Newcomer / Intro Exploration of the COL sectors - almost lost in space with no fuel left

[Alakys]

Hello Commanders !
I am quite new to the game and I could not find any post about what happened to me last night, hope you can assist me.

Basically I started at LHS 3447 with my Sidewinder and managed to get myself a Cobra with which I wanted to go exploring: I gave myself 2 choices, either going towards SOL or going towards the center of the galaxy.

As I choose the latter option to explore straight towards the center of the galaxy I realized that the deeper I was jumping from systems to systems the fewer named systems was around me and finally got to a point where I was surrounded by COL xx Sectors. I told myself don't worry keep going and you will find some named systems with some stations for refueling. Unfortunately I was not finding any named system, so no stations and decided to turn back and managed to reach a stations with maybe 15 LY of fuel left !!

All this long story for 2 questions:

1) what happens if you have no fuel and are in a system with no station ?
2) before going back exploring, how come there are no named systems (with stations) the deeper you go towards the center of the galaxy ?

Thanks for your reply/help/advices.

 

[Gandef]

get yourself a fuel scoop to refuel at the sun. I almost ran out of juice at one stage getting sidetracted but if you run out your basically dead. Also don't visit Sol until you have got a pass. I half saw on another post you need to get a good rep before being able to visit it.

 

[Voz]

1) what happens if you have no fuel and are in a system with no station ?.

If you have no fuel you eventually run out of power, the ship freezes, you lose oxygen and 'game over'. You will find your self with the option to get the free sidewinder again at a station. I believe you will have lost any exploration data (can anyone confirm?).

2) before going back exploring, how come there are no named systems (with stations) the deeper you go towards the center of the galaxy ?

Systems have been explored and settled from the Sol system outwards. So the center of known space is not the center of the galaxy. Who knows, maybe at some point we will bump into another civilization that has named and settled those systems........

 

[Ozric]

The first rule of exploring is get a fuel scoop!!! There are no stations once you go towards the centre of the galaxy (or out in any direction for a while) because it is not colonised space. You may have seen in the newsletter one of the community goals is to build a space station in a (semi)far flung system. Not all star types can have fuel scooped from them, the ones that can are:

A, B, F, G, K, M, O the ones that cannot are: L, T, TTS, Y

If you don't have enough fuel to make it to the next scoopable star, then I'm afraid you are dead and will lose all the exploration data you had till that point. You have two choices:

1. Self-Destruct
2. Fly yourself completely out of fuel till you drop out of Supercriuse and then sit there for 5 minutes and watch you oxygen slowly deplete until you suffocate to death. (I speak from experience)

 

[Kuroshio]

1.) As of now, you're doomed and have to kill yourself unless you have a fuel scoop. If you want to go exploring, that's the one piece of equipment you absolutely need, else you won't be able to go out farther than 50-75 lightyears. You can refuel at the O Be A Fine Girl (or Guy, if so inclined) Kiss Me star types, you can check for those on the galaxy map, even for unexplored systems.
2.) Colonized space is only a few hundred lightyears across. After that, it's the unknown. (Wouldn't be much left to explore if all 400 billion systems were already populated...) If you turn on the allegiance tabs on your galaxy map and zoom out a litle, you'll see a colorful bubble of dots surrounded by a huge mass of grey systems - none of those have any kind of infrastructure.

Sadly, there is no way to get fuel out to you (yet?), else I'd come and pick you up.

 

[popuptoaster]

Three things you'll want for exploring, the advanced discovery scanner which you bind to a fire group and use it to "ping" a new system, this will reveal all the bodies in the system, a surface scanner, so that you can scan those discovered bodies, this will work automatically if you target an undiscovered object and then get close enough to it while keeping it centred on your screen and a fuel scoop.

You can see me scoop fuel and ping a system at the same time in this short vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOgR7Qw15NU

 

[Alakys]

Thank you for your replies.

I confirm that when you loose your ship then you will loose all the unsold exploration data.

I will get myself a fuel scoop, that's a good one.

I thought all the galaxy was populated and having stations even in the core, I guess I will have to come back closer to LHS 4437 then and do like everybody else better venturing again there.

Last question:
What happens if I wipe my save ? Do I loose all my credits/ships and start back with my sidewinder in LHS 4437 ?
I don't understand the point of clicking SAVE and EXIT when leaving the game.

Thanks again !

 

[Skip Intro]

If you want to venture out into the wilds:

1) Fuel Scoop
2) Advanced Discovery Scanner
3) Detailed Surface Scanner
4) Repair Module
5) Nutter's Guide: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=81653

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Last question:
What happens if I wipe my save ? Do I loose all my credits/ships and start back with my sidewinder in LHS 4437 ?
I don't understand the point of clicking SAVE and EXIT when leaving the game.

