Newcomer / Intro Chronicles of an Explorer (Screenshots, Tips, etc)

[Aelemar]

Hey guys, since I have gone on my first, super-long exploration trip, I decided to share my journey with all of you.

A bit of a background:
I have been playing for about a month and a half, and I actually made some of my very first credits exploring systems near the start area. As soon as I got a decent amount of credits, I purchased an Eagle, which I used to bounty hunt, until I could afford a Viper. Once there, I hunted and equipped a Hauler, which I used on a couple of exploration trips. Ultimately, I decided to sell the Hauler, and worked my way to a fully geared ASP, again, by hunting RES. My current jump range is about 35 lys.

At first, I thought I would head for the center, or visit the nearby nebulae. However, a lot of people have already done this, so I thought "What if, I circled the outer edge of the galaxy, until I eventually reached my starting point?"

I know what you are thinking... If the trip to the center is a good 20-30,000 lys from populated space, just how long is a trip around the galaxy?

I have no idea if I will manage to reach my goal, there is a chance at some point I might turn around and go back to populated space, but as of now, I am enjoying exploring, taking screenshots, and just finding new things out there.

Some random things for the would-be explorers out there, in no specific order:

-DON'T expect to make a lot of money exploring. Compared to RES hunting, or trading, profits from exploration are meager at best. (Yes, I am aware of black holes, and all the other profitable scans). If you are an explorer, you do it for the new sights, the sense of discovery, survival (as you head out further, properly charting out your routes so you don't end up in a non-scoopable system becomes crucial), and the feeling of discovery. I don't know about you, but from a role-playing point of view... It feels quite amazing to arrive at a system, and realize that you are the first to ever see what it has to offer.

-Any system that has a scoopable star seems to be considered "habitable".

-While exploring and charting your route, try to make your final jump into a system with a scoopable star. Even so, once you have charted your route, open your galaxy map, and take note of every scoopable star on the way. Refuel every 3-4 jumps, or more depending on your fuel capacity. You do NOT want to move away from habitable space for 5000lys only to notice that you are stuck.

-Please, please keep in mind that moving around a system consumes fuel. Once you are done exploring a system, open your galaxy map and check if your range on your current route has changed. You might find that you can't make a couple of jumps that you could previously. If this is the case, return to the star of the system you are in and refuel.

I paid a visit to the Pelican, and North America Nebula. I am making a quick stop in the SADR region, then visiting the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, and NGC 7822 Nebula. Afterwards, I plan to continue moving along the edge of the galaxy.

Without further ado, here are some screenshots of my adventures so far. I will add more as I keep travelling through the galaxy. I started taking screenshots once I was far enough from civilization.

The journey so far (distance to civilized space):



Binary Star Systems:



Giant Blue-White Star:



High-Metal Content Planets:



High-Metal Content Planets With Nebulae in Background:



High-Metal Content Planet: Those brilliant dots in the background are from the NGC 7822 Nebula.



Stars with Nebula in Background:



Gas Giant with Ice Ring System (Also showing off the ASP's amazing field of view):



Water World with Terra forming Potential:



I apologize, I am not very good at taking screenshots yet

The screenshots were originally taken in bmp format, which were too large for this post... Any image degradation is due to the conversion to JPEG.

The original settings at which these screenshots were taken:

Graphic Settings: Ultra
Supersampling: 1.5x
Anti-aliasing: MLAA x4
Resolution: 2560 x 1080 (29", Ultra-Wide)

Have anything you would like to know, any questions, or simply comments? Feel free to write them below I will do my best to answer them!

I accidentally inserted the last picture just below this message... No idea how to remove it ; ; could someone fix it for me? (Or tell me how to do it) >.>

My apologies!

 

[ColdGlider]

Thanks for sharing the screenshots, Commander! My favorites are the ones where the gas giant is looming over the ice ring and also that third "nebula in background" shot. Nice work!

Have you looked into EDC Explorers? I am not a member, but we often report on their activity on Radio Sidewinder.
Here is an interview with them that you can listen to now on SoundCloud.

They have a thread here.

If exploring is your thing (and clearly, it is!) perhaps you should drop them a line!

 

[Aelemar]

Hey ColdGlider! Thank you very much for your comments, I will definitely check EDC Explorers out. I have actually taken some new screenshots, but will wait until I have more to post them.

