Returned to the game after about six months away and I'd like to make a big push to Elite exploration ranking. I'm currently sitting at 5% pioneer, so just under 100M to go. I've got 3 ideas of how to go about it, but I'm not sure how well two of them would work and the one I know would work (neutron farming) is my least preferred option. Can anyone give me a better idea/feedback on the following options?1. Speed run circumnavigating the galaxy in a 35 LY jump range ASP. My best guess is that I could do it in somewhere between 5500-7000 jumps. If I just honk and fuel scoop in passing while lining up the next jump, pausing for longer refuels only when necessary I think I could make the trip in about 100 hrs. Not sure that will actually net 100 million though - it would require an average of around 15,000 creds per system honked and I'm not sure if that's realistic. 2. "Local" economic jumps (about 200 per 1k LY travelled) in a 20 LY jump range imperial clipper with 144 (not a typo) tons of fuel. Basically this is like the first option, except that instead of travelling around the galaxy it stays within a few thousand LYs of the bubble, criss crossing back and forth until it accumulates enough systems visited and honked to earn 100 million. No surface scanning, no checking the system map for any reason, just honk and go. Between the combination of honk-and-go, economic jumps, 144 tons of fuel, and a 6A fuel scoop grabbing up whatever fuel in passing it can while lining up for the next jump I don't expect to need to pause for refueling more often than once every few hundred jumps. That's one advantage of this over option 1, the other is that the return trip shouldn't be more than a few thousand LY. 3. Neutron star farming. I've avoided this so far and would prefer to continue to do so, but if neither one of the first two options seems like a good choice than this is my back up plan.Feedback or thoughts?
Which of these will help me rank up the fastest?
- Thread starter selrach
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You know, neutron farming doesn't need to be farming at all - there are plenty of very interesting systems located in the neutron fields. If you're not interested in exploration I wouldn't bother chasing the elite rating for it, without actually liking exploration it'll be a grind that stands a good chance of burning you right out of the game.
Having said that, I don't think circumnavigation is the most practical option out of the three. I'd say either go to the neutron fields or do a shorter, close to the bubble exploration trip where you scan lots of objects.
Having said that, I don't think circumnavigation is the most practical option out of the three. I'd say either go to the neutron fields or do a shorter, close to the bubble exploration trip where you scan lots of objects.
Just honking systems works out at somewhere in the region of 10k per system on average. You could theoretically do as many as 80 systems per hour although 70 is more plausible and even that is going to be tiring & monotonous. That would net around 700k credits per hour.
When neutron farming you can do around 45 systems per hour which allows for needing to manually select each system plus an occasional bit of scanning. Including first discovery bonus it will work out at around 65K per system so pushing 3 million per hour.
If all you are after is the rank, then neutron farming is a no-brainer. And, IMO, it is a *lot* less soul destroying with the chance to discover some really interesting systems. Just be careful not to run out of fuel, it is incredibly easy to forget about it!
When neutron farming you can do around 45 systems per hour which allows for needing to manually select each system plus an occasional bit of scanning. Including first discovery bonus it will work out at around 65K per system so pushing 3 million per hour.
If all you are after is the rank, then neutron farming is a no-brainer. And, IMO, it is a *lot* less soul destroying with the chance to discover some really interesting systems. Just be careful not to run out of fuel, it is incredibly easy to forget about it!
*if* I was trying to do what you're hoping to achieve, I'd get to the Neutron fields and plot a 1000LY path on economic right through them. This way you'd have a significant %age chance of hitting the NS / BH for the money and be honk / scooping every other time. It'll add some variety and stave of the insanity for a while.
I do, actually, quite like exploration. I've been to Sag A, have the obligatory first discovery on thousands of objects scattered across 5,000 systems, spend a short hop this weekend going 9,000 LY out to the Monkey's Butt (as far beyond the Monkey's Head nebula as you can go on a straight line from Sol before hitting the edge), etc. My goal to rank quickly is that once it's achieved, if I want to spend the next year out in the black I don't need to worry about getting destroyed and losing data I need to rank up. It's simply one less thing to worry about.
Fair enough - regardless, the neutron fields are your best bet here. Since you enjoy exploration you'll appreciate the occasional crazy system you encounter 
I suggest using Captain's Log to keep a running estimate on your profits, and once that hits 100 mil, head on home..
