Scanning

Before you can fully utilise planets and moons, you must scan them to determine what is available. There are two levels of scanning: a high level satellite scan to obtain metadata about the whole body, and then detailed scanning of the surface for usable resources.

### Summary Scanning

**Scanning** unknown planets and their moons with an artificial satellite is the first thing any starting space program must do. Each scan takes a set amount of time, depending on distance to Earth. Scanning allows players to discover important information about that planetary body, as well as sending a manned mission. The satellite then remains in orbit around the target permanently, although it disappears from the list of active spacecraft.

Only 1 satellite scan is needed to unlock the body for full exploration; this first scan also gives a credit reward. If the body was a planet, then scanning it also unlocks the option to scan its individual moons. Further satellites can later be used by an Outpost to help scan the surface faster and find resources.

Note that once a body is scanned, it is also added to the pool of potential destinations for tourists and daily assignments. However, fulfilling those requests will require sending a Lander, which typically requires much more research and development than a simple satellite. For this reason, it is often advantageous to delay scanning bodies, until you are ready to send astronauts to them.

### Detailed Scanning

Once you have established an Outpost on a body, you can begin to scan the surface of the body for resources. There are several ways to achieve this.

* You can have workers use the Outpost's radar to actively scan an area, once every hour (or once per 30 minutes if using an Astronaut). This will scan an area determined by your level of Radar Efficiency research (starting at 50km2 per scan), up to a limit determined by the level of your Radar range module (starting at 1800km2). This is a useful first step, since scanning actions do not cost life support.
* You can build an automatic scanning module and employ a worker in it to perform slow but continuous scanning using the Outpost radar. The maximum range is determined by the level of your Radar range module. However, when the app is not open, the scan will continue only for a short period of time.
* You can send workers on mapping expeditions to explore on foot or in vehicles, at the cost of life support. The range of the vehicle determines the effectiveness of the expedition.
* You can also build the Satellite Link Module and employ a worker in it to make use of the satellite(s) orbiting the body. Each satellite allows you to scan 5km2/hour with no range limit, but for every 5 satellites, you need another worker, which may in turn require a module upgrade. This is a useful "set and forget" option to explore the entire surface without further intervention.

As you explore more of the surface, more resource deposits will appear and can be harvested by workers. If you have studied Off-World Research, you can also find research sites that can be harvested by Astronauts to produce tech points.

Note that it is possible to eventually scan the entire surface, especially on small bodies like Deimos; scanning actions will then be disabled.

**Scanning "nuances" (by Slavkorulit)**

There are some interesting nuances that are related to the scanning of the planets and moons (in this part will be discribed some moments I noticed during playing game):

- "Radar effectiveness" research provides +50km^2 of surface area to be scanned when scanning manually with astronaut from Outpost but also provides +100km^2 of surface area to be scanned by Automatic Radar Module manned with worker;

- Areas scanned by satellites, automatic radar module and manual scanning are summed;

- For FULL planet/moon exploration you need to scan it fully by sattelites/ARM/manual scanning and fully explore it by sending astronauts to research expedition. You can see explored surface area in the "Planet"->"Planet info:" menu. Explored area by research expedition you can see at "Basic actions" menu by tapping on "Research expedition" button;

- Since the number of research points received is random, it is better to send expeditions on short-distance rovers to get more of them. It works well on small planets - so you get more points from the same area than when using long-distance rovers, in theory. On big planets I recommend using the type of rover whose expedition time coincides with the approximate time of your absence;

- Automatic Radar Module upgrade provides +1h per level for offline scanning;

- Automatic Radar Module also "opens" to player new resource and mining sites, not sure about "tech"(research) sites. This information was confirmed on two planets - on first was built only ARM, on second first was built Sattelite Link Module and after - ARM. After ARM was built I had disassigned workers from SLM. On both planets i noticed growing numbers of km^2 of scanned area and growing amount of resources sites;

- Radar Range Upgrade upgrades allows you increase starting scanning range for manual "Scan for resources" and "Map out the Area" operation from Outpost (IMHO - this upgrsdes is not nessesarry because higher automatic scanning effectiveness);

- If you want to start fast planet/moon development first you must to build ARM. You will automatically find resources during building other buildings at the outpost. Than you will faster refine resources (gold ingots and alluminum alloys) and faster gather credits for base development.