Correct. We will *not* find everything.
But, there is a point of diminishing returns in *personal time invested*.
The Era Of Cherry Picking Might Be Over.
- Thread starter Ralph Vargr
- Start date
Correct. We will *not* find everything.
But, there is a point of diminishing returns in *personal time invested*.
All you generally have to do is look at the orbital plane, not the entire sky.
When I arrive in a system, I resolve all signals, because I may have missed something. Until 'system scan complete" is announced, I cannot be sure that I have done the job properly.
I've discovered lots of objects outside the plane of the ecliptic.
No doubt.
Still, the overwhelming majority of planets are within the FSS target indicator's view of the ecliptic.
Good, I'm glad cherry picking is dead, it only makes sense to scan the whole system, and with the new FSS, its pretty awesome in making exploration much more hands on and interesting as well as saving time 
When there are targets outside the plane, I might have to leave FSS mode, re-orient the ship, point it at the unresolved target in the nav panel, and re-enter FSS mode.
Strange it wasn't over a couple of weeks ago when I was picking out earth likes and water worlds on my trip to Sag A and Colonia
From personal accounts, which is anecdotal, I can say cherry picking is not dead. Many CMDRs peek at the signal bar for shinies and don't bother with the rest.
And for those who like that sort of thing, good for them. It's a quick way to make some easy money.
edit: Ninja explorers!
And for those who like that sort of thing, good for them. It's a quick way to make some easy money.
edit: Ninja explorers!
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Good, I'm glad cherry picking is dead, it only makes sense to scan the whole system, and with the new FSS, its pretty awesome in making exploration much more hands on and interesting as well as saving time
And thus, the FSS becomes a victim of it's own success.
Prior to the new mechanic, there were strong opinions voiced that too many players were only interested in money, or they were lazy.
Now, the FSS *encourages* total discovery of all objects.
Nothing is left behind. Personally, one's sense of wonder is diminished by the number of completely discovered systems to travel through, before reaching out into the true unknown, where very long range ships, and much time is required.
Some kids do this.
Some kids do that.
Although i do find it interesting that many players just go after the
and naming, whilst the planets where you can land and actually find stuff are ignored.
No wonder we cant find Raxxla.
Some kids do that.
Although i do find it interesting that many players just go after the
and naming, whilst the planets where you can land and actually find stuff are ignored.No wonder we cant find Raxxla.
Looks like you over-mystify the signatures, they're all pretty much straight forward.
But before you start a discussion about 'cherry picking' you should clarify what 'cherry picking' exactly means to you. Preferably in the OP and not somewhere buried in this thread.
There are 4 basic forms of 'cherries' (leave alone some minor variants in between):
A) Monetary rewards
B) First discovered/mapped by tag
C) The completionist
D) Certain aesthetic aspects like for example rare orbital constellations or unusual collections of gas giants
A) Nothing is over. You even can still cherry pick in the bubble by starting with opening the local map while fuel scooping. In the bubble most systems are already discovered, which you've already have recognized. But what you also should have recognized is that many bodies in such systems still have the unexplored tag, which is the one that actually generates the money for you, as the game treats both what others have done and your own progress separately. Since 3.3 you even don't need to honk to see if there's an ELW or water planet by just opening the local map.
From here you have 2 possibilities: either honk and do the FSS minigame for this certain signature. You even could use the local map body to target and point your ship towards it, then after entering the FSS it's directly in front of your nose so you even don't have to search for it nor do you actually need to fly that 300Kls for it just to get the discovery bonus. If that's not 'cherry picking' I really don't know what is. Or fly to that body if you also want the mapping bonus.
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B) all you have to do is making up your mind and push your travels fast forward while still enjoying the readily available local maps - until they are not automatically rendered anymore (but still show the main star and a few nearby and/or massive objects) and you'll step into uncharted terrain. That's where the fun starts, at least for me. Here you can still decide if you just want to cherry pick all the 'valuable' bodies, including all the terraform candidates, which you only see in the local map after a proper scan with the FSS. For these you won't need to do a full system scan though, just a little experience to exclude a wide range of non-candidates. Or...
