Can we please get rid of Genetic Diversity in Exobiology or at least limit it to 500 Meters?

[Einar Donarsson]

Greetings.

I do not know how others see it or if i just may be incredibly unlucky. But 20-30 Minutes just to get 3 Probes of ONE species is just to much time.
The Most common issues being: Bacteria are extremely rare to find on certain planets and require 5 kilometers distance from each other sometimes to have enough genetic diversity.

Second Issue: Again the sometimes Extreme distances one has to walk to get one Species done. We got a lot of planets with rough terrain where the use of a SRV is counterproductive and/or big Ships can barely land near the Plantlife you wish to scan.

Please lower the distance that is needed for genetic diversity significantly or get rid of it alltogether. It is really not fun.

Thank you and have a nice Day.

 

[SixthVG]

I'd like an option to do the scanner thingy in the SRV. So I could just press a button while in my SRV and see if I'm able to scan the plant/bacteria I'm looking at.

 

[metatheurgist]

What they should've done was make it so success in the mini-game reduced the amount of scans you had to make. Then it would've actually had a point.

 

[varonica]

I believe there's only species over 500m, and that still only goes to 800m. Elite Observatory with MattG's plugins will tell you exactly what range your bio is and when you have gone far enough away to sample the next one, it's such a time saver it's well worth it, well unless you are on PS or Xbox I guess. There's nothing in the bio that requires 5 klms separation!

 

[Einar Donarsson]

There's nothing in the bio that requires 5 klms separation!

Maybe this is a bug then? Cause i really did have cases, with bacteria especially, where i drove my srv for multiple kilometers and still didnt have enough genetic diversity.
That said, i really do not want to have to rely on yet ANOTHER third party tool. I just want the Game to be good by itself and in my humble opinion, this forever walking on an empty surface is not fun.

 

[varonica]

Maybe this is a bug then? Cause i really did have cases, with bacteria especially, where i drove my srv for multiple kilometers and still didnt have enough genetic diversity.
That said, i really do not want to have to rely on yet ANOTHER third party tool. I just want the Game to be good by itself and in my humble opinion, this forever walking on an empty surface is not fun.

Did you watch your compass, because it's easy to get turned around unless you do and end up doing a giant curve without getting out of the 800m range.

 

[varonica]

Apparently I was slightly out, Electricae is the longest range at 1000m, Bacteria is only 500m, it's in the wiki here;

Genetic Sampler

The Genetic Sampler is an On Foot tool to collect and index samples from living organisms.[1] It is equipped with the Artemis Suit. Data collected with the Genetic Sampler unlocks Codex entries for the related species, and can be sold at Vista Genomics for Credits.[2] It was introduced in ED...

elite-dangerous.fandom.com

It seems to fit pretty accurately with my experience bio scanning.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

I do not know how others see it or if i just may be incredibly unlucky.

But it's the only gameplay Exobiology has, it's still not good gameplay and they don't do anything interesting with it like rewarding you more for getting samples from further away or different biomes etc. As such I wouldn't miss it if it was changed.

 

[TragicBlue21]

Allowing multiple species to be scanned and stored in the doo dah would be a nice change, at least then players might only need to visit 3 or 4 sites on a planet to get all the data they need...I can't say I'm looking forward to the bouncing game play loop for Xenobiology when we get EDO

 

[Northpin]

Yeap, this.
Some trick (including engineering) to allow the scanner to store multiple samples would also do it nicely

 

[varonica]

I am of the opinion, and stated it during the alpha, that this is the bare minimum of crumbs FDEV doled out to explorers, there could have been so much more had they not spent all their time working on a janky FPS implementation. I would have liked at least procedural per planet generation to give us unique life forms per planet, or even system would work. Oh well this is what we got, let's hope they pick up their game for the next expansion and make it a big and worthwhile exploration update.

 

[Florenus]

Maybe this is a bug then? Cause i really did have cases, with bacteria especially, where i drove my srv for multiple kilometers and still didnt have enough genetic diversity.
That said, i really do not want to have to rely on yet ANOTHER third party tool. I just want the Game to be good by itself and in my humble opinion, this forever walking on an empty surface is not fun.

Ingame Codex has information about how far you need to go.

 

[TragicBlue21]

Yeap, this.
Some trick (including engineering) to allow the scanner to store multiple samples would also do it nicely

Yep, engineering makes sense as that already exists and the mechanic is understood so upgrade the doo dah to allow multiple samples to be stored and we have the makings of a much less frustrating game play loop...

Faster scan options as experimental etc. could allow CMDRs to create their own build or more likely follow the min/max meta

 

[Einar Donarsson]

I mean, the current System actively prevents me from going on Foot. I fly in a small/mediumship over the surface till i found another plant of the same kind, get out, scan it, go back into the Ship. Small ships are the most effective here since you have more landing options. I prefered to explore in Large ships but due how timeconsuming Exobiology is, i switched to Small/medium ones.

 

[Hi-Jobe]

IMHO, Driving an SRV to look for bacteria is the wrong way to do it.
You should fly at 50m above ground at 50 - 80 km/h.
Also a ship with a nice wide cockpit view is helpful.
With this method at 9 out of 10 planets it takes no more than 5 minutes to find the bacteria.
Of course it helps if you know where to look.

 

[Damgalnuna]

Please lower the distance that is needed for genetic diversity significantly or get rid of it alltogether. It is really not fun.

Agreed, I'm not sure I think having it be purely distance related is a great idea regardless but at least reduce the distance. I would like to see a minigame or maybe even having

I'd like an option to do the scanner thingy in the SRV. So I could just press a button while in my SRV and see if I'm able to scan the plant/bacteria I'm looking at.

I agree with this very much, I suspect they are wanting to encourage FPS play but I often just do the SRV composition scanner because I get tired of getting in and out to move between colonies.

What they should've done was make it so success in the mini-game reduced the amount of scans you had to make. Then it would've actually had a point.

Agreed, I think that would be far preferable to having to drive so much. If I could easily zip around without having to get in and out and in and out of the SRV.

 

[Einar Donarsson]

Currently in the Bubble doing Exobiology in my ~4k shields Mamba, Racing above the Ground with no worries of getting myself destroyed if i bump into something. Supereffective but absolutely not how it was intended.

 

[Damgalnuna]

Currently in the Bubble doing Exobiology in my ~4k shields Mamba, Racing above the Ground with no worries of getting myself destroyed if i bump into something. Supereffective but absolutely not how it was intended.

I've done the same thing in my courier, but only if I can't find even 1 of something. Usually once I've found 1 of a thing I can find others in the SRV, it just gets jarring jumping in and out over and over again, especially when you can only sample 1 thing.

 

[zikolach]

I'd like an option to do the scanner thingy in the SRV. So I could just press a button while in my SRV and see if I'm able to scan the plant/bacteria I'm looking at.

It would be much more cool imo to have the ability to use handheld tools while sitting in the SRV - like scan bounties from the bodies (which may also disappear upon disembarking) and collect biological samples. It could be some limitation, e.g. a need to take first sample being on foot.

I would like to have ability to use ship's pulse-wave scanner while hovering on low distances (e.g. below 50-100 meters) to get some direction hint to find next life form occurrence.

Also with introduction of emotes - why not to allow using them from SRV - e.g. setting specific target to drive to using point emote.

 

[Damgalnuna]

I would like to have ability to use ship's pulse-wave scanner while hovering on low distances (e.g. below 50-100 meters) to get some direction hint to find next life form occurrence.

Oh I like this idea!

Also, why not have the SRV radar show a colored thing for lifeforms, like it does for geo?