I just got back from a 6 hour exploration run...........not good

Beatz0121

Beatz0121
I went 1000ly out and started finding multiple unexplored systems.

Was finding great systems! with gas giants, metal enriched planets. I thought this was good!

I found at least 75 unexplored systems.

I scanned everything. I even traveled sometimes 150,000 LS to some rare stars.

I come back after after having pages of data and I only make 1.3 million?

I can make 1.3 million in 30 minutes trading...

I enjoyed the exploring, it was a great experience! but I thought it would of had a better pay out.
 

Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
Explorers don't explore for the credits; if you just want to grind credits there certainly are better ways. It just depends on what you find interesting.
 

S-Kargo

S
I personally think they need to add in more valuable planets. I mean, there is practically an earth-like planet every 5 or so star in human occupied space. Go out and I've scanned like 100 stars without finding one.
 

cryon1cang3l

C
Anyway exploring unknown systems should be rewarded with more money than a t6 can get with 1 trip - exploring takes time and it should be worth a bit more. Right now it takes at least weeks to cover the cost of a pure explorer ship or even months if you try to get your anaconda to max jump range.
But only for unknown systems that no one has discovered yet, scanning a well known star should give you the same amount like right now to keep the explorer spirit up.
 

Lord_Itchybum

Lord_Itchybum
Exploration is like a fine wine and matures with age. Meaning you need to be out there for more than 6 hours. Scanning rocks and ice will not make you many credits. I have been out for over a week, travelled around 5000LY and taken approximately 30 hours to do so.
Just relax, fire uup some good music, or watch Netflix on a second screen and just go where the solar winds take you.
 

cryon1cang3l

C
Exploring is a good way to learn the universe and find some really cool places... but this wont pay for your ship, so many people who actually like exploring still dont do it because they cant afford it or just want more money for a fighter etc.
 

CmdrDaymian

CmdrDaymian
Yeah, I've played the game for 43 hours now and I've literally only done exploring (because I love it) and I agree - the money is terrible. I'm still in an Adder and I don't even have the advanced discovery scanner yet, but I don't care, I just like finding interesting solar systems.

Like today, for several hours every solar system I went to was a brown dwarf. About 20 systems with just brown dwarfs. Half of them didn't have a single planet around them - not even a rocky belt. The other half had one or two ice planets. Then I found an orange star just slightly smaller than our sun (0.892 or something like that) complete with totally scorced planet right in front of the star, mars-like planets, an earth-like, several ice planets and 2 enormous gas giants at the end of the chain.

It was lovely.
 

iain666

iain666
Phaaded said:
I will literally never explore because of this.

Nor will many, many others.
Click to expand...

Why is that a problem? There are lots of things to do, if you don't want to explore because you don't find it fun or it doesn't give you enough credits then so what?

I enjoy exploring so I do it, I could make more credits doing something else but I'd have less fun. And this is a game so fun is my primary goal.

If yours is cr/hr then don't explore. Variety is the spice of life.

Cr/hr is meat and potatoes when today's meat is more potatoes. No, there is no salt.
 

777Driver

777Driver
As mentioned above, it's not really about the money. But still, I doubt you really found anything of worth, how are you classifying rare stars? The money is in Neutron stars,Blackholes,T Tauri's,Wolf Rayet Stars,White Dwarfs,S class stars, ... Planets - Earth like worlds,Waterworlds, Gas Giants with life...

Just enjoy the scenery, when you do find something of value it will be a bonus
 

Reido

Reido
As has been said, you don't go exploring for the money.

Having said that though, it looks like you only got about half of what you should have if you used the Detailed Surface Scanner on every star, planet and moon.

The last time I cashed out I had completely scanned about 300 systems using the DSS and got about 12.3 million. The only big ticket item on my list was one Earth-like, otherwise just your garden variety misc. systems that the route planner had picked out (no cherry picking). I had a couple of single pages that were over 1 million.


CMDR Andrew Reid
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
6 hours? So you walked over to the next neighbourhood and back.

OK, seriously, the only way to make money exploring is to pick and choose what you scan, and to know where to look for valuable things.

Black holes and neutrons are the best way to make credits, but you need to know how to find them. As for anything else, Metal rich and High metal content planets are only worth scanning if they are kind of nearby, as it takes a huge effort to break away from the gravity of the main star. I'll make the effort to scan them, personally, but if you are purely after the creds - if the closest one is not within 200Ls, skip it.

