Reputation Exploration Detailed Guide

## Detailed Walk-through

So you've got yerself an [Exploration] mission from your rep quest? This seems to be the least intuitive, most confusing quest to navigate for new players. We've all struggled through figuring out how to do it, because there isn't a lot of help out there, or in the game, to indicate just what you're supposed to do.

This guide will hopefully help you out.

First off, you can almost certainly tell you're going to get an [Exploration] mission because all ship types will be admitted before you go to accept the mission. Once you accept the mission, you will receive a briefing like this.

   Now let's say that you don't have the time, or the inclination, or the parameters they're looking for can't be found nearby. Declining the quest on the briefing screen will not make it go away. Instead, you can accept the quest, go to the overview screen, and click that Forfeit button at the bottom of the quest details. Then walk back into that agent's office and get a different quest. (Or just another, different exploration).

You're going to accept that quest this time though, because I put a lot of work into this guide, and you don't want my efforts to go to waste. So go ahead and instead click that Map button right next to the Forfeit button. This will bring you to the handy dandy Galaxy Map screen. If you access your map through the menu button instead of the quest briefing, you'll get the System Map screen. We don't want the system map just yet (unless they give you an exploration that the system you start in meets, which would be really lucky for you), so instead click that button up in the top left to change it to the Galaxy Map screen.

Once in the Galaxy Map, you have hit the most arduous, annoying, frustrating part of this mission, and possibly the game. You must now click every single solar system around you to find the one you need. Often times, even having to click each individual planet in each individual solar system looking for the right parameters. (Note, I moved my base to the system my agent is in. This saves me a huge amount of time, especially since you need to do 20 rep missions a week to get your weekly reward).

When you select a solar system you will see the following window pop up.

Take note of a few things before you run off to a solar system, such as the number of gates you'll have to pass through, underlined in red, and the security status of the system. Select the button circled in yellow to go to the System Map for that selected Solar System.

After a while of clicking, I found what I needed in the Aurora system. It is a system with 8 planets, which is what I've been tasked to find and scan. Sometimes you will have to scan for specific planets or the star of a system. Click that little planet on the right side of the screen to bring up a list of the celestial bodies in a system. Then click each thing you need to check to see its parameters. Here you will find things like radius, age, planet type, etc. which are specific things these missions will ask for. Once you find what you're looking for, click that warp button and let the auto pilot take over from there (if that's safe, of course.)

My mission just needs me to scan the system as a whole, so I can just go to the star gate. So I want to go back to the Galaxy Map, select the Aurora system, and click the warp to system button highlighted here.

Once you arrive at the system, star, or planet that you need, click your menu button and go to your OPS screen. At the OPS screen, move to your Overview tab and look at your Reputation missions. Select your Exploration mission and click that Collect Data button at the bottom. It will bring up the Data Comparison window. Click the Collect button at the bottom of the window, and if you did indeed find the location that matches the mission requirements, it will show Result Matched. You have now completed the mission. These steps are highlighted in pictures below.

## Additional tips

**Scan Infection**

Occasionally the scan you must perform is on an Infected System. The steps are basically the same, with one difference, and it's actually generally a lot easier.

When you enter the Galaxy Map screen, there is a filter button down in the bottom right. It's defaulted to Security Level. Click that filter, and select Infection Stage from the list. You will now see every infected system colored on the map. With every other system that is not infected being grey, it is easy to spot these systems, even when zoomed out. This makes it significantly easier to spot them from the Galaxy Map.

There is a drawback though. Infected systems are few and far between, and there is even the possibility of there not being an infected system at all. How infection is created and how it spreads is as of this writing a mystery. Rumor has it that players spread it after coming in contact with the infection in a wormhole event, but that isn't confirmed yet. For now, if you can't find a wormhole system, or it's too far away or too risky to jump to, I would suggest forfeiting the mission and grabbing a new one.

**Additional Tips**

As I said, these missions can be time consuming, and may send you pretty far out to find what you're looking for. You'll notice that I took a Battlecruiser out even though this mission could have just as easily been handled by a Frigate. There is no combat or cargo involved. You may also notice though that I took a Gravitational Scanner out. Since I'm going to a different system almost every time I do one of these missions, that means it's a new system to scan for asteroids.

Often times the systems I'm sent to are scantly populated, in secure space, and have good asteroid levels. So as soon as I'm done with the data collection, I scan for asteroid belts, and do some mining before heading home.

Doing multi-tasking like this - bringing a scanner or a ship that matches the requirements for another mission you can complete - will maximize your time out of the space station, which is how you really boost your productivity in the game.

**Planets of note**

Agent Wong Chulan at Chung-Shan Space Station

Aurora is the closest planet I've discovered with 8 planets in the system

Arcadia is the closest planet I've discovered with a storm planet in system (Arcadia II)