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?

[Botji]

I use the LIDAR but mostly just to find larger objects, sometimes to see if there are a bunch of stuff in the way when navigating to know if it would make more sense to move a bit in another direction first to avoid the cluster.

Only thing I would want more from it is that its so small and its hard to see if something will be in your path or not but only way I can think of to 'fix' that is to make the LIDAR take up a lot more screen space and thats not something I want and I do use the tab, is it the Geologist one(?) where you kinda get the LIDAR on full screen every now and then but even that size and scale is fairly low detail but I suspect a higher resolution LIDAR would also impact game performance and idk if thats a good trade.

Maybe have an option/equipment that adds some tiny arrows to objects to show their predicted trajectory and speed relative to yourself with a longer arrow being a faster moving object to make it a little easier to understand for new players?

[bbfloyd]

I totally use the lidar for high speed transits, it totally lets you anticipate when you will need to dodge/divert, slow down, or blast your way through extra rocky patches.

If your geologist has had time to scan around an area, lidar will show if there are any actual rocks you should bust up in an area he/she has marked as likely to have W or Be.

Use lidar to watch and see if that 20k piece of Be speeding away hits an asteroid offscreen and is sitting waiting for collection just a little bit away.

[Loy]

It works perfectly for me, it takes a bit of skill to use and understand, but I think it fits the game-play perfectly. Maybe the ability to zoom or enlarge the display would be nice though.

[Bobucles]

I have no idea how to read the lidar display, it's probably not important anyway.

[Illusia]

I'll explain it out.

If an object is blinking on the lidar with a pulsing cube~ That is a highly reflective surface, think metal~ its why ores blink, why the hull of spaceships do, why the edge of a habitat does.
Now, solid, steady readings are, as far as I know, the surfaces of roids. I presume that its a bit simplified down, and some things lost to nuance, but in essence, the lidar is telling you 'hey, this thing is reflecting much more than the environment would usually indicate, pay attention'
Lidar 'does' indeed show sizes of roids and objects, but generally, you'll only see it for the habitat and moonlets. Its a cool effect. But you're better off using a autopilot's flight display if you want to be able to tell sizes of things at a glance (note several have different ways of conveying size without it being in visible range, and some don't have any at all)

If a ship sneaks up on you and you were confident it wasn't there on lidar, well, the roids DO actually block vision of the lidar when they're in the way. Its one of the major reasons we have the Vis Feed~ Vis feed is more reliable for possible ship interactions, but the lidar is a lot more precise. If you're a miner who leaves a lot of ore around and you have problems with figuring out what is a pirate and whats not, I suggest you either start moving on a bit faster, or position yourself in a way to help you react once you do see them.

Frankly. the Lidar is a weak tool, its a system that isn't really designed for powerful use, its useful if you're aware on how it works, and it can assist in several situations (mainly ones involving finding moonlets) but its downside is that its not 'that' useful once you got equipment and crew. Consider its addition like a pat on the back and a 'go get them tiger' type support item then a 'oh this is going to save me a lot of headache' item.

[Mr. Fusion]

I know this is a very old topic by now, but I kinda feel similar to the OP.

The tutorial overlay says that the LIDAR display should indicate the movement direction of objects by red or blue, and (larger?) white blips should indicate things that may not be just rocks.

However, even after paying a lot of close attention to it, comparing it to actual view and the geologist/pilot "maps", all I can see on it is barely visible red/white/blue tiny flickering specks that more or less correspond to most, but not all stuff that's floating about in a mostly random color distribution across blue, red and white.

And I've never once seen any larger contacts that blink or differ in any meaningful way, even when I was trying to find a ship or a life pod (or what those long objects are that emit an SOS like sound and red/blue lights). When I got close to such things to identify them visually, they were still just an indistinct tiny dot of varying color amongst all the rest.

But if the intended use of the LIDAR is simply to show "there's some stuff here around you, but no information beyond that", then I will not try to use it for anything else. Which, however, raises the question of how DO you differentiate between objects that are not in your immediate vicinity thus you can't directly see them? (Disclosure: I'm yet to try other detection equipment that may or may not work differently, potentially giving more information.)

