Bacterium search a joke

I know it's not as popular as an explorer ship (compared to the Mandalay) but isn't the Cobra mk5's entire cockpit floor transparent?

The cockpit floor, I reckon it's pretty good myself!

M4HRsd7.png
 
Also, whilke the Mandalay is fast and agile for a medium ship, the CMV is fast and agile even for a small ship.

I'm beginning to think that, for exobiology and any surface searching activity, the CM5 is superior to the Mandalay because of the smaller footprint & that lovely transparent cockpit floor.

It does have significantly less max jump range than the Mandalay but for DW3 (if it pushes through) the presence of official DW3 fleet carriers will largely negate that advantage.

Just planning ahead 😁
 
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I'm beginning to think that, for exobiology and any surface searching activity, the CM5 is superior to the Mandalay because of the smaller footprint & that lovely transparent cockpit floor.

It does have significantly less max jump range than the Mandalay but for DW3 (if it pushes through) the presence of official DW3 fleet carriers will largely negate that advantage.

Just planning ahead 😁

Yeah for me the choice is the type 6 or the CM5 for bio, the CM5 has the advantage of running cooler and being excellent in SCO so it wins on both of those fronts, although the Type 6 will always be my favourite, small landing footprint, maneuverable and a good downward view, but the SCO advantage of the CM5 is to enormous to continue using the Type 6.
 
Yeah for me the choice is the type 6 or the CM5 for bio, the CM5 has the advantage of running cooler and being excellent in SCO so it wins on both of those fronts, although the Type 6 will always be my favourite, small landing footprint, maneuverable and a good downward view, but the SCO advantage of the CM5 is to enormous to continue using the Type 6.

I'm thinking of bringing two ships if it's allowed on the FC's - the CM5 and my Keelback. Anything the Cobra can't handle the Keelie can take care of it 👍

Pretty sure there will be a horde of Mandalays with the expedition anyway 🤷‍♂️ No need to bring one.
 
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certain types of bacteria are nearly impossible to find. even while standing on them, you have no chance recognizing them. it is getting even more ridiculous. in turret mode of the srv, you can see the patches clearly in a distinctive color like other patches you can find relatively easy from the sky during flying. but only having the turret aligned in an certain angle. is this a bug or are players getting intentionally treated like idiots? i have no problem finding something rare with a bit more time spent to be successful, sry but this is next level rubbish.
I look at the color of the bacteria and it it’s the same color as the ground I move on. Not worth wasting my time on it.
 
I look at the color of the bacteria and it it’s the same color as the ground I move on. Not worth wasting my time on it.

The other option is to fly to a nearby area where the round colour is different, but yes most bacteria is worth so little even with first discovery bonus that spending ten or fifteen minutes searching for it isn't worth it. I will spend the time if it is a new codex entry, but not otherwise.
 
I normally look for a place with two ground colours if I'm after bacteria. If it doesn't show up on one it usually does on the other.
And avoid mottled ice.
 
Elite Observatory, with the Bio Insights plugin. It can enunciate (text-to-speech) any discoveries, including which genius (type) as well as provide cues such as how far between samples, and an indication of when sufficient distance is covered.

I suspect for VR this would be ideal as you can effectively ignore the UI and just use the sound queues.
This worked perfect, btw. Thanks for the suggestion!
 
I can see most of them from the lower window of the ASP Explorer otherwise, do a bunch of boost jumping.

I would like to see engineering and/or more expensive scanners (including increased sample/type capacity as well as range boosts). Also need an Exbio scanner optimized SRV. UV vision mod for the Artemis suit would be cool, too.
 
The trick to bacteria is to pick the right sites from orbit in the first place. You want two or three plains (can include plateaux) of slightly different terroir all near each other, all showing the good colour on DSS (the tealish colour), and approach from some angle that will let you remember where plain 2 joins plain 1 should plain 1 turn up empty. With bacteria it's the faff going up to DSS level and down again that eats wall-clock time, so it's best to land somewhere you have multiple slightly different sites nearby to try.

Related: you eventually develop a sense for how big a plain actually is when it looks "small" from orbit and you learn to avoid the huge ones.
 
The trick to bacteria is to pick the right sites from orbit in the first place. You want two or three plains (can include plateaux) of slightly different terroir all near each other, all showing the good colour on DSS (the tealish colour), and approach from some angle that will let you remember where plain 2 joins plain 1 should plain 1 turn up empty. With bacteria it's the faff going up to DSS level and down again that eats wall-clock time, so it's best to land somewhere you have multiple slightly different sites nearby to try.

Related: you eventually develop a sense for how big a plain actually is when it looks "small" from orbit and you learn to avoid the huge ones.
I try and select small unconnected areas of colour to reduce the search area preferably with clear boundaries rather than trying to recognise the terrain but then I tend to map from quite far out.
 
From what i understand in terms of exobio, generally the playerbase just avoids bacteria scans as much as possible.
It is probably more like we don’t put much effort in to hunt out low value bacteria but will grab them if they show up, rather than actively trying to avoid them.
 
From what i understand in terms of exobio, generally the playerbase just avoids bacteria scans as much as possible.

I scan new codex entries. There are a few bacteria worth 7m so that's a total of 28m for first discovery and scan, but seriously I don't even fly down for other bio that's only worth 7m, Tubus etc which are easy to spot and scan, so it's not bacteria I avoid it's everything that's not valuable enough to scan. Since all bio is the same across the galaxy there's no need to land on every planet to scan bio, it needs to be worth 10m+ or be a new codex entry to be worth flying down and scanning. If bacteria was worth as much as Stratum Tectonics yes I would fly down to every new discovery of bacteria, it's not, so I don't.

Since all bio is the same everywhere the differentiator on whether to fly down and scan isn't the bio itself, it's the value, so it's always a monetary calculation, is it worth my time to fly down and scan? Simple as that!
 
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