Alien archeology and other mysteries: Thread 9 - The Canonn

Arguendo · Nov 9, 2016

BaronDeKalb said:
I like pi

That means it must start with the same symbol each time. I haven't seen any evidence of that so far.

taleden · Nov 9, 2016

Mengy said:
Yeah the length of the audio is very telling. If the obelisks just made noise for the sake of ”atmosphere” then the devs wouldn’t use a sound file that was 56+ minutes long for that, it would be a shorter repeating sound file. From a developer’s game asset point of view you want to use smaller, low memory assets wherever you can get away with it. So this long audio must be on purpose and intentional, which means it most likely contains something important for us to discover.

It could be randomized I guess, but that would be odd to program it like that just for fun and games. I’m sure Frontier has better things to do with their time than to code in fake puzzles and clues like that!

Hopefully? :S

Right -- it's almost certainly not a static audio clip since it would have to be excessively long, and it's probably not random either since it would be a little unsporting of FD to make something look so significant and be completely meaningless.

That leaves a third possibility: it's dynamically generated in response to some continually changing, non-repeating (or long-period repeating) environmental stimulus, such as the position of the planet, or its moon, or the sun, or the SRV in its vicinity (like the probes that generated ship scan diagrams), or something else.

Arguendo · Nov 9, 2016

Mengy said:
So this long audio must be on purpose and intentional, which means it most likely contains something important for us to discover.

It could be randomized I guess, but that would be odd to program it like that just for fun and games. I’m sure Frontier has better things to do with their time than to code in fake puzzles and clues like that!

I was thinking more of it being intentional as in; "keep moving, nothing to see here, and we made it as clear as day for your benefit"

Whiteball · Nov 9, 2016

Sorry, I haven't read this thread, things just move to fast for the little time I have.

Are the Unknown Probes actually escape pods for the alien ships?

Han_Zen · Nov 9, 2016

AlexVII said:
If Wright City will be closed, the terrorists may not be able to collect the shipments.

Closing is manual. FD will keep it open til after the CG.

jcarletto27 · Nov 9, 2016

Mengy said:
Yeah the length of the audio is very telling. If the obelisks just made noise for the sake of ”atmosphere” then the devs wouldn’t use a sound file that was 56+ minutes long for that, it would be a shorter repeating sound file. From a developer’s game asset point of view you want to use smaller, low memory assets wherever you can get away with it. So this long audio must be on purpose and intentional, which means it most likely contains something important for us to discover.

It could be randomized I guess, but that would be odd to program it like that just for fun and games. I’m sure Frontier has better things to do with their time than to code in fake puzzles and clues like that!

Hopefully? :S

I agree that it seems a bit odd for Frontier to code in fake puzzles. My best guess is that it actually is smaller sound files played at intervals. I feel certain we're on the right path.

Patau82 · Nov 9, 2016

Han_Zen said:
Closing is manual. FD will keep it open til after the CG.

All cgs now have warning that they may be affected by UA bombing

Raptis · Nov 9, 2016

If its not repeating...

Time's Up

nikos · Nov 9, 2016

taleden said:
Right -- it's almost certainly not a static audio clip since it would have to be excessively long, and it's probably not random either since it would be a little unsporting of FD to make something look so significant and be completely meaningless.

That leaves a third possibility: it's dynamically generated in response to some continually changing, non-repeating (or long-period repeating) environmental stimulus, such as the position of the planet, or its moon, or the sun, or the SRV in its vicinity (like the probes that generated ship scan diagrams), or something else.

Or a fourth possibility, where the apparent encoding is random, but when a layer of encoding is taken off, then it becomes repeatable. For example, it could be that the number of 1s, 2s or 3s (some arbitrary naming of the different symbols) between a pair of markers is the information transmitted, and their order is unimportant. One then could randomise the order and create a signal that looks, for all intents and purposes, random when in reality it carries information.

It's not a highly likely possibility, but it is one nonetheless.

