By "map and key" I mean the sort of resolution found in a normal D&D or CoC module: if the player asks "Is there a <whatever> here ?", or declares (as their character) "I search for a <whatever>!" or "I want to find a <whomever or wherever>!", the GM resolves the action declaration by consulting their notes, including their map and key that tell them what sorts of things can be found where. If the map and key are incomplete, then they might have to use some other fallback technique, like rolling on a random table, or using their imagination to extrapolate from what is on the map and key.
In the context of exploration, or scavenging, what this means is that a good focus of play is on the players learning the content of the GM's notes (ie the map and key), by declaring actions like the ones above that oblige the GM to reveal that information.
Apocalypse World doesn't use this sort of approach for resolving action declarations like the ones above. Some of those action declarations would trigger player-side moves - which might, in turn, oblige the GM to make a move. Others would oblige the GM to make a move, typically a "soft" move. In making their moves, the GM is expected to "think offscreen", but in itself this isn't a basis for making a hard move like "you don't find what you're looking for". A "hard" move like that has to follow from what has already been established in the fiction at the table - not from the GM's hitherto-unrevealed notes or imagination.
This means that exploration, salvaging etc produce quite a different play experience from the map-and-key approach.
I don't know 2400, but what you're describing sound a bit like the idea that a hard move has to follow from a prior soft move.
