i'm still a little confused as to the capabilities and functions of the different scanners. A lot of guides I find are apparently outdated as there are new ones, and some are default now.
So what I think is going on:
Scanning ships tells you wanted status/armor and is always included on your ship, takes a few seconds of aiming, you can upgrade them to make the range a little better
Discovery Scanner, always included on board, can't be upgraded, identifies all bodies and signals within a certain short range of you, but how far I'm not sure.
Kill Warrant Scanner, needs to be bought, scan a Wanted ship before blowing it away to get a bonus bounty.
Full Spectrum Scanner allows to basically get all the information you would from a Discovery Scanner, without having to physically go to the area. Otherwise, it won't give you any new information.
Composition scanner, i dunno, something for material ID in mining, not interested in that.
Detailed Surface Scanner, not sure, I guess it does similar scanning for mining materials on planets?
Do I have that right? Does scanning a system's Nav Beacon do anything besides identifying mission objectives? Does it perform the same function as a Discovery or Full Spectrum Scan? If I purchase mapping information, does that mean I don't need to do any sort of D/FSS scanning?