Starfield: How to Fully Explore a Planet

During the marketing campaign for Starfield, one of the main focuses was the existence of over 1,000 planets within the game. Players are granted the ability to land on most of these planets and explore them to their heart's content. While some of them may be barren, there are numerous planets brimming with unique flora and fauna.

As you progress through the main storyline, you will encounter Vladimir at the Eye, and he will ask you to retrieve survey data of a planet for him to sell at a decent price. If you have the heart of an explorer, this part of the game can easily immerse you for many hours.

Where To Find Planets To Survey

In order to make money in the exploration business in Starfield, you must first find a planet worth exploring. As you traverse through various star systems, you will discover that most planets, aside from a few resources, are barren. Some planets may not even possess these resources.

For these planets, you can simply enter their atmosphere via fast travel and explore them directly from the map. You don't have to land on these planets and look around, but surveying data from them won't earn you as many credits. To earn more money, you'll need to travel around and find planets with flora and fauna.

To find these planets, you can simply click on them and check the information displayed on the left side of your screen. In this area, you will see the number of flora and fauna species on the planet, as well as any resources present. Sometimes, you may need to enter the atmosphere of a planet to view this information.

Once you have found a planet with flora or fauna, it's time to land on it and begin the exploration. However, this process can take hours if you don't approach it methodically.

How To Survey A Planet

When you click on the surface of a planet to land on it, a box appears on the right side. This box contains the button you need to press to land, and the biome on which you will land is also mentioned directly above it. Next to the biome name, you will find the exploration percentage of that biome, allowing you to decide where you want to land.

If the exploration of a biome is less than 100 percent and it is not the ocean, you can land on it and start exploring. The best way to explore a planet is to have your scanner ready at all times, as it will highlight all scannable objects in blue once they enter the large circle in the center.

If you have activated the scanner, you can also see the total flora, fauna, and resources of the planet, as well as the percentage that you have scanned completely. If you have scanned the entire flora or fauna in a specific biome, the label "Biome completed" will also be displayed next to those numbers. Resources, however, are an exception in this case.

The resources are randomly distributed across the planet and are usually not found in just one specific biome. If you want to discover the unknown features of a planet, you need to keep an eye out for random symbols that appear on the scanner screen. These symbols are initially displayed as "Unknown."

Guide the central circle on the scanner towards these symbols and then use it to uncover what type of unknown area it is. It could be an anomaly, a structure, a cave, or something else. It's worth checking them out as they could be one of the unknown features you are looking for.