Am I doing it wrong or does it pay too little?

That is very different than what we have now.

Thx.

The plan now is to get to Colonia ( 300 jumps to go?) and try and catch a ride back to the bubble. Then run a Powerplay that's supposed to increase my data turn in value. I'm not sure what those are but I'll learn. Turn in and then see where I'm at. If I gotta go pew, pew shooty mcshooty for a few months then I'll do till I can get an FC then head out again.

One of the huge drawbacks about the deep exploring, for me, is that if I want to play with friends it's just impossible. Once you're out 30K from the bubble it's just too long to just hop back. Hopefully with an FC I can bring them along or at least make the trip back quicker.

Cheers.
Remember to pledge to Li-Yong Rui (?) now, so that you don't have to wait 4 weeks in the bubble. You can pledge now, and then get the merits and skip the wait when you're back.
 
And all I have to show for it is about 300M in data.
You must have been doing smth wrong. It took me less than four months in the black to get from Elite to Elite V.

Maybe you tend to scan worthless bodies? Or lost explo data due to an unexpected crash? Or just the number of jumps/scans is lower than expected, not in par with the time your exploration trip took?
 
You could try https://edtools.cc/expl.php

"Road to riches"

In general, there could be something like a "distance" Bonus...

You can also use the DSSA https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ort-array-dssa-a-fleetcomm-initiative.540166/ to refill supplies or even buy suits.


If you need a "ride" back to the bubble, there are planned shuttle rides from Colonia to Bubble or other way round

Just have look here: https://www.reddit.com/r/FCOC/ you just hop on a carrier, if needed with 40 ships, log out and ~ 16 hours later you are back in the bubble.
The rides are free of charge. You can donate Tritium, but you don't have to. ;)


Oh and a word on carrier... I also have a carrier, but to be honest, I just don't use it, as I wanted to.
Mining tritium does not give me a "good time" ...
Jumping with the carrier just takes a lot of tritium and 500 LY in 15 Minutes... My conda can also do the trick in less time.
I just don't have the real need for a carrier, since I'm mostly playing for myself or together with my wife, but yea, as an explorer, carrier are pretty useless. (Only my personal view)
 
Last edited:
You must have been doing smth wrong. It took me less than four months in the black to get from Elite to Elite V.

Maybe you tend to scan worthless bodies? Or lost explo data due to an unexpected crash? Or just the number of jumps/scans is lower than expected, not in par with the time your exploration trip took?
Honestly, don’t know but I te d to think I’m doing it wrong. I’m only at Elite, I think.

I did blow up. Once? Maybe twice. But it put me back and while I did loose the data, I read ages as I made my way again.
 
Credit-wise the most efficient way is to scan ELWs, WWs and terraformable bodies (and not crash :giggle:). All others are generally worth peanuts.
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Exploration rant here.

I've been out in the black for about a year now. Off and on for sure. I went from the Bubble to Sag - A to Beagle and now to Colonia. And all I have to show for it is about 300M in data. I made 600M in like 5 weeks playing with some friends doing combat missions.

Look, I like the loop. Jump>Scoop>Honk>FSS>DSS (the good ones)>Jump. Rinse and Repeat. But am I doing something wrong? Should I just be hunting for ELW/WW/AW/HMC? Because, it takes months for me to go from one place to another and I feel like the reward is so small. I was like ... oh I'd like to think about getting a carrier...and...oh...i've been playing for 1000 hrs and don't have a 1/5 of what I need. Hmmmm..... Am I just playing wrong or is exploration just not rewarded, and if that's what I want I need to go somewhere else for it?

Anyways. Any suggestions or observations would be awesome.

Many thanks. Cheers and fly safe. o7
Last time I went for 2 week leisure exploration trip from Bubble to Colonia I think I had about 9 pages of data to sell on arrival, worth about 30mil each - probably earned more, but I sold some of the data during the trip.
It wasn't a money making trip. I wasn't playing more than an hour, maybe sometimes two hours a day I think. For credits I was mapping only waterworlds, ELW's (if I managed to find one) and maybe some other terraformable worlds. I also had some fun on planets in the meantime, scanning plants, walking around, enjoying views and taking worthless screenshots.

There are better and faster ways to make more credits, but if you enjoy exploration, you should get more than enough for your needs while doing what you like.
 
