What dictates the Scanner Room's scan list?

[DaveKap]

I've noticed the list of things to scan for in the scanner room just randomly changes. What's the reason for that?

[MonkeyGamesVR]

I think randomnes does it if where atm stuff laying around or gets spawned maby.

[bongerman85]

the enviornment load times. and availability or resources within range of the room, and time it takes to truly scan

[The Toblin]

First: It takes time to populate the list. The scanner cycle is 14 seconds without upgrades, so it will need several such to populate the list with whatever is in range.

Second: The scanner can only pick up stuff you know about. That means it won't list Magnetite unless you have hand-scanned or picked up Magnetite before. Same with everything else. You must have seen it at least once in game for it to show up on the scanner.

Third: When it comes to mobile things (Reapers, Reefbacks etc), these things can move in and out of range, thus changing the detection.

[Explore]

Originally posted by Mana:

Third: When it comes to mobile things (Reapers, Reefbacks etc), these things can move in and out of range, thus changing the detection.

Also, because of Stalkers, include in that Metal Salvage and Stalker Teeth :)

It's also worth bearing in mind that the scanner room has a max range of 500m (range upgrades don't work - use 4x speed upgrades), but will only start off a scan for things that are in the currently loaded world (which doesn't extend that far out for resources). So, you can drop something to get it to appear on your list, then explore up to 500m out from your base while you're still scanning. Works best if you're using speed upgrades.

[The Toblin]

Originally posted by Explore:

Originally posted by Mana:

Third: When it comes to mobile things (Reapers, Reefbacks etc), these things can move in and out of range, thus changing the detection.

Also, because of Stalkers, include in that Metal Salvage and Stalker Teeth :)

It's also worth bearing in mind that the scanner room has a max range of 500m (range upgrades don't work - use 4x speed upgrades), but will only start off a scan for things that are in the currently loaded world (which doesn't extend that far out for resources). So, you can drop something to get it to appear on your list, then explore up to 500m out from your base while you're still scanning. Works best if you're using speed upgrades.

Range upgrades most definitely do work in the Experimental version. There's a clear difference in what is found with and without upgrades. 300 vs 500 meters is a *huge* volume of coverage.

[Jodyxe]

Upon the building the room it shows all the resources within the scanning range. However if you resstart the game you have to manually look for resource of each type by camera in order for the room to recognize it and show in the list. That is how it works for me.

[DaveKap]

Originally posted by Mana:

Second: The scanner can only pick up stuff you know about. That means it won't list Magnetite unless you have hand-scanned or picked up Magnetite before. Same with everything else. You must have seen it at least once in game for it to show up on the scanner.

Nope to this, at least at the moment. I built a scanner in a new biome and it picked up 3 things I had never seen/scanned before, one of which I didn't even know was in the game it was so elusive to me.

That said it makes sense it just takes more scans after re-loading a game. That's what bothered me the most, since I would be able to scan for sandstone one day and then not the next.

[The Toblin]

Originally posted by DaveKap:

Originally posted by Mana:

Second: The scanner can only pick up stuff you know about. That means it won't list Magnetite unless you have hand-scanned or picked up Magnetite before. Same with everything else. You must have seen it at least once in game for it to show up on the scanner.

Nope to this, at least at the moment. I built a scanner in a new biome and it picked up 3 things I had never seen/scanned before, one of which I didn't even know was in the game it was so elusive to me.

That said it makes sense it just takes more scans after re-loading a game. That's what bothered me the most, since I would be able to scan for sandstone one day and then not the next.

Yea, I noticed this recently as well. So my bad on this one. I dunno if it changed recently, or if I was just being "unlucky" earlier. But that's correct, it can pick up stuff you don't know about.