you need to buy a detailed surface scanner module for your ship. they're available at stations that provide the outfitting service, though not every such station will have it available. once it's equipped, you need to assign it to a firing group, as if it were a weapon. unlike a weapon, it's only functional when you put the ship into analysis mode, it can't be used in combat mode. to use it, you need to get pretty darn close to the planet you want to scan, like within a small fraction of a single light second. with the ship in analysis mode, with the firing group containing the scanner displayed on your hud. you also need to be pretty much throttled all the way down before you can actually scan the planet. and you have to be in supercruise. if you're too far away to scan, the hud display will tell you that, and the indicator for the scanner will be colored red. if you're close enough, but moving too fast, the indicator will tell you that also. once you're in range, and moving slow enough, the indicator will turn blue (or green, or whatever color you're using for that) to indicate that, yes, you can now scan the thing you've targeted. ok, so, with your ship facing the planet, press the trigger button for the surface scanner. this will change your hud to the special "surface scanner" mode, and you'll have a targeting reticle for the scanner. you haven't scanned anything yet. at this point, it's a good thing if you've already assigned some key or other, to get you back out of this scanner mode. because that's the only way to get back to your normal view. there are binding options for the scanner in the game options menu, in the ship controls section. you should look at them. another thing in that options menu you need to set up, is a control for moving the scanner's targeting reticle around. i use the mouse for that, i think that works well. there's also apparently settings in there to switch between different heat map filters for the scanner. which i've never used, have no idea what they're for, and didn't even know they were there until i looked just now. will have to check that out later. ok. so, to actually scan something: move the targeting reticle around the image of the planet. when you press the trigger button for the scanner in this mode, it will fire a probe, with the reticle indicating where the probe is going. the fired probe is affected by gravity as it approaches the planet, and note that your reticle has indicators you can use to exploit this, allowing you to fire probes that actually land on the side of the planet that's opposite from you. this takes some practice, and you want to learn to do it, because the game awards you an exploration credit bonus, if you can scan the entire planet using a number of probes less than or equal to a limit, depending on the size of the planet. each probe scans a circular area of the planet's surface on impact, which you will see light up on the display, increasing the percentage of the planet you've scanned. you get an indicator showing what percentage of the planet you've scanned so far. to do a complete scan, you need to get this indicator up to 90%, after which the game says ok, and just gives you the rest of the scan for free. it's a lot simpler than i'm making it seem here, once you've done it once or twice. and for all this, you get access to a few random landing sites, where you can shoot people and steal stuff, mainly. there's probably other situations where you need it also.
please tell me you farmed the hell out of those XD i cant find a single threat 2 irregular markers
what nobody ever shpws is actually scanning for it.
I have never seen one and I don't even know which scanner to use or where.
you need to buy a detailed surface scanner module for your ship. they're available at stations that provide the outfitting service, though not every such station will have it available. once it's equipped, you need to assign it to a firing group, as if it were a weapon. unlike a weapon, it's only functional when you put the ship into analysis mode, it can't be used in combat mode. to use it, you need to get pretty darn close to the planet you want to scan, like within a small fraction of a single light second. with the ship in analysis mode, with the firing group containing the scanner displayed on your hud. you also need to be pretty much throttled all the way down before you can actually scan the planet. and you have to be in supercruise. if you're too far away to scan, the hud display will tell you that, and the indicator for the scanner will be colored red. if you're close enough, but moving too fast, the indicator will tell you that also. once you're in range, and moving slow enough, the indicator will turn blue (or green, or whatever color you're using for that) to indicate that, yes, you can now scan the thing you've targeted. ok, so, with your ship facing the planet, press the trigger button for the surface scanner. this will change your hud to the special "surface scanner" mode, and you'll have a targeting reticle for the scanner. you haven't scanned anything yet.
at this point, it's a good thing if you've already assigned some key or other, to get you back out of this scanner mode. because that's the only way to get back to your normal view. there are binding options for the scanner in the game options menu, in the ship controls section. you should look at them. another thing in that options menu you need to set up, is a control for moving the scanner's targeting reticle around. i use the mouse for that, i think that works well. there's also apparently settings in there to switch between different heat map filters for the scanner. which i've never used, have no idea what they're for, and didn't even know they were there until i looked just now. will have to check that out later.
ok. so, to actually scan something: move the targeting reticle around the image of the planet. when you press the trigger button for the scanner in this mode, it will fire a probe, with the reticle indicating where the probe is going. the fired probe is affected by gravity as it approaches the planet, and note that your reticle has indicators you can use to exploit this, allowing you to fire probes that actually land on the side of the planet that's opposite from you. this takes some practice, and you want to learn to do it, because the game awards you an exploration credit bonus, if you can scan the entire planet using a number of probes less than or equal to a limit, depending on the size of the planet. each probe scans a circular area of the planet's surface on impact, which you will see light up on the display, increasing the percentage of the planet you've scanned. you get an indicator showing what percentage of the planet you've scanned so far. to do a complete scan, you need to get this indicator up to 90%, after which the game says ok, and just gives you the rest of the scan for free.
it's a lot simpler than i'm making it seem here, once you've done it once or twice. and for all this, you get access to a few random landing sites, where you can shoot people and steal stuff, mainly. there's probably other situations where you need it also.