How to probe like you've got space madness. Also some FSS stuff.

A quick guide to show you how to launch your probes like a champion of the void. Now with extra FSS.

Introduction

If you're having trouble understanding where to target your probes, or are tired of probing one side, then flying to the other side and firing again, let me impart with you a little technique that I stumbled upon.

You'll need a Surface Scanner module to be able to do this in case you're wondering.

The Technique

First, a planet.
This little beauty is a water world out in the middle of nowhere just near the edge of the Formadine Rift:



Now I'm assuming that you know the probe fires towards where you target on the face of the planet.
What you might not know is that if you target just slightly away from the planet, you'll see a little line like so:



If you fire at this spot, your probe will land smack bang on the horizon of the planet.
This is great if you want to maximize your coverage on the face of the planet.
However, there is a little more to aiming just off the planet.
What if we aim way out here, past that horizon?



That's going to miss right?
I already know things so I'm gonna aim slightly back a bit, between the maximum point at which I get a line and the mark for the horizon, still looks like it'll miss by a million miles.
Boom!



And as it gets closer to this gorgeous little planet:



It begins to curve with the planet's gravitational well, and we wait a little longer to see where it's going and...



Boom!
This is the rear side of the planet by the way, there's a button for that and it's really important.
As you can see, it's landed on the opposite side of the planet.
If you're a clever clogs then you'll understand instantly.
Maybe though you're an even cleverer clogs and you're thinking well, duh...
In any case, what this means is that you can cover the entire planet from a single location.

So, this planet's Efficiency Target is 6 probes, meaning that you'll get a bonus in you get over 90% coverage with that many or fewer probes.
For this pretty blue pearl, that means we want 3 on the front and 3 on the rear of the planet.
We already have one here though, so 2 more for the back, then 3 for the front.
Away we go...



Notice the rear probes curving around the planet.
The ones at the front were a bit dodgy, you should always try to space them nice and evenly, but I know I'm beyond amazing and so this can't fail.

After a little wait:



100% coverage from a single location!
Congratulations now you know how to be more gooder at this kind of thing.

Ringed Planets

If you're trying to do this with ringed planets, it can be a real pain in the ring. You can't curve your probes through the rings. However, if you approach the planet directly parallel to the rings, like right towards the ring so you can barely see them, then you can curve your probes nicely.

Here's an image with what I mean:


This doesn't work if the rings are super massive though.

The FSS

Wanted to just have probing in this guide, but it seems plently of people don't know how to learn to scan very good.

This section assumes that you've read the basic help screen, if you haven't then bind a key for it in the controls menu and press it. Might be confusing at first as it's information overload, but do a couple of scans and re-read it. It's very well done.



This is the FSS screen after a honk. You can click the image to make if bigger if you need.
I'm not teaching you how to scan, the in-game help does it well. It's just honk, tune, target, zoom.
I'll go through the good bits of information to get here:

First up, right in the centre bottom of the screen, the Filtered Spectral Analalysis.
This band here is a godsend and shows you what frequency that all unknown signals are after the honk. In the screen above you can instantly determine that there's an earthlike, a water world, and maybe an ammonia world too. There's also a bunch of asteroids and some rocky bodies.

In the bottom left there's a Signal Analysis section that tells you just what kind of signals live at that frequency band. Up the frequency and it'll change to display what lives where. You'll figure it out quick. It's how you can tell what's in a system at a glance. For crusty explorers that used to use holograms / cartographer sounds / cartographer visuals. you'll understand just why the new FSS is so damn good.

Bottom left is % left to scan to completely scan the system, decent info to have but not super important. Basically what's in the top right anyway.

Above that on the left side is a bar that might be zoom level. I never really pay attention to it, I should figure that out. Just below that though is decent stuff, distance to target and temperature. Distance is great to quickly see if it's worth the trip for a probing and temperature is good if you're hunting for a particular temperature range for certain plant or thargoid life.

Lastly, the top right is number of signal and number of scanable bodies. Asteroids don't count towards the bodies number and scanning them nets no money so to 100% scan a system asteroids aren't needed. That's why the numbers above don't add up. But for the image above we can see that there's 15 signals left to scan. Thus 7 signal are asteroids.

That's it!
So, jump in, open FSS, honk, check the Filtered Spectral Analalysis slider, if there's any decent signals then go in for a better look, if not and you aren't looking for points of interest, bail, next system. Very fast, very good.

Of course nothing is stopping you if you want to give the whole system a scan, it's quite quick and sure to net you some credits. However I wouldn't recommend a full system probing though. Takes ages and I don't think it's worth the time. Probing high value targets seems to be worthwhile though, but do whatever you want, I'm not your boss. You can plaster you name on all the maps if you like. I'm just here to get you good.

Some other things

If you aim too far off the planet, the word "Miss" will pop up letting you know something important.
Shooting a probe just before you get the "Miss" will launch a probe right around and onto the centre rear of the planet, this is useful for those bigger planets that require a probe right there.

If you shoot out your probes and stuff it up a bit, don't be afraid to just fly around a bit to get a nice easy shot. You'll get the hang of it as you practice.
Of course, if you don't actually care about the efficiency bonus then just keep firing.
I honestly don't even know if the bonus is of any significance, but get good at this and it's super easy to get anyway plus it's a great indicator of how many probes you need to fire, or to put it another way, the size of the planet.

SOME SITES DON'T SHOW UP AFTER A FSS SCAN. I've only noticed this with the Formidine Rift settlements, so it may only be limited to plot related secrets. Also spoiler alert for that stuff you just read maybe. These sites WILL pop up after a good probing though.

Praise the Sun

Not "The Sun", but a star.
Just some random one somewhere.
He wants a high five.


Give him one.
Give them all one.
You can't probe stars.

[Agamemnon]

analysis*

[Icy]

Still my favorite guide on steam

[Super Arthritis ⁧⁧ ⁧⁧Man]

Decent planets money wise are basically any terraformable, water worlds, earth-likes and ammonia worlds. Gas giants with water or ammonia life are ok too.
Otherwise you might be looking for landable planets. It'll say in the the top right part of the screen once zoomed in if there's any points of interest. If the planet has points of interest, you'll need to probe it to find out where exactly.
The module you need is the Detailed Surface Scanner.

[Citruspunch]

Good guide. thanks! Q.
What do I need to install in my ship to do this?
What is a 'decent' planet to go scan - what's the criteria for that?

[Super Arthritis ⁧⁧ ⁧⁧Man]

Thanks, I don't know why I neglected to write that one.

[ElderKorean]

Just saw this guide, you can also target the rings if a planet has one, you only need to hit it once to scan the entire ring system. You can always see if you're going to hit the rings as it shows "Rings" instead of "Miss" when targeting.

[Sir Gigachad of Thundercock]

Will do, thanks!

[Super Arthritis ⁧⁧ ⁧⁧Man]

You might not have set your control binds properly. You have to set something for the pitch and yaw axis. I think there's an option to set it to mouse control too. Have a look in your control settings.

[Sir Gigachad of Thundercock]

How do you aim the probe cannon thingy? I can only keep it static

[Skywalker]

why you did it on the dark side of the planet..firing a probe ?