in my opinion the scanner minigame feels more like "Fisher Price" than "Enterprise" at the moment. I think it's quite annoying like a popup in a web browser at the moment, therefore I just ignore all missions which are scanner related.

But this doesn't have to be like this. With a little rework I think it can be really fun and more fit into the Star Trek scope featuring more tech background.

My idea about scanning for a residual radiation should start with a very noisy curve which is amplitude and frequency modulated - there are no clean sine curves in the world. Then to get the clearer image you should be able to jog through the timeline with a cursor and get a frequency/signal strength histogram at this specific timecode. Then you should be able to apply high-pass and low-pass filters to remove the noise. With multiple cuts through the timeline you should be able to define an envelope waveform to isolate the correct pattern.

And please remove the time limit. If somebody decides to analyze a pattern, then it is his choice to tinker with this tech in depth, so don't reduce his experience. Because of this time limit the feeling for doing something really important is totally gone.

To understand what I mean, here is an image...

http://sites.google.com/site/tobicoc...cs/scanner.jpg

Please post your comments. I love to get a comment from the dev's, too.

Completely agree. The complete lack of skill needed, repetitive nature, and repetitive nature of this 'minigame' is almost insulting. I could care less about the 'slight' improvement in loot and it seems like it seriously detracts from the immersion factor of the game. Please take it out until a scanning option that took more than 30 sec to develop is available along with an option to simply take the loot w/o further 'cleaning' of the signal.

BTW, I like the concept suggested above. More difficult signals could be presented signifying more uncommon or rare loot. Lots of potential here, take the time to get it right, your subscribers will reward your efforts Cryptic. Don't cheapen the experience, dance with what brung ya.

i love the idea of the scanner minigame the only drawback it has that i can think of is when ur in a star cluster and the mission is to gather data on the last data collection your science officer interupts the scan causing a failure in the minigame... PLEASE FIX

My opinion on this new scanner is if the time limit is going to stay, the quality and percent chance for rare materials should be based on how much time was remaining on the scan. In other words, if we completed the scan quickly with much time to spare - guarenteed to get a good quailty rare. If we completed just under the wire with two tenths of a second to spare, probably going to get a single regular material.


But I like the OP's suggestion as well.

the idea was more like this:

the quality and amount of the reward should not be reversely depending on the time, but on your skill to operate the scanner which means, the more accurate you create this envelope waveform to get a clearer signal the higher would be the quality and amount of your reward. this could also mean the opposite of your suggestion, hence: the more time you spend tinkering with the scanner, the better is your reward. aborting the scanner minigame just earns you the minimum reward.

how to understand the envelope filter: actually there are multiple waves with different signal strengths modulated with each other. now you create an envelope wave which isolates one frequency with a little tolerance above and beyond. the trick is to create this envelope in such a manner that you filter out signals, which are too weak to produce trackable traces and to keep inside which are worth investigating.

lets say - to make it clear


in this graphs the frequency (Hz) is on the left-to-right axis and the signal strength (dB) is on the low-to-high axis

https://sites.google.com/site/tobico...ics/signal.jpg

you have a frequency of 440Hz (you can hear this) with a signal strength of 50dB (e.g. normal speaking voice loudness)
and there is another signal with 500Hz with a signal strength of 10dB (e.g. breathing noise loudness)
and the random background noise has a signal strength of 0dB (hearing limit)

https://sites.google.com/site/tobico...cs/isolate.jpg

the skill is to isolate the two signals from the backgound noise. each isolated signal will be de-modulated from the scanner leaving the remaining signals and the noise visible as AM waveform.
if you didn't carefully match the first signal, and isolate the waveform, then the remaining signal will become too weak or too noisy to isolate another waveform.

https://sites.google.com/site/tobico...ics/result.jpg

if you just isolate one signal, then you will lose the second trace and cannot get it's reward. this means you have to carefully create these envelopes to isolate each frequency and lock them in to track them down.

if you succeed in the end you have 2 isolated signals (frequency Hz and strength dB) and a scanner that shows just the random noise within the noise threshold (red lines) around the zero line and no more waveform. this means you have collected all possible traces.

I was just about to complain about the same thing.

I like the idea to improve the mini game difficulty/complexity.

I would also like to see some more mini games, e.g. for bypassing the curcuit of a door.

I dont care what they do with it as long as I can keep hitting ESC to skip the horrid thing

I cant stand that sound at the end of winning this so called mindless game.. I mean mini game..

Its like fingernails down a chalkboard !

As much as I like the idea of making this more complex, I am a little concerned about potentially alienating those who do not have a decent grasp of maths/sciences. Personally, I'm a maths/science dude - this appeals to me immensely... but I can easily see how I'd be annoyed if the game created some complex language / inter-personal skills type game.

A game like this is based on what your CHARACTER is able to do, not what the actual PLAYER can handle. Because none of us can actually align a warp-core or detect a spatial anomaly or whatever.