any way to game distress signals?

[VayneVerso]

I'm going to be that guy, because I've gotten way too many abandoned buildings from using distress signal charts and hardly any crashed ships. I mean... I get it's by design, but it's also annoying. :) Is there any way I can game it so that I maximize my chances of getting a crashed ship somehow? Or is something stored in your save file somehow to make sure you don't get too many of them? I would have thought it would be random, but when I reload a save and try again, it seems like I always get the same result.

[MetaliCator]

As far as I know, a crashed ship isn't necessarily a distress signal, for me it has been mostly a simple signal with a house icon.

This may be odd, and it could be just me, but I've found most abandoned or crashed ships under water.

[Lindy Bomber]

If you get a building instead of a cashed ship, don't go to the building, keep using charts until you get a ship. You might get a few "location not found" but keep spamming the charts it will pop.


Or use the crashed ship scanner on the sub or the mech.

[Krash Megiddo]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

If you get a building instead of a cashed ship, don't go to the building, keep using charts until you get a ship. You might get a few "location not found" but keep spamming the charts it will pop.


Or use the crashed ship scanner on the sub or the mech.

Yep^ The nautilon's "sunken ship" scanner is guaranteed to locate a crashed ship on a world with oceans. But if OP prefers not to take the easy way, then use the mech's distress signal scanner on a lifeless planet.

[Geldric™]

Those charts can give you the following:
Crashed Ship
Crashed Freighter
Abandoned building
*Observatory

As always, make a manual save to allow reloading should the planet be poopy-noony for crashed ships.

Anywho, when you get an undesired location (say building), make an AUTOSAVE. Now use another chart (you are guaranteed to not get another like you already have). Worse case is the second type of undesired location (say freighter). Now make another AUTOSAVE and then use the chart a third time. <- you'll either get nothing or a crashed ship.

If during the process you get some type of message like "location already found" (can't remember the exact text) you can fly to a different location on the planet to try again.

If you do this multiple times and still no crashed ship -> restore your manual save (to recover your charts) and pick a different planet.

Edit: @Lindy 's post above is more concise, wtf am I so wordy..
Edit2: Thanks WEC, forgot the Observatory

[Wile E Coyote, Super Genius]

Yea. There are 5 or 6 types of distress signals. One of each will pop up. Once all are active and not visited you can't scan for more.

Knowing that, when you're using cartographer maps/charts just ignore everything except the crash sight signal, if that's what you're looking for.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Krash Megiddo:

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

If you get a building instead of a cashed ship, don't go to the building, keep using charts until you get a ship. You might get a few "location not found" but keep spamming the charts it will pop.


Or use the crashed ship scanner on the sub or the mech.

Yep^ The nautilon's "sunken ship" scanner is guaranteed to locate a crashed ship on a world with oceans. But if OP prefers not to take the easy way, then use the mech's distress signal scanner on a lifeless planet.

I did not know about either of these things. I'll check them out. Thanks!

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by Wile E Coyote, Super Genius:

Yea. There are 5 or 6 types of distress signals. One of each will pop up. Once all are active and not visited you can't scan for more.

Knowing that, when you're using cartographer maps/charts just ignore everything except the crash sight signal, if that's what you're looking for.

Oh, my bad. For some reason, I thought it wouldn't let you use another one while you had even one active distress signal type located. I'll have to double-check. This is per planet? Per system?

[Wile E Coyote, Super Genius]

Originally posted by VayneVerso:

Originally posted by Wile E Coyote, Super Genius:

Yea. There are 5 or 6 types of distress signals. One of each will pop up. Once all are active and not visited you can't scan for more.

Knowing that, when you're using cartographer maps/charts just ignore everything except the crash sight signal, if that's what you're looking for.

Oh, my bad. For some reason, I thought it wouldn't let you use another one while you had even one active distress signal type located. I'll have to double-check. This is per planet? Per system?

I think it's per system. What I do when I'm hunting is take a stack of charts at the Space station and activate 5 or 6 of them. Signal will pop up randomly on different planets. Then go to the signal I want.

Note: sometimes clicking on charts nothing happens and you get a message saying "..already nearby", just keep clicking until it activates - unless all signals are still active that is.

Also planetary chart signals remain active even after logging off.

If you're using a portable signal booster, signals from that will stack with planetary charts but goes away once you log off.

