Some feedback on being an Exobiologist

CMDR Sheehy

CMDR Sheehy
The one thing I want is for the Artemis to have an ALT-tool for the DNA Scanner that does composition scanning. That way, if I climb one of these tall calderas, I don't have to drag my SRV up there to get a confirmation scan (and my 2500cr)!
 

CMDR Yates

C
anthonycsheehy said:
The one thing I want is for the Artemis to have an ALT-tool for the DNA Scanner that does composition scanning. That way, if I climb one of these tall calderas, I don't have to drag my SRV up there to get a confirmation scan (and my 2500cr)!
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I could be wrong, but I think it does give you a Codex hit in the background the first time you sample the first of a particular species on a particular planet.

I'm not sure about the payout, but certainly when I sampled a couple of plants by hand, then went back to the SRV and booped them and a few others with the Composition Scanner, the ones I'd previously sampled gave me the old "No new traits found" message, like it had done it already.
 

Vardaugas

Vardaugas
Now here is something: The blue zone isn't accurate at all. Got to a planet with six biological signatures. There were all over the place and easy to find. One had some blue zones and the other two had no zone at all. Now the one with a select few zones was shrubbery and I searched all the planes for it and didn't find any. Then I noticed some mountains in the blue zone and went there, discovering that shrubbery grew exclusively there and no other plant. So, really, the blue zone should be limited to the mountain areas where it grows and not the flat lands. Of the other two, with no blue zone at all, I never found a trace. Something is still broken, even in the simplified "heatmap".
 

Queex

Queex
Vardaugas said:
Now here is something: The blue zone isn't accurate at all. Got to a planet with six biological signatures. There were all over the place and easy to find. One had some blue zones and the other two had no zone at all. Now the one with a select few zones was shrubbery and I searched all the planes for it and didn't find any. Then I noticed some mountains in the blue zone and went there, discovering that shrubbery grew exclusively there and no other plant. So, really, the blue zone should be limited to the mountain areas where it grows and not the flat lands. Of the other two, with no blue zone at all, I never found a trace. Something is still broken, even in the simplified "heatmap".
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I had a theory that where multiple types can appear, a common one can crowd out a rarer one, effectively eating up all the opportunities for something to appear.
 

Erei

Erei
Sysmon said:
Yep, there's definitely a "Codex updated" type message upon first sampling.

:D S
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I really want a CMDR codex of things. I want to see ONLY the stuff I collected, and scanned. I want to see what they are, so I can remember them in a year or so. I want to see my journey. I want to keep a picture of that "rotten flesh" cactus I scanned the other day, without having to use 3rd party tools.

I haven't find one so far. The codex is difficult to navigate and show everything. It's nice to have, but I'd like a personal one.
 

Jeebs

J
I've tried it a little bit, and I have to say that exobiology is just mind-numbingly boring. Use your DSS, and if it actually works properly, land next to some plants. Scan one and then spend all this time running around looking for another plant you can sample. I think I'll pass on this. I wanted to like it, and sure the plants look cool... but the gameplay for this is just so boring.
 

J Michaelson

J Michaelson
Queex said:
Having taken another crack at it today, I don't think restoring the heatmap to the DSS is enough to assist finding things. Definitely something SRV/on foot is needed to narrow it down.
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Some kind of SRV signal would be best I think, perhaps a different color or very different sound in the radar sweep to help distinguish it from the geological signals. There are biologicals on planets you cannot disembark on foot upon, so any tool should be there IMO.
 

Queex

Queex
J Michaelson said:
Some kind of SRV signal would be best I think, perhaps a different color or very different sound in the radar sweep to help distinguish it from the geological signals. There are biologicals on planets you cannot disembark on foot upon, so any tool should be there IMO.
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In another thread I said it probably depends on whether SRVs are intended to be essential exploration tools, or optional. They might want exploration without an SRV to be possible, in which case it needs to be bumped to on-foot. But otherwise, SRV integration seems best.
 

Erei

Erei
Queex said:
In another thread I said it probably depends on whether SRVs are intended to be essential exploration tools, or optional. They might want exploration without an SRV to be possible, in which case it needs to be bumped to on-foot. But otherwise, SRV integration seems best.
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With faster speed and the limited battery on our suits, I don't see how they could not be considered and integral part of exploration.
 

Aurora Velius

Aurora Velius
Have been doing a lot of exobiology gameplay since Odyssey released, and I really like it so far, but what bothers me the most is how disconnected it feels to the rest of the game. Every other role has some tie ins to other mechanics of the game. Like rank determining payouts from missions, or faction states and governments determining the kind of missions you can get. Exploration and scanning of planets already got the addition of the exploration rank determining payouts from a specific type of passenger missions. I would like to see something similar added for exobiology.

I made a suggestion where I detailed this idea, also making the new science themed planetary installations more relevant to the exobiologist role: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...gist-exploration-gameplay-for-odyssey.577962/
 

Queex

Queex
Erei said:
With faster speed and the limited battery on our suits, I don't see how they could not be considered and integral part of exploration.
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I do too, but I guess you could hop in and out of one of the smaller ships, using that for spotting.
 

