Feature request: "Terraformable" icon on the scan view

[tivec]

With the new changes in 2.3 to the exploration scan value, terraformable planets are worth a lot more than before.

Would it be possible to have terraformable planets stand out slightly on the scan window? Much like you are showing a small hexagon with a + for planets with materials, perhaps a small T on the planet?

[robbyxp1]

Its possible.. have to test it grahically.

[mwerle]

Along with this can we get "volcanism" (and any other interesting) icons for overlay?

[robbyxp1]

Add to this someone asked for habital zone markers

[wokket]

Habitat Zone markings are in #1185, I'll deal with them there.

I have a PoC for a terraformable overlay now, just looking for a validly licenced icon. Is there a standard icon suite already in use in the app to simplify licencing?

What's everyone's thinking on the Volcanism thing? I can see the value in ID'ing terraformables from a credit/hr perspective but more detailed info than that is getting into low/slow exploration where I don't think rapid ID is as handy?? Happy to be convinced otherwise.

[phroggster]

Volcanism labelling and/or iconography would be a stellar thing to include alongside terraformable labelling and/or iconography, since they would likely interact and be very similar features.

As for imagery licensing, there's not many choices. I believe that so far all icons have been hand drawn by a member of the team, and released under the Apache 2.0 (or compatible) licensing. It's technically possible to use something slightly more permissive, but no record of that currently exists in our LICENSE.md file, which is where that would need to be documented. Of course, a trivial subset of "our" actual code is distributed under an alternate license, but it is clearly marked as such in the individual file preamble.

[wokket]

Thanks phroggster.

I agree the two features are very similar, and other than the issues of overlay placement/finding an icon pretty simple to implement.... I'm trying to work out why you want to know about volcanism in the system at first glance.

I've grabbed the Transformer image from here for the moment, please let me know if that isn't suitable.

I should have a PR available very shortly.

[phroggster]

The why is simple: I frequently find myself in desperate need of a surface POI to sacrifice a virgin SRV to in order to please the dogs before my next jump. Don't you? 👾

In all seriousness, it may mean looking closer at a surface merely as a means to get away from jump, honk, scan, jump, honk, scan, ad infitum.

Edit: yeah, individual icons from that set look fine to include, but it appears to be against the rules to include them all.

[phroggster]

Actually, I retract my prior edit: the transformer logo would NOT be ok to use, despite the artist's explicit consent, as that is very likely both copyrighted and trademarked in numerous jurisdictions. A more generic icon of some sort would be better suited.

[mwerle]

We currently don't get additional planetary items notified in the logs, but would it be possible in future to use player-generated data for overlays as well? Such as planetary bases, braintrees, barnacles, ruins, etc. Similar reasoning as phroggster's - encourage planetary exploration rather than just jump-honk.

Also, for terraformable, I would suggest a leaf icon (eg https://www.123rf.com/photo_26265311_set-with-green-leaf-icons-in-round-frame.html)

[radioactiv]

I have a suggestion that would work well with this change. Add a setting option for indicating scan value if it's above a user set amount. Having a star next to things that are 20k+ or 200k+ would be nice.

[wokket]

The merged patch under #1347 included an indicator icon for bodies estimated to be worth over 50k. Does that help you?

[radioactiv]

It helps, but I was thinking an arbitrary limit would be more helpful for people. A new player might want to see 2k+ highlighted, but a more senior player wouldn't do more than honk the system if there wasn't a 200k+.

[klightspeed]

The only way to tell if a system has valuable planets is either to scan them or retrieve scans somebody else has taken and submitted.

[radioactiv]

EDSM provides that information...

[klightspeed]

EDSM provides that information...

That is where "retrieve scans somebody else has taken and submitted." comes from.

[radioactiv]

To clarify, if I see that there are planets that aren't visible on EDDiscovery, or on EDSM, and I check the system map and see that they look valuable [2k+] I'll go out of my way to scan them.

How does the fact that the data comes from EDSM affect this?

(37Penguins on EDSM, and in Elite).

[klightspeed]

I'll re-word: EDDiscovery can only notify you about planets that either you yourself have scanned, or those for which EDSM has received a scan from another player.

If you are going where none have gone before, or the bodies were last scanned before Elite Dangerous 2.2 was released, your only data source is the Elite Dangerous system map, and neither EDDiscovery nor EDSM will have any data until after the bodies have been scanned.

[radioactiv]

Yes, I understand that, but if it has been seen before and logged giving a player a better indication of the systems value is useful.

Just because the system has been "discovered" in the game doesn't mean that it still won't show for them as unknown. My request relates to exploration within "The Bubble", not out in the dark.

[wokket]

Can I suggest you give the new indicator a go? The value of 50k was chosen to highlight MR, TFHMC, WW, ELW etc.

If you're chasing 200k+ it's pretty obvious you should just ignore the MR in tight to the star, the rest are good to go.

If you're chasing 2k+ you should scan everything in the system.

I understand that a user-configurable value would be better, but I'm not convinced the extra utility is worth the effort (cluttering the settings screen, input validation, load/save, default values etc).

EDIT: And don't forget that scan values aren't linearly distributed, so an arbitrary value cutoff doesn't make sense. Having 'breakpoints' of values to exclude (say) stars and rocky/icy bodies but keep HMC's would make more sense but is still more effort than I feel is justified.... More than happy to be convinced otherwise :)