Open Questions, Notes, Lil video xD

[PogaZeus]

Is there potential to discover another sentient race other than Guardian/Thargoid? (have they put some easter eggs on the other side of the known galaxy that are almost impossible or super time consuming to find? or is it all procedural randomness?) I can imagine there is a limit to the exobiology life form types to be discovered, but It would almost be impossible to get all genetic variations due to the size of the game etc.

According to google, "Only 0.059% of the galaxy has been discovered in the Elite Dangerous live game so far!" - is this up to date? This seems.. mad, nearly every system and planet I looked at has been mapped scanned and landed on xD

Regarding the Guardians.. are there undiscovered Guardian ruins and sites (never been found?) - is this confirmed by Frontier? Are there numbers to how many (do the dev's give this info out? or is it procedural generation so potential for loads more? or are there just a few limited pre placed sites)

Is there potentially a guardian planet alive and well, undiscovered by humans and thargoids (or is stuff like this planned for future?)

Note. I managed to find a guardian ruin, finally worked out the puzzle (had a scorpion instead of a scarab, oops) so I collected all the items - stored them in ship and jettisoned them out, picked them up as I needed them for each scan, and I followed a website map route to scan the beacons, I did every beacon but I only got 8/10 on ram tah's mission (i don't think it was the best guardian site to visit though, beta site, perhaps I missed something) But apparently you can do ram tah's mission every 4 weeks, I know I can do them anytime as I'm still yet to unlock guardian stuff - but also in no rush as not sure I really need to, since been fighting the Thargoids with human AX weaps.

Random note. I managed to kill an interceptor in Horizons a long time ago (it was my only Thargoid kill, might have been with a friend as well and without AX weaps lol) but on Odyssey it seems like they act differently and I can only kill the hunters and scouts at the moment. I heard the update made them change (I've noticed two or 3 types of interceptor as well..not sure, one spits out scouts and run's away, one instantly fights me and I can exert a heart or two before I have to run, I've been recommended a video to watch on how to do it).

 

[Lhorndra]

Is there potential to discover another sentient race other than Guardian/Thargoid? (have they put some easter eggs on the other side of the known galaxy that are almost impossible or super time consuming to find? or is it all procedural randomness?)

I don't think so. All the assets (3D models, textures, animations, sounds, AI etc.) for a sentient race would have to be part of our local files, and I'm pretty sure a nosy commander would have found them during the last 10 years.

According to google, "Only 0.059% of the galaxy has been discovered in the Elite Dangerous live game so far!" - is this up to date? This seems.. mad, nearly every system and planet I looked at has been mapped scanned and landed on xD

Yeah, seems accurate. EDSM says: "0.019999% of the galaxy has been discovered on EDSM, it will take 40,865 years, 1 month, 27 days to discover it entirely." Not every commander contributes to EDSM though, so 0.06% sounds reasonable.

If you fly 3000 ly years or more away from the bubble and not in the direction of Colonia, most of the systems will be undiscovered. And remember, the Milky Way is 100,000 ly in diameter.

Regarding the Guardians.. are there undiscovered Guardian ruins and sites (never been found?)

Who knows? The only ones who could answer this in earnest are FDev. That brings us to:

do the dev's give this info out?

Nope. An occasional hint here and there if it's connected to some current event maybe, but other than that, the devs a very tight lipped. Very tight lipped.

Is there potentially a guardian planet alive and well, undiscovered by humans and thargoids (or is stuff like this planned for future?)

There are many regions in the galaxy that are permit locked. Maybe there is a Guardian homeworld in those areas. Maybe not. Lore-wise, I think it would be more fitting if the Guardians would re-emerge or rise from hibernation or reboot their minds or whatever within the ruins we already know.

Random note. I managed to kill an interceptor in Horizons a long time ago (it was my only Thargoid kill, might have been with a friend as well and without AX weaps lol) but on Odyssey it seems like they act differently and I can only kill the hunters and scouts at the moment. I heard the update made them change (I've noticed two or 3 types of interceptor as well..not sure, one spits out scouts and run's away, one instantly fights me and I can exert a heart or two before I have to run, I've been recommended a video to watch on how to do it).

