So I went an tried that exploration thing in my rather fresh Asp.
It was a blast to find out how some of the things work, like fuel scooping while not cooking your ship, finding "interesting" systems on the galaxy map and such.
In fact, one of my dumbest trial and error things was using the advanced discovery scanner. I always did just a small click and then went huh? It does nothing, apparently I have to find objects through flyby then can scan them from far out. So at first I was zipping around in SC looking for dots moving strangely against the background star field and trying to find objects that way. It was very slow, but it was actually a great feeling of success when I did find something that way. Handfull of icy planets and gas giants will have now my name tag on it, it should read "found the hard way through eyesight exploration". It made me think, those exploration pros must be real gurus and skilled if they manage to explore dozens of systems that way.
Then reading through some online resources to check up on how I was doing, I learnt that you just keep the trigger pressed until the scanner tells you everything there is in a system. Oh hum, so it is the easy mode. Well, still ok, so I can be quicker finding stuff. But that made me think that so many systems I came across and only the star was explored, all planets undiscovered or just a few. Well I checked some of those planets and found some Metal rich worlds, Gas giants with water or ammonia life and once even a water world which the first guy just missed.
So this made me think that the easy button to find all objects in a system kind of allows the mechanic for lazy explorers or money farmers to just zip about and cherry pick the main trophies, leaving a trail of shoddy exploration work and "desecrated" formally pristine systems with just the low hanging fruits taken. This does not seem to me is what would make a "great explorer" nor would anybody in real life (at least not scientists) pay them good money for half-butted work.
So I think that the "easy button" of the advanced scanner is ok, to keep from making exploration too much of a difficult chore, but I would maybe change the Cr-reward system. If a system is totally explored by you, you should get a 2x or 3x bonus payout for all the objects you scanned. And double that for all the "first discoveries". And make just handpicked data rather unprofitable.
So that is my 2 cents suggestion.
Other than that I had a great time, dozens of objects will from now to eternity bear the "discovered by the legendary Serapo Hartnuss" tag, although I did not find anything really worth writing home about, other than a couple of water worlds, some life bearing gas giants and some terraformable metal rich planets almost earth size. But still I am quite happy with it.
After like 5 days out there exploring I made about as much as in 3 hours farming combat missions or bounties, and I know I was making everything wrong if I was trying to maximize cr-profit during exploration. But isn't exploration about putting your eternal tag on some objects in-game and your own sense of accomplishment? And the payout system should be somewhat reasonably credible to favor real good explorers.
It was a blast to find out how some of the things work, like fuel scooping while not cooking your ship, finding "interesting" systems on the galaxy map and such.
In fact, one of my dumbest trial and error things was using the advanced discovery scanner. I always did just a small click and then went huh? It does nothing, apparently I have to find objects through flyby then can scan them from far out. So at first I was zipping around in SC looking for dots moving strangely against the background star field and trying to find objects that way. It was very slow, but it was actually a great feeling of success when I did find something that way. Handfull of icy planets and gas giants will have now my name tag on it, it should read "found the hard way through eyesight exploration". It made me think, those exploration pros must be real gurus and skilled if they manage to explore dozens of systems that way.
Then reading through some online resources to check up on how I was doing, I learnt that you just keep the trigger pressed until the scanner tells you everything there is in a system. Oh hum, so it is the easy mode. Well, still ok, so I can be quicker finding stuff. But that made me think that so many systems I came across and only the star was explored, all planets undiscovered or just a few. Well I checked some of those planets and found some Metal rich worlds, Gas giants with water or ammonia life and once even a water world which the first guy just missed.
So this made me think that the easy button to find all objects in a system kind of allows the mechanic for lazy explorers or money farmers to just zip about and cherry pick the main trophies, leaving a trail of shoddy exploration work and "desecrated" formally pristine systems with just the low hanging fruits taken. This does not seem to me is what would make a "great explorer" nor would anybody in real life (at least not scientists) pay them good money for half-butted work.
So I think that the "easy button" of the advanced scanner is ok, to keep from making exploration too much of a difficult chore, but I would maybe change the Cr-reward system. If a system is totally explored by you, you should get a 2x or 3x bonus payout for all the objects you scanned. And double that for all the "first discoveries". And make just handpicked data rather unprofitable.
So that is my 2 cents suggestion.
Other than that I had a great time, dozens of objects will from now to eternity bear the "discovered by the legendary Serapo Hartnuss" tag, although I did not find anything really worth writing home about, other than a couple of water worlds, some life bearing gas giants and some terraformable metal rich planets almost earth size. But still I am quite happy with it.
After like 5 days out there exploring I made about as much as in 3 hours farming combat missions or bounties, and I know I was making everything wrong if I was trying to maximize cr-profit during exploration. But isn't exploration about putting your eternal tag on some objects in-game and your own sense of accomplishment? And the payout system should be somewhat reasonably credible to favor real good explorers.
It can take a lot of time to scan a system, and a seasoned explorer can tell if it's worth the extra effort just by looking at the system map. Remember, you get money just for ADS scans as well, and additional for deep scans - so you already get more of a reward for scanning everything. Additional bonus.. let's wait and see what Horizons does, I'm not convinced it will be necessary with the new mechanics and gameplay regarding those airless rocks.