Final Fantasy XV Guide: Exploration Ascension Grid

The Ascension Grid, or Nexus, is how you unlock new skills, passive abilities, and other bonuses to help you on your journey in Final Fantasy XV. There are 9 total grids, which all give bonuses to something specific. Some of them benefit each other, while others stand alone.

The Exploration Ascension Grid gives bonuses to things like car rides, chocobos, camping, and general things you would expect to use while exploring the world. I’m going to explain the choices you have and give tips on which to get first.

This guide will go over everything about the Exploration Ascension Grid including:

• Exploration Skills – Each Exploration skill and what they do.
• Exploration Suggestions – Which skills you should focus on first. 

Exploration Skills

I’m going to break the grid up into different categories. Each skill will be a bullet point and skills that come later in a tree will be indented.

Car Rides

• Roadrunning (32 AP) – Gain AP for long trips in the car.
• Roadlife (99 AP) – Gain experience for long trips in the car.

Chocobos

• Chocobump (32 AP) – Gain AP for long trips on a chocobo.
• Chocobonus (99 AP) – Gain experience for long trips on a chocobo.
• Chocojockey (32 AP) – Gain AP for winning chocobo races.
• Chocoracer (99 AP) – Gain experience for winning chocobo races.

Camping and Survival

• Happy Camping (20 AP) – Increases AP gained for making camp.
• Happier Camping (48 AP) – Further increases AP gained for making camp.
• Fitter Survival (99 AP) – Occasionally receive double the items from Gladio’s survival skill.
• Fittest Survival (999 AP) – Always receive double the items from Gladio’s survival skill.

Fishing

• Angler Action (18 AP) – Gain AP for catching a fish.
• Reel Experience (333 AP) – Gain experience for catching a fish.
• Item Angler (84 AP) – Double the items gained from fishing.
• Expert Item Angler (555 AP) – Triple the items gained from fishing.
• Sport Fishing (99 AP) – Gain more AP for reeling in a big catch.

Photos

• Snapshot (12 AP) – Technique for Prompto that allows him to take photos during battle.
• Aperture (32 AP) – Chance of gaining AP from Snapshot.

Cooking

• Aftertaste (18 AP) – Extend status boost time for meals eaten at camp.
• Lingering Aftertaste (99 AP) – Further extend status boost time for meals eaten at camp.
• Persistent Aftertaste (333 AP) – Greatly extend status boost time for meals eaten at camp.
• Appetize (20 AP) – Gain AP for cooking someone favorite food.

Exploration Suggestions

Car Rides and Fishing should be the first things you get.

I would get Road Running regardless of what you plan to do because there will be multiple times you are taking long car trips and that’s free AP. 

Fishing is a great way to get ingredients and sell things, so gaining AP while doing it lets you get some extra AP early on.

I would get Angler Action and Item Angler to start with, because that lets you get AP and double items, plus they don’t cost hundreds of AP like the others. If you plan on spending a lot of your time fishing, get Sport Fishing as well to gain even more AP.

The rest depends on what you plan to do, or end up doing, more. In general, things that increase AP are always ones you should get first so you can get more skills quickly.

If you end up making camps a lot, get Happy Camping and Happier Camping early on for extra AP. The cooking category should also be used here since you cook every time you camp.

Chocobos are also a good choice if you plan on riding them often because you can get the same bonus as riding in a car. The only difference is you have to manually ride chocobos, but you can get the bonus in a car even if it is on auto.

That’s it for my guide on the Exploration Ascension grid in Final Fantasy XV. Let me know if you have any questions!