Exploring -Am I missing something!

[Tinkerjetz]

I started exploring again, after taking a break for a while, lately. I outfitted a Beluga, which has been so much fun, and got a 55 year jump range and all the modules you could want. I fired up my dss scanner and was told repeatedly there were a certain number of geological sites to explore but there was no way to lock onto these sites any more! After I got back after an 11,000 light year exploration I had clearly discovered a few new planets. I opened up discovery and there was nothing to really show what I had discovered. It used to be you got a record of the planets you had discovered and I got hyped on my achievements. The new codex seems more geared to getting you out there again with rumours and stats on biggest, smallest etc. Kinda miss the old way of doing things! Love to hear your thoughts. :)

[Sighman]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3174517076

[Jeebs]

Sighman's guide should cover everything you need to know. It's not like it used to be, where you map the planet and find "geological signature" signal sources where you find all these features. Now, they are scattered all across the world and you have to find them.

Sometimes I do miss the convenience of having a signal source pointing me to a spot where I'm guaranteed to find a bunch of materials. However, Odyssey's terrain is far less frustrating to drive over and I wouldn't go back to Horizons if they hadn't pushed the new planet tech over to it. Now that they have, there's no point in going back to it at all.

In Horizons, I used to find driving my SRV around to be a chore most of the time. The old planet tech had a tendency to make really steep cliffs and hills that more often than not required you to drive around a while, looking for a spot you could climb.

Odyssey's planet tech makes more realistic terrain which is a lot more fun to drive around on. I actually enjoy driving around and taking in the sights now, whereas I used to do it exclusively to mine materials. I've even gone as far as driven between two settlements that were under a 100 Km apart, just for the hell of it.

It takes a little bit of practice (like anything else in Elite) to get the hang of how the SRVs handle, but if you enjoy driving them then you're in luck. Finding these mats will feel like less of a chore if you just set out on a pleasant drive.

Drive around, mine what you find along the way and recall your ship when you get bored. More often than not I'll eventually run into a high concentration of them in a small area, similar to what you had in Horizons before.

Otherwise you can fly around looking for them, but be aware that if you're too high up and/or going too fast, you might pass them before they spawn in.

[funkynutz]

You're confusing your scanners.

Discovery Scanner, this is the one you ping when you jump into a system. Tells you how many bodies are in a system.

FSS: Full Spectrum Scanner. This is what you use to scan a system, and see where all the bodies are in it. This is also what tells you how many geological or biological samples are on any given planets surface.

DSS: Detailed Surface Scanner. It's changed significantly from the early days. You can't just fly close to a planet anymore and wait for it to do it's thing. You have to fire probes at the surface until you've mapped the whole planet (usually between 2 and 7 probes per planet - NOT including gas giants). It doesn't tell you how many geo/exo samples there are on any given planet in a system, but once a planet is mapped, it does tell you which individual types there are; and shows you where to find them.

[Agony_Aunt]

The heatmap takes some getting used to, but when you target the right areas you will usually find tons of plants to scan. Some are easier to spot than others though. Plants that grow on the sides of cliffs can be difficult to get close to, small plants hard to spot from the air (fly very low), and sometimes bacterium is very similar in colour to the surface and flat, and therefore hard to spot.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

The heatmap takes some getting used to, but when you target the right areas you will usually find tons of plants to scan. Some are easier to spot than others though. Plants that grow on the sides of cliffs can be difficult to get close to, small plants hard to spot from the air (fly very low), and sometimes bacterium is very similar in colour to the surface and flat, and therefore hard to spot.

Depending on your terrain work settings, some samples (particularly bacteria) can also spawn below the surface, which is a tad annoying...

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

The heatmap takes some getting used to, but when you target the right areas you will usually find tons of plants to scan. Some are easier to spot than others though. Plants that grow on the sides of cliffs can be difficult to get close to, small plants hard to spot from the air (fly very low), and sometimes bacterium is very similar in colour to the surface and flat, and therefore hard to spot.

Depending on your terrain work settings, some samples (particularly bacteria) can also spawn below the surface, which is a tad annoying...

Ooof. Fortunately i have that maxed.

Discovered a weird one the other day relating to Brain Trees (and might affect other things as well). Its to do with the checkerboard setting. If you have it off then it can happen that all brain trees spawn the same low value materials. Turning it on fixes it.

Imagine that, a graphics setting can affect the types of drops you get from plants!

[clif9710]

I've found that if you locate one example of a plant, there are bound to be others of the same type in the area. Rather than wandering around in different directions, I discovered that sticking to one heading does the trick if you are on flatland. Just keep on going and the second and third samples will appear.

Far more interesting are the plants that grow in rough terrain where you have to figure out how to get to them and can't simply land your ship nearby and walk to them.

The add-on SRV Survey is a huge help. When I mentioned it on here once before my comment was deleted, so it will be interesting to see if this comment goes the same way.

[funkynutz]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by funkynutz:

Depending on your terrain work settings, some samples (particularly bacteria) can also spawn below the surface, which is a tad annoying...

Ooof. Fortunately i have that maxed.

Me too, now... When I was still on a 1060 though, it wasn't really feasible lol. I even saw stratums spawning below the surface.

Discovered a weird one the other day relating to Brain Trees (and might affect other things as well). Its to do with the checkerboard setting. If you have it off then it can happen that all brain trees spawn the same low value materials. Turning it on fixes it.

Imagine that, a graphics setting can affect the types of drops you get from plants!

That sounds worthy of a bug report.