How to locate biological or geological features after surface scanning?

[Ian Doncaster]

Maybe I dreamed it, but I have a strong suspicion that I saw a "Dev Post" which confirmed that it truly isn't a heat-map showing what we might have hoped it would show...

"Not a heatmap" is true and confirmed by Frontier
... but that's not the same as ...
"The colour is completely meaningless", which is false and not something they said either.

It represents some underlying attribute - most clearly visible on the rare rocky ice worlds with biologicals which have bios of both "rocky" and "icy" types and terrain. It's not purely the terrain being represented, either, since some bios on the same planet will have different shades of blue for the same terrain. What the attribute is and how it relates to actual likelihoods of appearance everyone is too busy saying "not a heatmap" to investigate, of course.

On one of those rocky ice worlds [1] I saw blue appear for Fonticula in both rocky and icy terrain. Naturally, the Fonticula only actually appeared in the icy terrain - cutting off very abruptly at its edge, which lined up exactly with a transition from one blue shade to the other, and the rocky bios then started appearing.


So it's certainly not necessarily the case that the flat teal blue is always the best blue to search - though for a lot of bios it's perfectly good! - but it is certainly the case that if you're wandering around for ages and not finding a single sample, trying a patch of a different blue might suddenly find hundreds.


[1] This was a while ago, so "somewhere near Colonia" is as specific as I can be about where. Sorry. I'm sure there are good examples elsewhere, though!

 

[aRJay]

In the DSS view (the one where you launch the probes at the planet), you can cycle thru the filters for the different geo/bio signals on the planet. It changes the blue colour overlay on the planet.

So ideally aim for a spot on the planet where all of the filters show blue in the same place and go explore there to hopefully find everything in one place.

I find it helpful even where there are overlaps to try locations where the blue area for at least one of bios is quite small as it gives less room for them to hide.

 

[Astrofizzix]

I'd say it is a mixed bag. On one planet I found lots of curly plants in the teal areas, but on the other five or six I tried I never found anything (but enjoyed the (for me) new views with atmospheres).

One poster here said that I should use the colors to "find the type of biological I want to find", but I only know there is some signal, but not what it might be. That's part of my whole point. The "signals" aren't displayed anywhere (or I don't know where to look).



Uh, pressing E where? Where do I see different plant or geographical types? I am in VR using a HOTAS, so no keyboard, but if it's E it's probably "next panel"/"next module", so I know which button to press if you tell me where. (Which panel/mode/map...?)

Sounds like you might need to bind it somewhere.

With a keyboard, while you’re in the probe screen you can use Q and E to cycle through each bio signal location on the planet. By default, the filter is set to “all”.

My strategy is to land near the boundary of two different signals.