Finding Exobiology - Is it just 'Wander and Hope'?

[Darth Wonko]

I'm doing some exploration for a bit as I get back into the game, and I'm curious about exobiology.

I understand the basic process is to map the planet with the DSS, then land in one of the blue areas. But, what then?

Per usual, the scanner in the moon buggy is next to useless. I do see some patterns, but chasing those down seems to reveal absolutely nothing.

Is there some process of which I'm unaware that makes finding the life forms more efficient?

 

[Riverside]

Pretty much as you describe yeah. Certain bio types are only found in certain biomes (flat terrain, mountains, gulleys) and some planets are harder than others but once you've done a few you'll get used to it.

Sometimes it can take hours, sometimes they are all right there in front of you. When descending from orbital cruise I look for a solid greeny-blue patch to land in to increase my chances of finding stuff but if you are finding one planet too hard just find another, preferably one with lots of bio types.

 

[Val Sylvana]

This will give you a pretty good idea of what the various flora looks like, how valuable it is, and what conditions it might appear in:

Exobiological Flora - Deep Space Network

This page references knowledge of biological species found on the surface of planets. Detailed species sheets by genus: Note: many of the images presented in this flora were provided by CMDRs who participated in the Artemis Biological Survey, an expedition organised by the DSN. Many thanks...

ed-dsn.net

You need to fly pretty low and slow to see stuff from the ship, and things like bacterium are sometimes easiest to find that way.

The terrain seems to factor in quite a bit to where they appear. Some of them are generally in flat areas or hillsides, but some specific exceptions in my experience are:

Concha - Usually in ravines or valleys.
Frutexa - Usually at higher altitudes, rough mountain peaks, etc.
Fungoida - Some types seem to like rough, mountainous terrain.
Osseus - I tend to find these on the small rocky ridges you get near craters, or in mountainous areas.

The ship's composition scanner can help with things like bacterium, which can be very hard to spot on the ground, especially depending on the colour. Night vision sometimes helps make things stand out a bit more, too.

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

External camera is your friend.

 

[metatheurgist]

Don't be fooled by the new payout. It's still not worth doing.

 

[ferus]

An upgraded (or brand new) biology scanner for ships which would highlight plants would be a great addition to the game.
Right now they don't show up at all on anything and hunting beige bacteria on a beige planet 200k+ ls from the main star is often impossible.

Unfortunately, all effort seems to go into Thargoids and combat.

 

[Jack Winter]

FWIW, I've taken to flying my iCourier a few meters above the surface to look for bios. After a while you start getting a feeling for where to find the different ones. I'll descend into a blue area and start looking. Sometimes I find 3 bios right next to each other, and other times I have to fly around a bit. If I'm looking for frutexa I'l fly over the rougher areas and if bacterium I'll look for flat surfaces inbetween. Works relatively well and faster than using the SRV. I'll find something, I scan it with the composition scanner, land and get out and scan one, then take off, land and repeat. One just has to have some patience as the details take some time to load in, so if you fly too fast you might not see them at all.

 

[Codger]

Experience is the best teacher. It gets easier once you understand the various bio types and what sort of terrain they like. It's excellent fun, and well designed.

 

[Scoob]

I really should try this again. Last few times I've attempted this I've suffered from bugs which totally broke it. From failing to get any blue at all, through to getting different colours (reds!) through to not getting the option to filter things. I think my timing of attempting this activity coincidentally aligned with bugs preventing it from working. The most recent time I tried it, it didn't work, then it worked, then didn't (same planet) then worked again. At that point I gave up due to the inconsistency. Obviously it works for most people, so I was just unlucky.

Issues like this - which have been common over the life of the game with new features - really stunt the learning curve. You think you're learning how things do / do not work, but all that learning is for nought as it was bugged. I remember, when I first tried this, there was no blue shade to things, I just had red "speckles" in certain locations - there was no filter option. Flying to these red speckles gave me the exact materials I was looking for (based on the composition of the planet) so I thought I understood the mechanic well. So, what I "learnt" - and what actually worked at the time of course - was to look for red speckles and there was no such thing as a filter. Only once this changed, and I started reading up on other's experiences did I realise what I had experienced wasn't intended at all. That was a while back now though.

