Things I found, and things to clarify about exploration

[Ander_Wand]

Greetings CMDR's

new player here (not quite Epic new, but still ) I am closing in on 400 hrs played. Every once in a while I get the urge to explore some and so far I have made two voyages, totalling to around 50000 ly distance travelled.
For me exploring is quite a mixed bag, sometimes its extremely repetative, and sometimes there is a Water World every second jump. I guess this sounds pretty common.
But what I have the most trouble with, is to determine the true value/ rarity of the things I find along the way, and I hope we can discuss this here a bit.

Now granted, i don't expect to find one ELW after another, but still, in total I have found around 4 undiscovered ones so far which feels like a pretty low percentage. On the other hand, I keep finding terraformable WW around every corner. Are these so much more common? Not to speak of terraformable HMC, which seem to be even more common. I even find more Ammonia worlds than ELW)
I have tried the proposed method of only filtering for F-class Stars, but to no avail. All that did, was (subjectively) limiting my chances to find anything useful at all.

I did however discover some (in my eyes) unusual things during my travels, an would like to list them her in hopes that you guys can give me some insight on how rare or common these are:

• Twins (both being near exact copies of each other in terms of mass and diameter and with same baricenter): 2 class B stars, 2 Ammonia Worlds, 2 Terraformable HMC
• Ringed: Water Worlds, Ammonia Worlds, HMC's, Brown Dwarf Stars
• 4 T-Tauri stars and 4 black HMC with rings in one system
• 7 stars in one system, 6 stars in one system plus ELW
• A and B class star and 8 Gas Giants all without rings,
• System with one of each: G, K, M, L, T class stars
• black/brown Icy Planets?
• 2 complete binary mini Solar Systems orbiting each other

Wouldn't be surprised if these are not that uncommon at all, but I hope to add at least some significance to my expolartion yourney.

 

[CMDR Yates]

Greetings CMDR's

new player here (not quite Epic new, but still ) I am closing in on 400 hrs played. Every once in a while I get the urge to explore some and so far I have made two voyages, totalling to around 50000 ly distance travelled.
For me exploring is quite a mixed bag, sometimes its extremely repetative, and sometimes there is a Water World every second jump. I guess this sounds pretty common.
But what I have the most trouble with, is to determine the true value/ rarity of the things I find along the way, and I hope we can discuss this here a bit.

Now granted, i don't expect to find one ELW after another, but still, in total I have found around 4 undiscovered ones so far which feels like a pretty low percentage. On the other hand, I keep finding terraformable WW around every corner. Are these so much more common? Not to speak of terraformable HMC, which seem to be even more common. I even find more Ammonia worlds than ELW)
I have tried the proposed method of only filtering for F-class Stars, but to no avail. All that did, was (subjectively) limiting my chances to find anything useful at all.

I did however discover some (in my eyes) unusual things during my travels, an would like to list them her in hopes that you guys can give me some insight on how rare or common these are:

• Twins (both being near exact copies of each other in terms of mass and diameter and with same baricenter): 2 class B stars, 2 Ammonia Worlds, 2 Terraformable HMC
• Ringed: Water Worlds, Ammonia Worlds, HMC's, Brown Dwarf Stars
• 4 T-Tauri stars and 4 black HMC with rings in one system
• 7 stars in one system, 6 stars in one system plus ELW
• A and B class star and 8 Gas Giants all without rings,
• System with one of each: G, K, M, L, T class stars
• black/brown Icy Planets?
• 2 complete binary mini Solar Systems orbiting each other

Wouldn't be surprised if these are not that uncommon at all, but I hope to add at least some significance to my expolartion yourney.

Twins are moderately common.

Binary planets gonna usually be similar composition and same-ish distance from the parent star throughout their orbit, so if they fall within the habitable zone and meet terraformable/ELW/WW/AW criteria, they will often both be of the same or similar type.

Especially terraformables.

I would say if one planet in an HMC binary is a terraformable, there's about a 75%+ chance the other one will be.

