Unknown Signals
Unknown Signals are mysterious cargo drops on parachutes that appear periodically in Survival Mode. It’s your choice if you want to hunt them down; there are no consequences for ignoring them, and no risks in looting them. A few of them have "surprises", but none of them is dangerous to players.
This feature can be disabled in the World Settings.
Unfortunately, unknown signals do not spawn in the Xbox release of the game. If you would like them, please create a feedback ticket and gather as many votes as possible.
You may also want to read about “known” (named) Signals.
Countdown
Unknown signals have a despawn timer that appears as e.g. a "T - 15 minutes" signal on the HUD. The indicator does NOT mean that it’s "a 15-minute's walk away", NOR that you get will loot "after 15 mins". It means that you are given 15 minutes to reach it and loot it quickly, and the timer is counting down.
When the countdown reaches zero, the cargo drop self-destructs with an audible explosion -- but without leaving any damage. If you ever hear a random explosion but see no impact, it was possibly an Unknown Signal despawning.
Tip: This explosion also happens if you grind down the whole drop except for the (reusable) battery, and it will vaporise the battery unless you quickly merge it to a larger grid owned by yourself.
Appearance
When encountered on planetary surfaces, the parachute will deploy and the cargo drop will slowly float down. When encountered in space, the canvas has not been used and can be looted.
The default cargo drop is a small, roundish, unpropelled craft of small-grid Light Armor blocks.
It will always at least be built of the following parts:
- At least 1 Button Panel, possibly also dummy button panels
- Parachute Hatch supplied with Canvas
- Small Cargo Container or Medium Cargo Container
- Small Battery
- Antenna
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| Some cargo drops also have thrusters, gyroscopes, and sensors. Their passive defensive abilities include the programming to run away from players. You will need to hunt these cargo drops down and disable them before you can interact with them -- and before they accidentally destroy themselves by crashing into things. |
Loot (Spoilers)
If you get to the cargo drop before the countdown ends, you gain some random loot.
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Cargo drops keep spawning randomly during longer play sessions. However there is a limit that you can only loot three new skins per day. If you repeatedly get "You found nothing" from the lucky button, try again 24 real-life hours later. If you get duplicate Skins, recycle them on the Character Screen.
In multiplayer (?), the cargo drops are owned by NPC factions, so if you grind them down, you lose a bit of standing with them.
Gameplay Considerations
On a multiplayer server, an unknown signal can be used as an implicit indicator of another player's presence, because we know they spawn near players.
There are strong unknown signals and standard unknown signals:
Standard Unknown Signals
Standard unknown signals appear in singleplayer and multiplayer games. These cargo drops always appear within 1.5 to 4.5 kilometres of a player, basically in jetpacking distance. Players are alerted to their own cargo drop with a green HUD signal if they have signals enabled on their HUD. From 80 metres away you can also hear a beeping sound when approaching. Other players don't see your drop's green HUD signal but can steal your drop if they come across it by chance — and possibly ambush you.
Strong Unknown Signals
Strong unknown signals are a bit larger and appear only in multiplayer games, in space. They typically spawn far away from you, requiring space flight to reach them, because they spawn within 20 to 90 kilometres of any player. All players who have signals enabled on their HUD are alerted to these cargo drops with a yellow signal.
If you are already capable of space flight, is it worth flying to a strong unknown signal? Depends.
- Cons: Their salvage value is not high.
- Pros: Their main advantage is that their lucky button gives you rarer suit/tool skins. You can also use them as a resource in emergencies or in a space-suit-only survival play-through. Lastly, they are a nice opportunity to meet the neighbours. ;-)
Trivia
Unknown Signals used to be called Cargo Drops. In the game files, they are called PersonalContainer and CompetitiveContainer.