Did they recently make the heatmap more of an actual heatmap?

[Galactic Fork]

OK, I know everybody says it's a simple yes/no map and any change in color is just the background. But I'm pretty sure this is not exactly true. Or they changed it recently.
Here is the overlay for Tussock on this moon during approach.

Spoiler: Tussock

And here is the same planet, same area but for Stratum:

Spoiler: Stratum

Another really good example is here where the light blue and dark blue areas of the Frutexa are inverted for the Tussock.

Spoiler: Frutexa

Spoiler: Tussock

[/SPOILER

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's always (well, since Odyssey release, anyway) worked like that - and yes, sometimes you'll have better chances in one shade of blue than another.

Exactly what the different shades of blue correspond to is unclear - it can correspond to changes in elevation or terrain shape or terrain type but sometimes just draws a line to divide an apparently flat plain into two, and while the chances of finding a plant sometimes vary considerably one side of the colour line or another, sometimes they don't (and when they do, it's not always the same colours that have them, though that lighter blue in most of the Tussock picture is usually reliable)

It's probably more of a biome map than a heatmap, but that can still be quite useful if you're just not finding something despite it being blue - switch to another shade of blue and try again.

 

[Codger]

Exactly what the different shades of blue correspond to is unclear - it can correspond to changes in elevation or terrain shape or terrain type but sometimes just draws a line to divide an apparently flat plain into two, and while the chances of finding a plant sometimes vary considerably one side of the colour line or another, sometimes they don't (and when they do, it's not always the same colours that have them, though that lighter blue in most of the Tussock picture is usually reliable)

Newcomer / Intro - Biological heatmap - help please!

Hi all, are there any experts who can tell me what the different shades of blue / green mean on the planetary surface biological heat map? They don't seem related to terrain features, height etc as they either appear, or don't, at certain altitudes with colour varying a lot at the same altitude...

forums.frontier.co.uk

FDEV has stated that the colors are caused by the "Underlying Topography" and have no other significance.

I think the rest is just confirmation bias, for the most part, although different terrains do matter. In my experience, though, the color lines do not generally line up with the needed terrain differences very well.

It's better just to understand what sort of terrain the various plants prefer, and then find that type of terrain in a blue area of the map.

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

The colouring relates to the topology. That is important to each biology type. For example, if you are hunting for bacteria then head for the blue/green areas, which represent flat areas and avoid the dark blue areas, which tend to be ragged hills. Flick between analysis and combat mode and the terrain can be seen. Its a matter of learning the types of terrain that each bio likes. I think the codex or Canonn gives you clues. Even then the little so and so's can be a pain to find. Just persevere.

 

[Galactic Fork]

The colouring relates to the topology. That is important to each biology type. For example, if you are hunting for bacteria then head for the blue/green areas, which represent flat areas and avoid the dark blue areas, which tend to be ragged hills. Flick between analysis and combat mode and the terrain can be seen. Its a matter of learning the types of terrain that each bio likes. I think the codex or Canonn gives you clues. Even then the little so and so's can be a pain to find. Just persevere.

If that was the case, the color would be consistent right? But as my pictures show, the same planet and same area has different coloring depending on the species. The topographic features didn't change in the time it took me to switch between tussock and stratum.

 

[Codger]

If that was the case, the color would be consistent right? But as my pictures show, the same planet and same area has different coloring depending on the species. The topographic features didn't change in the time it took me to switch between tussock and stratum.

If you wish to believe FDEV is lying about this, feel free. As long as you find the bios, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Galactic Fork]

If you wish to believe FDEV is lying about this, feel free. As long as you find the bios, it doesn't really matter.

If you wish to believe FDEV is correct about this despite it being demonstrably false, feel free. As long as you find the biis, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Hellrider]

If colors of heatmap would be ONLY about terrain they couldnt change shades of blue after changing filter.
Meanwhile 1 flat area can be X blue for one bio, and Y blue for another bio.

 

[Planewalker]

"It is not a heatmap". (dev statement, not mine x)

The probable area is most often in the "Gasoline Green" colour.

It could benefit from being expanded with a bit more colours and patterns.

 

[Codger]

If that was the case, the color would be consistent right? But as my pictures show, the same planet and same area has different coloring depending on the species. The topographic features didn't change in the time it took me to switch between tussock and stratum.

