EVE General Discussion

I've been signature and combat probe scanning ever since you had to launch and move each probe individually and the solar system background actually looked cool. Then they changed the backdrop to blue and black, then added grouping of probes, then set it to launch all probes at once, then allowed resizing of formations, then set it up to automatically resize both the probe range and formation together. Up to now I have always thought what I'm looking at has made logical sense, I know quite a bit about GPS, so the only advice I needed to use probes initially was what ship to use. Spherical signatures, circular signatures, and dual signatures would always appear in isolated probes, on the borders of two probes, on the borders of 3 probes respectively, as you would expect.

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. These conditions are no longer true.

Can we return to logic please CCP and remove whatever pseudo-random code has been added to my probe scanning formula?

Huh?

Edit: I totally had to google that. I'm saying it's become more random with no indications in the patch notes; or dev blogs to indicate they intended on making scanning more difficult.

It's possible that the way you configured your probes manually was less uniform before, so there were fewer zones only covered by one probe. The current default probe layout might be sub-optimal based on your scanning procedure.

I think you can save a layout though, so you might just save your favorite layout and go back to using that. But no, I still get spheres here and there, but not with greater frequency than before, less actually.

Dev blog does say that the red sites in the scanner ring are actually very inaccurate, so it could be that if you use these as a starting point, you are not fully accounting for their offset.

What is random about this?

It's triangulation. The only random part are the coordinates,
which has no influence on what she is talking about.

Are you sure about that? It seems consistent to me as of Tuesday night.

Try testing with just two or three probes, clearing the signature and see what you get. Should be as you describe.

It's something I do very frequently, I even noticed the annoying short stint where the probes would capture your mouse making it impossible to move the formation without offsetting the centre probe.

You mean a point?

Not triangulation, using 3 (tri) gives you 2 possible points. You need a minimum of 4.



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.

0-1 probe covering target = sphere
2 probes covering target = circle
3 probes covering target = 2 single points with same ID
4 probes covering target = single point

Trilateration. I've looked it up...

It's the base for distance field based rendering?
I have no real clue of math beyond few specifics. :P

Thanks, I guess you're right! :D

It's my fault. You're indeed right.
The point I was talking about is the sphere you mention.

I'll take a guess.


In a single probe's sphere, you only get an estimated distance field to the target.
A single probe only gets a one dimensional response, which can be displayed as distance field.

The red sphere.


With two probes, you get two distance fields ...
... and what you see is where the spheres overlap relative to the target.


Using three probes, you get an echo ... and I guess the reason for that has to do with the sign?

I am not good at this, but I see no reason why three probes shouldn't work, if set up properly.
The scanning strength might be an issue; I don't know. :p


I don't doubt OPs claim that there is a noticable pattern ...
... though she's the only one noticing it seems, so more data is needed.


Personally, I prefer my own custom formation ...


Distance fields can be used to render implicit surfaces.
Never thought of it this way, tbh.


Thanks, I've learned something I guess! :D