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Surveying worlds is a big part of 's less primary, but nonetheless important, gameplay elements. You're a pioneer, a space explorer, a member of Constellation; regardless of your affiliations, your job is to get out there and see what awaits humanity.
Of course, it wouldn't be as fun if you didn't get paid to survey. That's where survey slates come in. We'll give you the rundown on what they are, as well as why you should hang on to them early on until you meet a certain NPC who will pay a premium for them.
How To Obtain Survey Slates
You won't start off with blank slates or anything like that. You acquire them at the conclusion of every world you fully scan.𓆉 How much, exactly, you need to scan is another question entirely.
The big thing to bear in mind is that detecting a planet or moon's resources via a global scan in the star system map doesn't count toward this, which is good news considering you'll need to rank up a particular skill - sensibly named 'Surveying' - several times in order to detect every degree of rarity.
So, what do you scan? The rest, basically. When you're in scanning mode on the surface of a world, you will see listings for fauna, flora, and resources. The number of representatives of each respective section varies greatly between worlds; some are barren but for a couple of rocky resources, whilst others are teeming with animal and plant life. You'll also need to scan traits, which you'll find at 'Unknown' map markers and the like.
Leveling up your 'Scanning' skill will grant you progressively better zoom, and more importantly, the ability to scan your targets from greater distances. This can be a real time-saver.
After you've scanned every category to 100 percent, which will require several scans of each entry, you will receive your survey slate. The survey slate will be titled after the name of the world you're on.
The Best Place To Sell Starfield's Survey Slates
If you want a few hundred credits for each of your survey slates, there are plenty of places that will purchase them, especially the Trade Authority. If you want a little over a thousand per slate, and we're rolling with the assumption that sounds preferable to you, sell them to Vladimir on the space station orbiting Jemison, the Eye.
You won't meet the guy until a handful of quests into the main storyline, 'The Empty Nest'. But it's not like these slates are taking up much weight in your inventory, so we advise you to hang on to any early reports until you've spoken with Vladimir a couple of times, at which point he'll talk about how he wishes to collect survey data from across the galaxy.
There's really no good reason to sell slates anyplace else, and besides, you're helping out a good cause. Constellation's a better place for your findings than some Trade Authority swindler, that's for sure.