Genxav

Genxav
Ozric said:
Now I have spent a few days playing the game and going through the exobiology gameplay flow, I thought that I would give some feedback on the things that I have noticed so far.

Starting off with the things I find most confusing or frustrating.

Why is there not an entry in the Codex for distance travelled on foot? There's one for distance traveled in Ly between systems, there's one for distance travelled in the SRV, so it makes sense to me that there should be one for distance travelled on foot.

In fact following on from that, there is nothing at all in the Codex to do with Exobiology. Nothing about the amount of sample collected, or sold. Nothing about the amount of species discovered, or how many regions you have discovered them in. Or your most valuable sample. There doesn't seem to be anything for the new Mercenary ranks either. It seems very strange to me that there are two new professions, and a Codex to store Cmdr data in, but the thought was never made to link the new game with the current game, again.

There is no way of telling what samples you have already collected and are waiting to sell. I must have collected about 10 samples, and yet nowhere under the Nav Panel, the Systems panel, or the Codex is any information displayed.


Finding the new biological life can be very frustrating. The DSS is often very confusing for most people to read. I think I have now worked it out and, if it's not bugged as it is different from the Alpha, then I assume that the Blue areas are where you can look for various types of biology/geology but once you get down to the planet then you are completely on your own. For most things the blue areas cover almost the entire planet and so it's just a case of wandering around randomly until you happen to stumble upon something. There are no scanners in your ship, your SRV, or on foot that can help you determine which direction or area you should look in.
I'm not saying I want something that immediately pinpoints the exact location of things, but I perhaps naively thought that the SRV wave scanner might have been updated to help with the search. Or the Blue PoIs that you used to see on the Ship's radar (which have disappeared in Odyssey). Bacterium is ridiculously hard to spot for example, and I know from speaking to a few people about it that they find it very frustrating indeed.

I think that part of the issue with it comes from the teething problems with the planetary tech. I took to flying about 500m above the surface of planets looking for life, but couldn't see any. So I dropped down to ~100m so I was basically skimming the ground, but I still couldn't see any. So I decided to land and get out in my SRV. Once I landed the landscape popped into existence a bit more, and then when I deployed the SRV suddenly I was surrounded by Tussocks. Once I had driven around and collected the samples and boarded my ship again, I could still see them.


On to the more positive side


So far for the species I have discovered I am absolutely loving the art design that has gone into them. The luminous Yellow fungi I found yesterday though were so bright I couldn't even really take a screenshot :D But he variety is nice and the attention to the small details is, as always, great.

I was personally disappointed that the mini game was removed from the sampling, but I think the compromise that has been done is really good. Keeping the animation there helps it a lot, and the added touch of the first sample being 1 ring, the second 2 and the third 3 rings is really nice.

I like the flow of the gameplay too, I can understand that some might find a bit frustrating not knowing how far you have to travel to get the sample, or if you're doing one of the ones that is over 500m between colonies, but it makes sense. I think the only thing is though that if you don't have an SRV it can take a long time to get three Tussock sample.
That said though I had an amazing experience as I was sampling Tussocks. I was wandering around and over the space of about half hour the sun went down. The sky had been getting steadily darker, and the stars started to come out and get brighter over the time. Just after the sun set all that was left was a very dim glow around the edge of the horizon, and finally I was left with just an inky black sky above me.

Experiencing the change from Day to Night on an atmospheric planet (especially as I hadn't planned it) was far more amazing that I ever thought it would be.


Thanks for reading. Overall I am liking the new Exobiology, there's a few bugs I've raised that will make things better once squished and some tweaks that can be made, but it's a good foundation. Just please sort out the stats section of the Codex :)
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@Ozric I took the liberty of putting the issues you mentioned in a list to be easily tracked.
@Zac Cocken
  1. Why is there not an entry in the Codex for distance traveled on foot?
    1. There's one for distance traveled in Ly between systems,
    2. There's one for distance traveled in the SRV
  2. There is nothing at all in the Codex to do with Exobiology
    1. Nothing about the amount of sample collected or sold.
    2. Nothing about the number of species discovered.
    3. Nothing about how many regions you have discovered them in.
    4. Nothing about your most valuable sample.
  3. There doesn't seem to be anything for the new Mercenary ranks either.
  4. There is no way of telling what samples you have already collected and are waiting to sell.
    1. Not under the Nav Panel.
    2. Not under the Systems panel.
    3. Not under the Codex, no information displayed.
  5. Finding the new biological life can be very frustrating
    1. The DSS is often very confusing for most people to read.
    2. For most things, the blue areas cover almost the entire planet.
    3. There are no scanners that can help you determine which direction or area you should look in.
      1. no scanners in your ship.
      2. no scanners in your SRV.
      3. no scanners on foot.
 
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