Does anyone actually USE lidar?

[Cannon Fodder]

I have seen zero use for it except seeing other ships who are displaying their ID, and i've only ever been killed by people not transmitting an ID and telling a ship sneaking up on me from rocks on the LIDAR is either an art I haven't figured out, or nigh impossible.

So what is this instruments actual use?

[Supraluminal]

It just helps with overall situational awareness to some degree: It has some utility for finding large asteroids to mine, and ore that's drifted away. It can help you avoid crashing into things when flying at high speeds since it shows objects at a greater range than the main view. On occasion it can be helpful for spotting stations and other large objects of interest.

I wouldn't say it's an absolutely essential piece of equipment, but I'd rather have it than not. There are things that could be done to make it significantly more useful, of course. Based on what I've seen of the dev's comments about it, though, I don't expect it to change much.

[Cannon Fodder]

My big concern is trying to ID pirates who jump you without an ID. I'm fine with them flying dark, it makes sense, but the fact that you have ZERO instrumentation to tell the difference between "Hunk of rock" and "Ship thrusting toward you" is crazy to me... I've been snuck up on twice and obliterated with full cargo, unable to do anything.

[Geck0]

Feels like you guys are playing a different game to me. Isn't LIDAR just that thing in the corner of the screen that sucks and doesn't give any useful information because you can't zoom in?

[Supraluminal]

Who is "you guys" here? Neither of us are exactly singing the praises of the current LIDAR implementation. I think we all agree it's kind of lackluster.

[H.R. Costigan]

I like the colored gravitational data it provides when using this specific reconnaissance craft.

[Koder]

I took a long, good look at the lidars during the most recent playtesting session and found it to be doing exactly what it is designed to do.

I think the thing that seems to confuse some of you is that this is not supposed to be an omniscient minimap. I found such maps to be a flaw in the game design, promoting a type of gameplay that can lead to skipping over most of the content in a title by encouraging playing by examining the minimap alone and not the actual playfield. Furthermore, the omniscience of the minimap relies on the game cheating, which causes undesirable traits to emerge when game systems interact.

Lidars, combined with other ship systems, give you sufficient information to spot any hostile ship based either on your skill alone or on a crew you hire if your skill is not up to the task. An approaching vehicle has a distinct Doppler signature that is pretty easy to pick up both by looking at the lidar itself or just based on the audio feedback - unless you managed to litter all the surrounding space with hundreds of tonnes of shiny ore nuggets that obstruct any meaningful readout. Even then, the visual feed will show approaching thruster flares.

If your perception is not sufficient to spot these yourself, you can always hire an astrogator with a decent tactical awareness, who will interpret these for you and place a convenient tactical marker on your display.

[Cannon Fodder]

Първоначално публикувано от Koder:

I took a long, good look at the lidars during the most recent playtesting session and found it to be doing exactly what it is designed to do.

I think the thing that seems to confuse some of you is that this is not supposed to be an omniscient minimap. I found such maps to be a flaw in the game design, promoting a type of gameplay that can lead to skipping over most of the content in a title by encouraging playing by examining the minimap alone and not the actual playfield. Furthermore, the omniscience of the minimap relies on the game cheating, which causes undesirable traits to emerge when game systems interact.

Lidars, combined with other ship systems, give you sufficient information to spot any hostile ship based either on your skill alone or on a crew you hire if your skill is not up to the task. An approaching vehicle has a distinct Doppler signature that is pretty easy to pick up both by looking at the lidar itself or just based on the audio feedback - unless you managed to litter all the surrounding space with hundreds of tonnes of shiny ore nuggets that obstruct any meaningful readout. Even then, the visual feed will show approaching thruster flares.

If your perception is not sufficient to spot these yourself, you can always hire an astrogator with a decent tactical awareness, who will interpret these for you and place a convenient tactical marker on your display.

You want to avoid an "omniscient" and cheaty LIDAR, that's fine but that doesn't really explain why regular ringroids of any and all sizes appear as the same size blips on the LIDAR, but ore appears as pulsing, larger dots. I don't know a lot about LIDAR...actually I know jack except what is shown in promotional videos for self driving vehicles, but it doesn't seem like a far-fetched assumption that the LIDAR system should give some *reasonably* accurate display of size and shape to what it's detecting, and in a field of rocks with rough, asymmetrical shapes a ship would stand out like a sore thumb...

