best way to find crashed ships?

[x Princess Leliana x]

I know you can use nav charts to get transmission towers to find them, or to find the ship itself, but that is really unreliable and consumes lots of charts.

The wiki says you can just spam the chart without consuming it until you get a distress signal, but thats not the case.

Also, When I did finally find one the ship wasnt available for claiming, had to help a gek and then he buggered off.

[Krash Megiddo]

Most reliable method is the nautilon scanner for sunken ships.
no empty oil slicks
no pilots in distress
works 100% (if your on a planet with sunken starships)

[SaD-82]

You can use those charts (*) or you can use your exocraft scanner in your Nautilus.

*
If you find a distress signal with a chart, don't fly there, use the charts again and again until you get a second distress signal. And you will get a second one - just keep spamming those charts - even if it says that nothing was found (in that case the chart isn't consumed and you can spam it again and again - that's what the wiki is refering to), keep spamming it.
As soon as you have two signal, fly to one of those but don't land immediatly.
Look if it's a crashed ship or someone who needs help. If it's a crashed ship - fine; if it's not fly to the other spot.
And now you can start to use the charts again until you get a second distress signal again - and this time you will know that it is a crashed ship because you didn't clear the signal from the guy who needs help.

The Nautilus is the more easy way.

[Guyver8]

get a bunch of distress charts (10-20) and pop them off until you get the crashed ship
do not visit the other things that pop up cos that will clear them and we don't want that as the map can't give them again if they are already active.

go to the crashed ship but don't land, approach slowly and look...if there is no distress beacon then this is the stranded pilot so fly away without landing.

land somewhere else and pop another map until you get a crashed ship...it can only be a real crashed ship cos the map can't give the stranded pilot cos you've still got one active.
go get your crashed ship.

then pop another map....rinse and repeat
(not my best explanation..sorry)

[wkitty42]

i like looking at the scenery so what i tend to do a lot is to fly upside down over the terrain looking around as i go... so basically, my controls are reversed and i'm looking out the top of the cockpit glass... you need a ship that's got a nice glass cockpit cover for this... fighters are good as are a few others...

[x Princess Leliana x]

Originally posted by Guyver8:

get a bunch of distress charts (10-20) and pop them off until you get the crashed ship
do not visit the other things that pop up cos that will clear them and we don't want that as the map can't give them again if they are already active.

go to the crashed ship but don't land, approach slowly and look...if there is no distress beacon then this is the stranded pilot so fly away without landing.

land somewhere else and pop another map until you get a crashed ship...it can only be a real crashed ship cos the map can't give the stranded pilot cos you've still got one active.
go get your crashed ship.

then pop another map....rinse and repeat
(not my best explanation..sorry)

This works great, especially the "check before you get out".

Only other question is what do I do with them?

I Add them to collection, then go to my freighter, swap it to primary, wait for an AI to come, then trade it for an AI ship, then sell that ship, or somethig, right?

[Guyver8]

you can make MONEY
go to your freighter, make a crashed ship your primary, teleport to a space station and use the ship upgrade console to scrap the ship.
you'll get scrap equal to 2/3 the value of the ship, some ship upgrades (same class as the ship) and maybe (RNG-ish) some ship storage augments
or
you can keep and fix it

[Sentient_Pickle]

Honestly I have a lot of luck just flying around planets in 3rd person mode and pulsing the scanner every time it recharges. Scanner won't detect every building you fly by as it's got an odd cone shaped zone, but there's a height off the ground that's a sweet spot that's high up enough to see surrounding areas but not so high as to not be able to see buildings. Usually the first thing I do after getting the starting ship up and running is just skimming the planet looking for either crashed ships or transmission towers and claiming ships up until I'm full up, then scrapping them all on the station for starting units/nanites

[x Princess Leliana x]

Originally posted by Guyver8:

you can make MONEY
go to your freighter, make a crashed ship your primary, teleport to a space station and use the ship upgrade console to scrap the ship.
you'll get scrap equal to 2/3 the value of the ship, some ship upgrades (same class as the ship) and maybe (RNG-ish) some ship storage augments
or
you can keep and fix it

Yeah that was what I thought you did, just helps to have how its done explained ^^ Thank you

Originally posted by Sentient_Pickle:

Honestly I have a lot of luck just flying around planets in 3rd person mode and pulsing the scanner every time it recharges. Scanner won't detect every building you fly by as it's got an odd cone shaped zone, but there's a height off the ground that's a sweet spot that's high up enough to see surrounding areas but not so high as to not be able to see buildings. Usually the first thing I do after getting the starting ship up and running is just skimming the planet looking for either crashed ships or transmission towers and claiming ships up until I'm full up, then scrapping them all on the station for starting units/nanites

Do you need upgrades for it? My scanner on my ship does not detect anything at all, on planet

[TheCr33pur]

Also while flying around, keep your eyes on the radar too. If you see a square blip, check it out. Sometimes you will see npc that needed help to patch it up or just abandoned. There are several ways to look for them. I dont want to spoil the fun, some out there like to earn it.

[x Princess Leliana x]

Originally posted by TheCr33pur:

Also while flying around, keep your eyes on the radar too. If you see a square blip, check it out. Sometimes you will see npc that needed help to patch it up or just abandoned. There are several ways to look for them. I dont want to spoil the fun, some out there like to earn it.

My radar doesnt show anything is the confusion? Like, it just shows the same view on planet as it does in space, I can see planets, space stations, etc. Theres no new stuff on a planet.

[TheCr33pur]

Originally posted by x Princess Leliana x:

Originally posted by TheCr33pur:

Also while flying around, keep your eyes on the radar too. If you see a square blip, check it out. Sometimes you will see npc that needed help to patch it up or just abandoned. There are several ways to look for them. I dont want to spoil the fun, some out there like to earn it.

My radar doesnt show anything is the confusion? Like, it just shows the same view on planet as it does in space, I can see planets, space stations, etc. Theres no new stuff on a planet.

Just have to keep exploring, there are out there.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by x Princess Leliana x:

Theres no new stuff on a planet.

Occasionally hitting "C" to scan while in low orbit will get you a new POI.
Other than that it would be just looking out of your window to spot things on ground.