Where should I sell my exploration data?

[Murrdox]

I might need to repost this in the General forum since a lot of you are probably out there in the cosmos...

I'm currently almost back to civilized space, having been away for almost 2 months. A lot has happened with the game in 2 months! Now I've been keeping up with things a decent amount, I know about Power-Play, I'm looking forward to participating.

I'm looking for some opinions on where I should go to sell all my exploration data. Besides money, it should be worth a decent rank-up in both minor and major factions. I don't think any of the Power Play factions will give any bonuses for selling exploration data, so I don't think that's a factor.

Before I left civilized space I worked mostly for the Federation. I think I did one Empire mission. After I get back, I'm looking to buy a combat ship and get some action after all those months just cruising around scanning worlds, and eating hot-pockets in my cockpit.

Should I try to rank up more in Federation? Land on an Empire system and get some Empire ranks? Is there a good Power-Play faction for bounty-hunting or combat that I should land at?

I should get back to civilization either tonight or tomorrow. I just don't want to cruise around civilization figuring out where I should settle down and sell my data... then suddenly a pirate interdicts me and kills me and I lose everything!

 

[Alex Brentnall]

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=157086

Right here.

Personal advice: Change to a combat ship or re-outfit your ship for combat. Sell at Lembavada for community goal or do the permit systems like Alioth etc
if you have a ton of time or 100mil Cr lying around then get rank 5 with Li Yong-Rui to double your profit

 

[Klab]

Lembava - Goldstein Dock. There is a CG there & you will easily qualify for the top 5% (currently 6mill Cr). Would advise going in Solo though as there is a lot of hostile CMDR activity due to it being the HQ of Li Yong Rui faction. Remember to sign up in the bulletin board before selling the data though

 

[Murrdox]

Just saw that other thread! Thanks! I'll definitely make a bee-line for there!

I hate "going solo" but I'm not stupid I'm not going to risk 3 months of time just because a 12 year old thinks it might be fun to blow-up an un-armed Asp for no good reason.

This is my first big exploration trip so I'm really curious how much I'll actually make. I did a pretty bad job for my first trip out... I didn't kit out my Asp well AT ALL, but that being said, I still visited a bit over 1000 systems, probably about ~10-15 black holes, a handful of Earths, a few Neutron Stars, an enormous amount of metallic planets.

But I didn't get to any amazing money-makers like the sea of Neutron stars or anything.

 

[Murishani]

due to it being the HQ of Li Yong Rui faction.

Is this why? I got the impression it was simply to troll, they know people are coming back with months of work and it gets them excited to ruin someones day THAT hard.

I'm not bitter about them, and I certainly would never say anything like: "I hope their computers suffer catastrophic failure, they get an unexpected family visit when the house is a mess, and their car blows four flats at once" so I wont.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Just saw that other thread! Thanks! I'll definitely make a bee-line for there!

I hate "going solo" but I'm not stupid I'm not going to risk 3 months of time just because a 12 year old thinks it might be fun to blow-up an un-armed Asp for no good reason.

This is my first big exploration trip so I'm really curious how much I'll actually make. I did a pretty bad job for my first trip out... I didn't kit out my Asp well AT ALL, but that being said, I still visited a bit over 1000 systems, probably about ~10-15 black holes, a handful of Earths, a few Neutron Stars, an enormous amount of metallic planets.

But I didn't get to any amazing money-makers like the sea of Neutron stars or anything.

Cool. To be honest exploration is not a big money spinner anyway. Even with the doubled profit from Li Yong-Rui you are still talking a maximum of about 1milCr per hour which is well below trading etc.
Expect you'll be in the top 5% for 7.5mil+ bonus

Edit:

Is this why? I got the impression it was simply to troll, they know people are coming back with months of work and it gets them excited to ruin someones day THAT hard.

I'm not bitter about them, and I certainly would never say anything like: "I hope their computers suffer catastrophic failure, they get an unexpected family visit when the house is a mess, and their car blows four flats at once" so I wont.

In some HQ systems people have been targeted with "defect or die" and other messages since PP started. But yeah, also the weeks/months effort ruined thing.

 

[Murishani]

In some HQ systems people have been targeted with "defect or die" and other messages since PP started. But yeah, also the weeks/months effort ruined thing.

Considering they have targeted people who are not pledged... I have to assume more of the latter.

