Elite Dangerous

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Tell us how to get into exobiology!

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Tell us how to get into exobiology!

Posted by Alex Sinclair in Elite Dangerous

Here's one for the galactic botanists! Welcome to the seventh reward in our 'how to get into' series. For these rewards, we want you to share tips and advice explaining how to get started and progress through Elite's various official and unofficial careers. Having covered mining, salvage, bounty hunting, exploration, trade, and piracy, we're moving onto exobiology!

So share your best guidance for new-to-intermediate Elite Dangerous players who want to make exobiology their career of choice. There's no minimum or maximum word count for this bounty, but we expect at least a few sentences. If your entry is longer than a few paragraphs, please use subheadings for reading ease. If you enter with video, be sure to first connect your account (see below).

Image credit: Frontier Developments and Mr T, as seen here.

Remaining$48 / 140

This reward closed to entries at 12:13pm on March 17, 2025 but you can still reply, react, and join the conversation below! If you’d like to enter other rewards which are still open, click here.

Created at 9:00am, 18th December, 2024. Page last updated at 11:48pm, 13th March, 2025.
Deadline at 12:00am, 14th March, 2025.

Submissions (24)

Hunter3/13/2025

Won$4

A full guide to anyone who want to start scanning those mushrooms enjoy :

Verified

mypets3/13/2025

Won$4

First, you need the Odyssey expansion in order to get started with exobiology. With regard to the ship, I recommend one that has a good jump range and is small or medium-sized. I really like the Diamondback Explorer, but there are other options such as the Asp Explorer, Krait Phantom... In addition to the choice of ship, it's also very important to equip it with a Full Spectrum Scanner and a Detailed Surface Scanner, because it's through these that you'll be able to identify areas with life on other planets and map the surface; as well as the SRV, which helps you to be faster when scanning for life forms (these pieces of equipment aren't mandatory, but they help a lot!). The Artemis suit is also essential, it is equipped with the Genetic Sampler, the only device that can scan for exobiological life forms.

Once you've done that, you can set off on an adventure in search of exobiological forms. Choose your direction and start searching, remembering that the initial search begins inside the ship with the equipment you've acquired.

Once you've located the element and landed the ship, you can go on foot or with the SRV looking for life forms, and the scanner will show you the elements that can be scanned. It's important to remember that there are 3 different samples for each species and they must be at a certain distance from each other. When you've finished collecting, you can sell your data to Vista Genomics, with the rewards varying according to the rarity of each specimen. It's good to know that if you're the first to discover a life form, your reward will be much greater! To achieve this, I recommend searching in areas further away from the center, because the further away you go, the greater the chance of finding unexplored places. These are the initial tips, I believe that over time everyone will see how it works best for them.

Caenyx3/13/2025

Won$4

There’s a few things you will need; a small/medium ship preferably for ease of landing in some difficult terrains, a DSS, a fuel scoop, an SRV and an Artemis suit of course.
Start by jumping to a system, then head into the system map. If it’s already been scanned, you can easily check which landable planets have biological signatures (the more the better). If it hasn’t been scanned yet, you can score some extra credits and boost your explorer rank by scanning the system and its planets beforehand.
When you find a promising planet, scan it with the DSS. The lighter the blue, the more flora will be in that area. In most cases, you can overlap the flora to group them into one location. Keep in mind that certain species may only grow in specific locations or at certain altitudes.
To fully scan one species, you need to do three scans. Don’t start scanning another species until you’ve finished the current one, or you’ll lose your progress. Keep repeating the process until you’re ready to head back home. The scans will still be saved, but you won’t get any credits or rank for it if you die though so becareful.
Once you’re done, head to Vista Genomics at almost any station and sell all your exploration data and codex discoveries to claim your rewards.

Osiliran3/12/2025

Won$4

For my submission into this bounty, and having never done exobiology before, I wanted to offer my perspective as a complete beginner and some approaches I took to get some samples under my belt.

The game and outside sources do a great job of explaining the essential tools needed; the genetic sampling tool that comes with an Artemis suit, the Full Spectrum System Scanner (FSSS) that comes with the ship by default, and a Detailed Surface Scanner (DDS) that must be purchased as a separate ship module. A ship with a small footprint for easy landing is a plus.

Having this knowledge, I took off and scanned a number of systems, looking for biological signals. A finally find one with a single signal and probed the planet with the DDS. It was a bacterium of some kind. All I know at this point is that it should look like a puddle or spot (?) on the planet surface. There is where I got stuck for an hour, having absolutely no luck finding this elusive space plant. What really helped me spot the sucker was some flying techniques with the camera suite that allowed me to eyeball a larger surface area at once. Thanks to folks at reddit and some nice tips here on Just from other Cmdrs. I want to highlight that while this was great technique, I found that graphics settings in game also affected how easily some of this bacterium was seen against the planet surface and playing around with shadows especially was helpful. At certain distances from the surface the bacterium would take on a darker 'puddle' look and be very easy to spot. Up close from the cockpit though it was almost impossible to distinguish.

I've attached some pictures for illustration. I just didn't find graphics settings discussed very much in exobiology guides as much as other tips so I thought this could be a highlight of my submission. I changed my shadow settings to low and the bacterium at higher fly bys was much more consistent in its darker puddle-like colour.

blurred background — Bacterium so hard to see against the planet surface!

Bacterium so hard to see against the planet surface!

blurred background — Flying above the surface approximately 300m the bacterium turned into puddle-like spots

Flying above the surface approximately 300m the bacterium turned into puddle-like spots

CMDR Henckes3/7/2025

Won$4

The exobiology is one of the best part of exploration and was a great addition to the game with the Odyssey DLC, the only con is that it would be welcomed more variations of things you can discover on the planet surfaces.

But to star with it it is simples, and not so expansive you only need a few things:

A ship, a small one would be better equipped with a Fuel Scoop, a Detailed Surface Scanner and an Advanced Planetary Approach Suite.
An Artemis Suit
A SRV (optional)

So with this three things you will be ready to go, the small ship will be better for you to fly close to the ground and they are easy to land as well.

The first thing you must to do is choose a path to fly through and find planets with biological signals to scan, after that you can start to jump, stop and honk the system and then go to a the Full Spectrum System Scanner (SSC) mode to scan the planets there you will be searching the planets with notable Biological Signals, this mean there will be organic plants, bacteria or fungus to be scanned.

When you find this planet go there and when you get up close you can open your Surface scan and throw probes to scan the surface. The planet now will have those blue spots, that will point where the organic signals can be found, if there more than one notable signal you can cycle though them and see each one individually.

blurred background

Now it is time to land in one of those blue areas with you ship and search for the organic data, it sometimes will be hard to find, but once you find you land your ship and disembark, now take you bio scan and point to the material, you have to scan three samples to complete the scan, remember that the samples must be distant from each other and you can finda another spot using your ship or your SRV .

blurred background

After scanning the all the samples of the planet you can go to other planet in that system and scan other samples, if not you can go to the next system and repeat the process, until you complete the planned path or you think you have scanned enough. At the and go to the closest station and sell all you data, it will give you a nice amount of credits for you to buy a new ship and a better FSD to go futher in you exploration!