UAs, Barnacles & More Thread 5 - The Canonn

[coojw]

Here's my concern:

You have to be 1.5KM above the surface to see a POI blue zone, but my model view distance is set to its lowest point for FPS performance. Are there any graphical settings which will inhibit my ability to spot these barnacles when cruising above the surface when my 3d settings are set to low, especially when having to stay above 1.5KM in height?

 

[squiggsy]

Hey guys, I had a cheeky little thought about possible locations of fixed barnacles.

I see a few people have tried searching the poles, and points on the equators and so on and so forth. So how about this...

Believe it or not, E:D is a game (I know, right?) and if there's one thing I know about game developers it is that they enjoy their Easter eggs. So do I and if I worked there and was tasked with placing fixed barnacles, I would probably stick one right where I was.

The coordinates of FD studio is, if I read this thing right, 52.233° N and 0.001° E

If anyone wants to check that location on a few Pleiades planets, it's as good a place as any! I would do it myself, if it weren't for the fact that I was about 6000 ly away on a little expedition.

I hate this though, if this were to true then I'd be outta here and have no more interest in this plot.
This is not an ARG! There needs to be an IN GAME reason for location/way to discover their location. If not then this is just awful. In the event that:
a) there is no way to find a precise location and we just have to search
or
b) there is some meta answer to where they are located

I will feel like this has completely failed, the meta answer is 100% immersion breaking, and just searching blindly is a grindfest that I'm already bored of.

I'm going to return to the bubble and search for clues, but given MB's lack of a statement on whether or not there ARE other clues we've missed and the fact that he's feeling the need to drop vague hints instead of saying "yes you missed a clue somewhere, keep searching for that" (which would be an infinitely preferable thing to hear from him) I'm beginning to feel there may not be any.

 

[slashgoh]

I hate this though, if this were to true then I'd be outta here and have no more interest in this plot.
This is not an ARG! There needs to be an IN GAME reason for location/way to discover their location. If not then this is just awful. In the event that:
a) there is no way to find a precise location and we just have to search
or
b) there is some meta answer to where they are located

I will feel like this has completely failed, the meta answer is 100% immersion breaking, and just searching blindly is a grindfest that I'm already bored of.

I'm going to return to the bubble and search for clues, but given MB's lack of a statement on whether or not there ARE other clues we've missed and the fact that he's feeling the need to drop vague hints instead of saying "yes you missed a clue somewhere, keep searching for that" (which would be an infinitely preferable thing to hear from him) I'm beginning to feel there may not be any.

As already written, absolutely agree.
- Rep to all gave rep to this post
I repeat that:
In my opinion the reason for choosing a location should be in-game related, not linked to other external things that may or may not be noticed by players.

Please MB, let us known if we have to search in your real life to find the barnacle....

 

[RonkerZ]

NEWS, UPDATES and WHAT WE ARE DOING RIGHT NOW

• With the launch of Horizons, the latest things to hunt are the so-called Barnacles. The Barnacles are mantioned in a new in-game item, the Meta-Alloys, which are also yet to be discovered.
  We believe UA and Meta-Alloys are somehow linked. (see post #3 for details on Barnacles)

I think I found a typo or is ''mantioned'' a manly way to say mentioned?

 

[Atrox Lux]

Yea, have to agree.

To rely solely on dumb luck to discover such an important aspect of the continuation of the Elite story seems to be a huge let-down, especially considering the pop-up. It's a pity.

That's the problem. Most here are trying to apply some sort of logic to the search and it has been confirmed as being placed for logical reasons in the nebula. But if a planet has not been logically picked or the barnacle has been placed arbitrarily on said planet then we are in trouble. It is now looking like luck rather than logic will be winner here.

We have searched craters, misty craters, canyons, mountains, valleys, plains, poles and more. In fact, everywhere that it might be deemed logical for a barnacle to exist.

Something is seriously wrong somewhere, given how many are actively searching now. It is not helped that searching just a small area of a small planet/moon takes a long long time.

