An upgrade for your ship that allows you to scan a planet for ores and possibly other materials. There could even be an upgrade to that on a later tier that lets you scan for constructs, villages, ect. Though it would be a short range scanner, so you would have to be orbiting the planet/moon that you want to scan. I feel this will help when you are searching for something specific (like tier 4 ore). I cannot count the times i went down to a planet only to turn up empty handed when i was looking for a specific ore. If you think this idea can be improved, or have possible recipe ideas, and what tier it should be available on (i honestly think the first scanner upgrade -the one for ores- should be available around tier 1-3), then feel free to comment.
a scanner that would show the approximate locaton of structures would be nice. though with the way ore gen works, if you're not finding ore it's likely you're just unlucky. i find it's best to go near the bottom of the map for getting ore, since it's most common and diverse
normal ore (aside from gold which is just a pain) show up fine. Aegisalt, Cerulium, Rubium and the like dont all show up on the same planet together. some planets have it, some dont. the best way to know if it does or not is if you know what level sets the ores show up on. But with the update thats coming up, that will be gone completely.
For the sake of replayability I think the extent to what the scanner on the ship shows should be a color coded word on the descriptor for the planet in the navigation window. You take an ore, scan it and pay pixels with the 3D printer. That unlocks the ore in the scanner. Then in the navigation window you get a Green Yellow Red name of the ore present in the planet description that reflects the size of the deposits and the general availability. Scanning for the specific location of an ore should be done with some sort of survey mechanic on the surface of the planet. Like a drill probe that you can launch that drills down and has the potential to 'mark' or 'tag' deposits that it passes by on the way down. The depth it drills and the power of the scan should scale with fuel used and the quality of the ore probe. Like a free standing structure that can take core samples for instance. Takes 'probes' as ammo.
The one thing i dont like is the color of the name. Honestly if youre gonna pay for it, why limit the information you get? at most it should say like a percentage of the total ores on the planet are. I.e. Coal 40%, Iron 20%, Copper 30% etc. But i would be happy if it just says whats there in a list. I.E. "Present Ores: Coal, Copper, Iron, Silver, Gold" The scanning of ores is a great idea though. And the drill surveyor is a nice idea too.
I like the idea. May I add different tiers to it. The very beginning doing surface scans only, with upgrades including flora/fauna, depth, and resources respectfully.
I was thinking from an ease of implementation. There is the potential for a ton of ores on a planet and every character costs space. Color would convey enough information for me to find useful. Buf you're right that just knowing what's present would be enough. *nod I like the idea of using the scanner to unlock abilities, effects, there's a lot of potential with that little scanner, paying pixels, losing the item are excellent costs from a game mechanic perspective.
It would be a great way to add some flavor to the randomly genned species of fauna, if by scanning you could get a breakdown of them and their stats (right now since they're a black box they can all seem pretty same-y), effectively it would let you start a pokedex, heh.
