Odyssey: Finding Biological Sites??? Have I misunderstood?

[Angus]

I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a Biological site on the planet surface, This is an Odyssey thing, I believe, in that Horizons would provide the location, whereas Odyssey just shows you a heatmap of the surface when you are in supercruise, right? On this planet, I'm after Crystaline shards for materials, there's one Biological site mentioned but maybe 80% of the surface is indicated as being a viable place to look. Is that a bit daft? If my sensory equipment could tell me that there is "one site", then wouldn't it also know the general location, as opposed to saying, "Yeah.......... it's on the surface somewhere."?

Don't get me wrong in general I'm very happy with Odyssey, but does anybody think this is as good as the previous system. It seems a bit like, "We've put heatmaps in and you're gonna use them - if it kills you!"

 

[Chorda]

You have to eyeball it, and yeah, it's a bit silly. Use the heat map to find a viable spot (bacterial biologicals usually cover huge areas, but some of the others require a bit more accuracy in your drop zone choice), then skim over the surface at around 50-100m pitched down and using vertical thrust to maintain a safe height. Bacterial colonies are a pita, often best ignored unless you're a completionist.

 

[Treya]

Odyssey just shows you a heatmap of the surface when you are in supercruise, right?

Sort of, yes. It started out as a true heatmap in the public alpha, using color gradients to indicate the likelihood of finding a bio/geo entity. Unfortunately that was almost immediately flattened down to a simple yes/no indicator. The official reasoning at the time was that the heatmap was too confusing, but imho there's actually been more confusion after the change.

Anyhoo, although the DSS doesn't show it anymore, the underlying rules of bio/geo distribution haven't changed. I haven't had the time yet to gather intel specific to Shards but the general idea is to look at and compare the various geological features. E.g. mountainous vs flat areas, sandy vs rocky terrain, impact craters, etc. Another factor is the presence of things like geysers, lava sprouts, etc. (iirc I've seen posts mentioning that one of the latter is a prerequisite for Shard growths). Sorry for being vague on this, hopefully someone else will be able to provide more details.

does anybody think this is as good as the previous system

While somewhat less convenient for pure Mat gathering, overall I prefer the new system because it promotes actual exploring of a planets surface. It's also skill based because the distribution factors are deterministic - similar to core mining where recognizing a specific asteroid shape is part of a miners skillset. It's a shame though that the devs weren't given the time and resources to develop Exobiology further. The heatmap feature was certainly worth keeping and might have only needed a scale or a legend added to the DSS screen. Same for the plant scanning mini game that got dropped for now obvious reasons: while hugely unpopular in its original form the alpha forum had a lot of good suggestions to turn it into something interesting.

 

[nemolomen]

...
While somewhat less convenient for pure Mat gathering, overall I prefer the new system because it promotes actual exploring of a planets surface. It's also skill based because the distribution factors are deterministic - similar to core mining where recognizing a specific asteroid shape is part of a miners skillset. It's a shame though that the devs weren't given the time and resources to develop Exobiology further. The heatmap feature was certainly worth keeping and might have only needed a scale or a legend added to the DSS screen. Same for the plant scanning mini game that got dropped for now obvious reasons: while hugely unpopular in its original form the alpha forum had a lot of good suggestions to turn it into something interesting.

 

[The Roofus]

I fly along at 50 or so meters and use the photo-mode as a UAV to scan more of the terrain.

 

[Chorda]

Same for the plant scanning mini game that got dropped for now obvious reasons: while hugely unpopular in its original form the alpha forum had a lot of good suggestions to turn it into something interesting.

I wish they'd revisit this. It was a minigame lifted right out of Mass Effect but made it worse by turning it into a twitch puzzle instead of a rotating jigsaw game, as in the original. Pulling it completely just felt a bit petty.

 

[Biff Stryker]

I have just started to explore in EDO but I have found the darker blue/shade you see is a good point to aim for. When approaching though switch to combat mode to lose the overlay and pick your site from there because you can see the topography better. I switch back and forth to make sure I'm going to where I want.

