The Era Of Cherry Picking Might Be Over.

[Ralph Vargr]

If you will recall, there was a small fracas about so-called causal explorers exploring only the high value objects in a system.

I believe that this era is ending.

I have been conducting an experiment. Using economical mode, and departing on multiple vectors, cross cutting the galaxy's ecliptic, going vertical and down, diagonals, quadrilaterals, etc, and following every random path I can find, Edsel the Cobra 4 and I have been using the new FSS system to see if this was still taking place. Many thousands of light years were consumed.

My personal observation: There is *no* cherry-picking gong on.

Instead, everyone and his third cousin have been scanning *everything* in *every system*. This applies to Stellar Phenomena as well.

The capabilities of the FSS have led to the complete exploration of every system. There is nothing left to cherry-pick. Many of them have been mapped, as well, courtesy of the new DSS.

My personal observation is that pilots have been moving out spherically from every inhabited place, mapping as rapidly as they can.

Of course, the galaxy will not be *completely* explored, oh learned ones. But Point Barrow to Cape Horn has now been driven.

It just simply might mean that every place visited by an even a minimal amount of players will find the fields have been stripped bare.

Only the time-rich will be making actual new discoveries, out in the deepest black, or the longest travels.

One can only imagine new players finding themselves lost in suburbia...

[video=youtube;EYYdQB0mkEU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYYdQB0mkEU[/video]

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

400 billion star systems? Nothing left? Wow, FSS is OP please nerf FDEV plz.

 

[Yure]

Good!

 

[Mangal Oemie]

I have noticed a similar thing, during two explo trips I took when our faction was stuck for 3+ weeks in conflicts (now over, and merely BGS meltdown).

Flying economically, coming near-ish nebula or when re-approaching the bubble, I could tell when a system that was already previously visited was before 3.3 or after: Pre 3.3 would just have high-value planetary bodies scanned, or HMCs near the star. Post 3.3 were systems with _everything_ scanned. This may not be 100%, of course, but it was a clear pattern.

I would imagine the area of discovered systems to rapidly grow around the bubble, and of course along the Colonia and Sag A* highways.

 

[Stealthie]

Yep,

In my experience, you'll find one of two things in a system; either a star that's been tagged and everything else is undiscovered or a (usually) fully tagged system.

I suspect this is the result of players either honk-jumping on their way to somewhere or, if they're just nosing around, there's a certain amount of OCD at work compelling players to tag every planet in a system.
About the only regular exception to this is either in the bubble, where players probably discovered stuff during the course of regular gameplay when ED was new, or if you've got multiple stars in a system and the secondary stars are squillions of Ls apart.

Course, I don't consider myself an expert (with a mere 40,000 systems visited and 15,000 first discoveries) but it's been a bit of a pattern in what I have seen.

400 billion star systems? Nothing left?

Who didn't see this comment coming?

 

[Ralph Vargr]

400 billion star systems? Nothing left? Wow, FSS is OP please nerf FDEV plz.

Ahem:

Of course, the galaxy will not be *completely* explored, oh learned ones. But Point Barrow to Cape Horn has now been driven.

It just simply might mean that every place visited by an even a minimal amount of players will find the fields have been stripped bare.

From the first post, I noted that the galaxy would not be *completely* explored.

No nerf will be coming. The *usable*, accessible portion to the average player might be a little strip-mined, though.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Yep,

In my experience, you'll find one of two things in a system; either a star that's been tagged and everything else is undiscovered or a (usually) fully tagged system.

I suspect this is the result of players either honk-jumping on their way to somewhere or, if they're just nosing around, there's a certain amount of OCD at work compelling players to tag every planet in a system.
About the only regular exception to this is either in the bubble, where players probably discovered stuff during the course of regular gameplay when ED was new, or if you've got multiple stars in a system and the secondary stars are squillions of Ls apart.

Course, I don't consider myself an expert (with a mere 40,000 systems visited and 15,000 first discoveries) but it's been a bit of a pattern in what I have seen.

Explorers? OCD? You must be joking.

 

[Stealthie]

The *usable* , accessible portion to the average player might be a little strip-mined, though.

Which is why it might not be a bad thing if FDev came up with wormholes or jump-gates or whatever.

 

[Cmdr Beteran]

I've followed the less-taken path to the waypoint in Distant Worlds expedition, also wandered a couple of thousand lightyears around and my observation is similar to OP.

Personally, i tend to scan just some of the planets and leave the rest to others as i find multiple cmdr names on a system gives me a more collective feeling.

On the other hand, it caused the icy and rocky planets to get some recognition now, they do deserve the love too!

 

[vagabond07]

I can tell you from experience that Cherry Picking still happens. I was on my way back from Colonia and I made the decsion I was only going to scan for eath-likes and water worlds, and HMCs. I just didn't care about anything else. Now I am surveying a nebula for undiscovered guardian sites and can tell you I am scanning everything. I think it will just depend on what you are doing at that time (scanning for credits and exploration rank, or an actual objective).

 

[space voyager]

A lot of explorers scanned everything before, too.

"Stripped bare" read like something really bad, as if all resources were depleted. Isn't exploration good for humanity and all?

 

[rrobes]

"What is your name?"

"Ralph Vargr!"

"What is your Quest?"

"To seek a virginal planetary system!"

"What is the speed of an unladen swallow?"

"African or European?"

 

[Phisto Sobanii]

Ahem:



From the first post, I noted that the galaxy would not be *completely* explored.

No nerf will be coming. The *usable*, accessible portion to the average player might be a little strip-mined, though.

I read your whole post. Don't worry!

You know there's more to exploring than just honking on your way to Colonia, right? Perhaps that's your issue.