Not an AX combat pilot myself, but there are currently 5 types of interceptors in the game (if you count the unarmed Orthrus).
By the way, there is a whole community dedicated to AX combat training, ship builds, tips and tricks: the Anti-Xeno Initiative.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Is there potential to discover another sentient race other than Guardian/Thargoid? (have they put some easter eggs on the other side of the known galaxy that are almost impossible or super time consuming to find? or is it all procedural randomness?) I can imagine there is a limit to the exobiology life form types to be discovered, but It would almost be impossible to get all genetic variations due to the size of the game etc.

There's several hundred (if you count colour variations) types of exobiology plant, some of which are very rare, plus quite a range of space exobiology which again are very rare. Without going to where you know someone else has already found one, yes, you're not going to get all of them. Even going on a tour of previously-discovered lifeforms to see one of every type will take you a while.

It's certainly possible that there are one or two obscure types yet to be found because they require extremely specific environments.

There is highly unlikely to be anything in terms of new technological species that's not already been hinted at in any part of the galaxy that we can currently access. It may be why certain areas tens of thousands of LY away from Sol are locked and can't be entered.

According to google, "Only 0.059% of the galaxy has been discovered in the Elite Dangerous live game so far!" - is this up to date? This seems.. mad, nearly every system and planet I looked at has been mapped scanned and landed on xD

It's probably a bit out of date but not far off.

Of course, there's quite a lot of geographic clustering in where people go - near nebulae, or inhabited systems, or other obvious points of interest, systems are more likely to have been visited before. In the middle of nowhere, less likely. Near the galactic core, there are just so many systems that even the busier areas won't have most of them be visited. If you're within 1000 LY of Sol or on the route between obvious points of interest a bit further out, though, yes, someone has probably done that already.

Regarding the Guardians.. are there undiscovered Guardian ruins and sites (never been found?) - is this confirmed by Frontier? Are there numbers to how many (do the dev's give this info out? or is it procedural generation so potential for loads more? or are there just a few limited pre placed sites)

Frontier have not said that there are any Guardian sites beyond the already known ones, and also have not said that there aren't [1]. They're at least somewhat hand-placed but it's possible that for the larger clusters of them it was more "select N suitable planets in this sphere and add a site" rather than working through specifically placing each one. They do add new ones from time to time if the plot requires it, like the one recently reported in Galnet.

There are also a few permit-locked regions which are surrounded by Guardian sites, so it's likely that if we're ever allowed to go inside there will be more sites inside those regions.

[1] Frontier generally are very quiet about questions where answering them might either reveal or constrain future plot directions, and this sort of thing would certainly count.

 

[PogaZeus]

Not an AX combat pilot myself, but there are currently 5 types of interceptors in the game (if you count the unarmed Orthrus).
By the way, there is a whole community dedicated to AX combat training, ship builds, tips and tricks: the Anti-Xeno Initiative.

Nice, I thought I'd seen 3 for sure! and yes I used that website to build my Krait MK II except I changed it slightly, and it works great on Hunters and scouts but I'm terrible with interceptors (need to watch and read more).

the devs a very tight lipped. Very tight lipped.

This is weird because I've heard a lot about server numbers being reduced, player numbers dropping - you'd think they would want to find ways to inspire players to get on and explore or do more with the game.

Perhaps if they added some new sentient races.. and dare I say it.. some new ships xD and made engineering more accessible to newbies. They've got AI roaming settlements, they could add some alien creatures that spawn nearby while you're doing exobiology, exploring/scans on certain planets- and randomly attack you, etc.Would make exobiology less boring eh!

They do add new ones from time to time if the plot requires it, like the one recently reported in Galnet.

There are also a few permit-locked regions which are surrounded by Guardian sites, so it's likely that if we're ever allowed to go inside there will be more sites inside those regions.

[1] Frontier generally are very quiet about questions where answering them might either reveal or constrain future plot directions, and this sort of thing would certainly count.

The one reported in Galnet (this is NPC finding I guess.. frontier letting us know a new one exists?) it made me wonder if more could be randomly discovered.

I didn't know about the permit locked systems and I don't even have a Sol permit yet lol, but that's interesting, perhaps saving an area for future things they might add or develop (hence not talking about it xD).

I haven't travelled far enough from the bubble I guess, I did try once but my jump range wasn't as good then, I'll try again soon! Thanks for the replies

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The one reported in Galnet (this is NPC finding I guess.. frontier letting us know a new one exists?)

They hinted via NPCs that we might want to look around a particular area of space, and then a player found a new Guardian site in that area, but not in a system we'd been specifically directed to.

