Cosmic Exploration is CASUAL content with a pinch of midcore

[Minali]

We just had a Red Alert.
Red Alerts are every 4h (at least on our well populated world, don't know if this is different elsewhere...?)

I was a few minutes late and the delivery spot was in Narnia, so I used maybe 15 instead of 20 minutes.
I was taking part as a botanist. My research level is at 7, so I don't get any boosts from my current relic step because using it would still be a downgrade for level 100.
I didn't really pay attention because I was busy reading the latest posts on this thread and some other things. Therefore I didn't use any cordials and only pressed "Blessed Harvest II" for speeding things up occasionally when I had 500 GP at hand, except the first time where I added "Ageless Words" (Eureka Moment didn't proc) out of habit. I didn't bother with boosting Gathering Boon because the base chance was only at 36% or something at these nodes.
Because I took part in a mech op as ground support yesterday, which involves aiming your character of whatever level into the general direction of an obstacle and press "1", and run to the point where you hand stuff in once in a while, I had some leftover +10 credit boost that expired shortly before the end.

Results for these gathering missions alone:
354 cosmocredits
1179 lunar credits

143 points for Cosmic Botanist IV
88 points for Cosmic Botanist II
88 points for Cosmic Botanist I

On top of that for taking part in the Red Alert to begin with:
200 Cosmocredits
1500 Lunar Credits

I suppose if you are not max level or in an odd level range, you need to include whatever level of "Field Mastery" you have at your disposal for more guaranteed hits, or "Flora Mastery". But that aside, this is - despite being on the moon - not rocket science, and even less than what you would do for average gathering regular materials for whatever recipe you're after in the regular FFXIV world, unless you're bothering with ephemeral nodes, rare nodes or collectables or whatever shenanigans, where you might desire some sort of optimization.

Now, I don't know if there is a level limit for achieving IV, the normal stellar missions Class B and below don't reward them, but as said, I got them for Red Alert missions, so these might be a workaround. Someone else has to report about this. (They didn't show up for me until I unlocked that relic stage though, and because they didn't award III, I thought they'd be capped at II at first.) But even if you have to do Class A missions, you still don't have to finish them on gold, it just speeds things up. Collectables are a bit of a beast, but you can just wait until a mission appears that doesn't require collectables or is paired with expert crafting, if you don't want to bother with this somewhat confusing can of worms.

This is not in any way "hardcore". It might be "not my cup of tea". But this doesn't make any of the things I just described "hardcore". And I really fail to see how this is considered a "steep learning curve", especially with many basic guides for gathering and crafting around, that can tell you why "you obtain nothing" appears on your screen if it happens, and probably with guides explaining you how cosmic exploration works, if the guide the game gives is too overwhelming.

(I was in there yesterday with a person who hadn't gathered anything for ages and got a lot of "You obtain nothing".However, they also got a prompt repeatedly telling them their gear is below the required item level and where to buy better one, right at the hub. Afterwards they didn't get "You obtain nothing" anymore. It's not like the game is completely letting you alone.)