Exploration Guide

Exploration is recommended at level 1-­4 (1 000 - 10 000 000 cr) for relative maximum profit/hour.

Expect an average income between 600 - 65 000 cr / scan target with a Detailed Surface Scanner. (Maximized at 900 - 97 500 cr / target if you're making a first discovery.)

How to Explore?

1. Get a ship that has a decent jump range.
2. Buy the best frameshift drive (to jump further), the best power plant (to lower overheating), the best fuel scoop (so you can refuel faster), the best discovery scanner and a detailed surface scanner (to get money back) if you can afford it. Also get a heat sink launcher to avert heat damage if you go to close to stars.
3. Sell weapons, keep utility slots if you wish (excluding scanner type modules). Every other internal module should be type D. This increases jump range.
4. Hit up the galaxy map and look for a goal. Zoom in until you can see the stars and plot a route in the general direction of your destination. If you try to plot a course that's farther than 1000 ly, you will not be able to do so, so keep this in mind.
5. Set course, refuel, repair, and away you go.
6. Once you leave the human inhabited bubble you will soon find less and less NPCs and players, and no stations whatsoever, keep damage to a minimum if you expect to be on the way for a long time.
7. I wouldn't advise scanning small moons, and asteroid belt clusters. Other than that scan as much, and as far as you wish, but consult the table below for expected rewards. If you find systems without the tag "First discovered by [pilot name]" on the description window popping up, you're the first ever to come here and make scans, so I would take the time to put my name down by scanning everything worthwhile, if I were you.
8. When you're landing on planets, keep it slow and safe. You don't want to crash out in the middle of nowhere with days worth of exploration data.
9. When you feel like returning, plot a course below 1000 lys in the general direction of the human space and move close to it.
10. Once the bubble is closer than 1000 ly, find the closest system on it's border area of your preferred political power and jump to it. Let me remind you, that you are once again entering the domain of interdictions and unsafe fly zones, so keep your shields up and your wits about you. Don't forget to check your power distribution, and fire group settings.
11. Dock at any station and sell your cartographic data. (it's the same amount of reward, wherever you go.)
12. Congratulations! You've returned from pioneering the final frontier! If you're lucky, you'll have your name on some of the objects you scanned, so everyone passing by can see it.

Exploration Outfitting Tips

• Don't take weapons, it's just dead weight. Where you're travelling you're not going to need them.
• A good fuel scoop is essential for all exploration trips. Buy the best fuel scoop, discovery scanner and power plant you can get. Anything else can be type “D” to save some weight, thus travel distance.
• When you're going out to have fun, and are taking the scenic route, I recommend taking a Planetary Vehicle Hangar and an SRV in it with you, if you have any spare space.
• You can actually explore in almost any ship if you're trying to make money off of it, as long as you're not looking for certain non-main sequence stars and black holes, since they are very far away near the galactic core. You can easily make several hundred thousand or even a couple of million credits with 10 ly jumps, you just have to be doing it for a relatively long time.
• Ensure the safety of your vessel by having some or all of the following: A Heat Sink (avoiding damage by overheating, high priority), a Shield Generator and a Chaff launcher (averting hull damage if you get attacked while returning with weeks worth of data, high priority), Auto-Field Maintanance unit (it can repair the cracked canopy, high priority upgrade (thanks, seth_73)), Hull reinforcement package (provides more armor at the expense of jump range, low priority).
• For the longer trips, take the advanced discovery scanner that has infinite range, and the detailed surface scanner for getting a more detailed scan.

Exploration Journey Tips

• If you travel the less obvious, remote routes, you'll get a higher chance for a first discovery bonus, which is +50% the regular fee.
• Exploration is a good low level way to make money, but it turns more to fun when you get used to above million credit incomes per hour.
• Scoopable star types: O, B, A, F, G, K, M (remember it by the phrases: Oh, Be A Fine Girl, Kiss Me, or KGB FOAM)
• Use your fuel scoop whenever possible. You'll never know when you might get a series of unscoopable stars on your way to your destination, and it may be too late to return if you spend all your fuel.
• When planning a trip the galaxy map will show you the range after which your fuel will be consumed. Refuel before you reach the dotted line on your way.
• Stop next to the star at about 1/2 or 2/3 of your fuel scoop's intake capacity and wait for it to refill your fuel cells without having to worry about overheating. This will work on most ships.
• When you're planning a trip to another star system, you can choose either the fast route, or the economical. By choosing the former option, you will get to your destination faster, but at much higher fuel cost, while the latter will get you much further fuel-wise, at the cost of many more stops on the way.
• Don't be alarmed by being unable to plot a course to the galactic core from the human inhabited space. You can only plan your trip up to 1000 ly.
• To see all stars in galaxy map, change the view to realistic. (You can chose Map mode too and make it only show your preferred star types).
• When you drop out of frame shift at dwarves or neutron stars, decelerate before hitting them fast, by pressing X. Move away from them as soon as you're able.
• When you return from your trip, trade in your data at the closest system of your preferred faction. You don't want to risk losing your scans after a week long run, believe me.
• Visit main sequence star systems (A, F, G, K, M mostly) to get a higher chance at finding water worlds and earth-likes. They're worth serious bucks.
• You can listen to planets! The sound they emit will tell you their type, before you scan them with the Detailed Surface Scanner. More on this here. (Suggested by: Jayden Simmons)

Scanning Tips

• You have to target celestial objects to get a detailed scan, large mass objects will get scanned from further away, while small ones like moons require you to get very close.
• You can pass scanning most moons, go for the earth-­likes, water worlds, high metal content worlds, ammonia based (light brown) atmospheres, and ringed gas giants (especially Class II) if they're close to your entry star.
• Scan every irregular star, or object you can find. Neutron stars, black holes, white dwarves can get you a nice sum.
• Prefer scanning more systems over getting to your exploration target as fast as possible, if you're trying to get more profit.

