The Quest To Find Raxxla

simulacrae

simulacrae
Panzertard said:
Damn right, biscuits are so 2017.
Click to expand...

Its an addiction ...

130905
 

Han_Zen

Han_Zen
yelboc said:
A few pages back there was talk of the procedural generation in ED, and its relation to the previous games. Thought I'd try to summarise what I know about it in ED:

In the 1984 game, a single procedural generator was used to create the entire 8 galaxy set including locations and names,economies, etc. All of this is very well documented on the web. Names have been discussed in detail here, and yes its impossible for Raxxla to be a world in the 1984 elite. In fact the entire code has been searched, so there is no Raxxla in that game. This is not suprising given the timeline of the novella which appeared just in time for initial (physical media) release of the game, which itself was almost not finished.

if you like coding then this link is comprehensive:
http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2015/01/14/procedural-content-generation-creating-a-universe/

So getting to ED - procedural generation is used here too. What's different is that the Milky way is simulated in its entirety. This includes the inclusion of many star catalogues from real life astronomy which is where names like HIPxxx and HDxxxx come from. There are some oddities to this data and you may notice in the more distant areas from the bubble the occasional cylinders of named catalogue stars with the cylinder pointing towards Sol - these are regions where RL astronomy has concentrated telescope action on a small area of stars.

In order then to create the rest of the milky way, FDEV have used procedural generation to create all the other stars we see in order to get correct star densities (so we stand a chance of making travel) and to map them on to the Herzspring-Russel diagram for star types and lifetimes. For far out areas this is where the names like EORGH PRUAE XR-A D14-5 come from

Other stars have been given names, including the old world systems from the 1984 elite - not all are in the game - there is a list earlier in this thread and there is the google doc mentioned too. Only galaxy 1 is well represented and a couple from galaxy 2 (maybe by coincidence, as Han Zen put it). ATEN appears in 2 galaxies, an anomaly in the old game. In addition the constellations of many earth mythologies are represented along with plenty of other hand named systems, some of them player named.

see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1984t4QKggEujou5WTSNYdMoS3dxitjePIbGhevkysNE/edit#gid=0 for old world systems

From our work on fed station numbers we understand from official sources that each system has a seed number. This is used to generate the Fed Station number for the 1st station in the system, for instance. What else the seeds are used for is not known. In addition planets and moons are also procedurally generated - this is touched on in this FDEV video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBvpd3_Vqk


In addition it looks like station names are generated from list pairs (i.e. Burnell Port - list1;list2) as there are a lot similar names in the game see for instance: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_K3x6Y6nDgEdvnYGSFB1xUrKdCy3kNtGOwoIwnkeiFY/edit

It's possible that the seed is part of this generation process, but whats different in ED is that there is a hybrid of procedural and hand edited systems. Most likely R is a hand edited feature, so reverse engineering the procedural generation may not help much.
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Good explanation.

I think that there is a fair chance that the old names that are not from Galaxy 1 are pure coincidences. All the non Galaxy 1 systems have fairly 'normal' names.
There are quite a few systems from Galaxy 1 but if we are to nitpick the lore, they are unlikely to be Raxxla material. Rafe Zetter clearly states: "Raxxla—if it exists—is in another Galaxy".

That leaves us with basically nothing, from the old systems. 😒
 

Noobilite

Noobilite
Jorki Rasalas said:
I used to keep a couple of beehives...
As I remember the experience was hard work, at times painful, and there was very little honey...
A bit like this Quest really! :confused:
Click to expand...

Maybe, secretly, braben is really the queen of the beehive and running her neferious bee hive to slowly rule the world.
 

Noobilite

Noobilite
yelboc said:
A few pages back there was talk of the procedural generation in ED, and its relation to the previous games. Thought I'd try to summarise what I know about it in ED:

In the 1984 game, a single procedural generator was used to create the entire 8 galaxy set including locations and names,economies, etc. All of this is very well documented on the web. Names have been discussed in detail here, and yes its impossible for Raxxla to be a world in the 1984 elite. In fact the entire code has been searched, so there is no Raxxla in that game. This is not suprising given the timeline of the novella which appeared just in time for initial (physical media) release of the game, which itself was almost not finished.

if you like coding then this link is comprehensive:
http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2015/01/14/procedural-content-generation-creating-a-universe/

So getting to ED - procedural generation is used here too. What's different is that the Milky way is simulated in its entirety. This includes the inclusion of many star catalogues from real life astronomy which is where names like HIPxxx and HDxxxx come from. There are some oddities to this data and you may notice in the more distant areas from the bubble the occasional cylinders of named catalogue stars with the cylinder pointing towards Sol - these are regions where RL astronomy has concentrated telescope action on a small area of stars.

