Well, I gave it a good go...Honest!

DanTheMan

DanTheMan
I am referring to exploring.

I have only travelled over 10K LY from my home system inwards towards the "light".
Each 1K is about 33 jumps so that's a fair few.
So, that's Jump - Stop - Honk - Look - Select - Fly - WAIT 4 Ever for Detail scan - Next body etc. etc. ad-nausea.
Did I miss a meeting? Is there a "Select next Major Body/Sub-Body in current system key binding like there is for next ship, previous ship etc?
Waiting for the fricking System map to open for each of 42 system bodies is a total wast of time/life.

BORING BORING BORING BORING

Hoping to get back to base OK, sell this Exploraconda and just never, ever, ever, ever bother with exploring again.

I will save some rusty pins to push into my eyeballs as a punishment should I ever consider wasting my leisure time on this awful, awful aspect of ED.

Each to their own, exploring just makes me so, so depressed. It clearly is not for me at all.

Explore safe Commanders.

Update:
+++++
It was driving me bonkers so I turned around and went home, scanning all the way back too round trip was a little over 21K (I know it's not far in the grand scheme of things).
Only a weeks and a bit's total tedium of crawling along in SC between system objects and an increase in my Explorer rank from Pathfinder +25% to Ranger +2%.
I think I will leave it. 2 out of 3 Elite's aint bad.
 
Last edited:

SCTrojanbulldog

SCTrojanbulldog
It's not for everyone. I don't explore because I know we are an expansion away from the stuff I'd like to see and what would be considered "interesting".

I enjoy this game. I enjoy running into new cmdrs. But I don't enjoy exploring a galaxy that is artificially incomplete.
 

Wyaston Hypatia

Wyaston Hypatia
I'm sort of with you on this. I quite enjoy exploring for an hour or two, but then it becomes a drag.

The problem as I see it is that once out in the black, exploring's the only thing to do. For every other activity if it starts to drag I go and do something different. So I've always turned around and headed back.

So I have a great respect for all those commanders to have made it to distant systems - don't think I'll ever do so.
 

Monk

Monk
Explore the interior (inside the bubble and its edges).

Plenty of distractions.

Still gets you to Elite Exploration rank.

Also, I'm not 100%, but I think collecting exploration data adjacent to populated systems contributes to factors in the BGS.

EDIT: And, unexplored populated systems count for just as much and they often have HMCs and Earth Likes. I like to map Fed systems and sell the intel to the Empire.
 
Last edited:

anikaiful

anikaiful
Yea well, some people like to explore (even as it is now), some don't. Some love to trade, some hate to trade. Some live for combat, some avoid it like plague...
 

DanTheMan

DanTheMan
Well, I am on my way back now and if this little trip and my diligence in detail scanning so much stuff does not pop my Elite-Explorer cherry I shall just never, ever bother with it again as a "mission". Honk and scan as I pass through stuff, but not as an activity in its own right. DULL, DULL, DULL.
 

Hell Razor5543

H
DanTheMan said:
Well, I am on my way back now and if this little trip and my diligence in detail scanning so much stuff does not pop my Elite-Explorer cherry I shall just never, ever bother with it again as a "mission". Honk and scan as I pass through stuff, but not as an activity in its own right. DULL, DULL, DULL.
Click to expand...

And then you find a system almost completely made up of ELW!
 

We Are Groot

We Are Groot
The most fun thing about exploring for me is the preparation. Setting up the ship to be as lean as possible and still safe enough to get you back. I can't remember but I think the farthest I have made it out is around 15-20k ly. I have "high speed internet" but it is not high speed enough for the system map which makes exploring even worse.

From now on I will most likely only setup ships for exploration, imagine I did some exploration in it then move on to something else.
 

askavir

askavir
DanTheMan said:
Well, I am on my way back now and if this little trip and my diligence in detail scanning so much stuff does not pop my Elite-Explorer cherry I shall just never, ever bother with it again as a "mission". Honk and scan as I pass through stuff, but not as an activity in its own right. DULL, DULL, DULL.
Click to expand...

Knowing a little about our galaxy helps considerably.

If you're just flying around randomly scanning rocks because of rank/credits grind yes you will quickly be bored shirtless.

But our real galaxy has many wonders. Many of them are in the game, in their correct places. Also many of them are much, much nearer than 10k ly.

Also as a first exploration tour I would recommend the Orion region, there's lots of amazing stuff there and its quite near (just a little over 1k ly, 20 minutes in an Asp). Going towards the core takes long to get interesting, most especially if you don't know what/where to look.

Here's a very large and detailed list of galactic POIs: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=237406

Most especially this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116450

Or... it may just not be for you at all and so there's not point in doing it.

