Scanner Room: what does it do really?
Osydius
France Join Date: 2015-09-19 Member: 208031Members
France Join Date: 2015-09-19 Member: 208031Members
I'm not sure I fully understand the concept of the scanner room. I thought, a long time ago, that it was a map room which would allow you, after some time, to make a map of the whole world, and maybe then load it up on your PDA so you always know where you are (so basically like any map in any game).
But based on what I've read in the forums, it seems I was wrong and that it's actual purpose is too scan a fraction of the terrain, restricted to a limited space around the scanner room itself, in order to help the player locate ressources. Is that accurate?
If that is accurate, then I don't see the point of this room because unless they intend on making the ressources way more difficult to find in the near future, it's very easy to find ressources as it is without any help whatsoever.
Plus if it has small range, does it mean we have to build one scanner room per biome? Several per Biome? And once it has located the ressources, do they appear on your HUD or PDA, or do you have to remember where they are and then go out and find them? Even the idea of small remote cameras, which is very cool, seems weird with that concept of scanner room because you would normally use them for exploration, and it doesn't go well with the idea of a fixed point with limited range... (cameras in the cyclops making those irrelevant for exploration purposes btw).
It all feels a bit odd to me but maybe that because I don't understand it correctly and so I'm looking to get some info from someone who has tried it a bit.
Thanks, Osy
But based on what I've read in the forums, it seems I was wrong and that it's actual purpose is too scan a fraction of the terrain, restricted to a limited space around the scanner room itself, in order to help the player locate ressources. Is that accurate?
If that is accurate, then I don't see the point of this room because unless they intend on making the ressources way more difficult to find in the near future, it's very easy to find ressources as it is without any help whatsoever.
Plus if it has small range, does it mean we have to build one scanner room per biome? Several per Biome? And once it has located the ressources, do they appear on your HUD or PDA, or do you have to remember where they are and then go out and find them? Even the idea of small remote cameras, which is very cool, seems weird with that concept of scanner room because you would normally use them for exploration, and it doesn't go well with the idea of a fixed point with limited range... (cameras in the cyclops making those irrelevant for exploration purposes btw).
It all feels a bit odd to me but maybe that because I don't understand it correctly and so I'm looking to get some info from someone who has tried it a bit.
Thanks, Osy
Comments
What I would maybe suggest is making it so camera drones also scan the area around them, and you can then use camera drones stationed throughout the world to scan multiple areas.
Now it definitely is no global map scanner. But the game functions of a zoomable holomap and future possible upgrades would make it easy for the devs to include to display a global map like you mentioned with the scanner room holomap.
The functions we have right now:
Now the more important: Lately some deep resources placement has changed and mercury went sub surface. This means that more is to come and lots of resources now get much more harder or even impossible to find without scanning. It also allows deep ore mining - scan the lava biome for uraninite crystals for the nuclear reactor, use the exosuit to go there and drill out with the exosuit drill arm. Other resources could simply be hidden in tiny crevices and not well seen by swimming by, so you'd need to scan too. Or hidden inside shelllike objects and you never know what's inside until you scan.
Well, @zetachron is right. He must be, that would make scanner room very useful, especially in the late game phase. When I think about it, all will make sense rather later than sooner - all unfinished or not yet incorporated elements have to be present. This is too soon to judge, although I understand the worries as I am worried (little bit) myself.
- allow type and range specific upgrades that focus on special scans, limited to use only one scan type at a time and each with its own recipe
- force the scanner to only scan what you have discovered in your PDA with hand scanning so far
- cams should get attacked by most creatures as you can easily repair them anyway
and some of the different scanning modules:- standart scanner: 1min, 200m range, only metals
- spectral scanner: 5min, 500m range, only scans non organic molecules
- resonance scanner: 1h, 300m range, scans all non moving targets
- magnetic scanner: 10sec, 1000m range, only scans magnetic matter
- radiation scanner: 10sec, 1000m range, only scans radiation sources
- neurowave scanner: 1sec/realtime, 200m range, scans neuron impulses of creatures
- biomass scanner: 10sec, 600m range, scans for big masses of organic molecules (like leviathans)
- seismic scanner: 1day, biome size, scans surface structures and big objects
- anomaly scanner: 1min, 1000m range, detects warpers gates or other strange anomalies
so you have to choose what you want to aim at, each with advantages and disadvantages in speed, range and targetingand some additional upgrades for the rest of the 3 upgrade slots:
- integrity monitor: locate all breaches, display flood and integrity status, display base modules on holomap
- system controller: display machine types and allow to turn them on/off at the holomap
- system alarm: set alarm for a number of positive scans currently targeted
- scanner com link: allow other stations or the cyclops to access scanner room functions or link all maps for a global holomap
If each scan module had its own recipe than you would be forced to explore to get better scans to find more things when exploring. A cycle to enhance exploration to get much deeper.If it works like that that means I don't build a scanner room at my base, extend it's range and remote control scanner cameras around the world. There is no reason to do that, it's a waste of time and resources.
