Fumaroles, geysers and spouts -- Oh, my!

[ChipStar65]

I recently began taking exploration really seriously, and just spent at least two hours checking every Geological POI on some dinky little out-in-the-boonies rock, found every type of Silicate vulcanism feature except the one I still need, the Silicate Ice Geyser Silicate Vapor Ice Fumarole.

Is there no way to be more efficient finding these kinds of things? DSS and the SysMap lump all types together as "Silicate Geysers," no help if you need a certain type. Should I expect to find at least one of each type on any particular rock or is it all up to the RNGoddess? Some rocks can have up to 50 Geologicals (maybe more?), and doing the Ballistic Hop to each one gets tedious to say the least. Are there any methods to sort the different types out before going dirtside?

 

[Anticon]

Not that I know of, but I hope there might be. I've always done it the hard way - hover/scan or land, one by one. Variability of sites is variable!

 

[Maggie_Oz]

You can scan from your ship?

 

[ChipStar65]

You can scan from your ship?

Absolutely! I only break out the SRV to gather mats and take screenshots. You have to hover low and get close for the Composition Scanner to do its thing.

 

[Maggie_Oz]

I don't know why I didn't think of that. I've been scanning ground data points from my Courier for ages!

 

[Jethro49]

I recently began taking exploration really seriously, and just spent at least two hours checking every Geological POI on some dinky little out-in-the-boonies rock, found every type of Silicate vulcanism feature except the one I still need, the Silicate Ice Geyser Silicate Vapor Ice Fumarole.

Is there no way to be more efficient finding these kinds of things? DSS and the SysMap lump all types together as "Silicate Geysers," no help if you need a certain type. Should I expect to find at least one of each type on any particular rock or is it all up to the RNGoddess? Some rocks can have up to 50 Geologicals (maybe more?), and doing the Ballistic Hop to each one gets tedious to say the least. Are there any methods to sort the different types out before going dirtside?

They are rare... You need to find a planet which holds rock and metal, and a good part of ice : rocky ice bodies are your best bet.

 

[ChipStar65]

They are rare... You need to find a planet which holds rock and metal, and a good part of ice : rocky ice bodies are your best bet.

I came to that conclusion last night after another round of searches, thanks for confirming my guess. These two moonlets were rocky bodies, the only icy moons in the system have water geysers. The Silicate Vapor Ice Fumaroles' absence makes some sense when you consider the moon's composition; I'll keep my DSS peeled for the proper kind of planet/moon
One question, though: If the DSS/SysMap says a planet has Water Geyser vulcanism, does that exclude any possibility of Silicate vulcanism on a Rocky Ice planet?

 

[Jethro49]

One question, though: If the DSS/SysMap says a planet has Water Geyser vulcanism, does that exclude any possibility of Silicate vulcanism on a Rocky Ice planet?

Well... I just gave up yesterday a similar quest, after 3 weeks looking for a specific type of volcanism on rocky ice planets. I found some with water volcanism, and checked about every two sites : these were only water-related geysers or fumarole. But IIRC it could be possible to have sulfur dioxyde related volcanism on iron or silicate planets.

Edit : good luck in your search !!

 

[ChipStar65]

I found this helpful thread:

Geological Codex Key

Ive found that figuring out what your going to find at a geological location doesnt always make sense. I decided to write down what it says on the system map, and what it turned out to be when I actually went and used the composition scanner. This should help to at least give an idea what to...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[ObsoleteRobot]

Absolutely! I only break out the SRV to gather mats and take screenshots. You have to hover low and get close for the Composition Scanner to do its thing.

Does anyone else use a SLF for this purpose too? I find it difficult holding a large ship like an Anaconda still long enough to scan.

 

[ChipStar65]

Does anyone else use a SLF for this purpose too? I find it difficult holding a large ship like an Anaconda still long enough to scan.

I have found you need to bring the bigger ships close to the surface and keep them more parallel to the ground plane to be stable enough for a scan. Your pitch in the HUD scale should be as close to 0 (zero) as you can manage.

Oddly enough the smaller ships like the Dolphin can also be problematic because they respond so quickly to minor shifts in attitude control, either by the pilot or by the ship's own attitude-maintenance mechanism. So far the most stable ship I have used for close-quarters surface scanning is the Python -- just rock-solid as long as she's not standing on her nose.

 

[ChipStar65]

In my OP I ask "Is there no way to be more efficient finding these kinds of things?" and this page (also linked in the ED forum thread I posted above, where I originally found it) is the answer:

Geological Codex Key

docs.google.com

So far it has helped me find and scan 5 more new geological features for my Codex -- when using it I have had zero "dry wells" searching the geo sites on planets. Every label, condition and aspect for finding a particular kind of geo feature is noted in the table, and other than a slightly broader range of surface temperature for some instances it has so far been spot on. If your exploration includes scouting out volcanic features I highly recommend its use. Kudos and a hardy thank you to its creators!