Engineers - prospecting. Who thought of this?

Caspar

Caspar
I'm driving about on a Sulphur rich planet prospecting for .... sulphur. I'm doing this because I've decided to try The Engineers.

I've spent half an hour driving round the planet and seen NOTHING! I've followed the scanner - other than finding some little mining rig ... it's just been rocks that I can't shoot not scoop. Not a lockable rock anywhere.

Am I missing something here, or did someone think that a good way for people to spend their spare time was to drive round in circles hoping RNG would drop a rock in their path? I mean ... I'm old. I'll be dead soon!!!

So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
 

Kzak

Kzak
Go barnacle-harvesting, that should get you loads of materials within a very short time, even if you have to travel a few hundred light years from Sol to do it.
 

Schmack

Schmack
Follow the signal on your sensor. You'll see a wide band of signal return (like a radar image) near the edge of your HUD that will narrow as you approach the rock. It will appear the same way a ship appears, as a square on your sensors.
 

Crank Larson

Crank Larson
Caspar said:
I've followed the scanner - other than finding some little mining rig ... it's just been rocks that I can't shoot not scoop. Not a lockable rock anywhere.
Click to expand...

If they appear on your wave scanner, then you'll be able to shoot them. When you get close, do they appear as grey dots on your main scanner?
 

Robin of Spiritwood

Robin of Spiritwood
Caspar said:
I'm driving about on a Sulphur rich planet prospecting for .... sulphur. I'm doing this because I've decided to try The Engineers.

.....

So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...

Nope, not a time sink at all. [haha]

If you are really in a dry area with zero contacts, just log out and back in, and then check the scanner. Or, re board the ship, fly a bit, and land elsewhere.
 

dognosh

dognosh
Caspar said:
I'm driving about on a Sulphur rich planet prospecting for .... sulphur. I'm doing this because I've decided to try The Engineers.

I've spent half an hour driving round the planet and seen NOTHING! I've followed the scanner - other than finding some little mining rig ... it's just been rocks that I can't shoot not scoop. Not a lockable rock anywhere.

Am I missing something here, or did someone think that a good way for people to spend their spare time was to drive round in circles hoping RNG would drop a rock in their path? I mean ... I'm old. I'll be dead soon!!!

So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...

This is my guide from DEC 2015, go down to "How to use the scanner" , still valid today :)
(some of the rest could be out of date so ignore)
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/207138-GUIDE-Horizons-SRV-Guide-***-NO-SPOILERS-***
 

PanTast

PanTast
If you set your scanners to maximum range on the SRV you will eventually see contacts on the radar from ~ 200m distance.

o7
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
You sound like me when I first tried surface prospecting. It will become easy, even second nature. No offense to those who learn on scanner tools, or find a need to decipher each signal, but if you are just after rocks to blast, you can keep it simple.

Your scanner waves have 4 stacked horizontal bars. Look at the bottom 2, the bottom half. Drive in a slow circle until the bottom half has a signal. Drive that direction, as more lines fill up the bottom band, center your heading in the middle of them. As you get closer the lines tighten to a narrower band and noises become more frequent until you are at a rock.

After a few successful bouts, it starts to make a lot more sense. Good luck!
 

verminstar

Banned
verminstar
Caspar said:
I'm driving about on a Sulphur rich planet prospecting for .... sulphur. I'm doing this because I've decided to try The Engineers.

I've spent half an hour driving round the planet and seen NOTHING! I've followed the scanner - other than finding some little mining rig ... it's just been rocks that I can't shoot not scoop. Not a lockable rock anywhere.

Am I missing something here, or did someone think that a good way for people to spend their spare time was to drive round in circles hoping RNG would drop a rock in their path? I mean ... I'm old. I'll be dead soon!!!

So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...

Heres an easy way of describing what happens.

When ye find the rocks that ye can shoot? Shoot them and lots of little rocks come out...go to yer contacts screen or target each one individually...thats worth noting that to pick up a material, it has to be targetted, yer cargo scoop down and then run over it. If its not targetted...ye wont pick it up.

