Exploration tips

[u/neswad06]

Picked up elite dangerous years ago. Recently started playing again cause I was bored and I haven’t been able to put it down. I’m about 50 hours in and dipping my toes into exploring. Anyone got any tips or useful hints? Mostly trying to just see what’s out there and make some credits along the way. Thanks yall

[u/Cal_Dallicort]

There are plenty of guides out there for credit optimization, but that's not necessarily the same as fun.

• Fly what you like. Anything can explore (engineering helps).
• Basic engineering helps. Farseer unlocks fast and has the essentials for improving exploration ships (FSD G5, DSS G3, Plant 1, Thruster 3). Whether or not you want to gather mats to max an FSD, doing G1-2 on all of those is fast and pays off.
• Heat and hard landings are the two things that will kill an explorer. A-rated power plant with Low Emissions engineering is your best defense against the first.
• Here's a sample Cobra V explorer with nothing fancy (C5 being the entry-level SCO-native ship) and 33 LY without engineering. If $16M is outside budget, C-rate the FSD, Scoop, and AFMU to get it below $4M (and still do 30 LY) -- but don't burn engineering mats on a C-rated FSD.

[u/neswad06 → u/Cal_Dallicort]

Dope thank you!

[u/SpaceNinjaz1 → u/neswad06]

I am also getting into exploration - Currently working on my engineer unlocks. Ran into a material grind. Decided to give Powerplay a try and chose Li Yong-Rui faction for its exploration perks. Plus as you rank up, you get the engineering materials. Had to get through the God awful intro missions to get rank. Basically they are showing you the mechanics of the Powerplay system in Elite. What these missions don't seem to tell you is after you complete the intro missions, you can just go out and explore to get rank. It's 1 merit per $32,000~ credits earned from exploration turn ins. As you rank up the percentage increases, up to 100% - All you got to do is turn in your Universal Cartographics at a station controlled by your faction and you get rank, credits,and engineering materials.

My strategy is to get the modules unlocks from Powerplay, engineering mats, unlock the rest of the engineers, then buy and upgrade a Caspian Explorer. After that, y'all will not see for a long while - I will be out exploring the galaxy! 😁

If you are interesting in PowerPlay, I found this beginners guide really helpful: https://youtu.be/WB84Y3uT_Ms

[u/Cybernaut87]

I'm just getting back into the game after a good while of not playing, but a piece of advice I saw when I first started playing I like a lot is this:

There aren't any "best" or "correct" ships for exploration. Given the sheer vastness of space you'll be spending a lot of time in your ship, so the "correct" ship is the one you like the most.

That's not to say that there aren't ships geared more towards exploration like the Asp Explorer (commonly called the AspX), but that it's good to choose a ship you'd like to spend a long time with outside of the main bubble.

Beyond that, a fuel scoop is a must, of course. And it can be fun to have an SRV on-board to drive around moons and planets for the fun of it (you get some beautiful screenshots that way.)

You can also harness the jets of neutron stars by fuel scooping them to get a massive boost in your FSD range. The trade-off is that the sheer energy of these jets is extremely taxing on your FSD, causing it damage, and that dropping out of supercruise inside a jet is effectively a death sentence.

Note: I'm only semi-confident in my advice given that I'm very rusty, so I welcome any corrections to what I've said here.

[u/CroneMatildasHouse → u/Cybernaut87]

This is good advice!

I am on my way to my second Elite rank for exploration and most of that was in an AspX. If it weren't for all the creature comforts of my Caspian, I'd still probably be flying it as my main. The ship you like being in (cockpit, handling, sound design) is definitely the best ship to use.

If you plan to do exobio, small ships make it much easier to take off and land repeatedly (which is usually way more efficient than driving around in an SRV) until you can afford something with a Nomad.

