Dark spot or light spot how does one see materials from orbit?

[Boff'in]

I've always thought the RNG on materials was weighted towards the material content of the planet (well duh), but also the location.
Knowing tectonics is involved gravitation squeezing, solar winds blah de blah blah, Dr Ross and her team kan explain the details.
And this was going back to the launch of horizons.

In theory
Surface materials would be the higher percentage of the RNG, but if you wanted to increase your chances of the rarer kind, then you needed to get bellow the surfaces, so the dark craters, cracks in the planetoids crust (canyons) would yield better, and plumes of "light" materials ejected from volcanoes or kicked up from an impact. So the planets are made up of 3 colours.
the default colour of the planet, dark (deep materials), and light (ejecta).
So my question since 2016 was, do you aim for the light plumes of ejected materials or the dark craters.

In practice
I have not found any really giant increase in drop rates or RNG.
Now, this was not helped by the great "Beigeification" of 2017 (3305?) which was an accidental reset because the "beyond" upgrade was supposed to tie the art assets even tighter to the material system, so the light/dark patches would be more accurate.
A couple of years down the line, and I STILL haven't seen any hard data on drop rates and locations

Craters and canyons do give more eye-candy, and going deeper into the crust just feels "correct" so I stick to that "instinct".

Is there a correlation, what do you do?

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It's all RNG. You're better off rolling more outcomes on flat plane because that means getting to the next is faster. Afaik, there is a slight increase near craters but they are more difficult to navigate and traverse. So set down on plains, pick direction, off you go. There was some enthusiasm about geological distributions but in the end it turns out it's just random for the most part.

 

[varonica]

In theory the deposits are supposed to follow fault lines and be findable by surface features and colours, but in practice I haven't found that useful.

The next update in planetary tech is supposed make a major change to how surface formations, deposits and tectonic fault lines are represented, so I am hoping that will make observing from orbit more useful.

 

[Northpin]

I've always thought the RNG on materials was weighted towards the material content of the planet (well duh), but also the location.
Knowing tectonics is involved gravitation squeezing, solar winds blah de blah blah, Dr Ross and her team kan explain the details.
And this was going back to the launch of horizons.

In theory
Surface materials would be the higher percentage of the RNG, but if you wanted to increase your chances of the rarer kind, then you needed to get bellow the surfaces, so the dark craters, cracks in the planetoids crust (canyons) would yield better, and plumes of "light" materials ejected from volcanoes or kicked up from an impact. So the planets are made up of 3 colours.
the default colour of the planet, dark (deep materials), and light (ejecta).
So my question since 2016 was, do you aim for the light plumes of ejected materials or the dark craters.

In practice
I have not found any really giant increase in drop rates or RNG.
Now, this was not helped by the great "Beigeification" of 2017 (3305?) which was an accidental reset because the "beyond" upgrade was supposed to tie the art assets even tighter to the material system, so the light/dark patches would be more accurate.
A couple of years down the line, and I STILL haven't seen any hard data on drop rates and locations

Craters and canyons do give more eye-candy, and going deeper into the crust just feels "correct" so I stick to that "instinct".

Is there a correlation, what do you do?

I dont bother anymore to do random driving to gather materials.
Because Crystalline Shards and bio/geo sites. Actually i pretty much prefer the bio sites (brain trees especially) to any geo sites.

However, if the interest for going planetary driving is more academic and less mundane (material gathering), then it might make sense to explore certain features...

 

[Craith]

I get better results on the crater rims - not down in the crater, but just outside of it. Not more meteorites, but a higher chance of metallic meteorites. My proof? gut feeling? And experience when we mapped all the materials in our home system, before you could just scan the planet to get told the material composition on it.

I know I could get material faster somewhere else, but I actually like driving the SRV, so I do what I enjoy and just collect on the way. I often land at some good looking crater and then drive towards some point of interest, like a geologic site or a planetary base.

 

[Zieman]

I get better results on the crater rims - not down in the crater, but just outside of it. Not more meteorites, but a higher chance of metallic meteorites. My proof? gut feeling?

My experience/feeling is similar.
Crater rim, with mountainside or another crater rim close.

 

[Boff'in]

I just touch down on a nice creamy ejecta and had 3 metallic metorites near by after I sent my ship away. That being said, I've been on the same moon for a while, but I did Supercruise away and a back, so the instance should be "fresh"

 

[varonica]

I just touch down on a nice creamy ejecta and had 3 metallic metorites near by after I sent my ship away. That being said, I've been on the same moon for a while, but I did Supercruise away and a back, so the instance should be "fresh"

If they are instanced they are, most splash craters have at least on meteorite that's not instanced and will appear with a blue POI marker!