I never considered for a second that the good people who contribute to this awesome repository of essential information would for one second steal another's discovery, however those are not the only individuals who read this and it took me a while to track that particular beast down.
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Guide / Tutorial Nutter’s explorers guide to the Galaxy
- Thread starter Nutter
- Start date
WOW! That is bright! I can feel it even through my screen!
Are Orange Giants rare? I just encountered my first of those and, yes, they name them "GIANT" for a reason. I nearly freaked when I jumped in and my field of view was nothing but star. Normally, that's a sign that you're about to have a bad day.
Seen a few but they are not overly common from what I have seen
Regarding fuel economy, fastest route/economical, scoopable stars, scanning stuff vs getting to destination etc.
I used the approach where I want to get to where I am going, but i want to scan as much interesting stuff on the way there as possible, and scooping in a nuscience, so the solution for me is to dump the route planner.
Instead I get a good eyeball on the direction i want to travel to (the globular clusters outside the galaxy are excellent for this), filter the map for the type of stars I want to focus on, then cherry pick each next jump as part of my routine, either while scanning the new star, or while SC'ing to a scan. I also generally look for jumps 2-3 LY's less than my max jump, then i need to scoop alot less often If I'm just jumping from neutron star to neutron star to white dwarf to black hole to neutron star etc etc.
Works pretty well for me.
I used the approach where I want to get to where I am going, but i want to scan as much interesting stuff on the way there as possible, and scooping in a nuscience, so the solution for me is to dump the route planner.
Instead I get a good eyeball on the direction i want to travel to (the globular clusters outside the galaxy are excellent for this), filter the map for the type of stars I want to focus on, then cherry pick each next jump as part of my routine, either while scanning the new star, or while SC'ing to a scan. I also generally look for jumps 2-3 LY's less than my max jump, then i need to scoop alot less often If I'm just jumping from neutron star to neutron star to white dwarf to black hole to neutron star etc etc.
Works pretty well for me.
The thing is you don't HAVE to do this. Just keep your tank half full. Same effect.
I've got a 4A fuel scoop, if I recall correctly, and most of the time I'm full by the time I'm done the system scan and checking the system map to see if there's anything worth detail scanning.
Nope, not the same thing at all! If you use the route planner, it will plan routes based on a full fuel tank, regardless how much you have in it now (or ever).
That way, you're not maximizing the range of your ship if you think you're "doing better" by running with 1/2 a tank. Yes, this works for manual jumps, but how often do you do that?
Generally speaking, if needed*, I run to about 1/2 full or two+ maximum-ranges jumps left before I look carefully for scoopable stars. Just pop open the Galaxy Map and look for these stars in my route, or worst case, I jump to a nearby star that is type:
Fill
My
Big
Kettle
And
Go!
Almost zero chance of running out of fuel if you have two 35LY+ jumps in the tank before you commit, since as others have mentioned, a "75% jump" uses a tiny proportion of fuel compared to a "Maximum Effort" jump. If you have 36LY range, there are lots of stars in 75% of that range!
My ASP has about four 35LY+ jumps plus about 20LY left over with a full 16T tank. With automatic Route Planning, it should be pretty much impossible to actually run out of fuel. (your routed fuel usage would need to exactly match your capacity, which would be extremely rare with such large jumps)
* This turned out to be pretty much never on a fruitless 2,200LY trip to get to the Owl Nebula (you can't get there!). In this case, the stars thin out to an incredible amount when you are 1000LY above the galactic plane near Sol, but it was never an issue, I was always able to scoop by the second jump from full (filling at 1/2 tank).
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Nope, not the same thing at all! If you use the route planner, it will plan routes based on a full fuel tank, regardless how much you have in it now (or ever).
That way, you're not maximizing the range of your ship if you think you're "doing better" by running with 1/2 a tank. Yes, this works for manual jumps, but how often do you do that?
Generally speaking, if needed, I run to about 1/2 full or two+ maximum-ranges jumps left before I look carefully for scoopable stars. Just pop open the Galaxy Map and look for these stars in my route, or worst case, I jump to a nearby star that is type:
Fill
My
Big
Kettle
And
Go!
Almost zero chance of running out of fuel if you have two 35LY+ jumps in the tank before you commit, since as other have mentioned, an "75% jump" is a tiny proportion of fuel compared to a "Maximum Effort" jump. If you have 36LY range, there are lots of stars in 75% of that range!
Not tooo sure about the planning on a full tank, I am fairly sure it plans on current range. I have been caught out on a couple of jumps when I was rare trading and didn't fill the tank before docking
There's only one way to settle this.
What? Actually test it in-game? Heck no, I meant in Thunderdome.
It's always better to settle things in Thunderdome!
Well I am at a planned stop atm so can plan a route using full tank, doa few jumps and then try to replan it and see what happens
Edit
As tank wasn't quite full I was able to check route planning to stars above full tank range but below current range and I bow to your superior understanding sir, you are correct
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It's the only way it can work! Route planning would be useless if it planned based on anything but a full tank (lowest possible range), otherwise, by definition, any time you scooped above the planned level, the next jump in the list would be impossible!
