Now some complain exploring isn't profitable enough. I was in the "meh it's ok, I do it for other reasons" camp until I did some Elite spreadsheets today.
As a bit of background I've done a few major exploration trips although these still pale to the Elite Elite Elite explorers out there but for my current one I've been out since December. 17th to be exact the day after Horizons hit. I've gone over 150Kly and through more than 10,000 systems on this trip alone and have recently come across a patch of black holes. Naturally I am scanning them and jumping to the next black hole on my map, this requires manually plotting each jump to the next one occasionally plotting to a scoopable for fuel.
Anyway, back to the spreadsheets bit:
Lets say you want to buy an Anaconda and outfit it for exploration, that's approx 200mil if you want a decent outfit. So I thought how many of each thing would I have to discover to get that I asked myself?
For this the number is the first discovered count and the brackets has the scanned count (to nearest 100 over 200mil), approximations made on value of each object but it won't be too far off.
2300 Earth Likes (3400)
5000 Water Worlds (7200)
4000 Ammonia Worlds (6000)
3400 black Holes (5000)
3700 Neutron Stars (5500)
And that's just the high value items. Also this is 200mil we are talking, not a 1billion credit Corvette or anything, just a moderately upgraded exploration Anaconda, not even an A7 Scoop!
That got me thinking about honking as I've made good exploration profits before, not earth shattering but I'm Elite so have made 160mil and I know i've not found that many earth likes and black holes!
Over my trips prior to this one my average profit per system comes in around 18K with a bit of Neutron farming (~100 iirc), lets take that to 15,000 to account for anything I scanned.
Thats 13,333 systems to honk for 200mil, which really isn't that many considering you'd need to come across 5,000 undiscovered waterworlds for the same and they do not pop up every 3rd system!
Analysis:
Now what I take from this is that the payouts for scanning are radically underwhelming. I can honk a system every 45 seconds or so but flying to ELW's or WW's or whatever can take upwards of 5 minutes. Even stopping to scan a black hole can turn a 45 sec system into a 1:30 system. And if you are farming BH/NS you need to manual route plot, keep eye on fuel etc as I mentioned earlier.
This is all bearing in mind that prior to 2.1 you can get 200mil in combat in a day or two and that's not mentioning smuggling.
Thoughts - Buff planet-scanning a ton but leave honking payouts where they are.
Do this by - Introduce different grades of detailed surface scanners that sit in larger module slots to allow for some progression for explorers instead of a Cobra being as effective as an Anaconda. Possibly 4 grades fitting slot sizes 1/3/5/7
Level of increase proposed:
ELW's currently pay roughly 60k or 90K if first, make that the level 1 baseline. (2300/3400)
Make class 3 scanners approx a 100% increase (90k/135k rewards) - (2230/1500)
Make class 5 scanners approx a 200% increase (120k/180k rewards) - (1660/1120)
Make class 7 scanners approx a 300% increase (180k/270k rewards) - (1150/750)
I mean if I was the first to discover 750 Earth Like worlds I'd want a medal, let alone an explorer ship of my choice! This buff sounds a lot at 300% for a class 7 module scanner but in seriousness it's still a low payout comparatively. Also it may make up for large ships turn rates in supercruise.
Do the same % increase across the board and it may be worth stopping to scan things, currently it's much faster to honk and not even look at the system map.
Keep black holes and Neutron stars a little lower % buff than others as people are already farming those but they still need a bit of a buff. Possibly also white dwarves but they come in at half the value of NS/BH at the moment so are underwhelming. Note these are being farmed because they can be reliably found on the galmap so payouts shouldn't be as good as for ELW etc which are very hit and miss even when selecting specific star classes to search.
Other thoughts:
I'd also buff nebula systems massively to the extent of Sag A* (which would also need a buff to keep up with this), I mean if I discover a planetary nebula there has to be some awesome science scanning to do so that should warrant some payout!
Possibly link payout to distance from Sol?
Finally a bonus (say 100% for fully scanning the system) if the system has more than 5 bodies. 200% if the system has objects above 100,000Ls away from base star. Cartographic people hate incomplete data you know
Whilst there I would also increase profits required for exploration ranks too and stop the ability for Li Yong-Rui powerplay bonus to affect the rank (personal opinion I know)
Whilst this is my own rambling thoughts maybe you could lend your time/thoughts and or support. I know Exploring has had a buff in the past but it's still woeful imo particularly on the scanning planets. Honking is fairly decent if I'm honest. Maybe Frontier will agree or even comment with their thoughts, who knows <- Yup, hopeful here
As a bit of background I've done a few major exploration trips although these still pale to the Elite Elite Elite explorers out there but for my current one I've been out since December. 17th to be exact the day after Horizons hit. I've gone over 150Kly and through more than 10,000 systems on this trip alone and have recently come across a patch of black holes. Naturally I am scanning them and jumping to the next black hole on my map, this requires manually plotting each jump to the next one occasionally plotting to a scoopable for fuel.