This is searching for a needle in a haystack, but we don't know what the needle looks like exactly and the haystack could be in any number of barns that contain multiple haystacks.

The views have been nice, but I feel the scale of this has been sorely underestimated and more info is badly needed to stop this becoming an exercise in frustration.

 

[LordZoltan]

I hate this though, if this were to true then I'd be outta here and have no more interest in this plot.
This is not an ARG! There needs to be an IN GAME reason for location/way to discover their location. If not then this is just awful. In the event that:
a) there is no way to find a precise location and we just have to search
or
b) there is some meta answer to where they are located

I will feel like this has completely failed, the meta answer is 100% immersion breaking, and just searching blindly is a grindfest that I'm already bored of.

I'm going to return to the bubble and search for clues, but given MB's lack of a statement on whether or not there ARE other clues we've missed and the fact that he's feeling the need to drop vague hints instead of saying "yes you missed a clue somewhere, keep searching for that" (which would be an infinitely preferable thing to hear from him) I'm beginning to feel there may not be any.

While I understand consider this scenario:

In July 3302, CMDR [redacted] spotted something on the surface of [redacted] while flying around looking for landing zones. It didn't look like the usual human space junk and so he approached, cautiously. As he neared the site, he realised he was not looking at human space junk - it looked alien. The shape and design of the feature reminded him of an ancient Earth marine creature he'd seen in his science courses as a child, and thus he nicknamed it the 'Barnacle'.

That's kinda thing you'd expect if we'd never been given any hints whatsoever about this thing.

If we didn't know there was something, there'd be nothing to moan about.

Also, in the above scenario, what difference does it actually make how the location is determined? A human being choosing a lat/long that's important to them is as good as any other human attempt at random.

It's certainly as good as the RNG deciding to spawn something on the side of a hill.

There's still reason to be applied here - formulating a reasonable hypothesis and then trying to prove it by scouting out the surfaces. This is a reasonable hypothesis, and it's easy to test. It also has the benefit of being very easy to disprove (well, assuming you have in your possession every airless moon in the Pleiades).

Unlike the idea to look at interesting surface formations, or craters or whatever - these are incredibly hard to disprove.

Pick the low-hanging fruit, and you might just get a peach.

 

[edd]

Hey guys, I had a cheeky little thought about possible locations of fixed barnacles.

I see a few people have tried searching the poles, and points on the equators and so on and so forth. So how about this...

Believe it or not, E:D is a game (I know, right?) and if there's one thing I know about game developers it is that they enjoy their Easter eggs. So do I and if I worked there and was tasked with placing fixed barnacles, I would probably stick one right where I was.

The coordinates of FD studio is, if I read this thing right, 52.233° N and 0.001° E

If anyone wants to check that location on a few Pleiades planets, it's as good a place as any! I would do it myself, if it weren't for the fact that I was about 6000 ly away on a little expedition.

I make it 0.14 E.

 

[Turban]

Time to gather dust of the bookshelves and spread it on the floor.

I watch a lot of movies pal, I know what I'm doing !

 

[MadDogMurdock]

While I understand consider this scenario:



That's kinda thing you'd expect if we'd never been given any hints whatsoever about this thing.

If we didn't know there was something, there'd be nothing to moan about.

Also, in the above scenario, what difference does it actually make how the location is determined? A human being choosing a lat/long that's important to them is as good as any other human attempt at random.

It's certainly as good as the RNG deciding to spawn something on the side of a hill.

There's still reason to be applied here - formulating a reasonable hypothesis and then trying to prove it by scouting out the surfaces. This is a reasonable hypothesis, and it's easy to test. It also has the benefit of being very easy to disprove (well, assuming you have in your possession every airless moon in the Pleiades).

Unlike the idea to look at interesting surface formations, or craters or whatever - these are incredibly hard to disprove.

Pick the low-hanging fruit, and you might just get a peach.

I'm with Squiggsy on this - my game time is limited, I don't need to meta-game as well.
I don't know what it says about the game in general or FD's approach to this mystery that MB is intervening on the forum rather than using the means available in-game, but my brows are slightly furrowed.

