Questions about hot air balloons and exploration

[Nightfall29]

I had a general pop up for "lets explore," "low intelligence person expedition," and "smoke signal expedition." time went by after that and I built a balloon. The question is, how do I take off in it, or can you only do that when you get a exploration pop up of some kind. If its only when the pop up occurs, do they re-occur if not exploited, or did I just miss-out by not having a balloon built and ready to go?

[Bjørn]

Provided you have fuel in the balloon, you can go on expeditions whenever you like.

Click the balloon, and there is an option to do an expedition, then select where you want to go and who to send on the screen that opens.

I think there is also a separate expeditions button on the main interface.

Some of the expeditions are timed and will expire after a while, but most are not.

Happy trails!

[Flin Fredstone]

There is always the fixed expedition to Explore. But the more you do that one the more time it will take. And at some point it becomes a real risk if someone gets injured during that Explore expedition because they don't make it back in time for treatment.

[Emelio Lizardo]

I think that overall the balloon missions become a waste of time unless they produce a new colony member, stat increase, or tech. Anything you need can be salvaged locally.

[Nightfall29]

Thank you all. I can't believe I missed that button! One more question, once someone leaves on an expedition, how long are they gone?

[Flin Fredstone]

You can check the expedition how long it takes and how much time they have left on their trip there or back.

That is when you launch the expedition. That is separate from the timer you see on the map for some of the expeditions before they despawn.

[Stimpacker]

Quick Guide for Expeditions off the top of my head....

1) Let's Explore.
Random outcome. The first trip will be 2 hours one way. Progressively gets longer as you do more of these.

2) Spaceship/Cargo/Armory crash site.
The choices upon reaching it varies a bit but the outcome is you can visit this site 3-5 times mostly for scrap plus random luck with getting other items (tools, weapons, clothes, etc). As metal is the only unlimited resource (except in Military Outpost scenario), these expeditions are important. Most scrap when explorer has Physical attribute of 7.

3) Tachyon sites.
1st time unlocks Alien Language Research, 2nd time gives the explorer a permanent happiness buff (best to send your fav explorer for this), subsequent times are random alien sites like alien brainwashing machine, alien weather machine.

4) Chance for new survivor.
Only true for Crash Landing scenario. Thin smoke, thick smoke, loud bang, distant light, etc. A bit of RNG here. Outcome depends on time and explorer sent.

5) Chance for new technology, aka research breakthrough.
Self destruct warning. Spaceship data recorder. Same RNG as above.

6) Shooting star.
Outcomes like a bit of ore, rare Mystic Grove (outcome for that is permanent happiness buff), useless lucky charm, a fallen nest (useless).

7) Guardians scenario specific.
Ship-to-ship combat, mech ship, etc. Do them all. Very important.