Daedalus_Dash · Nov 9, 2016

The Unknown Postal Service

So i've just read a little about the RM4SCC, (also known as the Intelligent Mail Barcode) and the decoders available on the web all require strings of 65 characters.

It is VERY similar, apart from the characters in the audio files being of different width..

There are four characters in the RM4SCC sequence:

A = Ascending (from center and up)
D = Descending (from center and down)
F = Full bar
S/T = Track, or short bar (on center line)

EDIT: See http://bobcodes.weebly.com/cbc.html for further information.

I'm assuming we're going with the Royal Mail version of the postal code since ED is from our tea-and-biscuit-loving part of the Earth, the UK.

rizal72 · Nov 9, 2016

CMDR Arguendo said:
This sort of reminds me of the patterns you get when listening to the antennas on outposts, and that long antenna inside on the back wall of a station. There are clear patterns there when putting them into a spectrogram, but there is no information there. This looks very similar; very distinct sounds, but when analysed doesn't give anything useful.
If there was any information in the broadcast you would have to have a clear start and a clear end, and then a repetition. If you don't have those, there is no information there, but pure gibberish. I must say however, that I find it peculiar that there is no repetition in 56 minutes! That means it's programmed to be completely random, and that must be on purpose. All other sound signals I have seen in game repeats itself, even the antenna sounds described above.
So, I would work more with the signal, but if it again comes out with no repetition, then it is a bust imho. There is no way to get any information from something that plays indefinetely and is completely random.

Mengy said:
Yeah the length of the audio is very telling. If the obelisks just made noise for the sake of ”atmosphere” then the devs wouldn’t use a sound file that was 56+ minutes long for that, it would be a shorter repeating sound file. From a developer’s game asset point of view you want to use smaller, low memory assets wherever you can get away with it. So this long audio must be on purpose and intentional, which means it most likely contains something important for us to discover.

It could be randomized I guess, but that would be odd to program it like that just for fun and games. I’m sure Frontier has better things to do with their time than to code in fake puzzles and clues like that!

Hopefully? :S

...what does it reminds me instead?

The UA purrs: remember?

Yes, randomized as well. it seems FD likes doing it for fun and games...

AMAZING WORK Ericlas!

Erid · Nov 9, 2016

Or it is two signals (relic + obelisk) with weird frequency like 7, 13 or 17 minutes

Glastinghouse · Nov 9, 2016

Maybe the blocks "censor" something? Maybe after a further step in the puzzle we are able to see numbers/letters/things instead of the bars and blocks?

I'm still wondering if the puzzle is solvable solo or only with several Cmdrs together.

And what do we know about the Relics and Objects around the site? Why can we target the Ancient Pillar until we shoot it off? The Relic still hovers up there after all 3 Pillars are gone - like unshielding it for a purpose.

Ericlas · Nov 9, 2016

rizal72 said:
...what does it reminds me instead?

The UA purrs: remember? Yes, randomized as well. it seems FD likes doing it for fun and games...

AMAZING WORK Ericlas!

Thanks

_________________________________________________________________

@all:

I'm not trying to make my case here. I hate stuff throwing us off the course and wasting our time.
So rest assured, if it is rubbish, then close it down, readjust our focus and look somewhere else.
I just read through your comments and had an idea and needed to check again.

I took another 20min recording at a random obelisk (I'm sure it doesn't matter).
After comparing both files I saw there ARE repeating patterns. Just not whole group patterns.

edit2: they match not 100% as the spacing seems to be off a bit sometimes, maybe due to technical stuff I don't understand

Have a look:

Now I only focused on very prominent patterns and just skimmed through them.
Both records start and enf somewhere, nothing to overlay here.
I don't know if it means something or what to do with it. I am a gamer

That's why I asked for an official Go/NoGo

xdeath · Nov 9, 2016

So I did a few tests to see how difficult/easy the Ruins site in Synuefe was to spot. In the interest of providing a sure method of search.
Once you are in orbital cruise, the Ruin site almost entirely disappears. You may be able to spot some texture weirdness, but even at low altitudes(tested at 4-5km in orbital cruise) the Ruins are difficult to spot. Unless you know what you are looking for exactly, you will not see them.
This renders the low orbital cruise method of search entirely useless., especially if another set of Ruins has a different layout.