Anyway, back to the spreadsheets bit:
Lets say you want to buy an Anaconda and outfit it for exploration, that's approx 200mil if you want a decent outfit. So I thought how many of each thing would I have to discover to get that I asked myself?
For this the number is the first discovered count and the brackets has the scanned count (to nearest 100 over 200mil), approximations made on value of each object but it won't be too far off.
2300 Earth Likes (3400)
5000 Water Worlds (7200)
4000 Ammonia Worlds (6000)
3400 black Holes (5000)
3700 Neutron Stars (5500)
And that's just the high value items. Also this is 200mil we are talking, not a 1billion credit Corvette or anything, just a moderately upgraded exploration Anaconda, not even an A7 Scoop!
That got me thinking about honking as I've made good exploration profits before, not earth shattering but I'm Elite so have made 160mil and I know i've not found that many earth likes and black holes!
Over my trips prior to this one my average profit per system comes in around 18K with a bit of Neutron farming (~100 iirc), lets take that to 15,000 to account for anything I scanned.
Thats 13,333 systems to honk for 200mil, which really isn't that many considering you'd need to come across 5,000 undiscovered waterworlds for the same and they do not pop up every 3rd system!
Analysis:
Now what I take from this is that the payouts for scanning are radically underwhelming. I can honk a system every 45 seconds or so but flying to ELW's or WW's or whatever can take upwards of 5 minutes. Even stopping to scan a black hole can turn a 45 sec system into a 1:30 system. And if you are farming BH/NS you need to manual route plot, keep eye on fuel etc as I mentioned earlier.
This is all bearing in mind that prior to 2.1 you can get 200mil in combat in a day or two and that's not mentioning smuggling.
Thoughts - Buff planet-scanning a ton but leave honking payouts where they are.
Do this by - Introduce different grades of detailed surface scanners that sit in larger module slots to allow for some progression for explorers instead of a Cobra being as effective as an Anaconda. Possibly 4 grades fitting slot sizes 1/3/5/7
Level of increase proposed:
ELW's currently pay roughly 60k or 90K if first, make that the level 1 baseline. (2300/3400)
Make class 3 scanners approx a 100% increase (90k/135k rewards) - (2230/1500)
Make class 5 scanners approx a 200% increase (120k/180k rewards) - (1660/1120)
Make class 7 scanners approx a 300% increase (180k/270k rewards) - (1150/750)
I mean if I was the first to discover 750 Earth Like worlds I'd want a medal, let alone an explorer ship of my choice! This buff sounds a lot at 300% for a class 7 module scanner but in seriousness it's still a low payout comparatively. Also it may make up for large ships turn rates in supercruise.
Do the same % increase across the board and it may be worth stopping to scan things, currently it's much faster to honk and not even look at the system map.
Keep black holes and Neutron stars a little lower % buff than others as people are already farming those but they still need a bit of a buff. Possibly also white dwarves but they come in at half the value of NS/BH at the moment so are underwhelming. Note these are being farmed because they can be reliably found on the galmap so payouts shouldn't be as good as for ELW etc which are very hit and miss even when selecting specific star classes to search.
Other thoughts:
I'd also buff nebula systems massively to the extent of Sag A* (which would also need a buff to keep up with this), I mean if I discover a planetary nebula there has to be some awesome science scanning to do so that should warrant some payout!
Possibly link payout to distance from Sol?
Finally a bonus (say 100% for fully scanning the system) if the system has more than 5 bodies. 200% if the system has objects above 100,000Ls away from base star. Cartographic people hate incomplete data you know
Whilst there I would also increase profits required for exploration ranks too and stop the ability for Li Yong-Rui powerplay bonus to affect the rank (personal opinion I know
)Whilst this is my own rambling thoughts maybe you could lend your time/thoughts and or support. I know Exploring has had a buff in the past but it's still woeful imo particularly on the scanning planets. Honking is fairly decent if I'm honest. Maybe Frontier will agree or even comment with their thoughts, who knows
<- Yup, hopeful here
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