SRV Scanner - Strange Contact that Dissapears

[excalibus]

I am currently still above the 50K LY from sol mark on my return from the DWE...

I decided to stop by a planet surface to stock up on some polonium...

While scanning in my SRV I notices this strange contact signal in my scanner...

When I approached the contact, at a point the contact simply disappears, when I back track it reappears on the scanner...

By strange contact I mean it shows full vertical bars for the contact at a distance and as you get a bit closer it fluctuates a bit...

here is a collage of pics taken showing the scanner...

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ae3ujeWUP1aGprMDZfbWgyV1U

has anyone else had something like this occur?

 

[Traveller_GG]

ummmm.... Aren't you driving backwards?

 

[excalibus]

I did some testing of this before I posted the OP...


The contact appeared on my scanner for a good 2 minutes of driving at medium speed no assist.. then disappears at the ridge in the terrain that leads down into a valley

Just to note... I drove forward till the contact disappeared, I then back tracked (in reverse and parked at a spot just before the contact disappears to take the scanner screen shots showing the different scans.

I have since (just now) driven completely through the area (drove for about 3 minutes on medium speed no assist) turned around and the contact is showing on the scanner from the opposite side of the 'valley' where it disappears... and then when I head towards the contact it disappears again.. there is nothing showing in the terrain that seems like a settlement, debris or anything like that...

Just to add to this... just now I went east and west the 'twilight zone' and the same thing happens, at a point away from what appears to be centre of the the 'zone' when the contact appears on the scanner then heading towards it, at a certain distance from the centre it disappears from the scanner... so this is happening in the 4 compass directions (relative to my starting point) where it does this...

here is some more pics (with the gps locations exlploded one is from the north view facing south (opposite side of my initial posts starting point pictures (top half of the image), and from the eastern side relative to my starting position (bottom half of the image)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1ae3ujeWUP1aTQ4b1VkcHl6c3c

 

[virosh]

I would suggest flying low with the ship around the area and looking for any anomalies. You will cover a large distance this way.

 

[Aura Lorell]

I've only seen these vertical lines when I dismiss or recall my ship and it's within sensor range. This is very strange. Perhaps a bug?

 

[Manticore]

Increase your scanner range to widen your field of view.

That seems to me to be normal hi band trace at a distance meaning is most probably not a metallic ore outcrop (lo band) and therefore human in origin.

It could even be a pile of undefended cargo.

 

[Aura Lorell]

Increase your scanner range to widen your field of view.

That seems to me to be normal hi band trace at a distance meaning is most probably not a metallic ore outcrop (lo band) and therefore human in origin.

It could even be a pile of undefended cargo.

Beacons appear as a narrow band at the topmost range of the wave scanner and cargo appears as a narrow band a bit lower than the beacon signal but still at the top of the band. I've only seen my ship leaving such lines covering the full height of the band.

OP is it possible that this is your ship, perhaps landed? Another player perhaps? I doubt you'll find skimmers and such when 50K Ly from Sol.

 

[excalibus]

Increase your scanner range to widen your field of view.

That seems to me to be normal hi band trace at a distance meaning is most probably not a metallic ore outcrop (lo band) and therefore human in origin.

It could even be a pile of undefended cargo.

but, when you drive through the area (and I spent over an hour crisscrossing this area) there is nothing in the area, the contact disappears off the scanner, and does not reappear until you are well passed what appears to be the triangulation of the contact and turn around to face where you just come from...

Quite strange...

Also as to add a note... I did recall the ship just to make sure it was not stuck inside the planet or something as I had logged out last time while in the SRV...

it was not my ship, the contact remained on the scanner while my ship landed and then dismissed my ship and the contact was still on the scanner - I was parked at the eastern point just before the contact disappears...

Also as a side note... it is probably a POI bug... because upon logging out to main menu and logging back in, the contact did not reappear...

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Beacons appear as a narrow band at the topmost range of the wave scanner and cargo appears as a narrow band a bit lower than the beacon signal but still at the top of the band. I've only seen my ship leaving such lines covering the full height of the band.

