We Need to Talk About Seeing Planets in Space

[maestro]

This expedition showcases something I have always been very annoyed with in NMS, but never had reason to bring it up until now:

I fricken HATE how hard it is to actually get the game to tell you what a planet is.

You know how you're in the starship and you aim at a planet, it should tell you the planet's name, and when you scan it, it should tell you what kind of planet, etc it is?

Apparently in gas giant systems it is nearly impossible to SEE what a planet is, because if there's another planet too close to you, it won't tell you. You can aim your crosshair at it all day and the little info box does not appear, at all.

It should *ALWAYS* appear. ALWAYS.

This expedition milestone is so annoying because I have to waste half of my h3 jumping here there and everywhere trying to get the info boxes to appear on these stupid planets to figure out which one of the 5 I haven't been to yet, because even though I can see it in the distance, I can point to it, but the game won't tell me which planet it is until I warp 50 LY away from the stupid gas giant.

[Cuddle_Rat]

But the game REALLY wants you to know that some player built Billy Bob's Fish and Chips Mega-Diner. It's a small one room wooden shack with nothing in it, but still, YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT'S THERE!!!

[Bacon Overlord®]

It's made even worse with the new gas giants. Their atmosphere blocks you being able to get a readout on planets or even be able to warp to them without getting stuck in the atmosphere instead of pathing around it. They are causing a lot of issues in this expedition. The player clutter just makes it even worse. ANd that's just a COUPLE of the problems with this expedition.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Cuddle_Rat:

But the game REALLY wants you to know that some player built Billy Bob's Fish and Chips Mega-Diner. It's a small one room wooden shack with nothing in it, but still, YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT'S THERE!!!

Is it just me, or are the stupid comm balls getting worse in this expedition?

I mean, there were always thousands of them near RPs or other major objectives, but usually ones you find floating in the middle of nowhere by themselves were normally by useful POIs, such as crashed ships or minor settlements selling an interesting tool.

But I checked like 5-6 of them today...

One was near a settlement that had a C-Class Pistol. Like, really? And of course when I flew over the stupid thing, it just had some nonsense written on it.

Two of them were in the literal middle-of-nowhere with nonsense written on them. Not even a save point near it.

One of them was next to a drop pod. That one was nice.

One of them was next to an ordinary shelter with nothing else near it.

It's like, WTF is the point? Do people enjoy wasting other peoples' time just for the hell of it?

[Strauss]

For me, as long as the distance less than 999,999u (S class ship) I can check the planet without any issue.
Beyond that, i need to fly closer.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Strauss:

For me, as long as the distance less than 999,999u (S class ship) I can check the planet without any issue.
Beyond that, i need to fly closer.

It's not the distance that's the problem.

What's stopping you from seeing it, is because there's another planet too close to you. When you fly closer to the planet you wanna check, you're flying away from the planet that's too close to you and that's why it works.

Try it with a moon: go to the main planet, and then fly up towards the moon without Pulse Jump and note how far you have to boost fly away from the planet you just left before it will finally tell you what the moon is, despite the fact the moon is like 10 second pulse jump away and right in front of you in your crosshairs with no obstructions.

It just WILL NOT tell you what it is even though you're not in atmosphere.

It's because you're still too close to the planet behind you and that's just stupid.

[Lystent]

I've also had this issue for the longest time. ("I'm no longer pointing at that planet; just. highlight. my. twelve!! Thankyou..." *hits 'c', and then immediately loses focus on the planet before the scan hits it)

[Qiox]

Even worse with the player base icons on planets in the expedition.

You have to get right on top of the planet for the game to show you the planet details tooltip instead of being fixated on showing you some rando player's base icon.

[Gruntled Employee]

Wow I thought it was just me on this. It's always hard to tell where the planets are on the radar in your ship in relevant to what it shows on the Discoveries tab map. Like the scale is almost useless and the distance to the planets are off.

