I get now why people still say the DSS is a heatmap.

[Unknown Zombie]

The typical response to someone saying "planetary heatmap" is that the "heatmap isn't a heatmap and the colors are actually topography showing through the low transparency of the blue overlay."

But if that's the case why do the colors change? The topography of this planet here (see below) isn't changing, but the shade of the "binary interesting object presence overlay" is changing...

Spoiler

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's not just the underlying topography as in altitude - though transitions between shades of blue often do coincide with that, they also often don't - underlying terrain type might be more accurate but again it doesn't always obviously match that either.

Which shade(s) of blue indicate that the thing can be found there aren't necessarily consistent from one geo/bio to another, which is the bit which is very definitely not "heatmap". Some of them basically show up on any shade, others seem to require a specific one.

If you can find a rocky ice world with a mix of rocky and icy life (fairly rare, admittedly), then the way the blue behaves on the border between rocky and icy parts of the planet I think is a good demonstration of what you're actually being shown with it.

 

[Willyum-71]

There's light blue, dark blue and turquoise... which color represents what???
(edit) I hate to sound so generic with my question... But a programmer programmed it to react to the procedurally generated maps, it's not random and as mentioned it's not just elevation or surface material... But it is very defined and purpose built, the colors have exact borders, not blended... So it is absolutely 100% saying something... Where's a key map or something? is it percentages or something (10% surface populated 20%, 30%)... since it at times appear to be topography related, is it saying if rocky terrain present 30%, if flat surface - 10%..... Why can't I find a simple key anyplace? Did the developer who designed it suddenly take a new job but forgot to tell anybody what the 3 colors mean lol?

 

[varonica]

The typical response to someone saying "planetary heatmap" is that the "heatmap isn't a heatmap and the colors are actually topography showing through the low transparency of the blue overlay."

But if that's the case why do the colors change? The topography of this planet here (see below) isn't changing, but the shade of the "binary interesting object presence overlay" is changing...

Spoiler

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Because height matters, so the base level of blue will be the lowest level of the planetary height map for some items and the blue will vary according to that value, some stuff will only appear in mountains, so the base level of the blue will be set to that level of the height map. Fumaroles and vents often appear in rocky and mountainous terrain, but lava spouts never do, they usually only appear in the flat areas. I have posted images of the actual heat map previously, but here it is again;

You can't mistake the blue for a heat map, it has no resemblance to one.

 

[Riverside]

The typical response to someone saying "planetary heatmap" is that the "heatmap isn't a heatmap and the colors are actually topography showing through the low transparency of the blue overlay."

But if that's the case why do the colors change? The topography of this planet here (see below) isn't changing, but the shade of the "binary interesting object presence overlay" is changing...

Spoiler

View attachment 323326View attachment 323328View attachment 323329View attachment 323330View attachment 323331View attachment 323332

Yep, don't rely on the advice from the community managers, it's still a heatmap & with experience you can interpret it pretty reliably to improve your chances of finding stuff. Still pretty vague though, just right to be challenging without punishing most of the time imo.

 

[varonica]

Yep, don't rely on the advice from the community managers, it's still a heatmap & with experience you can interpret it pretty reliably to improve your chances of finding stuff. Still pretty vague though, just right to be challenging without punishing most of the time imo.

Except for this;

Status By Design​

Greetings Cmdrs, This is working as expected and we're not going to change it back to a "heatmap". We opted to give a flat colour instead of a gradient in order to be honest with the players about how the organics are actually being distributed. If we were to force a colour gradient on the map now, it might look visually more appealing in certain areas but the player would have absolutely no better chance of finding an organic in a 'hot' region than in a 'cold' region. Hope this helps QA-Jack o7

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

 

[FrogsFriend]

Except for this;

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

That does seem consistent with FD's statement at the time that it was 'confusing players'.
It appears that players were looking for meaning in the blue/yellow/green colouring, expecting it to show changes in distribution, when in fact it was just a visual effect added to make it look pretty. Removing the arty colours was intended to stop people wasting their time creating theories to explain a mechanism that didn't actually exist.

But, as the opaque blue tint allows changes in surface textures to show through, people are still trying to find meaning in those patterns, despite the developers stating that there's no meaning there to be found.

 

[varonica]

That does seem consistent with FD's statement at the time that it was 'confusing players'.
It appears that players were looking for meaning in the blue/yellow/green colouring, expecting it to show changes in distribution, when in fact it was just a visual effect added to make it look pretty. Removing the arty colours was intended to stop people wasting their time creating theories to explain a mechanism that didn't actually exist.

But, as the opaque blue tint allows changes in surface textures to show through, people are still trying to find meaning in those patterns, despite the developers stating that there's no meaning there to be found.

Yeah the dev's seem to be implying there's no way to tell where the bio actually is and the original heat map was basically what we have now but with pretty colours and that' that!

 

[Ian Doncaster]

But, as the opaque blue tint allows changes in surface textures to show through, people are still trying to find meaning in those patterns, despite the developers stating that there's no meaning there to be found.

There are still multiple blue tints, though.
The transitions between them don't always correspond to visible changes in surface height or texture (very obvious by switching rapidly between combat and analysis mode)
The transitions between them do sometimes correspond to absence or presence of certain bios - though not in a consistent "this blue is better" way.

(I wish I'd taken some screenshots of that rocky ice world now. Maybe next time)

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Except for this;

Issue Tracker

issues.frontierstore.net

"We like to send players on a goose chase for the needle in the haystack and the blue paint reflects that."

 

[jojon]

I suppose when they said that "topography" creates the hue variations, they didn't mean strictly "topography", but used the term to encompass a little more, such as: "terrain type" (i.e. which texture layer is selected by and for each particular texel, in the bitmap one scale level up from the texture layers themselves (e.g. 0 for "in this square of the quilt goes sand", or 1 for crinkly rock, regardless of the actual topography of said layer -textures/-heightmaps, and compounding heightmaps). As stated further up in this thread: Sometimes you get really sharp edges - both in "visible terrain", and reflected in the blue filter, where a brush shape stencils out an area designated to look wet. Other properties likewise masked out using one-shot or tiling bitmaps could be colour, and possibly chemical composition, the latter possibly being what selects all of the previous...

How the filtering rules work, and whether they are the same for all filters, or unique for each, remains a mystery... :7

 

[Jabo Zerstorer]

I wouldn't say it was a heatmap, per se although if you try and aim and land in the duck-egg blue patches, you'll likely get the best results. It still is based on a topography though. Bacteria, for example will predominantly be found on flat terrain whilst some Fungoida are predominantly found in mountains. The blue overlay is mostly just a guide to give Commanders a sense of where biologicals are but it's not entirely accurate. I've landed in duck-egg blue patches and not found what I'm looking for because it's the wrong terrain type.