When you say "types" do you mean "persona" ? Since that is a methodology used in software development. If so, having 12 explorer personas sounds like too much and makes me wonder how you distinct. Since as you say, it's nearly impossible to satisfy all 12 when touching the domain they share.
I'm not a user designer, nor do I have the data you guys have, but I would distinct explorers by their motivation
- The discoverer, a person that aims for finding out new things, money is not very important, time spent is not important, main motivation is the immersive experience of discovery, they can be lone wolfs or social expedition people, they can be veterans or newbies, some are scientific
- The honker, a person that aims to reach elite exploration rank, nice bonus goal is money as well, but for them reduced time spent is most important motivation
- The tagger, a person that aims to find something unique, tag it and return back, shared some motivations with discoverer, but differs in that they do not focus on discovery process
Other then that, I can't think of other types
Just off the top of my head:
Traveller - honks and gets L1 systems scans while going from A to B. Follows a Jump-Honk-Jump-Honk pattern
Decider-Interest-Sights/Oddities - May be travelling somewhere specific, may just be traveling with no destination. Honks, checks system map and assesses whether there's anything of interest in the system. Follows a Jump-Honk-<Check system map for anything of interest>
then-A. Find things of interest-Do things with them-Jump;
or -B. Jump
Decider-Interest-other things - Same as for above, but with various other things being looked for, and various other steps involved, DSS, Dolphin Diving, Glide Scanning, Flight Scanning, and so and so forth to determine if there's anything of interest
Decider-Credit - May be travelling somewhere specific, may just be traveling with no destination. Honks, checks system map and assesses whether there's anything of high credit value in the system. Follows a Jump-Honk-<Check system map for anything of high credit value>
then-A. DSS scan high credit value bodies-Jump;
or -B. Jump
System Scan Completionists - Fully DSS scan every body in every system jumped to. May be travelling somewhere specific, may just be traveling with no destination.
First Discovery Chasers (Bodies-Completionists) - Will DSS scan every undiscovered body in a system. May be travelling somewhere specific, may just be traveling with no destination.
First Discovery Chasers (Specific Body Types) - Will DSS scan every undiscovered body of a certain type in a system. May be travelling somewhere specific, may just be traveling with no destination.
Geologics hunters - DSS scan bodies and surface search ones with vulcanism (surface search in ship using POI scanner)
Tube Worm hunters - full surface search of all bodies which match estimated criteria in systems matching certain criteria (probably only surface search in ship using POI scanner)
New (or unclear criteria) Biologicals hunters - full surface searches of all bodies (probably only surface search in ship using POI scanner)
Guardian bubble hunters - go to area of space - find braintree eligible bodies - check surface for braintrees
then A - if found, reports site(s) then check nearby systems and establish regional boundaries;
or - B. if not found, go to another area of space.
Guardian site hunters - go to systems within a Guardian bubble - honk - untarget anything targetted - turn ship until all bodies have passed through HUD/Targetting reticule - go to any sites detected - report sites
Mystery/Alien/Secret site hunters - try to figure out potential systems and bodies (if possible) - full Mk I eyeball search of
all candidate bodies (continued until something is found.
I can go on. And could also throw in various sub-categories and variations in approaches to all the above.