That said, Im deeply disappointed that no actual pirates with political motivations have offered to "escort" an explorer to one of THEIR home systems to sell data for influence to their group. That would be immersive.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Considering they have targeted people who are not pledged... I have to assume more of the latter.

That said, Im deeply disappointed that no actual pirates with political motivations have offered to "escort" an explorer to one of THEIR home systems to sell data for influence to their group. That would be immersive.

Immersive yes but difficult to do. I mean even if the explorer agrees unless they form a wing the explorer could jump anywhere, run away with a higher jump range or end up in a different instance. Much easier and quicker for the pirates to just kill them (sadly).

 

[Murishani]

Immersive yes but difficult to do. I mean even if the explorer agrees unless they form a wing the explorer could jump anywhere, run away with a higher jump range or end up in a different instance. Much easier and quicker for the pirates to just kill them (sadly).

But that's the thing, a proper pirate will not kill ANY ship unless theyre forced to, let alone an explorer whom they know has nothing of value to them. The political pirates (looking at you CODE) could at least have some roleplay fun with it.
Griefers are just 12 year old sociopaths and we are their most recent puppy to kick.

 

[Murrdox]

Cool. To be honest exploration is not a big money spinner anyway. Even with the doubled profit from Li Yong-Rui you are still talking a maximum of about 1milCr per hour which is well below trading etc.
Expect you'll be in the top 5% for 7.5mil+ bonus

Yup, I'm definitely aware of that! I went out Exploring because it would be fun, not necessarily for the credits. That being said, I blew most of my money on my Asp and FTL drive so I don't have much of a cash reserve right now. I'm hoping my exploration data will net me enough credits to get a Vulture nicely kitted out for combat.

 

[CMDR DoubleSkulls]

Cool. To be honest exploration is not a big money spinner anyway. Even with the doubled profit from Li Yong-Rui you are still talking a maximum of about 1milCr per hour which is well below trading etc.

Thankfully you are being a bit pessimistic but if you really want to do this for the money you can do a lot better than that. Neutron field grinding gets you a minimum of 55k per system for just scanning the neutron (with 500 for each extra body if you don't scan). I think, if you really want to you can about 45 per hour. That would give a return of about 2.5m per hour. However you probably need to spend 10+ hours just travelling there and back, which would be very low value time if you race. If you can triple that 7.5m / hour is actually a very good rate of return

Personally I quite like exploring the neutron fields because not only do you get these really interesting NS/BH systems but there seem to be lots of carbon stars and other oddities. Plus, the view of filling the background is spectacular.

 

[jasonbarron]

Thankfully you are being a bit pessimistic but if you really want to do this for the money you can do a lot better than that. Neutron field grinding gets you a minimum of 55k per system for just scanning the neutron (with 500 for each extra body if you don't scan). I think, if you really want to you can about 45 per hour. That would give a return of about 2.5m per hour. However you probably need to spend 10+ hours just travelling there and back, which would be very low value time if you race. If you can triple that 7.5m / hour is actually a very good rate of return

Personally I quite like exploring the neutron fields because not only do you get these really interesting NS/BH systems but there seem to be lots of carbon stars and other oddities. Plus, the view of filling the background is spectacular.

I'm a little confused about how the exploration data is valuated. For instance, let's look at a Neutron star system: my understanding is I jump into a system and ping with my Advanced Discovery Scanner and make 43,000-46,000 credits for the Neutron->deep scan it with my Detailed Surface Scanner for an increase of 50%->apply my first discovery bonus of 50% if applicable.

Another data question is: following the official wikia info (http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Explorer) do the values in the chart reflect the base value of objects just from pinging the ADS?

Edit: sorry for necroing

 

[Cdr Voorheez]

In answer to OP question I have pledged all exploration data to CANONN on return (VARATI System).

 

[SplashX2]

Since some time has passed .... same question. ;-) Is there anyone in the bubble interested in some exploration data? (Besides Farseer)

 

[Flyinspaghetti]

Some unlocked engineers (farseer, palin, martuuk) take exploration data, and they usually need a good few million credits worth for tier 5 (think it's 9-15 million but can't remember).

*Edit: Didn't read the necro post above, but same might apply just unlock the other engineers that take UC data and hand it into them if you haven't.

Apart from that there's factions and any exploration CG's of course.