Exploration data: less for honks, slightly more for surface scans

[Shadowdancer]

It would IMO be a boon to the exploration business if the rewards for discovery ("honk data" that you get from triggering the discovery scanner) were lowered quite significantly and pay for surface scans increased.

My thought is something like this:

• A flat fee, independent of object type for honks, at most tiered into stars, planets and moons; that would mean no extra pay for accidentally honking those ELWs et al. while racing somewhere.
• Significantly more pay for surface scans of "less interesting" objects to bring them to current levels, and
• an increase above current levels for the candy balls (ELWs, water worlds, "rare" star types).
• If time permits, an additional scaling based on Hutton Factor of discoveries, so that going the distance to check out the far out rocks is at least remotely worth it.

To take an extreme example, doing a sightseeing tour from the bubble to the general vicinity of Colonia without a heavily engineered ship or exclusive use of neutron boosts, and with only cursory scanning, will currently yield maybe 15–25 Million credits for the mission, but 60–100 Million credits in honk data depending on your jump range and a bit of luck. It would not hurt to take that profit down significantly to maybe 10–20 Million for honks while maintaining the opportunity to meet or exceed current levels with more involved interactions.

And now please everyone tell me how wrong I am

 

[varonica]

It would IMO be a boon to the exploration business if the rewards for discovery ("honk data" that you get from triggering the discovery scanner) were lowered quite significantly and pay for surface scans increased.

My thought is something like this:

• A flat fee, independent of object type for honks, at most tiered into stars, planets and moons; that would mean no extra pay for accidentally honking those ELWs et al. while racing somewhere.
• Significantly more pay for surface scans of "less interesting" objects to bring them to current levels, and
• an increase above current levels for the candy balls (ELWs, water worlds, "rare" star types).
• If time permits, an additional scaling based on Hutton Factor of discoveries, so that going the distance to check out the far out rocks is at least remotely worth it.

To take an extreme example, doing a sightseeing tour from the bubble to the general vicinity of Colonia without a heavily engineered ship or exclusive use of neutron boosts, and with only cursory scanning, will currently yield maybe 15–25 Million credits for the mission, but 60–100 Million credits in honk data depending on your jump range and a bit of luck. It would not hurt to take that profit down significantly to maybe 10–20 Million for honks while maintaining the opportunity to meet or exceed current levels with more involved interactions.

And now please everyone tell me how wrong I am

Pretty much irrelevant to how I play the game, you could increase the payout of earth like worlds by 10 times and I would still only scan them if they are close enough to bodies I find interesting, which may or may not coincide with what other people find interesting. Yes there are some people who explore just for the money, but changing payouts around won't affect them because they are going to scan everything anyway, you aren't right or wrong as far as I am concerned, the payout rates just don't interest me.

 

[Zieman]

It would IMO be a boon to the exploration business if the rewards for discovery ("honk data" that you get from triggering the discovery scanner) were lowered quite significantly and pay for surface scans increased.

My thought is something like this:

• A flat fee, independent of object type for honks, at most tiered into stars, planets and moons; that would mean no extra pay for accidentally honking those ELWs et al. while racing somewhere.
• Significantly more pay for surface scans of "less interesting" objects to bring them to current levels, and
• an increase above current levels for the candy balls (ELWs, water worlds, "rare" star types).
• If time permits, an additional scaling based on Hutton Factor of discoveries, so that going the distance to check out the far out rocks is at least remotely worth it.

To take an extreme example, doing a sightseeing tour from the bubble to the general vicinity of Colonia without a heavily engineered ship or exclusive use of neutron boosts, and with only cursory scanning, will currently yield maybe 15–25 Million credits for the mission, but 60–100 Million credits in honk data depending on your jump range and a bit of luck. It would not hurt to take that profit down significantly to maybe 10–20 Million for honks while maintaining the opportunity to meet or exceed current levels with more involved interactions.

And now please everyone tell me how wrong I am

This, of course, is they way it should have been from the get go.

Now, 2.4 or more likely post 2.4, Frontier: make it so!

 

[Jenny Harper]

If time permits, an additional scaling based on Hutton Factor of discoveries, so that going the distance to check out the far out rocks is at least remotely worth it.

This especially! I sometimes go to distant stars and bodies in a system if I want to scan the entire system or if the rest of the system has been scanned, but it would be nice for a financial incentive.