Last time I went for 2 week leisure exploration trip from Bubble to Colonia I think I had about 9 pages of data to sell on arrival, worth about 30mil each - probably earned more, but I sold some of the data during the trip.
It wasn't a money making trip. I wasn't playing more than an hour, maybe sometimes two hours a day I think. For credits I was mapping only waterworlds, ELW's (if I managed to find one) and maybe some other terraformable worlds. I also had some fun on planets in the meantime, scanning plants, walking around, enjoying views and taking worthless screenshots.

There are better and faster ways to make more credits, but if you enjoy exploration, you should get more than enough for your needs while doing what you like.

Yeah I think the OP is mapping basic HMC's and skipping terraformable others, which would explain a lot. I generally map WW/ELW/AM, terraformable others only if they are worth more than a million credits, but in general HMC's aren't worth it now, maybe they used to be before the FSS and DSS changes and the mapping bonus, but not anymore. Also of course any body that attracts my interest, such as atmospheric with oxygen atmosphere just because, I map and land on those to get first footfall.
 
Exploration doesn't pay much when compared to top earning methods, but as it is now, it pays a lot when compared to how few credits you have to invest in it to reach maximum income. Basically, you need to buy a DSS module for 250,000 Cr, and that's it. Of course, there are optional stuff like fuel scoops, but you could set up a Sidewinder for something like 1-2 million credits that would do it all. Meaning if you scanned and mapped two already-tagged ELWs, you're all set.

Meanwhile, a Sidewinder wouldn't get you anywhere near the top earning methods for combat, trade, mining etc. So, exploration, and now exobiology as well, have a very low barrier to entry, and you hit the ceiling of credits per hour nearly instantly.

If memory serves, exploration would do around 15 million Cr per hour at most (without a LYR bonus), so with the Odyssey mapping bonus, I suppose it would be around 20 MCr/h. I could recalculate it and see if this still holds true, but what for? That's obviously not going to reach the highest(!) income rates of other professions, and that's in my opinion fine.
 
Yeah I think the OP is mapping basic HMC's and skipping terraformable others, which would explain a lot. I generally map WW/ELW/AM, terraformable others only if they are worth more than a million credits, but in general HMC's aren't worth it now, maybe they used to be before the FSS and DSS changes and the mapping bonus, but not anymore. Also of course any body that attracts my interest, such as atmospheric with oxygen atmosphere just because, I map and land on those to get first footfall.
For example:

Yesterday, over the course of about 2.5 hours, I was looking for metallic rings for mining while I was exploring. I hit about 10 systems. The payout was over 10M (minus the 25% for turning it in a my carrier, so my actual payout was just barely over 8M).

2 of those systems were worth about 4M and 4.6M, IIRC. This included approximately 16 HMC (2 of which were terraformable), one Ammonia world and the rest was GGs and Icy Bodies, with a few biological/geological signals thrown in here and there, though I didn't go after those, which I normally do. I mapped every HMC, the Ammonia world and all planetary rings. I wasn't in a hurry, and so not very efficient.

The highlight of the trip was finding a landable, terraformable, atmospheric (Carbon Dioxide/Neon) HMC w/1 Biological (Bacteria), This one I did land on to get first footfall and genetic samples of the Bacterium...which was a very easy find and I only had to land in one location with a short drive around and quick trip back to the ship.

In the last system, most of the ringed planets (what I was really looking for) were 314,000 LS out at the C star...
 
Exploration doesn't pay much when compared to top earning methods, but as it is now, it pays a lot when compared to how few credits you have to invest in it to reach maximum income. Basically, you need to buy a DSS module for 250,000 Cr, and that's it. Of course, there are optional stuff like fuel scoops, but you could set up a Sidewinder for something like 1-2 million credits that would do it all. Meaning if you scanned and mapped two already-tagged ELWs, you're all set.

Meanwhile, a Sidewinder wouldn't get you anywhere near the top earning methods for combat, trade, mining etc. So, exploration, and now exobiology as well, have a very low barrier to entry, and you hit the ceiling of credits per hour nearly instantly.

