Huge thanks for posting that Thatchinho, much appreciated by me at least. It still seems a bit needle in a haystack but I'm prepared to believe it was a combination of intuition, dumb luck and clever use of high contrast graphics settings and planetary search experience/skill.
No probs.
Personally, having been through it all in detail several times, I can't really see any signs of intuition being involved, and a bit of luck maybe but nothing outrageous. Most of it just seems to be based on sound reasoning as far as I can tell.
Going through it all:
- The Alioth area as a search region. That's based on old lore about INRA. - That seems pretty rational to me.
- It being in an unpopulated system. The rationale for this is that it's a secret base and so wouldn't be put in a populated system where it might be easily stumbled across. - again that seems utterly rational to me.
- <personally in my view it would also be in a system that was unlikely to become populated for the same reason, and the system would be not just unpopulated but also generally inhospitable.>
- It being on a white coloured icy body. That's based on the colour of the surface in the background in the screenshot from the trailer. - Again entirely rational.
- The body having ravines. That's also based on what can be seen in the background of the screenshot from the trailer. - again that's perfectly rational.
The only thing that's not completely clear to that point is why it would be a named planet. The post about it isn't well worded, but as far as I can tell this it's due to things being in named planets in the lore. - That's still pretty reasonable.
It also seems that Cookie thinks the site wouldn't be very close to Alioth. That's for the same reasons as it being in an unpopulated system. That bit's again not well worded so it's hard to be sure. - it would be fairly rational though.
So, there's the set of criteria with which the search for the planet seems to have been done, all of which are fairly rational:
- in the area around Alioth
- named system
- unpopulated
- white icy body with ravines
Also possibly:
- not too close to Alioth
Cookie also reported finding lots of convoys in the system, which he thought was unusual for an unpopulated system, and made it stand out to him. - Personally, at the time of writing this, I don't know for sure whether that would be an indicator of the base being there or is actually completely normal for a system of that type in that area.
Anyway, that gives a search for the planet which can be replicated by anyone.
Steps to replicate:
1. Go to galmap
2. Find Alioth
3. Filter out all populated systems (Set government type or economy to none)
4. Work through named systems...
4.a. Check system in EDSM. If system doesn't have landable icy bodies, try another system. If it does, then;
4.b. Jump to the system, honk, and open system map (or open system map from galmap if available).
4.c. Check the colours of the icy bodies. If there are no white icy bodies, try another system. If there are white icy bodies, investigate further.
4.d. Does the body have ravines and does the colouration match that in the screenshot? If no, then check next white icy bodies. If there's no more white icy bodies, then try another system. If yes, then this identifies a body which might have a base on.
4.e. Check for convoys for reference. (Unclear currently whether this is a co-incidence or an indicator that a base is present, so just note and proceed regardless.)
4.f. Continue to search further systems for other bodies or go straight to...
5. Report identified body/bodies which might contain a base.
Start point for the search could be immediately next to Alioth or further out if you agree with the rationale that putting a secret base very close to Alioth wouldn't be a sensible thing to do.
I'd definitely say it's worth having a go as you'll than have a means of assessing how much of a needle in a haystack situation it actually was.
