Mass-effect – What do the scanner results stand for

mass-effect-2

What does each category stand for (moderate, poor, depleted, etc)? Specifically, I'm looking how much resources exist in each category to help determine if it is worth probing a planet down to depleted.

Best Answer

Depleted planets may still contain spikes of resources, so the decision to mine any given planet is determined by how long you are willing to spend scanning. Obviously the rich planets will yield the most amount of resources (about 10,000 units) but you will be lucky to get a single spike of 2,500 resources from a Depleted or Poor planet. In general, I scan the Rich and Moderate planets all the way down to Depleted (unless I have reached my target).

I think the most important point in getting the most resources from your probes is the size of the spike. It seems to follow a logarithmic scale. Spikes that hit the 6-7th bar will give you twice as much resources as spikes in the 4-5th.