First time prospecting on planet surface and can't find diddly squat

[imwithdummy]

There's plenty of stuff on this planet according to the scan, but I've been be-bopping around for about 30 minutes or so and have yet to locate a single...anything. I've done a little Googling, watched a few videos...and from what I can gather?

There's different sounds for different things, you follow your radar to these things and, wallah, a little white square will appear right below your scanner. You just mosey yourself up to that little white square and you'll soon be targeting a rock full of goodies. Then just blast your way to material wealth.

But I've never seen/heard any of this and can't help but wonder what I could be doing wrong. So let me ask...are there more steps than just
A) get into SRV
B) look around
?

I've never heard it mentioned, but should I have already chosen something to be searching for? Should I be trying to target rocks? Or is it more likely that some planets are just that barren?

My planet here is "Khun 11D", and its 28% sulphur, 23% carbon, 15% phosphorus, 12% iron, 9% nickel...it seems like a lot of things to have not found a single thing. Just a bunch of rocks. Is this pretty normal?

[grapplehoeker]

You should be in outer orbit and looking for resource sites marked on the surface. There will be bunches of them. When you've found them, land there and then use your SRV to harvest minerals or biologicals depending on the type of resource site.

[morgoth13]

You can sometimes find stuff randomly on the planets surface - I assume you'll find more on bodies with higher reserves, on depleted worlds I tend to find nothing. But sometimes I find nothing anyway. And sometimes I find rather a lot.

If you land at the sites your scanner identifies when mapping it you'll see whatever the items of interest are and you're much more likely to find deposits in and around them to harvest -- but you still might not find anything.

[Paradox]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

There's plenty of stuff on this planet according to the scan, but I've been be-bopping around for about 30 minutes or so and have yet to locate a single...anything. I've done a little Googling, watched a few videos...and from what I can gather?

There's different sounds for different things, you follow your radar to these things and, wallah, a little white square will appear right below your scanner. You just mosey yourself up to that little white square and you'll soon be targeting a rock full of goodies. Then just blast your way to material wealth.

But I've never seen/heard any of this and can't help but wonder what I could be doing wrong. So let me ask...are there more steps than just
A) get into SRV
B) look around
?

I've never heard it mentioned, but should I have already chosen something to be searching for? Should I be trying to target rocks? Or is it more likely that some planets are just that barren?

My planet here is "Khun 11D", and its 28% sulphur, 23% carbon, 15% phosphorus, 12% iron, 9% nickel...it seems like a lot of things to have not found a single thing. Just a bunch of rocks. Is this pretty normal?

You use a detailed surface scanner and look for biological/geological areas of interest.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Paradox:

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

There's plenty of stuff on this planet according to the scan, but I've been be-bopping around for about 30 minutes or so and have yet to locate a single...anything. I've done a little Googling, watched a few videos...and from what I can gather?

There's different sounds for different things, you follow your radar to these things and, wallah, a little white square will appear right below your scanner. You just mosey yourself up to that little white square and you'll soon be targeting a rock full of goodies. Then just blast your way to material wealth.

But I've never seen/heard any of this and can't help but wonder what I could be doing wrong. So let me ask...are there more steps than just
A) get into SRV
B) look around
?

I've never heard it mentioned, but should I have already chosen something to be searching for? Should I be trying to target rocks? Or is it more likely that some planets are just that barren?

My planet here is "Khun 11D", and its 28% sulphur, 23% carbon, 15% phosphorus, 12% iron, 9% nickel...it seems like a lot of things to have not found a single thing. Just a bunch of rocks. Is this pretty normal?

You use a detailed surface scanner and look for biological/geological areas of interest.

Well...here's what I did:
A) Used a detailed surface scan
....well that's pretty much it, actually. I mean, I was led to this planet by a website that said I could find phosphorus there...I DID do a detailed surface scan to see that yep, the website was right, and then dove down to start my little expedition.

I never saw any areas of interest from the scan....does that mean that its a barren planet? Not worth checking out?

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by morgoth13:

You can sometimes find stuff randomly on the planets surface - I assume you'll find more on bodies with higher reserves, on depleted worlds I tend to find nothing. But sometimes I find nothing anyway. And sometimes I find rather a lot.

If you land at the sites your scanner identifies when mapping it you'll see whatever the items of interest are and you're much more likely to find deposits in and around them to harvest -- but you still might not find anything.

