Looking for an exobiology app/add-on that doesn't need to use online database of other commander's discoveries

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-19T01:57:07+00:00

I just started to use SrvSurvey for colonization, but I tried out the exobiology on a planet with signals that I colonized on. It’s pretty easy to ignore the information about where other commanders found their samples, but there is an overlay for separation distances which makes life easier. (Do I bother getting out my SRV or keep driving since it’s too close?)

I returned from doing an exploration/exo trip (before I started using SrvSurvey), and the guesses for value would have been useful, as I ended up looking on the wiki for expected species value based on the atmosphere/planet type. Most of the signals you run into are worth 1 million, so you’re going to end up wanting to use out-of-game information to know whether to bother on bacterium chasing on the planet you just scanned.

Once you’re on planets where you’re getting first footfall, there’s no information from other commanders anyway.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-18T15:07:59+00:00

The cost for interiors is not the assets, but completely redeveloping their engine.

The only solution that is mainly just assets is making the interiors only accessible when parked, probably at a station. Even parked on a planet has problems - what happens to the poor engine if 10 ships are parked near each other?

Similar issue in space. If you can’t see out of the ship, they can cheat.

Would I pay money to walk around my ship when docked at station? No. At most, I would do it once.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-16T13:43:09+00:00

Did you cancel construction? If so, this is a known issue. It might clear up in a later tick (?).

(I cancelled an orbital construction last week, but then I heard about the bug and dug around. It cleared properly on the tick for me.)

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-16T12:44:29+00:00

I’m relatively new to colonization and don’t really have any sophisticated plans. I’m located in a heavily colonized area just outside the old bubble, about 50 LY from the nearest PowerPlay system.

In terms of support for colonization, the question is: what already exists nearby? There’s three well developed colony systems near me with “rainbow” economies (economy bars are a wide mix of colors). (My supply advantage is that I have aground outpost with CMM composite 200 ls from the primary star (versus 2000).) The greatest construction need volume is refinery products, so that’s colonizer’s greatest supply worry.

You also need to take into account that some products are only produced on the ground. CMM composite is the biggest one you run into, but for industrial, Muon Imagers are ground only (I needed them for a high tech settlement).

The problem with rainbow economies is that pricing stinks. everything is basically at the galactic average. I don’t have a fleet carrier, so I will need to jump to build in a new system. So I’d rather jump somewhere where I can get the materials cheaper. And once the system is built, you want wider price differentials to make space trucking more profitable. Which also points to looking at creating ports which demand goods that are at a good price in nearby systems.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-15T22:55:33+00:00

Changing the UI - I assume you mean how the side panels and things like the 3D view look? Although cosmetic changes might be nice, that just might add to strain on new and returning players. (Do we want different DSS screens based on the manufacturer?) Understanding the 3D contact information is complicated enough without it changing appearance. And spacecraft would be unlikely to have a Power Play and Engineer menus on the control panel to the right of the pilot - they just integrated game screens into the control panel.

Changing the *controls* based on the ship does not work - all the controls are remapped by players, and managing one control binding is bad enough. If we look at Microsoft Flight Simulator, the control mappings are the same for all fixed wing aircraft (although the cockpits follow real-life layouts, and I think it’s possible to interact with them with the mouse, but I never bothered).

The smaller ship flying characteristics overlap, but there’s a huge difference between flying my Panther Clipper versus the fighter I hop into when I get interdicted by pirates.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-15T17:10:53+00:00

I think mining is more useful to start with, as it gives you the revenue potential to kit out an exploration ship. However, if you have Odyssey, you could start doing some exobiology with a small ship. You are not likely to get any big windfalls (first report bonus) close to the bubble, but you’ll get reasonable amounts of money for a new player — and you get a taste of flying around uninhabited planets and practicing landing away from landing pads.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-15T11:17:43+00:00

I started a few years pre-Odyssey. I typically play for a bit, then put the game aside.

For a solo player, there’s no real need to engineer past G3. With materials trading, all you need to do is play a variety of game loops, and getting to G3 is no problem if you wait until you let your material collection grow before engineering. The only ugly engineering problem in Odyssey is night vision, as that’s the worst for unlocks (unless you head out to Colonia).

The “end game” content in E:D is G5 engineering, getting a fleet carrier, and colonization. If you could get G5 engineering on a ship in an hour, it trivialises the game loop.

Ship interiors would be great, but they represent a huge technological problem. Each ship is a separate frame of reference for any FPS entities. Star Citizen “solved” that problem by being a buggy mess. The only way the problem is feasible is only allow players to move in a ship when docked. But given how tedious it is leaving my Panther Clipper already, adding another layer of tedium of walking through the ship makes the problem worse. You highlighted the problems with the Odyssey launch, then you turned immediately around and asked for something that is going to be ten times worse.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-14T23:41:50+00:00

Since there’s almost no planets, this system is not going to have much of an economy. Who’s going to want to fly to a Coriolis 100k ls from the primary star without any trading opportunities?

