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Is probe scanning more random?
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Solecist Project
#21 - 2016-01-08 11:51:41 UTC
I don't know. Best I can come up with isn't lore related:
http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/94388/how-come-radio-signals-dont-interfere-with-each-other-all-the-time

That ringing in your ears you're experiencing right now is the last gasping breathe of a dying inner ear as it got thoroughly PULVERISED by the point roaring over your head at supersonic speeds. - Tippia
Memphis Baas
#22 - 2016-01-08 13:02:31 UTC
So, OP is saying that between the new interface and the OLD interface there's been a nerf to probe accuracy, and instead of c/d, you guys are arguing semantics.
Solecist Project
#23 - 2016-01-08 13:04:15 UTC
Memphis Baas wrote:
So, OP is saying that between the new interface and the OLD interface there's been a nerf to probe accuracy, and instead of c/d, you guys are arguing semantics.

Looking at the thread, your post contributed the least. :p

That ringing in your ears you're experiencing right now is the last gasping breathe of a dying inner ear as it got thoroughly PULVERISED by the point roaring over your head at supersonic speeds. - Tippia
Leila Meurtrier
Why Am I Not Surprised
#24 - 2016-01-08 13:32:12 UTC
I will deny your findings. More than that, It seems that probes treated as receiving signal if the point itself even grazes outside a little bit.
On skillless alt flying Slim Jim I got results on high tier wormholes with 1-2 less scans in general, being rather unpresize, with exception of final scan, when I used non-standard pinpoint formation (Without skills, it's the only known way for me to actually get these. Maybe it's changed, but still got the habit).
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#25 - 2016-01-08 14:34:30 UTC
Well, I do agree with one thing. When only one probe gets a hit, then the result should not be a sphere. It should be the cross section of the probe's scanning area that does not overlap any other probes.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Ginnie
Doomheim
#26 - 2016-01-08 15:25:24 UTC
I don't know about any random coding. But, I do know that some sites take me a while to get them to Yellow. I don't know why.

I have all of the scanning/probing skills to at least III and some at IV, but I'll start at 8 AUs, get a single red dot, lower to 4 AUs, still have a single dot, but its still red, then 2 AUs, then 1 AUs and sometimes even have to get to 0.5 AUs before the site turns Yellow. Now what's interesting is every time this has happened, when I go down to 0.25 AUs, the signal becomes 100% and I can warp to it.

So strange...other sites I go from 8 AUs get a red dot, go to 4 AUs get a Yellow dot, then 2 AUs and I can warp to the site...

I'm just curious, whats going on here? Is the quality of the sites causing this?

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#27 - 2016-01-08 15:50:35 UTC
Not the quality but the signature. Some types of wh and other sites have a very small signature. So small that even with maxed out equipment I could never scan it down to a warpable point. Only with very high skills could I scan it down. Now there does seem to be a correlation between the quality of a site and it's signature, but it doesn't seem to be absolute.

My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Ginnie
Doomheim
#28 - 2016-01-08 16:03:47 UTC
Iria Ahrens wrote:
Not the quality but the signature. Some types of wh and other sites have a very small signature. So small that even with maxed out equipment I could never scan it down to a warpable point. Only with very high skills could I scan it down. Now there does seem to be a correlation between the quality of a site and it's signature, but it doesn't seem to be absolute.


Fascinating. Thanks for the reply.

I have also noticed that some WH are more difficult to scan down than others. True be told, when the scanner indicates the signature is a WH, I ignore it and move on to another signature, or if there are none left, I jump to another system. At this point, I'm only interested in combat, data and relic sites. I'm not ready to risk a ship in WH space, even if the payouts can be significant...


I'm just curious, in WH space are all of the data and relic sites guarded? And if so, how do you get around that? Do you bring in a larger ship to knock them out?

I know that's a common practice in Low Sec, scan down a site with a Frigate then switch to a cruiser or BC to knock out any guards.

