Prospecting Confusion

[leprekhan]

Hi, I'm one more in the crowd of fresh-faced newbs bouncing around Silan, and I've got a prospecting situation. Before I get to that, here's my baseline:

I get the idea of using the search range stanzas to get a distance-from-node number.
I get the idea of combining in a qualifier to that search, such as "fine materials only".
I get the idea of triangulating in, using the distance number, to a "near-the-node" location, (although I must look like an idiot doing the find-a-node dance).
I get that the actual prospecting action is very short-range, and very narrow.

Now, all that's fine, I think. But I still struggle to find anything when I try to do a fine-quality only prospect, even when it shows up on my search attempt.

I've taken my fine-only prospect, and added in a 10' range modifier, and a 40 degree angle modifier, and I'm still not getting a fine node to pop, when my search says there's one to be dug up. I'm rotating around, I'm checking the spot where I'm standing, all with no luck. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[iceaxe68]

Others will no doubt have better answers, but I'll chime in with my limited input.

The tracking action typically gets you to the edge of an area which contains the material you have tracked. It doesn't, however, tell you *which* edge. The node or nodes might be anywhere within that area. So the fact that you got to "right on top of it" with tracking really just gives you a starting point for your search.

I don't recall how large the areas are. Somebody help me out here?

Generally getting that far makes it easy enough to find your mat, as there will be several nodes available nearby.

However, with some mission mats (such as the amber search in the Silan tutorials) there are very few and finding them can take some time and patience. And burning through lots of focus doing repeated prospect actions.

Same with the more rare pops at higher levels.