I am actualy trying to take screenshots that I haven't posted before. For example, if I find another Water World and it looks similar to the one I already found, I will probably not post a screenshot unless there is some cool stuff going on in the background too.

 

[Fen Harel]

-Please, please keep in mind that moving around a system consumes fuel. Once you are done exploring a system, open your galaxy map and check if your range on your current route has changed. You might find that you can't make a couple of jumps that you could previously. If this is the case, return to the star of the system you are in and refuel.

I have never found this to be a very significant fuel drain. I scoop with each jump - unless its unscoopable, of course - and keep the tank topped off. Unless you are traveling to very distant secondary stars, perhaps.

Excellent pictures, CMDR! Continue to fly safe!

 

[Aelemar]

I have never found this to be a very significant fuel drain. I scoop with each jump - unless its unscoopable, of course - and keep the tank topped off. Unless you are traveling to very distant secondary stars, perhaps.

Excellent pictures, CMDR! Continue to fly safe!

Topping off at every opportunity is the best way to go, although sometimes, you can save time by planning your scooping stops. Myself, I open my galaxy map, take note of every scoopable system on my route (and if there are none, as it happens sometimes, I find a different route), then keep a checklist of the systems I've visited, and the one's I'm about to visit. This way, I know exactly whether the next system is scoopable, or if I should scoop at my current system.

And personally.... I try to explore everything in a system, even if sometimes it is ridiculously far away. (Visited a star 400 000+ Ls once, lol). So I do use up quite a bit of fuel just cruising around

I have moved around a bit since my first post, so here are some more screenshots of my exploration adventures.

Paid a quick visit to SADR, and was surprised to find this: Note that my distance to this star is over 1000Ls. The only thing that came to my mind when I got out of hyper-jump onto this thing was "holy sh*t!".



I just wanted to see the huge star, so I made my way back to Elephant's Trunk Nebula:



Elephant's Trunk Nebula was just a quick stop on my way to NGC 7822. So I made my way there, and found a few things along the way:

High Metal Content Planets:



Water World (Similar to the last one):



Star with NGC 7822 in the background: (dots of light)



In this instance, you can actually see NGC 7822 much better, and determine its general shape based on the stars within it:



On my way there, I also found this... Four stars in very close proximity. I took a few screenshots, including one with our beloved Milky Way Galaxy in the background:



And finally: Hello NGC 7822!!!



One of the very first systems I saw looked like this (so many stars...) :



Some random screenshot while flying through NGC 7822:



And that is it for screenshots, for now. I just started my exploration of NGC 7822, so if I find any other interesting sights, I will be sure to post them!

 

[Blondie]

This is ambitious. I really want to do a run around the galaxy. Thanks for posting your experience, maybe I'll get my own up eventually. Best of luck to you, safe flying.

 

[Aelemar]

Thank you for your comment Blondie. If you like, feel free to add me in game, I would totally love to help a fellow explorer Any questions, or anything at all, you can just send me a message! Plus, it'd make a good reminder to return to civilization someday
I have some new screenshots, one of them being the first black hole I ever found. I will wait until I have a few more screenies before posting them.

My in game name is Oridinn.

 

[Aelemar]

Well, I have finally finished exploring NGC 7822. This Nebula has a lot of type O stars, which is what makes it so visible from very far away (those dots of light). There are also a lot, and I mean a lot, of Black Holes in this nebula. All the black holes I found were in a system whose main star was O-Type, although not all O-type systems had black holes. I would say, there were easily 20-30 black holes to be found in this relatively small nebula (it's about 55-55lys from one end to another, with jumps within systems being as small as 0.36lys)

I took some screenshots of the first black hole I found. This is also the first black hole I ever find as an explorer.

I can't describe what it felt like approaching this astronomical object... This black hole was special in which apparently, it was very, very small (which I didn't know at the time). So being my first black hole, I had no idea how close I had to get before my scanners fired up. As the distance dropped, I felt a bit of fear. Would I actually hit the Event Horizon before I could even scan?

Distance, 300ls... No scan. 200ls, nothing. 100ls, still nothing. And the lensing effect on the Milky Way in the background got more and more pronounced... 50ls, still nothing. 10ls... nothing!