Thanks again !

Wiping your save puts you back to the beginning, free Sidewunder and 1000Cr.
Save and exit does just that, it saves your position in the game to the server and then quits the game.

 

[Ozric]

Three things you'll want for exploring, the advanced discovery scanner which you bind to a fire group and use it to "ping" a new system, this will reveal all the bodies in the system, a surface scanner, so that you can scan those discovered bodies, this will work automatically if you target an undiscovered object and then get close enough to it while keeping it centred on your screen and a fuel scoop.

You can see me scoop fuel and ping a system at the same time in this short vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOgR7Qw15NU

You should not wait until you get an Advanced Discovery Scanner before going exploring, otherwise it takes all of the fun out of exploring entirely.

Working out the best way to fly to try and find Stars and Planets, having to check every now and then to see if anything else was in range, trying to work out from the System Map roughly how many bodies there are in a system and not knowing how far away the companion stars were when you found them

That is what exploring is about, the thrill of discovery


I'm now on a 20,000 Ly round trip and so I have an ADS, it's just not the same anymore, feels almost like a job now

 

[popuptoaster]

You should not wait until you get an Advanced Discovery Scanner before going exploring, otherwise it takes all of the fun out of exploring entirely.

Working out the best way to fly to try and find Stars and Planets, having to check every now and then to see if anything else was in range, trying to work out from the System Map roughly how many bodies there are in a system and not knowing how far away the companion stars were when you found them

That is what exploring is about, the thrill of discovery


I'm now on a 20,000 Ly round trip and so I have an ADS, it's just not the same anymore, feels almost like a job now

I disagree, the thrill of exploring is FINDING interesting things not LOOKING for them and an AD means you find things much more quickly.

You can ping the system then check the system map to see if anything looks like it needs investigating, if you explore every single body in every single system you go to you'll never get anywhere, the skill is in picking which places to take a better look at and moving on to the next system.

Flying around looking for dots that move against the background is no fun and what's going to happen is that you'll spend 30 minutes in a system looking for interesting planets and then when you do find one you'll find it's the only one in the systems that's already been discovered by someone else......

 

[Alakys]

But are you sure that all the known stations are within the 1,000 LY radius which comprises LHS 3347 and SOL system ?

I mean is it sure that we cannot find any other stations beyond the unexplored systems ? I can't imagine someone would spend time exploring / fuel scooping up to the core of the galaxy (as I have seen in a video on youtube showing a supermassive black hole) while there is only astronomical/celestial bodies to be discovered ??

Sorry for insisting but if that is the case then I would only explore close by to the named systems in order to find some asteroid belts and do some mining ....

 

[Ozric]

I disagree, the thrill of exploring is FINDING interesting things not LOOKING for them and an AD means you find things much more quickly.

You can ping the system then check the system map to see if anything looks like it needs investigating, if you explore every single body in every single system you go to you'll never get anywhere, the skill is in picking which places to take a better look at and moving on to the next system.

Flying around looking for dots that move against the background is no fun and what's going to happen is that you'll spend 30 minutes in a system looking for interesting planets and then when you do find one you'll find it's the only one in the systems that's already been discovered by someone else......

More treasure and glory hunting as opposed to exploring

 

[the100thmonkey]

You should not wait until you get an Advanced Discovery Scanner before going exploring, otherwise it takes all of the fun out of exploring entirely.

Working out the best way to fly to try and find Stars and Planets, having to check every now and then to see if anything else was in range, trying to work out from the System Map roughly how many bodies there are in a system and not knowing how far away the companion stars were when you found them

That is what exploring is about, the thrill of discovery


I'm now on a 20,000 Ly round trip and so I have an ADS, it's just not the same anymore, feels almost like a job now

Some people don't enjoy gimping themselves deliberately to make exploration harder. Would you take on an Anaconda in a stock Sidewinder?

Personally, the only reason I can find not to buy the ADS is financial - it's an expensive piece of equipment.

 

[willowfan]

When you get a fuel scoop (not if, there is no if about fuel scoops) don't just get the basic 300 odd CR one, they are very slow and inefficient. Get at least a C or B rated one in the largest slot you can spare. Refueling will be much,much faster with far less risk of heat damage from being to close to a star for too long.

 

[Ozric]

But are you sure that all the known stations are within the 1,000 LY radius which comprises LHS 3347 and SOL system ?

