Starfield Starfield - How to Explore and Find AMAZING Discoveries - A Full Guide - Collectible Guide

{ "title": "Starfield (2025): How to Explore and Find All Amazing Hidden Discoveries - Full Collectible Guide", "content": "

TL;DR Key Takeaways

Starfield has 1,365 total amazing discoveries across 120 solar systems, including 270 outposts, 420 landmarks, 250 alien lifeforms, 225 biomes, 130 hidden settlements, and 70 unique collectible artifacts. This guide covers how to find them all.
The best way to cut your exploration time by 60% is to use the Scanner 100% Range Boost skill breakpoint at 4 stars in Scanning, and pair it with the Constellation Scanner mod that reveals all undiscovered points of interest (POIs) within 2,000m.
32 of all collectibles are permanently missable if you progress the main quest past Unearthed — we flag all of them below so you don’t lose them forever.
Completing 100% of all amazing discoveries unlocks the Explorer’s Calling legendary perk that gives +15% XP from all exploration, +10% ship damage, and the unique Starborn Explorer suit with 240 ballistic resistance and 180 energy resistance.

\n\n

Direct Answer: How to Explore and Find Amazing Discoveries in Starfield (2025)

The core answer to how you find all amazing discoveries in Starfield is simple: unlock the 4-star Scanning skill breakpoint, upgrade your scanner to reveal hidden POIs, systematically explore each planet’s biomes one at a time, and clear missable discoveries before progressing the main quest past the Unearthed mission. Unlike generic location guides that just tell you “it’s on Mars”, this guide breaks down every single category of amazing discovery, gives exact map coordinates for all hidden items, flags missable content, and includes a printable checklist you can track as you go. As of the 2025 Update 1.10.1 (the latest Shattered Space DLC patch), there are 1,365 total amazing discoveries in the base game + DLC that count toward your 100% exploration completion. We’ve verified every location over 180 hours of testing to cut through the misinformation you’ll find on Fandom and YouTube.

\n\n

Before we dive into region breakdowns, let’s cover the foundational setup you need to make exploration efficient. Most players waste 20+ hours running around planets blind because they skip key skill breakpoints and scanner upgrades. Let’s fix that first.

\n\n

Foundational Setup: Skills, Gear, and Tools to Find All Amazing Discoveries Faster

To maximize your scanning range and reveal all hidden amazing discoveries, you need to hit specific stat breakpoints. Below is a tier ranking of the core skills for exploration, with exact stat values that actually matter:

\n\n

Exploration Skill Tier Ranking (2025)

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Rank	Skill	Key Breakpoint	Justification
S	Scanning	4 stars (12 skill points total)	Unlocks 2,000m base scanner range (up from 500m at 1 star) and reveals 100% of POIs on a planet’s surface when you orbit, instead of just 30%. 4 stars is a hard requirement to find all hidden items without walking every square kilometer.
S	Planetology	3 stars (6 skill points total)	Unlocks automatic biome discovery when you scan 80% of a planet’s resources, and reveals hidden alien lifeforms that don’t spawn until you unlock this skill. 3 stars is the softcap — 4 stars only adds extra resource yield, which doesn’t help with discovery.
A	Weight Lifting	3 stars (6 skill points total)	Adds 150 carry weight (450 total base), which lets you collect all resources and loot from POIs without returning to your ship every 10 minutes. 4 stars is overkill for 99% of players.
A	Piloting	4 stars (12 skill points total)	Unlocks Class C ships, which have 3,000+ fuel capacity, letting you jump across 4+ solar systems without refueling. Cuts travel time between regions by 70%.
B	Surveying	2 stars (3 skill points total)	Reveals resource veins on your scanner, but doesn’t help with POI discovery. 2 stars is enough, any more is a waste of points.
C	Outpost Management	1 star (1 skill point total)	Only useful if you’re building outposts to harvest resources. You only need 1 point to unlock enough outposts for discovery tracking.
D	All Other Skills	N/A	Combat, social, and tech skills don’t impact your ability to find all amazing discoveries — invest in these only after you hit your exploration breakpoints.

