Seismic charge targeting

[zipline]

Hi cmdrs,

So this weekend I have set about doing some asteroid mining with just a seismic charge launcher (SCL) and abrasion blaster. I haven't done too badly for an absolute beginner, thanks largely to all the helpful cmdrs out there of course.

But one thing I am still not getting is the targeting on the SCL. When I select a fissure from my target list I see the white < > appear, but however much I manoeuvre around the asteroid I cannot see any difference in that target reticule that tells me I am over the fissure I just selected ... can anyone explain how this works as I just end up randomly targeting fissures that I can visibly see without knowing whether they are high/med/low in strength ... with random results in detonation success!

Also, I scanned a ring and found a hotspot and mined it a bit then logged out. When I logged back in and returned to that ring the hotspot had gone and I could not rescan it, every probe I fired at it did nothing, anyone had this happen to them?

 

[GunnerBill]

I don’t think you have to target the fissures at all. It seems to me that if the SC hits fissures it goes in.
All you really have to do is lead the spin of the rock.

 

[zipline]

I don’t think you have to target the fissures at all. It seems to me that if the SC hits fissures it goes in.
All you really have to do is lead the spin of the rock.

Yes, the charges still go in if no fissures are selected, but you have no idea whether they are low/med/high strength fissures so there's no way then to adjust the charge strength.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

It helps to get really close to the rock and also turn your lights and night vision on. Then you should be able to see the actual fissure (it's a spot showing cracks in the rock) on the surface.

 

[zipline]

It helps to get really close to the rock and also turn your lights and night vision on. Then you should be able to see the actual fissure (it's a spot showing cracks in the rock) on the surface.

Yep, I know what they look like and can get close and stay on them, what I am missing is when I select say a low strength fissure from my contacts panel, how do I then locate that same fissure on the rock, as the target reticule doesn't seem to tell me anything?

 

[Dash]

The 3D stuff in Elite is hard without VR. Working out which side of a planet a station is orbit being the hardest.

When a item is obscured it goes grey and dashed, same applies to the fissures. They're blue when they're unobscured.

When you initially target a fissure you'll see a holographic outline of the funnel shape. The wide end is on the surface, this should allow you to figure out where it is.

The motion of the rock is the easiest way to tell, just see which way a target is moving in relation to the rock and you'll know where it is.

My method is to select a blue target and line up, deploy my charge, pick a direction and strafe towards the next one I can spot - knowing that if they're grey then they're on the opposite side.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Once you're close enough to the fissure, close enough that other things won't accidentally be targeted, and aligned with it you can repeatedly use the Target Ahead button to "refresh" the HUD image while strafing around the asteroid. This will give a much more intuitive representation of the fissure's relative position and orientation and allow you to quickly get right in front of it.

I'm not sure why the game fades out the HUD image if you don't do this. Trying to avoid visual clutter maybe? Or just adding to the buttons-that-must-be-pressed list...

 

[dekot]

Yep, I know what they look like and can get close and stay on them, what I am missing is when I select say a low strength fissure from my contacts panel, how do I then locate that same fissure on the rock, as the target reticule doesn't seem to tell me anything?

I just move around a little and you can get a feel for if the fissure is on the other side or not. Also, 2 high charges, 1 average charge, and 2 low charges is usually enough for almost all rocks, if not all of them. You can put a low in any type of fissure. This might help you worry less about what kind of fissure it is.

 

[zipline]

OK, so from what I am hearing, the white <> tag that is usually attached to any target I select in the contacts panel does not attach to fissure targets, which almost negates having the information about whether they are low/med/high strength fissures.

So, if I use headlook mode and keep my contacts panel open, I may be able to keep sight of both the panel and roid in my hud, and if I am lucky, when I select a specific fissure target I may see it briefly light up on the roid (if it is not on the backside) and I'll then need to memorise and track that fissure and follow it around a spinning roid so I can place the right charge in there?

Surely this is not how it is meant to work, could it be a bug, asI cannot understand why the white <> targeted tag would not remain on a targeted fissure?

 

[GunnerBill]

Yes, the charges still go in if no fissures are selected, but you have no idea whether they are low/med/high strength fissures so there's no way then to adjust the charge strength.

Ya, true dat.

I find that having night vision on, however bright it actually is helps with defining the fissures, which in VR at least, makes selecting them easier.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Figuring out if the fissure is on your side, or the opposite side is easy.

If the asteroid is rotating, say clockwise, and your fissure is moving from right to left, it's behind the asteroid.
If it's moving left to right, it's in front.

That said, mine turn to dotted lines when out of line of sight (most of the time).

 

[Jack Schitt]

OK, so from what I am hearing, the white <> tag that is usually attached to any target I select in the contacts panel does not attach to fissure targets, which almost negates having the information about whether they are low/med/high strength fissures.

That shouldn't be happening. Is this behaviour only when selecting from the Contacts panel, or does it do it if you use Target Ahead as well? This screenshot shows the targeting tags around a fissure as expected. This was probably done using Target Ahead as that's how I target most of my fissures unless I'm looking for a specific type or am disarming a charge, but I'm very confident that it's also the behaviour for panel-selected fissures as well. The <> are always there, it's the "holographic" representation of the fissure that fades and needs to be refreshed.

