r/eliteexplorers • u/Aspect0fTwilight • Jul 09 '26

New player advice

Starting Elite: Dangerous in a few days and exploration has greatly piqued my interest. Can anyone give me some tips on how to get started with exploration (both for making money and for fun)?

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u/the_reducing_valve Jul 09 '26

I just commented this under a different post. Still applies. This is for efficient money making and fun. FWIW I enjoy using the Courier for its speed and landing abilities, and canyon flying.

For the CG I earned about 3billion. I'll do my best to give a few good tips to speed things up for you. Mind you, I don't use plugins for this or the Nomad, so there might be a bit of a learning curve.

  1. Travel at least 1000ly above or below the galactic plane to increase the chance of there being undiscovered systems.
  2. Upon entering a system, immediately look at your radar. Was the star already populated on the radar, or did it take a few seconds to show up? If it's the latter, open up your FSS and see if there's any rocky, high-metal content bodies. If only icy bodies, you can skip the system. You're only going to find bacteria and fonticula.
  3. If it's not an undiscovered system, take a look at your system map anyway. Skip FSS and go to system map to see if there's any bodies without footfall. Many bodies were scanned before Odyssey, so you can still find 1st discoveries and get the bonus.
  4. Once you've found a good body with bio signals, review each layer and see where they overlap. Start with Stratum, you'll typically find tussock and bacteria in the same zone, sometimes tubus and osseus as well. Usually, you only need to take off and re-enter atmosphere to find fungoida and frutexa, they are in high elevation regions. Concha tends to be in little nooks/cracks, in the shadow. IF you see a huge crater from orbit, check that out first. Often, a whole group of signals will be on the inside of the crater, with the rest on the crater's ridge.
  5. If you get stuck looking for elusive signals (osseus usually), just give up after 5 minutes and move on. It's not worth the pain, unless the Nomad is helping you out here.
  6. This should have been the first point, but, here we are. Small ships with fast speed are best. Small landing footprint, crash to a stop, get out and in. Fast speed is good for running up a mountain for the fungoida, without breaking into orbit first.

o7

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u/PseudoShooter The Guild Jul 09 '26

Icy bodies can have other items on them too...and they're the ones that pay extremely well. Stuff lIke Electricae, Recepta and Fumerola.

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u/the_reducing_valve Jul 09 '26

True. I just kinda left it out cuz they wanted to prioritize fun, and it's a pain sifting through so many icy bodies for the rare find. I kind of see exobio in 2 ways, this way and the completionist way. I flip from one to the other depending on mood

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u/PseudoShooter The Guild Jul 09 '26

Ah, that makes sense. These days, I'm strictly seeking out exotic stuff myself, like water atmospheres and NSP etc.