GeeShizzle MacCloud
327
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Posted - 2013.05.29 15:04:00 -
[1] - Quote
my issues with these changes:
Quote:There are two pre-set formations coming in Odyssey for players to use GÇô Spread (probes aligned to cover a large area) and Pinpoint (probes aligned to focus on one point). These are not intended to be the absolute best possible formations, but rather a solid starting point for budding explorers.
The point formation is one used by many but the spread formation i have never used and would never use, its negative aspects faaar outweigh its positives (there are obvious areas of no coverage where sigs can hide in) It seems to be a formation placed there by someone who hasnt probed much at all.
Quote:The probes launch into space next to your ship, but the formation view in the solar system map is centered around the sun and is not indicating the current position of the probes until you hit scan and they warp to the positions you've determined.
This change seems to be confusing unless uve used it in game, the formations are a set position for your probes and when u click it it moves your intended probe position to that default location. If you DO NOT hit a custom probe formation your probes stay where theyve been launched when u open up the system view display. i HATE hearing rage about a UI element that people obviously havent tried out in game and just use the forum/dev blog language to formulate their responses - yes that does mean u James Amril-Kesh, u relentless troll!
...plus this has been changed in the latest build on sisi, so that when clicking the set formations they set their formations where you launched the probes, NOT their position to the centre of the system.
Quote:The recall and expire options have been changed a bit GÇô recall is now instantaneous and happens automatically on system jump or dock. Probes still have a timer, but instead of being lost when the timer is out, they automatically recall instead.
an auto recall mechanic for probes that expire is a dangerous train of thinking for a game developer. The effects of this change will be a complete crash in the probes market. By extension, if this train of thought was applied to other areas of the game, similar effects on other areas of the market would occur, severely affecting the game. i am surprised that Dr. Gu+¦mundsson isnt shouting at you about this. Probe expiration is a big part of the depletion of probes in that area of the commodities market. This change will reduce the number of probes people buy (why have more than 8 probes when u'll never loose them unless u loose your ship?), which in turn reduces the necessity to buy new ones meaning saturation levels decrease. Add to this the fact many people probably sit on stockpiles of probes so they have reserves when they deplete or forget to recall them, this will manifest as an extreme oversupply of probes that will crash prices. Sisters probes will be the only combat/exploration probes people use for anything, so this change will make all other probes in this area obsolete.
Quote:Deep Space Probes (DSP) are being removed. With the overall changes to scanning (not just probe scanning, but also the addition of the Sensor Overlay)
From what i can remember i believed the removal of the DSP and the general system scanner window was to break and otherwise hinder bots running combat sites, and its a worthy goal to achieve, however the removal of the system scanner window showing whats in space in favour for the overlay that shows approximate locations is a severe reduction in quality-of-life. a simple removal of the right click menu on items in the system scanner window that havent been probed would be the best course of action. It'd hinder bots using the menu for warping to combat sites, but still retain the catalogued info we pilots greatly prefer to the overlay. (not saying the overlay isnt awesome, but from a pure usability standpoint it gets irritating to use very quickly when making much needed isk in nullsec.)
There are things however in these changes that i love!
Quote:You launch all probes in your launcher at once, regardless of how many you currently have loaded.
The default method for moving probes is a single handle for all probes you have out.
Probes will also resize together by default
The progress towards getting a warpable signature has been made much more visually clear.
WeGÇÖre adding new modules that affect scan probing.
WeGÇÖre changing the terminology of a few things (woop!)
We added Personal Hangar Array; We adjusted the arrows and camera when positioning POS modules.
Tech II (Capital) BPCs you get from exploration sites or through invention.
Future Stuff... In regard to Scan Probe History, if i could show u a UI example that would work well for this itd be this: http://youtu.be/9GFqMy2vjGM?t=1m32s where the condensed multiple takes are hidden with whats referred to as a "disclosure triangle". that could work well for giving access to a scan history of an object in space that has been scanned multiple times, whilst keeping the UI clear by default.
Also with the better visual scan cues its be awesome to have a representation of your current probe signal strength vs maximum in order to better ascertain if you have the required scan strength to successfully probe a signal by having the full length of the row from the start of "scan group" column to the end of the "type" column being absolute signal strength (with max skills). Then when scanning a signal the colour indicates signal strength (with green being a warpable scan) and the length of the bar increasing to a maximum depending on the signatures strength.
So something thats easy to scan will have a small coloured bar that goes green early. Something thats hard to scan has a large bar indicating a high probe scan strength being required.
(& maybe a scale above the results but below the column names that indicate ur probe strength vs max) |