Release 2.8.1 - Tubers & Brain Trees, Display Updates & More

In this release, the search pattern for brain trees and sinuous tubers has been refined. The autoscan and navbeacon scan indicators from the last release have been improved, requiring a small database update. Some other rules were also tweaked.

Finally, for overlay users, the overlay will now only display when in analysis mode to help reduce clutter when in combat. It will also hide on foot when not in an Artemis suit or when in a station / outpost.

I do recommend reimporting journals again so the scan levels can be updated for historic data.

Sinuous Tubers & Brain Trees

The majority of these areas are now defined by specific spherical search zones rather than the cruder region and sector-based checks in previous versions. This should be significantly more accurate, however these zones could still use a little refinement - particularly for the tubers.

• Brain tree tweaks:
  • Removed no atmosphere restriction
  • Roseum brain trees also require the 'life body' requirement
  • Loose region restrictions were added because the valid zones do not overlap into neighboring regions
• Sinuous tubers
  • Other than Empyrean Straits, all regions now include zones where tubers appear

AutoScan Indicators

• Removed the general 'missing signal info' display in the signal summary. In nav beacon systems, this would result in an absurd number of bodies.
• Added a new scan level to differentiate nav beacon and detailed scans. Only detailed scans reliably give signal info, otherwise the FSS must be used to investigate each body.
• Added geological signal tracking. This can help remove bodies without biological signals when investigated by the FSS.
  • Bodies with no signals, unfortunately, cannot be removed from consideration based on journal data alone
  • The signal event firing is the only way we can tell the body was investigated, which does not happen when there are no signals

Other Changes

• The overlay will hide itself when entering combat mode or going on foot without an Artemis suit
• The gravity calculation was changed to match the in-game Earth gravity as the 1G equivalent
• The nebula distance check was reduced to 110 ly
• Updated nebula positions from the galactic nebula catalog

Release 2.8 - DB 5 - Multi-Variant Support & More

This is a significant update touching on several aspects of BioScan. This includes a necessary ExploData DB update to DB v5. The completed journal list has been reset and a full reimport is recommended.

Database Version 5

• Added body details
  • Orbit and rotation period
• Added body ring info table for stars and planets
• Modified flora table to allow multiple variants on one planet
• Added scan level info (0 - unknown, 1 - autoscan, 2 - basic, 3 - detailed / nav)

Multi-Variant Support

• Sinuous tubers and brain trees can now track multiple variants on one body
• Display will indicate when a bio can potentially have more than one variant present

Display Updates

• Auto-scanned landable bodies are now displayed with a question mark in the signal summary
  • These do not necessarily have bios, but signal info is not logged for autoscans
• Auto-scanned, landable bodies meeting criteria for at least one species will display a notice in the detail pane
  • This will indicate the body was autoscanned and should be checked in the FSS
  • If there are signals, predictions will be displayed, otherwise mapping the body should clear it from the display
• Detail pane now displays body type and gravity indicators by the body name
• Metal-rich shortcode was changed to 'MR'
• Journal parsing progress will always start from 0%
  • Previously parsed journals are not included
  • Now displays journal count as well

Criteria Updates

• Crystalline shards require only the presence of F, G or K stars in the system
  • Transitioned from 'main star' check
  • No longer includes, A, B, neutron, and black holes
• Amphora plant merely requires the presence of an A star, not the main star
• Slightly expanded the nebula distance check to reduce false negatives

Fixes

• Remove filter from star list
  • This was breaking the black hole and general star checks as child stars were being excluded from any star check
  • We were already avoiding checking these stars, so this only provided marginal speed improvements
• Minor tweak to star check code

Release 2.7.4

More Horizons Updates

Anemones

• Star type checks converted to look at all system stars
• Star requirements corrected for most variants, which were generally too broad
• Added missing region for certain variants

Bark mounds

• Added second nebula type check
  • Bark mounds only appear near large nebulae, not near stellar nebulae
  • Electricae Radialem still use the check that includes stellar nebulae

