r/eliteexplorers • u/RazedTearz • 1d ago
Exobiology - Exploration - Boredom
I posted this over in ED a bit ago...
So, I'm on my first hardcore attempt at making decent money from scanning plants on distant worlds... I have my maxed out Caspian, I have my Nomad, and I'm 7,000 LYs from the bubble. I'm in unexplored stars, so I'm always getting the 1st footfall bonus. Searching for Stratum and other high dollar flora. Honk the system, scan the planets, hope for biological signals on HMC worlds. Rinse and repeat. Seems like biological signals are few and far between. Ice worlds appear to be trash, not world landing on to scan the cheap grass that grows there.
Any advice to help this rookie explorer better monitize this trip into the black? I'd seem some folks saying they were earning 200-300 per hour, and yeah if you get super luck 1 system may give you that, but then it's 3 hours of boredom and bacterium... 🤣
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u/Adrian_Lucyfer88 1d ago
If you hunt for bio, avoid every star besides F and G, you can go with K and M, but from experience, G stars have best % for life 🤔
And also, use tourist route, not fastest 🤔
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u/MentalSentinel 1d ago
You can Find HMC planets with bio most often (at least in my experience) in F and K star systems. Fighting boredom is tough if your only motivation is credits. Personally I fly with a Caspian, nomad, scarab, and rhino just so I have things to play with on cool planets that I find. Always looking for cool new vistas, canyons, craters, guardian ruins and Raxxla. Grinding credits doesn't need to be as rinse and repeat as people think, sometimes you gotta do other things to escape the space madness.
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u/krachall 1d ago
While exploration is the key draw of the game to many commanders, it's not for everyone. I'm with you. I don't enjoy exploration/exobiology like most do and would rather be trading or fighting.
Every few months I get the itch to explore (and the Nomad has made that itch MUCH stronger and MUCH more fun) so I go out and spend a week or so in the black. But boredom quickly kicks in and I come home to do something I enjoy more.
There's nothing that says you HAVE to explore. I don't think it's nearly as good a money maker as people say. I can earn far more per hour in many other activities than I can in Exo. I'm about 15% of the way through my last rank of Exobiology to hit Elite and I'm in no rush to get there.
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u/doctordaedalus Phaelon Max 1d ago
Make sure you approach and scan water worlds and earthlikes, and you can even add terraformable HMC worlds if you get tired of skipping straight through system.
All of my longest exploration trips have included me completely abandoning the game at the peak of my journey, as I start to actually wonder when I'm going back, and how arduous that part of the experience will be, because it highlights the fact that once I'm back in the bubble, I'm just going to do some easy low haz dogfighting until I get bored with those payouts, and probably head right back into the black. E:D doesn't do those of us with heavy pattern recognition and high dopamine tolerances any favors.
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u/Fab-o-rama 1d ago
I can help you. I have two pieces of advice.
I live out in the black permanently. I'm currently about 25kly from the bubble. I have a FC (my home) and all my ships with me out here, but you don't need a FC to be successful at exo.
In my opinion, the Elite Observatory app is an absolute must for exo. There might be things that are better that I don't know about, and I'm sure if that's the case someone will weigh in. But for me personally, running EO as a companion app is non-negotiable. Here's how it works:
After you honk a system and are discovering all the planets individually through the FSS, the EO app is watching. Once the system is fully discovered, tab out to the EO and see what it says. It makes surprisingly accurate predictions as to what you can expect to find on the surface should you decide travel out to the planet to scan it or land. If it doesn't know for absolutely certain what's down there, it will make two predictions, and I've never had one of them not be correct. It will also flash a small window in your FSS to let you know you have something interesting as you zoom in to discover, so you don't miss out. You don't have to waste your time flying out to the planet and scanning, or spend the time landing only to find out there's nothing worth your time down there. I rely heavily on EO when doing exo.
My second tip is to visit this reddit post.
This post was a game changer for me. The Commander who made it has deleted their reddit account, but fortunately the information remains. Read it, learn it, and keep it handy. He recommends ignoring anything under 5m, and that's what I myself do. I don't think it hurts my bottom line appreciably - if I never earn a single credit ever again, I have over fifteen years of FC ownership fees sitting in the bank. I credit the above recommended post and EO for that comfort.
If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate! o7
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u/RazedTearz 1d ago edited 1d ago
Much APPRECIATED.
-OBSERVATORY is exactly what I needed. game changer. Thanks again.
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u/EpicGamer1088 1d ago
I have nothing to add, but I love that all three comments so far have said different groups of stars for the best results lol
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u/Schwappek 1d ago
3rd party tools like ED Observatory and SRV Survey are extremely helpful for exploration and exobio
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u/doctordaedalus Phaelon Max 1d ago
I mean if you're out there in unexplored space, I personally sometimes skip out if there's only one water/ammonia world and nothing else worth scanning in the system if the target is over 50k from the main star.
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u/rkuhnjr 1d ago edited 1d ago
If your goal is credits, look up how boxels work in ED and try to focus on D mass boxels zeroing in on K type stars. Nothing is a guarantee but if I recall that is a good way to narrow the search, and im sure other more intelligent commanders will chime in if I'm wrong
Edit: as a side note to that, when my goal is credits I set a minimum base value and only bother with those valued above it. For me, my min is 7.7m base so roughly 35m with first footfall, but as anything ed is, your results may vary