What's my best choice to explore ?

cmbtsmrf

cmbtsmrf
Hi All,

Just decided a day or so ago to star my new career exploring. I've got my A rated python, Surface scanner, Adv Scanner and class 5 Fuel scoop loaded up. I'm currently at Piscium Sector UJ-R b4-0 and have decided to head towards the core but more to the left of the core. Going to keep going till I tire.

So, when I hit a system, I always scan, and target the primary star and get a scan of it. Question is, should I spend the time to scan all the planets/stars in the system or just the primary and keep going ?

I would love to hear from some people on what others have been doing. Ultimately I want to level up my surveying rank and obviously collect $$$$$ !!

Any advice ?

 

Cmdr Frawd Digger

Cmdr Frawd Digger
Hay Cmdr,

Good to see you give exploring a go...personally I love it!

A few comments:

"Going to keep going till I tire"...if you keep going until you tire of it, you still have to head all the way back. In other words, if this is your first exploration trip and you don't know if you like exploration, best to stay within a few KLY of the bubble, that way it's pretty quick to get back home. If you go to the core and realise you really hate exploring now you still have 10s of KLY to head back again (or the unthinkable option of self-destructing thereby losing all you hard-earned data).

If you're going into exploration for the money alone, then you're in the wrong profession...just about all the other ED professions earn credits faster than exploration. Go into exploration to see amazing things, to go places few in ED have gone etc etc...and while it's true a long trip will earn you 100s of millions of credits...it takes a LONG trip to get that kind of money.

As for scanning style...you will have to figure that out for yourself. Personally I use different styles based on the current circumstances. If I am in a real hurry I only jump-honk-scoop-jump. The method I am using now is jump-honk-scoop-look at system map-scan WW/ELW-jump. When I get close to my destination I plan on spending a little more time in each system, scanning all the interesting planets and blasting around down canyons/craters (a little more carefully than I have done in the past though).

Hope these thoughts help, and good luck.

Frawd
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
Check the image below. EDIT - Chart image updated - the suggestions for when to scanare a pretty good rule of thumb. This is pretty much how I did it, and ended up with about 29k cr/system average, from memory.

latest


Also, as much as water worlds, and especially, Earth-like worlds are the "rock stars" of exploration, the humble High Metal Content (HMC) planet that is a terraforming(TF) candidate IS your bread and butter. They can be worth almost as much as an Eart-like, and there are FAR more of them. You will make more money from HMC TF planets overall than anything else, unless you start neutron/black hole farming, which is the most boring soul crushing endeavour your could try...

There is a thread about the "golden zone" for terraforming candidates around the various star classes - learn them, and religiously scan HMC planets in that zone. Though, I'd argue that scanning all HMC planets with 3000Ls is very worthwhile.

Oh, and.. Erm. Either de-A rate your Python, or buy an Asp. first discoveries get you a 50% bonus, it'll take you forever to get out of the "discovered systems" zones in a fully A-rated Python...

Z...

Edit - updated to current chart
 
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iain666

iain666
Zeeman said:
Check the image below. You can roughly double the values, as the chart is out of date, but the suggestions for when to scan them are still 100% valid.
Click to expand...

Well, except for "Rocks - Always skip" - they can be terraforming candidates so the rocky ones in the goldilocks zone can be worth checking. Let's call them 95% valid :)
 

Zulu Romeo

Zulu Romeo
It might also be worth scanning those rocks that you can land on. Imagine the glory of having a discovery tag on a ball of rock that plays host to barnacles or a rich source of polonium...
 

Whiterose

Whiterose
Essentially its up to you mate. Do what you do and what you want to do. We don't have rules about what to scan and what not to scan, lively debates yes, but no rules.
 

cmbtsmrf

cmbtsmrf
Well, Thanks all for the advice. I decided that a run to visit the California nebulae was in order. This way I am still close enough to return. I figure I'll do the run, scan some stuff. Basically been scanning entire systems if I get a feeling it might be worth it. Otherwise I honk, scoop and go ! I figure that when I return to the bubble, I will pick up an ASP, Outfit it and go to another Nebulae. They are pretty cool to look at.

Thanks for the input !
 

who?

who?
Sugarat said:
Here's the updated visual guide..

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...Dubardo.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160115141708
Click to expand...

Cheers for posting that!

One weird thing I noticed on the current trip - I was able to scan one star from 34,000 Ls, that's considerably further than the scannable distance listed - but I guess there are outliers for any data points.

To the OP - as said above, there isn't any right way.

