The (not so great) Polonium hunt

[Nerwan]

I have the exact opposite issue: got 29 Polonium but can't find those chemical manipulators or wake thingies for love nor money

Haha, I have 22 manipulators but no Polonium ;-) Although admittedly I have upgraded 4 ships to L5 FSD now so I have had it at times.. I mostly get Pollonium from missions, which seem to spawn *relatively* often, surface prospecting seems to take forever so it's mainly explorers who do it lots anyway as part of their natural game play that get it that way...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I have the exact opposite issue: got 29 Polonium but can't find those chemical manipulators or wake thingies for love nor money

I had the same issue wrt chemical manipulators. Must have checked over 50 salvage USSes and found none. Then I read shooting T-somethings in anarchies (no bounty) would yield them and sure enough, just 3 T-somethings later I had 4.

I do admit I felt dirty for shooting innocent haulers, but FD threw enough grind my way for me to abandon roleplay.

 

[Nerwan]

But I do admit I felt dirty for shooting innocent haulers, but FD threw enough grind my way for me to abandon roleplay.

They're not innocent.. have you looked at the cargo that haulers carry in anarchy systems? Those places are dens of vice spewing their unwholesome contraband into legal law abiding federation systems.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

They're not innocent.. have you looked at the cargo that haulers carry in anarchy systems? Those places are dens of vice spewing their unwholesome contraband into legal law abiding federation systems.

Still doesn't help my in game character having nightmares about the pilots returning to their family after being revived from their escape pods and have to tell their children their college funds need to be used for daddy to pay the insurance on his T-9 because some dolt explorer decided to be judge, jury and executioner just for an upgrade on his FSD.

*broods*

 

[Zieman]

Still doesn't help my in game character having nightmares about the pilots returning to their family after being revived from their escape pods and have to tell their children their college funds need to be used for daddy to pay the insurance on his T-9 because some dolt explorer decided to be judge, jury and executioner just for an upgrade on his FSD.

*broods*

In MY game those pilots have no spouses or children, they're evil dr. X's clones

 

[Nerwan]

Still doesn't help my in game character having nightmares about the pilots returning to their family after being revived from their escape pods and have to tell their children their college funds need to be used for daddy to pay the insurance on his T-9 because some dolt explorer decided to be judge, jury and executioner just for an upgrade on his FSD.

*broods*

My in game character doesn't worry, because he knows that that Hauler pilot probably abandoned his children and sold them into slavery when he grew bored of their mother, his former favourite slave that he'd imported from the empire and then sold on to one of his smuggler buddies after losing a game of poker.

 

[Traveller_GG]

If you want to role-play it, just KWS them. You'd be amazed how many have records

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Finding Polonium will get easier soon: a DSS will tell you what materials are available on the planet you're scanning, and the number of "nuggets" of material from each boulder will be increased. So unless you're in a hurry, might be worth waiting for 2.2.

I use Shinrarta 1(A?) as my source for Polonium - that's only useful if you have a Founders' World permit.

 

[who?]

I'm finding a very weird pattern with my Polonium discoveries.

In my own searches, I've found 0 Polonium since Horizons launched. Not one. By following other players' suggestions, I've found 4 Polonium on 3 different planets, each within 5 minutes of setting down on the planet. But when I return to the same planets, I find nothing. I spent 4 hours last night on one of those planets again - endlessly searching for metallic meteorites, re-logging, taking off and landing elsewhere, nothing. Followed a suggestion by another player to try another planet, and found one within minutes.

Anyone else seeing anything like this? PLEASE don't tell me they implement some kind of per-planet, per-pilot count to prevent a player 'farming' one planet...

 

[CDR Michael Darkmoor]

I needed Polonium for the fsd grade 5 recipe and read the articles at the engineers base on Farseer. One of the reports was on how a commander had found high(er) amounts of Polonium on a particular planet... Something like wonerrati 2. Can't remember the exact name. I flew there and it took about an hour to find Polonium in a metallic meteorite.

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We were trying to get FD to post these on GALNET. Eventually, they decided it was a good idea to post them locally in the Engineer Bases.
Wonneriti 2 - was actually a pretty good place to find Po until after the 2.1 Update. Since it is not a "pristine" system... that seems to have decreased the drop rate.
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The monster does list all the places we've found Po... you could give that a try. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LgMaX9n6Yp8DQKq-u-eF1HH2xQ-_aUgSfSJna6mTuLs/edit#gid=0
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I'm finding a very weird pattern with my Polonium discoveries.

<snip>... PLEASE don't tell me they implement some kind of per-planet, per-pilot count to prevent a player 'farming' one planet...

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I have been back to several places and found similar amounts... but when we do a survey we are literally shooting hundreds of rocks. So... Methinks, "No" on the "per planet / per player"... and a qualified Possible "yes" on the Dang RNG with an average drop per planet differentiated by the initial percentages and modified by system resource availability.
<In English - it's pretty Random... and the base modified by system resource level is the place from which it begins>

 

[Pirin]

I'm finding a very weird pattern with my Polonium discoveries.

In my own searches, I've found 0 Polonium since Horizons launched. Not one. By following other players' suggestions, I've found 4 Polonium on 3 different planets, each within 5 minutes of setting down on the planet. But when I return to the same planets, I find nothing. I spent 4 hours last night on one of those planets again - endlessly searching for metallic meteorites, re-logging, taking off and landing elsewhere, nothing. Followed a suggestion by another player to try another planet, and found one within minutes.

Anyone else seeing anything like this? PLEASE don't tell me they implement some kind of per-planet, per-pilot count to prevent a player 'farming' one planet...

I dont think this is the case. As i mentioned earlier, i found 12 polonium on same small rocky moon. Yes it was slow and sometimes really frustrating but i dont believe there is any counter or limit.