An interesting week of exploration and mining.

[Mohenjo]

So, I entered a system I knew to have a pristine metallic ring around one of its worlds. I hadn't actually been there, so I did a ping and found a world with 5 biological signals. I decided to land and grab those before I went to the ring and did the mining I'd actually gone there for.

I landed, and noticed there was a bacterial colony right next to my ship, so I scanned that and then bounced around in my SRV looking for more. During that time, I came across all of the other 4 types of biologicals, so I felt this wouldn't take too long. I scanned 3 of the grassy things, then 3 of the green blob things, then 3 of the giant stony mushroom things. That left only the little grassy mushroom things, labelled as "Fungoida." I scanned that one, then spent the next 4 hours searching the area for another. Eventually, I had to go to bed.

The next day, after work, I loaded up to continue the search. I got home at 6:30pm. Keep that in mind.
So, I launched up into the air to select a good spot to land. I found a SMALL spot of blue to limit the area the things could be in, and landed. After spending about 2 hours looking around in that tiny spot, I found nothing, so I moved up and landed again in a larger blue area. I searched around and around until about 5am... so about 10 hours and a bit searching with NOTHING of those fungoida plants in an area where they're supposed to be. So, I went to bed.

The next day, I tried again, with exactly the same results.

And again the next day, though on this day I did find one more.

And again the next day.

Today, I FINALLY found the last one. With that done, I went to the pristine ring to do the mining I'd gone there for A WEEK AGO.

So, I scanned the ring and went to a Painite "hotspot." I had 111 limpets in my hold. I went around the hotspot pinging with my pulse wave scanner, and sent propspectors to all the asteroids that turned orange. 111 limpets later, I'd found NONE of them had anything but bauxite, coltan and lepidolite. In a supposed HOTSPOT, there was NONE of the material AT ALL.

So, I turned the game off. I'm feeling pretty ticked off, what an incredible waste of a week. Here's a clue for the developers: if an area is going to be labeled as a hotspot for something, be it bio or geo locations on planets or mining materials... THEY SHOULD DAMN WELL BE THERE.

We'll see when I actually feel like playing this game again.

 

[St0rmFury]

Bauxite, coltan & lepidolite cannot b found in metallic rings. Coltan & lepidolite do exist in metal rich rings though, which I suspect was where you were.

You probably entered the outer ring instead of the inner one (common mistake, don't feel bad about it).

Painite can be found in both metal rich & metallic rings. In metallic rings, painite is typically laser mined; core if in metal rich rings. So if you're in a metallic ring as you said, you won't be able to find core painite asteroids.

 

[Mohenjo]

Bauxite, coltan & lepidolite cannot b found in metallic rings. Coltan & lepidolite do exist in metal rich rings though, which I suspect was where you were.

You probably entered the outer ring instead of the inner one (common mistake, don't feel bad about it).

Painite can be found in both metal rich & metallic rings. In metallic rings, painite is typically laser mined; core if in metal rich rings. So if you're in a metallic ring as you said, you won't be able to find core painite asteroids.

Ya, I'm aware of the inner/outer ring thing.... However, the Painite hotspot was in the outer ring. My complaint is that if there's a hotspot, the element it says will be there SHOULD BE THERE.

But, I'll ignore the hotspot and just mine normally.

 

[St0rmFury]

Then all I can say is practice makes perfect. Not all orange orange asteroids are core, there's a specific shape & size too.

I wasted a lot of limpets too when I started core mining because I thought as long as it's glowing, it's gotta be a core.

Took a while but I can say I've improved a lot and I can find a core every 8 minutes on average.

 

[Mohenjo]

Truthfully, the mining part of it was the less irritating. I spent FIVE DAYS, around 8-10 hours a day, searching areas that were marked blue (ie. the bio signals were supposed to be there). That's ridiculous.

 

[Erei]

Fungoida grow in mountain area. They seems to like height and rough terrain. As such it is one of the most annoying to collect, especially if you have a bigger than small ship (good luck landing !)
The "blue" heatmap thing can more often than not get carried and paint a valley, while the mountain at the edge of it is the only place you'll find the fungoida.
You need to learn where most plant grow to help with that.

From what I know :
-fungoida : mountain
-tussock : highlands, hills, mid-mountain (kinda like fungoida, but lower altitude)
-conchas : crevasses, deep valley....
-fumerola : as the name imply, they grow on some fumerole thing
-bacterium : generally common, always found in flat terrain in my experience

Not sure :
-Osseus : rough terrain I think.
-stratum : crater and low alittude "flat" terrain, I think
-tubus, cactoida, aloida seem to like flat terrain (height irrelevant)

No discernable pattern I can find :
-the rest^^

One good way to go when you have a bunch of bio is to swap the filter from one another and see what kind of biome get "removed" or "added" for each plant. That biome can sometimes be the one they thrive on. So, for example you pick tussock, and it highlight mountains and hill on top of the valley, then bacteirum but it only highlight the valley itself, that's because tussock thrives in mid mountain or hills, while bacteirum only grow in the valley. Swap regularly the blue filter on/off (combat/scan mode) to double check what the terrain look like. Sometimes they like specific biome like desert, and most of them hates ice caps.

OFC it's easier if you know in advance, but some plant seem to have less specific biomes. Like bacterium, often they are common, but sometimes they are linked to a specific biome on the planet, like the one I found in what looked like old seabed.

 

[Mohenjo]

Ya, I've been doing a lot of exploring and noticed those tendencies. It's part of why it's such a pain trying to find Fungoida that are not actually THERE. I'm kind of forced to fly my ship slowly around and hope to stumble across something.