[Nellvan]

I get distinct blips for ships, but that may be a crew-skill thing.

The colors get darker and more noticeable the more difference in speed there is. Go 20 m/s or faster and it's kinda impossible not to see how dots in front of you tend to be blue and the ones behind red.

[Lack of Stuff]

It's extremely useful to see things approaching you. It's less important if you are in a small nimble ship that can turn on a dime but if you are in a big mining tub having forewarning of pirates or whatever can save big on potential damage costs.

[Baylock]

Originally posted by Yngvaldr:

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.

It's implementation is fine- it's working exactly as it should. You're mistaking it for a wide angle radar, something it is not.

You're sending out beams of light- do you realize how narrow those are?

The reason all ringroids 'look the same' on LIDAR is that you're looking at it wrong. You're seeing *returns* of *pinpricks of light* and not *signatures from a radar.* The reason a small ringroid has the same dot on the LIDAR as a megaton ringroid is because the system is seeing the reflection from the same output light. On a large one, you get more *individual* returns, but each one, critically, *is the same size return.*

If you look at the simulation view, you can see each beam of light the system emits. If you want a better view on the LIDAR display of the actual shape of a larger ringroid, slow the system down, or use a high definition system (which is naturally slower anyway) and you'll increase the density of returns which will give you the behaviour closer to your mistaken expectation of *radar* returns- larger ringroids will be far more obvious, compared to smaller ones, which may only give one return.

Also, obligatory reminder there are no 'top tier upgrades' for LIDAR- only sidegrades, depending on your needs. Using the most expensive LIDAR when you do a lot of spinning is going to give you a useless, ghosted mess of a display- it functions more like an AESA system than any of the other LIDARs. (Hell, personally I use the actual bloody penetrating radar half the time because I can discern the size and shape of a ringroid with its faded out returns just fine.)

So yeah tl;dr a megaton rock does not have the same signature as a tiny pebble. You've just misconstrued the return of individual pinpricks of light with the wide, 'solid' beam of a mechanical radar.

[dongivafuk]

I Really don't understand the issues people are having with the lidar. I'm colourblind so i don't have the luxury of being able to see different colour dots on the readout. I just see shapes, some light, some dark. some blink some don't. I use the lidar to re-find moonlets and stations. I'd be lost without it. If you go into the actual geologists view in your menu, then the readout covers a lot greater distance. i use it to seek out everything and don't seem to struggle using it. I mostly find what i was intending to. It's especially useful at telling you when other ships are near and very useful for getting away or retaliating. Using this and the other readout from the view of the station, you can see thruster burns, if anything is near you, then this readout will warn you, then use the lidar to determine where exactly the ship is. I don't see any issues with the current sytem.

[WORM]

It's great to execute transfers, but beyond that its function is to grant you awareness of your surroundings. Proper LIDAR reading can tell you whether those roids are stationary, headed towards you or moving away. Minding it at all times is a great way to find worthwhile roids too; execute your dive, watch the LIDAR for big hits, burn and go check it out.

Maybe you're mining and a roid passes you by at speed. Check your LIDAR - Are there more behind it? If so you've got an incoming shower, your LIDAR readout is going to be a good way to dodge/escape it. Sure you could just burn out of there, chugging precious fuel, but if you watch the readout you can quickly determine a simple maneuver to just slip through. Or maybe there's a gigachadroid in the shower and without LIDAR, by the time you'd see it coming visually, it's too late to dodge.

[Bagpipe]

Skill issue

[SpicyMeatball]

I've never had any issues with pirates sneaking up on me and killing me, but I'm usually lasing roids already. Speaking of LIDAR, its easy to understand if you just observe it while you explore. It's great for navigating the rings at high speed and finding large objects in my experience.

