Did I miss something with geological/biological signals in the Odyssey update?

Avaruus · Mar 21, 2022

Hi everyone,

I used to explore and chase down geological and biological stuff for my pleasure. After months of having a break, I finally fly again into our beloved galaxy. But as I am trying to get back into my exploring habits, I find myself quite confused.

Here is a picture of a problem that happened several times:

After FSSing a system and DSSing a planet, it turns out that there are several geological sites. But when I check the navigation panel, none of these geological sites appear. I only see these boring distress beacons (may god be with the unlucky people in the escape pods I didn't rescue^^). As I approached the planet, I could only see, once again, the distress beacons appearing in there neat orange circles, but no geological sites.

It happened on several different planets across different systems.

So did something change into the world of chasing geo/bio sites? Do I need to perform some other secret and occult rituals to be able to locate the aforementioned sites?

And what about the biological signals? In the system map, I read something like "you need to perform DSS to find biological signals". Does that mean that we now need to DSS every time want to find biological life? The FSS doesn't show the signals anymore ?

Darth Wonko · Mar 21, 2022

They changed it in Odyssey to a heat map which shows general areas of where one might find biologics.

If you want to go back to the old system (for farming crystal shards, let's say), then boot into Horizons.

DemiserofD · Mar 21, 2022

Basically, the system is changed from a few discreet sites, to a much more broad distribution across the surface. Look for solid blue sections of the heat map, and you will tend to find a lot of stuff there. Of course, even in Horizons there were some planets with hundreds of geological sites and others with just a few, so you will find some variability from planet to planet.

While some people dislike the new system, I personally find it quite a bit better, in general.

In the old system, you'd find an area of a few kilometres across with lots of stuff in it. The new system is slightly less dense, but you can find areas hundreds of kilometers wide, so the net resources is actually a lot higher.

Even with Crystal sites, the number one source of complaints, I can still find more than enough in short order. In Horizons, you find one very dense area that is often difficult to navigate and results in you getting stuck. It has thousands of Crystal Shards, but at most you only need 50.

In the new version, I I can almost always find a site with 15 to 30 shards, easily navigate through them, and then spot another similar site a kilometer or less away. I drive over there, finish up, and am done in basically the same amount of time, only with much less chance of getting impaled.

Even better, because the generation is different, meteorites can now spawn nearby, further increasing material collection rates. Before, they could not spawn until you were about 20 kilometres away, so most people never saw them at all.

Bottom Hat · Mar 21, 2022

Treya · Mar 21, 2022

The number given for bio/geo also has a different meaning under the new system and now denotes how many distinct types there are on the planet. So Geological (3) would translate to something like "has vents, fumaroles, and geysers". Same for bio signals (EDO planets are not limited to one plant species anymore, but one variant per species). Their distribution is also not totally random but based on the underlying geography - e.g. some plants can be found on plains while others prefer mountainous terrain. Finally, because the blue overlay isn't a real heatmap anymore[1] selecting a blue area to descend onto is typically only the first step in finding a bio/geo, followed by examining different terrain until the distribution rules become apparent.

[1] The overlay started out as a heatmap but only survived for something like a week during the public alpha, after which all colors were collated into the same blue.

Darrack · Mar 21, 2022

If your doing it to farm materials then Shard farming in Ody is pretty easy, just head to HIP 36601 and hit a patch of crystals, 2 nights there along with Outotz LS-K d8-3 gets me fully stocked again.
I have never seen the need to log back into Horizons

HIP 36601 - C 1 a - Polonium
HIP 36601 - C 1 d - Ruthenium
HIP 36601 - C 3 b - Tellurium
HIP 36601 - C 5 a - Technetium
HIP 36601 - C 4 A - Selenium - (Not shards)
Actually better using LHS 417 9 E A in the bubble - look for Crystalline Fragments

Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 7 b - Ruthenium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 a - Yttrium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 c - Antimony

There's plenty of guides out there

I think of your looking at just Bio exploration (EDO) then yes its more time consuming which i personally think is more realistic.

