Seems like I have been doing exploring horribly wrong for days

The Law · Dec 23, 2014

So ever since I started playing, I was looking for stars and planets via system plane diffuse and if something moved by horizon. But NOBODY told that the basic discovery scanner can be fired and has 500 Ly range and automatically marks unexplored objects on your radar. Even youtubers played this joke on me. Damn it.

Those are kind of aspecst that are really newcomer unfriendly, and some clarification on modules would be nice in game.

LordRed · Dec 23, 2014

It is a learning curve. If it helps at all, the basic is 400. The intermediate is 1000 and the advanced will show everything system wide.

Zomb Lee · Dec 23, 2014

Maps make my brain hurt. A lot. If there was a trading system in game like in the Freelancer of old I'd sell you guys my discovery scanner. I can't wrap my head around universal cartography, and I imagine you gents and ladies that do understand and can do it are few and far between. A real commodity. 400+ billion star systems=brain puddle. Best of luck, and sorry for your current misfortune with the whole system. I didn't know scanner worked that way either.

Arkantes · Dec 23, 2014

The Law said:
So ever since I started playing, I was looking for stars and planets via system plane diffuse and if something moved by horizon. But NOBODY told that the basic discovery scanner can be fired and has 500 Ly range and automatically marks unexplored objects on your radar. Even youtubers played this joke on me. Damn it.

Those are kind of aspecst that are really newcomer unfriendly, and some clarification on modules would be nice in game.

It's not 500 ly, it's 500 ls, which is tiny. Most systems have stuff much further than that, so if you want to use the basic scanner the idea is still to SC around the system to spot moving dots. My advice for this is to use a sidey or an eagle and look through the top of your canopy as you fly offplane in a spiral pattern around the star. It's extremely efficient.

lonewarrior · Dec 23, 2014

I made the same mistake

And now I've started raking in the cash since I've been getting 40,000 for some star systems after easily finding the planets with the 500LS range

Veridis · Dec 23, 2014

Well I didn't know that, thanks...

Ben_BigBen · Dec 23, 2014

The only way to make it even vaguely pay well is to fit a detailed surface scanner (in addition to your discovery scanner and normal sensors) you get good extra money for planets this way

The Law · Dec 23, 2014

Arkantes said:
It's not 500 ly, it's 500 ls, which is tiny. Most systems have stuff much further than that, so if you want to use the basic scanner the idea is still to SC around the system to spot moving dots. My advice for this is to use a sidey or an eagle and look through the top of your canopy as you fly offplane in a spiral pattern around the star. It's extremely efficient.

Yeah, I know some objects are far off and have to be spotted, but what I though was that in order to discover the object, you have to fly really close to it, and with no way knowing how far it is and adjusting your speed, it tended to be relly frustrating and many times I overshot it. Now just find the object, head towards and fire the scanner until it is discovered and profit.

Frankfort · Dec 23, 2014

When you equip your ship with discovery and detailed service scanner the price of a completele scant system (scan all plannets)the prices wil go up enormously .

you can make up to 50000 to a 100000 credits and the the greater te distance you travel the higher the price

Cross · Dec 23, 2014

This sort of information needs to be made really, really obvious in the description of the item in-game. Honestly the amount of info we get on most of the equipment is completely unacceptable.

Salesman: "You totally need this Rating A Shield!"

Me: "It's five million credits. Why do I need this? What's better about it?"

Salesman: "... It's got an A Rating!"

Me: "..."

Mikey2305 · Dec 23, 2014

Its a good skill to have anyway... As has been said the basic discovery scanner is just that. There is often a heck of a lot there that your first honk doesnt find. Advanced does flag everything but is very expensive. It is such a buzz to deduce there is something there and then see it moving. Sort of like a hobbyist approach as opposed to factory farming where you can throw away those pesky icy planets cos they dont earn much... I love exploring!

Hexen · Dec 23, 2014

I didn't knew that either and I played since Beta 1 I guess

But I wasn't been exploring much either, sold my scanner to free some space once I got enough money to buy more firepower.

Balsbigbrother · Dec 23, 2014

Cross said:
This sort of information needs to be made really, really obvious in the description of the item in-game. Honestly the amount of info we get on most of the equipment is completely unacceptable.

Salesman: "You totally need this Rating A Shield!"

Me: "It's five million credits. Why do I need this? What's better about it?"

Salesman: "... It's got an A Rating!"

Me: "..."

This more than anything else is what really annoys me about Elite: Dangerous, its does a really terrible job with disseminating information about the game to the point you have to make wild guesses at lot of the time or simply not know as is the case highlighted with this thread.

I have seen this crop up in numerous threads and the usual response to this sort of criticism well you have to learn it or figure it out yourself just like the original game. Thing is the original game came with a glossy training manual that explained the basics and gave a lot of advanced information too, I still have mine somewhere on my bookshelf. This is simply missing from the game at this point and for a "launched" game that is pretty poor form.

I hope this aspect improves quickly or I can see many people simply being too frustrated to want to continue.

Unfit · Dec 23, 2014

Frankfort said:
When you equip your ship with discovery and detailed service scanner the price of a completele scant system (scan all plannets)the prices wil go up enormously .

you can make up to 50000 to a 100000 credits and the the greater te distance you travel the higher the price

Distance traveled or distance to system from where you sell it means nothing to the price you will get for a system. I thought so myself at the start, but it doesn't matter. If you discover it first or as nr 400 is currently not known to affect price, but we are several explorers trying to figure this out. What will affect the price, is the following:

* Stars - type, number of and mass
* Planets - type, number of and mass
* Black Holes - number of
* You get Zero cash for asteroid belts and rings

If it's 21 LY's away or 2100 LY's away means nothing.

Nutter · Dec 23, 2014

The Law said:
So ever since I started playing, I was looking for stars and planets via system plane diffuse and if something moved by horizon. But NOBODY told that the basic discovery scanner can be fired and has 500 Ly range and automatically marks unexplored objects on your radar. Even youtubers played this joke on me. Damn it.

Those are kind of aspecst that are really newcomer unfriendly, and some clarification on modules would be nice in game.

Well look at it this way, when the aliens arrive you may want to go back to this method of exploring, that scanner will most certainly let them know your out there scanning when that thing goes off! Lets hope they are not sensitive to scanner blasts! *Fog Horn Noise*

MadMonkey · Dec 23, 2014

I'm on my way to SOL... every time I jump, I hit the scanner as I spool up for the next jump. Makes me a nice bit of money when I stop and fuel up.

I was THRILLED when I found out that the discovery scanner can actually be fired!

CreepyD · Dec 23, 2014

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Explorer
I just updated this page after a 200 system / 1.6m exploration venture.
I was checking values in the station cartography and going back and checking those systems to work out what each thing gave roughly.

It's a good 'rough' idea.

Make sure you scan the star by targeting and looking at it before carrying on, it only takes a few secs and all adds up.
Again, rarer stars give more cash.
A Type O (1 in 3 million stars) gets more than a rubbish class T which are everywhere.
Same for planets and other objects, rarer is better.