Agree, there are two possible explanations: Either barnacles are observable from orbit, because their presence is indicated by patches that are somehow highlighted (in this case by the faint greenish color), or the mineral rich patches are indeed only a prerequisite for barnacles AND the number of barnacles on Pleiades Sector JC-U B3-2 2 increased dramatically within the last few days which makes them easy to find.
A massive increase in barnacle spawns? That would be interesting, to say the least.
Occam would have me believe otherwise (although I use an electric, so what would I know of razors), though. I've conducted a small survey of jc-u b3-2 2 (we need proper names for these planets) hitting about half a dozen "green spots". The only one where I found a barnacle was one where you had done so (no other duplicates), namely the 13.0 / 18.2 one (
link).
Take a look at the planet from orbit:
The whole left side of the shot is pretty much green, as are a good number of craters. The big crater in the middle there did not, by the way, spawn a barnacle for me (despite the nice green tinge).
Going back to Thread 4, T-Dog posted this very nice pic showing exactly these green mineral deposits (his conclusion) alongside a shot of the brighter "sand-colored" mineral depots that other planets show:
It seems that for some reason the geology of jc-u b3-2 2 causes the greenish areas to appear slightly differently (mainly in impact craters, which is quite rare for the sand-colored deposits), but the comparison is quite clear, IMHO.
Take a look at this approach to a nice little double crater on jc-u b3-2 2:
Nice distinct green color, no barnacle spawn. Coordinates are in the pics if you want to take a look and see if anything spawns for you.
So, has the incidence rate suddenly increased? I don't think so. There are certainly a lot of barnacles on jcu b3-2 2, going by your impressive ability to find them, however my (admittedly) small survey gives me no reason to believe that they are suddenly all over the place in these mineral rich deposits. There's also the issue of the barnacles actually spawning in the first place, which obscures any attempt at establishing an accurate count.
One final note: Like I said, I did find your barnacle at +13.0 / +18.2. Did you examine it? Upon landing, I discovered that the one that spawned for me was actually a "double". Not as in on-top-of-each-other, but rather it had 4 distinct spikes with the big metal alloy-dropping flowers instead of the normal 2.
This is probably just a weird spawn error (compensating me for all the times no barnacles were spawned), but it might be worth checking out.
