Resource overlay parts disappearing after surface survey. Intentional?

[ShadowZone]

I am a little bit confused by resources at the moment. I put a probe in polar orbit and scan Minmus. Heatmaps of resources show up.

I put a lander in one of the "hot" zones (i.e. a lot of ore apparently) and start narrowband and surface scan --> suddenly the overlay for that region disappears from map view.

Is this a bug? Is this intentional? If the latter, why?

[Shpaget]

Go to map view, on the right side of the screen (middle vertically) there are three icons, the third one is for resource overlays. Click on the Ore.

[Geschosskopf]

NOTE: You have to be focused on the planet for the resoucre overlay button to show up. It won't be there if you're focused on a ship.

[ShadowZone]

There IS an overlay, just not for the place where I just landed and started my surface scan. Everything else stayed in the map view. Just the "hot spot" on the map disappeared (I was using cut off of 80%) and I had not mined it yet.

[beachflow]

Yes this happened to me. Orbital scan showed large hotspot on Mun using 80% cut off. Landed in the middle of the hotspot and did a surface scan. A circle with a diameter almost as large as the hotspot went black. The overlay still appears around the edges but It looks like a giant hole was punched in the hotspot. It gradually lights up again if I lower the cut off. All I can think is the surface scan is more accurate and there wasn't as much as the orbital scan indicated.

[MathmoRichard]

I found this too, I really really want to know the details from Squad but the narrow band definitely seems to make it more accurate, replacing the old overlay in that region with a new one. As per my post here you may also find that the dotted view is the only one that shows all the accurate readings properly.

[Geschosskopf]

I found this too, I really really want to know the details from Squad but the narrow band definitely seems to make it more accurate, replacing the old overlay in that region with a new one. As per my post here you may also find that the dotted view is the only one that shows all the accurate readings properly.

The reason the so-called "hot spot" on the overlay disappeared is that it was a lie and you found out the truth with the surface scan.

As explained in this thread, the orbital scanner does NOT show anywhere near the actual ore concentration. So forget this "80% cutoff" nonsense--the most you will ever find anywhere except an asteroid is in the neighborhood of 15%, usually rather less.

Ore concentration is defined per biome. A "hot-spot" on the overlay is just an area where most of the surface is composed of 1 or more biomes with relatively high concentrations. The actual biomes on the ground there will have WAY less ore than the cut-off value of the overlay, but they will be amongst the best biomes on the planet. Not necessarily the best overall, but at least better than average. And note that because ore is defined per biome, and the orbital scanner averages biome surface area over large regions, small patches of the best biome on the planet can be swamped by large surrounding areas of low-value biomes, and NOT produce hot-spots on the overlay.

So, what you do is use the debug menu to display the biome map and compare that to the orbital scan overlay. This will tell you what biomes are in the apparent "hot-spots". Then go suss out the actual value of those biomes with the ground scanner and/or NBS. Note that the ground scanner isn't 100% accurate but is close enough for government work. Anyway, once you know which biomes are better than others, you can then pick the best biome and set up shop in it. Be sure to check every biome you can because, as mentioned above, good biomes can hide in the orbital scan overlay.

The important thing is this:

The orbital scan points out general areas where you can find some of the best biomes on the planet. It's up to you to determine which biomes those are and how good they really are. And because the value of a biome is constant no matter where on the planet you find that biome, there is no requirement to drill anywhere near a "hot-spot" as long as the good biome is found elsewhere.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Geschosskopf