Bizarre exploration prices, bug?

[talshiarr]

While collecting data in HIP 99606 for my exploration database, I have run into some things that I cannot explain, and one of which must be a bug. The methodology is to scan each body separately, fly back to the station, and mark down how much the turn-in value for the system has increased. This is generating some nice correlated data with a few exceptions.

HIP 99606 1 B - Small rocky moon, 225 km, 0.0000 earth masses (it's really like 0.00004 or something), value: -179 cr. Yes, the system turn-in value went DOWN after scanning this object.
HIP 99606 3 - Gas giant with water-based life, 77614 km, 844.9 earth masses, value: 453 cr. Seriously? A far smaller icy planet was almost this much, and rocky planets can be worth more.
HIP 99606 6 - Icy, 11387 km, 3.7092 earth masses, value: 21 cr. Now icy is always worth very little, but it's always more than that, especially given its size. An icy moon w/ radius 1004 km was worth 96 cr.

Any of you other hardcore number crunching geeks out there seen anything like this? Michael or Sandro, any thoughts?

Adding the following...compare it to 99606 6
HIP 99606 9 - Icy, 15650 km, 12.4868 earth masses, value 331 cr. Is there really enough difference to make this ice ball worth 15 times more than #6? They're otherwise virtually identical.

 

[ollobrains]

Less for already discovered system bodies ?

 

[Silvershadow]

2) and 3) can be correct. The more CMDRs have visited the system, the smaller the cash you earn from the system. That matters for Gas giant with water-based life, earth-like worlds and terraforming candidates as well.
After a certain threshold, the system becomes simply common knowledge.

1) smells like a bug. An explorer must never be punished for his work.

 

[Silvershadow]

Adding the following...compare it to 99606 6
HIP 99606 9 - Icy, 15650 km, 12.4868 earth masses, value 331 cr. Is there really enough difference to make this ice ball worth 15 times more than #6? They're otherwise virtually identical.

Most CMDRs before have scanned Body 6 and have not taken their time to fly out to Body 9. (Just a thought.)
So Body 9 is almost unkown to the cartographers office.

 

[talshiarr]

I'll keep checking, but honestly I don't know if the whole reduced value based on number of people visiting is even implemented. Taking data farther away was supposed to be more valuable, too, but it makes no difference where you sell it or how far you travel. Certainly no number of explorers are dropping prices tenfold or more, or it would be blatantly obvious. A 2,000 cr metal planet scanned now near the heavily visited core systems would never become a 20,000 cr one out in deep space where virtually no one else has been.

 

[Tsunamicom]

I'll keep checking, but honestly I don't know if the whole reduced value based on number of people visiting is even implemented. Taking data farther away was supposed to be more valuable, too, but it makes no difference where you sell it or how far you travel. Certainly no number of explorers are dropping prices tenfold or more, or it would be blatantly obvious. A 2,000 cr metal planet scanned now near the heavily visited core systems would never become a 20,000 cr one out in deep space where virtually no one else has been.

Exploration for credits needs a serious overhaul in my opinion...
At the very minimum, the rewards should be 10x (yes I said 10x) what they are now - just to keep up with Bounty Hunting (which at very maximum is far less per hour than even trading in a lowly Type-6). Some would say that the journey is the most rewarding part of exploration, which can be true for many people. However, as an actual profession it is seriously lacking. Now it may be the case that the current values are correct without including the 'yet-to-be-implemented' Level 2 and Level 3 scans that you can see in your Exploration Credits summary. However as it stands, we should be seeing far greater numbers than we do now. People who journey to the center of the galaxy and make it home alive should be heavily rewarded credit-wise for their efforts. As it stands right now many of them are just barely able make to a million or two with hundreds of systems scanned, which at the moment can take hours to turn in. Bulk Turn-in (similar to turning in Bounty Hunting credits per faction) is definitely needed as well.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Exploration for credits needs a serious overhaul in my opinion...
At the very minimum, the rewards should be 10x (yes I said 10x) what they are now - just to keep up with Bounty Hunting (which at very maximum is far less per hour than even trading in a lowly Type-6).

