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[Amoebka]

With colonies becoming more and more essential as the game nears release, extensive exploration becomes virtually mandatory. It takes several hours of gameplay just to scout enough systems to find good planets, and locating cryosleepers is an even worse grind. While some players enjoy it, some don't.

Personally, I prefer playing with the combat parts of the game more, doing bounties and hunting remnants. However, I eventually outgrow starting bounties, and need bigger and bigger fleets. Large fleets are expensive to maintain, and colonies are the only source of income that can reasonably sustain them. This means that I have to stop doing what I enjoy doing, stash all my battleships at Asharu/Mayasura, dust off my Ventures and spend 5+ hours staring at hyperstorms. There should be a better way.

We already have prospector fleets in the game, so why not allow players to hire them to look for colonizeable planets in bar events? Or, even simpler, allow them to sell full survey data on interesting planets for a price. This way, players who don't enjoy exploration can use their bounty money to bypass the part of the game they resent, and the ones who enjoy exploration don't miss on anything.

[Daynen]

While alternative ways of finding survey data might be nice, I feel like it would be a waste to just let us skip exploration entirely.  It's kind of intended to be part of the experience; seems a shame to just admit some people don't enjoy it and make it disposable.  I think that perhaps if exploration was more interesting in itself people wouldn't feel the urge to throw it away.  As it is, I admit it does kind of boil down to throwing supplies at planets and hoping for a high RNG roll; if it were a little more deterministic and a little less random it might be a little more satisfying, no?  for example, with even a layman's understanding of science, one might conclude that:

Earth is in a yellow star system.
Yellow stars can give rise to Earthlike planets.
Therefore, if I'm looking for habitable planets I should search yellow stars first.

Unfortunately this isn't the case, or doesn't seem to be.  The fact that the entire sector is mapped (but not surveyed) also kind of ruins any chance of surprise.  If the map were shrouded in "hyperspace fog" at first we'd have a reason to go uncover it.  There definitely needs to be a higher variety of events and encounters though, otherwise that idea just becomes a punishment of sorts...

[FinetalPies]

    Yeah, I'd like to see ways to gather clues to make exploration more efficient, but I'm not sure if I dig just hiring people to do it for you. Mechanically at least, I think thematically it would be pretty satisfying to see some exploration fleet aligned with your faction. But I'd give them limitations on range or like, ability to deal with Remnants.

    I do like the fog of war idea though, it'd make exploration feel even more exploratory.

[Megas]

Factions outsource exploration to the player all the time through the job board.  What happens if I find a good planet during such a job?  I get paid and I claim the planet (to colonize)!

If NPCs you hire claim the planet you sent them to survey (and take any rare items found there), I would not hire them.

Although outsourcing exploration would be a way for a player forced to babysit to do things he cannot do at the moment.  There really needs to be more things player can delegate to other fleets.  Right now, player is expected to do too much (babysitting), but he can only be at one place at a time.

Eventually, player will have colonies and a big army.  Player should be able to order his army to do things for him.

[DatonKallandor]

Perhaps survey data should be in the loot table when fighting outside the core worlds, especially when fighting indie prospectors/explorers/salvagers.

[pairedeciseaux]

Perhaps survey data should be in the loot table when fighting outside the core worlds, especially when fighting indie prospectors/explorers/salvagers.

I like the idea!

Would be useful with pirates/pathers too, especially survey data about the system where they have a station/base.

One can already find survey data when salvaging derelicts, but having it as fight loot would help finding suitable planets for colony before your fleet gets enough Surveying Equipment power.

[Mordodrukow]

I like the idea of creating your own missions. Why not, after all? Let us place bounties for the heads (in that case the world must be filled with "real" npcs instead of generating em when creating new quest, ofc), request resource delivery, request surveys etc... It will make the sector look like living one. Well, better than now (tbh, it is kinda living, but you can notice that just kinda...)

Also, i dont get it: why the game doesnt allow copy survey info and sell it to different factions? I mean: i can even hit "survey" button several times on the same planet and pay supplies for each time. Class 5 costs 30k anyway...

[Snowblind]

I do agree that the alternatives to systematic trawling of the outer reaches are lacking. Personally, I feel that the logs you find that point you to objects of interest need to be a lot more high impact. At the moment, it is barely worth following them up because hopping between distant high value finds that you have logs for is too fuel intensive to sustain on loot (forcing resupplies which waste time and money), while systematic exploration can be self sustaining even with a fleet that can take on remnant ordos, and your rate of finding loot is usually high enough by just checking every system that the time lost from being thorough and sweeping entire constellations is comparable to the time lost keeping your fleet going in between targeted salvage runs.

I can think of two ways immediately to make this a little better.

One, make it so you have an RNG chance to pull logs off ships at the end of combat, giving you a steady source of exploration hints that doesn't require you to explore to find them. Justifying this lorewise might require jumping through some hoops and/or being selective about what fleets can drop hints, but making this change will help quite a bit.

Two, have it so the exploration hints for things like stations or caches will also have info on the highest (or approximately highest) value item in the loot. The calculus for systematic vs targeted changes if I *know* that I can go to a cache/station in system X and get a BP or industry item worth hundreds of thousands, rather than having to roll for RNG like what I do when I systematically survey constellations.

Perhaps survey data should be in the loot table when fighting outside the core worlds, especially when fighting indie prospectors/explorers/salvagers.

The problem with that is that you aren't going to find indie expeditions very often unless you are already exploring, and if you are exploring then hunting down fleets of indies to kill in a system with active salvagers is likely to be less time and cost efficient than just trawling constellations - a single 5 minute fight with an indie fleet is enough to survey an entire system filled with loot (probably nabbing some high value loot and enough supplies/fuel to keep you going in the process) or an entire constellation that has little worthwhile in it.

[Terethall]

why the game doesnt allow copy survey info and sell it to different factions?

Really good DRM/crypto contracts. Same way LPCs, blueprints, and pay-on-completion missions work.

[DatonKallandor]

The problem with that is that you aren't going to find indie expeditions very often unless you are already exploring, and if you are exploring then hunting down fleets of indies to kill in a system with active salvagers is likely to be less time and cost efficient than just trawling constellations - a single 5 minute fight with an indie fleet is enough to survey an entire system filled with loot (probably nabbing some high value loot and enough supplies/fuel to keep you going in the process) or an entire constellation that has little worthwhile in it.

Well this is explicitly for people that don't want to explore, but fight instead. Also, bounties and pirate bases are often outside the core worlds, so those are also more situations where a combat focused player would get some survey data.

[Goumindong]

why the game doesnt allow copy survey info and sell it to different factions?

Really good DRM/crypto contracts. Same way LPCs, blueprints, and pay-on-completion missions work.

Alternately the more information like this is copied the less its worth. So copying it would reduce its value and as you would never do that then its just not an option.

Being able to turn in survey information for rep directly to different authorities would be nice though.

[SafariJohn]

I would not be surprised if survey data were removed in the future so surveying everything is less of a no-brainer.