How do you find the extraordinary?

Martin Shepard

Martin Shepard
Hey there!

After thousands of first discovered systems and over 200.000ly and mostly ice planets I'm asking myself how other people find interesting things or sites. I would say it's just luck but I've seen some people who find those things so rapidly one after the other, I had to ask how.
Do you study the planet attributes? How do you know a surface temperature or something like that is rare? How do you find planetary nebulas or interesting constellations in the system?
Even though I traveled 200.000ly I'm still feeling like a noob.

Kind regards
 

space voyager

space voyager
As far as I know, people (we) tend to filter the stars, but the rest is still chance. Like, if you are tired looking at iceballs, filter out dwarves, Ms and Ks. All those VERY rarely keep anything interesting nearby.

Planetary nebulae... Dream on. And travel. And check starmap. I personally doubt any are untagged.
 

Martin Shepard

Martin Shepard
space voyager said:
As far as I know, people (we) tend to filter the stars, but the rest is still chance. Like, if you are tired looking at iceballs, filter out dwarves, Ms and Ks. All those VERY rarely keep anything interesting nearby.

Planetary nebulae... Dream on. And travel. And check starmap. I personally doubt any are untagged.
Click to expand...

Maybe in the far out areas! Don't destroy my dreams! 😂
 

Marbat

Marbat
That's a good question OP.
I am on a voyage myself right now and I scan a lot and have come across only two interesting things so far, I'm on my way back to the bubble.
On my way to Sag A though, came across a system that had been discover, well he found one planet. I map it. So happen that planet had 5 biological interest points and did three of them and scored big time on hard to find mats.

one never knows what he'll find but yah...is there a trick to finding these? think luck plays a big part.
 

Pirin

Pirin
It would depend on what you consider interesting, i think.
Unlike other explorers, i use star map filters only in some rare specific occasions. 99% of the time they are off. Instead, i am spending a lot of time scanning the star map in realistic view mode to bookmark systems i want to visit in the direction i go. After visiting these, bookmark a new batch and repeat.
My experience shows that higher is the system mass index --> better is the chance to find something rare or unusual. Thats why my route consists of hopping between the most massive stars in the area. Providing most of the massive stars are concentrated in the Core, this is where i explore usually.
So my advice is, go to the Core and visit as many heavy stars and giants/supergiants you can. With a bit of luck you will find some interesting stuff.
Regarding the PNs, yes, probably most of them are tagged by now. Hunting those is very time consuming and requires a lot of patience. Personally i spent almost a year on two expeditions, especially dedicated to PN hunting. PNs can be found anywhere, but their density drops sharpy away from the Core, so i think your best chance to find an untagged one is there.
Hope this helps :)
 

Martin Shepard

Martin Shepard
Pirin said:
It would depend on what you consider interesting, i think.
Unlike other explorers, i use star map filters only in some rare specific occasions. 99% of the time they are off. Instead, i am spending a lot of time scanning the star map in realistic view mode to bookmark systems i want to visit in the direction i go. After visiting these, bookmark a new batch and repeat.
My experience shows that higher is the system mass index --> better is the chance to find something rare or unusual. Thats why my route consists of hopping between the most massive stars in the area. Providing most of the massive stars are concentrated in the Core, this is where i explore usually.
So my advice is, go to the Core and visit as many heavy stars and giants/supergiants you can. With a bit of luck you will find some interesting stuff.
Regarding the PNs, yes, probably most of them are tagged by now. Hunting those is very time consuming and requires a lot of patience. Personally i spent almost a year on two expeditions, especially dedicated to PN hunting. PNs can be found anywhere, but their density drops sharpy away from the Core, so i think your best chance to find an untagged one is there.
Hope this helps :)
Click to expand...

Sorry for the dumb question, but what is PN? 🤔
I did scan the Galaxy map quiet a few times but had my trouble with the realistic mode. Is there some kind of help to directly see how massive a star is? I do know that Giants really look bigger than the other stars. But is there an easy way to see if one A-star is more massive than the other? 🤔
But I'll try that especially cause my current route has some waypoints that are faaaaaar away from each other.

Somebody here that studies the planet attributes? How do you know something's rare?
 

Pirin

Pirin
Martin Shepard said:
Sorry for the dumb question, but what is PN? 🤔
I did scan the Galaxy map quiet a few times but had my trouble with the realistic mode. Is there some kind of help to directly see how massive a star is? I do know that Giants really look bigger than the other stars. But is there an easy way to see if one A-star is more massive than the other? 🤔
But I'll try that especially cause my current route has some waypoints that are faaaaaar away from each other.

Somebody here that studies the planet attributes? How do you know something's rare?
Click to expand...

