Last night I had a node I used for choice/excellent counterweight stop working for me, presumably because of the season change to winter. This led me to searching for a new choice counterweight node, and the purchase of the minor counterweight prospecting action with 20 of my skill points. This is a detailing of exactly what I went through over 3.5 hours of trying to use this broken skill.
I began by building two actions. First, I created a deposit tracking action with 50m deposit tracking stanza, choice quality stanza, resource preservation stanza 2, 5m range, 20-degree cone, and counterweight specialization. Second, I created a prospecting action with counterweight specialization, excellent quality stanza, resource pres 2, 20-degree cone, and 5m range.
Using the counterweight deposit tracking action, I roamed around until I got a reading, and traced it until I was less than 1m from a deposit location. I used my prospecting action, and no deposit was found. I slowly rotated in one-step increments using the counterweight prospecting action, with no deposits found, although on most of the actions I got the message "You found nothing. Some specified materials were found nearby, though." I decided I must have been standing precisely on the spot, so I backed up and tried again. Nothing.
So this led me to draw a model of my situation and try to solve this mathematically. I drew a dot for where I was standing and called it "A", and drew a circle around it representing the 1m range that the tracking indicated was where the deposit was. I then calculated the distance I would have to step back using a 20-degree cone range to encompass the entire circle in my scan. With a 1m radius and a 20-degree cone angle, the distance you have to step back to scan the entire circle is 2.18m. This is calculated by the following:
You have to make a triangle. Start by drawing a line across the diameter of your circle, and label the endpoints of that line C and D. This diameter is 1m + 1m or 2m total. Then draw another dot some distance away from your circle, representing how far you would have to step back, call that "B". Draw a line from A to B, and make it perpendicular to the line you drew. Now draw a line from the left end point "C" of the diameter to the spot where you would be stepping back "B". You now have a right triangle.
The angle CBA is half of your cone angle, in this case half of 20 or 10 degrees. The sin of 10 degrees is equal to the ratio of the length of the opposite side (AC) to the length of the hypotenuse of the triangle (CB). Hence:
sin(10)=AC/CB
AC=1m, so: sin(10) =1/CB
Using our trig functions on our calculator, we get that sin(10) = .1736, so:
.1736=1/CB
therefore CB=5.7588m
So the distance we are looking for is AB, so we use the pythagorean theorem to find AB. AC^2+AB^2=CB^2
When you insert 1 for AC and 5.7588 for CB, you get 2.18m for AB
Therefore, it is a mathematical certainty that if deposit tracking accurately tells you that you are within 1m of a deposit, and you are using 5m range and 20-degree cone, if you step back 2.18m (a little more than 2m) and scan, you will find the node.
Unfortunately, I did exactly this and got no deposit. The tracker told me I was less than 1m away, I used a landmark, rotated my character until his back was exactly facing the landmark, and paced off 3m backwards, and scanned. I did this many, many, many times in 7 different geographic locations. I even overkilled and used 40-degree with 10m range, stepped back a little more, still didn't work.
Conclusion: One of the following therefore must be true
1. Specific item deposit tracking is inaccurately reporting the distance from you to the deposit.
2. Specific item prospecting doesn't locate the items it is designed to locate or
3. Specific item prospecting doesn't really have the range/cone that it tells us it has.
I would like to see a developer respond to this.
Proof: Specific Item Deposit Tracking Is Broken
Re: Proof: Specific Item Deposit Tracking Is Broken
All the minor xxxx item prospecting bricks do not work together with the quality type bricks for some reason. Thats why your efforts did not work. The first stanza you created would have led you directly to the first available basic resource since the quality bricks finds everything from basic up to the quality type you used. IE. Choice brick will find from basic to Choice. putting both in the stanza is like saying "Find all counterweights OR find all quality mats from basic to choice of any type". I don't know if it was intended this way or a bug in their logic.
I suspect that the minor specialization doesn't work at all with anything else but tracking. I have stood over a resource with fiber and used Minor Clothes specialization with 40 degree angle and 5 m range and it refused to find the resource in front of me. However if I use track + minor clothes it will locate me to that exact spot.