Nope ,doesn’t follow. Whatever graphics method they use to overlay the color could easily produce different colors depending upon the DSS filter settings and internal workings.

 

[]M[]

There’s been quite a bit of uncertainty over which blue is bluer or better for finding genetic samples since, well …the appearance of the genetic sampler?

In general, it’s seemed to me that the turquoise-blue zones indicate inhabitable areas for a particular species, with deeper/darker blue indicating areas with maturer colonies, though typically in decline or even sometimes extinct in the darkest blue areas (compare the amount of living specimens in a particular area with the number of fossils, such as Osseus shaped “rocks” or Bacteria remnant surface “stains”) while lighter cyan-blue patches indicate colonies that are growing, the brighter/lighter the blue the more they are thriving… the lightest blues are sometimes the best zones, at other times the deeper blues.

There is often correspondence between these colour differences and topography, as some species prefer or even require particular terrain types (Bacteria needing sand, preferably amongst a few protective rocks, while some Fungoida only grow high up in rocky terrain), or grow only in particular temperature ranges, likely affected by altitude, again a function of topography - but it’s not essentially a topographic map, though a bit of this detail shows through the overlay or is highlighted by species density at times…

[Really wish Frontier would release something definitive on all this at long last… :]

 

[Ian Doncaster]

FDEV has stated that the colors are caused by the "Underlying Topography" and have no other significance.

It wouldn't be the first time that Frontier English and British English have had confusing dialect differences. (More recently, see the patch note a few months ago saying that the Thargoids were "deprioritising" uninhabited systems, which did not involve any changes at all to the priority the Thargoids place on uninhabited systems)

Topography usually does mean a height map, in this sort of context. And some of the changes in blues do reflect height changes - but not all of them. It can also mean "the arrangement of features" more generally - which might cover other differences like whether the base terrain is rocky or icy (the lines do match up pretty well with the change between rocky and icy zones at the same elevation on a rocky ice world, which most certainly does change whether you get rocky or icy plants too) or what subtype of those is being used.

With that unusual but technically valid definition of topography, "the colours reflect the underlying [biome] and have no other significance" could be entirely true and still match what's observable in-game - it's not the case that Blue A is always better than Blue B, different plants can have different colours for the same terrain because "[the colour has] no other significance", it doesn't (directly) say where the plants are beyond "no chance if it's not blue", and so on ... but also sometimes it does matter which blue you're in.

(And it's certainly not a heatmap, but the Alpha one wasn't either - that was a binary map with some highly misleading edge decoration)

 

[Fixitman]

The difference in color is only there to differentiate between different terrain types. It's a just a functional, but broken, navigational aid.
Like many things in ED, it barely works, but that's good enough..

Edit: More detailed experimentation has proven my earlier beliefs wrong. After 600+ bio scans over the past 2 months, I've found that Smooth textured areas are generally the best spots.

 

[Frankymole]

The difference in color is only there to differentiate between different terrain types. It's a just a functional, but broken, navigational aid.
Like many things in ED, it barely works, but that's good enough...

Nah. Same terrain, different colours, and different colour contours despite being exactly the same terrain - so it's clearly base don the life, not the rocks:

 

[Fixitman]

Nah. Same terrain, different colours, and different colour contours despite being exactly the same terrain - so it's clearly base don the life, not the rocks:

I'm about to reach elite in Exobiology, so I've done enough to get a much better feel for the probability overlay. I've seen smooth textures on rugged terrain, and mottled textures on smooth terrain. I now agree, go for the largest, most even texture. It's almost always the best spot.

 

[varonica]

If that was the case, the color would be consistent right? But as my pictures show, the same planet and same area has different coloring depending on the species. The topographic features didn't change in the time it took me to switch between tussock and stratum.

No, because the blue map, depending on what bio you have selected, will be a different distance from the surface depending on the temp and gravity requirements etc of the bio, so if the bio you are looking for appears on higher ground, which has happened to me, there's often a quite clear distinction in those cases, the distance above the surface of the blue shading will change the intensity of the effect the ground topography has on the shading. Lets be clear, the blue shading doesn't hug the ground, and I think this is what confuses people, it's a flat layer above the ground that changes height depending on the bio. It's essentially a shader, the higher above the ground the harder it is to see the underlying topography.