 

[Orvidius]

Yeah, it's tricky pinning down what's truly rare sometimes, without doing an exhaustive analysis of EDSM data, for instance. I think most of the things on your list are in the "somewhat uncommon" to "fairly uncommon" range, and not the "extremely rare" kinds of things. Still definitely cool to find, though!

A lot of attention has been given to earth-likes though, and there are some interesting statistics out there. Marx's List of Earth-like worlds has some data on this. Plus you can always look through my various spreadsheets and draw some conclusions there.

 

[marx]

First off, welcome!

On the other hand, I keep finding terraformable WW around every corner. Are these so much more common?

Pretty much, yes. If memory serves, there are 4-5 times as many WWTCs as there are ELWs.

Not to speak of terraformable HMC, which seem to be even more common. I even find more Ammonia worlds than ELW

Which sounds about right, since AWs are more common than ELWs, but not by all that much. This makes me wonder if the problem might not just be you going for the less fortunate stars (especially since you mentioned trying to filter for F stars only), but instead, accidentally going through some places where there aren't many. The chances of it are low, but it is possible that you went through chains of subsectors all of which were worse than usual.

But hey, apparently you did find stuff that you found interesting, interesting enough to warrant asking about their rarities, and that made you curious about things. That's even better than a handful of standard ELWs, no?

Also, in case you haven't heard about it, I'd also recommend giving Elite Observatory a go. See if you might have found something interesting that you didn't notice.

 

[Go'Gen]

Watch out for gas giant with eight moons, possibly with a station on last one.

 

[Ander_Wand]

Twins are moderately common.
...

Seems logical to me, what had me wondering was the probability of that, two identical bodies forming in the same orbit.

Yeah, it's tricky pinning down what's truly rare sometimes, without doing an exhaustive analysis of EDSM data, for instance. I think most of the things on your list are in the "somewhat uncommon" to "fairly uncommon" range, and not the "extremely rare" kinds of things. Still definitely cool to find, though!

Thanks, that's what I was hoping for. Can't expect to find the 'holy grail' after 2 months playing.

First off, welcome!
Which sounds about right, since AWs are more common than ELWs, but not by all that much. This makes me wonder if the problem might not just be you going for the less fortunate stars (especially since you mentioned trying to filter for F stars only), but instead, accidentally going through some places where there aren't many. The chances of it are low, but it is possible that you went through chains of subsectors all of which were worse than usual.
But hey, apparently you did find stuff that you found interesting, interesting enough to warrant asking about their rarities, and that made you curious about things. That's even better than a handful of standard ELWs, no?
Also, in case you haven't heard about it, I'd also recommend giving Elite Observatory a go. See if you might have found something interesting that you didn't notice.

I went for the 'statue of liberty' nebula beneath the galactic plane then took a leg of 600 Ly up and outwards in the direction of the edge of the galaxy. But didn't leave the Outer Orion Spur. Then I went back straight, but well above the galactic plane. This yielded 2 undiscovered and 2 discovered ELW. Most of the route was filtered FGKA, just did around 30 jumps on F-filter, to try if this does anything.

Yes sure, I really enjoy exploring, at least for a week or so. Then I start missing the 'bubble action' The coolest thing so far was indeed jumping into the binary pair of blue giants, in an otherwise empty system.

What does Elite Observatory do exactly? Seems to be some kind of plugin.

Watch out for gas giant with eight moons, possibly with a station on last one.

Yeah, heard about that one. Doesnt seem to happen all that often though, noted only one GG with 9 moons.

 

[CMDR Yates]

Seems logical to me, what had me wondering was the probability of that, two identical bodies forming in the same orbit.

Yeah, I think it's just that similar types of bodies tend to form in similar regions of a star system, and similar levels of solar radiation make for similar environments.

That and binaries forming from the same "lump" of protoplanetary matter being split into two by passing objects, collisions and stuff.

Although I'm not 100% sure!

 

[Ander_Wand]

Yeah, I think it's just that similar types of bodies tend to form in similar regions of a star system, and similar levels of solar radiation make for similar environments.
That and binaries forming from the same "lump" of protoplanetary matter being split into two by passing objects, collisions and stuff.

