Scanning is a useful mechanic in Starfield that allows you to figure out what kind of valuable resources that a planet has, which is vital for those who are wanting to buy upgrades and mods. With thousands of planets to discover, it can all get a little overwhelming, especially if you can’t scan a planet for a reason that you can’t quite understand. We’ve all seen the “scan unavailable” notice when trying to scan a new planet, but there is a pretty easy fix for this.
The simplest reason why you’re seeing “scan unavailable” in Starfield is that your ship is too far away from the planet in question. Sometimes if you’re even in the same system, you have to go much closer to that specific planet to actually scan it. You may also need to scan the planets around it first, though this is most likely a bit of a bug and isn’t how it should actually work.
Simply put up with another “invisible” loading screen as you fast travel closer to the ship you want to scan and you should then notice that the scan is available after all. If you want to increase your ship’s scanning range, be sure to rank up the Scanning skill in the Science tab in your skill tree. This will also highlight rare materials on the planet, which is very helpful when trying to find the more exotic resources.
If you want to harvest a particular resource, be sure to land in an area with the same color coding as the periodic table that appears when you scan a planet, then use your hand scanner to track down deposits. Make sure you haven’t stored a cutter on your companion (an easy and common mistake), then get to blasting to harvest that resource.
Speaking of resources, we have the intel on where you can find Carboxylic Acids, one of the game’s trickier resources to pinpoint.
Starfield is available on PC and Xbox.
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