The size of the spheres doesn’t matter when you actually know how the signatures spawning mechanics actually works. With that knowledge you likely never need to expand your probes range above 4 AU.
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Then what is the point of the sphere? I know that the pinpoint can move back into the sphere potentially but if the sphere is supposed to represent the area where the sig should spawn, it should not move outside this volume. That’s unintuitive, cognitive overload reducing and not straightforward (as CCP likes to have things),
A rough indicator.
It can. The keyword here is ‘deviation’.
Like when you got a point, the signature is not exactly on thet point.
If you have a sphere, the signature can be slightly outside because the sphere is only a first estimation with pretty low signal strength and thus high uncertainty.
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I get the concept of deviation but sphere is supposed to tell you where this deviation is going to take place. Everything else defeats the purpose of the sphere.
As far as I know the sphere means the object is somewhere on that sphere, with very low accuracy so it could be slighly inside but also slightly outside the sphere.
It’s the least accurate result when only a single probe hits and has a vague idea of the range to the signature:
Probe 5 says the signature is likely within 2-3 AU, probes 1-4 and 6-8 had no hit, so a sphere is drawn at 2.5 AU around probe 5.
The sphere is the 3D version of the 2 probe hit the circle (signature is somewhere on the circle, but not exactly on it either), the three probe hit the line (signature is somewhere near either end, but not necessarily exactly on it) or the four probe hit the dot (signature is somewhere near the dot, but not exactly on it).
None of the other results guarantee that the signature is exactly on the line/dot/circle, just that it’s near.
Why would the sphere surface be different?
It’s not on the sphere. The actual sig is supposed to be IN the sphere. And that’s where the deviation steps should be as well.
When a sig goes to the Ring step, the next step is on either side of the ring inside the ring.
Look at the above picture again. All 8 probes got it dead center in the 4 AU range. This is NOT a vague guess from a probe.
Is it inside the ring though?
If we look at the dot result, is the signature exactly on the dot?
It is not, it is somewhere near the dot and how near it is depends on the deviation strength of your scan.
After all, if it was exactly on or ‘within’ the dot you should be able to zoom in from a 64 AU scan straight to 0.5 AU on the dot if it were exactly on the dot, which it isn’t.
As explorer you too should know there is some inaccuracy in the scan results before you hit 100% and that this inaccuracy scales with the deviation of your scanner.
Likewise the result isn’t exactly on either end of the line result but near it, with your deviation bonus making it more accurate.
Likewise the result isn’t exactly on the circle result but near the line of the circle: on the sides, outside or inside that circle line with your deviation bonus making it more accurate and closer to the circle.
Likewise the result isn’t exactly on the surface of the sphere result either. It is near the surface of the sphere: outside or inside that sphere with your deviation bonus making it more accurate and closer to the surface of the sphere.
No, you are under the impression that the signatures exact location should be inside the sphere. But that is not the case.
When you get a line, the signature is NOT “somewhere on that line”, but at *one of the endpoints (more specifically: at the endpoint that is farther away from your probes). PLUS some deviation. So it can very well be a bit “behind the end” of the line.
When you get a circle, the signature is NOT “somewhere in the circle”, but ON the circle line itself (more specifically: on the quarter of the circle line that is farthest away from your probes). PLUS some deviation. So it can very well be a bit “outside the circle”.
And when you get sphere, the signature is NOT “somewhere in the sphere” but ON the sphere’s surface - PLUS deviation. And since a sphere is the lowest quality of signal, the deviation is quite big, so it can very well be outside that sphere.
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Exactly! i usually do an 8AU scan just because to me it seems to reduce deviation on subsequent scans, but I never go above 8 AU. Ever. And I use 4 probes! I don’t need more than that either. It amazes me how much extra work and effort guys put into scanning when it’s completely unnecessary.
The endresult is not supposed to be on or near the surface of the sphere but inside, which it is. However, if the deviations appear outside this sphere, this is unintuitive. This goes for the ring as well and the ring is very accurate in that regard. The next scan always puts the more accurate result somewhere on either side but inside the ring’s circumference. This is a stark contrast to what sigs do with the sphere before and after a first scan.