I think I will have a deeper look into the actual mechanics of this process. Fascinating to imagine a place somewhere in the galaxy where two earths orbit each other.

What really irks me sometimes, is the feeling that others may have some way of "knowing" where to find the cool stuff.... Happened to me twice now, that I stumble upon a discovered system after a loooong stretch of unrevealed systems without anything usefull to find. And guess what, THAT system contains an ELW....

Anyway, can't really complain though, just came back from my last trip and turned all my data in at Betancourt Base... started off a week ago with 40 mill and now I sit at 800 mill.... just mindblowing tbh. Talk about credit rebalancing.
Highest paying system was 12.4 mill.

 

[CMDR Yates]

I think I will have a deeper look into the actual mechanics of this process. Fascinating to imagine a place somewhere in the galaxy where two earths orbit each other.

What really irks me sometimes, is the feeling that others may have some way of "knowing" where to find the cool stuff.... Happened to me twice now, that I stumble upon a discovered system after a loooong stretch of unrevealed systems without anything usefull to find. And guess what, THAT system contains an ELW....

Anyway, can't really complain though, just came back from my last trip and turned all my data in at Betancourt Base... started off a week ago with 40 mill and now I sit at 800 mill.... just mindblowing tbh. Talk about credit rebalancing.
Highest paying system was 12.4 mill.

If you want to increase your chances of finding Earthlike systems, focus on G and F class stars. Similar to Sol with large habitable zones not too far from the main star.

 

[Ander_Wand]

Here my try at adding some of the screenshots of the things I mentioned in the OP. If anyone wants to have a look.

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/a/8KBCSSr

Source: https://imgur.com/a/8KBCSSr

 

[Orvidius]

What really irks me sometimes, is the feeling that others may have some way of "knowing" where to find the cool stuff.... Happened to me twice now, that I stumble upon a discovered system after a loooong stretch of unrevealed systems without anything usefull to find. And guess what, THAT system contains an ELW....

I know, right? So annoying. But there's a reason for that, especially in the well-traveled areas, and super-especially in the region around the bubble. In the pre-FSS days, the "honk" would show you the entire system map. At a glance, it was possible to tell what was there. Many explorers wouldn't scan a single thing if it was a boring system. But if it contained an ELW, they might scan everything there. So a lot of the boring systems you're traveling through might also have been visited before, but were ignored.

 

[Ander_Wand]

I know, right? So annoying. But there's a reason for that, especially in the well-traveled areas, and super-especially in the region around the bubble. In the pre-FSS days, the "honk" would show you the entire system map. At a glance, it was possible to tell what was there. Many explorers wouldn't scan a single thing if it was a boring system. But if it contained an ELW, they might scan everything there. So a lot of the boring systems you're traveling through might also have been visited before, but were ignored.

So far I thought that if I jump into a system and nothing shows up at all, not even the main star, this system has never been visited before. Is that not the case? That's what I meant by 'unrevealed systems'.

On another note, do you guys generally scan Gas Giants with some life form on it? I know they are pretty valuable as well, but still avoid scanning them, because the process is pretty tedious, especially if there are rings present...

 

[varonica]

Seems logical to me, what had me wondering was the probability of that, two identical bodies forming in the same orbit.

They don't, they form from the same dust cloud when the solar system itself is forming but instead of having one centre of rotation the sub cloud forming a planet develops two and forms two bodies rather than one. The moon and the earth is actually pretty close to being a binary planet system rather than a planet/moon system. As the moon moves away from the earth the barycenter will move from below the surface of the earth to a point between the two, and then it will be a binary system rather than a planet/moon system.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

On another note, do you guys generally scan Gas Giants with some life form on it? I know they are pretty valuable as well, but still avoid scanning them, because the process is pretty tedious, especially if there are rings present...