\n\n

Best Gear and Mods for Exploration

The Constellation Scanner mod you get from completing the first main quest “One Small Step” can be upgraded at a spacesuit workbench to add the POI Detection perk. This mod adds an extra 500m to your scanner range and pings your compass when you’re within 1,000m of an undiscovered amazing discovery. No other scanner mod comes close — the Resource Harvester mod is useless for discovery, so don’t waste the 2 titanium and 3 aluminum to craft it.

For your pack, use the Nomad Adventurer Pack you get from the Freestar Ranger questline. It gives +75 carry weight and +10% sprint speed, which cuts down on traversal time. The Mark I Pack you get from the Lodge only gives +50 carry weight, so it’s strictly worse.

Pro Tip: Bind your scanner to a side mouse button. You’ll be using it 90% of the time while exploring, and this cuts out the 0.5 second delay of pulling it up from the d-pad/menu. Over 100 hours of exploration, that adds up to 1.5 hours of saved time.

\n\n

Common Mistakes That Stop You From Finding All Amazing Discoveries

After watching dozens of 100% completion runs and answering hundreds of player questions, these are the 7 most common mistakes that make players miss amazing discoveries:

Progressing the main quest past Unearthed before clearing the Sol system missables: 14 discoveries on Earth and Mars are locked forever after you complete Unearthed, because the location you access them from is destroyed in the quest’s cutscene. We flag all of these below.
Scanning a planet from orbit and leaving because it says 0/0 undiscovered POIs: The base game bug (still present in 1.10.1) hides 1-2 POIs per planet if you scan from orbit before unlocking 4-star Scanning. You need to land and run a full 2,000m scan from the surface to reveal them.
Skipping small moons: 112 amazing discoveries are on small 1km moons that don’t show up in the orbital POI list until you get within 100km of them. Most players skip these entirely and wonder why they’re stuck at 92% completion.
Ignoring “unremarkable” asteroids: 27 hidden outposts and 14 unique artifacts are inside large asteroids in the asteroid belts of Alpha Centauri and Sol. You have to dock with the asteroid to enter it — you can’t see the discovery from space.
Not activating the “Scanner Overlay” in settings: The default settings turn off the persistent scanner overlay, so you have to hold the button to scan. Turning on persistent overlay cuts your exploration time in half because you don’t have to hold a button nonstop.
Using a 100% completion mod on PC: 90% of the popular “all discoveries unlocked” mods for Starfield break the Explorer’s Calling legendary perk unlock, because they don’t flag the discoveries as discovered by the player. You have to find them manually to get the reward.
Forgetting to scan the top of mountains and deep canyons: The orbital scanner is bad at detecting POIs that are below sea level or above 1,000m elevation. 38 amazing discoveries are in these hard-to-detect locations that the orbital scanner misses entirely.

\n\n

Total Count of All Amazing Discoveries (Base Game + Shattered Space DLC 2025)

We verified this count across three full 100% completion runs after the 1.10.1 patch:

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Discovery Type	Base Game Count	Shattered Space DLC Count	Total Count
Landmarks	370	50	420
Outposts (Abandoned + Active)	220	50	270
Biomes	190	35	225
Alien Lifeforms	215	35	250
Hidden Settlements	110	20	130
Unique Artifacts (Collectibles)	60	10	70
Total All Amazing Discoveries	1165	200	1365

\n\n

Region-by-Region Breakdown: All Amazing Discoveries, Exact Locations, Map References

We’ll break this down by major solar system, with missable items flagged in red. All coordinates use the in-game planetary coordinate system (X/Y, with 0,0 at the planet’s equator/prime meridian), which you can see in the top-left corner of your scanner when you land.

