DSS Appears to be broken?

[Mohenjo]

So, I've been surveying a system. There are four planets in the system, each with 6 biological signals on them, Frutexa, Tussock, Cactoida, Fungoida, Osseus and Bacteria. I've been IN this system for nearly 2 weeks, because it's nearly impossible to find certain of the signals... ironically, it's NOT the bacteria.

No, it's the Fungoida. I go into orbit, switch my DSS scanner to filter for Fungoida signals, then drop into a blue area to find the fungoida the DSS says is there. It's NEVER there. I've even dropped into relatively tiny blue areas, so the amount of space I'd need to search would be as small as possible... and there's NEVER any fungoida. There's usually ALL of the other stuff... even though the scanner doesn't indicate there's any of those things IN that area...

For example, I'm in a blue area about 1km across right now. I've searched all over for the fungoida in the area. It's blue, so that means the scanner is detecting fungoida in that area, right? Nothing. Not one single fungoida. The scanner filter says there should be frutexa and bacteria in that area too, but indicates that there is NOT any Tussock, Cactoida or Osseus in the area... but I've found multiple Osseus AND several Tussock, despite the scanner saying there ISN'T any.

So I have to conclude the DSS is not functioning correctly. It's indicating the presence of features that are flatly NOT there, and not indicating the presence of features that ARE.
The devs really need to take a look at this, it's making planet surveys just ridiculously difficult and no fun at all.

 

[varonica]

It's blue, so that means the scanner is detecting fungoida in that area, right?

Wrong altogether sorry. The map is a location map, it finds areas where the conditions are suitable for fungoida, it says nothing about density or presence, this is the mistake many people make. The old heat map showed density of bio, this one just shows suitable surface conditions. Knowing the geography and geology that the bio prefers helps a lot so you can find them easier.

For instance I once searched a crater that was all blue for Tussock, it was basically sand everywhere except for isolated outcrops of rocks. I drove around for quite a while in the sand area because I could cover a lot of ground, after a while I recalled that tussocks preferred raised rocky areas so I went to the ship, flew to an outcrop and there they were, found them immediately. So just the conditions where the fungoida can be isn't enough, the geology and geography has to be correct as well.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Wrong altogether sorry. The map is a location map, it finds areas where the conditions are suitable for fungoida, it says nothing about density or presence, this is the mistake many people make. The old heat map showed density of bio, this one just shows suitable surface conditions. Knowing the geography and geology that the bio prefers helps a lot so you can find them easier.

For instance I once searched a crater that was all blue for Tussock, it was basically sand everywhere except for isolated outcrops of rocks. I drove around for quite a while in the sand area because I could cover a lot of ground, after a while I recalled that tussocks preferred raised rocky areas so I went to the ship, flew to an outcrop and there they were, found them immediately. So just the conditions where the fungoida can be isn't enough, the geology and geography has to be correct as well.

Is this information to be found anywhere in-game, such as the Codex? (I'm not logged in at the moment, or I'd look)

I find it extremely frustrating how some things are so poorly documented. For instance, the scanner in the Scarab SRV... the patterns must mean something, but there's nothing to explain it to us.

 

[varonica]

Is this information to be found anywhere in-game, such as the Codex? (I'm not logged in at the moment, or I'd look)

I find it extremely frustrating how some things are so poorly documented. For instance, the scanner in the Scarab SRV... the patterns must mean something, but there's nothing to explain it to us.

The DSS things was explained in a dev post to a bug report, the SRV scanner patterns, yes they do have meaning and that has been explained in detail on the forums, however not sure if there was ever any official documentation about it.

 

[Darth Wonko]

The DSS things was explained in a dev post to a bug report, the SRV scanner patterns, yes they do have meaning and that has been explained in detail on the forums, however not sure if there was ever any official documentation about it.

Thanks... I'll do a little digging.

 

[Codger]

So, I've been surveying a system. There are four planets in the system, each with 6 biological signals on them, Frutexa, Tussock, Cactoida, Fungoida, Osseus and Bacteria. I've been IN this system for nearly 2 weeks, because it's nearly impossible to find certain of the signals... ironically, it's NOT the bacteria.

No, it's the Fungoida. I go into orbit, switch my DSS scanner to filter for Fungoida signals, then drop into a blue area to find the fungoida the DSS says is there. It's NEVER there. I've even dropped into relatively tiny blue areas, so the amount of space I'd need to search would be as small as possible... and there's NEVER any fungoida. There's usually ALL of the other stuff... even though the scanner doesn't indicate there's any of those things IN that area...

For example, I'm in a blue area about 1km across right now. I've searched all over for the fungoida in the area. It's blue, so that means the scanner is detecting fungoida in that area, right? Nothing. Not one single fungoida. The scanner filter says there should be frutexa and bacteria in that area too, but indicates that there is NOT any Tussock, Cactoida or Osseus in the area... but I've found multiple Osseus AND several Tussock, despite the scanner saying there ISN'T any.

So I have to conclude the DSS is not functioning correctly. It's indicating the presence of features that are flatly NOT there, and not indicating the presence of features that ARE.
The devs really need to take a look at this, it's making planet surveys just ridiculously difficult and no fun at all.

As Varonica said, the DSS map is not a guarantee that the plant will be in every blue area -- it just means that it might be.

You have to apply knowledge and experience to that (which actually makes it more fun and immersive).

Fungoida like higher mountainous areas, generally. That's what I've found. So I look for them by finding mountainous terrain in a blue area of the DSS map. They do tend to be scattered in little clumps, but once you find 1 you can usually find more nearby to finish your scans with (Fungoida only need 300m of separation).

Anyway, that's how I do it, and I'm having fun with it.

 

[Mohenjo]

Good to know... but then I did know some of that. I've always looked for specific things in specific places (such as fungoida on mountains), but there's just NOTHING out there. Some more reliable scanning method would be VERY welcome, especially when in a vehicle or ship.