Unable to Locate Bio/Geo Notable Signal Sources (ODYSSEY)

[LifesAJourney]

Fair point.

That would require generating life forms procedurally, taking a lot of Stellar Forge variables into consideration. Sort of Lifeform Forge, with at least the same complexity level as of Stellar Forge.

I'd love to see that!

 

[varonica]

Fair point.

That would require generating life forms procedurally, taking a lot of Stellar Forge variables into consideration. Sort of Lifeform Forge, with at least the same complexity level as of Stellar Forge.

I'd love to see that!

Honestly so would I, but can you imagine the problem it would cause for the Codex?

 

[LifesAJourney]

What problem? You mean 1,462,568 new entries every year?

 

[varonica]

What problem? You mean 1,462,568 new entries every year?

Multiply the number of players by the average number of planets visited per day per player, then multiply that by 6 to allow for multliple life forms per planet, if it only comes out to 1,462,568 that would be surprising!

Personally I think the form the codex has taken is an artificial constraint on what FDEV can add to the game in the way of unique bio, and that probably won't change until they take that codex and ream it out with a suitable tool and turn it into what it should have been, a personal player journal of travel and discovery.

 

[Alex_Fighter]

Ok, so for what I have read in other thread, the planetary scan used to give you a heatmap with different colors where you can distinguish areas with more or less chance of finding things. That was really cool and it's a nice change. Why I didn't understand it was because before I went to use it it was changed...

As sometimes it glitched, showing all green, and people reported it, instead of fixing it they decided to strip the game from it by changing the color grading from blue to the same shade of blue (the only change you can see now is because of the terrain below) and say it's "by design", and now wherever you've got 0.01% chance of having something, it's blue. So basically most planets with geo/bio are all blue. Genius.

The typical "there's so many bugs I can't fix them all. Let's get away with this blunder".

 

[Steyla]

Ok, so for what I have read in other thread, the planetary scan used to give you a heatmap with different colors where you can distinguish areas with more or less chance of finding things. That was really cool and it's a nice change. Why I didn't understand it was because before I went to use it it was changed...

As sometimes it glitched, showing all green, and people reported it, instead of fixing it they decided to strip the game from it by changing the color grading from blue to the same shade of blue (the only change you can see now is because of the terrain below) and say it's "by design", and now wherever you've got 0.01% chance of having something, it's blue. So basically most planets with geo/bio are all blue. Genius.

The typical "there's so many bugs I can't fix them all. Let's get away with this blunder".

Just go down to the planet, anywhere, after you successfully send the probes, and fly close over the surface. They are all over the place. So far I've found 20 different species on 5 planets. It is not that hard. And IMHO it is way better than what we had before, like the arrow/marker who point you to it or the hours and hours of flying over the surface and maybe find something, if you were lucky.

Fly/land safe.

CMDR Steyla

 

[Alex_Fighter]

Yeah, it brings back the exploration as it was in the beginning, and we may see back that community sharing threads and tools (there was one that was pretty cool) to share POIs which will be very cool, but it's not what is intended and the way they "fixed" what is intended... meh.

 

[Orvidius]

Without the "heat" part of the "heat map", we have to use knowledge and intuition to help narrow the search, and those come from experience. So yeah, it's a harder way to get started. But once you learn some of the terrain preferences for different life forms, you can start finding them more quickly. For instance, bacteria like relatively level, flat dirt. Shrubs tend to be in the more rocky/hilly terrain, and tussocks like low-lying flat areas.

I recorded a random planet with 2 bio signals last night. The blue areas on the map were reasonably extensive, but I picked an area where I thought I might find both the life forms together, and sure enough they were there.

(I didn't bother with the SRV this time, since I figured ship hopping might go a little faster here).

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS_YXQVtCYM

 

[Codger]

One problem I have with the new Exobiology stuff is that all the plants are hand-made models, identical in every way across the entire galaxy, they just change the name. This stuff should have been procedural, or at the very least have some procedural code that modifies the hand-made models in more than just size and position.

They don't even look natural half the time, looking more like plastic props dropped onto the surface, with no blending even.

And don't get me started on the new Elite rank that consists of nothing but hand-scanning. Everything else you do (flying out there, FSS, DSS, etc. is all Exploration rank). Only the last little scan is Exobiology -- point and shoot 3 times at the same plant. And it gets a whole new rank? It's ludicrous.

I was really looking forward to Odyssey for exploration but the messed up planetary tech and these hand-copied-and-pasted plants have taken the wind out of my sails. Maybe they'll at least get the planetary tech working right soon...I hope...but the plants are what they are. I don't expect changes there for years.

 

[Damortzw]

Without the "heat" part of the "heat map", we have to use knowledge and intuition to help narrow the search, and those come from experience. So yeah, it's a harder way to get started. But once you learn some of the terrain preferences for different life forms, you can start finding them more quickly. For instance, bacteria like relatively level, flat dirt. Shrubs tend to be in the more rocky/hilly terrain, and tussocks like low-lying flat areas.

I recorded a random planet with 2 bio signals last night. The blue areas on the map were reasonably extensive, but I picked an area where I thought I might find both the life forms together, and sure enough they were there.

