Exploration Rank to Elite

[Sapient6]

Yes but absolutely and only driving, not collecting materials at all? This is the big question.

I can verify as well that driving around SRV and/or collecting materials and/or finding materials for the first time does give you credit towards exploration rank.

But which combinations of these actions? I do not know.

Distance from the bubble supposedly plays a role in driving's contribution to rank.

I've driven a little over 3,000 km since my current trip started in mid-January. During that time I've been slowly heading away from the bubble. Currently I'm about 20,000 LY from Sol. As for materials: I only pick up FSD and refuel mats, and I have caps at which I don't pick those things up (10 refuels, 20 of each jump type), so the vast majority of mats I find never get scooped at all.

When I started this journey I was at Pioneer / 51%. I'm still at 51%.

If SRV distance is contributing to exploration rank to any meaningful degree for anyone, as opposed to mat scooping, then it must require very long distances from Sol in order to do so.

 

[Random Task]

Distance from bubble is part of it. 1000ly wont give you as much exp as 30,000ly.

Will 65k ly do? Lol I'm at Beagle

 

[who?]

It's hard to say exactly, as I believe there can be a delay between an action (such as collecting a material) and that being reflected in one's exploration rank.

Personally I've gone up 2% (well, only one full percentage point, and one partial) from Ranger towards Pioneer, having done just over 1Mm mostly on the Beagle side of the galaxy. I'd guess it's mostly from collecting new materials, because I haven't found any new materials in quite a while but have driven a lot, yet the rank hasn't budged in weeks.