Planetarion Forums

Hi,

I think most people agree that scanning isn't the most glamourous part of PA, and a lot of people tell me they couldn't do it because it's too boring. I don't disagree, but somehow I kind of like it - yet, it's a very cumbersome job if you want to request scans out of ingame and alliance tools.

I'm not even talking (yet) about the hell that is mobile scanning.

I'm very happy we have an IRC bot which posts the scan links that I just click and paste back, because everytime I go scanner (which is almost exclusively last few rounds) I realize just how much work it is to do scans the normal way.

Whenever someone requests a few galaxies or even planets grouped, I cringe a little.

1. Galaxy scan should have an option to select to do multiple scan types at once. For example, I select galaxy 4:10, I need to check all, then go down the checkbox to select P. Then back, down the checkbox for D. Then back, down the checkbox for A. Then I need to go to the scans page and select all of these manually so I can group them into one scan. It's a downright pain in the ass - but maybe I'm doing it wrong.

2. Grouping scans - again, pain in the ass. I can't group a proper raid in 1 group unless using third party software because there's not enough of them on the list. 3 galaxies PDA and you'll run out of stored scans on the waves page. So you need to do incomplete groups, and watch carefully you don't do too many at once.

I don't know what the best answer for #2 is, either increase the range or add an ingame parser that takes groups so at least the incomplete 3rd galaxy group can be added without having to worry about running out of space on the waves list. Again, might be a solution for it already (ingame) but I don't know of it.

And I guess this would create a workaround for both issues:

3. Multiscan. Kind of like #1, except this time give me the option to do PDA for any set of coordinates. Again, it's a pain in the ass to go to each separate scan type when doing 1 or 2 scans. Why can't I select, say 4:10:4 and then tick PDA, or JN, or whatever really? And then one the same page, allow me to input more coords (and just the x:y for galaxy) (don't even mind a limit here, altho I've seen it possible in unlimited space forms)

4. Request scans ingame - call me lazy, but if there's a scan for that tick already of the type requested, please have it inform the members and mark it besides the galaxy overview. (Like it happens on the def page already)

I've seen alliances with tools that could do all 3 of these things. If PAteam is unwilling or uncapable of doing these things ingame, can we at least get access to an IRC bot or set of commands to be distributed among the community? Not all tools need to be ingame, IRC and Telegram have definitely shown that - I don't mind 1 or 10 side apps - welcome them. So there can be very little coding involved to be honest for a quick fix/workaround - it's all out there. I just shiver to think of what some of my non-big-alliance scanners are going through.