Question about DSS and signals

[AKANexus]

I've been away from ED for almost a year now, and I've decided to get back at it. But I've an issue with the new DSS system (as apparently many others also seem to have). Let's say I'm looking for geological signals for raw materials. This is what I understood is the new norm:

I found a planet and FSS says it has 30% of iron, or whatever, as well as 2 geo and 2 human signals.
I'll approach the planet, DSS the heck out of it and it'll provide me with a "heat-map" (not an actual heat map, just the possible locations where I can find the geological signals), then I'll have to flyby those areas until I find whatever the game calls a geological signal.

If that's correct, then there must be something amiss here... The last three planets I've attempted to check had the DSS return a fully blue map. The game surely doesn't expect me to scour 10^7 sq/km looking for something I don't even know what it is supposed to be like.

Mathtime! (you can skip this if you don't care about math):
Let's say I'm flying at 500m from the ground so I can visually scan the surface for whatever a "geological signal" might be on that planet. Assuming I have a FOV of 80 degrees (which is not unusual), I can scan, looking straight down an area of roughly 0.7 sq/km (isoceles triangle and whatnot). Let's increase that, because we can look sideways. So let's say we can scan 1.5 sq/km from our ship. And, for each "snapshot" of a visually scanned surface area, the ship must move 1.2 km forward to reach a point where no part of the new area we are looking at has already been looked at. So, a planet with 10^7 sq/km could be divided into 6666667 "scanned areas". That means the ship would have to travel 8000000 km to go through the whole planet surface with no repetition. A Python can reach about 260 m/s, which is about 930 km/h. So, for the Python, that would take 358 days.

tl;dr: I'm not sure they expect us to fly up to a year visually scanning a single planet for a "geological signal".

What am I doing wrong here? I haven't found any tutorials/guides that explain without pre-assumptions what am I supposed to do. Could a fellow cmdr please help?

 

[Faded Glory]

While I've not particularly looked for geological signals (found a few though), I do look for biological ones. Basically, no, I don't believe FD expect you to scour the whole planet to find a signal. To an extent they are going to spawn where you land, certainly not every time, but essentially now there are loads of bio (and geo) samples all over the planets, not just one or two.

Looking for bio signals I will usually aim for a crater that is in the blue zone, and lo and behold I'll find at least some of the bio things I'm looking for, and if there have also been geo signals, guess what, they've been there too, usually in their dozens if not more.

That's certainly been my experience, and of course I've found stuff at locations that aren't craters. I've been exploring since April, and I think only two or maybe three times have I found either none of the signals I've been looking for, or found one but not a second or third. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I'd suggest at least trying to fly down and see what spawns...

 

[MrHatMan]

The game surely doesn't expect me to scour 10^7 sq/km looking for something I don't even know what it is supposed to be like.

There was a time before DSS when there was no planet scanning, no POIs on your computer or HUD. The ONLY way you could find anything (such as thargoid, guardian or crash sites ) was flying low over the planet using your MARK 1 EYEBALL.

They had whole spreadsheets where players would co-ordinate which parts of the planet they were checking at the time.

So, never think that Frontier can not think of a way to waste your time.

 

[varonica]

If that's correct, then there must be something amiss here... The last three planets I've attempted to check had the DSS return a fully blue map. The game surely doesn't expect me to scour 10^7 sq/km looking for something I don't even know what it is supposed to be like.

That's exactly what we used to do before the POI systems, it's amazing how many we found. However the blue is an indication that the conditions in that particular area are suitable for that feature to appear, if the map is all blue then that feature should appear all over the planet, thousands or millions of them depending on the size of the planet. But it's not a density map, as you so rightly pointed out, so a few minutes looking around are usually required, but for vulcanism it's easy, some species of bio can be difficult.

 

[Val Sylvana]

You probably want to get down to more like 100m and slow down a bit. Geological features tend to be more prevalent around rougher terrain. You might find big clusters of active geysers and fumaroles in a valley, for instance.

 

[AKANexus]

To an extent they are going to spawn where you land, certainly not every time, but essentially now there are loads of bio (and geo) samples all over the planets, not just one or two.

Wait, so if I, let's say, go looking for a Guardian site, it'll spawn roughly wherever I break orbit (as long as I break orbit above some place the "heatmap" is painted)? What do the number next to the samples mean now then?

What if I'm about to head the Outotz systems in search of Sb? When I find a planet FSS says it has antimony, I'll DSS it, it'll show the whole planet blue, I'll break orbit and it'll be somewhere around where I broke orbit?

I like ED too much to give up on understanding this

 

[varonica]

You probably want to get down to more like 100m and slow down a bit. Geological features tend to be more prevalent around rougher terrain. You might find big clusters of active geysers and fumaroles in a valley, for instance.

Yep, 100 up meters up and probably a max speed of 100mps, much faster than that and biology won't appear until you have passed them, although for some reason geo appear much further away and are easier to spot.

 

[Maolagin]

tl;dr: I'm not sure they expect us to fly up to a year visually scanning a single planet for a "geological signal".