 

[Jack Winter]

This is weird because I've heard a lot about server numbers being reduced, player numbers dropping - you'd think they would want to find ways to inspire players to get on and explore or do more with the game.

You can probably safely ignore speculation like that, there has been no communication from Frontier that player numbers are dropping so the server count is being reduced. In fact since Frontier has setup the whole server side to dynamically scale up and down with active user counts, it's almost certainly just wishful thinking from the usual detractors of the game.

 

[Hellrider]

There's several hundred (if you count colour variations) types of exobiology plant, some of which are very rare, plus quite a range of space exobiology which again are very rare.

+I feel, that I have to add it- each week players find new color variants in new galaxy regions.
to be more precise- just last week yielded us 20 new codex entries.

 

[RolloTreadway]

This seems.. mad, nearly every system and planet I looked at has been mapped scanned and landed on xD

There are 400 billion systems! There's nothing stopping you from going out and exploring them. I recommend it. Although, further to what others have said about frequently explored areas, there's a large chunk of the outer arm - in the Formidine Rift sector and the neighbouring areas of Kepler's Crest - which were widely explored due to some event that I can't quite remember, many years ago. I'm there right now, and even as I go deep into the outer arm, I'm finding quite a lot of already-discovered systems.

But there really are very few areas in the galaxy where there's been a lot of exploration. The immediate vicinity of SagA*, for obvious reasons, the direct route from SagA* to Beagle Point, some of the more accessible nebulas (such as the Eagle Nebula). And the Bubble-Colonia route, as others have said.

Head off in any other direction and you'll find whole days, weeks go by without seeing a mapped system. You'll feel excited when you do find one, indeed, a moment of connection with other humans in the vast empty nothingness: someone was here.

 

[Factabulous]

Regarding the Guardians.. are there undiscovered Guardian ruins and sites (never been found?)

one was found last Friday, so probably ... yes?

System: Pencil Sector BQ-X b1-4
Body: b2
Type: Bear

 

[Lhorndra]

Perhaps if they added some new sentient races.. and dare I say it.. some new ships xD and made engineering more accessible to newbies. They've got AI roaming settlements, they could add some alien creatures that spawn nearby while you're doing exobiology, exploring/scans on certain planets- and randomly attack you, etc.Would make exobiology less boring eh!

I don't want to disillusion you, but "just adding stuff" would be a significant amount of work. Particularly for a 10-year-old game that's still doing quite fine. May I gently direct you to this article, especially to points 1 and 5.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

+I feel, that I have to add it- each week players find new color variants in new galaxy regions.
to be more precise- just last week yielded us 20 new codex entries.

Yes - if you count variant+region combinations there's definitely still plenty to be found.

Entirely new variants which haven't been seen anywhere before I assume are somewhat rarer?

 

[Hellrider]

It is other thing, and to be fair I don't remember finding completely new plant in any sector

 

[Greasetrap42]

Across the galaxy any location visually obvious, unusual, or interesting has been visited. This obviously does not mean each location has been 100% searched, just visited and possibly mapped, maybe some first footfalls.

A large percentage of exploration cmdrs ignore systems that show signs of already been visited. Even though many systems that have been visited are from travel hopping, not actual investigation.

As a result any "hidden" easter eggs can easily be skipped over with little chance of ever being found. Sometimes even normal good things like WWs and ELWs get missed.

For example, if a Frontier programming joker decided to place a Stargate Atlantis city base on a far-away secondary star system, and then set the main star as discovered... the easter egg would likely never be found.

Anything is possible. Therecould be thousands of almost impossible to find hand placed easter eggs on the other side of the galaxy. Or none. Based on the number found I suspect the probability of finding one is very small.

 

[PogaZeus]

I don't want to disillusion you, but "just adding stuff" would be a significant amount of work. Particularly for a 10-year-old game that's still doing quite fine. May I gently direct you to this article, especially to points 1 and 5.

Eh I'm not saying the game sucks, I'm saying it has potential for even greater possibilities. Gamedev, I've tried myself and it's tough (Unity and Unreal). As they have some things already built in to odyssey like roaming AI, my idea game dev wise was they could alter the code for a model of an alien which spawns at a distance from you on planets when you use the exo scanner for instance, that you could run into and may attack you and you'd have to shoot to kill it). Like you say though the game is old, and perhaps not the primary focus of the company behind it due to other developments they have people working on. They are still developing things though I gather, but forum posts and community input probably won't gather traction with Frontier anyway xD

 

[PogaZeus]

For example, if a Frontier programming joker decided to place a Stargate Atlantis city base on a far-away secondary star system, and then set the main star as discovered... the easter egg would likely never be found.

