Apparently some big update coming next week...

[Kalpa]

...something about some Engineers and whatnot. I was "busy exploring" some 13k LY from Sol, but decided to head back home after hearing the news. I've been quite inactive for the past few months, so I'm very uninformed on what's going on.

So without further ado, a couple of questions to the exploration community:

1) What, if any, exploration-related major changes these engineers bring with them? (And by this I mean the patch in general, not just some random engineer discovery feature)

2) Should I sell my exploration data before or after the patch hits? (ie. selling before would be safer to avoid any potential exploration data loss due to patch shenanigans; however if the update brings some new and important use for exploration data, I should maybe hold the sale off for the features? I'm expecting to cash in between 10 and 20 million, no more)

Cheers for answers. Now back to charging the friendship drive, I was aiming to hop a few thousand light years more still today...

 

[Ashnak]

1) Too many to mention, you'll have to trawl the threads.

A few high-/Lowlights:
- AI will become at least slightly intelligent, therefore encountering NPCs with a typical exploration loadout would be by far more dangerous
- there are rumours/announcements that the usual exploration loadout won't be safe any more even outside the bubble, i.e. a chance of random hostile encounters
- Engineers should be able to upgrade your ship's jump range through various means (both increasing FSD range as well as decreasing mass)
- range, distribution and use of materials will change. Engineers will require mats for mods
- Jaques will attempt to jump to Beagle Point. Details are again as of yet unknown, i.e. if he makes it, we don't know yet what kind of services he will offer on the other side of the galaxy

2) Check out the Dangerous Games thread(s), especially Dr. Kaii's appeal to the explorer's community. If you want to help SEPP, it might be useful to stick to your data until the Games start, though nobody (from the general public) knows anything about the details so far.

 

[Jackie Silver]

It may become possible (if nothing changes) to mine asteroids and ring particles for jumponium, saving the necessity of carrying an SRV if all you want are jump boosts.

 

[Kalpa]

Thanks a bunch for answers! Oh dear. Whatever this whole Jaques thing is, people seem to be all over it. Some kind of jumping station I've figured, fueled by community goals...

Dangerous games? What the ever those are... well, I can sit on my exploration data surely for a good cause. Hearts of Iron IV is around the corner and my summer is guaranteed to be spent with it, so no reason to rush things in Elite (other than wanting to smear my name all over the galaxy... hrhm... those sweet sweet first discovery tags...)

ps. Jaques "trying to jump to beagle point" seems just like a thing where a jump could go wrong and trigger a thargoid invasion or whatever, but I'm sure this eventuality has been theorycrafted a lot by the community already.

 

[Zenith]

Try to get back by Wednesday night if you can. The word is NPC AI has received a buff which could make any interdiction encounter very dangerous for a returning explorer. I'm assuming you have the usual light loadout of light shields and no weapons?

You might want to give a shout to Iridium Wing to escort you back in. They escort explorers back past the dangerous final few hundred light years.

 

[Kalpa]

Try to get back by Wednesday night if you can.

I should be. Monday and Wednesday will be bad, but I should have some on Tuesday for flying. Trying to make the majority of the journey today, though. After 227 jumps and some 5700 light years of distance covered in past 10 hours I think I'll be fine.

I'm assuming you have the usual light loadout of light shields and no weapons?

Actually, after Horizons release I went out with some basic weaponry. On my trusty Asp, the shield is still size 3, but at least it's A grade instead of F