General Biological Sampling

[Mr.Sharku]

You've Prided yourselves on making ED as "Realistic" as possible, which is why it took so long b4 we could land on planets with atmospheres.
Still hoping to someday land on Earth Type Planets.
But then you saddled Explorer's with a very "Primitive" Sampling Device. So many times I'll be on a planet, find a Biological & sample it.
Now I need to travel all over trying to find 2 different types of the same Bio. The problem is I have to pass up other Biologicals, or dump the sample(s)
I have to sample this new one.

I think I have a simple fix that would make a lot of Explorers happy. You already have the "Sample Canister Removal/Replacement" animation.
Would it be too hard to allow us to carry either multiple Sample Canisters that can be switched out to sample a new Biological, or a Canister that's capable
of holding multiple types of Bio Samples. I'm thinking 6 Canisters, 5 plus "1 in the Gun", or a Canister that can hold up to 6 different Bio Types.
I have spent hours driving around a planet, trying to find a 2nd or 3rd sample of what I have, and have to ignore other bio's I pass along the way.
I don't mind all the surface driving, I just wish it could be more "Productive" driving.

 

[DeadlyMercury]

I had same idea - having only one is just ridiculous.

 

[HRDiagram]

This has come up on day 1.

Since Odyssey was launched, this has become another of those "one per week" threads, and most of those who have been involved with exo-biology have suggested this at least once.

Hopefully, once (if) the performance issues are resolved, and new content will be added/reviewed, this might be one of the first changes/upgrades to exo-biology.

 

[Factabulous]

Explorers really don't like mini-games do they

Mostly I find the 3 samples just circling the ship at around 1km - though it is a bit of a pain because you might have to circle a few times - one per find, but hey - mini-games

Not actually sure that having multiple sample cans would work for the people who want it though ... if you struggle to find 3 samples at the moment (apparently 'taking hours') then you will still struggle - but now end up with multiple partially completed samples. It would be fine for me - because I can already find the 3 samples - but peeps like the OP would end up with lots of partials.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What's even funnier is we don't actually take samples. We record data... in a canister.

 

[Factabulous]

Duh - it has to be a sample because otherwise we could collect the data from the SRV or ship

 

[HRDiagram]

Explorers really don't like mini-games do they

Mostly I find the 3 samples just circling the ship at around 1km - though it is a bit of a pain because you might have to circle a few times - one per find, but hey - mini-games

Not actually sure that having multiple sample cans would work for the people who want it though ... if you struggle to find 3 samples at the moment (apparently 'taking hours') then you will still struggle - but now end up with multiple partially completed samples. It would be fine for me - because I can already find the 3 samples - but peeps like the OP would end up with lots of partials.

I do not agree with this, it is a very general statement that does not necessarily reflect my experience.

When Odyssey launched I was out in the black, and after a few thousand ly jumps I reached Colonia to buy the Artemis suit, to then spend the following two months slowly moving to the Bubble, always in exploration mode (no neutron stars, no rush).
On my path, I haven't skipped a single biological signal and I am now a few scans away from Elite. During my trip (and the numerous biological samples) I have come to the following conclusions:

• the SRV for exobiology is uselss
• small ships rule, the smaller the better (when I got back to the Bubble I semi-retired my AspX to adopt a Hauler as my new exploration vessel)
• if one is not a completionist, some bio-signals are not worth investigating
• I would love the pulse of the sampler to also show the pings on the suit's radar, to show exactly what we see on the ground.
• I would love to have multiple cansiters (possibly via an engineering mod)

All of the above are QoL improvements, some depend on me, some on the game.

Getting to the point: it's not about not liking mini games, quite the opposite, it's more about adding meaningful functions and engaging complexity to exploration.
The original twitch minigame on the sampler, for example, was bad because it had nothing to do with "science" or "investigation": it didn't add complexity, only pressure and stress, it felt so very out of place and I am glad it was dumped immediately. At the time, however, the devs mentioned that they would consider further additions to exobiology in future, and that's what I am talking about: relevant activities.
To me at least, it was not a matter of not liking minigames, but rather its complete irrelevance and counterproductive contribution to exo-biology.
There are several minigames within ED that I enjoy and find fitting, like suburface mining, core mining, interdictions: I like how they match the game-loop they affect, even if I am terrible at them!

Hundreds of times I have found myself in large patches of Tussock that also had in them stratum, tubus, bacterial colonies (any or all of them), etc. and it would make sense to start sampling more than one at a time if need be, not because I won't be able to find them again, but because it's silly not being able to, considering that the canisters appear to be little modular, portable barrels (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually the idea from the start, to be implemented at a later stage).

Tracking multiple bio-samples through an ingame interface could be a minigame on its own, more than just backtracking to sample that mushroom that we accidentally trod upon when we were picking up the blue variant of the most common space weed in the galaxy.

PS
I would HATE to be able to sample from the Scarab or the ship: sampling on foot makes more sense, as I imagine it would require some form of careful handling (yes, the hairdryer action doesn't suggest so, but there's always a level of abstraction involved anyway).

 

[Factabulous]

I do not agree with this, it is a very general statement that does not reflect my experience.

When Odyssey launched I was out in the black, and after a few thousand ly jumps I reached Colonia to buy the Artemis suit, to then spend the following two months slowly moving to the Bubble, always in exploration mode (no neutron stars, no rush).
On my path, I haven't skipped a single biological signal and I am now a few scans away from Elite. During my trip (and the numerous biological samples) I have come to the following conclusions:

• the SRV for exobiology is uselss
• small ships rule, the smaller the better (when I got back to the Bubble I semi-retired my AspX to adopt a Hauler as my new exploration vessel)
• if one is not a completionist, some bio-signals are not worth investigating
• I would love the pulse of the sampler to also show the pings on the suit's radar, to show exactly what we see on the ground.
• I would love to have multiple cansiters (possibly via an engineering mod)

All of the above are QoL improvements, some depend on me, some on the game.