I mean is it sure that we cannot find any other stations beyond the unexplored systems ? I can't imagine someone would spend time exploring / fuel scooping up to the core of the galaxy (as I have seen in a video on youtube showing a supermassive black hole) while there is only astronomical/celestial bodies to be discovered ??

Sorry for insisting but if that is the case then I would only explore close by to the named systems in order to find some asteroid belts and do some mining ....

It depends what you want to get out of exploring, as Popup and I have just proven. There's a few tricks up their sleeves, but all "known" stations are within a radius of Sol. What's the point of building 1 station 10,000 Ly from anywhere else, you need to build a bridge at least and that would be expanding colonised space, like the community goals are doing.

The people who made the videos you've seen and myself when I went to the Pleiades Cluster on the first day Gamma was released, none of us knew at that time that you would get credited with the First Discovered tag/bonus, we all did it because for one reason or another we just wanted to explore the galaxy. Some wanted to be the first to say they'd found a Black Hole or got to the centre of the Sagittarius A*, myself I wanted to visit my favourite constellation in the night sky. That is the reason why we spend the time doing it

 

[ollobrains]

Col sectors ar close to pand and are stop one for newbie explorers

 

[Ozric]

Some people don't enjoy gimping themselves deliberately to make exploration harder. Would you take on an Anaconda in a stock Sidewinder?

Personally, the only reason I can find not to buy the ADS is financial - it's an expensive piece of equipment.

It's not about that at all and certainly doesn't remotely compare to combat. The ADS is expensive and with good reason. If you're just starting out in exploration then you have to ask yourself why you are doing it. I personally don't see the point in doing something if you don't enjoy doing it, you're not forced into exploring in any way and so if you think I'll just buy the ADS and then pick the occasional Gas Giant or habitable looking planet to scan for some money, then not only are you going to want to get it done as quickly as possible but why are you doing it in the first place?

 

[Noogillim]

Scanning lots of systems yes can be time consuming but it has a benefit even the discovered systems but unknown to your ship, when you get to a station eventually it is a way of offsetting the wear and tear you will accumulate but are not trading or scooping.

You also find the odd planet or two others have missed!

 

[Kuroshio]

But are you sure that all the known stations are within the 1,000 LY radius which comprises LHS 3347 and SOL system ?

I mean is it sure that we cannot find any other stations beyond the unexplored systems ? I can't imagine someone would spend time exploring / fuel scooping up to the core of the galaxy (as I have seen in a video on youtube showing a supermassive black hole) while there is only astronomical/celestial bodies to be discovered ??

[...]

People do - it's what exploration is all about, and I envy people like Erimus who did this all the way to the other side of the galaxy.

Of course, unless all systems have been visited, we cannot prove that there aren't any stations hidden somewhere (and some parts of the galaxy are closed off, probably for future expansions), but right now, it is just a lot of unknown and uncharted space. Without any gas stations.

And depending on your playstyle, sitting near an unexplored star at the edge of the galaxy can be a great (and humbling) experience. For me and some others, it's what great about the game. But there's enough to do at the civilized core if you're interested in other things.

 

[the100thmonkey]

It's not about that at all and certainly doesn't remotely compare to combat. The ADS is expensive and with good reason. If you're just starting out in exploration then you have to ask yourself why you are doing it. I personally don't see the point in doing something if you don't enjoy doing it, you're not forced into exploring in any way and so if you think I'll just buy the ADS and then pick the occasional Gas Giant or habitable looking planet to scan for some money, then not only are you going to want to get it done as quickly as possible but why are you doing it in the first place?

That misses the point - the comparison to combat was about using the appropriate tools to get the job done. In that regard, it is a pertinent comparison.

People have different reasons for doing it in the first place. Yours is to spot something without computational aids. That's your prerogative. However, with a great many secondary and tertiary stars so far out from the primary that you jump into, the chances of finding planets is actually relatively small. The game helps a great deal already with supercruise and the parallax effects that induces, and one could then argue that you're using a crutch and should stop SCing, hang out in normal space with the engines off and used your eye and thumb (an astrolabe would be another artificial aid). The desire to say "I found it myself unaided" itself introduces an artificial constraint that others might not see the point of. I certainly don't.

I bought an ADS and went off on a trip to LBN 623 for my first foray - a 1300LY round trip. I enjoyed it immensely and intend to do another one to the Scutum-Crux arm via the Eta-Carina nebula once I've saved enough for an Asp. I'm not going to do it in that ship, however. Repair bills can be quite high with it, I'm given to understand. I'll probably refit my Cobra for >23LY jumps. As for why I did it in the first place, well, I wanted to see what it was like. I also wanted the trip to pay for itself.