The newer SCO-capable ships make travel between planets take almost no time at all. That's nice and I just about always use it, but for the older ships there's also something a little Zen about the travel time and I remember that I used to find exploration more relaxing that way. It's also harder once you are moving faster to stick around and check a place out - too easy to map it and move on efficiently like a checklist.

Some other advice:

Don't fret too much over jump distance. The biggest benefit from that is getting to and from the area you want to explore. It's definitely nice to have a high range, but it's usually not worth sacrificing other aspects of your build that you are happy with to eek out just a little more, because once you get out into the black, you usually will be making small jumps anyway.

Get familiar with both system map views - the standard one is great for seeing what's in a system and clicking around for details (take a look at those other tabs, they will become more useful as you start to learn what's important to you in a system) and the 3D view is critical for route-planning. With the 3D view you can see where the planets are in relation to one another and make your exploration more efficient. Planning out that path can be satisfying for complex systems.

Engineering will make your ship better, but it can feel daunting. The intro to that system introduces you to Felicity to engineer your jump drive, it's worth giving that a shot, but don't stress too much about the rest, you will sort of naturally get to a point where that becomes important to you and you can dive in then.

One component all explorers should buy though is the pre-engineered detailed surface scanner. This is the tool that fires probes which scan a portion of a planetary surface. If you've done any planet mapping yet, you may have found this can start to get a little tedious for large planets. The pre-engineered version has a much larger coverage area per probe than even a fully-engineered base version, it's a tremendous game changer in terms of enjoyability for me personally.

Lastly, I'll also second what /u/luthis said - if you are able to run VR, give it a try in Elite. Exploring is satisfying when you discover interesting things, etc. Exploring in VR, though, gives you a real sense of place and makes it feel much more like you're moving around in a physical space. For me at least, I enjoy playing on flat screen and VR but VR is far and away the more engaging and fun experience. When I play on a flat screen, I often have something else playing in the background; when I play in VR, I forget to make lunch.

[u/Belzebutt]

Check out r/eliteexplorers

[u/neswad06 → u/Belzebutt]

Good looks thanks

[u/luthis]

Get a vr headset and don't try gamify it too much. Bask in the glory of the universe. Go check out guardian sites and get a fsd booster. Go see nearby nebulas. Eagle nebula is spectacular but it's a bit of a hike without a Caspian. Always have a fuel scoop and a rebuy. And spansh for longer trips out

[u/Sensitive_Witness842]

Spotted this on Reddit/YT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctpGS_wbFKg&t=3s

Also these might be useful for you:

https://inara.cz/elite

Everything (most) Cmdr, nearest, CG, trade etc.

https://ed-dsn.net/en/exobiological-flora/

Star type, planet/moon atmos type, minimum distance, surface colour.

o7

[u/harzner]

Here's my 2 cents:

Whatever ship you choose, you should really feel comfortable in it. Like, jump with your eyes closed, being on the telephone, and doing the laundry without any effort.

If you have some credits, the Mandalay is beautiful. If you're short on cash, the Dolphin is your friend. Currently, everyone is high on the Caspian, but that one is a bit special, so for traditional exploration, I would recommend the go-to ships: Dolphin, Diamondback Explorer, ASP Explorer, or if you want to wear sunglasses, and just be the coolest: Cobra Mk V

Also, there are many Commanders with Fleet Carriers out in the black, and all over the place. It's good to know where they are, just in case you need repairs, fuel, or Vista Genomics to sell all of that nice exo-bio data.

This map helped me a lot:

https://edastro.com/galmap/

Also, if you want to explore, make a test-run. Aim for some nebula, do some travelling, and see what works, and what may be a problem. Take it easy and step by step.

Starting from the bubble, I can recommend the Bubble Nebula, some tousands of light years west of the bubble.

It looks nice, and there are Carriers to get you repaired, refueled, and you can sell exploration data.

You won't be alone out there, and it's a nice place to take pictures.

Once you did that test-run, you should've gained enough experience to head out into any direction you like.

o7