Surface Prospecting?

[KingDrax]

Is anyone else finding it really hard to find surface materials like sukphur, iron, selenium etc.? It used to be, in EDH, that you could land at a Geological site, deploy the SRV, and you'd be surrounded by scanner targets just ripe for the plucking.

Now, there are no geological sites visible from orbit, even if a planet data page says that there are geo sites available, and the status box top right ways Geological [2], there are no sites available, just Irregular Signals or something, and surface excavations. Geo sitesare not apparent, and if you land anywhere it seems that the rocks and targets just run away. Interestingly, dismissing the ship makes rocks suddenly appear... as if there's something in the game just for the buggeration factor so that you have to drive a long way from your ship before you find shootable rocks.

Anyone got any hints, please, as to how to find surface mats?

 

[varonica]

Is anyone else finding it really hard to find surface materials like sukphur, iron, selenium etc.? It used to be, in EDH, that you could land at a Geological site, deploy the SRV, and you'd be surrounded by scanner targets just ripe for the plucking.

Now, there are no geological sites visible from orbit, even if a planet data page says that there are geo sites available, and the status box top right ways Geological [2], there are no sites available, just Irregular Signals or something, and surface excavations. Geo sitesare not apparent, and if you land anywhere it seems that the rocks and targets just run away. Interestingly, dismissing the ship makes rocks suddenly appear... as if there's something in the game just for the buggeration factor so that you have to drive a long way from your ship before you find shootable rocks.

Anyone got any hints, please, as to how to find surface mats?

Geology doesn't just sit in a couple of spots now, it's spread all over the planet in the blue area, there are plenty of dense geo rich sites around, they've just taken away the giant pointy arrow that says "here be geo". That Geological [2] now means 2 different kinds of geology, not 2 sites.

 

[DøømHåmstër]

Is anyone else finding it really hard to find surface materials like sukphur.

I feel like 'Sukphur' has become fairly ubiquitous since Odyssey launched, actually.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I feel like 'Sukphur' has become fairly ubiquitous since Odyssey launched, actually.

It sounds like a competition for ladies of questionable morals.

 

[King Drax I]

Excellent humour guys - made me splurt my tea

Varonica - thanks for the tips there, that's given me a good starting point. I'll have a crack at that next. Really appreciated.

 

[Vardaugas]

From my experience, geological actvity is only good for g1-2 materials. And you could probably trade them down from materials gained by outcrop mining. But, if you want to check geo mining out, easiest is picking a Sidewinder with a beam or mining laser and fly low over the surface looking for the crystals. Shoot them off with the laser and pick them up with the cargo scoop. The Sidewinder is small enough to get between all the rocks where larger ships couldn't and even the SRV would struggle to navigate.

 

[King Drax I]

From my experience, geological actvity is only good for g1-2 materials. And you could probably trade them down from materials gained by outcrop mining. But, if you want to check geo mining out, easiest is picking a Sidewinder with a beam or mining laser and fly low over the surface looking for the crystals. Shoot them off with the laser and pick them up with the cargo scoop. The Sidewinder is small enough to get between all the rocks where larger ships couldn't and even the SRV would struggle to navigate.

Now that's really interesting - using a ship for planetside mining. I didn't even know that the targets showed up on a ship's scanners; they didn't in EDH. But I'll give that a go too.

What would you say is the difference, then between outcrop mining and geo mining? Obviously I'd prefer to be a ble to mine the higher value mats like selenium; is that found in outcrops and how do you find the outcrops in the first place Is that low flying into a blue zone that does that?

 

[HRDiagram]

I didn't even know that the targets showed up on a ship's scanners; they didn't in EDH.

You have to be very close (30-40m max, I believe, but I could be wrong) for the signals to appear on the ship's radar. If you don't see them immediately, get closer/lower, and they will pop up!
I generally use my ship to pick up escape pods or canisters instead of the SRV, given its limit of just 2t.
As a matter of fact, I rarely use the Scarab. I either walk or fly very low, depending on what I have to do.

 

[Vardaugas]

You find outcrops with the SRV wave scanner. Clicks are low value outcrops, screeches are high value outcrops. Structures are on the top of the scanner. You'll get the hang of it.

For geo crystals, you can eyeball them and when you are really close, you can select them from your ship for pickup. Shooting can be done by eyeball, hence the beam laser.

 

[King Drax I]

Thank you for your input, folks I'm raring to go now (but will have to wait until tomorrow to try it, sadly!). SRV scanner is familiar territory for me, but that was part of the problem - most of the time it was blank! Thanks again!

 

[quackinthebush]

Metallic meteorites also yield high value surface materials, but I can't really figure out where/when they spawn, seems random, but they do occur in clusters. In general, I've found that just cruising around in my SRV I usually find a bunch of outcrops, bronzite chondrite (sp?) and if I'm lucky a metallic meteorite or two after 15 minutes. It's kinda cool how it encourages more exploration versus just farming from geological sites. The yields aren't great though. Eventually I got bored of it and switched over to Horizons to run the Crystal Shard forests way out in HIP something something.

 

[CMDR Rabbit]

Metallic meteorites also yield high value surface materials, but I can't really figure out where/when they spawn, seems random, but they do occur in clusters. In general, I've found that just cruising around in my SRV I usually find a bunch of outcrops, bronzite chondrite (sp?) and if I'm lucky a metallic meteorite or two after 15 minutes. It's kinda cool how it encourages more exploration versus just farming from geological sites. The yields aren't great though. Eventually I got bored of it and switched over to Horizons to run the Crystal Shard forests way out in HIP something something.

My best luck, and this is probably purely coincidental or confirmation bias on my part on my part, but i've found that met meteorites tend to be easier to find in big ejecta streaks outside craters.

 

[KingDrax]

Well, I've tried low-level flight over a metal-rich planet, at heights of around 20-50m, and at high speed. Sometimes, I visually spot features like fumaroles, but these don't show up on the ship scanner whether I'm flying or landed. They only show up as targets once I have disembarked into the SRV. I have a DSS and I have tried it in Combat and Analysis mode, can't see the features on scanners. I've tried shooting both beam and mining lasers at features, and nothing falls off them. Is there an essential piece of equipment I should have? Or maybe it has to be a small ship? I'm currently using a Python for these experiments...

 

[Sighman]

Go to an Odyssey POI, cut open the rack with 6 canisters, scoop with the SRV (18 raw materials, random levels), then shoot the rack and collect another 3 materials.

Some POI have two of these racks. If you loot the boxes and crashed ship/containers/etc at the same time you're getting a twofer.

 

[KingDrax]

Go to an Odyssey POI, cut open the rack with 6 canisters, scoop with the SRV (18 raw materials, random levels), then shoot the rack and collect another 3 materials.

Some POI have two of these racks. If you loot the boxes and crashed ship/containers/etc at the same time you're getting a twofer.

Cool, thanks. So are POIs still indicated by those big blue areas on the ship's scanner, like in EDH?

 

[taniwha-qf]

From my experience, geological actvity is only good for g1-2 materials

Your experience is insufficient. If you find a nice area with lots of vents/fumeroles/??? (forgot the third), you'll find all four grades, all "correctly" identified via their lump types (ie, same as Horizons).