Locating and Scanning Planets

How do you choose your EVE colony? – Locating and Scanning a Planet

Once you‘ve acquired and trained the skill to scan planets for their deposits, choose a planet you wish to colonise. Note, that the deposits depend upon the type of planet you choose, so familiarising yourself with deposits, processes and output material may be a good way to prepare this move, before you "pin" a Command Center there.

Following is a step-by-step guide on how to locate and scan a planet. As way of example, we set up a small facility on a Temperate Planet:

1. Select the option, to View in Planet Mode
   • by selecting a planet from the Overview and clicking on the respective icon in the „Selected Item“ window,
   • by right clicking on a planet in space, and selecting the view mode from the display menu, or
   • by right clicking anywhere in space, selecting a planet - > number - > the view mode accordingly, whichever you‘re used to
2. Open the Scan menu. You‘ll see a bar beside each deposit indicating the general concentration you may expect to find (in this example): Aqueous Liquids, Autotrophs, Carbon Compounds, Complex Organisms and Micro Organisms
3. Once you click on the Deposit, you scan specifically for it
   
4. In a moment the results are displayed as a tactical heat overlay map, red indicating high yields and gradually fading off to light green or no colouring at all.

When you‘ve scanned the planet for 1 or more deposits you wish to extract, keep in mind that the most important factor is: What‘s the angle? - One way to establish this is, to find a common denominator. For example, by scanning for the high yielding deposits the planet has to offer, you can use the "Info" details of the respective deposit to see what you get when you process it. In this case, extracting 2 types of Organisms (Micro Organisms and Complex Organisms) and inspecting their "Info" menu states: Both can be processed for output of intermediary products (Bacteria and Proteins), which in turn are necessary for the processing/production of Fertilizer.

So, you can extract 1 type only, export it off this colony to another planet, where you‘re extracting and processing different materials, intended for production of basic products, further advanced materials or even high end products of some sort. For this as well as any basic colonialisation setup, you‘ll need to plan its construction and production processes.