5Ls... and still no scan. I dropped my engines to 0, wondering... Maybe I am already in the event horizon and don't even know it? Wanting to pull back, the explorer in me won, so I pressed forward. And finally, within 4ls, the scanner fired up. I slowed down, waited for it to finish.... and then I got curious again. Surely there would be some kind of warning before I entered the danger zone. So I pressed forward, again.

In these screenshots, you can see just how close I got. One of the screenshots is from inside the cabin, when I was so close that the lensing effect was all over. In yet another screenshot, I seem to be further from the black hole, but in fact, I am much, much closer. I am so close, that the light from the Milky Way in the back is completely displaced, and only blackness remains. I was around 55km away from the Black Hole at this point. You can actually see some of the light on the top and bottom, but nothing in the center.

I didn't think my heart would be pounding so fast as I approached this thing. In the end, it was quite enjoyable. Just how tiny is this black hole that you can get within 55km without reaching even its Event Horizon area?

Yet another heart-pounding moment was when, as I faced away from the Black Hole to finally leave, it actually looks like you are going backwards, as if you were being sucked in instead, as all the displaced light recedes back to how it would look at a distance. It's a very unsettling feeling.

Anyway, enjoy

 

[jpaulwilson1982]

Nice work, Aelamar. Those are nice shots you got

 

[Aelemar]

As of now, I am around 1000lys away from the NGC 7822 Nebula. My next destination is the Crescent Nebula. Even now, I have still found a few systems that have already been visited by other explorers. I am hoping that when I venture out closer to the Crescent Nebula, These systems will become less and less frequent. I found a great system on the way to the Crescent Nebula, here are some screenshots.

The system itself:


There were quite a few high metal content planets on this system: I really like the 10th screenshot. You can see some fine detail on those clouds!


There was also a terraformable Water World:


An Ice Rocky Planet. For some reason, I liked the way its surface looked:


Here is my next destination. Where should I go after Crescent Nebula? Feel free to make suggestions!

 

[Stanchion Ra]

Nice pictures.
This is where I decided to park today. It is my first Earth-like world.
View attachment 32004

 

[Aelemar]

That's a really awesome picture

I have yet to find any Earth Like worlds, even though I've already traversed quite a few thousand light years, haha.

Can't wait to find my first ever Earth Like world.

I honestly wish Frontier would add more than just planets and such to exploring. Maybe... Thargoid ruins? Derelict ships from other explorers? Destroyed ships? Other points of interest?

Once the update to walk inside stations and things like that is released, maybe it could be possible to explore these derelict ships and ruins, and maybe even find out, through exploring them, what happened to the people within.

Now that would add a hell of a twist to exploration!

Feel free to add me in game! CMDR Oridinn.

Wouldn't mind someone to talk to while I'm exploring the blackness of space.

 

[pippo]

Absolutely brilliant stuff.

 

[Fen Harel]

And personally.... I try to explore everything in a system, even if sometimes it is ridiculously far away. (Visited a star 400 000+ Ls once, lol). So I do use up quite a bit of fuel just cruising around

I commend you for your ambition! I'll got a 100 or 200 thousand ls if I think there is an ELW, Ammonia World or perhaps a metal-rich. I long ago gave up trying to scan everything.

Continue to fly safe Commander!

 

[Shaele]

OP this is an awesome thread. I was already planning on hitting NGC 7822 on my way back but this thread makes it a certainty to visit.

 

[Aelemar]

As of now, I am about 1300lys away from Crescent Nebula. It has been quite a few hundred light years since I've found a system that has already been visited by someone... I wonder if I have truly reached a region of our galaxy where nobody has ever been before?

I assume I will find out once I am in the Crescent Nebula. Either way, I intend to go much further away from civilization.

I found a system with some Gas Giants, and decided to do some screenshots. Here they are. Enjoy!

 

[Aelemar]

Hey guys, I have finally made it to the Crescent Nebula. I have just arrived. What will I find here? I guess I will find out soon as I explore every system in the vicinity. I'll be sure to post any great places I find!

Crescent Nebula:


On my way there, I found a Water World with a Ring System. I thought it looked great! I got really close to it, note the "puffy" details on the upper clouds.


Feel free to leave your comments!