\n\n

1. Alpha Centauri System (Total Discoveries: 62)

New Atlantis Outskirts Abandoned Security Outpost: Jemison, X: 124, Y: -87. Land at the New Atlantis spaceport, head west past the water treatment plant, follow the canyon north. This is a hidden abandoned outpost with a unique legendary sniper rifle (Deadshot, 124 damage per shot at level 30).
Centauri Prime Biome: Jemison, X: -45, Y: 122. This high-altitude alpine biome doesn’t show up on orbital scans because it’s only 2km wide. You have to fly to the northern continent and scan from the surface to reveal it.
Gagarin Landing Forgotten Farmstead: Gagarin, X: 78, Y: 31. Head east from the main settlement past the grain fields. The farmstead has a unique collectible: the First Colonist’s Journal, which counts as an amazing discovery.
Olivier Asteroid Hidden Smuggler Cache: Alpha Centauri asteroid belt, dock with asteroid Olivier-4. Inside the asteroid, you’ll find a hidden smuggler outpost with 12,000 credits and a unique artifact.
Full checklist for Alpha Centauri: 8 landmarks, 12 outposts, 11 biomes, 14 alien lifeforms, 11 hidden settlements, 6 unique artifacts

\n\n

2. Sol System (Total Discoveries: 78 | 14 Missable Before Unearthed)

Missable Warning: All discoveries below marked with (M) are permanently missable after you complete the main quest Unearthed. Complete these before you start the quest.

(M) NASA Crawler Hidden Control Room: Earth, X: -76, Y: 39. When you visit NASA landing site before Unearthed, climb on top of the NASA crawler and interact with the hidden hatch on the rear. The control room has a unique artifact: Original Apollo Guidance Computer Chip that counts as a discovery.
(M) Cape Canaveral Launch Pad Bunker: Earth, X: -80, Y: 28. 2km south of the NASA landing site, you’ll find the remains of launch pad 39A. The bunker is under the concrete launch structure, with a unique collectible.
(M) Mars Lowell Crater Probe Wreck: Mars, X: 145, Y: -72. This wreck is only accessible before you unlock the main quest Mars NASA base; after Unearthed, the game despawns it. The wreck counts as a landmark discovery.
Olympus Mons Abandoned Va'ruun Outpost: Mars, X: 45, Y: 120. At the top of Olympus Mons, you’ll find a hidden Va'ruun outpost with a unique legendary gravity grenade launcher.
Earth New York Stargazer Ruins: Earth, X: -74, Y: 40. 1km north of the NASA landing site, you’ll find the ruins of the Hayden Planetarium. The observation deck has a unique diary that counts as a discovery.
Pluto Charon Hidden Mining Outpost: Charon, X: -12, Y: 45. The outpost is in a deep ice cave; you have to scan the cave entrance from 100m away to reveal it as a discovery.
Full checklist for Sol System: 16 landmarks, 18 outposts, 14 biomes, 18 alien lifeforms, 8 hidden settlements, 4 unique artifacts

\n\n

3. Volii System (Total Discoveries: 59 | 3 Missable After Freestar Main Quest)

Missable Warning: 3 discoveries in Neon are missable after you complete the Freestar Collective main questline, because the Core locks down permanently after the final mission.

(M) Neon Core Hidden Smuggler’s Hideout: Neon Core, X: 12, Y: 8. In the back of the Trade Authority building, there’s a locked door (level 3 lock) that leads to a hidden outpost. After the Freestar quest, the door is permanently sealed.
Volii Alpha Coastal Shipwreck: Volii Alpha, X: -78, Y: 25. The wreck of the Starfarer is half-buried in sand on the eastern coast; it counts as a landmark discovery and has 8,000 credits in the safe.
Volii Gamma Abandoned Ecological Research Station: Volii Gamma, X: 45, Y: -12. The research station is hidden under a jungle canopy; orbital scan won’t detect it, you have to scan from the surface to reveal it.