So, there are 2 different craters in game. 1st type is overmap tiles craters, which are shown as purple ‘*’. Second type is craters which you can only see if you have autonotes on, and shown as red ‘o’ over regular overmap tiles.
Is there any difference between them? If the answer is no, then what’s the point in having 2nd type? which, BTW, uses same denotation as military outposts, and it irks me each time I see one.
Im not sure about the purple star one, but there are these two “crater” types I know of:
The first one on the left is the “overmap marked point of interest” (as you stated, needs autonotes on and you need to get close to it to have it marked on the map), while the second one on the right is the static version (can be seen from towers and other high vantage points).
The quick answer is: The static one always spawns rubble that you can clear away with a shovel and find stuff underneath it, while the autonotes one can hit existing structures and destroy things there.
For a closer explanation… The static one looks like this:
Based on the lore, this was probably a lab that got bombed in one of the last attempts to stop the blob from taking over the world.
They usually span multiple overmap tiles and are basically just all rubble like this.
The other version, the dynamic one, can hit fields, forrest and buildings. They look like this on the map:
They don’t spawn debris, but can have items lying around that you’d get if you’d “bash” whatever was at the point this bomb or rocket hit.
Yay for free stuff! But be careful, as they also contain something else… here’s a screenshot of one that hit a house:
The numbers visible show the amount of radiation that the tiles contain. As you can see, the radiation is limited to the tiles that got “hit”. You can walk around it and gather stuff from the side or run in and try to quickly grab something that’s in the middle of it. Just don’t camp inside one of these craters.
The static version also has radiation, but the amount is lower compared to the dynamic ones (between 0 and 8), so it should not affect you much.
So, that’s basically it. They behave differently, that’s why there are two versions of them in the game.
Now, for the star one, I don’t know what those are…
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Thanks for the explanation. “star” craters are actually the same thing as big red "O"s on 2nd picture. idk why they are shown differently for us.
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I just verified a suspicion I had: The purple asteriks are actually from the mod Alternative Map Key. I guess you play with that mod and I don’t… 
True, I am using amk. Mystery solved 
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Do they actually spawn labs underneath or is that just a lore thing and we assume the entire lab is destroyed underneath?
Funny enough, that one in the picture actually had an (intact) subway lab underneath it.
But that was probably a coincidence. Every other one I’ve checked just now has nothing underneath it. So yeah, probably a lore thing and the lab was blown to bits.
It’s possible that there’s a set chance for a lab to spawn under a crater, but I don’t think that’s the case. I would have to check the code to be sure…
I cleared a giant crater which was the type that is rubble with the red 0 on the map. It took three in game days. I got a heavy frame, a steel frame, and a spring 
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