G'day Folks, I'm hopeful there are simple tactics I'm overlooking while searching for a neodymium asteroid. I just spent 45 minutes randomly flying around the Skillion system looking for a neodymium asteroid without luck. Is there any way to track where I've been, where the map edges are, the distance "something interesting" detection occurs, where the playfield ends, or really anything useful for a prospector at all? I'm pretty sure I saw the same asteroids up close more than a few times.
Do you know about the sector map and the info section? Whenever you warp to a new sector you can bring up the sector map and it will show you what is mineable in the orbit and also the planets in that sector if you select them from the list. To answer your question if you go out far enough you get a warning to use your warp drive to travel to another sector, other then that its all guesswork. My suggestion to you is to not bother with the random asteroid areas and go to a sector with a asteroid ring or field. Much easier to find the mineable asteroids there.
Yes. Neodymium is listed on the sector map as appropriate for Skillion orbit, but not for the planet itself. I hit the playfield edge a few times (which is how I discovered there is one). I'm in the experimental version and since I started on Akua, there are only 2 systems in reach of my SV. Skillion and Ningues. I picked the closer one. I may have to warp back to Akua and then over to Ningues and hope the ore is more accessible. First, I'll have to acquire more warp fuel though and that looks like a pain as well; I found very little on the surface of the moon. I was hoping there was a simple trick or something I overlooked. Getting within ~1 km of each and every rock in the playfield without getting turned around / missing some is a huge pain.
Neo should be on every starter planet moon, if its not take it up with your server's admins. Some people think forcing people just starting out to do POI's for neo = fun. Oh i just thought of something, if you go into single player and use the command map you can see all the minerals and poi's in whatever play field you are in. They always appear in the same place provided the person who set up your game didnt change anything. Once you know where they spawn they are easy to find.
I'm on single player. Ore distribution is changed under the 7.X branch. Neo is moved out of the starter systems as one of those changes (and it becomes required to construct rocket launchers). This map command you mention, is it a console command?
If you at ends meat and want to "cheat" and make sure its not a bug, open console and type map. It will dis[play everything in the system. once found, you can type map hide to hide everything undiscovered again
Interesting, the server I have been messing around on has a custom starter system. Now i know.. super lame!
Correct for 6.x, wrong for 7.x The experimential game has changed a lot in this ballpark. It just states, that it should be there somewhere, but not where. Searching the orbit for ressources is a PITA. I found myself cheating the way @SilvRav describes, considering this being an act of self-defence. This part of the game surely needs to be reworked, on a conceptional layer. Later on i found that Nd and Sa can be found on Ningues Surface, too. Its more dangerous there than in the orbit of Skillon, but much less boring.
Oh man you did EXACTLY what I'm doing RIGHT NOW. Looking for Neodynium in Skillon area. However, I used Waypoints. In Red you see the search circle which goes around the planet with the POLES as the centre. (5000, 0 , 0) (5000, 0 , 5000) (0, 0 , 5000) (-5000, 0 , 0) (-5000, 0 , 5000) (-5000, 0 , -5000) (0, 0 , 5000) This resulted in finding the Cobalt, Sathium and Promethium. Then I didn't find Neodynium, so I then placed a marker above each pole (0 5000 0),(0,-5000,0) and flew around trying to search in a circle around the planet including the poles this time. Still no luck. But that's how you set up a search path I'd say.
How do you set up any form of search circle though? I don't see a coordinate system. I get how to measure distance to the planet, but don't see any way to maintain a flat plane.
You don't create a circle, you approximate a circle at radius 5000 using 8 waypoints. Create 8 waypoints that form a square like this BUT WITH RADIUS 5000. Then you follow them through: (5000, 0 , 0) (5000, 0 , 5000) (5000, 0 , -5000) (0, 0 , 5000) (0, 0 , -5000) (-5000, 0 , 0) (-5000, 0 , 5000) (-5000, 0 , -5000)
This feature of the markers i did see eventually, but to exploit it the way you do is a really,REALLY good idea. One could span a coordinate system this way, and set additional waypoints with "disappear on approaching" to keep track where you have been already. Some work to set this up, but rewarding
Yeah but since they made Neodyn so hard to find... don't forget to do those 2 other parallel circular paths (2km above and below the main search path!)!!!!
of course, but only a small suggestion ;-) you only need the Waypoints Start : 5000, Y, 5000 => 5000, Y, -5000 => -5000, Y, -5000 => -5000, Y, 5000 => back to Start this for Y = 0, 2000, -2000
What i usually do is; after getting near asteroids, hit O key until ship orientates. Then start flying in the middle of asteroid ring clockwise. If you for some reason rotate around and lose your way for example after mining an asteroid, O and clockwise will easily get you back to right direction.
Yes that's good advice for the ring-style asteroid belts. However the sphere-shaped ones right now, are pretty damn hard to search through. What can we do in this scenario? (Spheroid, Filled) For this one: (Spheroid, Hollow) for now, we can use: ... and hope they don't start putting ores above and below the poles.