Expedition Tech

The expedition is a relatively new feature, introduced in version 0.78. A fleet can be sent to explore the new slot in each system that is located at slot 16, Outer Space.

The exploration fleet has the chance to:

* Find nothing.
* Find Dark Matter.
* Find resources, but only as much as your fleet has cargo space for.
* Find a merchant from an alien world to trade with.
* Gain ships.
* Find an alien/pirate fleet and be attacked. A combat report is made.
* Find Solar Wind or a wormhole. Your fleet returns sooner.
* Get lost. It will take your fleet longer to return.
* Get lost, your whole fleet will never return.

If the Outer Space is visited too often, the chances of finding anything decrease. If the Outer Space is left alone for a little while it will "replenish."'

When attacked by pirates or aliens, their ships can outnumber your ships. They can also use different ships, like attacking your Battleship and Large Cargo fleet with Cruisers. Pirates have your Weapon / Shielding / Armour Technology minus three, aliens have your technologies plus three. This makes aliens alot harder than pirates.

Expeditions are able to find up to 2,000,000 units of resources. That means that you can only find a maximum of 2,000,000 metal, 2,000,000 crystal or 2,000,000 deuterium.

When finding ships, the maximum unit value that can be found is 500,000. For example, an espionage probe is 1,000 units, and a battleship is 60,000 units (45,000 metal + 15,000 crystal = 60,000 units). So the maximum amount of probes you could find in one expedition is 500, the max amount of battleships you could find is 8.

A good combination of ships you could send in an expedition is 19 large cargos and 38 battleships. This gives you enough capacity to bring back 500,000 units, and is powerful enough to destroy pirates or aliens without suffering too much damage.

To be able to explore you need to research Expedition Technology. The maximum amount of hours your fleet can remain in expedition is the level of your expedition technology. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to find something.

The maximum amount of expedition fleets you can have out at the same time is the square root of your expedition technology level rounded down

07-13 23:38:12 Fleet command Expedition Result [1:359:16]
Your expedition ran into the shipyards of a colony that was deserted eons ago. In the shipyards hangar they discover some ships that could be salvaged. The technicians are trying to get some of them to fly again.

The following ships are now part of the fleet:
Espionage Probe 41
Light Fighter 8

Entry from the communications officers logbook: It feels great to be the first ones traveling through an unexplored sector.

[b]07-15 02:11:17 Fleet command Expedition Result [1:359:16]
The expedition was able to capture and store some Dark Matter.
You got Dark Matter units of 160.

Entry from the communications officers logbook: It seems that this part of the universe has not been explored yet.

[b]07-16 02:24:37 Fleet command Expedition Result [2:358:16]
On an isolated planetoid we found some easily accessible resources fields and harvested some successfully.
You got Metal units of 6.400.