Elite Dangerous’ exploration gets a major overhaul (and a codex) in Beyond – Chapter Four

A lot of changes are coming to exploration in Elite Dangerous in the final chapter of its third expansion season, Beyond, and the devs at Frontier ran through them in their latest livestream. If you prefer the written medium, however, here's a roundup of everything that was discussed. First up are a slew of upgrades to your scanners, which will remove a lot of the friction in exploring both star systems and planets, as well as give new rewards for doing so. If you find something worth investigating, whether that’s an Earth-like world or a mineral-rich planetary ring, you can use the new detailed surface scanner to map it for a satisfying '100% completion' score, as well as a bonus credit reward. To help with your mapping and resource prospecting, you can fire probes at stellar bodies, Mass Effect 2-style. These probes are unlimited and will highlight areas likely to contain mineral motherlodes to mine - their trajectory will even be affected by the body's gravity, so you'll need to correct your aim. If you can map a body with a certain number of probes or fewer, you get an efficiency bonus, and if you're the first to do so, you can sell the data. Bonuses for first discoveries have also been increased significantly, though if you prefer credit to credits, your name will be listed if you're the first person to discover a stellar body or wholly map a planet.