Exploration needs to be more profitable

[The Law]

So basically I spend 2 hours jumping from system to system on my way to Red Giant star Nu Tucanae, scanning everything in my path. I thoroughly scanned roughly 10 star systems between my destination, and here is what I earned. Pretty ridiculous I would say. (and yes, I have detailed scanner)
Before

Spoiler

After

Spoiler

I am not saying the journey itself was not fun, but in terms of sense of achievement it feels very hollow. I could have easily made same amount of credits by just doing bounties for 30 minutes.

 

[Nutter]

I agree, exploring should be tripled for effort....

That said, you need to look for high value systems, link in my sig may help

 

[Jeroll3d]

I agree too.

 

[Brakespear]

Yeah, you haven't really grabbed good systems there. I don't even have a detailed scanner, but I'm currently waiting to sell 2x 5300-ish systems, one 19,000 system, and I recently offloaded about 20,000 in data at my previous stop.

Given that I didn't have to spend ages mining, or fight anything, my overhead is pretty much zero and the effort is minimal. Plus, I get to take in the scenery.

The only issue I have with exploration as it stands... not enough variety, and scanning just involves pointing at something for an arbitrary amount of time.



I think in terms of profits, there just needs to be some hefty bonus for extreme distance or exotic things (like, a bonus if you find a system with loads of stars, on top of whatever the stars are worth).

 

[TUXER]

true for so many games.
killing is alway more profitable in almost all games, would be nice to see that change

that said, if you find an earth like planet i heard it pays 75,000

 

[Raf von Thorn]

Well, i kinda disagree. Heck, even Universal Cartographers disagree:

View attachment 5928

 

[Ragnol]

Exploration needs a sell all data button, been selling data for almost an hour straight now after a 9000Ly trip

 

[murraypaul]

So basically I spend 2 hours jumping from system to system on my way to Red Giant star Nu Tucanae, scanning everything in my path. I thoroughly scanned roughly 10 star systems between my destination, and here is what I earned. Pretty ridiculous I would say. (and yes, I have detailed scanner)
Before

Spoiler

You are actually scanning the bodies, not just pinging the scanner?
I ask, because for two of the systems in your list, I think you haven't even scanned the main star. (The 204 and 607 CR systems)
If you had scanned the main star, you would earn at least 1200 CR per system with a detailed scanner.

 

[pwnieb0y]

100K for 2 hours worth of work isn't to shabby. I don't know your method at all, but you can save a lot of time if you just scan the relevant things in the system. Stay away from ice/rocky planets. Decide if you really want to SC 150k ls for those 2 Metal Rich planets. Stuff like that.

I certainly wouldn't complain if they upped the payouts for exploration as lately that's my main source of income but I don't think they really need to.

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Exploration needs a sell all data button, been selling data for almost an hour straight now after a 9000Ly trip

So true!

 

[Mikey2305]

Mine have got a bit more profitable if i go far out. If you do a quick scan and system view you will find out if there is anything worth checking out. If loads of icy and rocky planets then you wont earn much. If metallics and earth like worlds and gas giants then spend some time as they can be qiuite profitable. My best is about 40k. I find it quite relaxing but i dont expect to get rich quick. Works well in conjunction with rare commodity runs

 

[Sargon]

I think the people whom aren't making money don't know what scanning is.

My average is at 25K per system at the moment.

 

[murraypaul]

Mine have got a bit more profitable if i go far out. If you do a quick scan and system view you will find out if there is anything worth checking out. If loads of icy and rocky planets then you wont earn much. If metallics and earth like worlds and gas giants then spend some time as they can be qiuite profitable.

For example, this system:

I'm not going to scan the rings, as they are worth nothing.
I'm going to scan all the planets orbiting the first star, except the one orbiting the gas giant, which is almost certain to be an icy planet. (There are another two that are almost certainly icy, but it isn't worth the hassle of trying to exclude them.)
I'm not going to bother with the second star at all, as they all look like icy planets.

Edit: Result is 6 high metal content planets, type I gas giant and a water world, and a guesstimated value of 30k.
That isn't particularly good value for the time spent (maybe 20 minutes), compared to other ways of making money, but exploration isn't primarily about making money.
It does provide a reasonable income, as long as you enjoy the exploration itself.

 

[Yanaran]

Well, i kinda disagree. Heck, even Universal Cartographers disagree:

View attachment 5928

Means nothing without knowing the time it took to scan said system.

I just got back yesterday from a 5600ly trip, and sold data for about 3 million credits at the UC. Sounds great right? Without knowing the time it took, you might think so. But if you divide that profit by the 20 hours of game-time it took, you see that I could've made almost 10 times as much "just playing" in civilized space (missions, bounties, the odd trades) or even 20 times as much if I was grinding a good traderoute.

The "scanning" part of exploration desperately needs a boost, maybe even at the cost of the initial "discovery" part if FD doesn't want to go overboard. It should always be more profitable to do detailed scans of the planets than just to jump to the next star and pop off the adv-scanner. Heck if you read some of the Elite-stories, it sounds like a great find would actually set you up for life. Right now the only reason to explore is for fun and the "wow"-factor.

 

[Spanners44]

Exploration needs a sell all data button, been selling data for almost an hour straight now after a 9000Ly trip

They originally had one when it was introduced in Beta but remove it due to a bug (the one that resets your credits to zero) that they are still trying to nail. I believe it'll return once fixed.

 

[murraypaul]

And in contrast, this system:

Is trash. All Ice worlds.
Scan the main star (1k for 30 seconds work) and move on. Guestimated value 3k.

 

[pwnieb0y]

For example, this system:

I'm not going to scan the rings, as they are worth nothing.
I'm going to scan all the planets orbiting the first star, except the one orbiting the gas giant, which is almost certain to be an icy planet. (There are another two that are almost certainly icy, but it isn't worth the hassle of trying to exclude them.)
I'm not going to bother with the second star at all, as they all look like icy planets.

Edit: Result is 6 high metal content planets, type I gas giant and a water world, and a guesstimated value of 30k.
That isn't particularly good value for the time spent (maybe 20 minutes), compared to other ways of making money, but exploration isn't primarily about making money.
It does provide a reasonable income, as long as you enjoy the exploration itself.

Well said sir, have some rep. Although I wouldn't scan any of the last 5 planets, the 4 before the Gas Giant are most likely Ice and Rock, so even though the rings of the Gas Giant are tempting, so is the idea of staying within 1000ls of the main star and moving on to the next system in 10 min.

 

[lv426]

Works well in conjunction with rare commodity runs

Totally agree on this - best way to make creds, combine exploration, rare runs, missions (if possible) & occasional indirect bounty hunting (i.e. submit to interdictions and/or drop into USS locations for a look around). I have spent many an evening trundling around, just having fun being distracted (how I normally surf the internet funnily enough), before realising how late it is & heading to my original target for the night (decided so many hours ago) at maximum speed, then cashing in, thinking, not a bad haul for the night

 

[murraypaul]

And this system (last one, promise), almost certainly isn't profitable, as you need to travel ~450kls to get to them, but who could turn down a black hole and a neutron star in the same system?
(That's what exploration is really about, going there just to see it, even though you know doing something else would be more profitable.)

 

[Mikey2305]

And dont do what ive just recovered from and get totally lost in space and miss your rare items rendezvous. The joys of being distracted...

 

[CMDR Canaris]

You really need the advanced discovery scanner to make exploring worthwhile at all, which is currently what I'm grinding to. And then I'm leaving civilized space for a very, very long time.