Guide / Tutorial ARX Earning Guide

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ARX Earning Guide

You can earn up to 400 ARX per week. The week runs between the 07:00 UTC (Game time) Thursday restarts. Any ARX not earned in the week are 'lost' (i.e. if you earn 300 ARX one week you will still only be able to earn 400 next week, not 500). ARX do not expire - once you earn them you keep them forever, well, unless you spend them. ARX are earned by various in-game actions that are still being identified, or you can buy them via various methods (different for each platform).

There are four types of ARX: Combat, Trade, Exploration or Other. You can see how many you earned in a session by exiting to the title screen - it is displayed in the Top Right for a few seconds. Your current ARX count is also displayed when you hit ESC to see the 'pause' menu but does not include ARX earned in your current session.

Feel free to post other methods to earn ARX that you find, they will be checked if they are repeatable and added to to the guide.

This is a work in progress! There are definitely other ways to earn ARX out there! Also - we know fdev are actively changing the numbers, so while these actions should grant ARX the rate may change.

WhatTypeHow Many ARX?To Reproduce
Combat KillCombat1+some ships don't seem to count, may be relative ranks?
Bounties/BondsOther1 every 200k CR (10 ARX Cap)hand the bounties/bonds in
Self DestructCombat6Self destruct ship (no change in payout with different ships)
Hyperspace JumpsExploration1 every 3 jumpsJump 3 times in a session
Buy or Sell a ModuleTradeup to 5Buy or Sell module over 500,000 CR value, amount seems related to value [1] Repeated buy/sells nerfed
Universal Cartographics dataExploration?1 per 175k CRSell the data
Ship TransferExplorationUp to 11 per transferApprox 1 ARX per 100k transfer cost, up to 11
Material TradingTradeUp to 10 per tradePerform a trade - see below for details (recently nerfed!)
EngineeringTrade1 per rollPerform engineering upgrades [2]
Paying FinesCombat1 per 100k (uncapped)Have a fine - pay it off
Getting an Illegal Cargo fineOther1 per 100k (10 cap)Get scanned while carrying illegal cargo
Synthesise SRV AmmoOther1Use all ammo, synth standard ammo [3]
Codex EntriesExploration1Find a new (to you) planet / star type, or scan something with the composition scanner and get the 'new codex entry' notification
SRV mat gatheringExplorationup to 6Scoop G5 mats using SRV (Crystalline Shard sites all all G5). 1 ARX for 5 mats[4]
Permit AcquisitionExploration3Get allied to faction, take & claim permit mission [5]
Buy a shipTrade1 per 1 Mil spendBuy a Beluga - 20 ARX, Vulture - 4 ARX
MissionsOther1 per 1 Mil pay (10 ARX cap)Includes Passenger Missions, excludes Donations [6]
Fuel ScoopingExploration1 per 30T scoopedFit extra tanks, scoop a lot of fuel, check rate
Tech Broker UnlocksTrade3 per unlock
Megaship HackingExploration1 per m/sHack a m/s datapoint - 1 ARX even if 2 limpet points
Paying CrewOther1 per 1Mil payGo mining, sell mined ore while having crew (do not need to be in ship, just hired)
Notes:





[1] Could well be something else going on here - sometimes Buy Module pays, sometimes Sell Module, sometimes both, and sometimes neither. Almost as confusing as trade.
[2] Does not include Experimentals - these do not earn ARX
[3] Does not award ammo if you have reasonable ammo supplies
[4] 1 ARX for 5, 4 ARX for 30, 6 for 34, so not linear - or something else going on
[5] Tested on Systems Permit via Missions, and those granted by the Federation / Empire
[6] Payout is based upon the maximum CR you could have earned - even if you take the REP/INF/mats option

Other events where ARX have been seen, but not understood yet - the number of ARX needs more work:
  • FSS / DSS rewards - looks like 1 per 100k
  • Trade - some give TRADE ARX, other times nothing
  • CMDR Death (incl Ganks :) ) - assuming similar to self destruct
  • Selling limpets (no ARX, may have been removed / mistaken)
  • Restock - 2 ARX seen
  • Effect of Wings on earnings
  • Other synthesis usages (some research here)
  • Powerplay
  • High Grade mat scooping/scanning
Things that need looking at - might not give ARX at all:
  • Dropping into USS
  • Donation missions
  • Other missions
Other events that don't seem to give ARX:
  • Megaship Disable Turret
  • Limpet use
  • Hyperdictions
  • Search & Rescue
  • Scan Mission Data Point
  • Land on planet
  • Refuel / Repair / Restock
  • Sell Ships
  • Rank increases
  • Hiring / Firing Crew
  • Engineer Unlocks
If you have another source of ARX feel free to post it - take a look at the Experimental Design post for some ideas how to narrow down the actual source of the ARX, they can be tricksy ;)

Thanks to all the CMDRs reporting ARX sources in various guides, from memory Exploration CR came from FalconFly, Mat traders from Ian Doncaster, and probably many others.
 
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Experimental Design

So that we can check that the source of ARX is correct we need to reproduce the effect. Best way to do this is to only perform the single action you are interested in recording. Since ARX are reported at the end of a session you need to try and make the session do the least actions so they are not confused with anything else. For instance:

1) Relog
2) Make 5 jumps
3) Relog to the main menu and see '1 ARX' for the last session

Then do it again, and see if you get the same results. Note that some actions cannot be performed on their own - for instance an Assassination will need you to kill someone - which is a source of ARX. Either subtract the known ARX sources or eliminate them through relogging (ARX for killing are assigned at the kill, so a relog before handing in the mission will eliminate that as the source of ARX on hand-in.) This is complicated by the fact that some things don't give a full ARX - for instance Hyperspace jumps appear to be 1 every 5 jumps - so if you end the session after 1 jump you will not see any ARX. It is quite possible that some things that don't appear to give ARX actually do, but only with more time. Or they give no ARX 🤷‍♀️
 
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These are the numbers for the Manufactured Trader - chosing to trade 1 unit from the 'From' Grade to the 'To' grade should give you this many ARX. Note the per-trade cap of 10. So for example trading a single G5 to a G2 should give 9 ARX. If a trade (such as G3 -> G4) yields 2 ARX then trading 5 units will give 10 ARX (the cap). Trading 6 would still give 10 ARX - split trades up to avoid hitting the cap if you want to maximise ARX.
Sorry for being thick, but what are the "G" numbers?
 
I have had 1 Explorer ARX for a lap of Dav's - so driving an SRV may grant ARX.

So - I logged in, did a lap and collected all the mats and then logged out. It remains to be seen if I get ARX I do a lap without collecting mats. Unfortunately I'm maxed out for the week, so maybe someone else can check whether driving around without collecting anything gets you anything?

1 lap takes about a two minutes -ish?
 
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If you see it repeatable then that may be a thing :) Problem with Dav is you are collecting, maybe scanning data points - especially could be the data points as there is one. But hey, I haven't heard anyone say anything about that at all :)
Yep - it's one or more of:
1. Driving SRV
2. Collecting some mats (I think a circuit is 10?)
3. Scanning data point (yield is between 1-3 encoded mats)
 
This all seems quite logical.
No arbitrary nonsense.
I am appalled. :LOL:
We'll see - others have reported very different results - especially for exploring - so I could well be proved wrong. I did do a few 'jump 5 times, no scans, logout, oh 1 ARX', and some with 9 jumps ( 1 ARX), 10 jumps (2 ARX), 20 jumps (4 ARX). I never got any extra when I FSS / DSSed, but others seem to have more returns - I think I wasn't scanning enough 🤷‍♀️
 
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