Something bad has happened to surface prospecting

[Starman 1966]

Cheers commanders

It's been some time now I needed to surface prospect for raw engineering materials. Last time was definitely before the split of Horizons into Legacy and Live modes. Now I need some mats for both engineering and FSD injection. So I land on a planet or moon, deploy the SRV and ... the scanner remains black. No signals at all. I drive around in several directions for several minutes ... nothing changes. No signals, nothing to shoot at, so no materials. Not a single pebble of anything. Happens at least 4 out of 5 times. I should add that this happens in Live mode, no idea whether Legacy mode is affected as well. This cannot be intended, it smells like a bug. And I guess I'm not the only one experiencing this?!

 

[HalseySpartan2]

Check the surface composition of the planet you're on. It could be that the planet you're on has lower than usual percentage of materials available, or you could just be in the wrong place.

 

[Starman 1966]

It's not that you would find other materials then expected. You simply find no signals at all, no outcrops, no mesosiderite, nothing.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

Do you at least check the reserves level shown for the planet?

 

[alexzk]

It is "real-life" distribution now. Some planets may happen sterile.
Giant's moons usually have a lot of mats as giants create surface instability + some drops from rings.

 

[Afterglow [SecB]]

It's not that you would find other materials then expected. You simply find no signals at all, no outcrops, no mesosiderite, nothing.

The same shows for me too. The planet/moon should have everything and had it before but somehow all the stones have disappeared.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Yes this is definitely the case on many bodies. I have been "bringing up" a recent EDO clear save and the lack of surface prospecting is a big disappointment. I used to Zen-out for hours in the SRV tracking down signals and shooting-up the meteorites and outcrops.

One thing was pointed out to me and that is if the body has geological signals on the FSS / DSS then those signals seem to suppress the meteorites and outcrops from being spawned. I have found plenty of meteorites on bodies with bio signals though.

I have taken to bookmarking bodies in my locale which do have meteorites and outcrops occurring.

One other thing I think is happening is that meteorites and outcrops will only be spawned if you arrive from supercruise. Logging off on surface means that on coming back into the game, no meteorites or outcrops will appear (so it seems to me).

I don't know if this is by design or just another snafu - if by design then it is blinkin' stupid.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Logging off on surface means that on coming back into the game, no meteo

If you've already picked them up then a desktop log is required to refresh them, not a menu log. Not sure about meteorites and outcrops but this is true for materials from geos and bios.

 

[metatheurgist]

If you are anywhere near geo features you will not find meteorites. Geo features though are not a terrible way to get surface mats. You don't get the satisfying explosion of mats but there are a lot more of them around.

 

[DemiserofD]

I have definitely noticed this myself, for as long as Odyssey has been out. It seems as if meteorites are quite a bit more rare than they used to be, and the scanner is not as truthful as it once was.

 

[SlickPBW]

Sounds like time to take the mining Cutter out for a spin.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

If you've already picked them up then a desktop log is required to refresh them, not a menu log. Not sure about meteorites and outcrops but this is true for materials from geos and bios.

You misinterpret my inference. I was not referring to relogging (like at Orrere or Dav's Hope for example) but I noticed that when I shut the game whilst in the SRV on a planet one night, when I came back to the game there were no signals (not even spurious spokes). I don't think relogging to harvest meteorites and outcrops ever worked anyway, they are spawned pseudo-randomly not procedurally like geo features - however now it seems they are not spawned at all except on arrival from SC.

I think respawning can't be on "desktop-log" as I never saw any signals on coming back to the game after shut-down - unless of course that was a freak occurrence - I have not "tested" this. EDIT- did test this, see post #15 below.

If you ever do relogging at Dav's, you will notice that you don't get meteorite or outcrop signals after relogging - I used to get lots of MMs when doing Dav-runs but I noticed with this clear-save restart that there were never any signals after the relog.

 

[vanFace]

I don't think relogging to harvest meteorites and outcrops ever worked anyway, they are spawned pseudo-randomly not procedurally like geo features - however now it seems they are not spawned at all except on arrival from SC.

Re-logging is not much different to closing and re-opening the game executable. I think the current surface behavior has something to do with the way FDev "fixed" the re-logging game-play on harvesting settlement materials: super-cruising in resets the instance and spawns new elements, but every subsequent re-log (even normal shutdown and re-start) clears them. Seems like it is not only settlement mats, but also everything else on planets.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

If it can be made long, arduous, random and boring - there is a good chance FD will make it like that.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

OK - I just did an exhaustive statistical analysis of this behaviour (OK I did a few "desktop relog" on a couple of planets) and can confirm I was not dreaming - no meteorites or outcrops are spawned after starting the game whilst in a SRV on the surface of a planet (which had those on arrival in my ship).

 

[GonzTheMalificent]

Totally agree. Since Oddity even using EDD there will often be nothing in all directions. I also never see those random buildings, ships, cargo stashes or skimmers. Ever. vanFace has hit the nail on the head I think.

 

[Ultra Fluffy]

I use EDDI as a recommendation for mats. It will pick the body in the system with the largest percentage of the mat I am looking for (not cheating, rather a tool that saves time using info available anyway). Once I have collected the mats in the local area I do not respawn (Seems like cheating to me. It would not do that in real life). Instead I get into my ship, do three boosts and land again. A bit like the bios, I find that mat rocks are more abundant in certain areas, like the edge of craters. Just a theory, no real evidence yet.

 

[LeatheryEggs]

Finding geo-signals and pulling mats from them I've found is a generally more fun and interesting way to get mats anyways, so why not just go for that instead of looking for rocks? I have noticed the smaller rocks seem a little less common, but I do find them when I look for them.

 

[Fixitman]

I'm currently 150 jumps into a 250 jump "field test" of my Exploration Anaconda. I'm stopping off on every planet that has new bio signals to scan (roughly 1/4 of all landables). I've only seen SRV scanner signals on about a half dozen bodies so far. Only two had any useful amounts. The rest were too far apart to be worth going after. The one body I found with bio and vulcanism had lots of single-drop geos, so that does help a little.

 

[Planewalker]

Yesterday and earlier today i was driving around on some moons finding various types of outcroppings.

I recently landed at two planets in the bubble, and they both had massive mat fields due to them both having volcanic activity.

When i started exploring a couple of months back, it seemed like the "Checkerboard Rendering" set to off was causing nodes not to spawn.

Now i must concur with those in the thread that lean more towards it being a composition issue, and yes it changed a lot from how it was in Horizons.