Now I remember why...

[Kzak]

I'd just go for a barnacle site in bloom with a SRV in Solo mode and blast everything so you get the materials. The materials match perfectly to the planet's percentages. Rinse and repeat until you have what you need.

 

[Genus]

That is the case. They do not Sell materials. They trade one kind for another kind.

That said...

Informative as always Mr Wyrd, thanks.

I actually quite enjoy driving the buggy around. Especially on terrain that's somewhat flat with the odd canyon. I have trouble with Polonium too, and miscellaneous other rare elements. But on the whole enjoy the planetary wandering.

My nemesis is the other kind of Materials, the OCD kicks in with the reasons why they are (or are not) where they are found. ;-)

 

[Gaiseric]

Finding materials is not that difficult under normal circumstances. One part is knowing what you're looking for and checking the system maps to see where this might be found, and getting some idea how often it might be found.

Let's talk Technetium... since I did have to put in some time in the beta looking for this*, here's my findings:

1. Once a suitable planet had been located (.8% Technetium), I had to figure out where I wanted to start looking. I picked a crater with a huge central mound. I landed on the west side of this, and started driving around. A few km out, I started picking things on my wave scanner. Outcrops mostly. These usually don't drop anything terribly interesting, but I shot them anyways. As expected, nothing interesting.
I drove on, looking and listening. Found a few Bronzites - these also rare contain anything interesting, but I shot them anyways. One dropped 1 Technetium. A short distance later, 2 Mesosoderites or w/e they are, they start with an "M". These have better chances of giving up good items. Picked up 2 Technetium from 3 maybe 4 of these. Then I hit a nice spot, in some bumpy terrain with 3 Metallic Meteorites 1, 3 and 5 Technetium from these, as Metallic Meteorite usually give up the best stuff.

2. I also tried shooting asteroids and various ring-rocks. Got a lot of everything but.

3. * from above - Technetium was missing from the beta initially, but was added back in, and did, indeed, spawn in places it was normally found.

4. If you don't find what you're looking for, or the type of rocks you need to find it in:

a. Pick a different location on the same planet, at least 5 full seconds flight time from where you were.
b. If you're on flat ground, look for a crater, ravine or valley. These often contain other kinds of rocks.
c. If you're still not finding what you're looking for, find a world with some manner of volcanic activity - be it Ice or Water geysers or Lava Spouts, and find the fields where these are occur. Around these areas you will find various "new" rocks (Piecious Cobble) as well as various Crystal formations (Crystal Fragment, Needle Crystals and Crystal Clusters). These tend to contain better items - especially Needle and Cluster formations. This has saved me countless hours of looking for odds and ends.

It rarely takes me more than 10-15 minutes of cruising around shooting rocks to find what I'm looking for on any given planet - Except Polonium... I almost never find Polonium.

Strangely, I've never had too much trouble finding polonium, but I have never found any kind of geyser (except ones that are already known) despite many hours of trying on a string of planets flying down canyons looking. I'd pretty much given up on that. Perhaps you can wing up with me and show me how its done?

 

[Gaiseric]

NOTE: If I ever get a Corvette or Cutter and there's even a tiny chance in hades of blowing their bases into that place (I know there's no chance but a guys gotta do what a guys gotta do) it's gonna happen and I hope that some ancestors of who ever developed the silly guild rules the engineers follow are right there in the base with 'em.

Can you imagine the tears if station UA bombing worked on engineers' bases? At least, I don't think it does. They would need to have a black market there wouldn't they? Even The Dweller doesn't have a black market and that's his special interest.

 

[frostypaw]

Can you imagine the tears if station UA bombing worked on engineers' bases?

This gets in the way of PvP so is clearly unacceptable emergent content.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

For anyone that doesn't like spending much time searching for specific Elements or driving the SRV, I recommend to harvest Sites of Volcanism.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...Fumarole-Location-Catalog-and-Data-Collection
Website with links to Spreadsheets of locations and contained Elements : https://madraptor86.wixsite.com/mwsog/home

PS.
When the Elements (Raw) Traders go live, simply having sufficient Grade 5 Elements of any type to trade should make things extremely easy.