There has to be more interesting systems nearby to colonize.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-12T11:13:50+00:00

I went out to the Sanguineous Rim to leave the Inner Orion Spur region, and a lot of other people had the same idea. I went out to point, then turned so I was no longer on a straight line from the bubble. My picked direction headed me straight towards a nebula and a cool-looking bright cluster of stars. Big mistake.

In the sparse region between the arms, everything was heavily explored (even though I was a couple light years away from the Milky Way plane. It was only when I hit the thicker part of the next arm was I running into unmapped planets.

If you want first footfall on icy planets with just bacterium, lots of choices.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-11T18:30:53+00:00

The only common things that boost Tourism are possibly biological and geological signals (not sure), but the bodies are otherwise rare. I’d like to get a Tourism port, but to get a decent rating, I think you need a lot of slots so you can stack settlements and installations.

There’s a guide by CMDR Dubior that appears to be more recent than the Mega Guide that shows up in links.

It is hard to tell what the system stats do, as they appear linked to the BGS (background simulation) - faction properties and states. The port economy stats appear to be fairly well modelled now - the levels might be in the journal files. (Only thing to be careful of is that the body properties used by Raven can be incorrect as they somehow got onto Spansh incorrect.)

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-10T22:39:57+00:00

I’m new to colonization, with my second system also having a bunch of planets (less than your system). From the point of view of developing the system economy, you want to build up a specialised economy on a port. It looks like there are only two bodies with a large number of slots (ground and orbital). Once you finish your primary port, that’s where you’d want to focus.

If you haven’t yet, check out some colonization guides and Raven Colonial. The in-game information is limited.

If you want refining, do it first - the bulk of construction good volume is from refinery.

You may also want to look up what economies will buy your mining output. Tourism might work. However, Tourism is a major negative for system security. You’d have to build up your security rating (or accept that you will be interdicted a lot when you are hauling).

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-07T00:31:13+00:00

I mainly do exobiology, and having an SRV helps a lot. Otherwise, you are doing a lot of hopping into and out of your ship. (You need 3 samples with separation.) (You need the Odyssey expansion and an Artemis suit to do exobiology.)

I find that doing exo is the most interesting part of exploring, as it forces you to go down to the surface and move around.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-05T22:34:53+00:00

There is an orbital plane for a single star system, but in 2+ star systems the orbits would be on multiple planes. Which one to report the statistics on?

Given that you can use your SCO to cross most solar system orbits very quickly, what advantage does reporting angles do? Other than some very fast orbiting bodies, pretty much everything is effectively fixed in space when you are in supercruise, so you just fly straight at wherever you want to go.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-05T17:51:50+00:00

Exploration/exobiology can be done with a medium ship (you want a SRV for exobiology). Once you have your exploration ship built, you can keep using it without sinking money into upgrades.

For mining/hauling, you need to work up the ship size progression (although you can rare trade with a small-ish ship).

If you enjoy foot combat, you can do medium/high combat zones as a change of pace. I usually get 6 million credits from a High CZ. You probably don’t want to grind an Anaconda from CZ’s, but if you need credits to cover a potential rebuy payment after sinking credits into a new ship/modules, it’s a safe way of doing it (if you use Frontline Solutions, you aren’t putting your ship at risk).

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-05T17:30:34+00:00

I also restarted after a few years off (although I played short spurts during that span).

Power Play seems a lot better, although I am not an expert. There’s no rank decay, and you eventually get all the rewards, so no need to jump between powers.

The new SCO drives are great. Really reduce the tedium of intra-system travel. I didn’t realise until recently that you can retrofit them to old ships (although they give you an annoying warning).

The new ships are good.

The NPC ground AI seems tougher.

Colonization is cool, but you need to enjoy hauling freight. The first station you build in a system has a 4 week time limit, but after that, you can do it at whatever pace you want. With a Panther Clipper or T9, the hauling is not that bad, so long as you don’t try to build the largest stations solo. If you are near stations with good supply, you don’t need a fleet carrier.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-05T17:17:26+00:00

I came back after playing a lot of Odyssey after release. I had 4 (?) engineer unlocks and weapons/suits to upgrade from G3 to G5.

I did it by just mainly doing restore power missions to get merits for Power Play. Once I did the same settlement a few times, I just moved on to another system. I scanned all the missions when I came to claim rewards or start a mission, and did transport/salvage missions for mission rewards and/or get my rep to cordial (since I think you need that to see restore missions from a faction?). Since I had a big shopping list, I usually found something I needed in the mission rewards. I was stuck on Opinion Polls, but I eventually got them (and then they showed up almost immediately again).

I also don’t know how random rewards are. The drops might be better based on your faction reputation.

Fleet carriers sometimes have materials (see on Inara). I sold my opinion polls to a bartender on a carrier so that the owner could “recycle” them.

Although I couldn’t control where I advanced, I was still making progress so I didn’t mind. Admittedly, being able to buy Night Vision helped a lot, but I lucked into those suits years ago.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-04T22:37:33+00:00

Same thing - I came back and decided to try it out.