In order then to create the rest of the milky way, FDEV have used procedural generation to create all the other stars we see in order to get correct star densities (so we stand a chance of making travel) and to map them on to the Herzspring-Russel diagram for star types and lifetimes. For far out areas this is where the names like EORGH PRUAE XR-A D14-5 come from

Other stars have been given names, including the old world systems from the 1984 elite - not all are in the game - there is a list earlier in this thread and there is the google doc mentioned too. Only galaxy 1 is well represented and a couple from galaxy 2 (maybe by coincidence, as Han Zen put it). ATEN appears in 2 galaxies, an anomaly in the old game. In addition the constellations of many earth mythologies are represented along with plenty of other hand named systems, some of them player named.

see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1984t4QKggEujou5WTSNYdMoS3dxitjePIbGhevkysNE/edit#gid=0 for old world systems

From our work on fed station numbers we understand from official sources that each system has a seed number. This is used to generate the Fed Station number for the 1st station in the system, for instance. What else the seeds are used for is not known. In addition planets and moons are also procedurally generated - this is touched on in this FDEV video:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBvpd3_Vqk


In addition it looks like station names are generated from list pairs (i.e. Burnell Port - list1;list2) as there are a lot similar names in the game see for instance: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_K3x6Y6nDgEdvnYGSFB1xUrKdCy3kNtGOwoIwnkeiFY/edit

It's possible that the seed is part of this generation process, but whats different in ED is that there is a hybrid of procedural and hand edited systems. Most likely R is a hand edited feature, so reverse engineering the procedural generation may not help much.
Click to expand...

If you don't already know this. There is a gen system that might not be finished out in the open in NGC 1245(if that is the correct name.) I get the feeling it is out of place and not done yet. But one of the systems is a gen#0.xxx. (Don't qoute me on the name.) But does it help confirm or deny anything about the system generation systems? I've wondered if they aren't hand modifying it and preparing it for game content later. You can probably search NGC 1245 to find it. That or NGC 1254 if I'm getting the name wrong. I know it's NGC 12XX and the XX consists of a 4 and a 5.
 

A logical argument

A
Hello all,
First off kudos to the peeps who have been working on this since 2015. With that being said maybe the community is looking too deep into where Raxxla is? I have the feeling this is one of those mysteries where the answer is so obvious that it gets ignored, because it can't be the obvious answer. Or could it? I have no idea what the obvious answer would be; i tried putting Raxxla in the galaxy map and nothing came up. Anyway, that is just my two cents- keep up the good work y'all!
 

Noobilite

Noobilite
Not the tungsten. The reticules. They are also the same as the symbol round the circle. Maybe it's a part of it. I've seen three or 4 things with that triple cirlce bar thing. The reticule in the system map, ship weapons reticule, srv weapons reticule, and something else I can't remember. And they are oddly all upside down. It might be a hint.

What reticule is a full circle?

Did any of the previous games have one or more of these symbols/reticules?

Guide / Tutorial - Elite's built-in optical landing system explained

I frequently noticed that people seem to be having significant problems with fitting the big ships through the mailslot and into a station. Hence I am going to share a neat feature I have been using for a long time to safely get several different big ships into a station. I tested this with the...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk

In symbolism a key general represents knowledge. A door is a barrier representing a lack of knowledge needing to be bypassed. A journey is the effort and real work to gain knowledge. etc.

Maybe Raxxla is the secret on how to land and to proper maneuvers. And they gave up on us finding it and finally gave us auto docking.

Maybe the hunt for Raxxla is just their way of saying, "LEARN TO ING DRIVE!" 8)

See, they kept following the statistics and they were dismayed. The more they watched them the more depressed they become until they could no longer stand the game or their lives... They were on the edge of oblivion!

Or the original instruction manual they thought everyone could figure out.

Wait, maybe raxxla is the actual manual. As most people got this electronically nobody can find it... 8\

Raxxla isn't some acronym that represent a manual type set of information and is some quaint English joke about needing direction only and english person would get? Who here hunting for raxxla is British vs non British. Are Non British the only ones looking?! Not that that would matter because the british ones could lie to carry on the joke....
 
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Ko Shiji

Ko Shiji
Noobilite said:
What reticules have a complete circle? FSD Interdictor?! Maybe it's saying how to find Raxxla in game.
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The simple way to test your theory is to drive your SRV on the surface of, or into the orbit of, every planet you suspect of being Raxxla, and see if that reticule points the way.