Instead you ONLY build it a small single purpose disposable base right at the site where there are hidden resources. You barely pilot the cameras any significant distance at all. You mine all you ever need of resource X. You dismantle the base and never build it again unless you need more of resources X or hit a second such distinct "hidden" resource in another biome.
Why on earth would you instead invest in range upgrades, extended drone piloting times, and a significant commute in between to actually get there to do the mining?
If the holomap could be displayed in the cyclops piloting HUD, a scanner room could act as a sub controller if placed in a difficult to navigate area, allowing to guide the cyclops. The cyclops would approach a scanner room area and when in range a com signal would appear and the pilot could then open a holomap, where he sees the rocks and the cyclops.
The other functions that would make sense to be inside a base and not the cyclops would be the base system holomap (see suggestions above) or a large/global map or the scanning of creatures in case of them attacking the base.
Also, it's oddly selective in what resources it will scan for.
Limestone or sandstone deposits for instance are not resources so, not seemingly on the list? Or also incomplete.
This thing is not looking like a labor saving convenience. I'm still not sure what it's for that it wouldn't be hands down better to do by just going somewhere in person with a sea moth (or less).
Another potential use would be if there were naturally radioactive areas or some condition in which you wouldn't want to spend much time poking around in-person.
If they have a hugely long-range option, they should make it so you can drop those signals from the supply chests into the module access. And have an autopilot return-to-base function
Having limited range scanners, and possibly bulky ores which can only be conveniently refined locally would be great - it would provide a real motivation to build bases in more places!
I've just built the scanner room , it only seems to give you the option to scan things which are in range which I suppose makes sense , one problem tho , I built it on my base in the grassy plateaus and it gave me the option to search for fragments , there was only battery charger fragments and even after I picked them up it still showed a beacon for that location which is annoying , also stalkers love to steal the drones
Need resources > Scanner room can find resources > Need resources to build scanner room > Need a way to find more...wait.
Hell, with the new range the scanner room can almost entirely cover a full biome. This thread has started with the old broken scanner room that no longer exists. There might still be lots of wishes for it, but its main failure is now gone.
The Devs will probably buff it soon enough.
Couldn't disagree with this more. The scanner room is useless, it really does not serve a purpose that can't easily be achieved by looking in person. The camera drones have a effective radius of just 300m. After that the picture gets worse until, at 500m, you lose picture and control of drone. With a sea glide, you can cover 500m vary quickly, and avoid danger, even more so in a seamoth.
I build one because it looks nice and it is fun playing with the drones, but their range really needs to be dramatically increased, or be allowed to use the Cyclops as a base to work from.
I mainly was refering to the working scanner range and not additionally the cam range. I tested the old and new scanner rooms quite a while. The old scanner room was unusable because the resource scanning of max 100m would only cover a range you could easily scan yourself quicker than building a powered scanner room. The new range lets you scan almost a full biome when placed at the biome center, so with a dozen bases with scanner rooms you could cover most of the important map parts. That is why I say that its useful for the first time.
I don't say it's end of all wishes or even enough. Just enough for 1.0 release this summer. Now with the roadmap shifting release to winter due to polishing, the scanner room could be reworked again while polishing from summer to winter.
As you said, the cam range is still unsatisfying with a max 350-400m practical usability and should be expanded to a usability range of about 500-600m and thus covering about as much as with resource scanning.
Another "wish" (but not necessarily a must before 1.0) would be to make scanning and mobile cams like the scanner room has, available for the Cyclops. The advantages are very clear:
So my main point is that while I find it usable for the first time, I don't mean that the scanner room no longer needs work at all. It might be just enough to use it at all. As someone who mainly uses its cams, it must be still useless, as the cam ranges never changed. They've always been from 300-500m with making them quite useless beyond 400m. The greasy vision is also getting too bad too quickly, so you can't enjoy it much after 300m.