being able to discover NEW MATERIALS

alot of plants & things that CANT be scanned, by the alien ruins, it would be cool - since we are a “pioneer” if we could DISCOVER NEW materials.

their properties ( neg & pos ) can be reverse engineered / diagnostics / etc at our biolab - to ultimately unlock / discover ….

Not everything has to serve a mechanical purpose, e.g. being “exploitable” (very much dislike that word for it) for materials. I would agree it would nice if everything could be scanned and an educational (if nothing else) PDA entry written up for it. That’s a lot of writing, I know, but I think they can afford the time and effort it would take these days.