The Freighter Scanner Makes Mistakes

[Rexxer]

In a much earlier post, I noted the Discoveries log can sometimes be very different to what the galactic simulation itself reports directly. Here are two examples that are opposite mistakes: in one, the Discovery log (also now known as the Freighter Scanner Log) identifies a planet as rainy, but when landing on it, the planet itself identifies itself as a Paradise planet. In the other example, the reverse happens: The scanned discovery lists a paradise planet with mellow (clear) weather, but the planet itself identifies itself as "Rainy" with extreme "Blistering Floods".
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2716640373
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2847077369
The common denominator of all these scanner errors seems to be these are paradise planets in non-yellow star systems, one being cadmium, the other indium. Both planets are also fairly close to the center of their galaxy. So I am guessing some boundary conditions mess up the planet from being consistently identified by two different algorithms that are supposed to arrive at the same result. The Discovery algorithm is sometimes at odds with the simulation algorithm of the cosmos. They apparently are not one and the same.

Anyone notice these errors as well?

[Rexxer]

I just noticed in the first example I didn't have a comparison with the planet page of the system Discovery log entry. As with the more recent error found while using the freighter scanner, this past error also misidentified the actual weather of the planet. The actual weather is, and is reported as, the clear weather version of "Echoes of Acid", while the mistakenly reported weather in Discoveries is the non-clear weather identifier, "Usually Mild"
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2847083746
(Note: I have since renamed the planet from "Iogonn II" to something more descriptive, "Thorettac Center". The system name was also changed and shortened.)

[Mr. Bufferlow]

In my home system that I discovered six years ago, a lot of the data is wacky. There are planets in my discovery tab that were removed from the game. Most of the planets still show critters I discovered that were axed out of the game with Origins.

My guess is it is something like that. I do know Discovery Services has been especially weird since Endurance. The Expedition allowed me to first discover and rename systems and planets that HG had set up for the Expedition. It was back to normal the next day but I think it let me keep all the nanites.

[remid0d0s0]

The "nice" planet that you go to after you leave your starting planet is sort of an "asterisk" planet that no one else can see (as far as I know). It's put there just for you so that you have a ... nice planet to fly to and start having non-struggling fun, but it's just for you.

Don't know if this is relevant.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by remid0d0s0:

The "nice" planet that you go to after you leave your starting planet is sort of an "asterisk" planet that no one else can see (as far as I know). It's put there just for you so that you have a ... nice planet to fly to and start having non-struggling fun, but it's just for you.

Don't know if this is relevant.

I noticed something like that many years ago, when the starter quest begins, it seems to purposefully alter the weather on the starting planet to clear, but later returns the ordinary weather to the planet after a certain point, I think after warping away or maybe when the Anomaly drops.

For specific events, clearly the game can alter weather, but I think it still reports the name of the weather the same. Another example of this is the scripted "storm" that always drops when you have to go to an outpost to get the blueprints for the hermetic seal to fix your ship.

The anomalous discoveries I listed in the post are permanent differences between the discovery database and planets self-representation, the universe's "reality". Perhaps during the diversification of planets drive over the last ten updates, they utilized the ability to alter the weather for special events create an indefinite "event" to procedurally change some planets into others, but that doesn't really explain the difference between the Discovery database vs. and the universe's reality unless they are separate algorithms that are supposed to converge.

[Cythal]

I have noticed this as well.

The discovery page dont always correctly report a planet having activated [Insert Metal here]. Instead it says it has just the normal metal.

But when you land you notice it is actually an activated version of the metal.

Not relevant but, I normally tend to explore all planets. Now with the freighter scanner, if I use it and discover all planets, I find it hard to keep track of which planet I have not landed on and explored.

Wish they add a parameter like in Elite Dangerous that shows who discovered it, Who landed on it first, then in addition relating to NMS who fully scanned it of fauna, minerals and flora. The later being challenging to get since it is so difficult to completely scan minerals and flora. Will probably disrupt the database or might not be codable at this late stage.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Mr. Bufferlow:

In my home system that I discovered six years ago, a lot of the data is wacky. There are planets in my discovery tab that were removed from the game. Most of the planets still show critters I discovered that were axed out of the game with Origins.

My guess is it is something like that. I do know Discovery Services has been especially weird since Endurance. The Expedition allowed me to first discover and rename systems and planets that HG had set up for the Expedition. It was back to normal the next day but I think it let me keep all the nanites.

That might explain how some *known* or visited areas change deferentially from their old records, as some sort of randomly updated database that reports old data even though the current universe was operating on new rules.

However, it wouldn't make sense about differences in newly discovered systems/planets. If previously saved local system/planet data is used preferentially in Discoveries vs direct reporting, that would explain much. But with newly discovered areas, there would be no local store of info to supersede direct information from the universe.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Cythal:

I have noticed this as well.