The following table contains the approximate reward amounts that you can expect from using a detailed surface scan on the listed object types in a descending order by maximum credits gained. Data from this table has been collected from the Elite: Dangerous Wiki.

Scannable Objects	Min. Reward	Max. Reward
Terraformable Water Worlds	27000 cr	65000 cr
Earth-like Worlds	54000 cr	62000 cr
Black Holes	38000 cr	50000 cr
Terraformable High Metal Content Planets	30000 cr	45000 cr
Neutron Stars	36000 cr	38000 cr
Water Worlds	18000 cr	36000 cr
Ammonia Worlds	33000 cr	35000 cr
Terraformable Rocky Planets	30000 cr	31000 cr
White Dwarves	22600 cr	22600 cr
Metal-Rich Planets	9000 cr	14000 cr
Terraformable High Metal Content Planets with Nitrogen Atmosphere	8600 cr	12400 cr
Gas Giants (Class II)	7500 cr	12300 cr
High Metal Content Planets	4100 cr	8500 cr
Class O, B, A, F, G, K, M, L, T, Y Stars	2400 cr	6600 cr
Wolf-Rayet Stars	3000 cr	6600 cr
Gas Giants (Class I)	2200 cr	3800 cr
Gas Giants (Class III)	2200 cr	3800 cr
Gas Giants (Class IV)	2200 cr	3800 cr
Gas Giants (Class V)	2200 cr	3800 cr
Protostars - (Herbig Ae/Be, T-Tauri)	2400 cr	3000 cr
Carbon Stars	2400 cr	2400 cr
Rocky and/or Icy Planets	600 cr	1200 cr
Belt Clusters	0 cr	0 cr

Ideal Ship Progression

To finish up on this topic, here's another table showing the possible progression by which you can expect a growth in your maximum jump distance in relation to credits invested.

As you can see below, a really optimized Hauler can give you 37 lys per jump, which makes her one of the most ideal low level ships available. Next in line would be the 1,8 million credit Diamondback Explorer, with a nearly identical range of 37 lys. For almost four times it's price, at 6,6 million comes the ASP Explorer, which is the current favorite of many pilots, as it is considered the epitome of exploration vessels. The only craft that is capable of not even giving the tail lights to the ASP is the Anaconda with a whopping 41 lys of maximized jump range.

Keep in mind, that these ranges represent extremely barebone spacecraft. A full exploration gear can set these values back a bit. Check the more visual, color-coded chart by bad-r0bot here.

Ship	Size	Agility	Speed	Armour	Max. Jump	Cost
Sidewinder	Small	8	220 m/s	108	24,43 ly	40 800 cr
Eagle	Small	10	240 m/s	72	25,37 ly	44 800 cr
Hauler	Small	6	200 m/s	90	37,29 ly	52 720 cr
Adder	Small	8	220 m/s	162	32,96 ly	87 810 cr
Imperial Eagle	Small	6	300 m/s	108	25,37 ly	110 830 cr
Viper	Small	6	320 m/s	126	21,33 ly	142 930 cr
Cobra Mk III	Small	6	280 m/s	216	28,60 ly	349 720 cr
Viper Mk IV	Small	4	270 m/s	270	27,38 ly	437 930 cr
Diamondback Scout	Small	8	283 m/s	216	30,40 ly	564 330 cr
Cobra Mk IV	Small	4	200 m/s	216	24,91 ly	747 660 cr
Type-6 Transporter	Medium	3	220 m/s	162	33,00 ly	1 045 950 cr
Diamondback Explorer	Small	5	260 m/s	270	37,04 ly	1 894 760 cr
Imperial Courier	Small	7	280 m/s	144	33,68 ly	2 542 930 cr
Keelback	Medium	2	200 m/s	198	28,95 ly	3 126 150 cr
Asp Scout	Medium	8	220 m/s	324	33,19 ly	3 961 150 cr
Vulture	Small	9	210 m/s	288	22,75 ly	4 925 620 cr
Asp Explorer	Medium	6	250 m/s	378	38,19 ly	6 661 150 cr
Federal Dropship	Medium	2	180 m/s	540	19,66 ly	14 314 210 cr
Type-7 Transporter	Large	2	180 m/s	216	26,75 ly	17 472 250 cr
Federal Assault Ship	Medium	6	210 m/s	540	23,39 ly	19 814 210 cr
Imperial Clipper	Large	2	300 m/s	486	27,58 ly	22 296 860 cr
Federal Gunship	Medium	2	170 m/s	630	19,53 ly	35 814 210 cr
Orca	Large	2	300 m/s	396	19,41 ly	48 539 890 cr
Fer-de-Lance	Medium	6	260 m/s	405	20,94 ly	51 703 780 cr
Python	Medium	6	230 m/s	468	30,75 ly	56 978 180 cr
Type-9 Heavy	Large	0	130 m/s	432	20,36 ly	76 555 840 cr
Anaconda	Large	2	180 m/s	945	41,43 ly	146 969 450 cr
Federal Corvette	Large	2	200 m/s	666	21,15 ly	187 969 450 cr
Imperial Cutter	Large	2	200 m/s	720	26,74 ly	208 969 450 cr