Finally, water worlds, ammonia worlds and earth like planets will make a lot of cash, too, but it's kind or random where you will find them.

Jovials and regular stars - if you can scan them from the main star location, do so, otherwise, skip them.

Rocky and ice worlds - don't bother.

My method of exploration is basically, to drop in to a system and see what's there. if I find anything interesting at all, I'll scan the whole system - unless the rocky and ice worlds are really far out, I may skip those.

Wild cards are terraforming candidate planets. You get a nice bonus, and almost all planet types have th epotential, except ice worlds and (probably) ammonia worlds. I say probably, because I swear I came across an ammonia world that had "this planet is a candidate for terraforming", but, I didn't know how to take a snapshot then, and apart from the "Huh? Really" response in my head, I moved along. Of course, I could have mixed up what I saw, and being very close to Sag A (with all the gal map issues) I'm not going back to look for it.

There are "zones" where planets are likely to be in a terraformable zone, but that doesn't guarantee anything, just a better chance. I've found plenty of terraforming candidates and a few earth-like planets orbiting neutron stars, too. That's one heck of an o-zone layer they have, there!


Anyway, for me it's about finding the unusual - earth-like worlds orbiting neutrons, for example. Amazing vistas near a nebula, checking something out just because it looks to have a grumpy face on the system map...

I'm still hunting for an Earth-like or terraformable orbiting a black hole. I doubt it exists, but if it's out there...
Z...
 
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Aussiedroid

Aussiedroid
I think there are areas where the payout is smaller due to the compensation of the stars/systems. I recall a looong section on the way to the core where it was like that almost for the whole day I was exploring. Eventually got past it into a Neutron/Black Hole area where there was lots of ripe systems for the pickings. Seems to be a bit like a lottery sometimes.

I do think you can earn more than that, but still likely be less than trading or combat.

Don't give up, try somewhere else, perhaps further out.. you will find more fruitful areas around. :)
 

smsKONG

smsKONG
Just like trading or combat; exploration has levels of profitability too.
Yes you can still make more by trading or shooting but exploration can be quite lucrative if you are quite single minded and efficient.
Scan stars, black holes, earth likes, water worlds, metallic or metal rich worlds and also gas giants. Leave everything that looks like a ball of rock or ice (search exploration on here for more tips).
The more time you spend in SC searching out every last thing the less you are making per hour.

But as others have said, if you love credits then exploration probably isn't for you :)
 

Surly_Badger

Surly_Badger
  • If it's not fun and it's not profitable, don't do it.
  • If it's fun and it's not profitable, do it.
  • If it's profitable and not fun, do it only if it's going to bring you something else that is fun.
  • If it's both profitable and fun, then do it.

Since it's just in-game credit, it has no value except for if it unlocks something else that has value.

It's a good idea to understand why you're playing one game, instead of another.
 

Tryst

Tryst
I did the same thing and pretty much the same distance out. Quite a number of firsts, metal rich planets and so on as well. Didn't fly quite so far to scan planets, I normally stuck to 1400Ls max. However, I did get a lot of binaries, trinaries and a couple of really odd systems that didn't seem to make any sense from a physics point of view, (planets orbiting each other but not orbiting the sun they were close to). I was out for 10 hours in total with the intention of heading to Sag A* but had an accident at around 1200 Ly that left me pretty badly damaged so I turned back. By the time I got back, I'd visited well over 300 systems in total, honked every single sun I stopped at and detail scanned any that looked like they may have metal rich planets or had no first discoverer name. Also a fair number just for the hell of it. When I turned in my data, I got a lousy 3 million which totally put me off exploration. I could have made 1.6 million per hour trading which meant, in the same amount of time, I would have made 16 million from trading.

Certainly not worth the risk IMO. It's a huge risk you take, a broken canopy or run out of fuel means you lose everything you've explored so far and your ship as well. Has nobody ever heard of risk/reward?

If you could upload your data some way at given points to save what you've done so far, it would be better and more like trading where each run gives you a profit, then take the risk for the next run. Exploration risk is like doing 10 hours of trade runs with no income until you've finished the last trade run and if your ship gets blown up, you lose all the hours you worked.
 
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