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C) if you are some sort of a completionist, I wonder what you have done before. To discover each body you would have to do a surface scan which means you would actually have to fly to each body. This is magnitudes faster now with the FSS. The only reason to still fly to a body is mapping now - and that's something new and not comparable to the former ADS mechanics.
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D) is actually the tricky one and that's where I can understand all those explorers who are mainly interested in these. They are indeed somewhat hampered by the new mechanics, at least in uncharted systems. But even here and with a little experience and intuition, you can easily filter out >90% of all systems. The new bubble mechanics actually help in learning these things, if you first look at the signatures before you open the local map. You will very soon learn that it's not very difficult to explore in a more selective way without missing any interesting stuff. If you don't believe me, check it out and convince yourself!
Making up your mind is all it costs.
I tend to do B,C and D. If I want to make money, there are far less time consuming ways (unless you already have a list of places to go). I wanted to find an ELW in a totally undiscovered sector. Took me a couple of days (cos I was going to popular spots), but got there.
Going to do some other stuff, re-jig my ship a bit with some guardian tech and head back out.
Well, I am still not convinced it is on the scale you describe. Back when I made my Palin Pilgrimage, I started stumbling upon fully undiscovered systems around the 1kLy mark from the bubble. And I was on a beaten path to Jellyfish nebula iirc. Like said plotting shorter routes and ensuring going off the beaten path, ideally above or below galactic plane will net you the discoveries, I am sure.
It's math. Math doesn't lie. I can't exactly remember how high is the galaxy ceiling, but let's take a sphere of a radius of Palin Pilgrimage (5kLy):
sphere volume = 4/3 * π * r3 = 523 598 775 598,30 Ly3 which should give you the idea of a number of possible systems (and route combinations) inside a 5kLy radius sphere.
Even if we only take fringes into account (so only the surface area):
sphere surface area = 4* π * r2 = 314 159 265 Ly2
Hell, let's be negative and assume the galaxy is 2d (no height):
Circle area = π * r2 = 78 539 816,34 Ly2
Circle circumference = 2 * π * r = 31 415,93 Ly
So even in the "nastiest" variant, with flat earth, pardon, galaxy plane, you have 31.5 kLy circumference to find systems. And bear in mind the farther you travel from the bubble the chance to stumble upon a totally undiscovered system rises. I think it will be years until we tag/map the 5kLy radius fully and with jumpranges going shy of 70Ly with engineering, it's not a real time investment to go on the fringe. You have to anyway to get dirty drives ;-)
I don't doubt the immense volume.
I doubt the ability of Elite's playerbase to live long enough...
Looks like you over-mystify the signatures, they're all pretty much straight forward.
But before you start a discussion about 'cherry picking' you should clarify what 'cherry picking' exactly means to you. Preferably in the OP and not somewhere buried in this thread.
There are 4 basic forms of 'cherries' (leave alone some minor variants in between):
- A) Monetary rewards
- B) First discovered/mapped by tag
- C) The completionist
- D) Certain aesthetic aspects like for example rare orbital constellations or unusual collections of gas giants
A) Nothing is over. You even can still cherry pick in the bubble by starting with opening the local map while fuel scooping. In the bubble most systems are already discovered, which you've already have recognized. But what you also should have recognized is that many bodies in such systems still have the unexplored tag, which is the one that actually generates the money for you, as the game treats both what others have done and your own progress separately. Since 3.3 you even don't need to honk to see if there's an ELW or water planet by just opening the local map.
From here you have 2 possibilities: either honk and do the FSS minigame for this certain signature. You even could use the local map body to target and point your ship towards it, then after entering the FSS it's directly in front of your nose so you even don't have to search for it nor do you actually need to fly that 300Kls for it just to get the discovery bonus. If that's not 'cherry picking' I really don't know what is. Or fly to that body if you also want the mapping bonus.