I have found flat areas is usually bio and rocky, rough terrain I find most geo's
Not sure if I've just been lucky and may not work for others so just my experience. Good luck Cmdr o7

 

[Angus]

I wouldn't call that petty, rather a caving in to the typical MMO player who can never go fast enough and only has in mind to maximise his income - only to complain about the "grind" afterwards. However, the original idea was really not that brilliant and would have become a chore in no time.

I feel it would have been better than nothing at all.

 

[alexzk]

No geo/bio dedicated sites any more in Ody. Things are smoothed around. "Heat map" shows possible locations with huge deviation. For example, "fungoid" will be at the highs only always, but heat map will show it on surrounding plains too.

 

[Angus]

I have just started to explore in EDO but I have found the darker blue/shade you see is a good point to aim for. When approaching though switch to combat mode to lose the overlay and pick your site from there because you can see the topography better. I switch back and forth to make sure I'm going to where I want.

I have found flat areas is usually bio and rocky, rough terrain I find most geo's
Not sure if I've just been lucky and may not work for others so just my experience. Good luck Cmdr o7

Cards on the table I was going for the Crystal shards at HIP 36601 - C 1 d - Ruthenium, specifically. There's one biological site listed after your scan, but the heat maps indicate (as far as I can tell) that the majority of the planet is viable for it, so it seems to me that you basically have to eyeball most of the planet to find it. I spent a couple of hours trying, decided I wan't having fun and loaded Horizons, then spent another hour clumsily shooting Ruthenium fragments off the crystals at one of the locations.

It seems to me that the heatmap approach is basically a good way to go, but at the moment it doesn't really stand up as proper gameplay. Nobody seems very sure how it is supposed to work, and even if you ignore that, it doesn't really make much sense anyway. I feel the Horizon "locations on your scanner" approach make more sense until Frontier "finish" the heatmap Odyssey concept. At the moment it really doesn't stand up, in my view. :-/

 

[alexzk]

Cards on the table I was going for the Crystal shards at HIP 36601 - C 1 d - Ruthenium, specifically. There's one biological site listed after your scan, but the heat maps indicate (as far as I can tell) that the majority of the planet is viable for it, so it seems to me that you basically have to eyeball most of the planet to find it. I spent a couple of hours trying, decided I wan't having fun and loaded Horizons, then spent another hour clumsily shooting Ruthenium fragments off the crystals at one of the locations.

It seems to me that the heatmap approach is basically a good way to go, but at the moment it doesn't really stand up as proper gameplay. Nobody seems very sure how it is supposed to work, and even if you ignore that, it doesn't really make much sense anyway. I feel the Horizon "locations on your scanner" approach make more sense until Frontier "finish" the heatmap Odyssey concept. At the moment it really doesn't stand up, in my view. :-/

Heatmap shows good location to search for, where this bio-form can live.
For example, humans would be shown on heat map everywhere except seas and mountains. However, best chance to find human is city and worse chance is desert. But map marks both equally. It's up-to you to look on surface and figure what is best place.
And Horizons would pin point "cities signals" only, and every other place except those cities would have no humans.

 

[Angus]

Are you sure you would still see it that way after a few months of intensive use?

Pretty much. That's the argument Arthur tried to make for not having ship interiors, which (all due respect) I thought was about as lame an argument for defending the situation as could be made. "Elite? Yeah, but end of the day, it's just flying about in space, innit?"

......I think what really winds me up is that I actually respect Arf a lot.

I think you could apply your argument to the various mining methods or many other things, and I'm not saying your wrong for you, but you are wrong for me.

I would have sooner had the old brain dead mining than just going there and collecting the rocks, just as with the genetic scans, at least it was player agency rather than absolutely nothing.

Sorry if I'm banging on, it's only how I feel about it, for myself.