[Mr. Bufferlow]

At least for the expedition, I got lucky I guess. When I popped out of the clouds, I went to the closest one I could see. Once I explored that one, I went to the next one I could see and so on. They all seemed to be in a nice line- maybe the same orbit.

I was getting nervous on the last one. I checked my discovery tab (I have MP off) and it was the only one without any discovery details. So I memorized the name but when I made it to space from the fourth, it was the closest one I could see. So I did a little prepping for nothing. Still glad I knew the name because it made me very confident I was heading to the last moon.

I do agree the giants make it hard to figure out where the moons are. My first giant system I tried to get all the moons but ended up missing one. It is very difficult to figure out where they are in some scenarios.

[maestro]

The radar does take some getting used to, I never had trouble figuring out where each of the planets are in relation to each other, it's just the fact it's so annoying to scan a planet or discern which planet is which when the information won't pop up.

Originally posted by Lystent:

I've also had this issue for the longest time. ("I'm no longer pointing at that planet; just. highlight. my. twelve!! Thankyou..." *hits 'c', and then immediately loses focus on the planet before the scan hits it)

Oh yes, I effing HATE this with a passion.

I think the whole system needs a rework/tweaks, whatever because it is so flippin' annoying.

I mean, now you can summon your freighter and do it...

1). If you have a freighter.
2). If you got lucky enough to get enough Salvaged Frigate Modules to buy the BP.
3). If you built the room on it.
4). If you can summon the freighter to your current system (LOTS of Modules to buy the BPs for the Hyperdrive mods)

IMO, at the very least, little banners for each of the planets' names should appear (along with a ghost image if there's an obstruction) if a planet is in your aiming circle, even if it is behind another planet. Just the names, not the info boxes.

That would at least allow you to find a specific planet and understand where it is, especially in systems where there's 5, 6+ planets and moons and 2-3 of the moons are behind their parents. You still couldn't scan them without the freighter, but at least you'd know where each were and wouldn't have to play a guessing game and/or spend 10 minutes pulse jumping looking for the stupid thing.

EDIT: Or how about this? Give us a new context menu item while in starships: Jump to Planet. Bringing this up shows a list of planets in the system, and clicking one of them has the ship activate pulse jump and path the fastest route to the planet just like if you were to pulse jump to a mission objective. Have it pick a random set of coordinates on said planet and take you to it.

[Darth Cervantes]

yup, same problem, i have to warp towards it most times to get the info to pop up

[momopovich]

Originally posted by Cuddle_Rat:

But the game REALLY wants you to know that some player built Billy Bob's Fish and Chips Mega-Diner. It's a small one room wooden shack with nothing in it, but still, YOU HAVE TO KNOW IT'S THERE!!!

Ive been asking a way to turn off markers to HG since 2018. Chances are it's never happening

[Darth Cervantes]

LOL @ "Billy Bob's Fish and Chips". I have seen some amazing restaurants though. A while back someone posted a planet called "Brolodise" and a lot of people built on it and some person put up an amazing hot dog stand/restaurant and someone else made a pretty amazing night club. Some of those are worth visiting. But I hear you, yesterday I landed on an expedition base named "something Agricultural Farm". I landed there expecting to find plants but just an empty building, lol

[Grimmslayer73]

There is a 3rd angle you have to consider when you're in 3rd person view. If you look closely you will notice the camera is slightly higher than the line between the target and the cockpit. You need to compensate for this by holding alt and moving the camera down slightly so you're looking directly at the back of your ship. When the target, reticle and your viewpoint all line up you can usually get the planets info to pop up. I don't know about gas giants as I haven't seen them yet but this works in normal systems.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

There is a 3rd angle you have to consider when you're in 3rd person view. If you look closely you will notice the camera is slightly higher than the line between the target and the cockpit. You need to compensate for this by holding alt and moving the camera down slightly so you're looking directly at the back of your ship. When the target, reticle and your viewpoint all line up you can usually get the planets info to pop up.

I always play in first person, so that isn't the problem.