Decoding The Ancient Ruins Guide

The Decoding The Ancient Ruins mission you get from Ram Tah at Felice Dock in the Meene system is a very lucrative mission you can do pretty early on in Elite Dangerous. It is a very useful mission to do as soon as you can after you start playing Elite Dangerous because you can earn up to 111 million credits if you complete the whole mission.

You do need Horizons in order to do the mission because it requires you to land on various planets.  You will also need a pretty decent jump range and also have at least 12 tonnes of free cargo space, a fuel scoop, a planetary vehicle hanger and an advanced discovery scanner.

To start the mission, plot a course for Felice Dock in the Meene system. When you land you will automatically get a message from Ram Tah and also pick up the Decoding The Ancient Ruins mission.

Next, you need to plot a course for the Synuefe XR-H D11-102 system. When you get there, set course for one of the second moons orbiting the first planet, e.g. Synuefe XR-H D11-102 1 B. It doesn’t matter which one you select. If you don’t see any planets, use your discovery scanner to find them.

Once you get close enough to the planet, within 1000ls, you should see two Ancient Ruin sites appear on the Navigation panel. Lock onto one of them, either one, and follow the nav point all the way and land on the planet. Ideally you should land somewhere near the middle of the ruins.

Use a map to locate all the ancient objects such as this one here.

You will need to collect the following objects in order scan all the obelisks;
2 x Ancient Relics
2 x Ancient Caskets
2 x Ancient Tablets
2 x Ancient Orbs
2 x Ancient Urns
2 x Ancient Totems

Because the SRV can only carry 2 objects in its cargo bay at once, you will have to make frequent trips back to your ship to drop off those objects, hence why I said land somewhere near the middle of the ruin.

A little trick to make picking up all these objects go faster is; pick one object up, log off, log back on, then pick up the object again and transfer them both to your ship.

Once you have all the objects, use this website to get a map up of where the obelisks are for each site and what objects you need in order to scan them;
http://www.nusantara.com.my/EliteDangerous/ruins1.html
or
https://ruins.canonn.technology

The websites above lists most of the Guardian sites that have been discovered.  Clicking on a Site in this list will show you the map for that particular site. Clicking on a green dot on the map will display a box telling you which obelisk it is and what objects you will need in order to get a successful scan.

To complete this mission you need to scan 101 obelisks in total which are scattered around at different Guardian sites, so, after each scan, make a note of which obelisk you scanned so you can keep track of them.

You can use this spreadsheet to keep track of your scans.  Just click on the image to download it.
The spreadsheet lists every obelisk you need to scan and tells you what artefacts you need in order to scan them.  It also includes a column next to each scan indicating which Guardian site you can find each obelisk to use as a guide.

Once you have scanned all 101 obelisks, or you’ve had enough of scanning, head back to Felice Dock in the Meene system and hand in the mission.

You can hand the mission in early to claim 1 million credits per successful obelisk scan. If you do hand it in early you can pick up the mission again simply by docking at Felice Dock again. If you do that, you will not gain any progress toward the mission by scanning obelisks you’ve already scanned previously. You’ll need to carry on from where you left off, hence why you need to keep track of which obelisks you've scanned.

To save having to dock at a port to refuel your SRV, if you have both Sulphur and Phosphorus you can refuel on the go using Synthesis from your Inventory.