Newcomer / Intro Piceous Cobble: I'm stumped!

Maize

Maize
I've watched videos, read posts, etc., and still I can't seem to get the knack of picking up (or doing anything with) piceous cobble. Am I missing a step? Here's an example of what I've done just now:

  1. Land my ship at a geological signal.
  2. Launch the SRV.
  3. Find a water geyser.
  4. Scan it with the composition scanner to get the water geyser thingimy.
  5. Notice that it's got a green glob on the side.
  6. Go to turret mode and shoot the green glob off the geyser.
  7. Go to to the Navigation panel, then the Contacts tab and select the Piceous Cobble from the list.
  8. Deploy the cargo scoop.
  9. Drive directly over the Piceous Cobble about 1600 times from every conceivable angle at every conceivable speed.
I've also tried shooting the loose cobble again.

What are you supposed to do with this stuff, and how are you supposed to pick it up?
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
Unlikely. You are full of that material.
More likely. You targeted the wrong one on nav panel, I always target it with the target button while pointing at it.
Possible. When you exit turret mode it loses target lock. This used to happen to me, so I now only target when back out of turret mode.
 

Maize

Maize
Dommarraa said:
Unlikely. You are full of that material.
More likely. You targeted the wrong one on nav panel, I always target it with the target button while pointing at it.
Possible. When you exit turret mode it loses target lock. This used to happen to me, so I now only target when back out of turret mode.
Click to expand...

I was sure it was still showing the < > around the item, but I'll double check that. Thanks.
 

Maize

Maize
Dommarraa said:
Unlikely. You are full of that material.
More likely. You targeted the wrong one on nav panel, I always target it with the target button while pointing at it.
Possible. When you exit turret mode it loses target lock. This used to happen to me, so I now only target when back out of turret mode.
Click to expand...
Okay, looking at it, I needed to re-target it again after shooting it using the "target the thing in front of me" method. I keep forgetting that I have that bound to a different key than I do in every other mode in the game. I should just fix that key binding. Thanks again!
 

aRJay

aRJay
Once you have successfully shot your Piceous Cobble it will break free from the geyser, or whatever, it was stuck to and be revealed as a lump of one of the level 1 materials such as Iron or Carbon etc which when targeted in order to scoop it up at that point you will know if your storage is full of that material. The various crystal types you can find about the site tend to have the higher level materials/elements
 

Para Handy

Para Handy
BradHann said:
Once you've shot it off the geyser, it won't be called a Piceous Cobble anymore. If you go to your nav panel and target a Piceous Cobble, you're targetting the wrong thing.
Click to expand...

^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^ .... see point 7 in the OP.

P.S. As regards "I've also tried shooting the loose cobble again" - well, once you have shot up the cobble it isn't a cobble any more. (A cobble is rock of size between a pebble and a boulder.) You have magically reduced it to just an elementary material (which no longer has the appearance of pitch). ;) (Yes the GF is a geologist.)
 
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badibeat

badibeat
In short: You select the container and shoot it. Then you select what spills out of the container and scoop it.
 

McGyverCP

McGyverCP
d8veh said:
what can you do with these materials?
Click to expand...
In short, anything you need to synthesize, or have engineers do their magic, will require these materials.

Along with things you collect in other ways, such as:

FSD signatures
Ships Scans
Materials picked up when a ship explodes (you need to have pumped a few shots into said ship, or they won't appear, at least in my experience), etc...

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

Lakon Michael Charlie Golf signing off...
 

Maenden

Maenden
When you blast your cobble into its elemental bits then the pieces are quite small - so if you get too far away you lose contact with them quite quickly.
If you're looking for more cobbles etc learn about the scan that shows up just above your circular radar plot.
 

d8veh

d8veh
McGyverCP said:
In short, anything you need to synthesize, or have engineers do their magic, will require these materials.

Along with things you collect in other ways, such as:

FSD signatures
Ships Scans
Materials picked up when a ship explodes (you need to have pumped a few shots into said ship, or they won't appear, at least in my experience), etc...

Take Care and Check Six Commanders! o7

Lakon Michael Charlie Golf signing off...
Click to expand...
No. I mean more specifically with Piceous Cobble . It's a newly introduced material and I want to know what it's for. I'm already triple triple elite and have nearly all the engineers unlocked in every account, so I have a pretty good handle on how engineers work, but I stopped playing for a while when they introduced this stuff. It's not even mentioned in Inara.
 
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yianniv

yianniv
d8veh said:
No. I mean more specifically. They're newly introduced materials and I want to know what they'e for. I'm already triple triple elite and have nearly all the engineers unlocked in every account, so I have a pretty good handle on how engineers work, but I stopped playing for a while when they introduced this stuff. It's not even mentioned in Inara.
Click to expand...
They are not "newly" introduced, strictly speaking. You can find relevant info in Inara, in https://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprints/ and in Engineers
 

Screemonster

Screemonster
Maize said:
I've watched videos, read posts, etc., and still I can't seem to get the knack of picking up (or doing anything with) piceous cobble. Am I missing a step? Here's an example of what I've done just now:

  1. Land my ship at a geological signal.
  2. Launch the SRV.
  3. Find a water geyser.
  4. Scan it with the composition scanner to get the water geyser thingimy.
  5. Notice that it's got a green glob on the side.
  6. Go to turret mode and shoot the green glob off the geyser.
  7. Go to to the Navigation panel, then the Contacts tab and select the Piceous Cobble from the list.
  8. Deploy the cargo scoop.
  9. Drive directly over the Piceous Cobble about 1600 times from every conceivable angle at every conceivable speed.
I've also tried shooting the loose cobble again.

What are you supposed to do with this stuff, and how are you supposed to pick it up?
Click to expand...
Your problem is that you selected the cobble from the contacts tab, rather than the material. You had some other bit of cobble in range selected.
Once they're detached, they become iron or nickel or whatever.
 

Speedcuffs

Speedcuffs
d8veh said:
Maybe I'm stupid. I checked both of those links, but i didn't see any mention of Piceous Cobble. Why can't someone just say what it's for? If Piceous Cobble isn't new, when was it introduced?
Click to expand...
It's just something you shoot, turns into low level mats.
Usually found near crystal sites, fumaroles etc.
 

yianniv

yianniv
d8veh said:
Maybe I'm stupid. I checked both of those links, but i didn't see any mention of Piceous Cobble nor needle crystals. Why can't someone just say what it's for? If Piceous Cobble isn't new, when was it introduced?
Click to expand...
No, of course you're not stupid, it's just that it's not explained enough to you: Piceous Cobble, Crystal Shards, Crystalline Fragments and needle crystals are raw material containers, found at Geological (and I think Biological) surface POIs. You have to target them, shoot them 4-5 times and the actual material will pop out. I think they arrived with or after Horizons, since they require landing and use of SRV.
I've listed them in order of material grade they produce. For example, Piceous Cobble will always produce the G1 material the planet contains (iron, nickel, phosphorous, etc), whereas needle crystals always contain materials like Antimony, Polonium, Yttrium, etc but are more rare.
I hope I've explained it enough.
 
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