That would be overkill. Compared to bounty hunting the rewards can be quite decent. Just like bounty hunting you can jump into a system, hit the ADS and get over 50k, same with bounties. On the other hand, you might only get 200 for a system, and plenty of bounties are less than a thousand. On top of that, there is really no risk to exploring, whereas with bounty hunting you can get your behind handed to you if you bite off more than you can chew.

The main thing to do with exploring is not bother doing detailed scans on worthless rocks. Focus on scanning the worthwhile ones: Certain suns (although when you jump into a system you might as well scan the sun while you are there), earthlikes, water worlds,black holes, neutron stars, Class 2 Jovians. The rest... meh. Don't waste the time, you can be bouncing to the next system and cashing in.

 

[Eleazaros]

That would be overkill. Compared to bounty hunting the rewards can be quite decent. Just like bounty hunting you can jump into a system, hit the ADS and get over 50k, same with bounties. On the other hand, you might only get 200 for a system, and plenty of bounties are less than a thousand. On top of that, there is really no risk to exploring, whereas with bounty hunting you can get your behind handed to you if you bite off more than you can chew.

The main thing to do with exploring is not bother doing detailed scans on worthless rocks. Focus on scanning the worthwhile ones: Certain suns (although when you jump into a system you might as well scan the sun while you are there), earthlikes, water worlds,black holes, neutron stars, Class 2 Jovians. The rest... meh. Don't waste the time, you can be bouncing to the next system and cashing in.

I don't know. Look at trading. Least risk of anything, least wear and tear on ship, highest profits in the game.

Should that be lowered or other areas raised up?

We flat out make the least of any profession there is and I've tested that. The most I've made on a system was a bit over 91k so far and that was a system spread out HUGELY. I've picked up 32 junk things I've found in an anarchy system, hopped over and sold them at a black market and made more in under an hour than I made in 2 hours of scanning systems. That's bogus, especially being as I had 6% integrity loss from doing that while only 3% from bouncing around USS picking up junk. Chatting with a guy in mumble while I scanned out *ONE* system of 22 celestials (anarchy system, not in the route databases -- I entered it), that system was worth just over 21k credits. A guy in a sidewinder figuring out how to fly made 38k in the time I took doing that in a mostly A class fit Cobra.

So don't tell me it's OK when I pay more for repairs on my ship, repairs that need a special repair facility to fix, while other ways make more than what I do in less time like this. I'd like to *EARN* a better ship doing what I should be using it for, not running packages back and forth for several hours.

We fly a lot and sit waiting for the scan to finish, spending a lot of time checking stuff.

As for fixes:

- Those worthless rocks shouldn't be worthless - they take more time and flying effort than any other part of a system and they should surface scan out better than they do (to different quality levels that add together to make a "belt" level - say 12 clusters, 1 pristine, the rest junk would show a junk ring on the system but 1 of those clusters is of very high value? -- that would work.)

- Anarchy systems (uninhabited) should be far more valuable than any system with stations in it - more stations = less and less value being as they trade with other places so should be "known" to some extent.

- COMPLETE system scans should be vastly more valuable than having anything left in a system as "Unexplored". If you find it, it needs to be surveyed or they will pay less money for the info -- a reduction in pay for half-complete jobs. (lesser scanners would show less objects but not something "Unexplored" - lacking detail scan info would pay less but not carry a penalty).

- *ALL* objects offering some fair value. A system with 34 objects should almost always be worth more than a system with 10 (only difference would be something big like earth-like -- the "lucky finds")

 

[Silvershadow]

I'll keep checking, but honestly I don't know if the whole reduced value based on number of people visiting is even implemented. Taking data farther away was supposed to be more valuable, too, but it makes no difference where you sell it or how far you travel. Certainly no number of explorers are dropping prices tenfold or more, or it would be blatantly obvious. A 2,000 cr metal planet scanned now near the heavily visited core systems would never become a 20,000 cr one out in deep space where virtually no one else has been.

Perhaps sometimes, it would be better not to use an Advanced Discovery Scanner hand in hand with an Detailed Surface Scanner to find out how this system works.

