No it doesn't, that's just underlying topography, please read the last few years of discussion and postings by players and FDEV then come back and join the conversation!
DSS Overlay Map - Make it Better!
- Thread starter Greasetrap42
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No it doesn't, that's just underlying topography, please read the last few years of discussion and postings by players and FDEV then come back and join the conversation!
But no, it isn't. ("gg" overlays on rugged terrain and mountains too, so it does not denote topography)
How would you suggest i go about reading years of posts, honestly? (i am not going to, btw)
The gasoline green is where i find the bio 99% of the time and i am not alone in this.
I can tell it will be a case of agree to disagree from your wording.
(anyone can test out the colour as i have described or not)
NB. The small "islands" in the largest marked area does denote topography wrt the currently selected filter.
("speckled blue", ie ranging from white to dark blue is topography; i am not saying overlaps are impossible)
Happy holidays in any case. o7
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Really, it seems to me you are having some sort of survivor bias, if you only look in those areas then you will only find bio in those areas. The years of discussion, and posts from FDEV that clearly state that the blue is NOT a heatmap of any sort support that. Sometimes bio will correlate with different colours, for instance some bio in the Recepta species only appear in mountainous areas, so of course they will only appear in that shade of blue caused by mountains, but this is correlation only, not causation. I have certainly found plenty of bio on other colour areas, but then I know what to look for with a lot of bio and what sort of landscapes it likes. The different shades of blue are indeed reflective of the underlying topography, this has been stated by FDEV.
Given FDEV's erratic translations between their internal language and English, there's still plenty of room for differences in meaning there, though. I can think of plenty of examples - especially in the BGS - where FDEV has stated "A is B" when a quick experiment will show that's not true for the common player interpretations of what "A" and "B" mean.
The same part of the landscape can have different shades for different plant types, which suggests it's not solely about what the terrain type is there.
The switch between colours can definitely coincide with appearance or not of particular species (though it's certainly not as simple as "green-blue always has it" either) forming a sharp dividing line in the same way that "blue to transparent" forms a sharp dividing line.
I agree it can appear that way, but that's because we are interpreting what we are seeing on a purely subjective basis. I have been flying across flat blue areas that simply didn't have any bio that was supposed to be there, and suddenly fly into masses of the expected bio, often the difference can be as simple as one area has snow covering and the other area has ice, will they appear as different colours in the blue patch, no they won't because there is no difference apart from the surface covering. So it's purely subjective unless we go out and start testing. Confirmation bias will often lead us to believe certain things to be true because they have happened to us a couple of times, and often when that happens we will start using that belief as a basis for what we are doing. So if a couple of times we find a particular bio easily in a particular blue shade it may lead us to believe that's a related to density, if we then stop looking in other areas we never encounter any evidence to the contrary, so confirmation bias.
Sometimes yes the blue shaded will form a dividing line, for some species that only appear in mountains the difference in blue shades will be there, but that doesn't mean it's a heat map in any way, the actual decider here is "mountains" not "different shade of blue."
Yes, certainly. But being able to tell exactly where the border of the mountains is (and/or the distinction between "mountain top" and "mountain slope") can still be useful when hunting for plants which appear in mountains when the blue-map is also (incorrectly) highlighting a good chunk of the nearby plains. Rocky Ice Worlds [1] where the border between the "rocky" and "icy" terrain massively affects which plants appear can provide particularly clear examples.
It is certainly not as simple as there being one particular shade which always works. But equally, if you're not finding it and haven't done enough exploration to know what terrain to look at without using the blue-map at all, "take off and try a different shade of blue" is generally a good idea.
[1] Thin atmosphere RIW seem to be incredibly rare, which is a pity since they often have some of the most interesting plant selections.
Finding a method that works 99% of the time is not survivorship bias.
-like i said anyone can test for themselves.
Case in point the green areas are reliable while the blue ones are not.
Using colours you see in Elite as a guide for other users on other machines is problematic as depending on hardware and both internal an external graphics settings they can easily appear different a case in point being the pulse wave scanner and how cores show up.
There is/was a plug-in for the EDHM-UI that would let you choose your own colours for the bio indication you could even select to just have your green areas show. I found it quite pretty and it made spotting smaller locations easier but despite claims by the creator that matched your own I didn’t find a strong enough correlation between the two shades and where I was more likely to find something that I didn’t bother updating it when a game update caused it to stop working.
Myself I don’t see the difference in shade as being a terrain thing like hills and craters but more a textural difference.
That's entirely incorrect, the green area will work for some bio, the green is flat ground, no mountains. If you are searching for bio that only appears in mountains you will never find it in the green area, you won't find that bio at all, not that's it's less common, it simply won't be there!
Case in point, here is the DSS map, that green area with the yellow dot is the area you reckon I should go to for my bio;
Well based on the species I think you are wrong, I put the dot right in the middle of the blue are above, and what did I find?
Yep, the two types of bio that appear on this planet, and lots of them. If you only base your decision on the colour and ignore all other factors then there will be some bio you simply won't be able to find because they only appear in mountains and other areas that aren't green.