 

[varonica]

I feel the Horizon "locations on your scanner" approach make more sense until Frontier "finish" the heatmap Odyssey concept. At the moment it really doesn't stand up, in my view. :-/

That can't work because there are hundreds of thousands of location on an Odyssey planet as opposed to at the max 50 on the old system, it would just be a sea of yellow circles, much like the blue location map. The key to find bio/mats in Odyssey is the wave scanner in the SRV. Find a nice flat spot, land, get in the SRV, drive for a short while and watch the wave scanner, that detects the mats attached to the crystal spikes, pretty soon you will be finding them everywhere. Knowing the sorts of terrain the particular bio likes is useful of course, but the SRV is the way to go for mat bearing bio. Doesn't work for the new stuff of course, that doesn't have mats, but if mats are what you are after that's what the SRV is made to find.

 

[Red Rocket]

Just log into Horizons, map planet, go get materials
Problem solved

 

[varonica]

Just log into Horizons, map planet, go get materials
Problem solved

For now yes, but soon enough the new planetary tech and bio distribution will appear in Horizons, learning how to do it now by practicing while you still have the opportunity to move back to Horizons to finish filling up will make it easier when the change does happen.

 

[Red Rocket]

If Fdev can’t get Odyssey onto consoles then they can’t get rid of Horizons.
With the computing power needed to run Odyssey I find it hard to believe they will get it to run on the 4th gen consoles.
Remember Sony and Microsoft have standards that need to be met.

 

[St0rmFury]

Most of the criticism on the removed exobio minigame stems from the fact that exploring is generally regarded as a calm & relaxing activity and the minigame's twitchy nature is antithesis to that.

 

[varonica]

If Fdev can’t get Odyssey onto consoles then they can’t get rid of Horizons.
With the computing power needed to run Odyssey I find it hard to believe they will get it to run on the 4th gen consoles.
Remember Sony and Microsoft have standards that need to be met.

I didn't say anything about Odyssey, I said the planetary tech, which isn't Odyssey but part of the development of the galaxy simulation, Odyssey is the legs part of the game, you know the walking and the shooting and the atmospheric planets, so I never said anything about getting rid of Horizons, that will still be there, but it will use the new planetary tech and the new bio and geo distribution algorithms and the new location map instead of POI's, but it will still be Horizons, so you may as well get used to it now because you will be using eventually.

 

[varonica]

Most of the criticism on the removed exobio minigame stems from the fact that exploring is generally thought to be a calm & relaxing activity and the minigame's twitchy nature is antithesis to that.

The problem with the twitchy game in my personal opinion, considering I had zero problems getting the three rings done basically first time every time, is that it completely ignored the fact that "science" isn't done using a twitch game, it's usually methodical, repetitive and can often be boring to people not really into science, so the twitchy reaction game had no place in a supposed bio sampling and research process.

Of course being a normal human being I also have empathy for other players, and placing a twitchy game into exploration meant that some players would never be able to complete the process because we don't all have good hand/eye coordination and some of us even have disabilities that mean twitch games basically ruled out that part of the game in a game profession that absolutely shouldn't be gated like that. It's fine having twitch stuff in FPS combat but people just don't go for those professions if they have problems aiming and etc, but exploring was always a different beast!

 

[Angus]

The problem with the twitchy game in my personal opinion, considering I had zero problems getting the three rings done basically first time every time, is that it completely ignored the fact that "science" isn't done using a twitch game, it's usually methodical, repetitive and can often be boring to people not really into science, so the twitchy reaction game had no place in a supposed bio sampling and research process.

I always fancied the 3D puzzle/manipulation game idea for scanning lifeforms, where you had to rotate wire frame polygons (representing DNA molecules?!!) and "dock" them together to form a coherent erm...... parent molecule. It wouldn't need to be twitchy, but perhaps offer a more complete analysis/payout if performed quickly.

Electron Elite was what 22K of 8bit code, so just do it already, Frontier!