I just got back from my 1,800ly journey to the SADR nebula. It took me about 5 days in total to get there and back while scanning all the systems along the way. Cost me around 90k in wear and tear from my Cobra and saw some cool sights. But was it really worth it? Not really. You see, it doesn't matter how far away you travel, whether its 21ly or 2000ly, the value of the data is the same. In total I made 1.15 million credits, a meager sum that gets laughter from those making minimum wage. Hell, you can even make more credits trading scrap.
With the time it takes to scan down a system, even with an advanced discovery scanner + detailed surface scanner, exploration needs to be a whole lot more lucrative to be a viable career path - especially since it's so shallow. All you do is fly around and scan planets, maybe see a cool planet here and there, but nothing really worth doing. I propose that there should be a distance multiplier on the value received. Perhaps an additional 5% per light year traveled, sort of like rare commodities. Anyways, I just wanted to voice my frustrations. Here's some pics of "interesting" things out there.
With the time it takes to scan down a system, even with an advanced discovery scanner + detailed surface scanner, exploration needs to be a whole lot more lucrative to be a viable career path - especially since it's so shallow. All you do is fly around and scan planets, maybe see a cool planet here and there, but nothing really worth doing. I propose that there should be a distance multiplier on the value received. Perhaps an additional 5% per light year traveled, sort of like rare commodities. Anyways, I just wanted to voice my frustrations. Here's some pics of "interesting" things out there.