Thanks, good advice and I feel a bit better about coming up so empty handed lol

[The Prophet]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

You should be in outer orbit and looking for resource sites marked on the surface. There will be bunches of them. When you've found them, land there and then use your SRV to harvest minerals or biologicals depending on the type of resource site.

What are these resources for? Missions or mats for crafting or selling?

[Paradox]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Originally posted by Paradox:

You use a detailed surface scanner and look for biological/geological areas of interest.

Well...here's what I did:
A) Used a detailed surface scan
....well that's pretty much it, actually. I mean, I was led to this planet by a website that said I could find phosphorus there...I DID do a detailed surface scan to see that yep, the website was right, and then dove down to start my little expedition.

I never saw any areas of interest from the scan....does that mean that its a barren planet? Not worth checking out?

Yes. It means rather than having an area of interest to focus materials, you will just be driving around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon something.

[Bubba Fett]

I've never found a planet with nothing on it. Even without a detailed surface scan there's plenty to find away from geological sites.
I'm assuming you've done the tutorial for the SRV.
When you look at your scanner and see a signal, it will be very wide at long range and narrow as you get closer. The type of signal will determine if it's in the top, middle or bottom of the scanner or if it's in multiple bands.

So to find some random rock or outcropping that you can harvest, land, dismiss your ship to get rid of it's signal, drive in a circle looking for some kind of signal. When you get a signal on the scanner, keep it centered and drive in that direction. As you get closer, the signal return will get narrower allowing you to refine your heading toward it. When it gets very narrow and you're close enough, you'll get the little white marker on your map disk. At that point you should see brackets in your hud allowing you to target it.

When you do get to your rock, outcropping, or whatever, shoot it till it explodes in fragments. Open the cargo hatch and make sure to select each fragment to pick it up when you drive over it. You won't pick up stuff unless you select it.

Once you can find random stuff, look in your synthesis tab of you inventory to see what you want to be looking for. FSD boosts are handy, as are reloads.
If there's certain things you're missing in synthesis recipes then land on planets that have a higher concentration of those things.
Resources that you find on planets are also used for some engineering upgrades.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Paradox:

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Well...here's what I did:
A) Used a detailed surface scan
....well that's pretty much it, actually. I mean, I was led to this planet by a website that said I could find phosphorus there...I DID do a detailed surface scan to see that yep, the website was right, and then dove down to start my little expedition.

I never saw any areas of interest from the scan....does that mean that its a barren planet? Not worth checking out?

Yes. It means rather than having an area of interest to focus materials, you will just be driving around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon something.

Thanks Paradox. And lastly, will you be able to see these points of interest from orbit or do you have to go into the surface map and zoom around from in there? I'd imagine the latter, huh?

[Bubba Fett]

There's stuff you can scan from orbit like geological formations, and human settlements, and points of interest like crashed ships, cargo containers, etc.
Points of interest show as blue circles on the map if you're flying above 2km. It's really hard to find the exact location with your ship and once you get below 2km the blue circle will disappear. You'll have to land and look for the POI with your SRV.


Also, locations that you can find from orbit will show up when you scan the planet in the FSS. Once you find a planet with locations on it, fly there and use the Detailed Surface Scanner to map it then you'll be able to select locations in your nav list of see the icon on the surface.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Bubba Fett:

I've never found a planet with nothing on it. Even without a detailed surface scan there's plenty to find away from geological sites.
I'm assuming you've done the tutorial for the SRV.
When you look at your scanner and see a signal, it will be very wide at long range and narrow as you get closer. The type of signal will determine if it's in the top, middle or bottom of the scanner or if it's in multiple bands.

So to find some random rock or outcropping that you can harvest, land, dismiss your ship to get rid of it's signal, drive in a circle looking for some kind of signal. When you get a signal on the scanner, keep it centered and drive in that direction. As you get closer, the signal return will get narrower allowing you to refine your heading toward it. When it gets very narrow and you're close enough, you'll get the little white marker on your map disk. At that point you should see brackets in your hud allowing you to target it.

When you do get to your rock, outcropping, or whatever, shoot it till it explodes in fragments. Open the cargo hatch and make sure to select each fragment to pick it up when you drive over it. You won't pick up stuff unless you select it.

Once you can find random stuff, look in your synthesis tab of you inventory to see what you want to be looking for. FSD boosts are handy, as are reloads.
If there's certain things you're missing in synthesis recipes then land on planets that have a higher concentration of those things.
Resources that you find on planets are also used for some engineering upgrades.

