How to be an explorer in ED?

[BIG SHAQ 👑]

For now im am just carrying stuff around the systems. How to increase also the percentage of Explorer? How to explore things here in this game besides scanning stars and sygnals?

[oxmox]

Scanning Stars and making money selling the infos is the content for exploring besides watching the scenery and doing maybe screenshots.

Visual Guide to Exploration:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=145271


This Is How We Do It: An Elite Dangerous Explorer's Guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npi1Rdw34co




For beginner a hauler is a good alternative to expensive ships for exploring even its more cumbersome. But a good explorer ship like the Asp with high end fittings is around 20 million and thats quiete steep.

Example of a Hauler setup, there are also builds for under 500k but the recommanded one is around 2 million:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy_qbv_r5ok

[m61a1]

I've had the game for 3 days and I do love my adder! I do have an exploring question though, can I log off mid flight in a system without landing? I decided to do a 500 ly trip(which I'm sure is short) and my mind started melting lol. Also, are there many explorers? I mean dedicated ones, not people who do it every so often?

[BrawnyFanta]

Originally posted by m61a1:

I've had the game for 3 days and I do love my adder! I do have an exploring question though, can I log off mid flight in a system without landing?

You can log off anywhere but don't do it in the path of planets/stars/blackholes/asteroids/etc otherwise there is a chance your ship will be crushed by it. Best bet is to fly up/down from the solar plane a few hundred light seconds before logging off.

[m61a1]

Ok, good to know! Thank you!

[Sapyx]

To Explore (with a capital E) in this game, you need to have at least a Discovery Scanner of some kind fitted. They come in three flavours, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced: Basic scans a sphere 500Ls from your ship, Intermediate 1000Ls and Advanced is unlimited (scans entire system in one hit). I think all the smaller ships come with a Basic scanner pre-installed.

When you jump into a system designated as "Unexplored", your ship automatically "discovers" the nearby star. If there are space stations in the system, you can also see those automatically on the System map. Anything else in the system needs to be revealed by your Discovery Scanner, which you need to assign to a fire group and "fire" as if it were a weapon. This discovery is a "Level 1 scan".

Once you've discovered a star or planet, you can do a more detailed scan of a star or planet by selecting it as your nav destination, pointing your ship towards it and (if necessary) flying towards it until the scnner activates. Once the scanning dial stops spinning, you have now completed a Level 2 scan.

If your ship is fitted with a Detailed Surface Scanner, your Level 2 scans become Level 3 scans. The higher-up the scan class, the more valuable the scans are once you sell the data.

Selling the data at a Universal Cartographics office (every space station has one) "locks in " your discoveries. Profits made by selling exploration data go towards increasing your Pilots Federation "Explorer" rating. If your ship blows up with exploration data unsold, you lose the data and will have to scan those things in again if you want to see them on your starmap.

[andyc77]

If exploring make sure you have a fuel scoop.

[Legion]

Originally posted by Sapyx:

To Explore (with a capital E) in this game, you need to have at least a Discovery Scanner of some kind fitted. They come in three flavours, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced: Basic scans a sphere 500Ls from your ship, Intermediate 1000Ls and Advanced is unlimited (scans entire system in one hit). I think all the smaller ships come with a Basic scanner pre-installed.

When you jump into a system designated as "Unexplored", your ship automatically "discovers" the nearby star. If there are space stations in the system, you can also see those automatically on the System map. Anything else in the system needs to be revealed by your Discovery Scanner, which you need to assign to a fire group and "fire" as if it were a weapon. This discovery is a "Level 1 scan".

Once you've discovered a star or planet, you can do a more detailed scan of a star or planet by selecting it as your nav destination, pointing your ship towards it and (if necessary) flying towards it until the scnner activates. Once the scanning dial stops spinning, you have now completed a Level 2 scan.

If your ship is fitted with a Detailed Surface Scanner, your Level 2 scans become Level 3 scans. The higher-up the scan class, the more valuable the scans are once you sell the data.

