Which bodies to scan for Exploration ranking?

I have been doing exobiology for a bit and find myself suddenly wondering if I should be DSSing planets without biology to get more Exploration payouts and ranking.

Should I be traveling to bodies with geological features (geysers etc) and scanning them?
I guess ELW and WW too.
Anything else? High metal content?
 
Terraformable HMC's are valuable when you DSS them as far as exploration payouts go, and ELW, WW and Ammonia Worlds are also valuable.
 
I think I've only seen that pop up once or twice, terraformable planets. So a garden variety HMC not worth it?
 
it's all $$$ based, so you have to decide is it worth going 500kls for one Earthlike compared to scanning 6 HMC within 20 ls of the sun.

Source: https://i.imgur.com/HYLDDOz.png



Okay, so I'm asking. What would you choose to do? :p

It really doesn't matter for me, I guess, I don't know how to hunt down ELWs anyway. Although I have stumbled across a few.
 
That question doesn't work for me 😛 I'm filthy rich and already Elite in Explo so I do what amuses me. It's mostly random anyway, some star types are more likely to produce earthlikes but if everyone is doing the same they're missing out on the unlikely ones (like the ones around neutrons which are probably more interesting). Found a few orbiting Ms because people were too good for them? 🤷‍♂️
 
Found a few orbiting Ms
More likely, they removed M class stars from filters because they primarily hold frozen rocks around them, if the primary star(certainly in my experience).

I do leave K types and some below that in just in case something curious pops up, and it seems that the main star can have an effect on terraformables or Earth-likes/water worlds even on the secondary(eg main is K, secondary is M with a bunch of terraformable HMCs). Or, another example, a T class dwarf orbiting at the barycenter of an F class and some other star at a distance of about 3.6k ls. Said T class dwarf held a terraformable water world at 15 ls distance to it. Probably one of my neatest finds to date. Another… terraformable HMC near a white dwarf(it was tertiary in the system, iirc). Not quite sure whether to call that second one prime real estate, though.

Sometimes get that temptation to toggle the M class back in just in case something curious does pop up with them. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t.

Anyway, if your brain says go scan that valuable world 500k ls out, and you have the patience and time to spare, I say why not? Mostly ends up becoming a matter of patience for me, though, rather than monetary or time investment. Not like you can do a lot during that supercruise trek.
 
Anything worth more than 1m, determining that of course is difficult unless you have something like Elite Observatory, which will tell you whenever you scan something worth more than a given value. If you are seriously after the exploration levels I suggest installing something to help, there are a few around that will do the job.
 
If your in it just for the explorer rank, fss system, scan only terraformable's and earth likes and move on. (rank based on $$ values turned in) If your gonna explore and do bio's to benefit both explorer and bio rank drop on the planets with bio's and scan the bio's. right now we're out in the black and averaging 400,000,000.00 (explo and bio's) for 2-3 hours of relaxing, casual exploration, and this trip I went over 1000 first foot falls just enjoying the trip in a hauler. jump range not as important as you might think, and right now doing only a,f,k stars only
 
Earth-Like Worlds, Water Worlds, Terraformable HMCs and Ammonia Worlds for me. The bulk of the money comes from Water Worlds and Terraformable HMCs though, just due to the massive amount of them which you will encounter.
And to add to this for maximum gain, travel out to a region of space not yet explored by others. Get the first scan bonuses, plus if you are doing exobiology you want planets not already foot-falled by others... to save time its easiest to travel to an unexplored area. Also you get the satisfaction of getting first discovered and first scanned tags.
 
just got back to the bubble tonight after a short jaunt into the black... over 4 billion and only hit a,f,k, stars. as mentioned above go to virgin territory and get the first discovered, first footfalls and bio's. on this last trip it appeared the F6 stars produced the most bio,s (went east from the bubble 5-6000 out) one system had 26 bios and paid over 400,000,000 on bio's alone. I noticed on this trip especially that water worlds really don't pay that well compared to any terra planet or moon. fss the system, cherry pick the terra's and bio's (and anything that grabs your attention) and move on, for me this was the quickest and easiest result. but you go on your own path and your own methods because everybody's goals and desires are different for exploring.
 
These might be out of date(?). Copied from the internet. The general message of what pays good is consistent.

Items that reward +1 million: ELW, WW, Teraformibles, Ammonia World.

FSS = Seen on the FSS
FD = First Discovery
DSS = Detailed Surface Scan
FM = First Mapped (using DSS)

ED Exploration Payouts 2019.jpg
ED Exploration Payouts 2020.png
ED Exploration Payouts 2021.png
 
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Does anyone know if the payouts listed on the wiki are still accurate?

 
Does anyone know if the payouts listed on the wiki are still accurate?


With a quick glance I would say no, I have often got well over 4m for terraformable WW and over 4m for ELW, so I would suggest that it hasn't been updated for a while. I can't give you a 100% guarantee because I would need to test to confirm, but the values seem low in my experience.
 
Does anyone know if the payouts listed on the wiki are still accurate?

They are incorrect. (Well, they might be correct for Legacy mode / consoles).

Values were updated for Odyssey and the 4.0 version of Horizons, and you can see the values here. I think Greasetrap42's link to "2021 payouts" might be the same table.


Or, you could just install Observatory Core (using the ObservatorySetup.exe version), and then grab Evaluator. This'll show you the bodies as you scan them and their expected values. It'll show you which ones are worth mapping, and even give the best order to visit them along with popups and/or voice notifications too. You can even set maximum distances you're prepared to travel, and minimum values you'd travel for.
 
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