 

[Stealthie]

You know there's more to exploring than just honking on your way to Colonia, right? Perhaps that's your issue.

See, this is where people seem to have some kind of cognitive dissonance related to the new FSS.

They claim the old ADS was over-powered and it sucked the way it instantly provided you with all the info' about a system.

Thing is, the FSS is worse in both those regards.

Under the old system, you'd arrive in-system, honk, look at the system map and then you'd have to visit any planet you wanted to tag.
With the new system, you can honk, look at a crappy radio-tuner and then you can twiddle the mouse for a couple of minutes to "scan" an entire system without even looking out the window of your pretend spaceship.

For those interested in cherry-picking, the only difference is that you now get to look at a radio-tuner rather than a system map.
For anybody interested in tagging everything in a system, the FSS is way more overpowered than the ADS ever was.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

To be honest I set off in my mining T-10 on whim to Colonia.
The first time I did this (in an exploration fit AspE) it was a boring trudge under the old mechanics.
Taking longer in my 40lyr T-10 has actually been an enjoyable experience.
A lot of systems I still honk and haul but every 10 or so systems I stop and do a full system scan. I don't map all the planets but I do use FSS scanner on them all. I found a system with 50 bodies last night. I scanned them all because it was not a chore lile it used to be: fly to every planet and wait.
When I get to Colonia I will unlock the three engineers there, make some profit mining then probably sell my ship and suicide back to the bubble.
So yeah cherry picking a few planets is something that I don't do any morr because the game loop of discovery is more satisfying. Hopefully at some stage material gathering will fit into a really satisfying game loop too.

 

[dayrth]

I agree that the new FSS will probably mean more systems are scanned entirely once discovered, but I don't think running out of new systems to discover will be a prpblem. I recently set out on an exploration trip. Started finding undiscovered systems within half an hour. Flew off to an interesting looking nebula. It had been thoroughly explored, but the surrounding systems had not. A couple of days ago I arrived in Colonia. I got within 200ly before finding a previously discovered system.
That's just the first leg of my journey, but all ready I am 200 million richer and have my name on many more stars and planets, two of which are ELWs. Even if someone follows my exact path they will discover more. With a 60ly jump range, I missed many more systems than I found.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

For my own part, I am a completionist when it comes to scanning, but am very selective about mapping. ELW's almost always get mapped, same with any planet with biological, geological or xenological features. WW's are frequently mapped-as are some Gas Giants (usually those orbited by active land-fall worlds).

Everything else is based on how I feel in any given system.

 

[gooddoc]

I believe that the answer to this is quite simple OP.

When FD gave us this new FSS system, to 'compensate' us for the increased time it now takes to identify each Planet in a system, when compared to the 'honk reveals all' System Map, the new mechanic is completed without the need to travel to each object in turn.
This 'travel time' reduction by far exceeds the time required to use the FSS, to an experienced Explorer.

I for one, used to Cherry Pick using the old method, leaving out any objects that looked like Rock/Ice worlds in the System Map. Sometimes not even travelling the 500kLS's to that 4th Star for the one HMC Planet orbiting it.
Now I can scan the lot in a fraction of the time, travelling a thousand LYs a lot quicker than I did before.

Where players do cherry pick now is what they map with the DSS. I find that most ELW/WW/Amm worlds in the bubble systems have now been mapped - if not I'll map them myself!

 

[Riverside]

For my own part, I am a completionist when it comes to scanning, but am very selective about mapping. ELW's almost always get mapped, same with any planet with biological, geological or xenological features. WW's are frequently mapped-as are some Gas Giants (usually those orbited by active land-fall worlds).

Everything else is based on how I feel in any given system.

So cherry picking, but with mapping instead of the first discovered tag. This is the same basic pattern of behaviour I've fallen into too, since everything is revealed there are no surprises when choosing which planets to map apart from maybe what exact type of feature will be at a fixed POI. No skill required.

I have to wonder just what the problem with cherry picking is, my experience has been that it's the norm once you get far enough out that the urge to tag anything not already tagged has diminished (with legacy tags).

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

If you will recall, there was a small fracas about so-called causal explorers exploring only the high value objects in a system.

I believe that this era is ending.

I have been conducting an experiment. Using economical mode, and departing on multiple vectors, cross cutting the galaxy's ecliptic, going vertical and down, diagonals, quadrilaterals, etc, and following every random path I can find, Edsel the Cobra 4 and I have been using the new FSS system to see if this was still taking place. Many thousands of light years were consumed.

My personal observation: There is *no* cherry-picking gong on.

Instead, everyone and his third cousin have been scanning *everything* in *every system*. This applies to Stellar Phenomena as well.

The capabilities of the FSS have led to the complete exploration of every system. There is nothing left to cherry-pick. Many of them have been mapped, as well, courtesy of the new DSS.

My personal observation is that pilots have been moving out spherically from every inhabited place, mapping as rapidly as they can.

Of course, the galaxy will not be *completely* explored, oh learned ones. But Point Barrow to Cape Horn has now been driven.

It just simply might mean that every place visited by an even a minimal amount of players will find the fields have been stripped bare.

Only the time-rich will be making actual new discoveries, out in the deepest black, or the longest travels.

One can only imagine new players finding themselves lost in suburbia...

Does it really matter. When exploring I don't care whether someone has been there or not. If In see something interesting I will go and visit. If it's for cash, well you still get paid money for visiting these places and scanning and mapping them. Tagging is the main issue, but if that all you want, then you will need to head out into the further reaches of space instead of going to the tourist locations.

That's no different to the old way. Nearly all the nebulas and the routes to them were fully scanned before 3.3 came about.