So, this is where the money is.... Exploring

[marx]

Engineers don't take credits. I wish they did.

While engineers don't take credits directly, if you don't already have a fully equipped ship for the roles required to unlock them - for example, all you have is an exploration ship - then you will need those credits.
I'd say that the biggest change the increased payouts brought was that a new player can feasibly start out exploring and make decent money while doing so. Like others have mentioned, it's also a good way to kickstart some alts, since the barrier to entry for exploration is very low - especially if you consider that you basically reach maximum possible profit per hour immediately.

Speaking of profit per hour...

How things have changed. I remember doing a 9 month trip, and coming back with 254m cr worth of data. I made another 300m in the bubble that next week...

No offense, but real time elapsed is not a good measure. For example, suppose somebody said that they made fifty million credits in a day. Sounds good? You might assume that they played a couple of hours during that time - then it turns out that they spent 16 hours of that day playing. Sounds much worse.
So it's better to say the total playtime spent. Of course, that's a bit more difficult to measure, but EDDiscovery or other tools can help you there.

Exploration used to be one of the worst things to do when it came to profits per hour. Now it's actually competitive, and if you're power-leveling it, it's around the top even. Plus it not only has a very low barrier to entry (if you don't run passengers), but very low risk too.

 

[Ism]

I launched from Colonia on an exploration trip several weeks ago. I just got back tonight and turned my cartography data (another grueling 1-1/2hrs.).
I didn't have any real goal except to farm black holes and look for ELW's.
I scanned white dwarfs and neutron stars that had planetary systems (looking at system map while scan was taking place). Water worlds that were candidates for terraforming and some that weren't.
I visited 4614 systems. My cartography data netted me 390 million cr. That comes to an average just shy of 85,000cr per system visited.
I'd say 2/3 of the systems were a simple ADS scan while I gassed up. Very few systems of value were previously tagged so I got the discovery bonus on top.
Not the best way to make money, but I like exploration and the bonus of a decent payout at the end of the trip was sweet!

 

[ArgusP]

The increasing ease of acquiring credits can mean only one thing. The Galatic Central Bank is flooding the economy with credits, that we face a collapse of the accepted currency and what we should be worried about is protecting what we have. I want to be able to buy a hoard of gold and store it on my own planet for the future.

 

[space voyager]

So, buy now before the bubble burts and money is worth nothing!

 

[Charlie Hustle]

Just bought my FDL, and tricked it out, costed me a total of 120mil. But now im an official bully of any given system. Just got my pew pew on this past weekend, got promoted to master in the empire in the process. Now im going back to the black to make some more MONEY. Gonna take a trip to VY canis Majoris, scan everything and cash back in. Also i got my AspX and fdl engineered to hop 36ly and 17ly respectively.

 

[space voyager]

So basically you bought an FDL, turned into a warmachine and... went exploring with AspX? I did the same with Anaconda!

No matter what you buy, if you're an explorer at heart...

 

[Charlie Hustle]

So basically you bought an FDL, turned into a warmachine and... went exploring with AspX? I did the same with Anaconda!

No matter what you buy, if you're an explorer at heart...

....yeah.. basically.. Exploring pretty cool. The last two times i had passengers, this time, no passengers, but im bringing my rover instead. Would like to actually explore, and collect stuff. And collect money while im at it with no rush to getting back to the bubble.

 

[LP Garnell]

So basically you bought an FDL, turned into a warmachine and... went exploring with AspX? I did the same with Anaconda!

No matter what you buy, if you're an explorer at heart...

Same here. Had been grinding federation rank a couple of days here and there for months. Finally able to get my Corvette in June.

Engineered it to the max plus best ship armor. Spent 900m+ credits (all with 10 and 15% founders/LY Rui discounts). Had some fun with it for a while. However . . .

Left the bubble 12 Jul and am still out in the deep.

 

[space voyager]

Left the bubble 12 Jul and am still out in the deep.

My hero! I'm only out for two weeks now, loving the solitude. I'd love to grind up to Corvette but I doubt I will really, I'm fed up with missions too fast. And then out it is.

I bought Anaconda for exploration really but its turn rate was killing me, so it was turned into a warmachine, engineered quite a lot and left behind.

 

[Orvidius]

I'm itching to get back out there. I've been in the bubble for weeks, engineering and grinding rep. I'm waiting to see if 2.4 changes anything for us, before heading back out. The good news is that I earned myself a Cutter, and over a billion credits, and enhanced several of my other ships. All so that they can stay locked away in a hangar when I return to exploring.

 

[WR3ND]

Money is in bugs and exploits. Always has been.

Explains why I never seem to have any.

All the same though, I have enough to get along just fine as I like, considering the biggest ship I'll likely ever bother owning is a Python.

Cheers.

 

[khaos526]

I've made a lot with exploration in just my AspX. The last recent 2.5 month one netted me about 800,000 million. It's the most fun I have in the game. I love just seeing new things, discovering new things and having my name on the new things. Before 2.3 it wasn't worth it, but now you can make some good cash, but not as much as some other professions.

When I got back to the bubble recently, I bought an Anaconda for a quick bubble to Coloina ship, took around about way to get to Colonia and transferred my Asp there so that I could have a good central location for more explorations in the AspX, leaving the Anaconda as the express bus between the two.

The big thing is if you travel along the same paths of everyone else, you won't net nearly as much as going off the beaten track and getting the first discovery bonus.

But some find it boring, and I find it exciting knowing I'm going to be the first in a new system and I have no idea nor the generator knows what I will find until I get there...

 

[WR3ND]

I haven't turned in exploration data yet since the credit boost to it. Been out in the black since before then. Will be interesting to see what sort of payout I get when I return.

 

[khaos526]

I haven't turned in exploration data yet since the credit boost to it. Been out in the black since before then. Will be interesting to see what sort of payout I get when I return.

Well put it this way ELW's I think paid out like 70,000 credits back then, now you get that with a simple metal rich planet while the ELW base price is 627,885 not including first discovery bonus.

The bad part though exploring as I always find out, the longer I'm out, the greater chance someone else has scanned the same ELW or whatever before me or after me and beat be to cashing it it and getting credit for it. I used EDDiscovery and mark all my ELW, WW and Ammonia worlds and Black holes and sucks to go back to see if my name on the ELW's or the Black Holes to find someone else's name...

 

[Qohen Leth]

I haven't turned in exploration data yet since the credit boost to it. Been out in the black since before then. Will be interesting to see what sort of payout I get when I return.

What you scanned before the update will reward the same as it used to.