Personally - I try to find "routes" that haven't been explored before, so drop down maybe 200Ly below the plane or rise 200Ly above it to find virgin territory. Then I'll always scan the arrival star, do a "honk" and have a look at the system map while scooping. I'll typically scan stars since they can be scanned from a distance and don't slow your supercruise as much - often you can scan 2 or 3 stars just by turning around. Gas giants too are handy, can often be scanned from ~1,000 Ls away so nice and easy. I'll ALWAYS scan earth-like and water worlds, neutron stars and black holes too.

The small planets - high metal content and metal rich - may be worth it, but you typically have to get very close and it slows your supercruise to a crawl, so it may actually be better to just honk and move systems than scan each of them. IME though, metal-rich planets are better for finding rarer materials.

Rocky, icy planets almost never.

As posted elsewhere - it's a real shame now that you get virtually no info about what you're scanning unless you bring up the system map (which takes ages, locks up your screen while loading, and kind of takes you "out of the cockpit"). It'd be great to get a planetary schematic and the body info in-cockpit once the scan completes. I often don't even get close to the planets I'm scanning since you just get stuck in the gravity well then which slows you down...
 

Senik

S
All good advice here. My personal approach is:

  1. Jump into system
  2. Start charging discovery scanner and point directly toward the star at full throttle
  3. Drop to 0% throttle right before it starts scooping, so I end up sitting at minimum speed with around 100-150 kg/s scooping rate (6A scoop)
  4. Around that time, the discovery scan will have finished
  5. Target the star to start the detailed scan, then open the system map and look for high value planets
  6. If there is an Earth-like/water/ammonia world, I always scan it
  7. If there is anything big/close enough that it can be scanned from my location at the star, without any flying, I'll also grab those
These two threads are invaluable. I'd rep these CMDRs daily if I could:


It will take you a few weeks and 100s of scans, but you will eventually memorize it and it will save you a ton of time. In particular a lot of HMC worlds look like ELW, so learning the sounds can save you from a long and disappointing trip across the system. Also, learn the HUD image for metal-rich worlds -- they are the only ones that use that image, they are worth a good amount, and they are always orbiting very close to stars (so you can usually scan them without even having to fly closer).

If you want to scan more often for whatever reason, save it for systems that have a bunch of HMC and rocky (not rocky ice) planets in a star's "habitable zone". That will be your biggest money maker (probably second only to neutron star farming) because you'll frequently find terraformable worlds mixed in there that are worth a lot more.

Once in a while I'll get a wild hair and decide to scan an entire system for a change of pace, or to go check out a planet with really unusual colors/patterns. But you'll find that the majority of planets are really generic/boring rocky/ice worlds that all look nearly identical, and are worth almost nothing. So it's usually better just to keep moving. Using my steps above, I can be in and out of a system in under a minute if there's nothing worth sticking around for.
 
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MattG

MattG
who? said:
One weird thing I noticed on the current trip - I was able to scan one star from 34,000 Ls, that's considerably further than the scannable distance listed - but I guess there are outliers for any data points.
Click to expand...

I believe star scannable distance increases as a factor of the radius of the star. 1 solar radius is (I think) scannable between 9000 and 10000 LS (~9400 LS maybe). 2 solar radii would be scannable from double that range. I once encountered a monster class B that was ~399 solar radii, and 330,000 LS from main star. It scanned without moving. Assuming my maths is right, I could've traveled well over 3.5 million LS away from it and it still would've scanned.

What was the radius of the one you scanned from 34,000 LS ?
 

Zeeman

Zeeman
MattG said:
I believe star scannable distance increases as a factor of the radius of the star. 1 solar radius is (I think) scannable between 9000 and 10000 LS (~9400 LS maybe). 2 solar radii would be scannable from double that range. I once encountered a monster class B that was ~399 solar radii, and 330,000 LS from main star. It scanned without moving. Assuming my maths is right, I could've traveled well over 3.5 million LS away from it and it still would've scanned.

What was the radius of the one you scanned from 34,000 LS ?
Click to expand...

The "other" object at Sag A* (A gigantic blue star, form memory) can be scanned from Sag A*. It's about 65k LS away...

Z...
 

Deepfriedmal

D
As previously stated, there is no wrong or right way to explore, that's one of the great things about this game. personally I enjoy getting my name on things and am keeping a count of how many I manage, so I will (when I find a system totally untagged) go for all in the system - depending if I am travelling to a place or exploring mode... currently on my way out so just a quick blip and refuel and on my way again. I should be there this evening and I will scan all the systems in that area then move on slowly. This is not the way to earn lots of credits but it gives me great satisfaction and I currently have some 16,500 objects with my commander name on.
Mal
 
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