Spoiler

Also, here's (someone else's) video of charge placement, showing how the tags and HUD elements are supposed to interact. Again this is using Target Ahead rather than the Contacts panel but it really shouldn't make any difference:

Spoiler

[video=youtube;ka2MytnQKeE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ka2MytnQKeE[/video]

Outside of core mining I have seen an intermittent bug where the targeting tags don't appear; if there's any pattern at all it seems to favour limpets especially when they're at very close range. Once it's happened for the first time in a session, the likelihood of it repeating increases. I suspect a graphics-related resource leak of some sort.

Might this be what you're seeing? Have you experienced a lack of targeting tags in other situations, or is this unique to fissure mining? Are you very close to the asteroid when this happens, and if so have you tried pulling away and re-selecting target(s) from the Contacts panel?

 

[zipline]

That shouldn't be happening. Is this behaviour only when selecting from the Contacts panel, or does it do it if you use Target Ahead as well? This screenshot shows the targeting tags around a fissure as expected. This was probably done using Target Ahead as that's how I target most of my fissures unless I'm looking for a specific type or am disarming a charge, but I'm very confident that it's also the behaviour for panel-selected fissures as well. The <> are always there, it's the "holographic" representation of the fissure that fades and needs to be refreshed.

Also, here's (someone else's) video of charge placement, showing how the tags and HUD elements are supposed to interact. Again this is using Target Ahead rather than the Contacts panel but it really shouldn't make any difference:

Outside of core mining I have seen an intermittent bug where the targeting tags don't appear; if there's any pattern at all it seems to favour limpets especially when they're at very close range. Once it's happened for the first time in a session, the likelihood of it repeating increases. I suspect a graphics-related resource leak of some sort.

Might this be what you're seeing? Have you experienced a lack of targeting tags in other situations, or is this unique to fissure mining? Are you very close to the asteroid when this happens, and if so have you tried pulling away and re-selecting target(s) from the Contacts panel?

Same happens whether I use contacts panel or target ahead, the tag briefly appears with a small visual, then when the visual disappears the tag detaches and just floats around. I have never had any issue with any other tagging including surface deposits, just these fissures. Was that screenshot from PC as I am on PS4? I noticed today that when I target ahead I can see if it is low/med/high from the targets display on the bottom left of my hud, so that helps a lot even if the tag detaches. I think I'll report it as a bug.

 

[NeilF]

Hi cmdrs,

So this weekend I have set about doing some asteroid mining with just a seismic charge launcher (SCL) and abrasion blaster. I haven't done too badly for an absolute beginner, thanks largely to all the helpful cmdrs out there of course.

But one thing I am still not getting is the targeting on the SCL. When I select a fissure from my target list I see the white < > appear, but however much I manoeuvre around the asteroid I cannot see any difference in that target reticule that tells me I am over the fissure I just selected ... can anyone explain how this works as I just end up randomly targeting fissures that I can visibly see without knowing whether they are high/med/low in strength ... with random results in detonation success!

Also, I scanned a ring and found a hotspot and mined it a bit then logged out. When I logged back in and returned to that ring the hotspot had gone and I could not rescan it, every probe I fired at it did nothing, anyone had this happen to them?

Watch from about 6m30s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKcSjHFXiNA

 

[zipline]

Watch from about 6m30s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKcSjHFXiNA

Yep, already watched that series but rechecked @6m30s and you can see that when he tags a fissure the white <> tag remains on the fissure after the brief visual disappears, on PS4, mine don't.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Same happens whether I use contacts panel or target ahead, the tag briefly appears with a small visual, then when the visual disappears the tag detaches and just floats around. I have never had any issue with any other tagging including surface deposits, just these fissures. Was that screenshot from PC as I am on PS4? I noticed today that when I target ahead I can see if it is low/med/high from the targets display on the bottom left of my hud, so that helps a lot even if the tag detaches. I think I'll report it as a bug.

Yep, already watched that series but rechecked @6m30s and you can see that when he tags a fissure the white <> tag remains on the fissure after the brief visual disappears, on PS4, mine don't.

Ah, I hadn't realised you were on PS4. I'm on PC. Yes, that definitely sounds like a bug. I'm particularly intrigued by the description of the tags "float[ing] around." That's most peculiar.

The closest thing I've seen to this, of which I was only reminded when I read your post, is that on very rare occasions I will be travelling through an asteroid field and in front of my ship a "ghost" of an asteroid's mapped deposits and fissures will appear. It looks similar to the whole-asteroid surface scan that you get when a prospector finishes doing its thing, only in this case it's wrapped around empty space rather than a rock. I believe it may be the after-image of whichever asteroid was previously scanned, but I'd need to catch one on a recording and compare features to be sure. I've flown right through a couple of them and am reasonably certain I took no damage, so it's not like there's an invisible asteroid there. Just the feature map.

Quite possibly unrelated, but your description of a "detached" tag made me think of this.

I'd definitely report the tags thing as a bug though. That doesn't sound right at all.