Bacterial life is nigh on impossible to spot

[Phoenix]

Anyone have any tips? You can't spot them from a distance as they are indistinguishable from all the patches of light and dark around. They are so sparse and rare that I can drive for an hour and not see a single sample anywhere. Its also a nightmare due to being colourblind as well. Can you configure the SRV scanner to look for lifesigns?

On cold worlds its not too bad as they are usually darker, but on worlds where the terrain is varied its practically impossible. Only thing I know is they dont like mountains so are unlikely to be there.

[Devilish Dave]

Use the headlights on your SRV.
Although for me personally, flying my ship and scaling the ground with lights is significantly easier.

Lastly, if the planet has a light side, just land there and try again. Use the scanner to find the patch where it can be.

[Phoenix]

Headlights tend to wash everything out colourwise for me. I always run with them off. I generally land on the light side of planets. I'll try spotting them from my ship but even then I can barely see them from the background. What would be cool is if they emitted a cloud of spores once in a while or something. To give some sort of visual cue at distance. Like the little puffs of dust that occasionally pop up randomly.

[wolf]

We really just need the hand held bio scanner installed as a utility module in ships.

As far as the game is a simulated 'real' future in space, such a scanner would be there, its even present in almost all scifi tv shows and has been for the last 40+ years

Just not in Elite :)

[Planewalker]

There really should be a sticky with tips for for finding bacteria... ;)

[The man, the myth, the leg]

you have to know what you are looking for
bacteria are dark colored splotches that are completely flat(not rocks) and do not transition into the surrounding terrain(so not diffrent tarrain)

assuming you have scanned the planet: search flat plains(bright blue on DSS) and if possible search where the tarrain is bright. i would not recomend headlights. for me just make finding them worse. do not search at night, search the half that is facing the sun

SRV is not worth it. they are very slow and need to have fuel sythesized if you are not near a station. just fly around with the ship looking at the ground

[Menyanthes]

Once xou geht used to how bacteria Look like, it gets a lot easier. Sometimes you just have to go back into orbit and land at another spot.
Bacteria generally don't like pure rock or gravel and solide ice. I am quiet lucky on sand.
Try flying with about 30 m/s at 60-150 m above ground and the Ship's nose pointing down.

[SomethingCoolBro]

If i'm getting stuck finding one, one thing I do is sweep with the SRV turret in a flat area where bacteria should be, with the onboard scanner, it will flash and make a noise if it hovers over something. Then I get a bit closer and I can do a mini-honk with right-click on foot.

Sometimes they're nearly invisible during the day, because they're almost an identical texture to the terrain.

[Devilish Dave]

Originally posted by Phoenix:

Headlights tend to wash everything out colourwise for me. I always run with them off. I generally land on the light side of planets. I'll try spotting them from my ship but even then I can barely see them from the background. What would be cool is if they emitted a cloud of spores once in a while or something. To give some sort of visual cue at distance. Like the little puffs of dust that occasionally pop up randomly.

Lights for me only work when it's night. During the day it makes it bad, you're right.


During the day, another advice I can give is to use your camera mode. Fly above your SRV, look around, position it to face the direction you're driving and you have a far better view from higher up.

This is especially useful for those who haven't got a feel for their ship and are hesitant to stunt around a few meters above the surface.

If you're using the Scarab, make sure to max out ENG and put the remaining in SYS. This will allow you to fly higher when using your vertical thrusters. During night, you can fly high with your spotlights on and it does luminate the ground pretty well and it makes it easier to spot the bacteria. What you must then do, is remember where it was and drive to it. :p

[seevrum]

usually i fly my ship very very close to the ground with lights and nv on, its hard but it works (dont accidentally press boost like me lol)

[wolf]

Originally posted by Planewalker:

There really should be a sticky with tips for for finding bacteria... ;)

lol

[McGargoyle]

Originally posted by wolf:

We really just need the hand held bio scanner installed as a utility module in ships.

On second thought, let's not take away yet another sense of achievement by eliminating all skill requirements from the activity.

[wolf]

Originally posted by McGargoyle:

Originally posted by wolf:

We really just need the hand held bio scanner installed as a utility module in ships.

On second thought, let's not take away yet another sense of achievement by eliminating all skill requirements from the activity.

The FSD SCO has, and the carriers, and the nerfed mats requirements, and the increased credts rewards for scanning etc etc.

Game has ever only gone in one direction:
From too grindy to handle (at least the loud majority of players) to more laid back.

So within this tail wind, why not a bio scanning ship module? People are already sitting on top of their ships, flying low speed and skimming the surface

[brionl]

I just skip the bacterium. Then I don't care how hard it is to spot.

[Jeebs]

Fly low (under 50 m) and slow (25 m/s or less) to give the terrain generation time to spawn them. If you're too high up, they might be too far to spawn and you might pass them before they spawn if you're going too fast. Depending on the ship you're flying, you might want to fly upside down or on an angle to get a better view of the ground.

EDIT: If you have no choice but to hunt for them on the night side, then use a combination of night-vision and lights. However, I highly recommend that you stick to the day side when hunting for plants whenever possible.

While I generally prefer to use the SRV for hunting plants, it's just not very practical for finding bacterium. With other plants, you can see them from a distance, but bacterium you won't see until you're practically driving over them in most cases. Hence why I recommend the ship.

Originally posted by wolf:

So within this tail wind, why not a bio scanning ship module? People are already sitting on top of their ships, flying low speed and skimming the surface

I'd rather see an exploration-themed SRV that has one built in. Make it lighter and faster than the Scarab with paper-thin shields (if any at all) and its only armament is a single-fire gun that's only useful for mining geological samples. Give it a price tag of 3x the Artemis suit so that it remains a somewhat viable choice, at least early on.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Jeebs:

Originally posted by wolf:

So within this tail wind, why not a bio scanning ship module? People are already sitting on top of their ships, flying low speed and skimming the surface

I'd rather see an exploration-themed SRV that has one built in. Make it lighter and faster than the Scarab with paper-thin shields (if any at all) and its only armament is a single-fire gun that's only useful for mining geological samples. Give it a price tag of 3x the Artemis suit so that it remains a somewhat viable choice, at least early on.

That's a great idea and better than mine in fact. Bio scanners in surface vehicles, not ships. We scan for biological lifeforms in our ship and then land and use a detailed scanner on the planetary body. The existing geo scanner could get a cheap upgrade so very possible to implement, but preferrably in a new SRV that would be awesome.

Also bc toys-R-us :)