As said, this is a 4AU scan (and I use Virtues), so the deviation should not be this considerable.
And how considerable was this deviation?
Where was the site in the end?
You’ve only shown two pictures and both of them were inaccurate (non-100%) results.
The final spot might just as well have been much closer to the surface of the initial sphere than the second picture suggests.
It was naturally inside the sphere, well inside the planet’s radius and not on the outside like after this first 4 AU scan.
Everything as expected. Just that you would have centered the probes on the wrong area because the initial scan to was outside the sphere instead of inside.
This erratic behavior does not concern me too much as I know how signatures behave around celestials. But since CCP is all about straightforward and easy to use UI, cognitive overload reducing experiences, it would be weird for newbs to see sigs spawn outside the sphere that indicates to them where they should look for the sigs.
Do we talk about the same “sphere” here? I talk about “scanning results”.
I have made you 3 screenshots, right after logging in, so no pre-scans in the system:
This picture is UNSCANNED, one of my corpmates has already scanned and boomarked a gas site and as you can see, the bookmark is almost exactly on the center of that unscanned sphere.
Then I scanned with probes, intentionally just barely scratching the bookmark, so I get a sphere as result. And as you can clearly see, sphere is drawn in a way that the bookmark is almost exactly ON THE SURFACE of that “result sphere”, on the far side from my probes location.
Now I scanned the bookmark just to make sure it’s not a coincidence and the site is still there. And the result is exactly where it should be.
So, for me the system is pretty clear:
- unscanned: Signature is somewhere within the sphere volume, very high deviation
- scanned: sphere result - Signature is on the surface of the resulting sphere, far end compared to probe location, moderate deviation
- scanned: ring result - Signature is on the ring line, far end compared to probe location, low deviation
- scanned: line result - Signature is at the far endpoint, very low deviation
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Nice trick that I bolded: we know that the result is somewhere on the sphere but we also know only a single probe was in range so a large part of the surface of the sphere that is in range of more than one probe cannot be the location.
We are not talking about the same sphere. You compare an unscanned (my picture) with a manipulated, scanned sphere. This is not the same. But even under your faulty comparison, the sig is well inside the original sphere, not outside.
Looks like it’s at best on the surface of the sphere to me! Depending on the angle it might even be outside the sphere.
And what was ‘faulty’ about it? I think it’s very helpful that we now know we’ve been talking about two different things.
There are indeed two visually identic sphere results, a ‘default unscanned signature’ sphere and an ‘a single probe scanned it’ sphere.
And apparently you were talking about the first while we (at least I did) were thinking about the second.
It’s good to be on one line in this discussion.
So, what was the problem again? That a signature happened to be near the edge of a ‘default unscanned signature’ sphere? How is that an issue?
If only you had scanned that signature to 100% we might know whether it truly was within or outside, because the second picture still wasn’t 100% and therefore was not an accurate representation of the true location of the signature.
Outside the edge. Not near or on, outside. I never left that line because that would be unreasonable. You and Szy keep trying to reason why a sig could be spawning outside the initial sphere.
I know full well that you can create subsequent bubbles with poor probe placement or because a sig is too difficult to get a higher result with a given probe formation.
Whether I scanned it to 100 % or not is not relevant. The initial sphere sets the boundaries within which a signature can move around. Everything else is untintuitive, cognitive overload inducing and not straightforward. That it does not is just another problem with the original point of this post: The volumes of the original unscanned spheres are not representative of the actual sig strength.
It is bloody relevant, because you claim that the real signature is ‘outside the edge’ of the first picture based on the second, even though the second has inaccuracies because it hasn’t been scanned to 100%.
With a red result the real location of that signature might theoretically just as well be here:
Which would be inside the original sphere, making your entire complaint pointless.
So again, I ask: where was the signature exactly at 100%?
You don’t get it, do you? It should not even have deviated outside the volume as a high deviation dot, especially not with a 4 AU scan and Virtues.
Why not?
The results are independent and both have inaccuracies. Two scans aren’t going to result in the same scanned location unless it’s a 100% scan.
You as a person could use the two independent scans to know that the real location is likely somewhere in between.