The shade of green or blue in the DSS Overlay Map absolutely does not indicate degrees of probability. Unless one is looking for a bio that is usually found within that specific shade because of the underlying terrain.
If a cmdr is looking for the easy bacteria, tubas, tussock, stratum, fonticulae, and electrocae then looking in the pale greenish shade (gasoline green) works great. Because these are found on flat ground sections indicated by this color. And these bio are very common. So a cmdr might easily think this is the best place to look for a high success rate. It is easy for a cmdr to find 99% of their bio in this area if this is the only area they look.
However. Believing this to be true for many of the other bio would be incorrect. The obvious being fungoida and frutexa which are usually found in mountainous or rough terrain.
Many of these bio might be found in several types of terrain. In which case I find it best to look for Fungoida, Frutexa, and Concha first. These are found in smaller unique locations with rough terrain. Often finding the other bio in the same area. Then without flying back up to orbit to check the DSS Map, simply fly to a flat area to pick up the remaining bio. This usually works.
Even though not being a big explorer, this corresponds exactly to my experience..
Just to chime in on this overall conversation - the EDHM_UI folks are convinced enough that there is some correlation that there's an add-on (Enhanced Biome Overlay) to have certain shaders show up as a starkly contrasted color. I haven't seen anything more substantial than anecdotal evidence one way or the other, it's really unclear and I haven't figured anything out about it with my own exobiology experiences.
That is amazing! Thank you Planewalker for going to that trouble, I now have the definitive chart of what to look for.
You are welcome although i can not take credit for the initial findings; that goes to Sighman and a couple of other CMDRs.
One thing of note is that when you look for frutexa (certain fungoida is another example) and some other bios, you can in some instances notice that the "gg" will be overlaid on not only very rugged terrain, but also mountain ranges. (some only grow on polar cap tundras while others only in crevasses due to temperature; biomes apply)
There are also planets where the amount of gasoline green is so small it might seem absent; as we have no concrete statements from fdev, it becomes trial and error.
-what i do in those cases is i look for patches of non-speckled blue; ie not light or dark, but "clean blue" which can help.
(i once found a planet where frutexa only grew on two 5km mountains)
In any case, gasoline green is a quite good guideline.
As I said above, this is incorrect.
Example: As I approach the planet, DSS Map filter set to Osseus:
I am heading directly to the spot indicated above, which is flat desert. Notice the rough terrain just beyond indicated in the DSS Map by the darker blue.
I can search all day in this flat desert and I will never find the Osseus I am looking for. Lots of other bio like bacteria, stratum, and tusock.
Need to travel out of the flat desert to the rougher terrain to find this type of Osseus. These are easy to find in the mottled blue area.
The conclusion:
- Areas not indicated by the DSS Map will not have the desired bio. Probability = zero.
- Areas indicated by the DSS Map 'might' have desired bio. But it must be matched with the appropriate terrain. Sometimes maybe other conditions apply but I don't pay attention to temperature, pressure, etc.
ok. So completely serious question.
Why when I switch dss filter blue area change colors on SAME area?
Example why let's say some plateau for X plant is bright blue, but for another it is dark, ugly, pixelated blue.
It is same terrain with same topography.
I don't recall that happening for me, but I didn't really pay attention. I'll look closer tonight, and edit this post with my results. I need something to break up the monotony on my way to the shard sites anyhow
Edit: I can only get about 8 jumps/night done during the week. I only found one body with more than one biological tonight. That one didn't show any difference, but that combination usually has the same overlay for both. I'll keep looking for a good comparison as I have time.
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The DSS is a mysterious and powerful device. And its mystery is only exceeded by its power.
I found some example today, same terrain- 2 different shades of blue (at least in overlapping areas, on this screen bacterias don't exist on some small patches of terrain)
There's often a height differential on different bios, maybe due to atmospheric pressure or other effects, so the blue layer will reflect height differently depending on where it's targeted for that bio. As you can see on the right the bare patches look like higher ground, so the bio environment is targeted maybe towards depressions where the atmospheric pressure is higher, the one on the left however appears the same all the way across.
The blue layer is an clearly an overlay that probably doesn't hug the surface, we can't really tell that because we can't see it once we come out of glide, but it is an overlay, so not just coloured ground. The blue area on the left may be projected higher above the surface than the one on the right, where the bare ground patches show because the left bio can exist in all the different terrain height or atmospheric pressures represented here. Because there's a much larger gap between the overlay and the ground the ground on the left the terrain doesn't show through as much. Keep in mind this is speculation, the only people who know how it really works are FDEV, but it's a possibility than can explain why the blue is different colours for different bio, because of the height of the overlay from the underlying terrain.
You can just see on the left light blue patches that represent the bare ground on the right, so I would say the overlay on the left is much higher to catch the higher terrain and therefore harder to see the underlying terrain, where on the right you can clearly see the craters which are all but invisible on the left because the overlay is much closer to them.
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