Exploration Reward Calculations / Details?

[Skid]

Has anyone tested, or have links to details on how exploration rewards are calculated, I can't seem to find any solid data? I remember reading somewhere that the first person to scan a new system and return the data would get more the second, and I've seen that some objects have a higher value then others, but has anyone actually tested this and worked out what's more valuable and by how much? If not I'm planning on flying outside of known space hoping not to follow someone else's path to see if I can work some of this out, basically by making a spreadsheet of my path and what I scan in each system, and it would be good to have a second person follow my route after to see if they do get less.

 

[eachann]

I'm still not entirely sure how exploration even works. I know that when you first enter an "unknown" system, you fire off your basic scanner, and it locates all of the entities within a range. Then I can fly by each entity and it will name that planet/belt/whatever. I can use a detailed surface scanner to gather more information about the planet. But in terms of getting credit for exploration.

1) Do I get credit just by the initial basic scan?
2) Do I get additional credit for doing flyby's of each entity?
3) Do I then get further additional credits for doing detailed surface scans?
4) If I discover an unknown area and do flyby's on all planets/moons/belts/stars and go back and sell my data... and then come back later and do a detailed surface scan on all of those entities, do I get additional data to sell?

 

[Tronicus]

I'm still not entirely sure how exploration even works. I know that when you first enter an "unknown" system, you fire off your basic scanner, and it locates all of the entities within a range. Then I can fly by each entity and it will name that planet/belt/whatever. I can use a detailed surface scanner to gather more information about the planet. But in terms of getting credit for exploration.

1) Do I get credit just by the initial basic scan?
2) Do I get additional credit for doing flyby's of each entity?
3) Do I then get further additional credits for doing detailed surface scans?
4) If I discover an unknown area and do flyby's on all planets/moons/belts/stars and go back and sell my data... and then come back later and do a detailed surface scan on all of those entities, do I get additional data to sell?

yes to all.

 

[Jackie Silver]

I've seen that some objects have a higher value then others, but has anyone actually tested this and worked out what's more valuable and by how much?.

These are rough values I've found. Now that I know we'll not see another wipe I plan to do some more testing.

Belt clusters - 0cr
Rings, Resource Extraction Sites - 0cr
Stations - 0cr
Iceballs, Rocky, Rocky/Ice ~ 500cr (varies a bit, but don't expect much)
T-Tauris ~ 1000cr (ish)
Most gas giants (Class 1, Class 3, Class 4, gas giants with life) ~ 1000 - 1500cr
Most stars ~ 1500cr
High metal content planets ~ 2500cr
Ammonia worlds - ?
Helium-rich gas giants - ?
Wolf-Rayet stars, Herbig Ae/Be stars - ?
Metal rich planets ~ 5000cr
Class 2 gas giants ~ 5000cr (I don't know why these are more valuable)
White dwarfs, Black holes, Neutron Stars, Earth-like planets ~ 10000cr or more.

As far as I can tell you get a "base" value for scanning a particular type of object, plus an additional amount depending on the object type and its mass, with severe diminishing returns. So a 1 Earth mass high metal content world will get you a certain amount, and a 10 Earth mass high metal content world will get you a bit more, but nothing like 10 times more.

I don't think the precise metal content (etc.) of a world matters, although there appear to be subdivisions among some types of world (e.g. some ice worlds might have 10% metal, but tiny little ice moons tend to have only 1% metal), and there are variations from system to system.

I think scanning distance is determined by object type and radius; I was able to scan some (relatively) low mass supergiant star from over 50,000 light seconds distance.