Expedition Guide

Slippy's pr0game Guide

Chapter 2 - Expeditions

Expos ... what are they ... and why would I do this?

Expeditions (expos) are a way to use your spaceships to generate resources. To do this, simply select the desired expedition fleet in the fleet menu, choose position 16 in a galaxy as the target, and then select the only available option, Expedition. But be careful: expeditions trigger random events.
Anything can happen, from huge resource finds and new ships joining you, all the way to the total annihilation of your fleet. Sounds kind of spooky... so why risk it?
Well... expos work a bit like gambling... except you're the casino. You can win, but you can also lose. However, as long as you don't do something completely wrong, you'll always come out ahead more often than not.

Note.
To fly expeditions, you need Astrophysics research:
-Astrophysics level 1: one expedition fleet at a time
-Astrophysics level 4: two expedition fleets at a time
-Astrophysics level 9: three expedition fleets at a time
-Astrophysics level 16: four expedition fleets at a time

The following events can occur during expeditions:
-Finding resources
-Finding ships
-Nothing happens
-Return trip is sped up
-Return trip is slowed down
-Battle against pirates
-Battle against aliens
-Black hole (total loss)

How Does It Work?

So you send out an expedition fleet.
-Your fleet flies from your starting planet to planet slot 16 to carry out the expedition there.
-Your fleet waits for the selected hold time.
-The expedition report arrives and the fleet flies back to the starting planet.

Note.
The hold time only shifts the timing of the expedition's outcome.
So the most sensible thing to do is simply always fly with a 1h hold time.

Which Fleet Should I Send on an Expedition?

The size of the possible finds on your expedition depends on your so-called expo value. The formula for your expo value is as follows:

Expo value = structure points * 5/1000

Structure points refer to the cost of a ship (example: Small Cargo Ship costs 2,000 metal and 2,000 crystal. That's 4,000 structure points combined — deuterium cost is irrelevant). In addition, there is always a limit to the expo value. This limit depends on the score of the rank 1 player in the universe. We have the following limits:

Rank 1 has less than 10,000 points = expo limit 200
Rank 1 has more than 10,000 points = expo limit 2,400
Rank 1 has more than 100,000 points = expo limit 6,000
Rank 1 has more than 1,000,000 points = expo limit 9,000
Rank 1 has more than 5,000,000 points = expo limit 12,000
Rank 1 has more than 25,000,000 points = expo limit 15,000
Rank 1 has more than 50,000,000 points = expo limit 18,000
Rank 1 has more than 75,000,000 points = expo limit 21,000
Rank 1 has more than 100,000,000 points = expo limit 25,000

Optimal fleets are at the end of this post

Okay... since not everyone wants to do this math by hand, there are of course several calculators for the expo value. In my opinion, this one is the best:
http://bontchev.my.contact.bg/ogame/expeditions.html
So now we know how to reach the expo value limit... so just cram in every ship you've got!!! Nope... not so fast... there's more to consider:

The Events!

The most common events causing potential losses are pirates (-30% to your combat technologies) and aliens (+30% to your combat technologies). The encounter fleets depend on your own fleet. If you send a large combat fleet, the bad guys also get a large combat fleet. If those clash, it can really hurt. So what do we do about it? We build a fleet made of as many large cargo ships as possible (large cargo ships are better than small cargo ships, since they can take significantly more hits) that deal essentially no damage. As a result, the encounters also mostly consist of cargo ships in their fleets, and thus deal little damage to you. So an optimal fleet to suffer as few losses as possible consists exclusively of large cargo ships.

However, the following also needs to be considered: If the triggered event is a fleet find, the type of ship you can find depends on the type of the highest-tier ship you sent along. So if you only send large cargo ships, the best possible combat ship you can find is a Heavy Fighter. Okay... okay... let's simplify this.. here's a list of the findable ships.

Left: the highest-tier combat ship sent, right: the highest-tier combat ship findable:
Light Fighter -> Heavy Fighter
Heavy Fighter -> Cruiser
Cruiser -> Battleship
Battleship -> Battlecruiser
Battlecruiser -> Bomber
Bomber -> Destroyer

Now we're almost done... just one more point... and then we can build the perfect expo fleets. The Espionage Probe! It's best to always send an espionage probe along with every expo fleet.
Only 10 expos should be flown to any given system within the last 24h, otherwise the chance of eventless expeditions rises drastically.
If you send an espionage probe along, a footnote is added to your expedition report along the lines of: "It is nice to explore this system as the first" or "It seems like we are not the first ones here." The first message tells you that you're below the limit of 10 expeditions flown, the second tells you that you're over it.

TL;DR:

What's the best fleet composition to fly with?

Rank 1 < 10,000 pts:
1 LCS + spy

Rank 1 > 10,000 pts:
40 LCS + spy
39 LCS + 1 heavy fighter + spy
38 LCS + 1 cruiser + spy
35 LCS + 1 battleship + spy
34 LCS + 1 bomber + spy
31 LCS + 1 destroyer + spy

Rank 1 > 100,000 pts:
100 LCS + spy
99 LCS + 1 heavy fighter + spy
98 LCS + 1 cruiser + spy
95 LCS + 1 battleship + spy
94 LCS + 1 bomber + spy
91 LCS + 1 destroyer + spy

Rank 1 > 1,000,000 pts:
150 LCS + spy, 149 LCS + 1 heavy fighter + spy
148 LCS + 1 cruiser + spy
145 LCS + 1 battleship + spy
144 LCS + 1 bomber + spy
141 LCS + 1 destroyer + spy

What Can I Find With What

	findable ships
Ship sent	Spy	SCS	LF	LCS	HF	Cru	BS	BC	Bo	De
Espionage probes	X	X
Small Cargo Ship	X	X	X
Light Fighter	x	X	X	X
Large Cargo Ship	X	X	X	X	X
Heavy Fighter	X	X	X	X	X	X
Cruiser	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Battleship	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Battlecruiser	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Bomber / Destroyer	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
all other ships	X	X