly cool off, minutes on top of already slower trips.

What to do, then? I don't believe making sensors more power/scan larger areas would be needed... If it is really possible without more massive changes. However, making sensors more heat-efficient would definitely be useful. It would allow crafts to passively scan a bit further, and take shorter pauses between sweeps, already allievating an issue.

 

And now the bigger issue... We cannot find planets or sites anymore. Or rather, it is much, MUCH harder. Between the larger maps, and all ofthe obstacles, finding planets or sites is a long effort. Last round, it took a full hour for an Intreprid with 3 crewmen (who knew what they were doing) to find an orbital station (which also means that the local miner did not bring minerals back.) So we would need a way to ensure that away crews can still find sites/planets to explore, and do so at least without taking an entire hour.

The easy solution is just to give the coordinates of these spots directly into the sensor's coordinate list. Not the best choice, sounds a bit too easy to me, but sounds easy enough to implement quickly. Perhaps information could be limited about these places too, with nothing but "planet" or "notable site" as information about what's on this or that coordinate.

The better solution would be to involve the player in actually locating these places, make it a game/activity of it's own. There is now this system to actually locate sites and the likes, where the sensors will give you a bearing to this object as it scans when close enough. We could have something like that for planets, so that miners and X-arcs could get a chance to get to their work quickly enough, if at all. List planets (though with little details beyond the fact that they're planets) on the sensors, let the sensor operator select one of them. Once selected, you get a bearing giving you a general direction to a planet.

 

Once again, I'll add that I'm writing this as someone who has mostly flown the Intrepid only, things may be different with other crafts.

[greenjoe]

I can add that it's a similar issue with the Horizon. I spent part of the first round (before the ship's engines were taken offline by antags) of the S'rand'mar sector flying around, and only came across one thing, missed both planets and the other spawn

[GreenBoi]

To add QoL suggestions to the post:

- Datalinks should not be severed when you turn sensors off. This doesn't add anything other than tedium re-linking after docking back.

- Contacts shouldn't be forgotten immediately after they leave view. While I have yet to try ship combat under this, I don't doubt having to re-trace ships after they leave view wouldn't slow down gameplay and be very frustrating icly and oocly. Contacts should be 'lost' over time, like how they're first identified over time.

[ClemTheDuck]

while the new sensor system has a lot of flavour and potential, it seems that it has taken us a step back. With planets getting harder to find in an event arc that has a huge focus on visiting planets. I dont see why planets would be something so easily hidden in space considering their size. This also leads back to nearly every hazard on the overmap blocking your view. I understand this is supposed to be based of radar but we are also IN SPACE. Its huge and it also realistically in a 3D environment even if the overmap is a 2D representation. Having every hazard on the overmap block view makes the process of finding places to go in the new system even more clunky and unenjoyable. The system as it is would have been fine if we were using the old overmap size and hazard spawns but with how the overmap is now this current system just makes finding the interesting places people want to go much harder with very little in the way of positives.

 

to put things concisley 

-Planets should be much more visable, why are they constantly just not visible despite you being on them or next to their grids

-Not every overmap hazard should block sensor vision, the old rules of asteroid fields and dust clouds were good, i dont know why a shoal of carp needs to have the blocking capability of a bunch of fucking rocks.

-Horizon shuttles should start datalinked or at least make it so datalinking isnt broken by docking and reliant on sensors being on (as you cant turn sensors on while docked)

Edited February 8, 2023 by ClemTheDuck

[MattAtlas]

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/15765

this PR should fix most problems posted here

[Happy_Fox]

Everyone here has covered what I think so I won't add to it, only just to say that I've never had less fun playing roles outside the Horizon. The new sensors are so awkward and clunky to use that the only light at the end of the tunnel seems to be Matt's PR as a band-aid to the issue that the new sensor system is just not good for people flying around to find things.

[NerdyVampire]

That pull looks very juicy @MattAtlas ❤️

[Happy_Fox]

5th round where nothing has been found by mining except for non-mineable objects in 1 hour and 30 minutes of searching. Absolute mind numbingly boring and infuriating with the sensor nerfs. I've yet to hear anyone in game actually playing mining who thinks they're a positive change.

Edited February 10, 2023 by Happy_Fox

[Meep]

On 10/02/2023 at 22:05, Happy_Fox said:

5th round where nothing has been found by mining except for non-mineable objects in 1 hour and 30 minutes of searching. Absolute mind numbingly boring and infuriating with the sensor nerfs. I've yet to hear anyone in game actually playing mining who thinks they're a positive change.

I was with Fox on this round and I can only second this. It would be really nice if the sensors didn't take so long to cool down though. I think it takes something like ten minutes for them to fully cooldown? It's insane considering you only get to use them at max range for a few seconds before you need to turn them down again.

[Carver]

On 10/02/2023 at 17:05, Happy_Fox said:

5th round where nothing has been found by mining except for non-mineable objects in 1 hour and 30 minutes of searching. Absolute mind numbingly boring and infuriating with the sensor nerfs. I've yet to hear anyone in game actually playing mining who thinks they're a positive change.

Isn't a mineable asteroid guaranteed to spawn directly adjacent to the Horizon?

[ImmortalRedshirt]

Only if an asteroid does get rolled, looks like.

[Meep]

We looked around the map as ghosts after we left that round in particular and there was nothing close to where the horizon spawned. If I recall correctly 3 planets and a scrapper outpost were on the map

[Carver]

Perhaps an ideal solution may be having the roll guaranteed then, so that the guaranteed spawn works as intended? This would solve any issues with being unable to find resources.

[GreenBoi]

This PR tweaked heat efficiency to make it so cooling down sensors is a lot faster, and I think this alone removes about all the clunkiness; the range buff is a cherry on top.. Couple this with Matt's test-merge that adds a roundstart Points of Interest list and I see no issue left besides datalinks breaking when you dock.

Having to re-trace contacts that left your view was only awful before because ships had nerfed ranges and heat took so long to cool down that you couldn't reliably stay on higher ranges. Same for more hazards blocking sensors.

I'd say now that both of the above enhance the experience now instead of taking away—most obvious in combat, ironically enough. They also keep the buffs from being too strong.

Hazards can be used to break contact and retreat, but one can spin them to enable a counter-attack where you spam-accelerate your ship to get closer for more hits while the enemy can only approximate your location with only the periodic tracing updates to go off until contact is fully established.

A similar strategy can be tried with shuttles to use them as impromptu boarding pods, or as distractions to bait the enemy to facing the wrong way. Sneakier tactics are possible and I like that a lot.

Edited February 16, 2023 by GreenBoi