O7

Northpin · Mar 21, 2022

Avaruus said:
I used to explore and chase down geological and biological stuff for my pleasure

As everyone else said, there are no more Geo/Bio POIs.
No more concentrated patches with the said Geo/Bio feature

Just big areas where you need to flyover and eyeball things.
Yeap, back to Eyeballs Mk1

Some people like it, some dont

I personally would have prefer to have both systems in place - both POIs and the heatmaps (i know they're not heatmaps but we might as well call them that)

Wobblin-Gobblin · Mar 21, 2022

Darrack said:
If your doing it to farm materials then Shard farming in Ody is pretty easy, just head to HIP 36601 and hit a patch of crystals, 2 nights there along with Outotz LS-K d8-3 gets me fully stocked again.
I have never seen the need to log back into Horizons

HIP 36601 - C 1 a - Polonium
HIP 36601 - C 1 d - Ruthenium
HIP 36601 - C 3 b - Tellurium
HIP 36601 - C 5 a - Technetium
HIP 36601 - C 4 A - Selenium - (Not shards)
Actually better using LHS 417 9 E A in the bubble - look for Crystalline Fragments

Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 7 b - Ruthenium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 a - Yttrium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 c - Antimony

There's plenty of guides out there

I think of your looking at just Bio exploration (EDO) then yes its more time consuming which i personally think is more realistic.

O7

And the planets themselves, they look so much better in EDO

Northpin · Mar 21, 2022

Darrack said:
If your doing it to farm materials then Shard farming in Ody is pretty easy, just head to HIP 36601 and hit a patch of crystals, 2 nights there along with Outotz LS-K d8-3 gets me fully stocked again.
I have never seen the need to log back into Horizons

HIP 36601 - C 1 a - Polonium
HIP 36601 - C 1 d - Ruthenium
HIP 36601 - C 3 b - Tellurium
HIP 36601 - C 5 a - Technetium
HIP 36601 - C 4 A - Selenium - (Not shards)
Actually better using LHS 417 9 E A in the bubble - look for Crystalline Fragments

Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 7 b - Ruthenium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 a - Yttrium
Outotz LS-K d8-3 - B 5 c - Antimony

There's plenty of guides out there

I think of your looking at just Bio exploration (EDO) then yes its more time consuming which i personally think is more realistic.

O7

So, on those planets, in EDO - can you fill up one raw (lets say polonium) from 0 to 150 in 30-40 minutes tops?
Asking for a friend that always got there in Horizons and maintains a list of Bio POIs that are on flatter terrain so easier to farm when needed
(it can be done way faster than that using out-of-the-box techniques like using flechettes for example)

DemiserofD · Mar 21, 2022

Northpin said:
So, on those planets, in EDO - can you fill up one raw (lets say polonium) from 0 to 150 in 30-40 minutes tops?
Asking for a friend that always got there in Horizons and maintains a list of Bio POIs that are on flatter terrain so easier to farm when needed
(it can be done way faster than that using out-of-the-box techniques like using flechettes for example)

I'd say yes. I found a new crystal site the other day, flew around for a bit and easily found 100+ clusters of 20-30 individual crystal spires, each with maybe 1.5 material drops(per spire) on average. Then you could see the next one on your radar and drive there in under 60 seconds and keep going. So that's like 4-5 clusters max.

All you really need to do is look at the heatmap and pick a relatively large spot of blue on relatively flat terrain and it's easy as pie. Honestly easier than in Horizons, IMO, since there you have little choice in where to go, and they would often spawn in deep canyons that were difficult to navigate.

varonica · Mar 22, 2022

Northpin said:
So, on those planets, in EDO - can you fill up one raw (lets say polonium) from 0 to 150 in 30-40 minutes tops?
Asking for a friend that always got there in Horizons and maintains a list of Bio POIs that are on flatter terrain so easier to farm when needed
(it can be done way faster than that using out-of-the-box techniques like using flechettes for example)

If you are farming crystals with Polonium sure you can do it that fast, just got to find a nice flat area with crystals. I spent 2 night farming crystals and filled up just about every top tier mat, and that inlcuded jumping around to systems with the correct mats. There are a few systems with multiple top tier mats and crystals so they make things easier.