Conventional, or regular thrusters, you can spot the Ruins from an exceptionally high altitude. Upwards of 20km altitude is fairly reliable, but you could probably go higher.

Ruins from 26km+ altitude.

At around 7.5 to 8 km, the Ruin objects will start to load in and the Ambiance will sound. In some cases the Ambiance will overpower the sound of your thrusters. Making search by sound a good alternative.

Ruins from 7.5km+ altitude.

I tried to get a picture from the low orbital cruise method, but it goes by to fast. It again highlights how useless that method is.

Glastinghouse · Nov 9, 2016

Hostile Pilot above the site in this moment, be careful

Kyp Shard · Nov 9, 2016

Ericlas said:
Thanks
_________________________________________________________________

@all:

I saw there ARE repeating patterns. Just not whole group patterns.
<snip>

Yep, I've noticed those too and they look like discreet blocks of information to me. Really interested to see where this goes

Mengy · Nov 9, 2016

xdeath said:
So I did a few tests to see how difficult/easy the Ruins site in Synuefe was to spot. In the interest of providing a sure method of search.
Once you are in orbital cruise, the Ruin site almost entirely disappears. You may be able to spot some texture weirdness, but even at low altitudes(tested at 4-5km in orbital cruise) the Ruins are difficult to spot. Unless you know what you are looking for exactly, you will not see them.
This renders the low orbital cruise method of search entirely useless., especially if another set of Ruins has a different layout.

Conventional, or regular thrusters, you can spot the Ruins from an exceptionally high altitude. Upwards of 20km altitude is fairly reliable, but you could probably go higher.
...
At around 7.5 to 8 km, the Ruin objects will start to load in and the Ambiance will sound. In some cases the Ambiance will overpower the sound of your thrusters. Making search by sound a good alternative.
…
I tried to get a picture from the low orbital cruise method, but it goes by to fast. It again highlights how useless that method is.

Yep, agreed, which means searching all of the planets in my map’s systems will take a very, very long time. It’s almost too daunting a task without some direction. And that’s assuming my map is actually correct, which we don’t know that it is.

And now it seems like the obelisk sound data is just randomized junk.

I think we are stuck again. [sad]

Daedalus_Dash said:
So i've just read a little about the RM4SCC, (also known as the Intelligent Mail Barcode) and the decoders available on the web all require strings of 65 characters.

It is VERY similar, apart from the characters in the audio files being of different width..

EDIT: See http://bobcodes.weebly.com/cbc.html for further information.

I looked at RM4SCC but I don’t think it works as it requires three levels of data (high, mid, and low) while the obelisk data only seems to have two levels: high and low. If anything CPC-4 state barcode would work better.

Zambrick · Nov 9, 2016

The blocked out shapes look like old IBM AS400 Computer tape barcoding that we used to track data we sent offsite for storage.

BDC · Nov 9, 2016

Mengy said:
I still think this barcode style matches up, as long as you count the wider blocks in the obelisk data as sets of two and three “bars”:

It’s just that the numbers and letters I get are gobbly gook.

Yeah, I’ve spent a few hours now flying over both planets 3 and 5 in the COL 132 SECTOR CN-Z B30-10 but I’ve not seen anything of note yet. And you can’t really search from orbital cruise because it’s just too high up, so searching pretty much means flying over the surface with thrusters at like 15 – 20km up. Which is a very slow way to search even relatively small planets like these.

The proverbial needle in a haystack, but we aren’t even certain that the needle is even IN the haystack!

We need more information. Hopefully the obelisk data can help us somehow, maybe even give us coordinates.

Same, Mengy. Did the same thing a couple days ago for a few hours. Found nothing. I tried, though!