Finding samples easier?

[Heck]

Whats the trick
I scrounge around an outpost and cant find anything easy

[Eagle_of_Fire]

At level 7 there is pretty much always samples laying around in bases you destroy.

[Flo]

Do POIs

We'll probably get a sample drone at some point like in HD1

[Tryryke]

Points of interest, generally speaking.

[Corporal-Sheppard]

I wouldn't know, been maxed out for over a month now :(

[shadain597]

One trick that wasn't immediately obvious to me when I started: close your minimap when combing the immediate area for samples, because the little label and pickup option are hidden when you have the map open. Once you start picking up samples, take note of where they are in a base or PoI, because the game just shuffles and recycles everything.

[Empurress MeowMeows]

people suggest putting on scout armor and doing easy levels while scanning the map. I don't understand how the scout armor works because I never see it scan anything for me but running around solo on easy difficulties has netted me way more samples than if I was in a group. Just make a circle or zig zag path. You can even finish the main mission first and then search the map. This wont work for the pink samples sadly. Orange is doable but you might want to avoid groups of enemies.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Originally posted by Empurress MeowMeows:

people suggest putting on scout armor and doing easy levels while scanning the map. I don't understand how the scout armor works because I never see it scan anything for me but running around solo on easy difficulties has netted me way more samples than if I was in a group. Just make a circle or zig zag path. You can even finish the main mission first and then search the map. This wont work for the pink samples sadly. Orange is doable but you might want to avoid groups of enemies.

Armor with the scout trait give you 30% more leeway before enemies see you. You can also place a ping anywhere on the map and it will act as a scanner for you, allowing you to see red dots on the map around that ping. Those dots are of course enemies.

I'm not sure how this is related to finding samples because you can easily find tons just playing normally, but that's how the armor with the scout trait work.

[Heck]

So I kinda figured it out or got the gist
I normally play 4 difficulty
Enemy outposts or nests usually have at least one common sample. Larger ones usually have a rare somewhere
POIs like buildings usually have a common laying around
POIs with destructible doors or switch doors almost always have samples.
The extraction zone always has common samples

[shadain597]

To add to this, PoIs have two different map markers; one with a gem and one that's just a pin. AFAIK, the difference is whether or not there's still samples there, with the gem indicating samples, and sometimes if you zoom in it'll lead you to the samples rather than a loot pod. That said, I've recently been encountering a bug of sorts where the map icon is a gem but no matter how hard I look the sample just isn't there.

Also, the gem icon doesn't tag every sample, only those PoIs, so you still need to keep an eye out for samples in enemy bases and around objectives.