I mentioned this in my tricks and tips post in this forum and detailed a work around method of locating resources. Try that and see if it helps.
I suspect that the minor specialization doesn't work at all with anything else but tracking. I have stood over a resource with fiber and used Minor Clothes specialization with 40 degree angle and 5 m range and it refused to find the resource in front of me. However if I use track + minor clothes it will locate me to that exact spot.
I mentioned this in my tricks and tips post in this forum and detailed a work around method of locating resources. Try that and see if it helps.
Re: Proof: Specific Item Deposit Tracking Is Broken
I have some questions.
How did you manage to combine deposit tracking with all those stanzas you mention? Currently the game only allows the combination of deposit tracking with the quality stanzas and the material prospection stanzas, but NOT the angle/range etc. What kind of action did you exactly make?
Again, resource preservation stanza can not be combined with those other stanzas you mention. What kind of action did you exactly make?
Yep, your math is correct, it's the game that's not working as you would think.
What you have to add to your analysis, which I haven't thought about too much yet, is that resources don't just occur at a single point in the land. They occur more in an area.
I have always wondered, given that a particular material is found say in a 3m radius circle, just which point exactly in this area will depo tracking track? Is it the center? The nearest edge? Some special designated binding point?
bfox3 wrote:I began by building two actions. First, I created a deposit tracking action with 50m deposit tracking stanza, choice quality stanza, resource preservation stanza 2, 5m range, 20-degree cone, and counterweight specialization.
How did you manage to combine deposit tracking with all those stanzas you mention? Currently the game only allows the combination of deposit tracking with the quality stanzas and the material prospection stanzas, but NOT the angle/range etc. What kind of action did you exactly make?
Second, I created a prospecting action with counterweight specialization, excellent quality stanza, resource pres 2, 20-degree cone, and 5m range.
Again, resource preservation stanza can not be combined with those other stanzas you mention. What kind of action did you exactly make?
So this led me to draw a model of my situation and try to solve this mathematically. .....
Yep, your math is correct, it's the game that's not working as you would think.
Conclusion: One of the following therefore must be true
1. Specific item deposit tracking is inaccurately reporting the distance from you to the deposit.
2. Specific item prospecting doesn't locate the items it is designed to locate or
3. Specific item prospecting doesn't really have the range/cone that it tells us it has.
I would like to see a developer respond to this.
What you have to add to your analysis, which I haven't thought about too much yet, is that resources don't just occur at a single point in the land. They occur more in an area.
I have always wondered, given that a particular material is found say in a 3m radius circle, just which point exactly in this area will depo tracking track? Is it the center? The nearest edge? Some special designated binding point?
Re: Proof: Specific Item Deposit Tracking Is Broken
lorgerol wrote:I have some questions.
How did you manage to combine deposit tracking with all those stanzas you mention? Currently the game only allows the combination of deposit tracking with the quality stanzas and the material prospection stanzas, but NOT the angle/range etc. What kind of action did you exactly make?
Again, resource preservation stanza can not be combined with those other stanzas you mention. What kind of action did you exactly make?
Ok, you're right about the cone/range/resource pres on tracking: they weren't in there, my mistake. BUT you can add the fine/choice/excellent/supreme stanze to a 50m tracking action. My action was: prospection plan, 50m tracking, counterweight specialization, choice quality. What korin77 is saying is that somehow the choice stanze negates the specialization stanza.
Regular prospection without tracking can most certainly include all the normal stanzas as well as counterweight specialization. Try it.
By the way, thanks korin77 for your other tips, they are fantastic, and greatly increased my enjoyment of harvesting.
However, to add to the discussion, I tried resource tracking again with counterweight specialization, and instead of using the specialized prospection action to pop the resource, used a regular prospection once I got to the general area that the specialized tracking action led me to. What I found was that it was consistently leading me to Jewel/Magic Focus resources instead of counterweight: three times in a row. I finally gave up and started randomly scanning the area until I finally found a choice counterweight node completely by chance.