 

[Cmdr Alzaroc]

This will give you a pretty good idea of what the various flora looks like, how valuable it is, and what conditions it might appear in:

Exobiological Flora - Deep Space Network

This page references knowledge of biological species found on the surface of planets. Detailed species sheets by genus: Note: many of the images presented in this flora were provided by CMDRs who participated in the Artemis Biological Survey, an expedition organised by the DSN. Many thanks...

ed-dsn.net

You need to fly pretty low and slow to see stuff from the ship, and things like bacterium are sometimes easiest to find that way.

The terrain seems to factor in quite a bit to where they appear. Some of them are generally in flat areas or hillsides, but some specific exceptions in my experience are:

Concha - Usually in ravines or valleys.
Frutexa - Usually at higher altitudes, rough mountain peaks, etc.
Fungoida - Some types seem to like rough, mountainous terrain.
Osseus - I tend to find these on the small rocky ridges you get near craters, or in mountainous areas.

The ship's composition scanner can help with things like bacterium, which can be very hard to spot on the ground, especially depending on the colour. Night vision sometimes helps make things stand out a bit more, too.

Yeah, but I've found the odd outlier on occasion. Like a Fonticula that only lived high in the mountains, that one took me awhile to figure out. So, if you can't find it where it should be, try looking in some other bio-zones.

 

[nemolomen]

OP, I've spent hours driving/walking across varied landscapes and at some point, the hunt for salad became secondary...

But yeah, like everyone else said (sorta), think of it like an easter egg hunt...

 

[Flimley]

Yes it's just like real life...
Haplessly wondering around in hope for many things to discover. Only to realise it's not the wondrous variety you hoped for, but just a very limited number of species to find. .. all over the Galaxy.

Flimley

 

[Lhorndra]

I understand the basic process is to map the planet with the DSS, then land in one of the blue areas. But, what then?

Before you land, hover around to spot plants from the cockpit, like @Jack Winter suggested. You have to stay well below 200 m to acually see something. Also, your ship should have A-rated thrusters for this. Engineered thrusters are nice, but not a must have in my opinion. Higher gravity makes everything more difficult, of course.

Per usual, the scanner in the moon buggy is next to useless. I do see some patterns, but chasing those down seems to reveal absolutely nothing.

The wave scanner in the SRV is the wrong tool for exobiology. It does not detect biological signals, only mineral an artifical ones.

Is there some process of which I'm unaware that makes finding the life forms more efficient?

Different lifeforms prefer different terrains within the blue areas, like others here have said. Just like real lifeforms, it's not 100% clear-cut, but from what I've seen during my salad hunting, these are my personal rough guidelines:

Aleoida	Flatland, often near Stratum
Bacterium	Flatland
Cactoida	Flatland and slightly hilly terrain
Concha	In ravines, valleys or at the base of hills
Fonticulua	Flatland
Frutexa	At higher altitudes on mountains, usually near the top
Fumerola	Near and on fumeroles (duh!)
Fungoida	Rugged terrain on hills and mountains
Osseus	On top of cliffs or rocky outcrops and on ridges of craters
Stratum	Flatland and rocky terrain, often near Aleoida
Tussock	All sorts of terrain

Didn't find many Clypeus, Electricae, Recepta and Tubus, so I can't say anything about them.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Thank you all for your responses. Lots of good information here!

External camera is your friend.

I hadn't even considered using the external camera. What a great idea!

Don't be fooled by the new payout. It's still not worth doing.

I've got plenty of money, the fleet I want snuggled in their fully-outfitted Fleet Carrier, and all the on-foot stuff, too. It's not really a money thing.

Before you land, hover around to spot plants from the cockpit, like @Jack Winter suggested. You have to stay well below 200 m to acually see something. Also, your ship should have A-rated thrusters for this. Engineered thrusters are nice, but not a must have in my opinion. Higher gravity makes everything more difficult, of course.


The wave scanner in the SRV is the wrong tool for exobiology. It does not detect biological signals, only mineral an artifical ones.

I simply assumed the scanner would show exobiology - silly assumption on my part. As ferus said, it'd be nice to see a biology scanner on ships. Comments in some of the other threads indicated the community managers asked for feedback. I think I'll send that in.