Release 2.7.3

Horizons Updates & Other Fixes

Predictions

Horizons Bios

• Fixed entries still using old 'special' rule which no longer functions
  • Several main star type rules, primarily affecting Anemones
  • Bark mound nebula check
• Certain anemone variants are restricted to specific regions
• Sinuous tubers appear in two distinct groups appearing in specific regions
  • These do not generally appear in an entire region but rather small, spherical, predesignated areas
  • Until these areas can be accurately pinpointed and measured, the region restriction should be 'good enough' to mitigate false positives 90% of the time
• Brain tree updates
  • Region checks for two distinct groupings
  • Updated temperature, gravity, and body criteria
• Bark mounds don't appear to spawn near the galactic core

Other Rule Updates

• Fix possible error in main star test with mixed type/subtype values
• Account for 'z' luminosity modifier in star type check
• Star type check was not parsing giant / supergiant stars correctly
• Update to variant checks when top-level parent star is a black hole
  • Typically orbiting (non main-system A-Z) stars don't provide color
  • When a black hole is present, orbiting stars can provide variant color to their orbiting bodies
• Tussock Divisa does not appear in the galactic center

Overlay

• On Linux systems, the codex symbol has been changed to '»' and the checkmark is now '*' to work around display issues with edmcoverlay2

Release 2.7.2

Added additional requirements for crystalline shards. Overlay improvements.

Crystalline Shards

• Rarely appear with atmospheres
• Only appear > 10,000 ls from the main star
• Only appear in outer galactic regions

Overlay Support

• Added togglable scrolling for extensive bio lists
• Signal detail length limit and up/down scroll delay are configurable
• Stability improvements for frequent re-draws
• Better efficiency for updates and clears

Notice

• edmcoverlay2 users should update to the new fork
• There may be lingering overlay issues - please report if you experience strange behavior

Release 2.7.1

Prediction Fixes

• Several corrections to various Stratum
  • Fixed a typo where min and max temperatures were switched on some species
  • Fixed gravity values for Paleas on water atmospheres
• Added HMC as possible body type for Frutexa Collum
• Slight increase to max gravity for many bios
  • The upper bound seems to round to an additional significant digit

Overlay Updates

• Text now refreshes at regular intervals to prevent the display from expiring utilizing cache system
  • EDMCOverlay does not currently support indefinite display time
• Removed signal summary as the full body / prediction list is usually visible in the overlay
  • Status text still displayed when actively scanning a bio, including waypoint info
• Considering tweaks to some of the info display
  • Would require separate rendering for scrollpane vs overlay text most likely
  • May need to consider rotating prediction display if there are numerous bio signals

Release 2.7.0

EDMCOverlay Support

Added preliminary support to utilize the EDMCOverlay plugin. This allows you to draw the BioScan predictions, body summary, and scan status text directly over the game. This can be an alternative to running EDMC on top of the game window and generally removes the need for scrolling the prediction details. It's possible that some extremely bio-rich systems may not be able to render without overflowing.

Settings

The overlay functionality is off by default. You are able to choose the color of the overlay text and define the anchor points for the data displays.

Caveats

EDMCOverlay is unable to display certain symbols. For this reason, the check marks are replaced by a square root symbol and the codex entry memo emoji is replaced by a diamond.

In addition, the ability to position and display text is fairly limited and you can only position the anchor relative to the top left corner. It's also not possible to change the text justification, unfortunately.

The color picker button text currently does not update dynamically. It will update if you reopen the settings dialog. Hopefully this can be fixed.

Release 2.6.7

Tussocks Region Corrections

There are some discrepancies between the Tussocks regions used for the Sagittarius-Carina arm and other species. An additional regionset was added to account for this. The Orion-Cygnus arm was also missing from a few Tussocks species which has been corrected.

(Thanks to @ElSaico for the report.)

Release 2.6.6

Minor release to correct some issues with requirements.

• Remove some extraneous rules and reorder checks for efficiency
• Fix a typo in Fumerola Extremus body requirements
• Corrections to body requirements for Recepta Deltahedronix

Release 2.6.5 - Horizons Fixes

This update primarily updates Horizons bio requirements, but includes a couple additional fixes.

• Bark mounds require volcanism as of Update 16
• Sinuous tubers also require volcanism
• Reorder some Horizons checks for better efficiency
• Update to Odyssey star-based variant (color) checks to reduce false positives
• Fix for incorrect Osseus Pellebantus requirements

ExploData 1.1.0

This is an optional update to ExploData which primarily upgrades the SQLAlchemy package to the latest version (2.0.20) as well as the typing_extensions package (4.7.1). The database structure remains unchanged.