[Colossal Sprout]

Just to add, locating a 'Distress Signal' via maps or transmission towers could mean either a crashed ship waiting to be claimed OR an unclaimable one with a pilot wanting help. Land a short distance away, check which type, and if it's the latter with a pilot don't go near it; leave the signal active like you'd do with eg. an observatory and scan again. It's a different signal despite looking identical.

Also if you search on abandoned/lifeless planets OR underwater with the Nautilon you'll never encounter pilots, all wrecks can be claimed.

Also also, can't remember exactly which various criteria trigger this problem but after you eg. quit the game and return, leave the system and return to the same planet etc, you'll start to get signals for empty sites you've already plundered. If you find a particularly good system or planet with high-value wrecks maybe keep a count of how many sites you've cleaned out so you can cycle past those each session if necessary.

Lastly they ruined crash-hunting at some point, all crashed ships used to be randomly chosen from the system's full roster of ships... now you'll only find one of each type is selected and repeated at all crash sites (and another for 'with pilot' crashes, not necessarily different but that can help identify them.) So if you're looking for eg. large haulers like most people would, you only need to find one claimable hauler to determine whether its worth staying in that system to keep searching.

(PS. never used mods in NMS before, but does anyone know if there's one to revert to the old random selection? It's ruined one of the most immersive early-game progression loops imo and would be tempting.)

[Ǥɾᴧᴤʆᴧᵯᴧ]

i always use as much maps as possible on one spot. if i don't get a good result, i use them on another spot until my POI is revealed. i do NOT visit the other POIs found because it lowers the chance of getting another ´POI of interest ;)´

so if you want to find distress POIs, do not fly to observatories and crashed freighters, let them be and just change the position or planet (how u like), at the end every map should uncover a distress signal or just nothing but it's kind of a 100% chance

[luther84695]

finding crashed ships is not the best use of your time. It is better to just go to a star port on a planet and wait for the best ship. If you build farms, it is the same as being able to print your own money.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Crashed ships was all I kept finding recently and I was trying to find a crashed freighter lol. Eventually I found one. I was being lazy though during the expedition 7 and never built the Minotaur. I was using maps and most of the crashed ship locations were accompanied by stranded NPC pilots so having helped them, the pilots then flew off in their ship... o.O It was kind of cool however. I found three abandoned ships though and fixed the basic engines, then scrapped them.

The Minotaur exosuit has a purpose built scanner for directly finding crashed ships. Other exocar scanners when fully upgraded also find specific things. So all exocars have their uses. I always land at the location indicated to mark the find before using a scanner or beacon or map to find another location, to avoid finding the same location. Some planets have more locations than others because planet sizes are different.

You can also always also use the signal booster you carry with you to find random things. Its fast and easy to place and pick up. Indirectly you can find inhabited buildings like the Observatories using maps or scanners. They may or may not then point you to crashed ships, crashed freighters or ruins and so on. But often they result in distress signals but again it depends, some planets have more or less locations to find. If you don't have much luck, move to other planets or systems. On the mover scanners can be more useful without having to visit space stations to collect the nav data to exchange for maps.

[Wile E Coyote, Super Genius]

Oh I thought OP was searching for crashed freighters. So yea , crashed ship signals are not reliable. Sometimes they'll even bring you back to the same site. If you're looking to make a profit on this try to go to a Gek system where you're more likely to get a crashed haulers.

[Johnny in the Clouds]

Originally posted by Wile E Coyote, Super Genius:

....crashed ship signals are not reliable. Sometimes they'll even bring you back to the same site.... try to go to a Gek system where you're more likely to get a crashed haulers.

Fixing up and improving the class and tech of a ship with upgrades will often give you back more when scrapping. But of course that can take a little more time if you are resource poor in the early game. Haulers though can bring in cash because of their size but of course may have more damaged slots to repair. If you begin to find the same locations it is possible the scanners or maps have exhausted the crashed sites on the planet. Time then to find a new planet or system.

[VayneVerso]

Originally posted by luther84695:

finding crashed ships is not the best use of your time. It is better to just go to a star port on a planet and wait for the best ship. If you build farms, it is the same as being able to print your own money.

Well, yeah. That's almost certainly true, but I just kind of enjoy doing it. Also, I don't think I'm at the farm building stage yet (Fungal farms, or whatever? Not really sure I know what that's all about, to be honest), so scrapping a ship for a couple of million units is still pretty decent income.