Non of these sigs in the first picture are yet in any way impacted by probe scans. This is the view that you get after entering a system, indicated by the 0.0% scan progress in the list.
These two sigs are both Tier 1 sigs. One sig has the appropriate sphere size, the small sphere on the left side. The other one has a sphere size that is that of a Tier 3 or 4 signature. This goes in the opposite direction, too: Tier 5 sigs like Superior Sleeper Caches use the same Tier 4 sig sphere, even though it should be bigger.
Back then when Fozzie introduced this new scan signature system at a Fanfest, he boasted about how sigs would now show in different sphere sizes to indicate their tier at a glance.
But since then, only a handful of signatures actually use this feature, namely some legacy combat sites. Everything else, from legacy exploration sites to combat sites to new SHub garbage to Ghost Sites and Sleeper Caches uses the same huge Tier 4 Sig sphere.
This is so annoying because we were promised better but CCP, yet again, did not deliver on the promises, or does not use the promised and implemented systems correctly. Since the Independence Tier 1 site can have a small sphere, the Sparking Transmitter Tier 1 site should also have this same small sphere. Everything else is unintuitive, creates cognitive overload, is not straightforward and not easy to use.
The sphere is the “uncertainty” of the signal. Basically the signature is somewhere within that sphere plus/minus some deviation. And the sphere is larger (aka more uncertainty) if your probes were farther away during the scan, the sphere is smaller if your probes were closer to the source and got a slightly stronger signal.
When you get a circle, the signature is somewhere on that circle, plus/minus some deviation.
When you get a line between two possible points, the signature is on the far end point. Plus minus some deviation.
When you get a single point, it is on that point, plus/minus some deviation.
The sphere shows the sig strength and all Tier 1 sigs have roughly the same sig strength. That is evidenced by the fact that an 8 AU probe configuration pushed both shown sigs to 30%+ progress and revealed the tier level.
It is a big deal because I could ignore certain sigs outright from scanning just by checking the sphere size. It would also make it clear at a glance what kind of sigs are on the map without the need to scan first. This was the intended purpose of these different sphere sizes.
Exactly. But in the above first screenshot, none of the signatures were in any way scanned. The small sphere of the Independence on the left side is how it shows in the map by default, and this makes sense because Tier 1 sigs have a very low uncertainty factor
hmm. I tried in our wormhole and the distance to the signature definitely seems to play a role.
We have 2 Signatures, which I have both scanned with an Alt. So I know that PDV is a wormhole with a Scan Difficulty of II, and WZH is a Gas Site with a Scan Difficulty of I.
On the other account wich has not scanned the system, WZH (Tier I) still has the larger sphere (aka more uncertainty) and the PDV (Tier II) signature has the smaller sphere.
But the point where I entered the system is also farther away from WTZ than it is from PDV. Means: my initial impression (even without probes) from the system is that the PDV sig still gave a “stronger signal” because it was closer.
I highly doubt that the distance to an unscanned signature has any impact on the uncertainty or strength. As shown in the above screenshot, I am very close to the big sphere of the Tier 1 Data Site but very far away from the small sphere of the Tier 1 Independence. This is how I entered the system. If your distance impact was a thing, the Independence should have a bigger sphere and the closer signatures should have a smaller sphere.
Same story. Only this time I logged off and back in close to the Independence. The sphere is still smaller, while the Data Site sphere is still the same big size.
This is after 1 8 AU scan. Obviously, CAJ is a difficult, higher Tier site, while HJC is a scrub level site because it’S already at 23 % after this long range scan.
Another comparison with the same sigs above plus a newly spawned sig MRI, which is a Tier 4 Crystal Quarry:
This is not about scanned sigs. It is about the UNSCANNED sig spheres that you see when you enter a system or log in or otherwise have a new sig spawn on you. This has nothing to do with probes in space or in range or scanning skills.
This post is about the inconsistency between signature strength visualization between tiers before a scan. As shown, a Tier 1 combat site has this small sphere while a Tier 1 Data Site does not, even though both have or should have the same sig strength.
I do. But the system supports a better, clearer visualization of the sig strength BEFORE you start a scan. If this was applied to all signatures as intended, it would make it much clearer to players what kind of signature you can expect to see in a system. As it stands, with all but a handful of signatures using this system, there is no way to tell this without probing.
Does it make sense to you to employ a system that is already present, already in the game, already used and which makes an activity easier to read and do, to all signatures in space?
It’s not inconsistent for the Independence signature. The Independence ALWAYS has this small sphere. Iirc [Pirate Faction] Base also uses this small signature (but I can’t find one in my vicinity at the moment to check this).
Obviously, the easiest fix would be to just make the Independence pre scan sphere just as big as all the other spheres, right? Make it a poor experience for all players. However, wouldn’t it make more sense to visualize the sig strength like this with the sphere sizes?
Hm, yeah, I would find that a nice addition to the game.
Especially new players could immediately sort out sigs that they either can’t scan fully because they lack skills/equipment. Or when entering a system with 20 signatures but you only need to find the highsec exit, you’d learn which “tier” of sig that is you are looking for and immediately ignore all others. Could be some QoL for those willing to learn the tiers of the sigs they encounter.
well, if a system has really a LOT of signatures, I sometimes just do a 64AU scan right in the center, that will reduce basically all of them to a point and you can tell by the signal strength which ones are the high tiers and which ones are the low tiers.
In the majority of cases, you don’t see the difference because all sigs have the same sphere size, as shown in the screenshot. You only really see (and learn to appreciate imo) the different sphere sizes if one of these outliers is on your map.
That means you spend at least 10 seconds scanning and X seconds (sending probes to the system center can take quite some time depending on the system radius) to move the probes for the initial scan, and then another X seconds to get them to the first circles. Sounds cumbersome to me. Workable, sure, how lots of people most likely do it, clearly, but not exactly convenient.
I don’t even do that. Instead, on outlying planets, I just send probes to 4 AU radius because 95% of all sigs are within 4 AU of a planet. The denser orbits closer to the sun I sum up like you with an 8 AU scan. That’s also not really the issue for me.
However, when I am looking for very specific sigs, it would be nice if I could just ignore all sigs that do not fit my criteria right away without the need to probe. For instance, if I am only looking for Tier 4 sigs, I could just ignore all the things that have smaller spheres. I would still send out probes like normal but while they scan, I could already dehighlight spheres that are too small to be Tier 4s. If that makes sense.
Bubbles and pin-pointed signature do not match more often than not. This picture is before any scans. The bubble clearly ends well before the outer-most planet’s orbit.
It is actually outside the original sphere’s volume. That’s quite frustrating especially with higher tier signatures like sleeper caches, which suddenly spawn in locations where they shouldn’t be according to the original sphere.