Codger · Mar 22, 2022

Avaruus said:
So did something change into the world of chasing geo/bio sites? Do I need to perform some other secret and occult rituals to be able to locate the aforementioned sites?

Yes, it's all changed. You might find this guide helpful, it goes into the details pretty well.

Organic Scanning Guide | Canonn Research Group

In this guide we will show you some tips and techniques for finding surface biology using the latest incarnation of the detailed surface scanner and how to quickly gather the required three scans per species so that you can sell the data at Vista Genomics and work your way up to the coveted...

canonn.science

Wobblin-Gobblin · Mar 22, 2022

The 'search' for bio and geo sites is so much better in EDO, and much more realistic imo. The sites are spread over the whole surface and have to be found by eyeballing. I love it. Never landed on more planets and moons since I've switched to EDO some months ago. And I only have the standard suite, as I'm out in the void since 2019/3305.

Avaruus · Mar 22, 2022

@Darth Wonko @DemiserofD @Treya @Darrack @Northpin @Codger
Thanks a lot guys for shedding some light on this (dark) matter! Though I tried to figure it out by myself, I didn't think of the heatmap, obviously. Really, you stop ED for several months and you forget so many automatism.

Erei · Mar 22, 2022

Not exactly what you seems to be looking for, but in any case :
I don't know if it was mentioned, but the Odyssey only plants have favorite "biomes". The heatmap can be erroneous at times and need to be tempered with that knowledge.
For example :
-fungoid like high altitude/mountains
-tussock are a highland thing, medium altitude
-conchas like crevasses, canyons and low altitude.
-bacterium seem to like lowaltitude and flat terrain, mostly

Avaruus · Mar 22, 2022

Just to be sure: if I encounter a planet with bio, will the FSS and DSS indicate the bio signals in the "Features" and the "Notable signals" as it does with the geo signals?

Eg:

@Erei
Thanks anyway, might help when I'll discover some bio.

Darrack · Mar 22, 2022

Avaruus said:
Just to be sure: if I encounter a planet with bio, will the DSS indicate the bio signals in the "Notable signals" as it does with the geo signals? (cf. my first post of the thread)

@Erei
Thanks anyway, might help when I'll discover some bio.

In Odyssey no, once you have scanned the planet you will see a description at the top of the scanner, will detail all available Bios.
Scrolling through you will see changes in the surface patterns, takes a while to get used to recognising what you are looking for.

Easier to find a vid on it than me to try and explain.

O7

Avaruus · Mar 22, 2022

@Darrack
Oops, edited my post just before your answer.

So I watched a video about how to find bio sites and it seems that the DSS indeed indicates the bio in the notable signals as it does with geological.

Here's the screenshot of what the guy's screen was showing after DSSing a planet with biological stuff.

I guess I have my answer then, except for the FSS: I still don't know if the info about bio signals appears on the FSS. I assume that it does, because I don't see the point to make it possible for geological and not for biological.

Darrack · Mar 22, 2022

Avaruus said:
@Darrack
Oops, edited my post just before your answer.

So I watched a video about how to find bio sites and it seems that the DSS indeed indicates the bio in the notable signals as it does with geological.

Here's the screenshot of what the guy's screen was showing after DSSing a planet with biological stuff.

View attachment 297992

I guess I have my answer then, except for the FSS: I still don't know if the info about bio signals appears on the FSS. I assume that it does, because I don't see the point to make it possible for geological and not for biological.

Thats it, as you scroll through the signals you will see changes in the surface colours as to where things are (General area), it takes some getting used to.

O7

Avaruus · Mar 22, 2022

Darrack said:
Thats it, as you scroll through the signals you will see changes in the surface colours as to where things are (General area), it takes some getting used to.

O7

I'm not sure if you understood my question, I was wondering about the FSS, not the DSS. Anyway, I got my answer. I just encountered a planet with biological signals. And the FSS does show it after scanning the planet.

Pic:

Thanks for the help Darrack.