Scanning for metal on planet surface... need help

What is the best elevation to Scan when looking for metal on a surface of a planet. I know it does not work below 2000 km. I have flown around 100% metal planets and still cannot find the blue circles on the service. Also what are the best features on the surface of the planets to look for to find metal locations . Is it in craters or in open flat areas ? Looking for arsenic very tough to find .
 
What is the best elevation to Scan when looking for metal on a surface of a planet. I know it does not work below 2000 km. I have flown around 100% metal planets and still cannot find the blue circles on the service. Also what are the best features on the surface of the planets to look for to find metal locations . Is it in craters or in open flat areas ? Looking for arsenic very tough to find .

I completely agree with you, arsenic is indeed a tough find.

I don't think it is helpful looking for POI's from the ship. You need to get down and search in the SRV. The random generator thingy in the game pops up mesiderites, meteorites, outcrops, etc. as you drive along.

Clearly, you know about choosing planets with the most % of arsenic, but sadly it only appears to occur at about 2.5% at best - which means about 1 arsenic every 50 finds in the SRV ! I hate the mechanic, but that's what we have to do at present.

Opinions differ about where is best to find it - I try crater floors. But wherever you look, it really is a grind, especially with the frequently bugged SRV scanner.
 
Yeah the mining nodes don't really show up as POIs that's more like small bases, fallen satellite, cannister caches. Drop into a blue POI grab the major blip and then just start driving watching the scanner for low-end blips. I like high metal with recent volcanic activity. Canyons, crater edges and mountain edges seem to do best for me, the boundary areas, but that is probably just my perception.

The Wave Scanner currently has a bug where visual cues can disappear as you get close (bummer) but the sound still stays. This site is helpful in learning to read the Wave Scanner:
http://www.wavescanner.net/
 
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Finding materials doesn't work like that in any way.

You're describing how to find POIs which are not what contain arsenic. You need to scan a planet from SC so you get it's materials composition in the details on the system map - that will tell you what %age chance of them there is. Arsenic is one of the rare types so when you find a planet with some you'll want to search for Metallic Meteorites to get the best chance of finding the rares though any outcrop type can have them.

The wavescanner guide above will help you identify the meteorites.
 
Now i dont know if this is still the case but... i think you can find arsenic walst mining rocky ring asteroid fields. Might be a better bet.
 
Now i dont know if this is still the case but... i think you can find arsenic walst mining rocky ring asteroid fields. Might be a better bet.

I have mined arsenic in Icy, Metal Rich and Metallic rings, all recently. It has been pretty rare though, so unless you plan on doing a fair bit of mining it's not really worth it. I haven't found Arsenic in Rocky rings yet, but Rocky rings is the one I mine in the least.

There used to be a pattern to which rings contained various materials, but I suspect this may have changed. it may now relate to the planet's material composition, but I think it may just be purely RNG. It's difficult to tell with the rarer materials as they show up so seldom. And with the very annoying "refinery Full" message constantly displaying whenever I mine, it takes a lot of effort to know where you mined whatever materials.
 
Finding materials doesn't work like that in any way.

You're describing how to find POIs which are not what contain arsenic. You need to scan a planet from SC so you get it's materials composition in the details on the system map - that will tell you what %age chance of them there is. Arsenic is one of the rare types so when you find a planet with some you'll want to search for Metallic Meteorites to get the best chance of finding the rares though any outcrop type can have them.

The wavescanner guide above will help you identify the meteorites.


This guy is right. Arsenic is not hard to find, it just takes a little time to gather alot of it. You need to scan a planet with a detalied surface scanner (or drop in at a nav beacon and scan the beacon; doing it will give you surface info on every planet in that system). In the system map you can select planets and see what materials you can mine form their surface.Alternatively, you can buy surface exploration data form the galaxy maps; this is only possible for some systems inside "the bubble". In my experience most systems with more than 15 planets have at least one planet where you can find Arsenic. Planets that have Arsenic, usually have 3-4% of it. You can find it anywhere on the planet. I've found it in rocky areas, plains and craters. I find looking for it in plains the easiest, beacouse it's easier to drive around.

So it's not that hard. I gatherd 50 units of Arsenic last week. Took me 10 minutes to find and travel to a planet with 4 % Arsenic, and 2-3 hours of SRV mining to hit my target of 50 units. I'm not the best SRV driver, and I wasn't rushing from outcrop to outcrop, so you could probably do it alot faster than me. But, it's more fun if you don't rush it ;)

(Fun-tip: While you're driving around on the surface, jump around and se how many consecutive backflips you can do)

(Suicide-tip: jump of the edge of a deep crater and se how many consecutive backflips you can do. Preferably on 1g (or above) planet)
 
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