 

[bitstorm]

'The Barnacle Grind' - now that's a positively disgusting phrase!

Just to say on "Barnacle Grind".

Frontier could have implemented this as, go collect 250,000 "research materials" from signal sources to allow some organisation to "locate the barnacles".

I much much prefer these things being out there and we find them ourselvse, much prefer it.

I know lots may be burning out a bit but as a PLAYER a feel there is no urgency, people of course want to find them asap but in the scheme of things they turn up when they turn up (on the other had there does feel like a sense of urgency coming from MB/Frontier).

Also I have to say that all this planetary exploring I'm doing while looking for barnacles, paying close attention to the landscape, I'm seeing some totally awesome sights and it's only giving me much more appreciation as to what an amazing job Frontier have done with the procedural generation.

 

[Huros]

this hypotesis fall into the range of randomly choosen locations, especially if there are no special planet features on that point to justify that location.
If FD make us this kind of joke, than.... I will wait for another game/update, for sure...
Why not the coordinates of DB birthplace or MB house?

In my opinion the reason for choosing a location should be in-game related, not linked to other external things that may or may not be noticed by players.

Please MB, let us known if we have to search in your real life to find the barnacle....

What is MB's inside leg and chest size? That must be the coordinates!

Is there a Planet Beard in the Pleiades?

 

[slashgoh]

While I understand consider this scenario:



That's kinda thing you'd expect if we'd never been given any hints whatsoever about this thing.

If we didn't know there was something, there'd be nothing to moan about.

Also, in the above scenario, what difference does it actually make how the location is determined? A human being choosing a lat/long that's important to them is as good as any other human attempt at random.

It's certainly as good as the RNG deciding to spawn something on the side of a hill.

There's still reason to be applied here - formulating a reasonable hypothesis and then trying to prove it by scouting out the surfaces. This is a reasonable hypothesis, and it's easy to test. It also has the benefit of being very easy to disprove (well, assuming you have in your possession every airless moon in the Pleiades).

Unlike the idea to look at interesting surface formations, or craters or whatever - these are incredibly hard to disprove.

Pick the low-hanging fruit, and you might just get a peach.

what you say is exacly like random searching, so why lead everyone to a random point? better if all we search our own random point, we will finish the search earlier.

 

[rizal72]

I think I found a typo or is ''mantioned'' a manly way to say mentioned?

Thanks! Typo there.

 

[RCKJD]

I would also say, having a location that is meta doesn't necessarily exclude it from also being a logical location based on in game lore/rules.

 

[beelzeblub]

If we're now into randomly suggestion coordinates. I Thought Deep about it and I'd go for 42° and 42° on a planet around a star which is 7,5 million years old. Because, well, you know, it is technically the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. So that includes Barnacles.

 

[squiggsy]

I'm with Squiggsy on this - my game time is limited, I don't need to meta-game as well.
I don't know what it says about the game in general or FD's approach to this mystery that MB is intervening on the forum rather than using the means available in-game, but my brows are slightly furrowed.

Yeah, I would have much preferred a galnet article explaining a lot of the stuff, for instance them being in the Pleiades, however I do understand him coming here to clarify things like what kind of POI they are (view distances though could be clarified with in game text along the lines of "reports say that they are large, visible from as much as 10km away")

But oh well, we have what we have! I'm not giving up I'm just going back to my previous approach of becoming Commander Squiggsy: Ace Detective and scouring local new sources and old galnet articles for any lead that could narrow down the search.

 

[Anjin]

Well, I can't help but think that if they're manually placed that some kind of cognitive bias might result them in being put in a very recognisable feature, an obvious one being a crater.

If the barnacles are also deliberately placed in-lore, a place with a distinct eye-catching feature might still apply.

Of course, there's no way to know for sure if there were very specific location criteria for placement, and we can't determine them until after finding one.

No luck so far, though.

 

[Xonic]

So I was searching for more information on habitable zones around stars. Heres a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstellar_habitable_zone#Extrasolar_extrapolation Extrasolar extrapolation of the habitable zone theory. Its a shortcut to the maths part.


