Planetary landings question.

[Stabby_Dave]

Just starting to think about engineering and note that a lot of required materials can be obtained by planetary landings.

My question is, do I really need a detailed surface scanner for this or can I realistically do without it? I'll be flying a Cobra Mk III (not that this probably makes a blind bit of difference).

Cheers.

 

[Eliza]

I Suppose, you have Horizons installed.

You can simply land on a planet, get in your SRV and start shooting rocks.

If you don't bother working with 3rd party tools like eddb, you will need a DetailScanner to know, what and how high the material-concentration on the particular body is. But WITH eddb simply search for the material you are after and fly to the body.

 

[insanephoton]

For general collecting of raw materials the DSS doesn't really help that much. It will give you information that certain elements are present on a planet and a percentage, but if you are looking for a specific element it's probably easier just to google it.

 

[GG7]

Just starting to think about engineering and note that a lot of required materials can be obtained by planetary landings.

My question is, do I really need a detailed surface scanner for this or can I realistically do without it? I'll be flying a Cobra Mk III (not that this probably makes a blind bit of difference).

Cheers.

New and unexplored systems generally won't reveal their landable planet mineral contents (percentages of Raw Mats displayed via the System Map) unless you scan them with a detailed surface scanner first. If you are focused on the hunt for specific Raw Materials from planets, not having a DSS will put you at a significant disadvantage because you will be flying blind as to what the various planets in that system offer.

You can still collect everything available from these planets, but you will have no idea how much or little of any particular raw material any of those planets contain.

I would suggest equipping a DSS. There are more systems that require these scans to unlock this data than those that don't. There is also the additional $$ you will earn by doing these detailed scans.

 

[lemon cup]

Detailed Surface Scanners can only be used on bodies that are registered as “Unexplored” aka planets and moons in systems outside of the bubble. Geological info is already logged for most landable bodies inside inhabited space, just pull up the System map and view the Info tab when hovering over a landable body to find out which bodies have trace amounts of the materials you need. No DSS needed, unless you are exploring outside the bubble.

 

[GG7]

No DSS needed, unless you are exploring outside the bubble.

That isn't true actually.

There are plenty of systems within the bubble that will not provide raw material percentage data on first contact unless they are first scanned with the DSS.

I've personally encountered dozens of previously unvisited/explored systems smack dab in the middle of Imperial and Federation Space that were not displaying this raw material percentages in the system map. Not sure what determines why some don't but there are plenty of them out there well within the bubble.

 

[lemon cup]

That isn't true actually.

There are plenty of systems within the bubble that will not provide raw material percentage data on first contact unless they are first scanned with the DSS.

True, but within the bubble you have the ability to survey local systems before you even make a jump by hovering over the system and seeing if the “System Map” icon is selectable. If not, it makes more sense to me to simply scroll to a different sytem until you find what you need using the galaxy map, rather than jump in, honk, fly out to each body and possibly end up with zero hits for a material you want.

 

[Hevak]

I'm no pro at finding specific things, but to the op question. A dss will give you the personal info in your in game sys map and the explo data to sell, that's all.

Or just use EDDB to search for whatever mat(s) you want, if it's a planetary one (not all are), and then get a list of places near where you are.

As far as I know, you don't "need to know" a planets makeup to actually find the stuff on them. It still spawns. All the dss does is gives information in game that could make this easier for some who know what they are doing with this whole thing. I don't lol.

If you really know how to do it, apparently look at the planet and all its mats (can be done in EDDB too) and you can determine what's more likely, or how hard it will be to get a drop depending on how many of each tier there are or something idk. Lol like I said I'm not a pro. I just go to various ons with what I want and drive around for awhile then go to another.

 

[verminstar]

A DSS is certainly useful fer showing ye whats in the planet as regards resources if thats what yer after, but its not an absolutely essential piece of kit either.

Ship choice wont make a single iota of difference...they can all land and drop an SRV and all SRV are equal in the eyes of rngesus...ye knew that part anyway so moot point.

Ye also dont need to use external resources cos its not really that complicated ^

 

[Darty]

Just starting to think about engineering and note that a lot of required materials can be obtained by planetary landings.

My question is, do I really need a detailed surface scanner for this or can I realistically do without it? I'll be flying a Cobra Mk III (not that this probably makes a blind bit of difference).

Cheers.

Just use eddb to find the body with the highest amount of whatever mat you are looking for. Also look for bodies with earth like or higher gravity as they are easier to navigate.

 

[Hevak]

A DSS is certainly useful fer showing ye whats in the planet as regards resources if thats what yer after, but its not an absolutely essential piece of kit either.

