Yeah. In fact, better yet, just driving around will automatically scan all life forms in a 1 km radius.
Heck, that's too tedious. Just landing on the planet will automatically scan the entire planet for all life forms. No scratch that, just making a surface scan from orbit will automatically scan all life forms. But why should we even bother doing that? Arriving at the star system should automatically give us all the scans of all life forms and geological formations of all planets and moons. Meh, even that's too tedious. Just clicking on a star in the galaxy map should give us all the scans of all the life forms and geological formations of that system! In fact, we should be able to drag-and-select an entire area of stars in the galaxy map and get all the scans existing in that area. Although, thinking about it, why not just give all scans of all lifeforms and geological formations in the entire galaxy to all players automatically? And while we are at it, give them all ships with all A-grade components fully upgraded to maximum, five trillion credits, and quadruple-elite rank in every category from the get-go. You don't even need to bother to click on anything or press any button, just have everything given to you the very instant you log in the first time.
How about thanks but no thanks?
I wouldn't want it to automatically scan and it doesn't even have to have greater range than the hand scanner. I hardly see how asking to be able to do the quick pulse, while in the scarab, is lazy or a "I win" button! You are aware that this game has instancing issues at times and that every time that you enter/exit an SRV, and enter/exit your ship, your risking a black screen and a disconnect, right?
sigh No, having a multi-sample scanner would be more of a "I win" button, but I think that would be an improvement too.
As far as great improvements, I'd love for the Scarab's mineral wave scanner to switch to bio, where you could use it to slowly zero in on different types of life forms. But hey, why do anything to improve the game... I mean, trying to find those bacteria patches on the ground - especially on planets whose ground texture is very similar in color - on foot is fun, right? Or having to do a slow fly over in your ship using your mark one eyeballs? Yep, epic gameplay there!
I swear, I will never understand people who immediately object to any kind of improvement as it being a "win button" and "the game is too easy now." I've got an idea! Why don't you ask FDEV to take a page from Blizzard and implement another shard of the Elite universe/game, but take it all the way back to Horizons pre-engineering! Everything has been too easy since then and the game has just gone downhill, so ask for the game from January 2016 because that was the pinnacle of this game!
smirk
Good grief.
