Had an amazing experience exploring. Also have some exploration questions?

[Commander Leo]

I was exploring a system where it showed a twin star yellow/red unexplored orbiting the "main star" but my meager basic scanner could not fathom where it was, but i was looking around and by mere chance i spotted a curiously pair of dots one red one yellow very close one another....i said that cant be a coincidence so i went full throttle towards it. At 100k ls i was like well ok i know the system where i started its stars are 100k ls away, lets keep going. At 200k ls i could swear they moved a bit. at 300k ls i was definitively sure they looked more apart now. At 400k something ls YES! they are beginning to look bigger also, my speed was going down, meaning i must be getting near some astronomic body and lo i found them, sadly devoid of any planets or anything valuable but damn i felt good!

Now i got some questions regarding exploration:

1. Is the money value of a charted system influenced by the distance away or the amount of metal/mineral rich planets, gas giants, earth likeness etc? Im pretty sure i sold a nearby system chart that was full of planets and moons at top dollar while far off systems with dying stars or devoid of planets by measly 200 CR. But that was a looooooong trip so i may be mistaken.

2. When trying to find another star in the system w/o scanner is there any indication of activity like USS? or those are totally random and can happen even in the emptiest parts of space? Im pretty sure i passed a few USS on my 500k ls trip to another star but dont know if i can trust those or its a random thing all the time.

3. Im no astrophysicist but i assume the ship max supercruise speed is affected by whether or not its near astronomical bodies or entire systems since gravity is in play, does the game takes this in account or is some kind of flight assisting computer thingie?, When traveling in deep empty space i can reach +1000c but inside a system its hard to reach 80c. ALso im sure that when getting about 100k ls near those stars i said the speed dramatically went down from +1000c all the way to less than 100.

Any other exploration tips are appreciated!

 

[InfiniteGremlins]

1. The number of things in the system seems to affect things somewhat. Finding a valuable planet, like an earth-like one or a metal-rich one, can really up the value of the system.

2. You can sometimes see activity out there that acts as clues, like a ship heading to a seemingly empty part of space. You can also often spot the planets and stars themselves. Even if they're out of sensor range, you can see them as bright points of light that move faster than the fixed background stars.

3. Max supercruise speed is affected by gravity. Deep in a gravity well, your speed gets slower, as you've observed.

 

[Jexter]

I'll be following this thread I think Question though, what kind of money are you guys smaking with exploration?

 

[Commander Leo]

Well that trip was about 60ish Ly with like 15 jumps and i tried to explore every system in the way, selling all that o could sell at my final destination. I made about 40k, and it took me a long time mainly because of doing things like searching for starts w/o scanners and traveling 500k Ls hoping my eyes were right. The most expensive system was one with 3 starts which i only found one and several planets, plus a gas giant that wasnt orbiting any stars and had several moons, it was worth 13k and was like 30 Ly away. Some others were like 3k and some even 60Ly but with only a brown dwarf star and no planets like 200 Cr. Im still figuring it out.

P.S. I forgot one question: whats the farthest Ls that can be traveled inside a system and still be inside it....would it be the 31536000 Ls that make up a Ly ?

 

[Morkel]

I have only just gotten into the entire exploration thing. A few days ago i bought the middle range discovery thingy as well as the planetary scanner and went on a trip. An entire days worth to the Plaeiades nebula and back got me about 300k credits and about 50k in bounties. Only thing that bugged me about that entire trip was the fact that i did find a black hole on the system map, but because i had to get in range to get to scan it I never did discover it. So now with the advanced discovery scanner i am heading to the Witch head nebula to see what i might discover.

I will do like i did last, scan my way there and then once i finally get there and will be a little bored with the exploration, I hope there will be something exciting to get to scan that will bring back the energy

Anyway, exploring is fun and you get to see most things that you discover before most others.

Questions for all the other explorers out there, what are the level 2 and 3 detailed scans on the statistics page?

BR
Cmdr Morkel
Surveyor

 

[Nutter]

On a big trip 6,000ly I net an average of 5k per system scanned. I reccomend an advanced scanner as soon as you can afford one as it finds everything