The discovery page dont always correctly report a planet having activated [Insert Metal here]. Instead it says it has just the normal metal.

But when you land you notice it is actually an activated version of the metal.

Not relevant but, I normally tend to explore all planets. Now with the freighter scanner, if I use it and discover all planets, I find it hard to keep track of which planet I have not landed on and explored.

Wish they add a parameter like in Elite Dangerous that shows who discovered it, Who landed on it first, then in addition relating to NMS who fully scanned it of fauna, minerals and flora. The later being challenging to get since it is so difficult to completely scan minerals and flora. Will probably disrupt the database or might not be codable at this late stage.

When I was scanning directly, (in my search for clear weather planets, pre-Polestar), that discrepancy bugged me a lot, too, as the Discovery page for the system itself would always "simplify" the system metal info to the base metal on the system page, but when scanned from space, it may then distinguish some planets as the base metal and others activated.

That is an important distinction since activated metal planets will always have storms. Always.

You can see that idiosyncrasy clearly in example 2. On the system page it cited Indium for that planet, but on the planet itself, from space and after landing, it identified activated Indium.

[Rexxer]

CONCLUSION:
(1) Why is this important now? Before Polestar, you always had to scan while in space from your starship....and that was mostly 100% accurate. What you scan from your starship in space is what you see on the ground. Now, the freighter's planetary scanner offers a partially false hope.... false because you occasionally get 100% incorrect reporting.
(2) Space Scans from your Starship are mostly accurate. Sometimes the starship scans for some reason cannot distinguish between normal weather and extreme weather.
(3) Scans from the "Discoveries" planetary scanner in your Freighter, are frequently not accurate.
(4) the most frequent error is the metal scan, as the Discovery scan usually does not identify activated metal in the system page, but it often will report it accurately in the planet page.
(5) weather and sentinel info in a Discovery scan is also occasionally in conflict with reality
(6) even entire planetary identification can be in error in Discovery scans, with some non-Paradise planets being identified as Paradise, while some actual Paradise planets are just seen as random lush planets. I have never seen the Freighter scanner err in the broader TYPE of planet: in other words Paradise planets are a subtype of LUSH planets, so the scanner will minimally identify a lush planet, if not its subtype.
(7) Planet type and weather errors seem to most common in non-yellow star systems, Cadmium, Emeril, and Indium

This is the important take away message: if you are looking for Paradise planets, you may miss some if you rely entirely on the Discovery planetary scanner.

When you see a lush planet in the scanner, you need to go outside the freighter to double check to make sure it is not a Paradise planet... if you are looking for such.

[SaD-82]

To be fair, since Origins (when planet generation was changed and thus the existing concept was wiped) this always was the case:
Planets showing different information in space and/or discovery logs while being on the planet showed the actual and correct status. Both in regards to weather and sentinels.
And since Endurance I don't see any difference in this behaviour, no matter if a scan is done by space ship or by freighter. Whole systems can be correct and then you come across a planet/some planets in another system and the scan is inaccurate.

The only time when scans were accurate all the time was the time before the Origins update two years ago.

If you see a difference between freighter and space ship it just can be coincidence or confirmation bias. For me it's as it was before Endurance and after Origins.

[Krash Megiddo]

I think this problem has always existed on the discoveries page. I noticed the same discrepancies you mention now in the data then. Clearly the freighter scanner is just an automation of the same old function.

Edit: Ninja'd by SaD. If he says this started with Origins then there you go.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by SaD-82:

To be fair, since Origins (when planet generation was changed and thus the existing concept was wiped) this always was the case:
Planets showing different information in space and/or discovery logs while being on the planet showed the actual and correct status. Both in regards to weather and sentinels.
And since Endurance I don't see any difference in this behaviour, no matter if a scan is done by space ship or by freighter. Whole systems can be correct and then you come across a planet/some planets in another system and the scan is inaccurate.

The only time when scans were accurate all the time was the time before the Origins update two years ago.

If you see a difference between freighter and space ship it just can be coincidence or confirmation bias. For me it's as it was before Endurance and after Origins.

I agree, but the discrepancy now is vastly more important since the advent of the planetary scanner for freighters, since that has rapidly become the MAIN way people explore systems now. It's important to point out this new way is more flawed since it relies on the buggy Discovery system.

Flying around in a Starship to scan the planets from space is more accurate since you immediately know the precise "activated or not" status (and hence first weather tell), as well as the real planetary name of the planet. But it takes a lot longer. Time vs accuracy. There is a choice to be made.

[Rexxer]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

I think this problem has always existed on the discoveries page. I noticed the same discrepancies you mention now in the data then. Clearly the freighter scanner is just an automation of the same old function.

Edit: Ninja'd by SaD. If he says this started with Origins then there you go.

When the flaw originated was not the point of the post. In fact the first example posted was from last year, the second from just yesterday. It's more about building a new cool function everyone uses around a old buggy system.