Elite Dangerous - Exobiology: How to find and sample Biological signals (4K)
After a few requests, I decided to publish this step-by-step Exobiology guide, to demonstrate my process on finding and examining Biological Signals**
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Pre-requisites:
The Artemis Suit for the Genetic Sampler. Use your loadouts options to switch to your suit.
A small size ship is ideal for exobiology, as it can land almost anywhere, especially good for high gravitational bodies or hilly areas, but any size ship will do (the Diamondback Explorer is used here).
One ship internal module slot for the Detailed Surface Scanner (DSS)
A Planetary Vehicle Hangar (optional) with a Scarab, which can be used to find biological samples on hilly areas.
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Directions:
Some biological signals are more visible when there is light, whereas other signals are easier to find in darkness. So, in this example, I chose to:
1) Land on the bright side of the planet, for my first landing, to visually ease my search.
2) Find a flat/smooth area, which you often find bacteria on (most common biological signal)
3) Lower the landing gear around the 2Km height mark, to reduce the ship's top speed and avoid any unforeseen accidents (commonly called splatters?)
4) Turn off cruise control around the 1Km height mark, and manually adjust the thrust (default W) and height (default R), when at proximity to the surface.
When you find a possible biological sample to collect, disembark and while on foot use your Genetic Sampler (default key '5') to send a scan pulse (right mouse click) to the surrounding area to temporarily highlight samples.
If the sample is coloured Green, then either it hasn't been sampled yet or a copy is already in your Genetic Sampler
You need 3 samples of the same biological scanned sample to complete a scan.
Blue coloured samples for specimens already sampled and
Purple for specimens of different type that you are currently have stored in your Genetic Sampler.
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Examples:
Experience will determine the speed in finding new samples, usually taking from 5-10mins for the easier ones (~1mil payouts), to multiple landings and frustrating rocky areas of search for the harder ones (~7.5mil payouts). For these particular biological signals, here are some hints to help you identify them: ***
The Fonticulua biological signals look like trees/mushrooms (pending on species), easily identified either day or night (nightvision helps - key B). Find them on flat bits (lighter colours on the surface map) or outside craters.
The Bacterium biological signals (Bacteria) are dark patches (discolourations) on the surface, found close to the flat bits outside of craters or close to rocky/hilly areas (darker areas within the surface map). They are very difficult to find at night, as they are not visible on night vision. Flying in between 100m to 300 meters above surface is ideal to detect them, as long as the speed is kept under ~100m/s, which often helps with the time it takes for the surface patterns to update (server lag).
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External utilities/3rd party tools:
There are a number of helpful utilities and add-ons to help out with Exobiology, though the legwork and search to finding the samples will still have to be done manually. The following 3 absolutely brilliant utilities, are the ones used here:
Trade Computer Extension Mk.II, which provides a lot of exploration functionality (seen as the floating toolbar at the top of the screen). For this particular example, most notable are the planetary map coordinates and the bookmarking.
Find it at: https://edcodex.info/?m=tools&entry=327
Market Connector utility + BioScan/ExploData add-ons. One of the most used/popular 3rd party tools for Elite Dangerous, with many optional add-ons to extend its functionality as needed (seen as informational overlay messages around the screen).
Find it at: https://edcodex.info/?m=tools&entry=150
Elite Observatory, which monitors and reports interesting objects (seen bottom right corner of the screen). A must-have tool for any Exobiologist.
Find it at: https://github.com/Xjph/EliteObservatory
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** Note, that this was just a random planet that I came upon, during my final guardian tech hunting trip, so excuse any delays encountered while looking for the samples, as I decided to leave the video unedited, to highlight the fact, that things don't always go as smoothly.
*** There are 11 different biological signals (so far?), each having its own quirks and requirements to finding them. They are, in order: Bacteria, Cactoid, Concha, Electricia, Fonticulua, Frutexa, Fumerola, Fungoida, Osseus, Tubus, and Tussock.
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