This is a suggestion for a tech for exploration: a bay in your ship that has a single refuelable probe. The probe can be targeted at a certain planetary body within a system and it will go out as FSD speeds and scan that body and all of its moons. It then goes into orbit around the main planet originally scanned and deploys a beacon to get picked up via cargo-scoop. When it is picked up, it transfers to the pilot data about all of the planets equivelent to a detailed surface scan. It then must be refueled like an SRV in order to be reused.
Wrinkles that would make it fun: Probe Beacons can be detected by anyone with a scanner within range. So, if you're in an inhabited system, other players and NPCs might be attracted to your probe and attempt to steal it for the data (which would then become THEIR data). Advanced probes could be programmed to look for specific features and ping your ship if those features are found - like habitable worlds, worlds with xeno-archeological sites, worlds with certain kinds of minerals at a certain percentage, etc. Larger bays could hold additional probes.
Wrinkles that would make it fun: Probe Beacons can be detected by anyone with a scanner within range. So, if you're in an inhabited system, other players and NPCs might be attracted to your probe and attempt to steal it for the data (which would then become THEIR data). Advanced probes could be programmed to look for specific features and ping your ship if those features are found - like habitable worlds, worlds with xeno-archeological sites, worlds with certain kinds of minerals at a certain percentage, etc. Larger bays could hold additional probes.