Fear not...yer not the first, ye certainly wont be the last but its really not hard to get used to once ye learn how to read the scanner ^
 

GG7

G
Caspar said:
So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...

Scan lines at the Bottom of the scanner display are indicators of Outrops, Meteorites and other deposits that contain actual minerals to collect. Anything at the TOP of the scanner display indicates Manmade structures such as outposts, bases and other ships. (including your own ship)

Focus on stuff starting to become visible at the bottom of the display and drive towards those and adjust your heading as they get stronger. Eventually you will come upon whatever is causing those echoes. Then when you get close enough, you will see WHITE items appear on your actual circular radar display, and bracketed nearby POIs through your cockpit glass.

Switch over to your CONTACTS pane on the left hand side and see if anything is showing up to lock onto to make it easier to drive to it.

Hope that helps.

(Sulphur is incredibly common, so you should not be having too much difficulty if you follow the above advice)
 
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Sylow

Sylow
My personal pointer: if you have them available, use headphones. I personally find the audio feedback of the scanner to be more helpful than the visual part, and on my headphones (i have rather good ones), i find it much easier to figure out signals than on normal speakers.
.
Of course, that might be just me, but it can't hurt to try.
.
 

Bob Lighthouse

Banned
Bob Lighthouse
Good general advice above, but if you just need some sulphur quickly, go here and find the cargo racks.
https://canonn.science/codex/orrere-crashed-ship/

Shoot those and get ruthenium.
Take the ruthenium to a raw material trader and get 1:27 for sulphur.
And you get 3 for every 1 you pick up, so it's really 81 for each hit.


For more general surface prospecting tips, learn to fly the SRV.
It's way faster that way, and you won't spin out all the time.
Also, look primarily for the higher level mats and trade down.
It's way faster.
You would search for ruthenium and cadmium instead of sulphur, for example.
 

SocraticMammal

S
Someone said there were four tiers on the scanner. I thought there was three. Top tier is buildings and downed satellites, middle is cargo, and bottom is rocks. Any time you get bands running all the way top to bottom is 'unknown' and resolves when closer.

Focus on the bottom tier. As you head toward a rock the signal's width decreases on the scanner. Audio is definitely key. There are two categories of rocks. The lower tier mats are more commonly in the rocks that go 'ticketey tick tick' and the higher tier ones make a scraping sound, but can make no sound at all from a distance. With low gravity hop along with thrusters. With high gravity go to a different planet. Flat areas let you race to contacts without fighting terrain. It becomes second nature after a while and you'll be driving straight to the nearest rock right out of the ship.

BTW the poi contacts are just randomly dispersed around you. Log in in your SRV and drive slowly in a circle. At first you won't have any signals, then you will see them start to spawn.

I typically do prospecting in conjunction with surface missions and chase down 3-4 rocks with each mission

Oh yeah also sometimes if you are lined up right you can see overlapping signals. A rock in front of a cargo area for example. Drive off to the side to try and get some separation when that happens.
 
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Riverside

Riverside
Caspar said:
I'm driving about on a Sulphur rich planet prospecting for .... sulphur. I'm doing this because I've decided to try The Engineers.

I've spent half an hour driving round the planet and seen NOTHING! I've followed the scanner - other than finding some little mining rig ... it's just been rocks that I can't shoot not scoop. Not a lockable rock anywhere.

Am I missing something here, or did someone think that a good way for people to spend their spare time was to drive round in circles hoping RNG would drop a rock in their path? I mean ... I'm old. I'll be dead soon!!!

So I figure that I must be doing this wrong and that the friendly people of the ED forums would show me the error of my ways. Finding materials isn't going to be a huge time sink is it. I'm just doing it wrong?
Click to expand...

I've landed on some planets where there are no rocks for tens of miles. Just try a different spot. Could be an instancing issue, but I once drove & drove and the rocks spawned when the terrain changed so it's probably by design :)
 
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