Badge on freighter in Talos...

[Shenanigunner]

I'm only an occasional badge-r, but I needed three more for a 100 accolade so I was snagging exploration badges in Talos. My mini-game is to try and spot the badge marker before I trigger it.

 

So, the badge on the freighter in Talos... Whitecap. I coudn't find a badge marker anywhere, on top of the superstructure or on any of the ledges below. Is this a bug, a feature, a hallucination, or what?

[AboveTheChemist]

It is 'hidden' in the ship's bridge, according to the wiki. As far as I know that's how it was intended. If memory serves, the marker for the Ophelia's Final Scene badge in Perez Park is similarly hidden, although I know if you position the camera just right you can see it under the leaves. I don't know if there is a way to move the camera to sneak a peak at the Whitecap marker. I think there might be one or two other badge markers that are hidden, but I can't recall their locations at the moment.

[Shenanigunner]

Thanks. I do recall some discussion (= complaining) about hidden markers. Sometimes it's for esthetics or just deviousness (which begins with dev-, note). This one seems odd, the kind of glitch that coulda/shoulda been fixed in those big zone cleanups early on.

 

<fx Robert Shaw voice> But ayyye got th' badge. </fx>

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

Thanks. I do recall some discussion (= complaining) about hidden markers. Sometimes it's for esthetics or just deviousness (which begins with dev-, note). This one seems odd, the kind of glitch that coulda/shoulda been fixed in those big zone cleanups early on.

 

<fx Robert Shaw voice> But ayyye got th' badge. </fx>

While I'm at work right now (so I can't share the images), I've actually done a lot of under the map exploring in various zones. EVERY SINGLE exploration badge marker is a physical object placed on the map. Now it may be under other objects, but it is still there. I think there is a proximity tag to them, perhaps a radius of 10 feet, so as long as you're 'kinda close' you get the unlock. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by Glacier Peak

[Shenanigunner]

4 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

While I'm at work right now (so I can't share the images), I've actually done a lot of under the map exploring in various zones. EVERY SINGLE exploration badge marker is a physical object placed on the map. Now it may be under other objects, but it is still there. I think there is a proximity tag to them, perhaps a radius of 10 feet, so as long as you're 'kinda close' you get the unlock. 

 

Oh, sure. It's obviously just under the top deck of the superstructure. I just can't figure out why it's hidden, other than a build glitch. It's dead easy to trip if you explore the ship, which most bored alts probably do anyway.

[Glacier Peak]

27 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Oh, sure. It's obviously just under the top deck of the superstructure. I just can't figure out why it's hidden, other than a build glitch. It's dead easy to trip if you explore the ship, which most bored alts probably do anyway.

Just a guess, it is intentional and meant to give the player the feeling that they discovered the mysterious ship out in the ocean, disserted and the first thing they do is go to the door of the ship. If they put the badge at the very front, maybe Jack and Rose a la Titanic-style, it may have also been found, but I think its placement was appropriate given the ships odd location. There are other examples of badges in different zones awarding, even though you are not physically seeing them. I think Boomtown has one?

[Shenanigunner]

If badge markers could be spotted at more than about 100 feet, maybe. But seeing/tripping is pretty much simultaneous unless you know the location and come in slowly (as I like to do when hunting explo badges).  So the difference between visiting the mysterious ship and getting the badge more or less as a surprise and maybe seeing the marker two seconds before... not much.

 

No big deal either way. But if that's how badges worked, they'd all be invisible, right?

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

If badge markers could be spotted at more than about 100 feet, maybe. But seeing/tripping is pretty much simultaneous unless you know the location and come in slowly (as I like to do when hunting explo badges).  So the difference between visiting the mysterious ship and getting the badge more or less as a surprise and maybe seeing the marker two seconds before... not much.

 

No big deal either way. But if that's how badges worked, they'd all be invisible, right?

I remember the first time stumbling on a exploration badge back on live, I was like what did I do? Then I looked and looked and finally found the tiny badge on the ground. I think it was the one on the bridge in Perez Park, in the forest. 

[Shenanigunner]

24 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

I remember the first time stumbling on a exploration badge back on live, I was like what did I do? Then I looked and looked and finally found the tiny badge on the ground. I think it was the one on the bridge in Perez Park, in the forest. 

 

I dunno if it was my first, but I had exactly the same reaction to that badge. Already freaked by the scary zone and then... what the heyyyy?

[AboveTheChemist]

I've been doing some badge hunting/testing on Beta, and when I came across Whitecap in Talos I thought of this thread. I took a screenshot to show definitively that there is indeed a badge marker on that ship, although I had to do quite a bit of camera work to get it to come out of hiding! During this process I've also learned that the trigger distance for badges is 20 feet.