How To Scan And Mine For Resources In The Alters

Are you wondering about how to scan and mine resources in The Alters? While there are plenty of materials to find, you still need to put more effort if you want to amass all the items that you need. Our guide has all the tips to help you with this task.

How to scan and mine resources in The Alters – Polygonal Scanner, Mining Outposts, and Pylons guide

To scan and mine resources, you need three tools:

• Polygonal Scanner – You can increase the number that you have by completing the Probes Upgrade research.
• Mining Outposts – Can be crafted via the Workshop. Each one costs 30x metals.
• Pylons – You can craft three at a time by selecting the Pylon Component Package via the Workshop. Each package costs 30x metals.

Polygonal Scanners: How to scan for deep deposits

When exploring each region, you’re bound to spot areas that have deep deposits, such as those that contain metals, minerals, organics, rapidium, and enhanced items. To scan resources in The Alters, you need to make use of your Polygonal Scanners, which can be selected via the item wheel:

• Place Polygonal Scanners within an appropriate distance of one another until you form an enclosed outline.
• Within this outline, you should see if there are markings that denote the proximity of a deep deposit.
• You can also hold down the button prompt to perform a Scan Wave. The Scan Wave shows you the relative direction of the deep deposit from where you’re standing. Note that this action costs 1x Suit Energy.

Mining Outposts: Resource and exploration-related functions

Once the core of a deep deposit has been revealed, you’ll be prompted to place down a Mining Outpost via the Building Mode option in the item wheel.

The Mining Outpost has the following functions:

• The central terminal lets Jan or one of his alters gather a huge amount of that particular resource from the deep deposit.
• A small panel on one side allows you to fast travel back to your base, to another Mining Outpost, or to a Travel Pylon.
• The last panel lets you recharge your Suit Battery–i.e. energy.

That said, before you can make use of a Mining Outpost’s functions, you still have to restore its power. This is done via Pylons.

Pylons: How to establish a connection to your base

If you want to mine resources in The Alters, then you have to connect a Mining Outpost all the way to your base:

• Open the item wheel and select the Pylon object. You’ll want to place the first one near the maximum possible distance from a Mining Outpost.
• From there, you have to plop down additional Pylons as you walk back to your base. There must be a clear line of sight from one Pylon to another. This is usually denoted by a green cable that extends from each structure.
• When a Pylon is close enough to your base’s generator, the power to the Mining Outpost should be fully restored. The structure itself will become active.
• When you build more Mining Outposts in a region, you can connect it to existing Pylons, too.
• Later, you can research Hub Pylons, which have greater range compared to regular Pylons.

Travel Pylons: Another way to teleport around

Eventually, you’ll gain access to Travel Pylons. These structures allow you to teleport to other fast travel points in the area. Moreover, they have a terminal that lets you recharge your Suit Energy.

Remember that these, too, need to be connected to Pylons/Hub Pylons to remain active. Try to plop these down in locations that are farther away from Mining Outposts so you don’t need to run around that often.

That does it for our guide on how to mine and scan for resources in The Alters. Since you’re going to end up gathering a lot of stuff, you might as well check out what you’re going to do with them in our base-building and base management guide.