I suppose another way might be to use Li Yong Rui's rank 5 200% bonus, but that's a very impractical bonus to achieve, because you either need to fly around the bubble ranking up, risking your data in the process, or you need to take trips that take less than a week, having ranked up to 5 first. Either way, not very practical.
I suggest using Captain's Log to keep a running estimate on your profits, and once that hits 100 mil, head on home..I suppose another way might be to use Li Yong Rui's rank 5 200% bonus, but that's a very impractical bonus to achieve, because you either need to fly around the bubble ranking up, risking your data in the process, or you need to take trips that take less than a week, having ranked up to 5 first. Either way, not very practical.
Yeah, that kind of kills it. For one thing I'd planned on ~50 jumps per hour so as not to burn out, but more importantly the total number of jumps to circumnavigate the galaxy wouldn't end up giving me quite enough cash to make the final rank. I'd end up still needing to do another 3 or 4 thousand systems at the end. Also kind of kills the second option, since I'd have to be looking at around another 10k jumps/systems visited with that method as well.
as other have said - neutron farming, and it is actually more interesting than jump&honk ... on the other hand, if you a really up for it, you could do a couble of buckyball-races to sag a and back with an advanced discovery scanner equipped only, and try to set some records - and unusual ships (vulture/viper mk III and them like), I'm not really sure how many jumps that is, but i personally would prefer the challenge above honk&jump only.
enjoy and fly safe! a friend of mine, who is elite explorer, decided to selfdestruct at the far rim for a quick return when 2.1. goes live - "i don't need the exploration data, do i?" - i hope, i never end that way
enjoy and fly safe! a friend of mine, who is elite explorer, decided to selfdestruct at the far rim for a quick return when 2.1. goes live - "i don't need the exploration data, do i?" - i hope, i never end that way
Fair enough - regardless, the neutron fields are your best bet here. Since you enjoy exploration you'll appreciate the occasional crazy system you encounter
I'm not sure captains log adds an amount per jump? Could be wrong and I just never noticed, but I thought you had to add each body you DSS to get a system value estimate.
Personally I find the jump & honk the best way to get to interesting points. I do stop for interesting systems though
Get a large ship with good jump range and pick a good 10-20 interesting points like Barnards loop, Veil Nebula, Vy Canis Majoris, Sag A*, planetary nebula etc etc.
Power jump in between, create an interesting route and estimate the KLy you'll travel as well as your ships jumps per 1000Ly. Multiply them and you'll have an estimate of systems visited for you to calculate profits.
Get an estimated 50mil (ideally 53mil) and use the Li Yong-Rui powerplay bonus to boost that to 150mil+. Elite is ~160mil so you'll be very close if not there.
Get a large ship with good jump range and pick a good 10-20 interesting points like Barnards loop, Veil Nebula, Vy Canis Majoris, Sag A*, planetary nebula etc etc.
Power jump in between, create an interesting route and estimate the KLy you'll travel as well as your ships jumps per 1000Ly. Multiply them and you'll have an estimate of systems visited for you to calculate profits.
Get an estimated 50mil (ideally 53mil) and use the Li Yong-Rui powerplay bonus to boost that to 150mil+. Elite is ~160mil so you'll be very close if not there.
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You do. But with neutron farming it's super fast, as in 99% of cases you'll just scan the primary and move on; jump, click off a neutron or a black hole in CL, switch back to find the surface scan done, move on. He should be able to get a pretty good estimate that way. This is all the OP's choice, really, tbh I never recommend grinds just to achieve rank myself as I find that's the fastest way to burn yourself out.
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Like I said, it's not about the rank. It's about the freedom from having to worry that the rank gives you. The whole time I'm off long distance I worry about having an accident and losing all of the work I've done so far that trip. Note that I don't worry about losing the cash, which I could care less about; but worry about losing the exploration data needed for ranking up, absolutely. Maxing exploration rank means the impact of losing months of exploration data is negligible - at that point it's just cash, and if I want to earn cash there are a thousand better ways to do that than exploring, so there's no real sting to it. So my thinking is pretty straightforward: get the rank quickly, so I can get on to the things I really want to explore without having to have any worries clouding my fun. Eventually I don't plan to ever even bother coming back to the bubble unless they release a better exploration ship that I want to buy
Once you have traveled a few Kylie towards the core and are out of the Orion Arm, just drop down to -2000Z. Then you can follow the DW/NS towards Sag A*, there are plenty of them, normally 1 every 2ish jumps. By time you have reached the normal farming area, you can probably turn around and do the same back. Farming and travelling at the same time is much more interesting.