[mashtong54]

hey acroding to my persnal expreacse with ladar lader is not reasy fooled and can in fact can very reasly tell the direacne bewteen a rock, hum and with real life scifical acratec ladar in fact can made out objects at very long reanges in the near vacume of space realy far far away and still will beable to still even tell when the defreace bewteen a pace of ore incude whwat its made out of, to a excape pod, big F*** moonlet and what it has inside, delcritc space craft,space sations, and even fanly frendly and that darn big very deadly hostile looking prate space ship with its iff off useing some go the difrasce witsh darn super powerful *SPOLER redacted* comeing in at full speed armed to the teath and very big black paint job with very little to no issue. heck not even todays usa miltray stealth aircraft can even hide from lidar wihout active laser ladear ecm jaming tech that has to come with the F-35 and B-26 muraders to adiove detecion from lidar sensors arrrays you know thats how good lidar tech is even in the 21 first cenrey in 2024. your telling me that in like a few hundaid years in the furtre that we are not atlest useing very old usa space mitray lidar sensors or space ship grade lidar sensors that realticly shold be far far far more better then what we still have in game. so yes in fact i'm actaly giong to call out of the devs anti minimap B***HT bescue even modern 21 centray usa in the gronud troops and the cretain cofict in the eastern part of europ even has tablets with super duper goomini maps for troop sqaud map gidance. and no there no excue that this games dev shoud be masvly unlreaslctly nefing the minimap to the grund that is still my main braking in teh inmersion that why the F*** even out in th rings of satern are we somehow geting and useing tech on space ships that somehow still are older tech then what shold be reascly in this games seting all over a supid S*** excsue not to make minimaps more usefull. also minimaps are only as good when the info your geting. also the more stuff of infotaion you geting in realife the much better the minimap info is. its how the more sensor info you get bascly means the minimap in real life will also get far more detailed infoation you know. so i have played alot of games. but dev of this game your anti minimap usfuelness in this game is realy kinda been ticking me off on the realstic immsrsion of the game and if your not giong to like make minmaps much more reaslci even for game imserion to make gosh darn sence form constucive critesuim then i'm giongto call you out on it. so no dev not even in a realtic fonudend hard sci fi game logic would alow to let you keep the mnimap and sensor tech in this game to be super duper out of line with todays realstic hard scifi. heck even lidar tech in the new battlestar gacltca remake would still be far far far better then what giong on in this game wihout breaking realsct scificaly proven tech. heck this game lack of what should be proper ladar sensor tech has in fact been drveing me up the wall on how this game hardsci fi orngal start of the game and the lack of some proper mid to end game story world buding aobut new enconuters with alot of very unfinsehd mid to end game plot ponts that are still bascly taking to long to keep me interested for the most part. like in this game like we are useing 30-100 years old space ship tech or more in this game. but due to how far in teh futre we are in this game lore and story theres no F***way why my optcal traking and lidar tech and other ship tech actling like its tech made in the gosh darn 1960s out dated space ship tech from a alretane realy of a fallout game in space rather then a modern post 2100's hard sci fi space ship belt miner game.
like its very emosrnaon brakeing to the pont that even after all this time we are still haveing issues of this game still lacking in qute a few catgorys of mid to end game tech and ship progrees due to a devs realy bad hottake of how a ahrd sic fi game mnimap and amout of stuff there should be in this game. i'm been wating for more contect thats not so shalow for a good long time but if your dont' stragten up with you game dev path of the lack of game contect to work for that i have been wating for to motvae me to play this game then i'm still not giong to play it bealry at all. heck i'm one of the few ones that spent money for the game ealry acces before it became free and its still been prettey shalow still. also i'm geting realy sick of all the side gdae ships and wait a actaly better upgrade of a ship for like so long allready. like come on man this is not that hard of a game dev path you should take.

[Badstormer]

Honestly, it does feel a bit unrealistic to be in possession of technology two centuries more advanced than ours but not have any automated system to warn us if something unexpected is on LIDAR. While I wouldn't usually point this out in a sci-fi game, realism is one of the main selling points here.