(I didn't bother with the SRV this time, since I figured ship hopping might go a little faster here).

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS_YXQVtCYM

Wow you made that look easy. I had a planet with a single bio and flew around for at least an hour and never found a thing.

 

[Inergi]

Hey CMDRS

Is anyone else unable to find geological and biological notable signal sources on planet surfaces in Odyssey? Surface features such as fumaroles, geysers, and gas vents are not popping up on the in the navigation panel after scanning like usual.

Other surface features such as impact sites and wreckage appear as signals in the navigation panel as normal.

I understand the DSS heat map is now used to locate certain planet features but I have flown all around planets with listed geological features cycling through DSS heat map filters of things like "geyser" and "fumarole" and am unable to discern any changes in the heat map that might indicate this is how these features are located.

Are the Biological/Geological notable signal sources currently bugged in Odyssey or is there something I am missing?

Any assistance would be appreciated o7

I looked here to see how I could locate Bio-samples as well. I even went to wrecked locations. I rechecked the heat map and looked for the brightest blue colours and landed close by at
Crucis Sector CW-V B2-4- B 1
Found three samples of BACTERIUM ACIES - WHITE
The DNA Sampler will Echo sound locater to and guide you to the area even if you can't see it yet, as you can see you have to be almost on top of it.
Hope it helps you too.
video link

Source: https://youtu.be/bNHyYsz5HJA

 

[VooDoo_in_Witchspace]

How hard is it to find fumaroles and geysers/heat vents? I found a planet that pinged them on the DSS but for the life of me I could not find them, not matter where I dropped in at. The heat map just made the whole planet blue, there was barely any variation when filtering from between fumaroles to geysers to heat vents, it was like the same map. This was worse than finding bacterial colonies, which can be a pain but, I honestly think this was worse. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[Alex_Fighter]

No, it's difficult because it's rare to see them active, so almost forget about looking for steam or jets. You have to use your eyes to distinguish their shapes, which is still difficult because the poor LOD of Oddyssey make you have to be really near the ground for objects to spawn, and even closer to load a proper shape.

A little help is have the scanner ready and keep an eye on your indicator changing as the aim/cursor passes over an object.

 

[mikelowndes]

How hard is it to find fumaroles and geysers/heat vents? I found a planet that pinged them on the DSS but for the life of me I could not find them, not matter where I dropped in at. The heat map just made the whole planet blue, there was barely any variation when filtering from between fumaroles to geysers to heat vents, it was like the same map. This was worse than finding bacterial colonies, which can be a pain but, I honestly think this was worse. Am I doing something wrong?

Agree I am finding it next to impossible to find Geo now. And the 'blue' is next to useless.

And 5-8 Distress beacons on every planet 500 kylies form the bubble? Stupid stupid stupid bug.

 

[CMDR Don Samen]

I did it the simple way. In discovery mode on the ship I aimed for what looked more green on the planet than the rest, best described as the darker area. In the middle of that spot I found two different plants. Since this planet is listet with 3 biological signals I'm guessing I will find a third kind at some other "hotspot". The plants were very easy to spot, did not use radar or anything, just visual search. The pain is that you have to collect those three samples at some distance. So with my ship as a center I headed in three different directions to collect.

 

[Leif_Erikson]

Has an update made finding biologicals more numerous and easier to find? When I first checked a bio planet a few months ago spent ages and only found one bio item on the surface.
But over the last two weeks seem far more common to find and finding three variants are easier. In fact a few times I have landed on a planet with one biological signal and found all three variants within 5 minutes of driving.

 

[Comandante]

Hey CMDRS

Is anyone else unable to find geological and biological notable signal sources on planet surfaces in Odyssey? Surface features such as fumaroles, geysers, and gas vents are not popping up on the in the navigation panel after scanning like usual.

Other surface features such as impact sites and wreckage appear as signals in the navigation panel as normal.

I understand the DSS heat map is now used to locate certain planet features but I have flown all around planets with listed geological features cycling through DSS heat map filters of things like "geyser" and "fumarole" and am unable to discern any changes in the heat map that might indicate this is how these features are located.

Are the Biological/Geological notable signal sources currently bugged in Odyssey or is there something I am missing?

Any assistance would be appreciated o7

Only had a quick skim through, not sure if it help but you could try:

Odyssey Biological and Geological Guide

I'm interested in this because I'd like to go exploring soon(ish), but it seems to me that there's a lot of broken stuff at the moment regarding exploration. Not being able to collect G5 materials prospecting on the surface for synthesis is a big alert sign not to go!

 

[LifesAJourney]

Has an update made finding biologicals more numerous and easier to find?

Yes and no. Yes, because fdev fixed surface textures and how some species look. No, because I still encounter issues with displaying some species. Some appear only when I disembark which makes finding them almost impossible.

Sometimes I land on 7-bio planet and find all of them pretty quickly, sometimes I struggle to find anything on 2-bio planet. RNG I guess...

 

[ValkyrionTelcosa]

I today noticed I didn't have to get in the SRV to go scan a Biological (and I am assuming Geological) source. Was it like this also in Horizons? I guess I could load up horizons and check but just thought I remark.