Yeah, I just discovered engineering so am all about those upgrade mats right now...hence my surface searches here.
I think I get the scanner stuff...never thought to release my ship, but I've been driving towards signals pretty much all the time, but I've never really gotten any kind of a strong signal. Just some shadows on my radar, really....and a tall blip once in awhile, but nothing ever seems to materialize as I drive towards them.
I've been watching for that sacred little white marker, but just haven't had any luck so far.

Of course, I've only been to one planet...now I'm out and about scanning the surrounding planets that supposedly have phosphorus, but so far haven't been able to find any kind of point of interest or anything. This is tougher than I'd thought. Like most stuff with this game lol

[Bubba Fett]

It can take a while to get to the signals. I prefer pretty flat planets that I can tear across at full throttle. Assume it will take at least 5 minutes once you find a definite signal.
I usually dismiss the ship since it will head for orbit by itself once you get a certain distance from it, and by dismissing it, you only see ground signals you're looking for.

But you could use it to get used to what signals look like at range. Drive away from it and keep turning back toward it to see what it looks like on the scanner at different ranges.

If you see a tall skinny blip, it's probably just noise. If it was a real signal and you were close enough for it to be skinny, it would look pretty solid and you'd probably be able to see it on your map. Stuff looks pretty narrow and quite solid on your scanner before it shows up on your map as a white marker.

Also, pay attention to your compass heading so you keep heading in the same direction. Stop now and then and do a slow circle looking for stronger signals that you might have missed earlier in your trip. If you don't find anything, keep going along your original heading.
It can be really boring when you're not finding anything, but it's like core mining, eventually you figure it out and become a lot more sucessful.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by Bubba Fett:

It can take a while to get to the signals. I prefer pretty flat planets that I can tear across at full throttle. Assume it will take at least 5 minutes once you find a definite signal.
I usually dismiss the ship since it will head for orbit by itself once you get a certain distance from it, and by dismissing it, you only see ground signals you're looking for.

But you could use it to get used to what signals look like at range. Drive away from it and keep turning back toward it to see what it looks like on the scanner at different ranges.

If you see a tall skinny blip, it's probably just noise. If it was a real signal and you were close enough for it to be skinny, it would look pretty solid and you'd probably be able to see it on your map. Stuff looks pretty narrow and quite solid on your scanner before it shows up on your map as a white marker.

Also, pay attention to your compass heading so you keep heading in the same direction. Stop now and then and do a slow circle looking for stronger signals that you might have missed earlier in your trip. If you don't find anything, keep going along your original heading.
It can be really boring when you're not finding anything, but it's like core mining, eventually you figure it out and become a lot more sucessful.

Gotcha Bubba, good advice here, thank you.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Originally posted by Paradox:

Yes. It means rather than having an area of interest to focus materials, you will just be driving around aimlessly hoping to stumble upon something.

Thanks Paradox. And lastly, will you be able to see these points of interest from orbit or do you have to go into the surface map and zoom around from in there? I'd imagine the latter, huh?

Paradox...its going on a couple hours of scanning planets here and I've yet to see any points of interest....no indication of any mining areas on any planets. Are these viewable from orbit or do you need to go into the surface map to see them?

Pardon, but I'm sure you know what it feels like to have only two days off a week and to be spending one of them trying to find some friggin phosphorus. Or what have you lol

[Paradox]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Thanks Paradox. And lastly, will you be able to see these points of interest from orbit or do you have to go into the surface map and zoom around from in there? I'd imagine the latter, huh?

Paradox...its going on a couple hours of scanning planets here and I've yet to see any points of interest....no indication of any mining areas on any planets. Are these viewable from orbit or do you need to go into the surface map to see them?

Pardon, but I'm sure you know what it feels like to have only two days off a week and to be spending one of them trying to find some friggin phosphorus. Or what have you lol

You can see them in your navigation panel, the left panel. You can see them on the planet view in the map. You can see them while driving around in your SRV. Example: If you use EDDB bodies ( https://eddb.io/body ), add volcanism to the "extra column". You have to scan the planet with the detailed surface scanner. And, if you really want to save time, run a search on crystalline shards and where to find them (bio). I haven't had to ♥♥♥♥ with raws for months now and I've been engineering lots of different loadouts.