How can I make the most profit from exploration

blackship

B
So I'm heading out into the Universe to do a little exploration. I did a little research before I stared to head out, but I want to pose a question on how to make the most credits.

The first method of exploring I ran into is jumping into a system, pop the advanced scanner as you scan the star, and then jumping on to another system. You are scanning the system but only doing a detailed surface scan on the primary star.

The second method is jumping in, doing a advanced scan, and then doing detailed surface scan's on the primary star and planets that have a high probability to be metal rich (and any earth-like planets). Or doing detailed scans on planets that might offer credits.

The third method is jumping in and doing detailed scan's on all stars and planets.

I'm looking to see some sights, but I also want to make some credits along the way. So which of these three methods is the best method to make some credits based on the time involved.
 

Krunchie

Krunchie
The second one.

Then the first. The third one (scanning everything) is the worst for credits.


If you can find a neutron star rich sector, then the first one is the most profitable.
 

Loskene

L
Time is money. If you ping a system and it doesn't have any of the following:

-Interesting phenomena within 100,000Ls (black holes, neutron stars, super giants, white dwarves),
-Metal planets within 10,000Ls,
-"Worlds" within 100,000Ls (Earth-like, Water, Ammonia, terraforming candidates),
-Gas giants within 1000Ls (but only if there's one of the above),
or
-Something warranting further recon with the mark 1 eyeball,

Skip it. Don't even waste time scanning the star, just jump to the next plotted system. Can't tell you how much time and boredom I saved myself once I stopped bothering to even scan the primary star in those useless omnipresent 3-M-stars-and-some-ice-balls systems, but the bigger upshot is that I spent a much larger fraction of my time scanning valuable objects. Your exploration mission's duration is decided entirely by your own patience so you can never be certain how long it'll last, how many systems you'll visit, or how much you can expect to earn from it, so I like to maximise how much I get from that uncertain length of time.
Every little helps when you're pitting your patience against your credit balance, but I found exploring as a means of making money just made me enjoy exploring a lot less. Do it for the sightseeing or you'll only feel like drifting in an asteroid belt with your ship powered down is wasting time instead of harmless fun.
 

TriumphANT

TriumphANT
The OP did say "based on the time involved", so method 2 for sure. If you start scanning every icy/rocky planet around a gas giant (you can get 12+ of these) it'll take about 5 minutes for 10,000Cr, which is barely worth it for the time taken. So keep moving and look for the good stuff! Scanning everything is like trading Palladium one way and Food Cartridges on the return leg. You'll make money, but not much.
 

jadefriendly

jadefriendly
get away from populated space quickly. fastest route til you're away from tagged systems, then change to economic route, filter the map for higher paying, scoopable & non sequence / unique stars, and those with higher likelihood of earthlikes/waterworlds etc. (F, G, K, A, B, O + neutrons/carbons/white dwarfs etc) - then you can choose your routes to encompass as many of these as possible.

1500ly should find you away from too many already-scanned systems - as long as you don't head directly towards obvious nebulas or the core.

dropping away from the plane (down or up) will help with this as well. if you come across a bunch of already tagged systems: think 3-dimensionally, drop up or down.

jump in, hit the ADS, point at the primary star & scan it, and then scoop (if required)

after that, check the system map: look for planets that will pay out: metal-rich close in, waterworlds, ammonias, terraformables & earthlikes, and gas giants that won't take long to get to.

worth setting keyboard shortcuts for "next target in route", "galaxy map" and "system map" if you haven't already done so.

--

my rule of thumb:

scan primary star if untagged
any other stars if binary/trinary etc. (IF SCANNABLE WITHOUT MOVING)
metal-rich worlds within 250ls
metal-rich with clouds within 500ls
gas giants within 1000ls
interesting gas giants - 2000ls (those that look like they provide life - discoballs!)
terraformable candidates within 2000ls

secondary star systems (in binaries) i'll ignore unless there is a lot of profitable scannable stuff, or:

waterworlds / earthlikes / ammonias - i'll travel any distance
neutrons / black holes - again, any distance
 
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Elpapo

Elpapo
Find black holes and neutron stars systems... There is millions of them, so its 99% sure that you will put ur name on them... but you need to travel atleast 10k LY (into Core) to reach these planes. There is several areas, where such systems are like very close to each other.

You jump into Neutron/Hole, 0,23 ls from them, allowing instant scan, skip anything else then jump into another. Not need to any SC travel in such systems. To find it, use map Fliter or real view... on flashy background of core, black holes systems are black dots. You can scan several systems per hour if you skip SC travel. Each scan(system) its worth... 50k-60k cr.

To scan black hole/neutron star you need to be in 5,0 ls range... Almost in all systems where these are not Main star where you jump into, they often are far distant, like 100k ls or more.

You aint have to look for anything else, if you would decide to travel only for these and only focus on them. Skip anything, scan atleast 2000 systems like that, when you comeback, you gonna be much, much more richer. All can be done more or less in week.

This might be the best way of make profit from exploration.
 
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_Flin_

_Flin_
The Neutron Star jump is probably the best, but getting there takes some time. I do about 800 ly in half an hour, so 10k ly back and forth is 12.5 hours for me just getting there, which isn't possible in my personal game time allocation fund.

So what I do is going out about 800 - 1000 ly. Then turn the star filters to exclude the bad ones (M, Y, T etc.). Turn the map filter to "Nothing". And jump from blue to yellow to K etc.

I had my share of class Ms and I don't bother with them anymore.
 

Smauler

S
I personally generally just take things as they come, but always scan the first star as I'm scooping and scanning the system at the same time.

If there's a good chance of a planet being terraformable then I'll probably go scan it (look at the orbit days, keep in mind the star type, potentials around red dwarves for example have much lower orbital times than most stars, and whites have much larger).

If another sun is in range when I jump in, I'll probably scan it too.

I don't ever bother with ice worlds or gas giants unless it is both a virgin system (ie no one has been there before) _and_ it's a good system (ie a stonking system).

PLAA EURK OC-D D12-58 is one such system I explored fully. 277,000 for a full scan, and a whole lot more for first to find bonuses.
 

barneby

barneby
so i get what you guys are saying, but i have antoher silly question:
how to determine what planet is worthwhile scannen if you havent scanned it oO

edit: nevermind... just have been to systems that looked all the same...
 
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