I spend a LOT of time outside the bubble. (Both the Solar bubble and Colonia area.) Sometimes, I'll be out for months at a stretch and come back with tens of millions of CR worth of exploration data to turn in.
It seems like a waste to turn in all my exploration data at one place. Especially when I consider that there are certain stations where my data can earn me unique benefits. Benefits I'm aware of come in the form of advanced-level engineer access or system permits, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are more.
I would appreciate if anyone can provide a list of places to sell exploration data, which provide such unique benefits. Please include the following details for each place:
- Client information
- Name of the faction or individual the data needs to be turned into
- Details (system name, celestial body name, station name, and pad size) of a station where the client can reliably be found
- Location should be outside of permit-locked space, if possible
- Benefit details
- Type of benefit
- How the benefit is useful
- How much data needs to be turned in to reap the benefit (if amount is known)
- What (if anything) needs to be done after turning in the exploration data to claim the benefit
- Prerequisite information
- What (if anything) needs to be done to unlock access to the client and/or the station
- What (if anything) needs to be done to unlock Universal Cartographics at the station
- What (if anything) needs to be done prior to turning data in, to ensure data is counted towards the goal
A couple examples of things I'd expect to see, just that I can name off the top of my head, are Felicity Farseer/Elvira Martuuk (G5 engineer access) and Sirius Corp (Sirius system permit upon reaching ally status).
Best Answer
Since nobody else is posting information of value, I'll summarize what I've dug up from the Elite Dangerous Wiki.
Engineers
Not all Engineers accept exploration data for advancement. Below is a list of those that do, and where to sell. You'll have to unlock the Engineers to G1, by performing their individual task, before you can sell exploration data to unlock higher tiers. More information about unlocking the Engineers can be found on the Elite Dangerous Wiki.
All bases listed in this section are Planetary locations - you'll need Horizons to access them, and they accept any ship size up to and including Large.
**Shinrarta Dezhra requires a permit from the Pilots Federation, which is obtained once you reach Elite rank in any category.System Permits
Many systems require a Permit before you can jump to them. Some Permits require you to gain ranks with certain Superpowers, while others are granted upon completing an in-game achievement. Then there's a large number of Permits which are currently a mystery to us - nobody knows how to get them.
Besides all of the above, there remain a number of permits which can be obtained by reaching Allied status with a specific Minor Faction. There's several ways to achieve this, and one of them is to sell a load of exploration data to a station controlled by the Minor Faction in question.
Below is a list of permits that can be obtained through reaching Ally status with a Minor Faction. You will need to seek out a System and Station controlled by the Minor Faction yourself, as game mechanics permit ownership of these to change frequently. EDDB is a good resource for this.
****Note: It is possible, though extremely rare, that game mechanics may force Permit control to change hands between Minor Factions. Tiliala is one such case. More details of how this happened are on Galnet News. When in doubt about Permit control, check the Elite Dangerous Wiki.