Anyone posted the changes for Exploration in 2.3?
- Thread starter Traveller_GG
- Start date
Unfortunately, nope. This is the relevant line from the beta changelog:
"Increased the credit values of exploration data for scans after this release. Unsold data from previous scans is unaffected by this change."
So if you scan something now, and hold on to it until 2.3 goes live and then sell, you'll still receive the current payout.
The moment I read that line I thought the best thing for explorers to do (to maximise their profit) is to stop exploring. Which is a tremendous shame if you are focussed on getting to your Elite rank.
As Dale said to Brennan "MotherF!!!"
Oh well I was never in it for the creds or elite ranking anyway (honest, guv'nor).
Ah, yes, misread the question...
Exploration credits are now calculated at the time we scan an object. That was done so as to optimise the selling process. It's also why any changes to value only affect scans made after the relevant update.
Does that mean that in the future we won't have to spend hours or days selling our data?
Or even - I dare to dream - that the CTD bug after selling lots of data may finally be fixed after all these months and years?
That change was done ages ago and since then we've been able to sell several thousand systems per hour (and I have sold many tens of thousands of systems!). I've not had any obvious issues with crashes or data loss since it was introduced.
Any time I sell more than a couple of pages of data I expect the client to CTD within five seconds of leaving the "sell data" page. I think it may be linked to raising reputation with minor factions.
Just to pick that sub-topic up: I just set up an old X-Box-Controller for the camera controls, and it works like a charm - kind of like having a controllable camera drone.
Oh I hadn't thought of that - great idea!
I've just looked on Amazon and the Xbox 360 controller is only £22.95 - I guess this would be a good move then? (I've tried mapping the keyboard / hotas but the overlap with existing key bindings is too great)
The XBox 360 controller is great; it will come in handy some other time too, I'm sure.
Yeah, my son had a 360 controller with cable I took. I didn't want any overlap with my HOTAS, and the keyboard was a pain. As soon as the devs get rid of the full-range/forward only interference, it will be perfect. (For now I'm overriding it with one of my X-55's rotary thingies.)
I can highly recommend it.
It would appear not. I deleted my beta save earlier this evening and started exploring from scratch. After about 4 hours effort I've got nearly 7 million credits just from exploring, have a fully equipped explora-sidey (and I've only been purchasing new modules when I've had enough credits to do so with non-beta prices) and am Pathfinder with 14% towards Ranger. By targeting previously discovered ELWs I suspect it may well be possible to go from here to "Elite" explorer within 24 hours. I know it's not their intention, but if FDev were to set out to deliberately devalue exploration they would find it hard to do so more efficiently than they repeatedly achieve by accident....
Thanks! Well, in this case, I'd say it's bug report time. I've already submitted one (see here), I'd encourage others to do so too.
And yep, I think your suspicion would be right. Remember the Great Earth-Like World Tour that MattG posted a while ago? Adjust those earnings for the new values, and bam, entirely possible to do it within 24-26 hours of play.
And yep, I think your suspicion would be right. Remember the Great Earth-Like World Tour that MattG posted a while ago? Adjust those earnings for the new values, and bam, entirely possible to do it within 24-26 hours of play.
Maybe this is more aligned with casual players? Yes there's a list ELW on the forums and such but what about the player that's not on the forums and can only play a few hours at a time and doesn't know everything there is to exploring I.e. the casual player. How long does it take to get to Elite with combat if you knew exactly what to do? All in all it should equal to the amount of time and effort according to the other classes, Combat, Trader, IMO.
I think it's much more likely that Frontier just doesn't think that much about exploration, and that it's a very low priority for them. Actions by the devs consistently suggest this, both from a development and a support point of view.
For example: comets are in the game. The Stellar Forge not only models their gravity but also places them in space procedurally, they have been there since before 1.0, they are just an unfinished mechanic without graphics. For over two and a half years they've just been on the sideline partially implemented, pushed aside for things like CQC, Power Play, Wings, Engineers, Multicrew, Fighters, etc.
Another example: they changed planet generation in 2.2 and reduced HMC and MR worlds into beige mundane planets with very low variety in both coloring and terrain. 2.2 went live and Frontier never even realized that it had happened. They now agree it needs fixing, but we won't see any changes for a long time yet, most likely sometime during season 3. They changed it without even considering the impact or consequences it would have on explorers and how we play the game, it just never occurred to them.
As for exploration changes in 2.3? I think we now know that most of the best changes are simply fixing things they broke before, and adding some scanner blueprints to the engineers that should really be quality of life improvements. Combat players get weapons with all manner of special effects and perks, explorers get QoL changes we need to grind for. No new mechanics, nothing that changes how we explore, just QoL changes. But then it's really hard to add creative and game changing secondary effects for explorers when our game mechanics are so incredibly shallow, there just isn't much to work with. It's why Ram Tah simply flipped a switch and BAM we now passively detect alien ruins while we fly about. How else were Frontier going to do that without actually developing some interactive mechanics for us? It was far easier to just passively flip a switch than actually put any dev time into exploration mechanics. That pretty much sums up how Frontier feels about exploration.
Honestly the fact that the new camera will be the most useful thing explorers get with 2.3 speaks volumes to how neglected we are by the developers. We get something to take better screenshots with while we sightsee and it's the best game changer we have gotten all season.
If it's not apparent, yeah I'm feeling a bit jaded lately about Elite Dangerous...