It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#29 - 2016-01-08 16:11:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Moonlit Raid
Ginnie wrote:

I'm just curious, whats going on here? Is the quality of the sites causing this?

Yes, different site types, difficulties, etc etc have different signature radii.
Violet Hurst wrote:
Afaik the random part has always been there under the name of scan deviation, meaning if you get a sphere for example the site/ship/whatever doesn't even have to be inside it.

I go off the assumption it must be somewhere between the probe and the edge of the probes scan area, when you get multiple hits [sphere, circle, duals] it's more reliable to keep the same scan range and centre probes on the area not covered by more probes.
Gregor Parud wrote:

OP, from how you described (or I understood it) you have it wrong. Non-point targets aren't necessarily on the exact border of probe spheres, it just means that they aren't covered by enough probes.

They have to be, otherwise they wouldn't present the way they do. Again a sphere is one probe picking something up at an exact range, to appear as a cicle it must be two probes picking it up at a known range from each, the only possible area in 3d space that could be is a circle perpendicular to the two probes that have picked it up.
Violet Hurst wrote:

* Even if we assume that there's a surefire way for a probe to distinguish its own signal from that of its seven brethren, e.g. a specific wave length or frequency in the case of a radar probe, what if a second pilot started scanning in the same area? Why would you have your probes synchronize with other people's probes and not e.g. use them to avoid being combat probed?
(Balancing-wise it's clear, I'm just lore-mongering here.)

There are several ways of distinguishing radio signals even if they are on the same frequency.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#30 - 2016-01-08 16:12:31 UTC
Leila Meurtrier wrote:
I will deny your findings. More than that, It seems that probes treated as receiving signal if the point itself even grazes outside a little bit.
On skillless alt flying Slim Jim I got results on high tier wormholes with 1-2 less scans in general, being rather unpresize, with exception of final scan, when I used non-standard pinpoint formation (Without skills, it's the only known way for me to actually get these. Maybe it's changed, but still got the habit).

I find simply shrinking the formation (not using the default resize, but alt, ctrl something like that) that reduces the distance between probes without changing their scan range is enough to 100% a signal you're struggling with.
Iria Ahrens wrote:
Not the quality but the signature. Some types of wh and other sites have a very small signature. So small that even with maxed out equipment I could never scan it down to a warpable point. Only with very high skills could I scan it down. Now there does seem to be a correlation between the quality of a site and it's signature, but it doesn't seem to be absolute.

See above^^^

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.
Tristan Agion
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#31 - 2016-01-08 17:43:06 UTC
While I have only been playing since last August, I have mostly focused on exploration and I've been scanning a lot.

I would confirm (as in "experience", not hard data) that:


  1. the accuracy of the scans have gone down, in particular there seems to be more "jitter" to the results one gets;
  2. the scans have become less systematic in terms of their progression and "signal logic". I used to practically never lose a signal when zooming in, now I occasionally do. Maybe this is just a side effect of the "jitter", maybe it's something else.


I would add to this that whoever is re-doing their colouring and graphical representation just hates people who scan a lot. In particular if you use d-scan and probe scanning together (I narrow down with d-scan to a tight cone rapidly, and then put a small combat probe "ball" on top - looks like an ice cream cone...), you often have double super-bright cyan with completely pointless "bling" effects overlaid on top of each other, and you try to find a tiny dim brownish cross somewhere in that. It is basically an invitation to destroy your eyesight.

So I have learned to avoid using the graphical representation as much as possible. Tip: you can double-click on the target *in the list* rather than in the graphical window. That auto-centres just as if you had double-clicked on the (now often hard to find) little circle in the graphical window. So you just need to train your muscle memory to drag your probes to the exact middle of your graphical window...

