Exploring: Worth it?

At the end, sure. At the start, not really.

I generally make a quick save and then explore all my planets when I've got enough spare resources. Then I'll reload and expore the planets that had something.

Yes, I know, I suck and it's basically cheating but exploring every planet you find is fruitless far too much of the time and you've no indicators whatsoever as to how likely any given planet is to have some hidden bonus.

...except with the Advent and its "scrying" technologies, combined with Mothership's upgrade discounts, you can pretty much explore planets for free.

space ponies!

don't bother unless there's an artifact on the planet. Exploring often eats up credits that could be used in ships/research, not to mention the payoff of a +25 pop increase insn't all that great.

How do you know if there is an artifact on the planet without exploring it first?

Exploring is for big games really, when fleets are getting large finding a nice artifact can be a huge difference so it's a money sink for the late game. Adds depth ofcourse when someone does find an artifact to defend/attack that planet with higher prioirty.

Artifacts can be quite useful. There is of course, the faster phase jump artifact which, while handy isn't worth the money. On the other hand, the "Manifest Dominion" can be extremely useful and worth every penny, especially when playing as the Advent, with their focus on culture. And there are artifacts that upgrade weapons, shields, antimatter, etc.

Though mainly I wait to explore planets until I have a full economy put together so I have so many credits and so much metal/crystal, that I have trouble finding things to spend it on...!

In my experience exploring planets is actually a waste of time in the beginning stages of the game. As you progress however exploring planets might be able to give you that extra edge. And many times in volcanic planents and asteroids there are "expert" miners which give you an awesome boost to your resource production.

Don't get confused between exploring the map (with scouts) vs exploring a planet for a potentail planet bonus (The ultimate being an artifact).
Generally not worth it early on, but may be worth it if you have the credits and not enough things to spend them on

well typically the planet has a goofy yellow mark around it, not be confused with the homeworld indicator.

and that's only if it's been explored previously..

Well, I get to a point in the game where I have more money than I can spend. That's when I do Emergency Facilities upgrade, put a huge amount of defenses up at choke points, and if I have all needed research done, everywhere, and search planets. I like to do some searching before the two fleets have their showdown, if possible.

Try focusing on trade port stacks (2ports per planet). I've found that this increases cred income rate and is worth the long term investment. Also take the extra money and double stack the broadcast centers.

I don't think you should spend resources on exploring planets early on in the game. The truth is that if you don't have "anything better to spend it on" you're either insanely good or doing something terribly wrong. A fleet always holds preference in my expenditures even if it's early game, and that SHOULD be your focus. If you already ahve a full fleet, then try researching a greater capacity instead. The AI seems to "know" where artifacts are to be found so don't worry too much about that up until mid-game where it can become an issue, but all things considered, the return investment isn't worth the expenditure in early game, considering how you have a 1/9 chance of getting something useful, and in some instances, an artifact can be completely useless (faster star to star phase jumping on a map with only one star for example [oh yes, it's happened to me before]).

Yea man, artifacts is like the wonders in Civ. Sure the developers told you they are not THE end game factors, but....they are, lol. If you got the extra cash and hit the jackpot artifacts, who can really say that it's lucky? Why didn't your opponents squeeze out the extra dough for explorations, then?

Finally, it speeds up the game for the ones who know what they are doing, and gosh, the game needs to be speed up anyway it can, lol.

ok imo exploring its worth it alot. i was just playing the game and got a planet that had expert miners that increased my metal roids harvesting by 50% and increse my trade income by 20% that right there made my economy number 1 all across the board.

My suggestion for an improvement in this area would be to make the first step of the exploration process much cheaper, say 2/3 less. This first stage exploration would have only a tiny chance of revealing an artifact, but would have a very large chance (say 80%) of revealing the small resources, like "pure glaciers" (+40% trade on ice worlds).

The second stage of exploration might be made a bit more expensive, and would require most people to wait until mid- late-game to find artifacts (they might need a buff or two ^^).

This two-stage strategy would make sense in game terms, and would give you a real motivation to explore early AND explore late.

SP, yes, MP no.

The ultimate exploring cheat, is to save, then "Surrender" (under the quit menu), then choose to "Keep Playing", and ALL will be revealed instantly! By ALL, I mean, each of the planets with an artifact, the opponent's home worlds/ships/structures, planet types... its all there. After you've found out what you want, just reload.

Regards,

Obi Won

Well I'm not really sure, I'm relatively new. But, they're phase lane jumps, not hyperspace jumps.

I stumbled across an incredibly extensive analysis of artifact exploration at SoaSEWiki.com. Including an : overview here, and an extensive individual artifact appraisal hidden away here.

The bottom line is: On average, exploring does (barely) pays for it's self over the long-term. Especially if you find the "Data Archive" artifact (middle one on the bottom), which reduces all research costs by 25%. It is by far the most valuable artifact, more than twice as valuable as the next.

But, first level exploration (45% of the total cost) does also reveal many other planetary bonuses. At a minimum, it is probably always worth it.

Don't forget the SP cheat, that I mention above. With it, you can just research those planets with artifacts indicated, and save yourself a ton of money

In early game the cost of exploration is to big to be worth it. But as soon as your empire grows the costs will get smaller relative to your income but the benefits from artifacts may even grow in time.