Different lifeforms prefer different terrains within the blue areas, like others here have said. Just like real lifeforms, it's not 100% clear-cut, but from what I've seen during my salad hunting, these are my personal rough guidelines:

Aleoida	Flatland, often near Stratum
Bacterium	Flatland
Cactoida	Flatland and slightly hilly terrain
Concha	In ravines, valleys or at the base of hills
Fonticulua	Flatland
Frutexa	At higher altitudes on mountains, usually near the top
Fumerola	Near and on fumeroles (duh!)
Fungoida	Rugged terrain on hills and mountains
Osseus	On top of cliffs or rocky outcrops and on ridges of craters
Stratum	Flatland and rocky terrain, often near Aleoida
Tussock	All sorts of terrain

Didn't find many Clypeus, Electricae, Recepta and Tubus, so I can't say anything about them.

Thanks so much!

 

[nemolomen]

Sometimes with the bacterium, just wandering around on foot jumping and hitting the scan function on the sampler has worked out well for me...especially on hard to find 3rd samples...

 

[Darth Wonko]

FWIW, I've taken to flying my iCourier a few meters above the surface to look for bios. After a while you start getting a feeling for where to find the different ones. I'll descend into a blue area and start looking. Sometimes I find 3 bios right next to each other, and other times I have to fly around a bit. If I'm looking for frutexa I'l fly over the rougher areas and if bacterium I'll look for flat surfaces inbetween. Works relatively well and faster than using the SRV. I'll find something, I scan it with the composition scanner, land and get out and scan one, then take off, land and repeat. One just has to have some patience as the details take some time to load in, so if you fly too fast you might not see them at all.

Great strategy, mate! Just had a much easier time finding bacterium. Thanks!

 

[nemolomen]

Great strategy, mate! Just had a much easier time finding bacterium. Thanks!

I just remembered that there's this:

Marx's guide to exobiology

We should know enough by now for me to write a guide to exobiology, although bear in mind that things are still being worked on and researched, so expect some changes here later. Well then, here's my guide to exobiology. Let's begin with the two most frequent questions: Why should I do...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Boone Lockley]

I filter by F type stars and A type stars only, this gives you better chances of finding the high paying Stratum Tectonicas as far as I can tell (tens of millions per first discovery). I cleared 700M in two days of very casual play. The other person had a list showing where to find certain things, I will say Electrae and Tubus spawn on flat ground typically. Some tubus like some rocks, but not ravines. I skip the SRV and use a small fast ship, time is money!

I skip ravines and unattractive planets, if a sample can't be found in 5 minutes I move on. The best stuff seems to be found on flat easy ground, not in the canyons from my experience. A lot of the hard terrain can be a time trap.

 

[yvesmarie]

I love exobio! and the driving about strange new worlds "hunting" is a huge component of the fun for me...
and the payout is great (if you're into that sort of thing)—'just completed a "scenic trip" (c104-108ly jumps at a time in my injected and engineered Orca) from the bubble to Colonia (no neutron hopping here; &' got out of Dodge before this miserable war started) and handed in an easy 2.5bil credits worth of exobio data upon safe arrival at Jaques, and I wasn't even trying that hard (mostly just mycology)... but the real reward is the journey, not the fairly meaningless credits transaction!

[OT: 'speaking of Jaques, what a sh*t show getting in for docking was! 'something like 20 Belugas all trying to squeeze through the slot at once... after several detonated I was able to maneouver through the debris and get to my bay, but I'm sure not looking forward to going through that again upon departure... is it always like that!? or have I just been out in the black too long...]

 

[Ned Flandalorian]

[OT: 'speaking of Jaques, what a sh*t show getting in for docking was! 'something like 20 Belugas all trying to squeeze through the slot at once... after several detonated I was able to maneouver through the debris and get to my bay, but I'm sure not looking forward to going through that again upon departure... is it always like that!? or have I just been out in the black too long...]

The station seems to attract belugas and other passenger ships due to the tourist beacon right outside it, and if someone sits on a pad inside they hold the instance open so the traffic jam gets worse and worse... consider switching to solo if you want a clear mail slot.