Should Explorers rush back to civilization to mine, or should they press on and cash in later?

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Really, the question boils down to: is mining or exploration more lucrative? I'm thinking of the FC announced base cost of 5 billion.

Should I be scanning everything out here in the black, or just go to Colonia or the Bubble and mine for my next 3 billion in assets ? :unsure:
 

Apsley

Apsley
Mining is more lucrative, but... why the rush? They're not arriving until June, so either way thats quite a bit of time to get the cash together.

I'm short 1bil at the moment, my plan is to do the stuff I like and squirrel away the cash. I won't make a purchase until I have 6bil as its always nice to have a bit of float.
 

Vedmo

Vedmo
Pretty hard to beat a triple LTD hotspot for strait cr/hr right now for a solo Commander. Usually takes me a couple of hours to get ~400 tons with laser mining, and even with a bulk tax and maybe not the highest paying station, that's well over 100 million an hour.

Just doing bgs work for 20-30 hours a week I usually bring in anywhere from a quarter to half billion a week, which beats any exploration payouts I've gotten (I very well may just suck at making credits through exploration).
 
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d8veh

d8veh
The most lucrative activity in the game is laser mining LTDs, assuming that you play on your own. That gets you about 150 mil per hour. After that is passenger sight-seeing missions from Robigo in a shieldless Python that gets you an average of 100 mil per hour. Scanning planets is a long way behind both of those at something around 15 mil per hour, though it can be tripled by doing the LI Yong Rui level 5 powerplay before cashing in your data.
 

BDelacroix

BDelacroix
Explorer data pays fairly well. If you have a lot of data you may be good to go.
Having said that, during the last distant worlds I scanned all systems I visited along the way stopping to map any water, earthlike and ammonia world along the way. Didn't make 5 billion when i got back but it was still more than distant worlds 1.

What I want to do is get one of these and cross decision point again to visit my sister-in-law's memorial in elysium without having to blow up to get back.
 

Sylow

Sylow
There's no real use for a carrier for an explorer.

I mean, at the moment you travel from system to system. You scoop some fuel, you move on. With a carrier, while you can cover a bigger distance per jump, you'll then quite certainly require much more time to collect the fuel again.

All in all, without anybody here knowing the final numbers, I would very much expect that you can travel the same 500 LY faster by just jumping and scooping than by collecting fuel for a carrier. And on the normal exploration route you go through more systems, increasing your chance that you see something interesting.

The only thing where the huge jump range could be of use is if you specialize in exploring systems at the galaxies edge, which can not be reached by a normal ships jump range.

Of course that's just based on the information we have up to now. Perhaps some of the modules change everything and we just don't know that yet. But I kind of doubt that. Thus I also don't see any point of such a ship for a casual mix-and-match-style player like me. Time will tell.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Sylow said:
There's no real use for a carrier for an explorer.

I mean, at the moment you travel from system to system. You scoop some fuel, you move on. With a carrier, while you can cover a bigger distance per jump, you'll then quite certainly require much more time to collect the fuel again.

All in all, without anybody here knowing the final numbers, I would very much expect that you can travel the same 500 LY faster by just jumping and scooping than by collecting fuel for a carrier. And on the normal exploration route you go through more systems, increasing your chance that you see something interesting.

The only thing where the huge jump range could be of use is if you specialize in exploring systems at the galaxies edge, which can not be reached by a normal ships jump range.

Of course that's just based on the information we have up to now. Perhaps some of the modules change everything and we just don't know that yet. But I kind of doubt that. Thus I also don't see any point of such a ship for a casual mix-and-match-style player like me. Time will tell.
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They would provide a base. Park it somewhere out in the black and you can explore a radius around it, return and (maybe) cash in and repair.

Also, visit other commanders' FCs in a kind of daisy chain to wherever you want to visit. It might not be necessary to have ships with high jump distance capability any more.

Additionally, explorers can become miners, and maybe their ships will be better served with mining equipment working out of their own, or other, FCs. Hence profit for explorers while out in the black without having to return to civilization.
 

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
Lightspeed said:
They would provide a base. Park it somewhere out in the black and you can explore a radius around it, return and (maybe) cash in and repair.

Also, visit other commanders' FCs in a kind of daisy chain to wherever you want to visit. It might not be necessary to have ships with high jump distance capability any more.

Additionally, explorers can become miners, and maybe their ships will be better served with mining equipment working out of their own, or other, FCs. Hence profit for explorers while out in the black without having to return to civilization.
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You can create a mobile mini-bubble. :)
 

Kelster87

Kelster87
Why the hell would I rush back from 20k ly out? Sag A* is closer to me right now than the bubble.. I've got another 30k ly to go before I even think about looking for somewhere to dock. I'm also not a huge fan of "I want it now!" as it seems to lead to grindy business and always remember what happened to Veruca Salt.

Also, there are too many unknowns about FC's for me to get all that excited at this point, I'll wait and see if they will be of any use to me.
 

[Diplomacy] Carnegie

[Diplomacy] Carnegie
Lightspeed said:
They would provide a base. Park it somewhere out in the black and you can explore a radius around it, return and (maybe) cash in and repair.

Also, visit other commanders' FCs in a kind of daisy chain to wherever you want to visit. It might not be necessary to have ships with high jump distance capability any more.

Additionally, explorers can become miners, and maybe their ships will be better served with mining equipment working out of their own, or other, FCs. Hence profit for explorers while out in the black without having to return to civilization.
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Yeah, there's a bunch of ways that FCs could benefit explorers - so long as they enjoy mining too. Sadly for me FCs don't seem to fit my particular playstyle(s).

Also if, as seems likely, Exploration FCs will have a Universal Cartographics link that would just make the whole process far too easy. It's already too game-ified with the FSS making the need to actually fly a spaceship an optional extra.

Bah and, as a wise man once said, humbug!

Edit:
Oh, and there's a maintenance grind too?
Definitely not partaking.
 
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aRJay

aRJay
Lightspeed said:
Really, the question boils down to: is mining or exploration more lucrative? I'm thinking of the FC announced base cost of 5 billion.

Should I be scanning everything out here in the black, or just go to Colonia or the Bubble and mine for my next 3 billion in assets ? :unsure:
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You should do the things you find most enjoyable.

Remember FCs are going to be available to buy for a long time.

Of course if you want to try one out in the betas then the advice is different.
Do the things you find most enjoyable that make money and do them more.
 

Stealthie

Stealthie
aRJay said:
You should do the things you find most enjoyable.
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Was just about to post almost the same thing... with some justifications.

For me, the fun of mining IS to optimise my ship and my procedure to be as efficient as possible.
Exploration, OTOH, is all about seeing cool stuff.

Mining to generate credits and exploration to generate cool screenies.
 
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