Death Stranding provides a handful of ways to avoid enemy odradek scans: The Hologram Generator, disabling a sensor pole, not hauling deliveries in MULE territory, but Scanner Nullification is the fastest without having to slow down or touching battery power. It is also the earliest available method if one is only following story deliveries (from delivering to Timefall Farm via Order No. 28).

The timing, though, can make it tough to use because of the delay from input to your own scan going out as well as some finer details.

I decided to do some of my own testing to see what timings can be used to make nullifying scans more consistent, what to watch out for, and how enemy scans and sensor pole pings work. Personally, it's my favorite stealth countermeasure because I can be sprinting or even in a vehicle and still make use of it... also the sound when nullifying a scan is satisfying.

I'll add to this later because there are other situations where enemy scans occur that aren't a result of camp trespassing, such as if enemies lose track of Sam while remaining within the camp.
I'm also going to refer to Scanner Nullification as parrying throughout because of how closely the mechanic resembles parries in other games, and because I want to.

First things first, how does Sam's odradek scan work in this context?

It is used so often for terrain navigation and your own detection of things that maybe you've even parried an enemy scan by accident, spamming, or a good guess at the timing.

So, the basics:

• It's blue, of course.
  
  
• There is a delay from your own button input to when Sam's scan is sent out. Regardless of what Sam is doing, this delay doesn't change.
  
  
• There is travel time as the scan expands outward, this is also true of enemy scans but not sensor pole pings (I'll get to that in a moment). The timing to parry is stricter the closer to an enemy scan you are.
  
  
• There is a range limit but this is virtually never an issue. If I'm inside a camp then Sam's and enemy scans travel far enough and fast enough that they will collide and I've yet to see an enemy scan that doesn't reach me.
  
  
• The direction Sam or your camera is facing doesn't matter. If you want to nullify an enemy scan then the game only cares about the circular range of Sam's scan, not the fan shape seen when terrain and entities are scanned.
  
  
• Sam can always scan... most of the time. Fairly certain I've been able to send out a scan mid-tumble down a cliff. Hell, he can even scan while dead. He can't scan while the Hologram Generator is active, though, because the odradek is... y'know... busy projecting the hologram.

Almost the same as Sam's. Their camp sensor poles, though, don't scan. I say they are sending out pings because they are pinging enemy odradeks that something activated it, so an enemy sends out a scan in response.

• Enemy scans are orange, this will be on the test. In seriousness I do mention this because sensor pole pings are a dimmer orange and the audio cues further help distinguish them, even if I am just stating the obvious.
  
  
• Enemy odradeks glint yellow when a sensor beacon is activated. At least one enemy odradek will glint and it is after a sensor pole activates but before that pole's ping is sent out.
  This yellow glint can also happen periodically without sensor poles activating, but it always happens when a sensor pole activates.
  
  
• Glinting enemy odradeks doesn't mean the scan will come from them. The game tends to pick enemies further from Sam to send out a scan and the yellow glint tends to come from enemies closer to Sam, but I say "tends to" because this isn't always the case. I recall once where a scan came from an enemy so close they were in range of me being able to hack their odradek.
  
  
• The yellow glint is visible through anything and from a pretty long range as well. It is visible in this way if it is in response to a sensor pole activating. It is also easier to see them against darker surfaces; I tend to have a hard time spotting them out in the open if they are far away or against something like grass.
  
  
• Sensor pole pings have no travel time, technically. The visual of them does but enemies aren't actually responding to that, only the initial activation of a sensor pole. It helps to keep in mind that sensor poles don't take more or less time to ping enemies, the expanding ring is just for visually informing you a sensor pole has activated and radiates from the one nearest to Sam. This keeps the timing consistent, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot of variance with when an enemy sends out their scan.

A yellow glint from an enemy to the upper-right. There is no glint from the top-center where a large crack in the ground is.

The scan is originating from an enemy that patrols down into that crack. The time it takes from sensor pole activation to an enemy sending out a scan will always be the same, but there is more distance and travel time that makes for a more forgiving timing window. Here, my scan went out at nearly the exact same time theirs did, so this timing is great even if the scan had come from an enemy at the tents or even a bit behind the Timefall Shelter.


To the left is the sensor pole, open but no visual of the ping has happened yet. The upper-right again has a glinting odradek from an enemy riding on the side of the truck.

The enemy on the other side of the truck sends out a scan. They are also closer to me than more distant enemies at the tents offscreen (or the one walking further back and to the right of the truck). The timing window is stricter here and I sent my scan out a bit sooner than theirs, but our scans still connected.

This is why I rely on the audio cues and the sensor pole ping visual because they are much more obvious than an enemy odradek glinting when I set off a sensor pole. It can still help to spot an enemy I may not have noticed on my way in.

If only a single enemy is up and about, the scan will always originate from them. This is also why no scans happen if everyone is knocked out, they can't respond to being pinged.
You are knocking them out, right? You aren't killing them... are you? Please don't upset the BB...

I recorded several of my scan parries and then opened them up in VEGAS Pro to check the times. All the times I looked online for timing are rough guesses and estimations (decent guesses, though) and use different cues for how they time nullifying enemy scans.

My margin of error is hundredths of a second; something like 5.03 seconds and 5.09 seconds are so small of a difference it really doesn't matter.

From button input to Sam's odradek sending out its scan. Since the odradek highlights Sam's footprints, I used the frame the un-highlighted footprints beneath him become highlighted.

I used the frame the sensor pole starts to open (a click happens when it does as it starts to make noise, too) and the frame an enemy scan visibly starts.
The yellow glint from enemy odradeks have a little bit more variance but they still happen roughly when a sensor pole is activated, some of the glints I measured can occur as late as about half a second after a sensor pole activates; I don't rely on them for my scan parry timing anyways.

So a sensor pole takes 1 second between activating to sending out its ping. I used the frame the ping visibly starts.

A sensor pole will click, whir, and sound like it is charging up as it opens and extends.
The ping it sends out has that sort of pulse sound and visually expanding circle.

I prefer to rely more on the ping for timing because I can anticipate the start of the ping after hearing the sensor beacon activate, then just count 3 seconds in my head before hitting the scan button. Anything beyond this is just the time it takes for scans to travel, that is the wiggleroom that changes how forgiving or strict the timing is... so this is pretty much a guide on if you want to perfect-parry the scan from a MULE that is so close you could piss on them, for funsies.


As I said at the start, I'll add to this if I feel like provoking some Demens and then running off, giggling, to hide in a bush inside their camp as they try and scan for me.

Could this guide have been shorter?
Maybe, I just wanted to be comprehensive.

Floating Carriers aren't technically airborn...
Unless you ramp it.