Hey All,
This is just a PSA to anyone who is wondering whats going on, and a warning for anyone who see's videos out advising of this.
Recently some community contributors have posted some videos about a limited time way of speeding up your progression through the Exploration Ranks thanks to the bonus' from a recent Community Goal.
Unfortunately it seem this has recently (today's Patch?) been patched out. While you will still get the 3x credits, it will no longer count towards your Exploration Rank progression.
I just handed in 64M in exploration data, and while I was paid the 192M as promised, when looking in the Codex at the my statistics for Exploration Data, It only shows an increase of 64M. I decided to see if i could confirm this to be the case and so just did a quick test flight, flew out ~80Ly from Betancourt Base and scanned down the first planet I came across. Returned to Betancourt Base, my Credit balance was 2,075,906,923 and my profits from Exploration was sitting at 278,681,459. I went to UC and sold 84,460 CR of exploration data. My Credit Balance is now 2,076,160,303 and my profits from exploration is now 278,765,919. Do the math for yourself. Sorry guys, congrats to al those who got in early. Commiserations to all the sad saps like me who didn't beat the Patch.
That 64M Cr worth of Exploration should have got me to Elite, but alas not this time my friends. o7
If you want to see video footage of it working before the patch today, check out the following video from Down To Earth Astronomy.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuMqY13KWe8