It would be cool if it dynamically updated the chosen route, based on the fuel level at hand (and weight), but it doesn't work that way...
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It's the only way it can work! Route planning would be useless if it planned based on anything but a full tank (lowest possible range), otherwise, by definition, any time you scooped above the planned level, the next jump in the list would be impossible!
It would be cool if it dynamically updated the chosen route, based on the fuel level at hand (and weight), but it doesn't work that way...
Should have realized that to be honest, I must have changed something else that didnt affect the first few jumps as they were under the altered range as well.
Funny thing was, when I got to Skaude I flitted around a bit then turned straight for home. I was so fired up to get to the place I didn't know what to do when I got there.
haha I had the opposite problem I got there and it took me forever to turn back home because there was always that 'just 1 more system'. Back in regular space now so should make it back to civilization before too long.
Don't worry about first discovery ... there's plenty of stars for us all and the skaude cluster will certainly need many many explorers to find out all it's secrets.
If you use route planer and you want to max it out (use longest jumps possible), then it's better to have a smaller tank then a bigger tank that's half empty. And that's because route planer is bugged when there is fuel missing, it never uses the maximum available distance.
Also. although they are very rare, you can also scoop the O type stars, they are a variation of white-blue stars.
Also. although they are very rare, you can also scoop the O type stars, they are a variation of white-blue stars.
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks nutter! Got bored of trading, kind of hit a wall with bounty hunting. Now it's time to explore the galaxy (or rather, the center. I always wondered what's in there...). T6 or Asp? Still trying to figure out which one I want to go with
I went with Asp as I hated the T6 with a vengeance for trading, I didn't go for the core but just wandered around checking the Galaxy Map for odd stuff.
I would say it's probably a more important question, can you afford to fit out an Asp how you would want to? If not go with the T6.
The only thing I would say is fit the biggest baddest fuelscoop you can get as they carry no weight and save you a huge amount of ttime over the course of the trip.
Interesting.
I am itching to go exploring (but then again I am itching to do more BH, and also to get to the Empire and rank up - basically I think I need some antihistamines!)
Any disadvantage to using a T6 for exploring?
I have both a well-kitted Cobra and a reasonable T6; only about 5M in the kitty so far so was going to grind maybe a little more then store the T6 (or sell) and blast off towards Achenar in the Cobra
I am itching to go exploring (but then again I am itching to do more BH, and also to get to the Empire and rank up - basically I think I need some antihistamines!)
Any disadvantage to using a T6 for exploring?
I have both a well-kitted Cobra and a reasonable T6; only about 5M in the kitty so far so was going to grind maybe a little more then store the T6 (or sell) and blast off towards Achenar in the Cobra
You know, I've never understood the need for mnemonic devices like this. A much simpler way to remember is "A - O, except for L". Think alphabetically and know the one and only exception.
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Where is O"?
So a few days ago, after a couple weeks of travel, I was just 600ly from Sag A*. I had been using a technique where I'd 'park' my Asp close enough to the star that it would deploy the fuel scoop but not so much that the temperature would creep up over 105% or so. I had to do this because I'd made the mistake of bringing a fuel scoop with a maximum rate of 170 or so. I parked, went to the galaxy map to plan my final route, which is very slow in the core, and when I came back out found my canopy cracked and down to five minutes oxygen. So I self destructed and went to bed.
I've now corrected my error and fitted a fuel scoop two sizes larger that maxes at about 600. Got rid of the cargo racks and got some repair modules. And I'm 6k from Sol and making my way back to try again.
I'm still not sure why I got roasted. My two theories are either there was a close rapidly orbiting binary I didn't see or perhaps I jostled my HOTAS and this nudged the ship to drift into the sun.
So my lessons learned are NEVER park and fuel scoop and focus your attention elsewhere. And get the largest fuel scoop you can. Now on the way back I can refill in seconds as I line up with my next jump target. I'm not going to scan systems until I get all the way there and then I'll start on the way back. The other advantage with a huge fuel scoop is that it should reduce the risk of interdictions on the way back in to sell the data since I can scoop without reducing speed. At least, I hope that reduces interdictions.
Love exploring. Wish we had a station at Sag A* and wish there were some additional discoveries one could make on scanning worlds (exotic life, archeological ruins, rare isotopes, etc).
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There was a recent comment by a developer that future builds will allow one to cannabalize modules to make repairs. That will be a significant change.
I wonder about the advisability of heat sink, to help if one gets caught in a binary system, and shield cells, to assist on the trip back to survive interdictions.
Yes, a few (rare) platforms around distance space would be a nice touch, if only to allow people to repair and sell cartographics. The addition of putting in exploration based missions would also be a nice touch. ie: Go and explore X metal rich planets. Locate/scan a comet in system X. etc - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=95448