Little money earned by exploring.

Rokus

Rokus
So I just got back from exploring for a very long time! This was my first real exploration and it was great.
I went all the way to the lagoon nebula and after that shortly to the trifid nebula.

I spent all the time scanning with the discovery scanner while jumping and when I was finally at the nebula, I scanned with the fss.
When I found a earth-like or terraformable planet I surface scanned it.

I finally came back and I just earned 39.000.000 credits. Is this normal? Did I do something wrong? How can I earn more money?
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Rokus said:
I finally came back and I just earned 39.000.000 credits. Is this normal? Did I do something wrong? How can I earn more money?
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Just 39m credits hey.... heh... kids these days...[1]

Slightly more productively, you only used the FSS at the nebula. If you used it every jump along the way, you would've got a lot more. Just honking a system is comparatively worthless.

[1] Back before Exploration payouts got massively increased, I went all the way out to Bovomit sector 22K LY away, scoring multiple ELWs along the way.

I earned less than that. 39m for a 4k LY trip is substantial.
 
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Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
The way to the lagoon nebula is fairly well travelled at this stage. Better money comes from first discoveries/mappings. I'd head out in a different direction to any of the Colonia highway stations.

You're on the right track when you start hitting untagged systems.
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Rokus said:
But they're pretty rare. Is there anyway to improve my chances in finding them?
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What I do is, if I'm flying, say 5,000ly away. I stop every 500~ly and explore the local cluster of stars for a while, then continue my journey for another 500ly.
I also check every system I pass through, and FSS it, especially if it's undiscovered.
 

Riverside

Riverside
Rokus said:
So I just got back from exploring for a very long time! This was my first real exploration and it was great.
I went all the way to the lagoon nebula and after that shortly to the trifid nebula.

I spent all the time scanning with the discovery scanner while jumping and when I was finally at the nebula, I scanned with the fss.
When I found a earth-like or terraformable planet I surface scanned it.

I finally came back and I just earned 39.000.000 credits. Is this normal? Did I do something wrong? How can I earn more money?
Click to expand...

Just the honk alone doesn't pay much, using the FSS Scanner Screen to scan a body pays a bit better, completing the system scan (USSs don't count) pays a completion bonus.

Then as others describe, cherry picking things like terraformable high-metal content worlds & other stuff to map can pay 1-3m per planet, and if you have the patience you get another bonus for completion mapping a system.

I was out for a month in January, I completion scanned just about every system I entered & mapped anything of interest for maybe the first week, I earned 1.3Billion credits.
I recently did a 30,000ly passenger mission in four days in a 70ly ship, again completion scanning every system on the way there & all but the last dozen or so systems on the way back and got around another 250mCr, I think I mapped maybe two small moons.

I think comp scanning stuff for the codex should, as the logical end product of exploring a system be worth more relative to the other stuff.
 
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varonica

varonica
Rokus said:
So I just got back from exploring for a very long time! This was my first real exploration and it was great.
I went all the way to the lagoon nebula and after that shortly to the trifid nebula.
Click to expand...

Got 1.7b from my last run.

So, as stated just honking doesn't get you much, nor do ice and rocky bodies, but a first discovery and FSS scan of any bodies long your way will triple your return, first discovery and scan of an ELW or WW will net you +3m. So at minimum honk, check your FSS for signals in the ELW WW range and map those, terraformables will also net you in the range of an additional million depending on type.
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
Let take two of my accounts. Let say I use two explorers same specs. We are going to the same destination from Sol to Colonia. Let give the most direct route a shorter jump range so both ships have the same stars explored.

Ship A is the most direct route. Let say 400 Jumps. Problem is it the most direct route has already had 60 to 75% of it has already been explored.

Now Ship B with a longer jump range still 400 Jumps. It offset course 500 to 1000 Ly out outside the main course. Before heading to Colonia. Even if it has a longer jump range. That area he going to is rarely explored. So 95% of your exploration will be unexplored. So you get a higher payout.
 

pzykozomatik

pzykozomatik
Vardaugas said:
Don't forget terraforming candidates. They are about as common as all the above combined and yield several hundred thousand a pop. It adds up, especially since they often enough come in pairs or triples.
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This. I went Exploration Elite after the first three weeks of DW2 on a new alt account by scanning those / HMC worlds in general.
 
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dubsdj

dubsdj
Rokus said:
So I just got back from exploring for a very long time! This was my first real exploration and it was great.
I went all the way to the lagoon nebula and after that shortly to the trifid nebula.

I spent all the time scanning with the discovery scanner while jumping and when I was finally at the nebula, I scanned with the fss.
When I found a earth-like or terraformable planet I surface scanned it.

I finally came back and I just earned 39.000.000 credits. Is this normal? Did I do something wrong? How can I earn more money?
Click to expand...

Sounds about right.

Just to rub it in, I made over 16 mil doing 2 trips one hop from Sol last night. Gold delivery and Pallidium pick up.
I wouldn't make as much delivering 5000 units of biowaste!
 

andrewg_oz

andrewg_oz
If you're on PC, get yourself a second screen of some sort - an actual second screen on your PC, a second PC, a tablet or phone. Something that can show a web page. Then get an EDSM account and link your game to that. See the EDSM FAQs for more info. I think I've heard something about console support for EDSM too, but I'm not sure.

Then, while you're playing, keep your EDSM Dashboard page open. It will show you what system you're in and list high-value bodies for scanning, updating automatically as you fly and scan. I reckon I scanned over 50MCr just last night, and have over 1.8BCr scanned since I left Explorers Anchorage on Distant Worlds 2 a bit over 3 months ago.
 

Brian of Earth

Brian of Earth
All the above is good and maybe I'm just a "yes" man, but the route plotter and patience are the key.

When I am just knocking about my plotter is always set to KGBFOAM. It's always possible there's interesting things to find around non-scoopable systems, but in my experience not enough to change my thinking when I'm out in the black, and it reduces the refueling drama. When you are in denser space (like towards the core) I switch my plotter to plot BLUE or WHITE stars (OBAF and sometimes G). I have found better hunting when excluding the red stars, they have more icy worlds in them, which are not interesting :/ usually.

There's also black holes and white dwarfs to gloat over, when you are in the mood and in more densely populated space change your plotter to only show White Dwarfs and Non Sequence and then look around..

To me exploring is finding scanning and sometimes mapping what no one else has. I very rarely scan anything that someone has found already, I just keep going.. FIRST DISCOVERED BY.. that's usually me lol

You can always switch your plotter around to any configuration you want and at any time, never worry about re-plotting. I know generally what my path and goals are when I head out but how I achieve those goals as always negotiable :)

Anyway, you can just do RTR just to make money, or you can find your own RTR, which I think is more interesting.

Alright folks, I'll be back again in a few months, TA!
 
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