Engineers Is there a way to increase speed of prospecting?

[Older Gamer]

I'm running around at the moment collecting zinc, phosphor , arsenic, and all those sorts of materials for my crafting goals, and currently i so this;


Look at System Map, click on the various planets and figure out which one is giving high yield in the elements I'm interested in.

Planet fall. SRV disembark. Follow radar towards rocks.

But,...... Man is this dull or what?


Often I find a rock, maybe two close together, maybe three if I am lucky. Shoot the rock, watch them scatter, run over rocks with cargo scoop deployed

But it takes hours to find just a few rocks. Maybe, I don't know, a rock every ten minutes or so?

THat is really dull gameplay, possibly the lowest farming mechanic I've seen in 15 odd years of playing thee types of games.

So how can I improve my rock finding rate? I've researched the scanner, so I know how that works, but is there some secret to where I should land? Do the colours I see on the planets surface indicate where I will find certain elements?

Or is space mining a better bet?

Advice and suggestions welcome.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Spawn is random. There's no secret to the method used for standard prospecting.

There is an alternative:

[video=youtube;6c0--4eEnw4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0--4eEnw4[/video]


And you can go to a raw materiels trader on eg: Sifjar system Herschel base, and change masses of low tier items for a few high tier ones.

 

[Karamon]

Raw materials are hard to get in large numbers. Manufactured to be fair after some time starts to pile up if you go to CZ and RES with bunch of limpets and large cargo bay . There are tons of g3 and g4 materials which you can trade then for g5 mats

 

[biohazard15]

First of all: always land on flat spots, NEVER land in hills or mountains or canyons. This will allow you to drive faster and without accidents.

Second: after you've landed, wait for a couple of minutes. Just sit there in the ship, read Galnet, count your materials, take a look at galmap, go for smoke, or just do nothing. This is imperative. Thing is, rocks do not spawn as soon as you enter the instance. If you get into SRV as soon as your landing gear touches the ground, first thing you see will be a void on wave scanner. Don't rush things.
Rocks can spawn basically anytime. There is nothing more hilarious than to discover a rock that spawned where you drove five minutes ago, directly on your trail.

Third: Do not wander away from your flat spot. Write down the coordinates if you get good materials, and use the same spot later.

Four: If you run out of rocks, drive to approximate center of your flat spot and relog. Again, wait for a couple of minutes after load.

 

[Ackley 280]

First of all: always land on flat spots, NEVER land in hills or mountains or canyons. This will allow you to drive faster and without accidents.

Second: after you've landed, wait for a couple of minutes. Just sit there in the ship, read Galnet, count your materials, take a look at galmap, go for smoke, or just do nothing. This is imperative. Thing is, rocks do not spawn as soon as you enter the instance. If you get into SRV as soon as your landing gear touches the ground, first thing you see will be a void on wave scanner. Don't rush things.
Rocks can spawn basically anytime. There is nothing more hilarious than to discover a rock that spawned where you drove five minutes ago, directly on your trail.

Third: Do not wander away from your flat spot. Write down the coordinates if you get good materials, and use the same spot later.

Four: If you run out of rocks, drive to approximate center of your flat spot and relog. Again, wait for a couple of minutes after load.

Thanks for this mate, lots of little things I was previously unaware of. First rate engineering advice as usual

 

[The Tick]

A few more tips:
- use https://eddb.io/body and search for planets with the right materials.
- always have a few materials on your shopping list, not just one. Otherwise, RNG will drive you crazy
- use 'gravity' in the 'extra column' to search for planets with +/- 1G, for easier driving and for materials dropping to the ground more quickly
- shoot every rock, even rare materials can spawn in a lowly bronzite chondrite

Compared to some other data/material collection methods, I find the planetary driving one of the less annoying ones.

 

[biohazard15]

A few more tips:
- use https://eddb.io/body and search for planets with the right materials.
- always have a few materials on your shopping list, not just one. Otherwise, RNG will drive you crazy
- use 'gravity' in the 'extra column' to search for planets with +/- 1G, for easier driving and for materials dropping to the ground more quickly
- shoot every rock, even rare materials can spawn in a lowly bronzite chondrite

Compared to some other data/material collection methods, I find the planetary driving one of the less annoying ones.

- A good tactic is to check material groups at trader, and search for planet that has at least one material from the same group as material you're looking for. For example, we're looking for arsenic (2nd tier). Its group also includes mercury (3rd tier) and polonium (4th tier). Thus, search for a planet that has all three elements, and collect all three. Then you can simply go and exchange mercury and polonium for arsenic.

 

[G Deckard]

This spreadsheet is super useful for finding some of the more prominent and plentiful locations for various mats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...RsDxfAcQa7cBq0YUIFy3m2NII/edit#gid=1287294423

 

[Nimitz68]

Great tips in here for relative noobs. EDDB is a great resource for planning a landing to fill some gaps in your material inventory. Put on a Bill Burr podcast or something and the time will fly by as you scoop.

 

[Karamon]

I am not 100% sure that this really works but in my case i land only on small moons/planets . On larger planets i have to travel greater distances from one rock to another and on very small moons they are much densly packed.

 

[Nimitz68]

I am not 100% sure that this really works but in my case i land only on small moons/planets . On larger planets i have to travel greater distances from one rock to another and on very small moons they are much densly packed.

Hmmmm, interesting!!!!

 

[JetsonRING]

The bad news is, the spawn rate is determined by RNG.

The good news is, you can increase your odds, somewhat. First, use EDDB.io to hunt for planets with a high percentage of the materials you are seeking. It is not always necessary to pick the planet (on EDDB) with the highest percentage of a material, you can hunt on a planet with a lower % but closer to you. Second, land in an area the looks flat. You can drive faster in flat areas and "hilly" areas make some CMDRs seasick. Third, drive fast, on flat ground that means from 18-20+ meters/sec or as fast as possible given local conditions (rocks, gravity) since deposits tend to be spaced pretty far apart. When you find a deposit, after collecting turn a slow circle as sometimes deposits are grouped together. I favor the daysides of planets, pick a general direction of travel and try to stick to that as much as possible. Also, try looking (on EDDB) for two materials (you can enter two materials at once in the materials box) since, if one does not show up the other probably will. It is funny how often the material you are looking for pops up when you are looking for something else. o7

 

[seanguzzi]

Great tips in here for relative noobs. EDDB is a great resource for planning a landing to fill some gaps in your material inventory. Put on a Bill Burr podcast or something and the time will fly by as you scoop.

Just chuckled imagining Bill Burr being an Elite Dangerous veteran, moaning about all of the usual things players moan about, in his style.
Or Chris Rock.
This will amuse me for at least a day, possibly longer.

 

[NecasekO]

Can anyone confirm whether resource level (depleted / common / major / pristine) has any influence on rock spawning? In my experience it seems it does, but I can't be sure due to too much RNG.

 

[Older Gamer]

Thank you for all the advice. Very useful.

Is asteroid mining an alternative? Or are the elements from roids not going to be arsenic and sulphar and so on.

 

[Milner]

Thank you for all the advice. Very useful.

Is asteroid mining an alternative? Or are the elements from roids not going to be arsenic and sulphar and so on.

You can use ring mining for materials. There's an excellent thread on this here
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/337796-testing-of-mining-for-materials/page9

Unfortunately the distribution changed in 3.0 which I'm not sure was intentional. It's now best to go pristine metallic.

My experience is ring mining is great for picking up lots of materials and a nice bonus to mining, but I wouldn't use it to target a specific material - surface prospecting is much better for this. Of course personal preference, rng and what material(s) you want will all affect this.