You have very clearly done an INSANE amount of research and development to balance the game, but LIDARs implementation feels like you've intentionally cut it off at the knee in favor a hatred for minimaps, instead of an adherence to science that seems to be present everywhere else in the game.

And that's fine if that's the case, but don't hide behind "I took a look and it's doing what I designed it to do"... of course it is...you wrote it to do what you want it to. We're here saying "Ok, it's working in a way that feels like it's more or less a hassle"

[Koder]

Първоначално публикувано от Cannon Fodder:

I don't know a lot about LIDAR...actually I know jack except what is shown in promotional videos for self driving vehicles, but it doesn't seem like a far-fetched assumption that the LIDAR system should give some *reasonably* accurate display of size and shape to what it's detecting, and in a field of rocks with rough, asymmetrical shapes a ship would stand out like a sore thumb...

I'm not sure what you mean here. Lidar display will give you an accurate shape of anything it reflects of (assuming undamaged ship systems). You can certainly spot bigger asteroids by shape, caves in moonlets, and similar big features. Small rocks might be below the resolution of the display.

This system literally works by projecting a ray of light from your ship and showing you how far it reflects off something. If that something has high albedo (as in: is shiny), it can detect that and will show it as a pulsing dot.

[Nellvan]

Първоначално публикувано от Cannon Fodder:

in a field of rocks with rough, asymmetrical shapes a ship would stand out like a sore thumb

You mean, like, idk, let's say something arrow-shaped in contrast to all the dots?

[Gunman]

actually spotted the pirate coming in today by the lidar. as it does show it as a white blinky ore like the rest exept i knew i didnt have any ore there.

[Gunman]

also the ore piece going towards me was a bit of a hint aswell

[Aerozine50]

I don't really have any complaints about Lidar. it shows me ships, and rocks. It shows moons and stations. It's just one of your instruments. When used along with the others, you get a pretty good idea of what is happening.
About the only thing I would add is that it might be nice if it could have a doppler alarm so that if something is moving at a significant different velocity than the background objects, it could alert you. That would help prepare for oncoming meteor showers.

[Yngvaldr]

Първоначално публикувано от Cannon Fodder:

Първоначално публикувано от Koder:

I
I took a long, good look at the lidars during the most recent playtesting session and found it to be doing exactly what it is designed to do.

You want to avoid an "omniscient" and cheaty LIDAR, that's fine but that doesn't really explain why regular ringroids of any and all sizes appear as the same size blips on the LIDAR, but ore appears as pulsing, larger dots. I don't know a lot about LIDAR...actually I know jack except what is shown in promotional videos for self driving vehicles, but it doesn't seem like a far-fetched assumption that the LIDAR system should give some *reasonably* accurate display of size and shape to what it's detecting, and in a field of rocks with rough, asymmetrical shapes a ship would stand out like a sore thumb...

You have very clearly done an INSANE amount of research and development to balance the game, but LIDARs implementation feels like you've intentionally cut it off at the knee in favor a hatred for minimaps, instead of an adherence to science that seems to be present everywhere else in the game.

And that's fine if that's the case, .but don't hide behind "I took a look and it's doing what I designed it to do"... of course it is..you wrote it to do what you want it to. We're here saying "Ok, it's working in a way that feels like it's more or less a hassle"

You summed up exactly what's wrong with its implementation. It's bad game design and User Experience (UX) from everything you said. Not even the top tier upgrades have this ass of a bad info and predictability LIDAR. Doesn't even seem to make sense why a tiny little pebble would have the same signature as a megaton rock. If that's the case, you should think up something else.

[Supraluminal]

FWIW, larger objects do appear differently than small ones on the LIDAR. Go find a large asteroid, station, moonlet, etc. and watch carefully. You can see that it generates essentially an outline of LIDAR pips on the side facing your ship. It doesn't produce a solid, filled-in shape because it doesn't know anything about the contours of the object on the sides facing away from you.

However, I agree that the presentation of LIDAR data could (should, probably) be enhanced, even within whatever constraints the devs want to enforce regarding LIDAR's capabilities as an instrument. Doesn't sound like it's likely to happen though.

[Koder]

Първоначално публикувано от Supraluminal:

However, I agree that the presentation of LIDAR data could (should, probably) be enhanced, even within whatever constraints the devs want to enforce regarding LIDAR's capabilities as an instrument. Doesn't sound like it's likely to happen though.

What kind of enhancement to the presentation would you propose?