OP is it possible that this is your ship, perhaps landed? Another player perhaps? I doubt you'll find skimmers and such when 50K Ly from Sol.

yeah it was not my ship I was able to ascertain that for certain but you raise a valid point, if it was another players ship - not likely really as I am in a fairly remote system but I must concede it is possible... If that is the case then that would suggest a problem with the server telling my client there was another ship there but that ship (and presumably a players SRV) remained invisible to me...

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Vertical lines looking a bit like that show up in/near the bubble a bit and are then replaced by a standard mid or high signal as you get closer - there it's just an indication of distant POIs (trespass zones specifically?) outside the normal range.

I've never come across one more than a few hundred LY from the bubble, and never one that behaved like that, though. Interesting discovery, though!

 

[Boogyman]

I see these on every single planet since horizons launched, so it doesn't seem strange to me. Those bars indicate very distant objects whose signature has not yet been resolved. If you pick one and continue in that direction you should encounter something. Often, it's nothing more than a standard bit of rock, so don't get too excited. And no, its not entirely unusual to lose the signal for a bit, or completely. Just keep driving.

 

[okiimatsu]

I might have lost a hubcap out there.

 

[Manticore]

Quite strange...

As you say CMDR...... explore on!

I see these on every single planet since horizons launched, so it doesn't seem strange to me. Those bars indicate very distant objects whose signature has not yet been resolved. If you pick one and continue in that direction you should encounter something. Often, it's nothing more than a standard bit of rock, so don't get too excited. And no, its not entirely unusual to lose the signal for a bit, or completely. Just keep driving.

Yes; that is the standard scanner signature readings. I'm totally addicted to bouncing around on planets in the SRV.... drive on!

General comment: Over time you really, really get to know the different sounds and pings the scanner receives. You can get to the stage where you can identify the characteristics of the POI by the sound well before you get a highly resolved hi band scanner sweep that is significantly directional.

 

[excalibus]

ummm thanks for all the answers everyone... Just some FYI's...

I am not new to exploration... I am currently at Ranger level , on my way to elite (hence why I am still a long way from home even though the DWE ended months ago... and I have 2.92 MM of SRV driving experience (not to mention the quite literally hundreds of worlds I have landed on during my current expedition... I know what distant object contacts look like... they are (more often than not) similar in stature to the actual object contacts normal scanner signature only spread across the width of the scanner and fainter consolidating into the actual regular contact as you close in on them...

In this case the scanner contact started out as a single faint vertical line, and slowly expanding into what you see on the scanner images I posted until they are a definite signature... only then disappearing from the scanner at what seems like a threshold distance... and when traversing the zone where the contact 'should be' there is nothing visually there.... no other scanner contacts appearing (apart from the some random rocks which I then dispatched... even after dispatching all the smaller contacts I found inside the zone... heading back to the threshold distance and turning around resulted in the vertical lines scanner contact appearing again... going back into the zone netted no new smaller rock contacts...

Vertical bars typically indicate active electronics - ships, larger settlements etc... the last time I was in the bubble, doing surface missions, only the settlements seemed to be vertical bars of varying degrees, data probes, of which again I have a lot of experience with as I actively searched them out on every landing until FDev nerfed the range (in LY out from the bubble) that they exist, had a distinct and different scanner contact signature than this one I am getting. Same for cargo, I know what they look like, same for shipwrecks, I also know how they show on the scanner... and I have never ever had a scanner contact act like this one... where it can be repeatedly triangulated but when investigating the area where it is scanning as if there something there, finding nothing... that is the strange part IMHO...

 

[Mengy]

I've seen this a few times before as well, they do not persist upon relogging either. I always just assumed they are some bugged POI's under the surface that we can never get to. Sometimes they do resolve to a "normal" scan signal as you get close to it, but there is still nothing actually there, lol. It's my hunch that if the bugged POI spawns far below the surface then you can never actually get close enough to it for it to resolve, hence why some of them always seem to remain as thick vertical signal sources instead of resolving to normal scan lines.

Just my theory though.