PN = Planetary Nebula
The mass of the star is reflected in its mass index. For example, this is the first PN i tagged: OEPHAIL DA-A E47. The letter E is the mass index. The most massive stars are with indexes F, G and H, with H being the most massive.
Using the paralax and zooming the star map in and out and moving it back and forth, you will notice that the most massive stars are loaded first by the engine and are visible from greater distance.
 

Martin Shepard

Martin Shepard
Pirin said:
PN = Planetary Nebula
The mass of the star is reflected in its mass index. For example, this is the first PN i tagged: OEPHAIL DA-A E47. The letter E is the mass index. The most massive stars are with indexes F, G and H, with H being the most massive.
Using the paralax and zooming the star map in and out and moving it back and forth, you will notice that the most massive stars are loaded first by the engine and are visible from greater distance.
Click to expand...

Ah thanks, didn't know that! Makes it much easier to find such stars. Thought I really always had to click on the system to view the details on the left side. Now I can decide by the system's name. Thanks! :)
 

[PS4] Filthymick420

[PS4] Filthymick420
I just zoom in on the star map and look for stuff that looks interesting NGC 9266 caught my eye and there's some cool stuff out there. lots of black holes and stuff. A lot of stuff to be found in nebulas too.
 

Jethro49

Jethro49
Randomness is strong in Elite. However, when it comes to look for something special, it can be narrowed by filtering stars, or going to specific locations...
Examples :
  • NSP : look for these in nebulaes. Not all nebulaes have some though.
  • crystalline shards : look for systems far from the galaxy centre, and planets that are at least 12000 sl away from the main star
  • anemones : look for O, B and IIRC A class stars
  • amphora plants : look for metal-rich planets on the left right of the galaxy centre (IIRC again, A stars only ?)
etc...

The Codex is not very accurate, but still a good base to start investigating.

And for very rare discoveries, I'm still looking after nearly 1.5 millions light-years :LOL:
 
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Martin Shepard

Martin Shepard
Jethro49 said:
Randomness is strong in Elite. However, when it comes to look for something special, it can be narrowed by filtering stars, or going to specific locations...
Examples :
  • NSP : look for these in nebulaes. Not all nebulaes have some though.
  • crystalline shards : look for systems far from the galaxy centre, and planets that are at least 12000 sl away from the main star
  • anemones : look for O, B and IIRC A class stars
  • amphora plants : look for metal-rich planets on the left of the galaxy centre (IIRC again, A stars only ?)
etc...

The Codex is not very accurate, but still a good base to start investigating.

And for very rare discoveries, I'm still looking after nearly 1.5 millions light-years :LOL:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips!
Oh, 1.5 million light-years is a lot 😂
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
I think people jump over many interesting system. I use high jump range only to get to where I want to search, and then I manually visit all systems in an area in a spherical search pattern. Some of the most interesting systems (to me) were found this way, including many M-class star systems that held surprises like ELWs.
 

Pirin

Pirin
Martin Shepard said:
But that doesn't answer the question how to know if a planet attribute is rare 😋
Click to expand...

Elite Galaxy Online website was my favorite source for this kind of checks. It had a great database of all sorts of records. And it was integrated with the EDD tool, so it was notifying the commanders in real time when they find a record braking object. Unfortunately Q4 update killed it, as it got flooded with all kinds of trash info, like asteroid belts discoveries.
EDSM is still there and can be useful too. A new tool Elite Observatory was launched recently, you can find the thread here on the forum.
But, IMO, nothing gets close to EGO in that regards, sadly.
 

marx

marx
About amphora plants:
Jethro49 said:
I made a mistake...

I meant : look on the right of the galaxy centre !! I just spent 3 weeks surveying the Outer Arm and Perseus Arm for those, and found nothing.
Click to expand...
Amphora plants are not present in every region. In the regions where they aren't, even if you find candidate planets which satisfy all other requirements, you still won't find any.
Best I could tell, if a planet satisfies the necessary criteria (class A star in the system, metal-rich world, and there's also an ELW or GGWL or WG present) and has volcanism (likely a hidden criterion), then it's going to have amphora plants on it - if the region has them toggled.


About planetary nebulae: there still appear to be some to be found, but as with the other things, the low-hanging fruit have all been picked clean. So, to find your own, you'll need to spend more effort, climb higher. The only things that have run out are real (not procedurally generated) planetary nebulae. If you want systems in a real (large) nebula's sector, you can still find plenty.


Also, don't put too much stock in total distance travelled. The number of systems is where it's at, if you want to make rare discoveries. For example, 1.5 million ly would be 30,000 systems in a 50 ly ship, but "only" 20,000 systems in a 75 ly ship. You will of course have a much better chance of finding some rare stuff if you discover 10,000 more systems. Plus you might want to do an area survey anyway, and then you could easily spend 2-5 ly (or less) per jump.
 
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