Because at the very beginning of my savegame a had made a strange observation.
Having only a basic scanner in my Sidey, I had scanned a couple of M-Stars and because of the lack of a sophisticated scanner, I had not discovered any planets.
The strange thing was, that every system (the star only in this case) was worth EXACTLY 601 Credits.
And it was in the populated sectors, a month after the last wipe. There should already has existed a complete mess in the numbers of scans.

That could confirm your theory that the reduced value, based on number of people visiting, is not even implemented.
Or it exists some threshold i.e. after a certain amount of scans, the price drops to say 300 Cr, and so on.

 

[Wullail]

At least in 1.1 , reapir costs won't be an issue as much whilst exploring...the new repair units will repair everything but the power plant.

 

[Nutter]

At least in 1.1 , reapir costs won't be an issue as much whilst exploring...the new repair units will repair everything but the power plant.

Repair costs have NEVER been an issue, also if the repair tool does NOT repair everything then I will not be buying one.

The issue with exploring is integrity repair, which is normally the same cost as your insurance after 7,000ly

 

[Eleazaros]

Repair costs have NEVER been an issue, also if the repair tool does NOT repair everything then I will not be buying one.

The issue with exploring is integrity repair, which is normally the same cost as your insurance after 7,000ly

Exactly. Doing combat runs, I got rammed by a ship from full health to 43% hull left - mass damage. It cost me less than 8k to fix that. Integrity damage though... 9% was somewhere around 38k to fix and that happens from "just flying around" - which explorers do a hell of a lot of if we really are exploring.

 

[Nutter]

Exactly. Doing combat runs, I got rammed by a ship from full health to 43% hull left - mass damage. It cost me less than 8k to fix that. Integrity damage though... 9% was somewhere around 38k to fix and that happens from "just flying around" - which explorers do a hell of a lot of if we really are exploring.

I would love to explore in a 40ly Anaconda, but I would need a very rich backer, a 7,000ly trip would cost 14,000,0000 in integrity damage Scanning would bring in 5 Mill MAX - So you would have to trade up at least 10million before you blew it on exploring again! Pants

 

[Jexter]

I would love to explore in a 40ly Anaconda, but I would need a very rich backer

I don't think Anacondas can do 40Ly jumps, it's closer to 30 after kitting out the ship properly (D stuff and some scoops etc). Asp is around the same distance maybe a bit more at 32Ly and a hell of a lot cheaper. I'm actually even considering an Adder but I like the Asp so much I think it might be worth the grind as I'm only about 10 mil short of comfortably using Asp as an Explorer.
.
Anyway I hope rewards for exploration increases, as it is now I feel I have to do all the money making beforehand and do exploration as a fart around purely for-fun activity!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

LOL, you would have to be mad to explore in an Anaconda. Asp is about the biggest you want to go, and it has the best jump range of all ships as well. The next best two in terms of price/jump range are the Hauler and the Cobra. Adder and Type 6 also are decent for it.

 

[Mikey2305]

I would imagine that a progressive increase in value the further away you get from the point of scan would be relatively easy to implement? as happens now with rares but would not need to be quite so generous...

 

[Niddi]

I don't think Anacondas can do 40Ly jumps, it's closer to 30 after kitting out the ship properly (D stuff and some scoops etc).

You can get up to ~40 LY by downgrading some of your equipment to a lower Class. For Exploration this is actually feasible.

 

[talshiarr]

Nutter, if you're still here, on your exploration page you list both high metal content and metal-rich planets. Are those not the same, or do they show up differently in the system map? I don't think I've ever run across one called 'metal-rich' yet.

 

[mattensky]

Nutter, if you're still here, on your exploration page you list both high metal content and metal-rich planets. Are those not the same, or do they show up differently in the system map? I don't think I've ever run across one called 'metal-rich' yet.

I can confirm they are different - but the text descriptions in the system view are mislabeled.
Edit: so when you scan a High Metal Content planet the text will say "Metal rich worlds are . . . " and vice versa (note the descriptions are correct just the opening is wrong). Metal rich worlds are often 100% metal.

 

[Niddi]

Yes, they are two different kinds of planets. You can see some examples here and here.