Test Server Feedback

I guess, as someone who just probes the odd anomoly or the odd ship, some of these changes are quite nice, the 8th probe is a bit of a pain tho, i like to leave one probe sitting on my fleet at min range/max strength to get a good 'lock' on my own people as they come in (to ignore).

Really tho, what I think gets me most is that this set of changes really undermines the new system - actually I'd go so far as to say the new system was always flawed but this improvement in the user interface really makes it more obvious.

Why not: Remove this whole 'multiple probe' thing entirely, make it a single spherical probe that just returns data (using deviation etc) for everything inside it.

It just simplifies the edges off the process thats already in place, the "trick" to scanning under the new system is just to keep your objective inside the central overlap area and narrow down, rather like the old (currently live) system but easier with the new formations and controls.... but basically that internal area where they overlap is the focus. why not just replace that with a single sphere rather than have all this irrelevant glitter and complexity.

Then, make it so two of these things can be launched at once with max skills, thats the 'win' move, replicating the old system of 'pairs of 4'.

Reducing the scan probe 'set' down to a single probe will significantly simplify the code for controlling the probes - lets face it, people are really going to want the '2 sets of 4' thing for multiprobing, but thats going to require multiple association sets of the probes and thats just tedious work. Replace instead with '2 sets of 1 probe' and there's no association or complexity to anything, code wise or interface wise. just a box with a sphere around it that people move and resize. like the formation system, except less cluttered.

This would simplify the 'scan' algorithm substantially, which will in future be spending 99% of its processing time running the same "relative positions" of the probes (i.e. the angles between their intersections and distance from the center relative to the area scanned are fairly constant if you stick to using formations, thats the point of the formation.) if you replace it with a single spherical scan, most of this maths goes down the drain, its either in the sphere, or it isn't. after that you just have to throw the deviation and scan strength algorithms through a few tweaks to work it under the new system.

I dunno, I always thought the current scanning system (the one on live at the moment) was pretty "cool", tho having used it, its pretty pointless scanning 'smart' ships (i.e. anyone who moves) and pretty tedious for scanning anything (half the reason i quit easy WH space, so bored of scanning), but still the "idea" was cool. But when I look at it from this perspective with the formations and the fact it might as well just be a scanning sphere, I'm forced to wonder if the system was ever actually all that great, it's just become really obvious how much of a mindless micromanagement chore it was, which the UI now simplifies, to the point where ... why not just finish what you started here.

And yes, for everyone with their probe tricks, I appreciate they continue to be broken under this system. The deep space probe trick was probably not intentional in the first place (or it would have been made clearer and simpler)...

I think however, regardless of what you do with your probes, be it simple 4-pyramid scanning of things or some weird combination of probe types and ranges, the present test server system is the worst of both worlds - either we revert back to what we had and its increased power at increased micromanagement/complexity, or it needs to evolve forwards, either to some very complicated "association sets" thing, or just to accept that ultimately this *is* a trivialisation of scanning micro and to just complete the job entirely.

You don't need level 5 to scan anything decently. That's possible because I learned about probe placement and how to read my scans by actually working at learning how to do it.

The way things are now on SISI I could probably scan out a COSMOS drug site with a noob character.

Things are not looking better if all I need to do is press a button and 7 probes pop out in optimal arrangement and just drag it over to the sig.

The earlier comments about making it a single sphere makes a lot of sense if we're going this way.

I tried out some probe scanning briefly and had a few issues:

1. In the probe "spread" formation, there are some coverage gaps in between the probes. I'd love it if the default formation for the probes was brought in a bit so that even though there is some overlap in the probes, there is no gaps in the coverage.


2. I tried using a relic analyzer in a magnetometric site and it didn't work, saying it couldn't be used on a spew container. But I could just open it like a regular can though.

I definitely, without a doubt, would love to see the spread formation not have any coverage gaps in it. The pinpoint formation looks great and I rather like it.

I can understand the fast scanning aspect and wouldnt be bothered if they toned that down some, also I agree there needs to be a slider bar from 1-8 probes to choose to launcher or the ability to simply launch one at a time like now (if you dont hit the probe formation that launches 7 at a time).

However the other two suggestions I don't agree with. Just about every person I have seen use DSPs have done so with the intent on this http://swiftandbitter.com/eve/dsp/highsec.html which to me is utter bull ****. That is not exploration, thats using a guide and picking out what you want and is no better then missioning. Im sure there are those who do not use DSPs and use them in the way they should be which is to have a extremely large cover area to get all the signals. However, I think having that guide and those probes working in tandem is just detrimental to the idea of exploration.

Essentially most people who use DSPs are only seeking 2 things either a 4/10 or a 3/10. If they get anything else on a diff signal band they just warp to the next system. At least removing DSPs will minimize this and Im glad, those probes really have pissed me off. As for the removal of non 100% signals as you call it (those are called cosmic signatures btw), I think those should stay on the 3D skybox. I like being able to see in space if there are any signatures to scan down before I bother wasting time to launch probes.

Now you can do the same without DSP probes, everyone.

DSPs had other uses, especially in wormholes. New functionality does not replace those.

CCP: Dscan interface needs improvements. Scanning is fine. Don't ruin scanning and exploration.

Complete catastrophe.

Nope. I know of at least 2 systems where 8-probe scanning is considerably superior to 7-probe scanning. There's likely more.

As long as you have a dedicated scanner who can hit analyze every few seconds with combats out to see new ships, you have your d-scan up, AND you watch for new anomalies...there really is no need to keep the sites in the signatures category. Hell, if you set your ship to use the auto-sensor sweep you can even see new wormholes pop up when they do in realtime. You have plenty of tools to use to make mining in a wh as safe as you can, as long as youre doing it right you shouldnt die die die.

Besides that, I would like to note that by allowing to scan "Gravimetric" with help of the ship-embedded scanner, the developers simply transforms "Gravimetric" to a kind of an "Asteroid Belt" and completely destroys the idea of "Gravimetric" exploration.

Having spend a few hours yesterday to try, deeper, the new scanning system, its clearly time-saving. I don't think its a bad thing, since when you've, like me, spend contless hours scanning for the last three years of your life, you're not time-limited by your skill anymore, just by the way this gameplay works.

To those who think that almost skipping the probe-placement part is dumbing the game down and bad for the players, I will answer that if you were thinking that our personal skill was displayed in probe-placement (a very consensual thing with only one or two widely-used patterns) then you've got it all wrong. Your experience in scanning shows with the interpretation of the results you get, and how you react to them. Not your dexterity to move probes in a perfect diamond formation.

However the current new system could be slightly improved :
1- Some colors of the bar filling to represent your % of signature strenght are clearly too close to the white color of the text before them. We need more contrast !

2- There are a few points overlapping eachothers with my feedback conserning the discovery scanner, like the possibility to have the results of the discovery scanner displayed in a list in the scanning window, and in the solar system map.

3- Why not allowing us to put 8 probes in space, and to save a custom pattern ? We clic one button, the current position of our probes in space is saved. Then when we clic on another button in another system, probes are instantly launched and deployed in space following this pattern, with the gravity center on our ship.

Edit : Given the current state of the minigame, even if I agree that WH should need some love as well, I'm not sure if its a good idea ^_^. Looks like a crap minigame to me : I lost every time I tried, no skill to modify the difficulty, entierly random, the interface of the minigame has respons-delay sometimes (depending on the server probably)... No, really, in its current state its crap. :D

4- Let us loose our probes if we don't recall them before jumping. (Keep the warning message if you want :D)
This way, keeping disconnected probes in space to give false informations to the enemy is still possible. (in wormhole mostly)