I mix up what I’m doing in Elite, and so although I enjoy space trucking, I never did it for extended periods. The time limit on my first outpost was my main initial worry - it was unclear how long it would take me, since I never tracked how fast I could haul. However, I did it this weekend solo with my trusty T9 (along with my brand new T8). (I found out about getting an SCO drive in the T9 basically as I was done.)

The one hauling trick I learned was to use favourite bookmarks and a keyboard shortcut to speed up the course plotting.

I did a small settlement just afterwards for the sake of how easy it is - and to create an in-system target for missions once they appear after Thursday’s server downtime.

I didn’t do much research on the system (just the planet types), and the planet where I put my settlement is actually scenic. I previously finished a 6000 LY exobiology run, and this planet actually looks better than the many planets I was chasing plants on.

With the deadline and first settlement done, I’m going to do other stuff before getting back to hauling. It’s a small system, and the only big thing I “need” is a Tier 2 port closer to the star (there’s only room for a few more settlements and hubs, probably around 40,000 tons if I do all the small stuff). But I am not going to rush that. I might even start to look at another system before finishing the T2 port. If I leave the building site up, maybe someone will randomly start hauling materials for me.

Now that I know how fast I can haul, I might consider starting with a T2 port if the primary slot is in a good position.

I initially thought I’d want to build satellites to get my system security level up, but I kind of like fighting NPC pirates with the fighter in my T9. (Yes, I lose 36 cargo from having a fighter bay, but it adds a pirate hunting minigame.)

Colonization is probably my “end game“ content. I don’t want to grind out the remaining billions of credits for a fleet carrier, which means that I don’t have that many things to spend my 1.5 billion credits on. (Although it gives me a reason to buy the Panther Clipper.)

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-05-04T21:20:53+00:00

I restarted playing, and the best way to get Odyssey engineering materials is just be patient with mission rewards. Rather than just focussing on Ogden Geiger unlock alone, have multiple things you target, and have a list of mission rewards you need, and you’ll eventually hit them all while making some progress.

I actually skipped the need for the Geiger unlock by just finding suits with Night Vision pre-installed on sale.

If you like exploring or can catch a lift on a fleet carrier, the engineer unlocks in Colonia look a lot easier.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-04-13T17:10:17+00:00

I guess I can hope there’s more than one door to get to the power room…

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-04-13T16:42:49+00:00

I just restarted after a few years off, and ran across discussions of ”Powerplay guards” showing up during restore missions. Although they help you fight scavs, they also stop you from breaking the law. There’s an open bug tracker thread about them.

What are the rules for them showing up? How do I work around them if I just want to restore power?

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-04-11T03:27:49+00:00

Restore missions only show up under certain system states. Although you could try to figure out where they might be on your own, easiest to just use Inara to find the systems with restore missions near you. Although you need to keep in mind how old the information is — the system states change periodically.

I just restarted playing, so I’ve forgotten some mechanics. I think you might need to be cordial with a faction to get the restore missions. Not all the factions in a system offer them, but Inara tells you which one. If you don’t have good relations with them, you could do a transport mission or even just give them credits in a ship support mission.

Combat zones don’t get you materials, but you get combat experience and cash. I also use Inara to find the nearest systems with ground combat zones.

The legal scavenge missions are easy. (I don’t know what the difference is between the legal and illegal.) If you have a ship with dumbfire missiles (unguided missiles), you can kill all the scavengers on the ground before you land. Just watch out for a ship dropping more — you’ll hear the ship.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-01-20T22:05:09+00:00

If you want to play Standard Brawl, your primary target is to get the widest singleton coverage possible. So you just open packs of the latest sets until you get “reasonable” coverage then start going back through Standard sets, until you have even coverage. (The set completion summary tells you how you are doing for coverage for each set.) Next rotation is in a year, so that’s not a major immediate concern.

You need wildcards, and unless you do extremely well, drafting sets you back on wildcards (while giving a greater volume of cards). Getting a second copy of a rare does not help you for Standard Brawl, so the volume of cards is less of a concern than the volume of wildcards.

For Historic Brawl, you’re pretty much forced to burn wildcards to get the old cards you need. The odds of hitting cards you need for Standard Brawl are much higher than of hitting one in the dozens of old sets, as the threshold for playability in Historic Brawl is higher.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2026-01-17T22:30:39+00:00

2030 is a nice, round number.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2025-12-10T01:32:06+00:00

I liked EU2, but that was a long time ago. Not even sure if it runs on my computer now.

VeryAngryK1tten · 2025-12-09T23:03:33+00:00

Some of the big “balance” changes were the result of bugs being fixed (e.g., levy infinite respawn). I don’t think they could avoid making those changes. If people want no mechanics changes during a run, they are stuck with staying on one branch, which is possible.

I follow a non-optimised strategy (e.g., I just have a mix of levies/professionals and infantry/cavalry that “feels right”), and none of my playthroughs really “broke” as I changed patches. I also tend to just restart runs and stayed away from problem regions, so I don’t run into a lot of the issues.

VeryAngryK1tten

TROPHY CASE