Getting to the point: it's not about not liking mini games, quite the opposite, it's more about adding meaningful functions and engaging complexity to exploration.
The original twitch minigame on the sampler, for example, was bad because it had nothing to do with "science" or "investigation": it didn't add complexity, only pressure and stress, it felt so very out of place and I am glad it was dumped immediately. At the time, however, the devs mentioned that they would consider further additions to exobiology in future, and that's what I am talking about: relevant activities.
To me at least, it was not a matter of not liking minigames, but rather its complete irrelevance and counterproductive contribution to exo-biology.
There are several minigames within ED that I enjoy and find fitting, like suburface mining, core mining, interdictions: I really enojoy how they match the game-loop they affect, even if I am terrible at them!

Hundreds of times I have found myself in large patches of Tussock that also had in them stratum, tubus, bacterial colonies (any or all of them), etc. and it would make sense to start sampling more than one at a time if need be, not because I won't be able to find them again, but because it's silly not being able to, considering that the canisters appear to be little modular, portable barrels (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually the idea from the start, to be implemented at a later stage).

Tracking multiple bio-samples through an ingame interface could be a minigame on its own, more than just backtracking to sample that mushroom that we accidentally trod upon when we were picking up the blue variant of the most common space weed in the galaxy.

PS
I would HATE to be able to sample from the Scarab or the ship: sampling on foot makes more sense, as I imagine it would require some form of careful handling (yes, the hairdryer action doesn't suggest so, but there's always a level of abstraction involved anyway).

Sure. But the OP said they couldn't find 3. So we would be fine if it changed, but we don't have an issue. The OP can't find 3, so would still have an issue.

 

[zikolach]

Over the weekend I tried some exploration activities. Apart of some glitches with floating objects (stones, trees, geysers), ship stuck in the surface textures and inability to shot materials from brain trees and crystal shards overall it went quite well (found beautiful landscapes, xeno sites, mineral rich planets etc).

What could be possibly improved:

• biological/geological overlay looks visually bad. Transparent areas (where no life forms presented) don't really need to show planet surface - let them be plain color. Slightly reduce areas where specific type can be found (currently most of them cover 80%+ of surface). Maybe remove ALL choice so it could be sort of minigame (aka memory game) to find spot where most of them are intersecting
• some types of biological forms are too easy to spot, while others are impossible flying at low altitude. Not sure if it is by design, but I would prefer to have some sort of module to indicate direction and/or proximity to the area containing samples (could be some radar or beeper or just similar to second function of handheld scanner with increased range). It would probably make sense to increase distance when scanning from the air (the higher the larger distance)
• I also was surprised to see such high amount of crash sites (usually 4-6 per planet). I would reduce this number drastically for areas far away from inhabitant systems. It would be enough to see 0-5 per system and maybe have more specific commodity types (I typically saw narcotics and personal weapons).

 

[Mr.Sharku]

I do not agree with this, it is a very general statement that does not necessarily reflect my experience.

When Odyssey launched I was out in the black, and after a few thousand ly jumps I reached Colonia to buy the Artemis suit, to then spend the following two months slowly moving to the Bubble, always in exploration mode (no neutron stars, no rush).
On my path, I haven't skipped a single biological signal and I am now a few scans away from Elite. During my trip (and the numerous biological samples) I have come to the following conclusions:

• the SRV for exobiology is uselss
• small ships rule, the smaller the better (when I got back to the Bubble I semi-retired my AspX to adopt a Hauler as my new exploration vessel)
• if one is not a completionist, some bio-signals are not worth investigating
• I would love the pulse of the sampler to also show the pings on the suit's radar, to show exactly what we see on the ground.
• I would love to have multiple cansiters (possibly via an engineering mod)

All of the above are QoL improvements, some depend on me, some on the game.

Getting to the point: it's not about not liking mini games, quite the opposite, it's more about adding meaningful functions and engaging complexity to exploration.
The original twitch minigame on the sampler, for example, was bad because it had nothing to do with "science" or "investigation": it didn't add complexity, only pressure and stress, it felt so very out of place and I am glad it was dumped immediately. At the time, however, the devs mentioned that they would consider further additions to exobiology in future, and that's what I am talking about: relevant activities.
To me at least, it was not a matter of not liking minigames, but rather its complete irrelevance and counterproductive contribution to exo-biology.
There are several minigames within ED that I enjoy and find fitting, like suburface mining, core mining, interdictions: I like how they match the game-loop they affect, even if I am terrible at them!

Hundreds of times I have found myself in large patches of Tussock that also had in them stratum, tubus, bacterial colonies (any or all of them), etc. and it would make sense to start sampling more than one at a time if need be, not because I won't be able to find them again, but because it's silly not being able to, considering that the canisters appear to be little modular, portable barrels (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually the idea from the start, to be implemented at a later stage).

Tracking multiple bio-samples through an ingame interface could be a minigame on its own, more than just backtracking to sample that mushroom that we accidentally trod upon when we were picking up the blue variant of the most common space weed in the galaxy.

PS
I would HATE to be able to sample from the Scarab or the ship: sampling on foot makes more sense, as I imagine it would require some form of careful handling (yes, the hairdryer action doesn't suggest so, but there's always a level of abstraction involved anyway).

Now it would be Nice if the SRV Scanner could detect Bio's in Analysis Mode. I agree that Sampling should be done on foot foot, but it would make it easier to find them.
I too, was out in the void when it launched. Had to travel about 7500ly to Explorer's Outpost in Sag A+ to get my suit.