One can only dream a dev placed Atlantis somewhere out there, except it'd be in water and we can't land on water Perhaps the Alpha site used by SG-1 in the series?

I loved Stargate since I was a kid when I saw the film lol

Or perhaps a prometheus wreckage from Aliens/Prometheus

 

[Frankymole]

Is there potential to discover another sentient race other than Guardian/Thargoid? (have they put some easter eggs on the other side of the known galaxy that are almost impossible or super time consuming to find? or is it all procedural randomness?) I can imagine there is a limit to the exobiology life form types to be discovered, but It would almost be impossible to get all genetic variations due to the size of the game etc.

I remember in the Traveller tabletop RPG there is officially a sentient race with technology in advance of humans', but confined to a single planet as they never saw the point of space travel. They seem biological but are actually AI robots, and anyone visiting them is never allowed to leave. For all we know there is at least one world like this in Elite, maybe even a survival of functioning Guardian AI.

 

[Schmack]

There are 400 billion systems! There's nothing stopping you from going out and exploring them. I recommend it. Although, further to what others have said about frequently explored areas, there's a large chunk of the outer arm - in the Formidine Rift sector and the neighbouring areas of Kepler's Crest - which were widely explored due to some event that I can't quite remember, many years ago. I'm there right now, and even as I go deep into the outer arm, I'm finding quite a lot of already-discovered systems.

But there really are very few areas in the galaxy where there's been a lot of exploration. The immediate vicinity of SagA*, for obvious reasons, the direct route from SagA* to Beagle Point, some of the more accessible nebulas (such as the Eagle Nebula). And the Bubble-Colonia route, as others have said.

Head off in any other direction and you'll find whole days, weeks go by without seeing a mapped system. You'll feel excited when you do find one, indeed, a moment of connection with other humans in the vast empty nothingness: someone was here.

We should consider narrowing down that 400b to something more realistic. How many of those are just single star systems with no planets? Having seen some of the travel maps of some old salts here, I feel like a large portion of the flyover systems aren't worth exploring. They thought so as well thus the straight lines through all of them until the edges of the galaxy. Then again, you never know. I could have sworn my sensors picked up something while flying over a planet surface 10K LY outside the bubble, a 1st discovery system at that. I returned later and couldn't find anything. But for a moment there was like a bogey on my radar.

 

[athulin]

Regarding the Guardians.. are there undiscovered Guardian ruins and sites (never been found?) - is this confirmed by Frontier? Are there numbers to how many (do the dev's give this info out? or is it procedural generation so potential for loads more? or are there just a few limited pre placed sites)

In a few weeks the IGAU starts an expedition called Distant Ruins (see https://www.edsm.net/en/expeditions/summary/id/189/name/Distant+Ruins) to find out if the Guardian structure complex in the identified sector has been fully explored, or if there is more to find. It's a big effort, and will run for a year. The number of Guardian structures and ruins in this volume is extraordinary: it doesn't seem at all unlikely that some outlying ruins have escaped notice.

(The 'new' Guardian structure is located near the Pencil Nebula, where a couple more Guardian ruins/structure also exist. It seems to be a very well explored volume of space: I have noticed no unexplored systems so far, but there are quite a number of untouched bio-rich bodies that have not been mapped or exploited: very few Stratum Techtonicas already sampled. As the presence of Guardian signals now are logged on FSS scan (since when?), I can only imagine that earlier exploration predated such logs, or that any 3rd party tools used were not up to the job of identifying them or calling them to the player's notice, or reporting them to any net databases.)

 

[Rat Catcher]

We should consider narrowing down that 400b to something more realistic.

It's 400 billion in an attempt to be realistic, isn't it?

Does it matter, in the grand scheme of things, if just a few % of the galaxy is discovered before the game is finally put to sleep? At least, with the current galaxy, any player, who so desires, might go out and be first to visit many systems, rather than just following in the footsteps of other intrepid individuals.

 

[Schmack]

It's 400 billion in an attempt to be realistic, isn't it?

Does it matter, in the grand scheme of things, if just a few % of the galaxy is discovered before the game is finally put to sleep? At least, with the current galaxy, any player, who so desires, might go out and be first to visit many systems, rather than just following in the footsteps of other intrepid individuals.

If that was all I said, sure.