;)
 

Xaintly

Xaintly
The Quest for Raxxla summary document has been updated up to this point (post #8023, page 402), plus the Dark Wheel codex screenshot up to #163 (pg 9)
  • New ideas from this thread added since 2019-Mar-15 have been added
  • Some ideas from the Independent Raxxla Hunters (and other discords) have been added also
  • All links to the forum have been fixed [they were broken since the forum update]
  • Minor document reorganization
Some of the interesting ideas that have come up between 2019-Mar-15 and now (a lot of systems have been suggested for searching, I tried to add them all):
  • The Dark Wheel toast may refer to Generation Ships, some of the toast elements seem to match the fates of known ships
  • Lazarus expedition logos are somewhat similar to the Raxxla logo
  • There is a mysterious audio signal that comes from a point about 10ly away from Sag A*
  • Tau Ceti seems like an especially suspicious system
  • The codex image of the dark wheel station seems purposefully oversaturated to make it more red than it should be
  • Neutron FSD Boosting was only added with patch 2.2 (Horizons), so it shouldn't be a required method of getting to Raxxla
If you don't see your idea for a search location / new technique for looking for something, let me know so I can add it!
I tried to link to the post when ideas were suggested, but I could easily have missed someone's post (or forgotten to write it down).
Please message me if I didn't link/give you due credit for your idea.

The goal of the document is to bring new hunters up to speed quickly so they can help out, and to help people avoid retreading the old ground.
 

Oseris

Oseris
Xaintly said:
The Quest for Raxxla summary document has been updated up to this point (post #8023, page 402), plus the Dark Wheel codex screenshot up to #163 (pg 9)
  • New ideas from this thread added since 2019-Mar-15 have been added
  • Some ideas from the Independent Raxxla Hunters (and other discords) have been added also
  • All links to the forum have been fixed [they were broken since the forum update]
  • Minor document reorganization
Some of the interesting ideas that have come up between 2019-Mar-15 and now (a lot of systems have been suggested for searching, I tried to add them all):
  • The Dark Wheel toast may refer to Generation Ships, some of the toast elements seem to match the fates of known ships
  • Lazarus expedition logos are somewhat similar to the Raxxla logo
  • There is a mysterious audio signal that comes from a point about 10ly away from Sag A*
  • Tau Ceti seems like an especially suspicious system
  • The codex image of the dark wheel station seems purposefully oversaturated to make it more red than it should be
  • Neutron FSD Boosting was only added with patch 2.2 (Horizons), so it shouldn't be a required method of getting to Raxxla
If you don't see your idea for a search location / new technique for looking for something, let me know so I can add it!
I tried to link to the post when ideas were suggested, but I could easily have missed someone's post (or forgotten to write it down).
Please message me if I didn't link/give you due credit for your idea.

The goal of the document is to bring new hunters up to speed quickly so they can help out, and to help people avoid retreading the old ground.
Click to expand...
Why is Tau Ceti suspicious? I see the dark planet in hyperspace around Tau Ceti IIRC.
 

Xaintly

Xaintly
Oseris said:
Why is Tau Ceti suspicious? I see the dark planet in hyperspace around Tau Ceti IIRC.
Click to expand...

CMDR Guru-951 has lots of reasons, but the main ones are
  • It's the only system name mentioned in the codex for TDW or Raxxla
  • It's described as the location of the first known mention of Raxxla (even though it says the legend is already old at the time of the first mention)
  • There's a station orbiting a comet, which is somewhat unusual
 
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Zeeman

Zeeman
Oseris said:
I've noticed that the contents of the witch space tunnel you travel through DOES change with location. When you are closer to the Pleiades area, there are more Thargoid looking star things, and somewhere between the main bubble and Pleiades, the dark planet looking thing I posted about appear. Generally when you're about 3/4 of the way to Pleiades. I can't seem to spot the dark planet thing when I'm anywhere else. On one occasion, while jumping back and forth in the same 30-40ly area, I spotted 3 of them during transit. I think that the things we see in hyperspace are the "obvious" clues DB mentioned. I think the real challenge is figuring out how to either enter witch space without a jump, or how to interact with whatever Raxxla is. Most lore about witch space involves structures and strange objects and I don't think thats just to add to creepy vibes.

One thing I was thinking about was maybe finding an older piece of FSD tech that could allow entry to the other dimension.

Also want to point out that the Gen ship Thetis logs describe the weird signal they got as a whisper and that mystery doesn't seem to have been fully solved yet either.
Click to expand...
Press and hold "TAB" when jumping, that worked very well on the Atari ST...

Z...
 
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