Selling the data at a Universal Cartographics office (every space station has one) "locks in " your discoveries. Profits made by selling exploration data go towards increasing your Pilots Federation "Explorer" rating. If your ship blows up with exploration data unsold, you lose the data and will have to scan those things in again if you want to see them on your starmap.

As an added bonus, if you are the first to discover (and return with the data for) a star, planet, or moon, you get another cash bonus and your pilots' name is forever listed under that objects' name. Finding (and scanning) stuff nobody else has yet is what I love about exploration :)

[Sapyx]

True that; I haven't mentioned it because the thread is for beginner explorers, and you have to be a pretty advanced explorer to go out far enough to routinely discover unexplored systems. Finding anything unexplored within 500LY of inhabited space is nigh-on impossible these days, even if you don't take the well-worn tourist paths to the Core and the scenic nebulae and stars.

All the stars in inhabited space marked as "Unexplored" have already been explored countless times already; there's no chance of a newbie finding something genuinely undiscovered.

[BIG SHAQ 👑]

Thank you all for the advice. Can someone tell me how to sell the data after we return with it?

Originally posted by Sapyx:

All the stars in inhabited space marked as "Unexplored" have already been explored countless times already; there's no chance of a newbie finding something genuinely undiscovered.

I noticed that. But isn't the galaxy so vast that there is a chance to discover undiscovered objects yet? Or the chance right now is like 1/100000?

So if I understood, being an explorer is pointless if you want to hunt unexplored objects but it is good if you want to find inusual objects in the systems. Correct?

[funkynutz]

Just travel about... Even in already explored systems you can still find new objects fairly easily... You'll get a notification as soon as you've found something (quite often as you drop out of hyperspace near a star), as soon as you see the notification run a scan, there's a good chance you'll find half a dozen or more other objects.

I've only been playing for about 25 hours (more than a day and I only bought it a few days ago, whoops) and I've already lost track of how many new items I've found.

[m61a1]

I occaisionally find new stuff at around 300 ly, although I'm more of a fan at 500-600.

[BIG SHAQ 👑]

Originally posted by FunkynutZ:

Just travel about... Even in already explored systems you can still find new objects fairly easily... You'll get a notification as soon as you've found something (quite often as you drop out of hyperspace near a star), as soon as you see the notification run a scan, there's a good chance you'll find half a dozen or more other objects.

I've only been playing for about 25 hours (more than a day and I only bought it a few days ago, whoops) and I've already lost track of how many new items I've found.

Yes but how to sell the data?

[BrawnyFanta]

Originally posted by Derp:

Originally posted by FunkynutZ:

Just travel about... Even in already explored systems you can still find new objects fairly easily... You'll get a notification as soon as you've found something (quite often as you drop out of hyperspace near a star), as soon as you see the notification run a scan, there's a good chance you'll find half a dozen or more other objects.

I've only been playing for about 25 hours (more than a day and I only bought it a few days ago, whoops) and I've already lost track of how many new items I've found.

Yes but how to sell the data?

Travel at least 20LY from where you scanned it and goto a station menu and click Universal Cartographics then you can sell it there. It will be red if you can't sell it. If you are the first to discover it a screen pops up and tells you

[brbrbr]

freelancing/roaming isn't rewarding and motivated in present states, but skilled and well-equiped explorers - may get Very-Very interesting missions :) but some may require "Elite" exploration rank to be achieved 1st, ironically :P

[FemboyFiller69]

Originally posted by oxmox:

Scanning Stars and making money selling the infos is the content for exploring besides watching the scenery and doing maybe screenshots.

Visual Guide to Exploration:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=145271


This Is How We Do It: An Elite Dangerous Explorer's Guide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npi1Rdw34co




For beginner a hauler is a good alternative to expensive ships for exploring even its more cumbersome. But a good explorer ship like the Asp with high end fittings is around 20 million and thats quiete steep.

Example of a Hauler setup, there are also builds for under 500k but the recommanded one is around 2 million:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy_qbv_r5ok

The Asp Explorer is now around 6,661,000 CR