If memory serves, exploration would do around 15 million Cr per hour at most (without a LYR bonus), so with the Odyssey mapping bonus, I suppose it would be around 20 MCr/h. I could recalculate it and see if this still holds true, but what for? That's obviously not going to reach the highest(!) income rates of other professions, and that's in my opinion fine.
Fuel scoop is not exactly optional :D Unless you want to "explore" inside bubble or have friend with carrier.
 
Fuel scoop is not exactly optional :D Unless you want to "explore" inside bubble or have friend with carrier.
Eh, we could go over whether a fuel scoop gives you more income from exploration or not, but for the main point, namely that the barrier in terms of credits is very low, it doesn't really matter. On that Sidewinder, a 2A fuel scoop is 285,000 Cr, but a 2C fuel scoop that'll still give you decent performance can be bought for 17,800 Cr - small change, really.
 
I was looking at a minimum of 20 mil a night (2hrs). So that works out at 2.1bil for 3.5 months 2022.
I just headed out not looking for anything in particular ( I have visited all regions in the map) scanned all teraformable planets elw ww and ammonia planets .(KGBFOA)

I made 400 mil in 3.5 months ( trip to beagle and back first time ) back in 2018 . That was before DSS . In a 44 lyr Dolphin .
 
Kk i had a hand in on my carrier.
Oh just wanna say to @nemolomen - its minus 12.5% fee the other 12.5 goes into your own carriers balance.
If it wasn't your carrier then yeah you'd pay 25% uc data fee.
Anyways l handed In My Saturday and Sunday mapping and bios.
61 mill uc data. And a stonking 22 million for the bio scans I'd done too.
That's a marked increase !
Combined 83 Mills for mapping idk about 30 or so systems perhaps less.
And I've not been playing more than a few hours over those 2 days.
Yes the uc data needs a pass. More for the lesser stuff I think.
But the big thing I think their missing is we should get a marked increase of credits for scanning a rocky world or ice world. Landing on em should increase payout too. To encourage more on foot exploration.
 
The FC fees doesn't seem much in little bits but it all adds up . Personally I was at the stage where I wasn't bothered about losing 250 mil( or if it's your carrier 125 mil) per 1bil data handed in , but it's a lot if you are starting out .
 
Eh, we could go over whether a fuel scoop gives you more income from exploration or not, but for the main point, namely that the barrier in terms of credits is very low, it doesn't really matter. On that Sidewinder, a 2A fuel scoop is 285,000 Cr, but a 2C fuel scoop that'll still give you decent performance can be bought for 17,800 Cr - small change, really.
Well you simply cannot travel anywhere out there without capability to refuel. And there are not many fuel stations out there.
 
Kk i had a hand in on my carrier.
Oh just wanna say to @nemolomen - its minus 12.5% fee the other 12.5 goes into your own carriers balance.
I consider me and the carrier to be different monetary accounts, which is how the game treats it.

So yes, my carrier got half of the 25%, but I, meaning MY bank account, only got 75% of what the data was actually worth...
 
Yeah I think the OP is mapping basic HMC's and skipping terraformable others, which would explain a lot. I generally map WW/ELW/AM, terraformable others only if they are worth more than a million credits, but in general HMC's aren't worth it now, maybe they used to be before the FSS and DSS changes and the mapping bonus, but not anymore. Also of course any body that attracts my interest, such as atmospheric with oxygen atmosphere just because, I map and land on those to get first footfall.
I don't think I was skipping Terraformables, but that's highly possible. I'm certainly not skipping them now that I have Observatory Core running, but that certainly could be an issue.
I still do the landing on occasion, just to look around, and get a screenshot. Don't get me started on planet mining since Odyssey.
 

Attachments

  • HighResScreenShot_2022-08-22_06-13-04 Large.jpeg
    HighResScreenShot_2022-08-22_06-13-04 Large.jpeg
    115.5 KB · Views: 65
I was looking at a minimum of 20 mil a night (2hrs). So that works out at 2.1bil for 3.5 months 2022.
I just headed out not looking for anything in particular ( I have visited all regions in the map) scanned all teraformable planets elw ww and ammonia planets .(KGBFOA)

I made 400 mil in 3.5 months ( trip to beagle and back first time ) back in 2018 . That was before DSS . In a 44 lyr Dolphin .
I really only have the EDSM data to go off of to see how much I did collect. I think I'm around 200M but clearly I was not doing something right. Learning still I suppose.
 
Back
Top Bottom