Scouting, Investigating, and Prospecting

Scouting, Investigation, and Prospecting are very important especially early in the game. Though these words have similar meanings, they denote specific tasks in the game. There is also an Explore feature in the game, but it can be largely ignored at this time.

The Galaxy map starts out clouded so you want to uncover it asap, this will take some time to do but you can pretty easily multitask the exploration while you are waiting for ships, buildings, and research to complete. Kick back with a movie on and explore the galaxy! At the bottom of the screen, there is an "Events" button. Here you will find events to complete and a list of things to investigate. The Event rewards are large resource winners and not required to collect until you need them. It made me collect the first one as it is part of the tutorial, but I think after that you can let them sit uncollected. There will be several thousand Investigate, Prospect, and Ghost Freighter events on the second tab (labeled "Investigate") of the Events screen as you explore all of the galaxy. These are OK to investigate, and in fact you should do so asap so you can see all of the galaxy. Just don't collect the rewards from them until needed. The best way to go about this is to use the prospect button instead of explore button when uncovering new systems in the Galaxy screen. This kills two birds with one stone. Once the scout has finished prospecting the system it will usually stay in a holding pattern at that system for 30 minutes before returning to base. This is denoted by an "H" next to your scout where it shows your fleets and scouts to the left when you are in the Galaxy and Star System screens.

When you are in the Star System screen there is a map displayed on the upper right corner. There will be yellow "!"s that denote either a Ghost Freighter or a Drifting Storage. The Ghost Freighters automatically give you the reward when you click on them. The Drifting Storage must be investigated by your scout ship. The scout should stay in a holding pattern after investigating these as well. There is a glitch where the scout sometimes auto-returns to base after prospecting or investigating instead of staying in the holding pattern. There is no known fix for this glitch yet but hopefully it ,will be fixed in the next game patch because it is annoying when you are trying to explore/investigate a lot and have to keep catching your scouts before they return to base. This is compounded when you get more than just the one scout that you start with. I suggest that you do the prospecting and investigating manually system by system when exploring because the Investigate and Prospect screen where they are listed is not organized by distance or anything logical and will have you bouncing from one end of the galaxy to the other wasting a lot of time if you just go down the list. Also, as you uncover more of the map, the Investigate and Prospect screen will have upwards of a thousand events listed and it gets very laggy. So, I only go to it when I need some extra resources and collect enough rewards to build or research what I need at the time.

Scouting is also used to view the info of other player's bases. A good rule of thumb here is to not scout anyone with a higher Command Center level than your own. Also, scouting bases is perceived as an aggressive act so be prepared for repercussions if they don't like you scouting them. In the gallery below, pay attention to the different icons on fleets and scouts that shows what they are doing.

You cannot prospect a system on the other side of a "Gate" system that you have explored until you complete the Starfield Stage Challenge. Gates are systems that connect different arms of the galaxy with each other. Gate systems are controlled by the "Empire" NPCs and must be attacked as a team effort with an alliance to unlock them. If you have a fleet far from home and need it to instantly return home, simply attack a nearby pirate or Skynet Core level that is stronger than your fleet.

### **Previous Page <<< | >>> Next page**

Galaxy view - unexplored, full zoom outShowing full Galaxy view explored (except for the middle which no one can get to yet).Star System screen. Showing fleet idle at base, and scout in the "Holding Pattern."Showing fleet moving to target and scout returning home.Showing fleet engaged in battle and scout moving to target.Showing fleet returning home and scout investigating / prospecting.This is attempting to show the "instant return home" glitch exploit for scouts.