Scanning and Mining

OK, I admit it. I can't figure out scanning.

I have the default scanner and I read that you will either get better data with it installed period or can select targets and get a deeper scan by "firing" it until the scan says complete.

But, thus far, I don't seem to get any info that looks particularly interesting and none of it is sale worthy apparently.

So, I don't know if I am too far away, whether I need to be in some sort of "unknown" system, what precisely is scannable, etc.

For that matter I can't quite figure out mining. It looks like people are doing it, but my Googling seems to yield only oblique discussions about these topics and many of them are from the Alpha or Beta 1 and so, outdated.

Anyone have the nitty gritty on how to do this stuff?

Thanks!

Deacon

I'm gonna watch you learn this with interest. I haven't pulled the trigger on it..but I'm only <-> this far away from being convinced..

BeachAV8R

It's a beauty, but a little confusing at times.

There is no mining yet. The mining you see is being done by AI ships afaik. I believe the scanning can only be done in unknown systems as it is more of a surveyor tool. Then you fly the info back to where ever and sell it.

Ah, well that would explain a lot. I saw the miners and wondered if they were AI or not. I'll need to wander a bit further away and try surveying.

Thanks Master!

Ok, here's the thing about exploration and scanning just now. it's either bugged or the devs have set it up in a particular way for testing purposes.

Firstly, the detailed surface scanner is only available for the Sidewinder for some reason. There are various version of the default Discovery scanner available, though. the basic one which all ships have is capable of picking up stellar objects up to 500 LS away. Some much larger objects might be picked up further out, though. The upgrades to the basic scanner pick things up further out.

Secondly, I don't know whether it's bugged or not, but doing a proper scan with the basic Discovery scanner seems to give detailed information on A: what sort of planet or start class it is (rocky, ice etc) and B: Atmospheric infor (including whether there is any microbeal life). This seems too much for the basic model. I really don't know whether it's supposed to be like this.

Thirdly, and this is important if you want to make proper money from exploring: at the moment, if you want to make big bucks, then simply jump into a system and fly around until you have plenty of objects logged as unknown. Do NOT lock up one of those objects and do a proper scan. it seems to overwrite the previous data and you will get less money when you sell it to Universal Cartographic.

Yep, this is probably bugged at the moment but the fact remains if you do the most basic, basic scans of a system and go and sell the data somewhere you will make far more than doing the proper scans of each planet, star and moon. For example, I jumped into a system and logged three stars as 'Unknown' and went off and sold that info at the next system for 6000cr. I then did a full scan of the next system I was in and received less than 1000cr for perperly scanning each individual body. There were about 16 in total. Most I made in total was about 18000cr for a medium sized binary star system. I simply logged all the unknowns I could find and jumped away to sell the info.

Thanks Cicero! That is all good info.

Off to explore a bit.

Something possibly worth pointing out (and I apologize if this is stating the obvious), because there was some confusion about this, and I was doing it wrong for a while based upon false information.

The "correct" procedure is to jump into an unknown system, activate your discovery scanner (the one bound to a weapon slot), and this will identify all of the celestial bodies in the system (or, perhaps in range of the scanner... not sure on that). Then, you fly around scanning the 'celestial objects' your discovery scanner located, and sell that information.

Is what you're saying, Decaon, that the information you collect using the Discovery sensor is more valuable if you do not individually scan the objects?

I can see how this would make sense, in a broken way, since the Discovery Scanner is a specialized piece of equipment.

Yes, at the moment you get more money from NOT scanning each object individually. Doing so seems to overwrite the previous data. I think it's bugged more than anything else.

It's all academic anyway just now. The Universal Cartographer module seems to have been broken by the last patch.