Introduction

Explanation of the Investigate, Explore, Prospect Actions in Infinite Galaxy.

The Basics

Exploring, Prospecting and Investigating are all ways to get to know the galaxy you are in.

Exploring a Star System is the most basic activity of the three. The result is that the Star System will be accessible on your Galaxy Map (instead of being grayed out) and it provides some basic information about the Star System (such as resource nodes available).

Prospecting a Star Platform provides some rewards that can be picked up from the Events map.

Investigating certain aspects of a Star System also yields rewards.

Exploring

Sometimes as part of the main story line or certain events Star Systems will become known to you on the Galaxy Map, but many Star Systems you will need to explore to be able to travel to. Exploring is a simple and free activity (free as in it does NOT cost Explore Energy). Exploring can be done from the Galaxy Map, you can select any unexplored (grayed out) Star System within range and select the Explore option. Your nearest idle Scout shop will be suggested to do the job for you, and any Star System along its path will also be explored.

If you decide to always Prospect instead if Explore from the Galaxy Map, you do not have to worry about the exploring activity, as it is something that will be done implicitly as part of Prospecting.

Prospecting

While Exploring is just getting to know the absolute basics of a Star System, Prospecting will allow you to get to know the Star System in more detail and as such grant you a reward (e.g. Core Module XP, resources, materials for gear).

Prospecting can be done from the Galaxy Map by selecting an unexplorer Star System and selecting the Prospect menu, by selecting the Star Platform in an known Star System and selecting the Prospect menu, or by selecting the Prospect action on a Star System in the Events Map. All are the same.

Prospecting costs one Explore Energy. Each day your Explore Energy refreshes at reset.

Investigating

Investigating is a bit similar to Prospect. Any Explored Star System can have one ore two Investigate options. Investigation can be done from the Events Map by selecting Investigate option. For Investigating you also get rewards, and Investigating also costs 1 Explore Energy.

On the Events Map you will see for each Star System a white dot (no Prospect or Investigate possibilities) or a digit indicating the number of Prospect and/or Investigate possibilities.

For the rewards of Investigate tasks you typically get the choice between two rewards. While writing this I don't have a very strong opinion about what is best to take, but prefer the items which are more rare or harder to get (for example Core XP or Gear Materials) as opposed to the more common ones (e.g. resources).

Events Map vs Galaxy Map

If you do Exploring (or use Prospecting to Explore new systems) you should use the Galaxy Map. Look at an area with grayed out systems and send your scout ship.

If you are focussed on doing the Investigate and Prospects tasks it is easier to work from the Events Map. Here you can easily send out your scout ships and claim rewards.

Best Practices

For Exploring, if you don't have much time, but still need to Explore quite a lot, try to find unexplored systems far away in an area with many unexplored systems. If you Explore a far system you are likely to Explore quite some systems along the way.

When working on Investigating and Prospecting from the Events Map, realize that the list if systems is not ordered based on location. You can much better work from areas on the map (potentially work at the same time on different areas with different scout ships) to minimze flight times rather than working from the list.

Exploration Center

The Exploration Center is a building that has some effects on the Explore, Prospect and Investigate tasks. Each of these tasks require the use of a scout ship. By upgrading the building you unlock extra scout ships and you increase the speed of your scout ships.

Scouting

Although it might sound a bit similar, and it also uses scout ships, scouting is a completely different activity. This is used to try to find out more information about enemies that you might want to attack (or that attack you). Often scouting itself is already seen as an act of war and if you are not yet in a war, you probably want to be careful about starting one.