Ship choice wont make a single iota of difference...they can all land and drop an SRV and all SRV are equal in the eyes of rngesus...ye knew that part anyway so moot point.

Ye also dont need to use external resources cos its not really that complicated ^

I disagree slightly on the ship comment. Yes any ship with an Srv can, but if it's a really rough planet terrain big ships can be a real pita to find a landing spot. So it can make some iota of a difference. It's something to keep in mind for some people.

And no one said its complicated but the external resource can save you a lot of time randomly looking through the gal/sys maps which is more complicated. Now it's not complicated in the it's hard sense, just the it takes way more to do. And the resource is also way better than just blindly going to a planet hoping for something, and can be useful to find a planet with both a high and low tier mat you needed.

Either way it was an option other than the dss for the info the op asked about and has nothing to do with being complicated or not.

 

[Lightspeed]

Yes, you do need a DSS if you want to find out what each planet contains - useful if you are searching for a specific material. Otherwise, you could land on a planet and be scooping forever looking for, say, arsenic, because you are looking on the wrong planet, or the percentage is too low.

Disadvantage is that it takes up a spare slot, which are in short supply on a Cobra, especially since you are carrying a SRV.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Ok. thanks, everybody, for the feedback.

I'm going to be using this specifically for gathering engineering materials, so I won't be going outside the bubble.

This being the case, I'm inclined to go without the DSS.

Cheers, all.

 

[Lightspeed]

Ok. thanks, everybody, for the feedback.

I'm going to be using this specifically for gathering engineering materials, so I won't be going outside the bubble.

This being the case, I'm inclined to go without the DSS.

Cheers, all.

But if the planet is marked as UNEXPLORED by you, you won't see the information you require, Bubble or no Bubble.

It doesn't matter how many times others have explored it and handed in the data .... Stellar Cartogrophers are a strange company.

 

[GG7]

Ok. thanks, everybody, for the feedback.

I'm going to be using this specifically for gathering engineering materials, so I won't be going outside the bubble.

This being the case, I'm inclined to go without the DSS.

Cheers, all.

Guess you didn't read my comment. There are plenty of systems within the bubble that will not reveal their planet's material contents without a DSS scan first.

Claims to the contrary are false/misinformation.

You'll see.

 

[Leadfoot]

There are plenty of systems within the bubble that will not reveal their planet's material contents without a DSS scan first.

This ^^^^^^^^

Imagine looking for polonium. Planets that have them are usually .5 or .6% chance. At least, with the DSS you'll know if the planet even HAS the stuff. Same for mercury, etc. Not all planets have the same stuff. Unless it's been "explored" you'll be working blind without it. And yes, as stated above, if you arrive at a system that's "unexplored" you'll never know if your just having bad luck finding the thing or if it's a case of "stuff you're looking for isn't on this planet" without the DSS to tell you first.

 

[GG7]

This ^^^^^^^^

Imagine looking for polonium. Planets that have them are usually .5 or .6% chance. At least, with the DSS you'll know if the planet even HAS the stuff. Same for mercury, etc. Not all planets have the same stuff. Unless it's been "explored" you'll be working blind without it. And yes, as stated above, if you arrive at a system that's "unexplored" you'll never know if your just having bad luck finding the thing or if it's a case of "stuff you're looking for isn't on this planet" without the DSS to tell you first.

Thanks! [up] Yours is a perfect example indeed! And one that the OP will likely be dealing with at some point if their focus is on gathering raw materials on planets. Polonium is a keystone G5 Raw Material that has several high use lower grades below it, including Arsenic.

This is why I made a point to mention the need for a DSS for a "second time" in the same thread. I can think of several systems right next door to the Aisling Duval home system of Cubeo that do not volunteer their landable planet materials lists to a first time visitor without a DSS scan of the landable planets first.

You don't get much more "Inside the Bubble" than that!

Check out "Tumuzgo" if you need further convincing.

I really wish those who have no idea what they are talking about would refrain from posting bogus advice and misinformation into threads authored by new players asking for help! If you don't really know the answer, then DON'T POST! Talking out your rear end doesn't count and just adds to the confusion!

You will notice in this case, the OP came away accepting the bogus advice instead of the advice they will actually need.

[wacky] [rolleyes]

 

[GG7]

True, but within the bubble you have ... <SNIP>

A wrong answer is still a wrong answer, regardless of how many caveats you append to it later.

 

[insanephoton]

The thing is that most players looking for a specific element will use 3rd party information to find a suitable planet to search rather than scan and hope to find what they are looking for.