The reduced scanning accuracy plus the IMHO terrible colour changes have slowed me down. However, the hotkeys have made me a lot faster. The net change is positive, i.e., I scan quite a bit faster now, all things considered. So maybe this is an intentional nerf. But if so, it's not a good nerf. You don't want to make things less powerful by making them difficult to control and hard on the eyes...
Violet Hurst
Fedaya Recon
#32 - 2016-01-08 19:23:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Violet Hurst
Moonlit Raid wrote:

Violet Hurst wrote:
Afaik the random part has always been there under the name of scan deviation, meaning if you get a sphere for example the site/ship/whatever doesn't even have to be inside it.

I go off the assumption it must be somewhere between the probe and the edge of the probes scan area, when you get multiple hits [sphere, circle, duals] it's more reliable to keep the same scan range and centre probes on the area not covered by more probes.

On the practical side of things: In WH space (lots of sigs) I usually start with a 16 AU pinpoint scan to reduce a group of "balls" (imho unscanned signatures differ from 1-probe-hits in that they represent the complete area they cover, not just the surface) to points. When doing the next scan at 4 AU I try to center on a group of points that's close together, yet when this leads to other points being covered by the outer parts of the pinpoint formation, I drag the offending probes away from those, since I'd rather keep the 16AU points instead of 4AU non-points(partially an old habit, since with the old interface I couldn't center on a non-point result via double-click, but also points are easier to group for me).
Now this doesn't always work though and that's what I mean with scan deviation. The graphical representation(the 16AU point) was definetly not covered by any probe's scan area. The target however must've been, since otherwise I wouldn't end up with a new representation of it (a 4AU point, double-point, ring or sphere). So, actual targets have a fixed location (I usually bookmark my entry hole and slap a 0.25 AU pinpoint on that bookmark right at the start to eliminate the corresponding sig), but the graphical representation (the red/yellow/green stuff) can be maxScanDeviation*currentScanningRangeSetForYourProbes away from it (imo).
So, in conclusion I blame my increased rate of getting undesired results on myself not being able to estimate distances properly under the new UI yet (how far away from the red stuff should I move my probe so it doesn't hit), rather than an undocumented change in actual mechanics. Both are of course possible, it's just that the sooner seems more plausible to me.

Moonlit Raid wrote:

Violet Hurst wrote:

* Even if we assume that there's a surefire way for a probe to distinguish its own signal from that of its seven brethren, e.g. a specific wave length or frequency in the case of a radar probe, what if a second pilot started scanning in the same area? Why would you have your probes synchronize with other people's probes and not e.g. use them to avoid being combat probed?
(Balancing-wise it's clear, I'm just lore-mongering here.)

There are several ways of distinguishing radio signals even if they are on the same frequency.


Yeah, Solecist Project already listed a couple of those. I could imagine things in space being able to distort any characteristics one's signal has though(it's space after all), removing the "surefire" from that method, especially in the case of someone wanting to disrupt the signal. Hell, a friend of mine even "hacked" into a cloth store's radio by knowing the station's frequency and holding his bluetooth phone close to the radio.


PS: Sorry for the wall of text, the TL;DR of the first part is its last paragraph.



EDIT: Come to think of it "...slap a 0.25 AU pinpoint on that bookmark" might actually be silly. Shouldn't there be something with the sig's name on it near the hole? Gotta test this.

EDIT2: Seems I'm not as silly as I thought, the sig-sign only appears after you've already scanned the thing down.
Iria Ahrens
Space Perverts and Forum Pirates
#33 - 2016-01-08 20:55:33 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Leila Meurtrier wrote:
I will deny your findings. More than that, It seems that probes treated as receiving signal if the point itself even grazes outside a little bit.
On skillless alt flying Slim Jim I got results on high tier wormholes with 1-2 less scans in general, being rather unpresize, with exception of final scan, when I used non-standard pinpoint formation (Without skills, it's the only known way for me to actually get these. Maybe it's changed, but still got the habit).

I find simply shrinking the formation (not using the default resize, but alt, ctrl something like that) that reduces the distance between probes without changing their scan range is enough to 100% a signal you're struggling with.
Iria Ahrens wrote:
Not the quality but the signature. Some types of wh and other sites have a very small signature. So small that even with maxed out equipment I could never scan it down to a warpable point. Only with very high skills could I scan it down. Now there does seem to be a correlation between the quality of a site and it's signature, but it doesn't seem to be absolute.