Stratum almost always appears on flat areas, tussock often appears on higher ground. You can clearly see, in the Stratum image, some higher ground poking through the blue layer which means the blue layer must be lower than that ground surface, in that case due to the liking of Stratum to level terrain, in the Tussock image the higher ground is all blue because tussock often appears on rocky outcrops and higher ground and doesn't require flat terrain, which means the blue layer is above that high ground and further from the surface, thus changing the effect of the shader on the lower ground.

 

[Frankymole]

I'm about to reach elite in Exobiology, so I've done enough to get a much better feel for the probability overlay. I've seen smooth textures on rugged terrain, and mottled textures on smooth terrain. I now agree, go for the largest, most even texture. It's almost always the best spot.

Stratum almost always appears on flat areas, tussock often appears on higher ground. You can clearly see, in the Stratum image, some higher ground poking through the blue layer which means the blue layer must be lower than that ground surface, in that case due to the liking of Stratum to level terrain, in the Tussock image the higher ground is all blue because tussock often appears on rocky outcrops and higher ground and doesn't require flat terrain, which means the blue layer is above that high ground and further from the surface, thus changing the effect of the shader on the lower ground.

Aren't these contradictory? A more "even" texture would be in the air or under the ground and thus not likely to yield the most of that plant type... a shade on the surface would be more mottled?

 

[varonica]

Aren't these contradictory? A more "even" texture would be in the air or under the ground and thus not likely to yield the most of that plant type... a shade on the surface would be more mottled?

I've seen even textures that turn out to be extensive mountain ranges, I think there may some ground following by the blue, but only in a major way, ie: large craters sometimes seem to have textures that follow the slope, but an extensive mountain range that is all marked for the same bio tends to be fairly even and not mottled, so the texture is not following the mountain slopes but rather just overlaying the entire area. I suspect the texture in that case was simply set at the height of the highest mountain peaks possible and just went over the top.

 

[Galactic Fork]

No, because the blue map, depending on what bio you have selected, will be a different distance from the surface depending on the temp and gravity requirements etc of the bio, so if the bio you are looking for appears on higher ground, which has happened to me, there's often a quite clear distinction in those cases, the distance above the surface of the blue shading will change the intensity of the effect the ground topography has on the shading. Lets be clear, the blue shading doesn't hug the ground, and I think this is what confuses people, it's a flat layer above the ground that changes height depending on the bio. It's essentially a shader, the higher above the ground the harder it is to see the underlying topography.

Stratum almost always appears on flat areas, tussock often appears on higher ground. You can clearly see, in the Stratum image, some higher ground poking through the blue layer which means the blue layer must be lower than that ground surface, in that case due to the liking of Stratum to level terrain, in the Tussock image the higher ground is all blue because tussock often appears on rocky outcrops and higher ground and doesn't require flat terrain, which means the blue layer is above that high ground and further from the surface, thus changing the effect of the shader on the lower ground.

Isn't it Frutexa that appears on higher ground? Tussock usually appears right next to Stratum. But I get what you're saying. The parts that confuse me about that explaination are in these 2 images:

Spoiler: Tussock

View attachment 356914

Spoiler: Stratum

View attachment 356915

They're identical except for the mottled dark blue area. There's no height difference in where the ground pokes out. and in game, if you switch between them, the dark blue areas are the only thing that change. If it was simply the height of the overlay interacting with the textures, wouldn't the reset be different?

Secondly, for the other two images:

Spoiler: Frutexa

View attachment 356916

Spoiler: Tussock

View attachment 356917

The Frutexa is located on the mountains and the light blue bunny looking area is the highest mountain area of the region, with the mottled blue around it is a bit lower with the lowlands around it not shaded.
Then the Tussock inverts that color difference with mottled blue for the higher ground a really light mottling around some of the lower areas, with cyan along the flat lands.

In your explanation, I don't see how the colors invert like that. For Frutexa, if it's because it's high up that the cyan area is closer and easier to see, and the darker blue is that way because it's farther and obstructed, then why are the mountain tops the same color as the lower area for the tussock?
(I'm genuinely confused by this and not being argumentative, and you're historically good at explaining stuff, so I'm looking to figure this out.)

 

[varonica]

Isn't it Frutexa that appears on higher ground? Tussock usually appears right next to Stratum.

Let me post this;

tussock often appears on higher ground.

Note the word "often", I used this because Tussock can appear on flat ground and higher ground, therefore the heatmap will sometimes be different for Tussock and Stratum depending on the underlying conditions that aren't always revealed to us.