Hody, folks. I’m getting tha hang of the Exploration career path but have a question about scanning down Wormholes.
With any other signature I track down, the process is the same. I launch a spread formation, then gradually narrow a pinpoint search until I get a 100% on a site’s location. With a wormhole I’m trying to find, though, I narrow my search until I’m getting a 50% signal, and then when I lower the radius below that to the lowest (.5k, I think?) I’m not getting a signal anymore. The circle on my scanner for the wormhole resets to 0% and I repeat the process without end.
I’m keeping my drones’ search area in the same place- the wormhole’s signal area- with each reduction in search radius.
Scan celestials at 4AU (majority of signatures spawn within 4AU of a celestial). If this fails, scan at 8AU range to catch the outliers
When the signature is sufficiently scanned to be a dot instead of a sphere, scan that dot at 2AU. Sometimes you will have two dots connected with a line, the signature will be one of the two dots, scan one and if it does not resolve, scan the other.
Continue to lower the AU one notch at a time (1AU, .5 AU, etc) until you get 100% match
If you don’t get 100% match this way, the signature is too hard for you to scan down at your skills so then you must
Increase your skills
Use implants
Use a bonused ship
Use scan improvement modules on that ship
Hope that helps and happy hunting. STRXP is recruiting! Join “STRXP Public” channel for more details
If you get 0% and a negative sound, the object is no longer within your radius. Be aware you have to check 3D, so you need at least 2 viewpoints on a 2D screen. The toggles at the bottom right help with that task.
The spread formation is pretty useless, as it kills any localisation you already have from simply entering the system. As was said above, most signatures will be located within 4 au of a celestial (there are some rare exceptions). When you first look at the solar system map you will spheres with roughly 4au radius, the sigs will be somewhere within those spheres. Use a 4AU or 8AU pinpoint formation on any cluster of signatures, and then zoom down on every dot, going down one step each scan (4au, 2au, 1au, etc…) once your pinpointing skill is higher it’s possible to go down in steps of two (4au, 1au, 0.25au) which can considerably speed up your scanning.
If you get an imperfect scan, figuring out where to scan next becomes a geometry problem. Each of your 8 probes gives a distance estimate to the signature.
If the sig is only in range of 1 of your 8 probes, it will be on the surface of a sphere (fixed distance from one of your probes) this is the sphere you see. However, it will be on that part of the sphere that’s not covered by the other 7 probes.
If the sig is in range of 2 of your 8 probes, it will lie on a circle (intersection of two spheres), it will lie on that part of the circle that’s not in range of the other 6 probes.
If the sig is in range of 3 of your 8 probes, it will lie on one of two dots (intersection of a circle with a sphere), the correct dot will be the one not in range of the other 5 probes (usually the furthest one.)
The point shown on the map is only an estimation until you get a signal to 100%. At lower strengths it can be way off. Every time you narrow the scan size, recenter the probes on the new shown location of the sig. Bare in mind that if you skip a scan size or do not properly center after each scan you can “lose” the sig and see 0%. This means the sig is actually very slightly outside your scan area. Don’t worry, just enlarge the scan size one level and rescan to find the signature again. Reposition for better centering and try again. Remember 0% means your probes cannot see it, at all.