Hand Scanner in Starfield scans flora, fauna, and resources and places the Outpost Beacon in the interested area.
Players can scan various planets and moons to extract the minerals.
This article will discuss the details of the Hand Scanner and how to use it to place Outpost Beacon.
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What Is A Hand Scanner In Starfield?
Hand Scanner is just a tool for analyzing the unique habitat of the planet.
The player will obtain a Hand Scanner in the Kreet Research base while completing the One Small Step mission.
In addition, it also helps you to scan anomalies on different planets.
However, scanning the surface is different than scanning the whole planet.
Moreover, you must first bring out the Hand Scanner to scan the surface.
To do this, you can press LB on Xbox or F on PC, then you, and then have the scanner overlay on the screen.
After you take out the Scanner, make sure the center of the target is pointing toward the target.
This will highlight anything that can be scanned.
Here are the different things that you can do with Hand Scanner;
1. Scan Resources
Players can scan the different resources on the planet, such as Iron, aluminum, Helium, and many more.
This will help players to speed up the process of farming materials, flora, and fauna.
Players can press A on Xbox and E on PC to scan the resource. It shows a HUD on the left-hand side.
The HUD consists of the number of resources discovered throughout the survey.
2. Point Of Interest
With scanning resources, you can also see various markers you can track down with the HUD.
These features can help you to follow the Mission Trial if you have any active missions.
3. Distortions Scanning
Along with scanning resources and points of interest, Hand Scanner can also detect different anomalies.
The Anomalies are identified by distortions or glitching on the HUD.
Moreover, a story mission, Into the Unknown, requires you to follow some distortion on the planet of Procyon III.
How To Use Hand Scanner To Place Outpost Beacon?
The essential thing that the player can do is to place Outpost Beacon and activate it.
This is the first thing the player should do before building the Outpost.
You can place them anywhere, however. However, to be careful of threats in the area.
Starfield also gives you an activity to use a Hand Scanner to Place an Outpost Beacon on any planet.
This activity is obtained after you complete the One Small Step mission.
Therefore, here is a quick step-by-step guide to placing the Outpost beacon,
- Find the spot where you want to place an Outpost.
- Bring out your Scanner by pressing LB or F.
- Aim down at the spot where you want to place the Outpost Beacon.
- Press the appropriate button on your platform to make it appear.
- Now confirm the location and place it.
- From here on out, it’s up to you to build out your Outpost with Storage, Structures, Defense, and more.
You can also place multiple outpost Becon as you need. Now, you can use the Hand Scanner to farm the resources and collect data.
Additionally, once you collect all data on a planet, it is marked as “Surveyed.”
How To Upgrade The Hand Scanner?
Another thing you can do is to upgrade the Scanner.
To upgrade your scanner, you need to unlock the Surveying Skill.
Then, you can complete the skill challenges and use skill points to level up to upgrade the Scanner.
By upgrading, the Hand Scanner will obtain new features on different ranks.
Here is the list of ranks and their features.
- Rank 1: This rank will add an optional zoom feature, which increases the scan distance to 20 meters.
- Rank 2: Scanner will get another level of zoom, increased to 30 meters.
- Rank 3: Increase zoom level to 40 meters.
- Rank 4: This also increases the zoom level to 50 meters.
Once you upgrade to at least rank 3, it helps to see the resource and organic life are spread apart.
This can help you to find a safe spot with resources only to place Oputpost Beacon.
The Bottom Line
Players are given the activity to use a Hand Scanner to Place an Outpost Beacon on any planet.
Furthermore, you can find various resources using the Scanner.
It also helps to differentiate the resource and organic life once it is upgraded to rank 3.
