How to find material, biological samples & unmapped settlements from space?

[jojje]

I was expecting planetary probes to reveal more insight about the planet, such as POIs or markers communicating additional information. However all I see as a result is a blue grid being overlayed on the planet, obstructing even the terrain. As such it seems to rob me of one degree of information while giving me nothing in return.

Obviously this can not be the case, but I've so far failed to pick up POIs such as where Mats or geo/biological samples are on the surface. Or whether or not they're even on the planet I scanned. I.e. should I land somewhere, if so where, or just move on to a different planet.

Would be most grateful if someone could shed some light on the planetary probe scanning, what information you use to decide whether a planet is worth visiting, where, and on signs you use to make a decision if the planet you're looking at has what you need or not.

 

[Rob Galaxy]

After successful scan with the DSS you see on screen right side above if planet own some geological or biological things.
If so, then in middle of screen above you see what these things are (names of plants, fumaroles, etc.). If so, then these
things are scattered all over the planet now where the planet surface is blue. You can define keys to browse through the findings.
Then you have just to land somewhere in blue area and look around.
If nothing like this is shown in the DSS, then nothing is on planet.

Additional POI on the planet you can see in left hand Navigation Panel. If there are none, then the planet own none.

 

[Rufus Ruffcut]

It is worth pursuing. Having cruised about 1000 light years toward Colonia (concentrating on planet discovery and exobio logging) I dropped into Vladimir McDoogles to cash in my findings, I netted about 400million credits, of which about 300million was from Vista Genomics!

 

[jojje]

Awesome, thanks Rob!
Rufus, do samples from further away net a higher reward, like discovery or is there something else that affect the payout?

 

[varonica]

I was expecting planetary probes to reveal more insight about the planet, such as POIs or markers communicating additional information. However all I see as a result is a blue grid being overlayed on the planet, obstructing even the terrain. As such it seems to rob me of one degree of information while giving me nothing in return.

Obviously this can not be the case, but I've so far failed to pick up POIs such as where Mats or geo/biological samples are on the surface. Or whether or not they're even on the planet I scanned. I.e. should I land somewhere, if so where, or just move on to a different planet.

Would be most grateful if someone could shed some light on the planetary probe scanning, what information you use to decide whether a planet is worth visiting, where, and on signs you use to make a decision if the planet you're looking at has what you need or not.

Posted these the other day, these are samples of the bio filter, it works the same for geo, but planetary outposts and wrecks will show up as POI markers like the old bio/geo, if there are none there isn't anything else there;

As you can see from the images, once I have mapped I can scroll through the bio using the Q and E keys, the right hand corner tells me how many bio's on the planet, it will also include geo there if there are any, there will be a filter for each type plus a filter for all, so for 8 bio there will be 9 screens, one for each bio and one for all (which isn't very useful at all). Bio and Geo use the same filters, for instance if there are 8 bio and 3 geo there will be 12 filters, have fun!

 

[Rufus Ruffcut]

Awesome, thanks Rob!
Rufus, do samples from further away net a higher reward, like discovery or is there something else that affect the payout?

To be honest Jojje, I don't know. I've only been playing for about a month.

 

[varonica]

Awesome, thanks Rob!
Rufus, do samples from further away net a higher reward, like discovery or is there something else that affect the payout?

Sorry missed that one, no there is nothing else that affects the payout, it's all the same no matter where you get it.

 

[jojje]

Fantastic, Ty varonica.
The images were a great help. For some reason I had missed that there was a filter toggle. This will open up a bit of dynamism, arbitrarily going to planets and seeing what may be there, instead of having missions to take me to some findable things on the ground.

 

[CMDR Night Tripper]

Fantastic, Ty varonica.
The images were a great help. For some reason I had missed that there was a filter toggle. This will open up a bit of dynamism, arbitrarily going to planets and seeing what may be there, instead of having missions to take me to some findable things on the ground.

Be aware that once you fly down to the planet and the glide-phase ends, the blue overlay disappears. Once you're down there you won't be able to access the DSS-scan results or change between the different filters because the DSS scanner only works in supercruise. If you want to change to another kind of filter, you need to leave the planet and enter supercruise, fly up enough that you can open the DSS scanner again and then change the filter. And then fly down to planetside again.

The system map has an Organics tab that will show the biologicals when a body has them, but at first it just shows blank spaces and only when you've used the handheld Bio Scanner on a new biological the first time, will that information be shown at Organics tab. You also can use your ship's or SRV's compo scanner on biologicals but for some reason that will not add that biological info to the Organics tab.

Yeah, bio exploration isn't the most well thought out system.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I found a non human signal source on the surface... I had an idea it would be a thargoid sensor / probe but my ship has a corrosive resistant rack on it. however I am damned if I could pick it up. am sure I have scooped them before. am I being dumb?

(it was visible from space as a waypoint however)

 

[jojje]

Some followup questions on the genomics shops.
1. What material does Genomics accept? (only bio or also geo)
2. Is there a way to lose gathered exobio findings? (eg. by dying / ship destroyed)

Heard there was a great payout atm in those stores, but every time I visit genomics they claim I have no biological samples.
I've been way outside the bubble scanning about 8-9 different types of biological triplets . I've scanned each of those types three times until I get the shaky-container animation, which I understand to be the sign the game gives the player that "yup, you've scanned these things now. Good job! You may now scan some other type". I've died a couple of times in between scans since I've not been farming (doing other stuff in between), and am unsure if that could be the reason why my samples seem to have gone poof.