______________________
B) all you have to do is making up your mind and push your travels fast forward while still enjoying the readily available local maps - until they are not automatically rendered anymore (but still show the main star and a few nearby and/or massive objects) and you'll step into uncharted terrain. That's where the fun starts, at least for me. Here you can still decide if you just want to cherry pick all the 'valuable' bodies, including all the terraform candidates, which you only see in the local map after a proper scan with the FSS. For these you won't need to do a full system scan though, just a little experience to exclude a wide range of non-candidates. Or...
______________________
C) if you are some sort of a completionist, I wonder what you have done before. To discover each body you would have to do a surface scan which means you would actually have to fly to each body. This is magnitudes faster now with the FSS. The only reason to still fly to a body is mapping now - and that's something new and not comparable to the former ADS mechanics.
______________________
D) is actually the tricky one and that's where I can understand all those explorers who are mainly interested in these. They are indeed somewhat hampered by the new mechanics, at least in uncharted systems. But even here and with a little experience and intuition, you can easily filter out >90% of all systems. The new bubble mechanics actually help in learning these things, if you first look at the signatures before you open the local map. You will very soon learn that it's not very difficult to explore in a more selective way without missing any interesting stuff. If you don't believe me, check it out and convince yourself!
Making up your mind is all it costs.
You forgot time.
Keep in mind players would often sometimes use a high travelled path and mark only ONE planet or moon in a system, then leave the rest for the next traveller, so some systems became a log of "who passed here" type sign and even had like 15 different commanders named in the system just from picking one single thing to slap your name on, even if it was just a moon. Now you can't do that anymore which kinda removes some of that unique factor. The FSS killed fun and only became better than "god honk" as some called it, into "god honk easy mode" with FSS... Cause detailed scanning from 500k ls away while having a ship with Life Support built into it despite Frontier would like to claim we are just using magic handwavium telepresence to pilot our ships 30k LY from the bubble with zero latency, yet breaking their own lore with some ships like the Corvette being listed as long range deployment type of ships with one of the worst jumpranges in the game, yet somehow we lose our crew when our ship explodes despite supposed Telepresence nonsense?
Yeah Frontier is just full of nonsense at this point. But I hate the FSS and how it ruined commanders using systems as an "I was here" sign.
Yeah Frontier is just full of nonsense at this point. But I hate the FSS and how it ruined commanders using systems as an "I was here" sign.
I have come across a few systems which have only been first discovered (pre-3.3), leaving the more lucrative ones ready to be first mapped. I've also come across untouched systems which I have first discovered, then cherry-picked those bodies which pique my interest (ELWs et al.), mapping others if they're on the way. As it is now (post-3.3), the chances of finding first discovered systems with lucrative bodies to be first mapped will be rare as hen's teeth. Despite FD not letting pre-3.3 first discoveries becoming first mapped ones, I'm happy in the knowledge that there's still enough systems out there for everyone to get the benefit of the new system.
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Now I've lost you. The journey to the fringe is under 100 jumps even without guardian tech. That's under two hours jumping. Hardly a sweat, and then you can explore to your heart's content.
Oh just think of first mapped as a "I was here", because you need to travel to these planets to map something. Yes, sometimes it will be a long trip, but it was the same under old system to detail scan... Leave the "discovered" to grafitti kids whizzing past, "real explorers" are mapping! As it should be
.Truth be told, for me the appeal was exactly the "I was here" sign, because credits were laughable compared to what could have been earned in the bubble at the same time investment and no gameplay restrictions. Leaving a mark on the galaxy so to speak. Totally insiginificant and statistically unimportant mark, but my mark nonetheless... Now it will be "first mapped" and we will no doubt discover something special with it, probably leading to the "new era". Previously there was nothing to be found, now with that mechanic I am sure someone will someday stumble across an anomaly on the mapped planet leading to some groundbreaking events.