Zero effort? It takes hours to find prime planets for first discoveries. You can find pirates in seconds.
If you added "hours" of jumping to "find good undiscovered system" you should add engineers, unlocks, learning game mechanics and tons other things to "find and kill pirate in seconds".
This is completely different story, that your "hours" are valid only if you go to deep space, find 1 planet, and after it return to bubble. Because when you hit undiscovered area practically 100% of next jumps are pristine systems.
In last week I was in centre for 6 days. During this 6 days I scanned plants on 18 planets, what yielded me...I think that 800 millions. I don't know, how many hours it required, but I know, that single evening, when I pursed exobiology I milked 500 millions (and it definetely wasn't more than 4 hours
). Next day I found planet with biosignatures for next 100 millions. I scanned it for 1 hour (reading logs with EDD is handy).
Good? Bad? It depends. If I could compare it with refuelling carriers of other people, "mining" missions, wing massacres or AX combat it probably would be weak. But for me isn't, because for me time/profit is too simplistic (and some things in my eyes are simply exploits, so I'm not gonna compare anything with "mining" missions, where I can actually buy 200 gold and claim 50m reward (and share it with other people). When you look at only at time and payouts I look at other factors. Knowledge? "turn off certain star types", uh, and that's everything, if we are talking about exploration "for money" (what in my opinnion even isn't exploration, it is just scanning). Ok, you need more knowledge if you are doing detailed surveys of area in order to find X, or correlation between Y and Z. But again- it isn't about money, it is about imaginations of players. "only landable, ringed planet with X type atmo" hasn't magic boost x1000. You don't boost your income by finding it. Skill? Okay, I can scoop without hitting exclusion zone, and I know how to use neutrons. So maybe required things? Nah. Basic suit is enough. Ship with fsd, scoop and AFMU is also enough. Hmm, so maybe time and effort which I have to put into engineering grind? Sure, increasing jump from 40 to 80 is handy if you want to travel to certain area ASAP, or go to sectors, where you need it to navigate. But if we are talking about exobiology- first logs srsly are very close to bubble.
To be completely fair- exploration is this gameloop, which shouldn't be compared with other things for whole time. It isn't guaranteed, steedy income. Is is darkness, unexpected spark, darkness, spark (maybe few in a row). You cannot balance it to be "with similar profits" with other things, because we all explore in different ways. Also, exploration is, IMO one of the biggest RNG in game. You can find 5 earthlikes in day, or 0 in 2 weeks.
Which exploration should be similar to all other, buffed activites?
-Realistic galaxy map or map with only A/F stars?
- FSS scan of all bodies+ DSS of valuable bodies?
-FSS+ DSS of only valuable bodies?
-FSS of only valuable bodies?
Exobiology with ignoring bacterias, or without?
Exobiology in "completionist" (I will scan everything, even if I need 1h to find last sample) style? Or more pragmatic "I will sit here for 20 minutes, and we will see what I will find".
With 3rd party tools, or without?
See? This exploration variants can already make giant difference, if you will buff one of them other can be still "weak" (in opinion of "explorers" which focus on meaningless credits), or broken
I started my exploration adventures 2 weeks after buying this game. Since this day I travelled 1,8m ly, visited all "real" nebulas. Discovered thousands new systems, bookmarked a lot of them (yes, I have sheet with details of interesting systems which I visited
), shared them with friends (I even organised few, small expeditions with few of them.), and did hundreds screens. Idk what with you, but for me it was main reason to explore new stars.
Also, sorry for my ignorance, but during all my trips I never thought "uhh, exploration should be buffed, not enough money", because actually I tried all possible activities in this game. So as much as I like exploration- it doesn't require much skill, is nearly riskless, and for crushing majority of time isn't challenging (but navigation in some areas certainly can provide some fun). And I always thought, that more difficult things should pay better. Payouts shouldnt be equal, because activities in game are various. From scanning stars in completely safe area, through tradeloops, when at least sometimes you will encounter pirates (difficulty level of npc interdictions are another topic, but not this time) to combat. To combat, which require the best ships, boosted by engineering, which require special weapons, module sniping, and "unique" tactics, which aren't part of combat experience as long as you don't try AX. If you want to kill pirate you just shoot untill 0%. With thargoids it not working. Sure, this combat has some patterns, but learning this patterns, and repeating them in PRACTICE is much more difficult
If you are doing it for money just go kills pirates, or even better thargoids- it is only few seconds of searching for hundreds millions! Such easy, why don't do it
