Duplicate surface POIs?

[Stealthie]

I've noticed that, whenever I take a "fetch something from a planet surface" mission, it always seems to spawn several duplicate POIs within a few km of each other.

What's that all about?

Is it "working as intended", is it a known bug or is it something that just happens to me?

Just taken a heap of those missions and every one spawned several duplicate POIs near together.
I KNOW they're duplicates, too, cos if, for example, I take a mission to recover a geological sample, I can collect 2,3 or 4 from all the duplicate sites but they all get removed from my inventory when I hand in a single mission.

Still, each site usually has some salvage and mat's too, which I do get to keep. [where is it]

 

[Riverside]

I do these missions regularly (quick & easy influence) and have never had duplicates spawn as I approach. However once I've collected the cargo another POI will always spawn nearby with another set, presumably in case I accidentally lose some.

As you say, there seems to be no benefit to collecting more.

For space based collect missions (black boxes etc) I regularly lose at least one while I'm under attack or just from clumsy manual scooping. Waiting for another mission specific USS to spawn to grab that last one is such a chore (and somewhat immersion breaking) I tend to only take the surface ones now.

 

[moorison]

I usually only notice a duplicate after collecting all required items too. Might be a failsafe for unexpected errors, or the BGS has some preferred locations to generate missions at. I have seen a few times mission POIs even without an active mission.

 

[dribnairb]

I usually only notice a duplicate after collecting all required items too. Might be a failsafe for unexpected errors, or the BGS has some preferred locations to generate missions at. I have seen a few times mission POIs even without an active mission.

I've seen this too, but never reliably reproduced it. I think it tend to happen if you have multiple missions of the same type in the same system, the spawning gets confused. Similar thing used to happen with duplicate pirate lords spawning but I think they may have fixed that.

 

[CMDR-AD]

Concur with above, I notice the duplicate after collection of the first site.

I'm so glad the "circle and wait" space POIs are gone in 3.3 patch.

 

[Stealthie]

I do these missions regularly (quick & easy influence) and have never had duplicates spawn as I approach. However once I've collected the cargo another POI will always spawn nearby with another set, presumably in case I accidentally lose some.

I know the POIs only appear in the nav-HUD after you get a mission-update but I'm pretty sure they're present "in the world".

If you're collecting stuff at a crash site, you'll probably see a lot of noise on your SRV wave-scanner.
If you try to track down one or more of the sources, 3 or 4km distant, you'll probably find another crash site even before it's shown on the HUD.
Also, on a couple of occasions, I've actually flown over one of the alternate sites while still following the "search zone" markers for the primary site... which is a bit confusing.

Does seem to be related to doing more than one mission at a time though.
Do one mission and I don't think it happens.
Do a bunch and there's more chance of getting the duplicates.

They also seem to appear during surface-scan missions too.
That can be useful 'cos if you're doing multiple SS missions it means you don't have to relog or enter orbit before doing another scan.
Instead, you can do one at the primary site and then do more at the duplicates.