Some thoughts on the matter:
- Negative payout / fine for scanning an object? Seriously? This better be a bug, and it better be fixed fast...
- Basic payouts in general could use an increase. It's depressing how little exploration career path pays right now.
- I always fully explore every system I come across (including all asteroids and useless ice/rocky planets). Because I like to be thorough and because doing anything less does not feel like true "exploration" to me. Maybe I'm biased because of that, but I think fully scanning a system (getting all its local objects) should be rewarded extra. If you consider how much time and dedication this approach takes, isn't it only fair?
- Mineable asteroid belts (especially metal-rich) should pay something for scanning them. There are extraction economy systems with nothing in them except a metal-rich asteroid belt and a nearby station. If it's worthwhile to invest into setting up a station there because of this one object, surely that means such objects are supposed to be valuable when exploring other systems? Same goes for planets with mineable rings - they should pay extra.
- I keep seeing these comments on the forum suggesting exploration payouts depend on how many people scanned the same system beforehand. What are they based on, exactly? I haven't seen much in my experience to back this up - systems I scanned in the core next to high-population Federation and Empire worlds netted me similar amount to those I scanned in the uninhabited regions. Is there a dev diary post on exploration or something which explains how the payouts should work?
One alternative that no-one seems to suggest is that instead of increasing the exploration income, the income of other professions should perhaps be reduced. Maybe exploration is actually the more appropriate rate of income and other roles are paying more than they should? Maybe the answer is actually somewhere in the middle - increase exploration a bit and reduce the trading significantly?
As an explorer, I wouldn't want that. Trading is supposed to bring in most income (it's always been this way in Elite series), that's not the problem here. Nerfing the trade income would also mess with the balance of the game:
- Trading in ships with smaller cargo holds (Cobra and below) would become a horrible grind.
- Prices of the larger ships would become astronomical and would have to be reduced/rebalanced. More headache we don't need.
- Hauling cargo seems like the least exciting occupation so it should pay extra to make it worthwhile.