A short version is that



Since then they changed it to where life is most likely to emerge in a galaxy, then they argued more about what life needs. (paraphrased)





I think this is a direct quote from the game description but I'm not somewhere I can check the actual one.


Theres a few things I'm taking from this.
Formed organically - so I am looking for life. I just dont know what kind of life.
Many elements form the structure - I think this was our nebula hint. Stellar nursery gasses.. om nom nom nom
They are good thermal insulators, and have a high melting point, but if they are melted they lose all their special properties - Upper limit to viable temperature.
They are associated with recently discovered alien entities nicknamed 'Large Barnacles' by interstellar explorers. - Find one, find the other.


I had thought that by being inside the nebula and being on a planet with no atmosphere would be enough. I'm now starting to wonder if the mists that form on certain planets has a purpose for these barnacles. A source of nutrients.


As far limiting the search I don't think a great deal can be done. We know nothing about the life processes of the barnacles. Something they are associated with has an upper temperature limit but thats not telling us anything about them. Man as an organism can survive much harsher extremes than say our blood can. How much more can we thoerise about their life processes? I'd say set min temp at 0C. I'm sure plenty would argue that theres no evidence to say they are using water as an exchange mechanism. In response I'd say what else is there ingame? I've seen rock, metal and ice in terms of the makeup of a body and that it.


So, and this is pure conjecture right now. I think we need a warm rocky, icy body except I don't think they exist, I think they are worlds and tend to have atmospheres so we cant land.


After all that I tied myself in a circle. I'm off to Merope. Cant think of a reason not to.. I've covered a lot of ground trying to rule out other stuff and in the end I'm resigned to 'cos the UA point there' as my only good clue.


Maybe its barnacle sperm.. maybe its how they reproduce across nebulae

Did the same...came across especially Brown Dwarfs

Habitability

Habitability for hypothetical planets orbiting brown dwarfs has been studied. Computer models suggesting conditions for these bodies to have habitable planets are very stringent, the habitable zone being narrow and decreasing with time, due to the cooling of the brown dwarf. The orbits there would have to be of very low eccentricity (of the order of 10⁻⁶) to avoid strong tidal forces that would trigger a greenhouse effect on the planets, rendering them uninhabitable.^{[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf#cite_note-62"][62][/URL]}

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf

So there is one Planet in the Maia System, that fit's to all of the theories:
- far away from jump-in (if you can scoop the barnacles within 2 mins from jump in, the cash income might be game-breaking)
- very small (must be small, so that the is a possibility to find it)
- orbits a rare brown dwarf
- has an excentricity of 0.0000
- is tidally locked
- has Sulphur Geysirs (these things must get nutrition from something)
- has in general a nice view, so that a player might be tempted to land there (guessing that FD wants the barnacles to be found)

Its MAIA B1 AA!

So i flew there and searched for like two hours (on the ground, above ground and in OC)

Guess what....nothing found.....

 

[Tomtom]

I make it 0.14 E.

Oops, yeah, I think you're right. Well spotted, that man! I'll fix that in a minute.

To those who don't like the idea: I get where you're coming from. You make valid points, but you might be over reacting just a teensy bit (my subjective opinion, of course). This wouldn't be where all the barnacles spawn, just one out of... how many? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? We just don't know yet. And there's no in game reason why one shouldn't spawn at that location, on one random planet. Besides, the game is already littered with Easter eggs, and they don't spoil the experience do they?

Also, what LordZoltan said.

 

[Peter Drakon]

Just a thought about the barnacle grind and the usual scales in-game: consider the community event goals and tiers. 1-2 thousand(!) participating commanders usually manage to complete maybe the first 2 tiers of 10 the event during a whole week.

Like 800.000.000 bounty with 3500 participating commanders were only enough for tier 1 of 5.

So these tiers are massive, huge in scale. So is the barnacle search – that’s not good or bad, just a “fun fact” in this game – everything is huge here.

And also slow, very slow. Stuff and story here takes weeks and months to unfold and move forward.

So easy, patience, have fun!