The terminology is confusing here. In the previous Horizons version of the DSS, "2 geological signals" meant there were two POIs on the planet, which would be revealed when you mapped it. In the new Odyssey version, it means something very different - "2 geological signals" is telling you that there are two types of geologic feature on the planet. The scan being fully blue means that they can be found anywhere on the planet. There aren't POIs anymore, the features will be scattered across the surface now, and in practice you'll rarely have to fly more than a few dozen km to find one.

 

[varonica]

Wait, so if I, let's say, go looking for a Guardian site, it'll spawn roughly wherever I break orbit (as long as I break orbit above some place the "heatmap" is painted)? What do the number next to the samples mean now then?

What if I'm about to head the Outotz systems in search of Sb? When I find a planet FSS says it has antimony, I'll DSS it, it'll show the whole planet blue, I'll break orbit and it'll be somewhere around where I broke orbit?

No, because Guardian site have a specific POI's, we are talking about procedurally generated and placed content, guardian sites are hand crafted and placed just like settlements and ground ports. Guardian site do not appear on the location map, you will notice that when you cycle through the signals that appear in the location map interface.

 

[varonica]

The terminology is confusing here. In the previous Horizons version of the DSS, "2 geological signals" meant there were two POIs on the planet, which would be revealed when you mapped it. In the new Odyssey version, it means something very different - "2 geological signals" is telling you that there are two types of geologic feature on the planet. The scan being fully blue means that they can be found anywhere on the planet. There aren't POIs anymore, the features will be scattered across the surface now, and in practice you'll rarely have to fly more than a few dozen km to find one.

Yeah it can be confusing to someone who is used to the old system and just came back to the game, there are still POI's for hand crafted and placed content as I already mentioned, just need to keep in mind there are now two systems, POI's for hand crafted content and blue map for procedural content like bio and geo.

 

[AKANexus]

The terminology is confusing here. In the previous Horizons version of the DSS, "2 geological signals" meant there were two POIs on the planet, which would be revealed when you mapped it. In the new Odyssey version, it means something very different - "2 geological signals" is telling you that there are two types of geologic feature on the planet. The scan being fully blue means that they can be found anywhere on the planet. There aren't POIs anymore, the features will be scattered across the surface now, and in practice you'll rarely have to fly more than a few dozen km to find one.

Yeah it can be confusing to someone who is used to the old system and just came back to the game, there are still POI's for hand crafted and placed content as I already mentioned, just need to keep in mind there are now two systems, POI's for hand crafted content and blue map for procedural content like bio and geo.

Oh, so they changed the meaning of "signals" on FSS... That wasn't clear to me before. So, Guardian and Human signals still appear on the navigation tab, while bio and geo are now scattered wherever DSS says they can be found, that about right?

 

[varonica]

Oh, so they changed the meaning of "signals" on FSS... That wasn't clear to me before. So, Guardian and Human signals still appear on the navigation tab, while bio and geo are now scattered wherever DSS says they can be found, that about right?

Yeah. Guardian and other sites appear further down in the "locations" section of the tab, you have it about right now! Density is not even though for bio and geo, and some bio, like the old bark mounds, can be a pain to find even with the blue map to help.

 

[AKANexus]

Yeah. Guardian and other sites appear further down in the "locations" section of the tab, you have it about right now! Density is not even though for bio and geo, and some bio, like the old bark mounds, can be a pain to find even with the blue map to help.

But that's the beauty of exploring in ED. Minus the Thargoids, ofc.

Nice! I think I got it now. Thanks for the explanation, cmdrs!
Man, I wish all game communities were this nice.

See you out in the black
o7

 

[Jack Wilmslow]

I have found that alot of the Tourist beacons in Odyssey i.e. Ice Fumaroles on Europa are no where to be found near the tourist beacon. Searched 200km around and still found nothing.
I think that most of the Tourist POIs are actually either no longer relevant, or no longer located on the body. I think a review of Tourist Beacons would be a good order.
Geological sites are harder to find, However finding RAW materials i.e. Selenium is practically impossible to find now. I spent about 150hrs of in game time searching for Selenium on a body with almost 5% selenium. In that travel I found approximately 15 units.

On Horizons it took me about 3hrs to cap my Selenium.
If materials wasn't so needed and in large volumes for engineering leveling and modding & synthesis, it wouldn't be such a bad thing. But Ship engineering in Odyssey is a painful painful affair with how materials are gathered.
I say all this knowing that I MUCH MUCH MUCH prefer this new system over Horizons 100% ... It just sucks for engineering and synthesis.

 

[varonica]

I have found that alot of the Tourist beacons in Odyssey i.e. Ice Fumaroles on Europa are no where to be found near the tourist beacon.

Yep, the tourist beacons were all predicated on the old planetary tech and POI system, the new planetary tech makes most of them pointless, now the bio and geo are scattered around more there's really little point in keeping them, FDEV needs to either remove them are move them to make them relevant to the new planetary tech.