Where can I find Cobalt?

[Buckshot]

Since I am still learning this game, I have respawned in many different parts of this earth-like planet, and tried to build bases. Some respawns were close to resources like Ice and Cobalt. They were within walking distance. My latest respawn put me in a mountain area. I thought that Ice and Cobalt and other ores would be plenty in the mountain areas...WRONG!!!!!! Ores of any kind are rare in my current respawn walking area. Ive literally spent hours (real life time) walking around looking for Cobalt. Nothing around. Id walk so far that I would have to turn around and head back to my respawn pod because my health was down to about 50% and wanted to make sure I had enough health to make it back. Im ready to give up. My finger is soooooo sore from holding down the W key to keep moving forward. You may now be thinking, "why dont you just start over with a new respawn". Well...the answer to that is, I am tired getting tired of respawning and starting over. I want to finally be in a spot where I can build a base, ships, rovers etc where I can call "home", and plan for getting into space. If I have to respawn once more, I will end up taking a very long break from this game before that happens. I have come to the conclusion that much of this game is just based on luck. Luck on whether you respawn within walking distance of essential ores like Ice and Cobalt to give you a good start in this game. Im so frustrated that I could easily drop the F bomb a few times, but I dont want to get myself banned from these forums.

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, I usually find all I need at the ice lake of the Desert Biome so I always go there first ;)

I also find Cobalt on ore spots that shows only 2 ores with my Detector so I see it only if I dig because it is deeper.

[Buckshot]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Hi, I usually find all I need at the ice lake of the Desert Biome so I always go there first ;)

I also find Cobalt on ore spots that shows only 2 ores with my Detector so I see it only if I dig.

I am no where near any ice lakes, at least not that I know of. Sadly I would have to start over and keep respawning until I am near an ice lake. I know the spot you are talking about as I have spawned there once before but unfortunately i accidently deleted that world.

[Dan2D3D]

I use the drop ship, the blue one with Atmos thrusters to fly to the Desert Biome, I don't land right away, I find the Desert before landing.

[Smokey]

What I do is grab my spare H2 canister out of the spawn ship, make sure that my suit is full to and gain as much altitude as I dare to check the terrain for coulor differentials as these usually mark our ore deposits then visit each one that I can remember to see what is there.

My most recent world I've found almost everything apart from platinum and magnesium, it took me so long to find ice as the planet I'm using has only one source at the cost of 6 engineers looking for it 🥺🥺

It's just a shame that I dont have any mountain tops i could harvest ice from as it's a desert planet 😤😤

[Buckshot]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

I use the drop ship, the blue one with Atmost thrusters to fly to the Desert Biome, I don't land right away, I find the Desert before landing.

Ahhhh...great idea. I may give that a try. Thank you

[Monoxide]

You can find resources everywhere. Colbalt is just a little more rare it seems. Just have your drill out when looking.

Additionally, you can sometimes see "splotches" that have ore under them. If you fly up a little ways and look down, the land may look a little discolored. You can often find ore under those. Just check around until you come across something. I find htis most effective in grassy biomes, the splotches will be darker colored (like a dark gray/green).

[Buckshot]

Originally posted by Monoxide:

You can find resources everywhere. Colbalt is just a little more rare it seems. Just have your drill out when looking.

Additionally, you can sometimes see "splotches" that have ore under them. If you fly up a little ways and look down, the land may look a little discolored. You can often find ore under those. Just check around until you come across something.

AHA!!! I think youre on to something. Now if I think back, the spawn areas where I found Cobalt, I had my drill out. Ahhh...you gave me new hope without having to start over with dropping from the respawn pod in another unknown location.

[Smokey]

A tip for finding resources again instead of just relying on the drill to detect them all over again is to make GPS markers when you find a new source that you want to mine so you dont have to go around guessing where you was mining last time 👍👍

[Monoxide]

Originally posted by Buckshot:

Now if I think back, the spawn areas where I found Cobalt, I had my drill out.

The drill has a low range ore detector in it. If you do not have it out, you wont spot anything underground.

Another somewhat easy (but luck based) tactic would be to fly around looking for boulders and hope for cobalt. They are easier to spot so you can truck along. The reason I mention that is there is a delay on the ore detection on the drill, and if you are going top speed you might miss ores as you are out of range before the lag catches up.

[Buzzard]

Ore tends to have groupings, like silver and gold will spawn together. Keep an eye out when you find iron/nickel, as the cobalt will likely be there, possibly a bit deeper than your handheld drill will pick up. The default range on the block ore detectors is 1/2 max range. Go into the control panel and crank up the power to max. Small-grid will have a max of 50m, where the large-grid will top out at 150m.

NOTE: Ore detectors can broadcast results through any attached antennas. This does NOT extend the range of ore detection in any way. Detection range is calculated from the detector block.

[FireFox]

A tip for finding the darker splotches on the terrain is to turn off Grass completely.

[Mannorot2015]

finding ores is hard sometimes. First of all the hand drill has very limited range to find ores. The ore detector blocks on small / large ship are better. One rule is that important ores are often deeper that the reach of your hand drill (regarding the ore detector function not the drill function) There is one way: on ice lakes you can see dark spots if you fly high enough. There are always (!) a sign of ores, if your hand drill shows nothing they are deeper as the reach of it. On land they show up too but are far harder to recognize. Dont even try in night or at morning or evening because of the shadows of trees and such when the sun is right up the horizon. They are best to see in middle of the day. Try the following: find a spot you have already found an ore. use your jetpack to lift yourself up a 100m or so and look for differences of the landscape. These spots are far easyier to see on Mars and Moon i have seen. On the long run there is often no other way as build a littler rover with an ore detector on it. (Hint: there is range slider for this block, standard is not the perfect range).

[Buckshot]

Hello fellow SE engineers. After taking a step back yesterday from the game and taking a few deep breaths, I decided to continue to look for a spawn spot where there were ore resources within walking distance of my pod. Well...my luck turned on me. I not only finally found a good spawn spot but I practically landed right on top of a Cobalt deposit. Literally, there was Cobalt within 30m of my respawn pod. The land was fairly flat to build a base, so I decided that is where I am going to settle and plan for space.

There is one thing I decided though, in going through all this that I went through yesterday. Because Cobalt is pretty rare and it is essential for starting a base, I am keeping a pen and paper handy while playing SE Engineers and whenever I come across Cobalt in the future, I am going to write down the coordinates. That way if someone else goes through the struggle I did, I can share some coordinates with them through Steam chat to help them on their adventure to space. Anyway, enough of me posting here for now. Space is waiting for me. I hear her calling me. :)

[Dan2D3D]

Sharing coords = it may/will not be the same in a new created world because the ores are random on creating the world.

[Buckshot]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Sharing coords = it may/will not be the same in a new created world because the ores are random on creating the world.

Ahhh ok. Good to know. Thanks :)