Scan (as in find in FSS) everything, map (as in DSS) only the most valuable stuff (Earth-likes, Water worlds, Ammonia worlds and Terraformable High Metal Contents). Maybe also map the odd Metal Rich if I'm close enough. Don't bother mapping the rest, it's either not worth it (Icy worlds) or takes too long (all Gas Giants).

 

[Sapyx]

So far I thought that if I jump into a system and nothing shows up at all, not even the main star, this system has never been visited before. Is that not the case? That's what I meant by 'unrevealed systems'.

There's no way to to know for sure, using only in-game tools, whether anyone else has ever visited an "undiscovered system" before you. All you know for sure is that no-one else has ever sold the data for that system.

There are many reasons why someone visited the system before you but not sold the data:
- Perhaps they exploded, and lost all their data, and never went back to re-scan that system.
- Perhaps they travelled out that far, but stopped playing, and never went back to sell their data.
- Perhaps they're out on a super-long voyage, and are still going, and not returned to port to sell their data yet.
- Perhaps they're back in the Bubble and are flying about the place, tactically selling their stockpile of exploration data to various factions, to build up Reputation and Infuence.

 

[BradHann]

- Perhaps they visited that system back in the days of the old ADS and never bothered scanning anything.

 

[varonica]

- Perhaps they visited that system back in the days of the old ADS and never bothered scanning anything.

This also, in record setting runs in the old days with the ADS it was almost a given that you wouldn't be scanning anything, even to just scan the sun you have to turn and face it for a given number of seconds, so any speed records set in the days of the ADS would leave a trail of unscanned but visited system behind you.

 

[Ander_Wand]

They don't, they form from the same dust cloud when the solar system itself is forming but instead of having one centre of rotation the sub cloud forming a planet develops two and forms two bodies rather than one. The moon and the earth is actually pretty close to being a binary planet system rather than a planet/moon system. As the moon moves away from the earth the barycenter will move from below the surface of the earth to a point between the two, and then it will be a binary system rather than a planet/moon system.

But I guess they will never share the same orbit, due to the mass difference? And, does that mean that earth will lose it's moon in the distant future?

Scan (as in find in FSS) everything, map (as in DSS) only the most valuable stuff (Earth-likes, Water worlds, Ammonia worlds and Terraformable High Metal Contents). Maybe also map the odd Metal Rich if I'm close enough. Don't bother mapping the rest, it's either not worth it (Icy worlds) or takes too long (all Gas Giants).

Yeah, that's what I figured out pretty quickly.

There's no way to to know for sure, using only in-game tools, whether anyone else has ever visited an "undiscovered system" before you. All you know for sure is that no-one else has ever sold the data for that system.

Thanks for the insight! As long as it's still my 'first' discovery I'm totally fine with that. Too bad we can't see how long ago somebody visited a system. A lot of my most valuable systems have been visited before, but where mostly unscanned. I think several of the Lagrange Clouds I found where in such systems. Just jumped by, I guess.

 

[varonica]

But I guess they will never share the same orbit, due to the mass difference? And, does that mean that earth will lose it's moon in the distant future?

Most of what we think of as "orbits" are a massive simplification of what actually happens in space, there are no smooth ellipses and the orbit of the moon as it circles the earth while the earth circles the sun is extremely complicated, however there are a few givens that are understood.

A two body system such as the earth and moon will always remain a two body system unless disturbed by a third body, it's the opposite of the two body capture problem. If you see just two stars in a binary arrangement they will almost certainly have formed together because a single body can never gravitationally capture a second body. Three stars or bodies however may capture a third and fourth etc. The earth and the moon formed together and will always remain as a bound system unless the system is perturbed by a third body. So for most cases binary arrangements of stars, planets and moons formed together during the formation of the solar system in question.

 

[Orvidius]

As an aside, technically the Moon is spiraling slowly away from the Earth, but this is due to the tides. As the Moon pulls on the oceans while the Earth spins, what happens is that the water movement creates a sort of drag against the Earth's crust. So rotational energy is stolen from Earth and translated into a very small acceleration on the Moon, slowly moving it to a higher orbit. But if I remember correctly, the Sun will consume everything before the Moon will get a chance to escape.