I love exploration, or better stated in my case "galactic tourism", because I love astronomy and being able to actually "visit" all those incredible "real" places makes it worthwhile to me.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Jack Schitt

Jack Schitt
+1 to the OP for admitting that you find exploration dull and depressing but not going on to insult those who don't. It's a rarity on the forums these days. Most rants come in the form "x sucks, and if you like x then you're stupid," so kudos for avoiding that.

As I've said elsewhere, for folk who don't get something out of collecting screenshots of nice looking places they'll probably never visit again, exploration really doesn't serve much purpose other than to fill up the blue progress bar and give you a few First Discovered tags. And of course you've hit upon exploration's core problem (pun not intended); the further you go the further you have to get back before you can do anything other than more exploration or CQC. If the bug doesn't bite hard, that realisation will force you to turn back that much quicker.

Exploration really comes into its own with a second account, so you can enjoy the occasional hours of solitude and astrophotography while also maintaining a presence in civilisation. But as buying a second account essentially rewards FD with money for not building multiple commander slots into the game itself, I fully understand why some people -- even those who enjoy exploration -- don't really see it as a viable option.
 

Troy_McClure

Banned
Troy_McClure
SCTrojanbulldog said:
It's not for everyone. I don't explore because I know we are an expansion away from the stuff I'd like to see and what would be considered "interesting".

I enjoy this game. I enjoy running into new cmdrs. But I don't enjoy exploring a galaxy that is artificially incomplete.
Click to expand...
The farthest I've been is Robigo :D..I'm waiting til the start of 2017 to get VR - Having tried the DK2 (all too briefly!) - First thing I'm gonna do..is head out into the black, to truly behold the majesty of the Galaxy!!
 

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead
Your excuses are invalid!

I'm flying a Python, of all things, to the core. I'm currently 13312ly from Sol, just over the half way mark. Lol
FYI my Python can only jump 23ly.
It's incredibly dull. But I keep going.
Atleast I didn't brind my FDL. Lol though I was tempted.

I've discovered all sorts, including a 'Monkey Head Nebula'. Taken some superb screenshots, and found extremely rare materials, such as Tin....?
Done some canyon racing in my slow Python too.

The trick, for me anyway, is to fly for 500-1000ly and stop, check out some local systems, scan stuff, land, zoom about in the SRV (and find tea), then move on for another 500-1000ly.
Also I only scan high value stuff, unless I'm landing on it. Lol
And I rarely chase down anything further than 5,000ls away.

Only 11,000ly to Sag A...!
 

Sysmon

Sysmon
You will have to fill in the missing bits yourself to make exploration interesting. It is very easy to see it as just another grind, if all you do it for is the progress bar and the credits. If you don't set out to see and experience something, that is all it end up being: Jump, scan, honk, (scan a few planets), jump, etc.

The game doesn't make it easy to engage in exploration though, as there is no in-game way to visualise the data you are gathering. So you'll have to do that outside the game. I scan about 25 systems in a random cluster, everything within the system that's no more than a 3000 ls journey away unless it is really exciting or the bug bites me and I just have to go those 50k to scan an icy body just because. Then I move about 3000 to 5000 ly to another spot and repeat the process. I take screenshots of everything I scan and enter it in tables for a database. I do statistics on queries, and will eventually be able to see where a body I scan falls on spectra of size, gravity, temperature, etc.

It would be awesome if the game could do this in-game, by having the stats available on the bubble systems at least, and one could then check where a newly found body lies on the range of variability of that body type. This data could be augmented by exploration that we collect ourselves, as the variability we are bound to encounter outside the bubble is likely to be the largest.

:D S
 

Y'Berion

Y'Berion
Yeah I tried it too, more than once, but it just didn't work. For me exploration (as being made in ED) is about the same level on dull-scale as classic large volume trade - or worse. At least when you get tired from the latter, you can always hop into another ship and do something else.
 

Marak

Marak
DanTheMan said:
I am referring to exploring.



BORING BORING BORING BORING

Hoping to get back to base OK, sell this Exploraconda and just never, ever, ever, ever bother with exploring again.

I will save some rusty pins to push into my eyeballs as a punishment should I ever consider wasting my leisure time on this awful, awful aspect of ED.

Each to their own, exploring just makes me so, so depressed. It clearly is not for me at all.

Explore safe Commanders.
Click to expand...

He he he.. Exactly as I felt for ages.

Then I found I could do other stuff while exploring - I really like Pink Floyd & Queen and I used to chill out by shutting down and listening to them with headphones on.

Now I explore, looking at stuff and listen to music. Exploring is cool visually, but not very demanding (Pink Floyd & exploring is awesome by the way).

Exploring ain't for adrenaline, it's for chillin'.

:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom