Are explorers only good for analyzing anomalies?

[MrChoke]

So far that's all I can do with them. Can they do anything else like go out and find stuff or do I have to wait for a scan?

 

[nick012000]

There's a tech that gives you 100 Research points/Sol for each Explorer you have.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

There's a tech that gives you 100 Research points/Sol for each Explorer you have.

Multiple explorers will incur a "collaboration loss", so it won't be a net increase of 100 for each one, but it still is an increase, which is helpful.

 

[Chaon]

Yeah I am seeing my research increased by 180 from my two explorers.

 

[nick012000]

Multiple explorers will incur a "collaboration loss", so it won't be a net increase of 100 for each one, but it still is an increase, which is helpful.

Huh. I didn't know that, because I've only got the one explorer.

 

[spannbeton]

I often use them to recharge my Rovers when they are out gathering metals.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I currently have three, for 240 (60 collaboration loss).

 

[starkaos]

I often use them to recharge my Rovers when they are out gathering metals.

I assume you mean the RC Transport since the Rovers only gather metals when they are building something in range and have the Rover Command AI research that gives unlimited battery life.

 

[Almaravarion]

@starkaos - your rovers can gather minerals by themselves, if you have storage of material to gather in range; as storage is basically free they have potential to be much more efficient in terms of speed than transports.

 

[spannbeton]

Exactly. Put rovers to mine it to a depot and then the transport to ship it to your base.

 

[Thorin]

Yep, with some micro you can mine a lot of stuff from surface, sometimes helps, sometimes needed on very hard runs.

 

[spannbeton]

You can postpone building metal mines until midgame this way. so yes certainly a good idea. and with automatic routes it is not really that much micro

 

[harishrajan96]

yup that's pretty much what they do, i said this in another thread but if they had a transportation system then the explorer could have been used as a transport rover.

 

[Keschnarf]

Yes, the explorer is somewhat disappointing. Most of the time it's parking somewhere near a powerline, generating some research and waiting for an anomaly. Didn't had the need for a 2nd, yet.

 

[Ri0Rdian]

I often use them to recharge my Rovers when they are out gathering metals.

Haha mine serves similar purposes (except I mined it all already so not for that). It sits in the middle of the route between my two Mega Domes where all 3 of my transports go ready to assist any that might run out of juice. Though that has been made rare since I started building cables near stockpiles and when setting up a route putting either the load or unload spot on a cable near the stockpiles (they charge themselves to full and continue their route!).

So Exploration rovers are only good to provide that tiny bit of research and serve as emergency mobile battery once you got all the anomalies.