How to find a crashed freighter

[Reisei]

Stage 2 of the expedition asks you to find a crashed freighter, is there a quick way to find one? In my 30h save I've only found one and was while randomly wandering around

[Shadow Strider]

You can use Planetary Charts (you get 5 as a reward for one of the missions)...
https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Planetary_Chart

You'll also need one of those charts for the mission to rescue a crashed ship, so I'd recommend making a restore point save before using them in case you get bad RNG

[Reisei]

Originally posted by Shadow Strider:

You can use Planetary Charts (you get 5 as a reward for one of the missions)...
https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Planetary_Chart

You'll also need one of those charts for the mission to rescue a crashed ship, so I'd recommend making a restore point save before using them in case you get bad RNG

Aw man, I already wasted 1 or 2 of those doing the mission you mentioned. I got to the crash point and went around gathering materials but then I couldn't find my way back due to dozen of icons on the radar lol

Thanks for the tip, I'll make a restore point and try my luck with the remaining ones

[Shadow Strider]

Not sure If I just had good rng, but try having the mission selected in the log... my chart scans both worked on the first attempt that way

[urman.gamer]

If you have multiple charts, you can use more than one before investigating any. In using distress charts I've found:
- abandoned building
- distress signal (someone needs rescue)
- distress signal (ship available for your collection)
- crashed freighter
- observatory

Note that you are allowed only one marker for each of these, so you'll get a message saying you find nothing rather than getting a second marker - but this doesn't consume the map. Keep using the maps until you have two distress signals and a crashed freighter. You can't tell which distress signal is which until you investigate a site.

Note that you have 5 possibilities and 5 maps gained as a task reward. Convenient.

[Pʳᵒᶠ ◁⌧▷ Cʳᶦⁿᵍᵉ]

bit of a hack but never land at rescue site for pilot, an you can call out two distress signals for lost ships and one for freighter, i always leave abandoned building, freighter, rescue ship, and observatory on map in system, then give another roll and always get crash ship site./

about rolling, if it says currently already on map just keep re-rolling {clicking} every couple seconds an you'll get another popup crash ship beacon

[Pʳᵒᶠ ◁⌧▷ Cʳᶦⁿᵍᵉ]

btw if you didnt realise each save point on the planet has a navigation data, so you wanna save on world as many times as you come across them, the checkpoints.
Note i played for ten of hours without knowing that important information.

[taniwhat]

Fly around at low altitude. It helps a lot if you know it's a goal early on but the things are littering the surface of most worlds and that will find one fairly quickly. They are also large and very obvious from the air.

Minotaur scanners will also have a chance of finding crashed freighters (distress signals), you get a Minotaur.

Observatories have the same odds as the Minotaur scanners.

Charts from the stations. (Seldom bother with those because exocraft scanners can do the same and aren't that annoying to buy and build)

You can also build a nautilon with scanners for a 100% reliable kill to this one .

I just did the fly low thing and picked one up early on the way to something else.