How exactly does the DSS heat map/filters work for finding plants and volcanism?

[Branithar]

I found that planet, and if I did find anything in the dark blue spots (which wasn't too often), they were geysers, but no organic life. I have found plants on other planets, but not this one, no matter how long I tried and how often I scraped the bottom of the ship's hull, skimming along the surface.
And how would one figure out how many total types of plants a planet has?
What about the filters...how do those work? I found a "next filter" binding under the DSS settings, but when I push the button, I don't see anything happening.

 

[Crank Larson]

The HUD on the ship tells you how many biological signals there are - I assume that is the number of plants, given that there aren't any biological site POIs anymore. I haven't yet found the total number shown on any planet, but I haven't been trying very hard.

But I've no idea how the heat map works. I've assumed it doesn't and am ignoring it.

 

[The Announcer]

yeah not sure how to use this my self. Biological signals normally are human pods or some sort

 

[Queex]

The blue areas are the places where the bio/geo type can appear. The colour does not matter; it's just bleeding through from the terrain.

Anywhere within the blue you can potentially find what you're looking for, but... well, once you're down there on the surface there is absolutely nothing to guide you and you just have to schlep and hope you get lucky. At least one bio type is currently unscannable, so there's that to contend with as well.

 

[Queex]

Do you mean the dark blue areas in an otherwise completely light blue field?

They are only darker because there's a different underlying terrain there. It's all the same blue for the overlay, and it's all areas where it can appear. Complete gaps in the blue are areas where it can't appear.

If there's only one type on a body, the filter interface doesn't appear. Most annoyingly, there's no way to tell what type that one type is, as the filter interface is not there.

 

[Jup]

I don't think this is working as intended atm.

Everything is just blue, the color doesn't matter, in fact, there is no color change at all.
It is just a blue overlay over the terrain, the terrain itself is what makes the blue overlay appear to be darker or lighter in various areas.

The color has no meaning at all right now other than, yes you might find something there.
Which is currently useless in its current form, since the entire planet/moon is just blue, filters don't work either.

 

[torloisk]

Check this post: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/finding-bio-signals.576565/post-9190847

 

[Queex]

Yes, that's the problem. The last few planets I visited were all blue, no filters but 4 bio signals. On approach it seemed to be all crash sides. Do they already count as "bio" then?

Bio and geo no longer appear as waypoints in the nav panel, only crashes and similar things do.

You can find bio and geo anywhere within the blue bit (theoretically).

 

[Queex]

I don't think this is working as intended atm.

Everything is just blue, the color doesn't matter, in fact, there is no color change at all.
It is just a blue overlay over the terrain, the terrain itself is what makes the blue overlay appear to be darker or lighter in various areas.

The color has no meaning at all right now other than, yes you might find something there.
Which is currently useless in its current form, since the entire planet/moon is just blue, filters don't work either.

As per FDev in the bug tracker, it is exactly as intended currently. They took out the different colours as they were causing confusion.

If everything is blue, then the things matching the current filter can appear anywhere on the surface. And they probably will, but it seems to take a lot of travel in the SRV to encounter some types.

 

[jimbeau1571]

I've been to Vents and Lava Geologicals, but you can't scan them to add it to the codex. And the Crystalline and Needles are only offering me Iron and Carbon now.

 

[Jup]

As per FDev in the bug tracker, it is exactly as intended currently. They took out the different colours as they were causing confusion.

If everything is blue, then the things matching the current filter can appear anywhere on the surface. And they probably will, but it seems to take a lot of travel in the SRV to encounter some types.

I want the colours back

 

[house70]

I don't think this is working as intended atm.

Everything is just blue, the color doesn't matter, in fact, there is no color change at all.
It is just a blue overlay over the terrain, the terrain itself is what makes the blue overlay appear to be darker or lighter in various areas.

The color has no meaning at all right now other than, yes you might find something there.
Which is currently useless in its current form, since the entire planet/moon is just blue, filters don't work either.

Yep. Need to find fuel materials for the SRV? Might as well run out of fuel while driving the ENTIRE planet searching for it.
Can't believe FDev has borked exploration this much. Wonder what was wrong with the Horizons system, where you could find the hotspot areas after DSS, land, collect, move on.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

They took out the different colours as they were causing confusion.

Subsequently causing even MORE confusion. FDev in a nutshell.

<Cynicism Mode
They weren't actually 'causing confusion' - it's not like anyone over the age of 6 can't understand a heatmap - rather they just simply didn't work. Probably because there isn't actually any depth to the distribution, it's just flat. So FDev just binned the feature and blamed the players
/>

 

[Branithar]

My initial confusion was because I wasn't in DSS mode when trying to switch between plant classifications. I was just flying around the planet in supercruise. The way that have it is a bit clunky and awkward though: I'd prefer if one could switch between filters/bio classifications while flying around the planet in supercruise.

 

[CMDR Night Tripper]

Subsequently causing even MORE confusion. FDev in a nutshell.

<Cynicism Mode
They weren't actually 'causing confusion' - it's not like anyone over the age of 6 can't understand a heatmap - rather they just simply didn't work. Probably because there isn't actually any depth to the distribution, it's just flat. So FDev just binned the feature and blamed the players
/>

Well, FDev didn't say to whom it was causing confusion, maybe they meant themselves?

 

[Vlad-the-wise]

View attachment 229347
I found that planet, and if I did find anything in the dark blue spots (which wasn't too often), they were geysers, but no organic life. I have found plants on other planets, but not this one, no matter how long I tried and how often I scraped the bottom of the ship's hull, skimming along the surface.
And how would one figure out how many total types of plants a planet has?
What about the filters...how do those work? I found a "next filter" binding under the DSS settings, but when I push the button, I don't see anything happening.

During Alpha the Heatmap was actually multicoloured from Blue to Black where the colours inidcated likely density of the thing you were filtering. That multi-coloured heatmap seems broken now.

 

[TSINI]

If it says 4 biological signals I believe it means there are 4 species/types of biological life on the surface. So perhaps 3 types of plants and a bacterial mat.

 

[Grumlop]

The blue areas are the places where the bio/geo type can appear. The colour does not matter; it's just bleeding through from the terrain.

Anywhere within the blue you can potentially find what you're looking for, but... well, once you're down there on the surface there is absolutely nothing to guide you and you just have to schlep and hope you get lucky. At least one bio type is currently unscannable, so there's that to contend with as well.

Thats partially right... if u walk on food and there a bios nearby u can see it sometimes on the top with yellow dots where u need to heading.
I dunno why they didnt implement it into srv aswell.

Just visible on foot.

 

[CMDR Night Tripper]

I didn't buy the Alpha-access version as I didn't have the time to play then, so I never saw or used that Heatmap, but it sounds something that I would've liked. I hope that FDev would consider reintroducing it, but if the current system is here to stay then I'd ask that overlapping areas with multiple bio/geo signals would be shown in darker blue in the All filter.