fossil tails like fish

[grandnovice]

I cannot find any of the 3 fancy fossil tails, it feels like fishing in that there are a few common and uncommon I just can't seem to find. Are some of these thing just that rare?

[Dr. Cargo]

I'm guessing they are.
I haven't been able to get them yet either, as well as the mammoth tusked skull (mustachioed skull) and a couple of others. It might just be the Gods of Random Number Generator which can be very fickle, or does anyone else know if some are limited to some Biome type like with the bone companions and bone (titan) worms on the planet or moon?
Pretty much all of them can be found on any single world with the Ancient Bones feature as far as I've seen and I've checked a few worlds and moons now.

With the number of new skulls and other bones, I'm guessing that it's just the luck of the RNG. On the expedition where you had to catch a Bonefish, it took me nearly 100 casts to get one even with the best lure.
Maybe someone who has looked in the data files can determine the probabilities?

[Shadow Strider]

Yeah, it's likely just RNG...
With a large amount of possibilities it can take a lot of luck to get a specific one.

Have you tried visiting the trader on space stations to see if they have the ones you're looking for

Originally posted by Dr. Cargo:

With the number of new skulls and other bones, I'm guessing that it's just the luck of the RNG. On the expedition where you had to catch a Bonefish, it took me nearly 100 casts to get one even with the best lure.
Maybe someone who has looked in the data files can determine the probabilities?

Worth noting that of the two valid bonefish, one was legendary (toxic biome), and the other was uncommon (any biome). Unless you were going for the legendary (which I've found still have fairly low success rates even with bionic lure), then using the bionic lure was actually a detriment not a benefit... They were also both large size, so the ideal water depth (at least in my experience) was 30-40 u... beyond that and you're more likely to catch colossal size...

[cattivision]

I'm wondering if those might be on the new water worlds, maybe on those that have the craggy mountain tops above the water. In the expedition I was pointed to a water world that the scan said had bones at one of the stages, but on landing ( I couldn't see any obvious tiny islands so just landed on the water) the mission marker then changed to send me to a different system. I have those three and one that looks like an open long beak still greyed out in my fossil catalogue. I may go back to the system to see if I can find any submerged fossils - but that doesn't seem likely, but who knows!

[Dr. Cargo]

I should also point out that I'm not in the expedition, or even in the same galaxy, looking to complete the fossil catalogue after I finished it.
The fishing stuff I completed during the last 2 expeditions, and after the last fix, that's fine for me (everything previously found in Wonders, minerals, fauna, flora was showing as ????? in the catalogue on coming back).
I'll try a few more jumps and check a bunch of traders and other biomes/rare fauna/star type planets with ancient bones next for the last few fossils.

[Dr. Cargo]

Originally posted by cattivision:

I'm wondering if those might be on the new water worlds, maybe on those that have the craggy mountain tops above the water. In the expedition I was pointed to a water world that the scan said had bones at one of the stages, but on landing ( I couldn't see any obvious tiny islands so just landed on the water) the mission marker then changed to send me to a different system. I have those three and one that looks like an open long beak still greyed out in my fossil catalogue. I may go back to the system to see if I can find any submerged fossils - but that doesn't seem likely, but who knows!

I've checked many different systems and worlds with Ancient Bones (100's of fossil sites) and traders and these still elude me.
They are the Mustachioed Skull (like the living bone companion creature), the Snapbeak Skull (that's the open long beak one), and the 3 on the last page (Upturned Tail Fan, Downturned Tail Fan, and Stubtail).
I'm guessing it's on a rare planet type. I did find a total water world which was marked as Ancient Bones, but couldn't find a single fossil site (no land above water and nothing on the seabed).
I did notice that some planets have way more fossil sites than others, so that's a factor in hunting. Also, if you dig a site and go to another, sometimes more fossils pop up on the scan at the old sites you have left.
I also avoid fighting the Stone Guardians, since the Terrain Manipulator doesn't wake them up and I just tunnel underneath the Stone Eyes to get the bones. I'm wondering if they drop anything other than Polished Stone? I have a vague memory of some bones popping up in the expedition that way, but I could be misremembering.