See above^^^


See above? What is this supposed to mean? Yes, I know how to shrink a formation. But until you get your skills high enough AND a ship with bonuses, some sites cannot be scanned down no matter how tight your formation. All you are saying is that your skils are high enough now that such is not a problem, but there are people reading this who are still working on their skills or working from unbonused ships.


My choice of pronouns is based on your avatar. Even if I know what is behind the avatar.
Leila Meurtrier
Why Am I Not Surprised
#34 - 2016-01-08 23:27:47 UTC
Iria Ahrens wrote:

See above? What is this supposed to mean? Yes, I know how to shrink a formation. But until you get your skills high enough AND a ship with bonuses, some sites cannot be scanned down no matter how tight your formation. All you are saying is that your skils are high enough now that such is not a problem, but there are people reading this who are still working on their skills or working from unbonused ships.

That "no matter how hard" part seems a little stretched. While some signatures do posess 1/80 size, it seems that shrinking actually allows you to get a little more bang up to the point when 70ish is enough to scan 1/80.
Soltys
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#35 - 2016-01-09 01:48:34 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Now though, using my fully skilled buzzard with upgrades I seem to get a lot more instances of spheres, circles, or duals. I say seem because I can't be sure. I am sure however that these signatures no longer conform to what I think is logically acceptable, spheres should be a signature in a probe scan area not covered by any other probe [and the next scan of that sphere after centering probes on it should give me an excellent scan of the signature], circles should be on the exact border of two probe scan areas, and duals should be on the exact border of 3 scan probes.


Keep in mind what you see on the screen is after shifting the result - circles (2p), 2 points (3p), 1 point (4p+) - in random direction up to maximum effective scan deviation. But - the orientation and radius/distance (circle, 2 points) is always correct.

Jita Flipping Inc.: Kovl & Kuvl
Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#36 - 2016-01-09 07:58:19 UTC
Iria Ahrens wrote:
But until you get your skills high enough AND a ship with bonuses, some sites cannot be scanned down no matter how tight your formation.


I don't dispute that some sigs can't be scanned due to skills, I'm saying that the default pinpoint formation will sometimes not let you get 100% on a blip but simply reducing the distance between the probes when you're at minimum scan range around the blip can get you a stronger result.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.
Grauth Thorner
Vicious Trading Company
#37 - 2016-01-09 09:56:50 UTC
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Iria Ahrens wrote:
But until you get your skills high enough AND a ship with bonuses, some sites cannot be scanned down no matter how tight your formation.


I don't dispute that some sigs can't be scanned due to skills, I'm saying that the default pinpoint formation will sometimes not let you get 100% on a blip but simply reducing the distance between the probes when you're at minimum scan range around the blip can get you a stronger result.

Indeed, if the scanrange of your probes is set to .25AU and you still need a couple % to reach 100%, changing the distance between the probes can help (it's actually done with shift btw xD).

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Moonlit Raid
Doomheim
#38 - 2016-01-09 10:28:52 UTC
Grauth Thorner wrote:
Moonlit Raid wrote:
Iria Ahrens wrote:
But until you get your skills high enough AND a ship with bonuses, some sites cannot be scanned down no matter how tight your formation.


I don't dispute that some sigs can't be scanned due to skills, I'm saying that the default pinpoint formation will sometimes not let you get 100% on a blip but simply reducing the distance between the probes when you're at minimum scan range around the blip can get you a stronger result.

Indeed, if the scanrange of your probes is set to .25AU and you still need a couple % to reach 100%, changing the distance between the probes can help (it's actually done with shift btw xD).

I couldn't remember, it's a muscle memory rather than which button to push.

If brute force isn't working, you're just not using enough.

Please Note: Any advice given comes with the caveat that nothing will be suitable for every situation.
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